Motherboard maker Asus has a BIOS update for its newest AMD and Intel boards in beta testing that will make it easier for you to personalize the RGB lighting inside your case. The upcoming BIOS update enablesMicrosoft’s Dynamic Lightingfeature inWindows 11, allowing direct control over the motherboard lighting. Tom Warren, senior editor at The Verge, made the discovery. Testing the latest beta BIOS update, he found that the latest Asus Z970 boards turn on support for Dynamic Lighting in Windows 11....

BenQ’s Zowie sub-brand has been a long-time provider of monitors for eSports players. The latest announcement of a new Fast TN panel with a yet-newer version of DyAc should catch the eye of current and prospective eSports pros. The BenQ Zowie XL2586X is far from BenQ’s first high refresh rate 24.1-inch Fast TN monitor, but it’s their best so far since it’s able to push a full 540 Hz with yet better motion clarity thanks to DyAc 2 — more on DyAc in a bit....

Whether you’re putting up a page just to show off your resume and family photos, you’re building data-driven online tools, or you’re promoting a small business, you need a web hosting service to serve your site. The good news is that there are dozens of web hosting companies competing for your business and each of them has a variety of plans at different price points. To help you find the best web hosting plan for your personal or business website, we’ve tested over 20 plans from more than 10 different companies....

Chinese companies are preparing to equip 39 new AI data centers — mostly in Xinjiang and Qinghai — with over 115,000 high-performance Nvidia Hopper GPUs, whose shipments to China are restricted by the U.S. export rules. Restrictions on shipments of Nvidia’s H100 and H200 GPUs to China did not stop local authorities in Xinjiang and Qinghai from authorizing the construction of rather huge data centers, reportsBloomberg. Furthermore,even slowing demand for AI compute performancedoes not seem to slow down data center building in China....

AsElon Musk’s Neuralinkseeks people with quadriplegia for a clinical trial of its brain-computer implant, China is working to develop its own similar technology.Bloombergreports that the country is starting by putting together a committee that will draft standards and guidelines for using such brain-computer interfaces. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recentlyissued a planto begin the work. The committee has invited industrial and technical experts from companies, research institutes, universities, and other relevant industries to provide comments to guide the development of these standards....

In the wake of TSMC announcing that it is making a $100 billion investment in the U.S., to expand its current $65-billion Arizona campus, some critics assert that the company “has become USMC,” and is an “example of the sitting Democratic Progress Party (DPP) selling out Taiwan.” The DPP is the current ruling party on the island nation, and it’s under this government that the company received thego-signal to make 2nm chips abroad....

Although the U.S. government restricts sales of advanced processors for AI and HPC to China-based entities, theseentities can use cloud servicesfrom companies likeAmazonWeb Services (AWS) andMicrosoftto access advanced U.S. processors, reportsReuters. Although the U.S. government mulls restricting availability of American cloud services for AI and HPC to entities in China and other sanctioned countries, for now they can bypass export bans by using AWS, Azure, and the like. Chinese entities use AWS and Azure to access Nvidia’s A100 and H100 processors More than 50 public tender documents reviewed byReutersreveal that at least 11 Chinese entities have pursued restricted U....

Chinese hackers have gained access to a system that belongs to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), a government organization that reviews significant purchases by foreigners in the country, reportsCNN. The system was unclassified and should not contain any secrets, but the revelation that a Chinese group gained access is worrisome. CFIUS reviews foreign investments for nationalsecurityrisks and gained expanded authority in December to oversee real estate deals near military bases....

Element Six (E6), a company owned by the De Beers Group known for its diamond mines, launched a copper-plated diamond composite material designed to improve cooling efficiency. According toE6, this new solution is meant for applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computers (HPC), and GaN RF devices, all producing a lot of heat. “Thermal management for semiconductor devices remains a significant challenge as power levels increase and packaging continues to advance, “says E6 Chief Technologies Daniel Twitchen....

The extravagant live final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 took place in Sweden last night, with results counted into the small hours. As the votes flowed in, hopes of triumph forretro computingflag bearer Windows95man crashed (pun intended), with Finland’s pick ending the nightplaced 19out of 25 hopeful finalists. While it was great to see a cultural revival of theWindows 95style logo, we feel that the artist would have had better luck choosing a name based on an even-number Windows release....

Crucial launched its new T710 SSD here in Taipei, Taiwan, atComputex 2025, touting speeds of up to a blistering 14.9 GB/s and 2.2 million IOPS over the PCIe 5.0 interface. The T710 has numerous advantages over the prior-gen model, theT705, which we found to be the fastest SSD on the marketat the time and a go-to recommendation on our list ofBest SSDs.Crucial also announced the X10 series of portable SSDs that offer up to 8TB of storage in a slim, attractive form factor....

Igor’s Lab received adefective PowerColor RX 9070 XT Hellhoundfrom a reader who had purchased the card. While it had apparently passed quality control tests, Igor found a defective RDNA 4 die that resulted in unsustainable temperatures — which persisted even after re-pasting. According to the tech outlet, the culprit was “pronounced pitting,” which can occur during the backgrinding process.Igor’s Lab does preface its report by noting that, for now, this is an isolated case and it cannot fully confirm what caused the damage to the die....

It’s always cool to see theRaspberry Pipushed to new limits, but it’s even more exciting to see it appear in new places. It’s not uncommon to find Raspberry Pi in the classroom or on the desk of an enthusiast, but how often do you come across them in the Arctic Circle? Maker and developer Frank Prins has checked that one off our list thanks to his custom-builtall sky camera. If you aren’t familiar with all-sky cameras, these are often used around observatories to help either record or observe the stars in real-time....