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MagStor, one of a few companies that develop LTO tape readers for client computers, hasintroducedthe industry’s first (and currently only) LTO tape drive with a Thunderbolt 5 interface. The device is aimed at enterprises that need ultimatesecurity, media professionals, and IT specialists who need vast cold storage capacities. As the name suggests, the MagStor Thunderbolt 5 LTO drive comes with a Thunderbolt 5 interface and is compatible with PCs running Apple MacOS andMicrosoftWindows operating systems....

Microsoftclosed itsActivision Blizzard acquisition in October 2023, and now it is firing 1,900 employees from Activision Blizzard, Xbox, and ZeniMax. According toThe Verge, the former is feeling the brunt of the layoffs. Current Blizzard president Mike Ybarra, whose role was to oversee the acquisition, resigned separately alongside Blizzard cofounder and chief design officer Allen Adham. According to an internal memo from Phil Spencer, employees impacted by these layoffs will be directly notified and provided severance packages when leaving....

Many users with officially unsupported PCs could successfully installWindows 11using a ‘trick’ that circumvents its hardware requirement verification process with a ‘/product server’ command line. It gave many older PC owners a new lease of life as they could migrate towards the latest operating system, as the older ones were no longer supported and were prompted to upgrade. However,Bob Ponyquickly found that Microsoft had patched this trick in the latest Canary Build, prompting the need for theTPM (Trusted Platform Module) 2....

MNT Research, the maker of the original MNT Reform that launched in 2021, is launching a second-generation design of its fully ‘Open Source Hardware’ laptop. The MNT Reform Next sticks to its predecessor’s ethos of being modular and upgradeable, allowing users to swap parts, print their own cases, customize the keyboard, and more. Given that the laptop remains open hardware, all of its sources are public onMNT Research, so you may create your very own MNT Reform Next computer at home if you have the hardware, and expertise, and can spare the time....

It’s beensix yearssince we last saw an Alienware Area-51 device, butDellis bringing its flagship gaming sub-brand back in a big way forCES2025, with color-shifting 16- and 18-inch laptops, complete with a glass window on the bottom (to better see its internal RGB fans), and a monstrous full-tower gaming desktop with support for cooling the most power-hungry next-gen components. Area-51 16, Area-51 18 gaming laptops The 16- and 18-inch laptops sport a new “AW30” external design named for the company’s 30th anniversary – curious considering the company was founded in 1996....

Nintendo is facing a legal challenge from a Brazilian consumer watchdog, which claims that clauses in its end-user license agreement pertaining to restricting user access to online services are “abusive.” As spotted byDexerto,Procon-SPhas contacted Nintendo to request changes to clauses “considered abusive” in the contracts signed by Brazilian consumers. As it emerged last month, Nintendo’s updated user agreement, which users are required to agree to in order to use the console, allows Nintendo to disable your online account, restrict access to certain services, or even brick your console if you fall foul of its stringent copyright rules....

Nvidia is at the center of an antitrust investigation launched by China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR). According to areport, the investigation revisits Nvidia’s 2019acquisition of Mellanox Technologies, approved by Beijing in 2020 under strict conditions. These required Nvidia to supply its GPUs and interconnect products to the Chinese market on “fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms” while ensuring compatibility with other companies' hardware. The probe is a reaction to Nvidia’s compliance with U....

TheNvidia GeForce RTX 4070ranks as one of thebest graphics cardsfor gamers. Not surprisingly,TechPowerUpseemingly has confirmation that Nvidia released a new variant of the 4070 with harvested AD103 chips, which are normally used in the fasterRTX 40-seriesmodels like theRTX 4070 Ti Super,RTX 4080(now discontinued), andRTX 4080 Super. This is strictly business as usual, making use of every possible piece of silicon by turning off non-functional portions of the chip, and we previously reported onupcoming down-binned 40-series GPUs last month....

Nvidia is set to announce new investments in Thailand this December, Thailand’s Commerce Minister Pichai Naripthaphan toldBloombergon Monday. Nvidia will join companies likeAmazon, Alphabet, andMicrosoftto expand into Southeast Asia, becoming a key region for AI data centers and component production as companies diversify beyond China. Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, will reveal the company’s plans for the country during a December visit to Bangkok. While specifics on the scale and nature of the investment have not been disclosed, Thailand’s Commerce Minister, Pichai Naripthaphan, hinted that Nvidia’s involvement could spark further investments in the country, especially in sectors related to AI and components manufacturing....

Nvidiais clamping down on playtime for players of its GeForce Now cloud gaming service. The trillion-dollar company announced it will introduce a “100-hour monthly playtime allowance” at the start of next year. Hardcore gamers who might hit the 100-hour limit can extend their playtime with a small fee. This change is purportedly designed to help keep GeForce Now’s “exceptional” quality and speed consistent and provide short queue times specifically for Performance and Ultimate players....

Nvidia is developing a new power infrastructure called the 800V HVDC architecture to deliver the power requirements of 1 MW server racks and more, with plans to deploy it by 2027. According toNvidia, the current 54V DC power distribution system is already reaching its limit as racks begin to exceed 200 kilowatts. As AI chips become more powerful and demand more electricity, these existing systems would no longer be able to practically keep up, requiring data centers to build new solutions so that their electrical circuits do not get overwhelmed....

The drive to push the performance envelope of modern GPUs often comes at the cost of power. As NVIDIA’s high-end cards keep climbing in performance, so does the frequency of their power connectors melting down. This time, however, it’s not even a flagship model like the 4090 or 5090, but rather a budget GPU from the Ampere series — the RTX 3060 Ti. Auser on Baidu reportedthe power connector of theirRTX 3060 Ti GDDR6Xmelting down in a freak incident, specifically the Asus Megalodon V2....

CoreWeave, an AI hyper-scalerpartnered withGPU giant Nvidia, has expanded its existing contract to rent high-performance computing capacity fromCore Scientific. Core Scientific is one of the largest owners and operators of cryptocurrency mining services in North America. CoreWeave was once a cryptocurrency mining outfit itself. It pivoted away from that business years ago, moving instead into visual effects rendering, inference service, and pixel streaming. When the release ofOpenAI’s ChatGPTopened the firehose of demand for AI computing, CoreWeavesaw an opportunity....