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Reports from around a million residential power quality sensors throughout the contiguous United States show that power quality is declining in areas near massive data centers. TheBloombergspecial report shows that the worst distortions often occur within 50 miles of a major data center, affecting nearly 3.7 million Americans. Poor power quality reduces the life span of electrical appliances, which can cause malfunctions, overheating, and electrical fires. The data behind the report was gathered through Whisker Labs Ting devices, smart sensors that monitor the overall electrical quality in your home and help prevent electrical fires....

An India-based tech enthusiast who bought a pair of AirPods Pro 2 for their hard-of-hearing grandma to use as hearing aids discovered the feature is geoblocked in India due to regulatory restrictions. So, instead of throwing in the towel and calling it a day, Rithwik Jayasimha (@thel3l) and theLagrange Pointtech enthusiast guild built a Faraday cage and a microwave jammer to spoof the location and unlock the hearing aid feature on the earbuds....

AMD’sCES2025 livestream was a jam-packed 45-minute show with a slew of product announcements on the company’s latest tech. However, one key omission is drawing criticism: AMD didn’t mention itsnext-gen RDNA 4 GPUsat all, even though the company teased the new architecture to the press before the event. After the event, we met with AMD executives David McAfee and Frank Azor in a small group meeting, and the pair immediately addressed the elephant in the room, chalking the omission up to a strict time limit that would have impeded their ability to share enough information....

AMD has listed three new Ryzen 7030 Series “Rembrandt” Zen 3+ CPUs with their iGPUs disabled: the Ryzen 5 7235H, Ryzen 5 7235HS, andRyzen 7 7435H. All three were quietly listed on AMD’s website and are listed for global availability.This news, first spotted byWccfTechandVideoCardz(for the Ryzen 7), comes following theRyzen 8000 Series “F” desktop CPUswith their iGPUs removed, but those were exclusive to China. As their names imply, theRyzen 5 7235Hand7235HSCPUs are astonishingly similar— their specs are effectively identical, so the difference may be for marketing purposes....

We already know that AMD has been enabling (well, rather, placeholding) some of its RDNA 4 graphics processors in Linux drivers, but we still have no idea about the actual product lineup or exactly when the next-genRadeongraphics cards are set to enter the scene.@Kepler_L2, who tends to know a few things about AMD’s roadmap, decided to shed some light on the red company’s plans. This is a leak, so be sure to take it with a grain of salt....

Performance efficiency is key to the rapid increase in the performance of AI and HPC processors, so AMD and other companies fight for it fiercely with every new product generation. Back in 2021, the company set a goal of 2025 to increase the energy efficiency of its EPYC processors and Instinct accelerators by 30 times compared to 2020. Itappearsthat with its latest EPYC 9005-series ‘Turin’ CPUs and Instinct MI300X GPUs, it has basically achieved its goal, but a year early....

Starting with Adrenalin driver 24.1.1, AMD has introduced a new video upscaling solution forRadeonRX 7000 users designed to improve the image quality of low-resolution videos/streams. It is basically an AMD version of NvidiaRTX VSR, but without any AI-based upscaling (as far as we know). The new upscaler is now available inside the Adrenalin control panel under the gaming tab and graphics sub-menu. AMD says its upscaler works with various applications, includingChrome,Edge, Media Player, and more....

Apple is slowing production on itsVision Proheadset and may possibly stop manufacturing it by November, according to a report fromThe Informationciting “multiple people” who build components for the hardware. The report suggests that the easement started this summer. One factory employee allegedly told the publication that they stopped producing certain components in May, and a warehouse was packed with “tens of thousands of undelivered parts.” Employees at suppliers told The Information that they have enough components for Apple to put together between 500,000 and 600,000 headsets....

Did you know that Apple once developed its own in-houseTetrisclone,Stacker, during the development of the third-generation iPod? Stacker never saw a mainstream release, but three years following the 3rd Gen iPod’s May 2003 release date, an officially licensediPod Tetriswas released across most existing iPods in 2006, developed byElectronic Arts. And of course, these days pretty much any smart device can playTetriswithout issue — but back in ‘03, the most mainstream pocketTetrishandheld was more likely to be aGame Boy(Advance) than a media player or a phone....

Japanese PC enthusiasts have demoed Arctic’s new 8,000 RPM case fans running at max speeds. Staff at PC Ones got their hands on some Arctic S12038-8K case fans, fixed them to some chassis, and powered them up. The Twitter/X video they shared shows a stack of boxes blown off the table from about 10 feet away. Moreover, PC Ones comments, “The wind itself is powerful enough to make the air conditioner controller lid on the far wall plop” (machine translation)....

ASML and Imec this week established a five-year partnership designed to enable Imec’s researchers and developers access to ASML’s latest tools. The move is focused on sub-2nm process technologies that will require ASML’s latest lithography (including High-NA), metrology, and inspection tools. Imec will ensure that engineers from academia and various companies have the latest equipment for their research, whereas ASML will ensure that its tools are incorporated into leading-edge process technologies....

Earlier this morning, Asus launched a trio of VU Air Ionizer series monitors: the 23.8-inch IPS panel Asus VU249HFI-W, the 27-inch IPS Asus VU279HFI-W, and the 34-inch VA Asus VU34WCIP-W. All VU Air Ionizer series monitors have a no-filter “VU Air Ionizer” that Asus claims can clear up to 90% of airborne dust and pollutants from an effective workspace coverage area of 1m³. Though we can certainly see how this can be useful for users in areas with poor air quality, the actual effectiveness of air ionizers as air purifiers is a hotly debated topic....

The ROG division at Asus has announced two gaming peripherals atComputex 2025, primarily targeting eSports gamers and enthusiasts. This new range is said to complement the recently unveiledROG Strix Ace XG248QSGgaming monitor, which can be overclocked to achieve a super-fast refresh rate of 610 Hz. Asus has been releasing some interesting keyboards, such as theROG Azoth Extremeand theStrix Scope II 96 Wireless. The new ROG Falcata adds to this lineup with its unique split 75% layout, which can be used either as a full board or as a single half....