Gigabyte Launches New AORUS Waterforce AIO Cooler Series

Gigabyte recently launched its new AORUS Waterforce AIO cooler series for the desktop DIY PC market. The new series comes in three sizes and feature similar designs, borrowed from the brand’s Waterforce X series.

Specifically, the three new AIO coolers are the Waterforce 240, Waterforce 280, and Waterforce 360. As their names suggest, the three coolers come in sizes of 240mm, 280mm, and 360mm. Much like their X-branded counterparts, the radiators are thinner than the standard AORUS AIO cooler but comes with better heat dissipation technology. On that note, the radiators are also connected to a radiator pump with a 330° rotatable cap, via two tubes with a 7.8mm diameter that Gigabyte says will improve water flow within by 37%. And therefore improving overall cooling efficiency by durability.

Again, like the Waterforce X series, the waterblock is also fitted with an AORUS ARGB lighting display with intelligent detection that shows users the current CPU temperature via different colours.

As for active cooling, each radiator model is equipped with either 120mm or 240mm fans, all of which are greased with Graphene Non lubricant ball-bearings that are designed to operate with ultra-low friction and noise. As a point of pride, Gigabyte says that its Waterforce 240 AIO cooler is able to effectively keep all the cores on Intel’s Core i9-11900K running at 5.1GHz ensuring that the accumulated never seemingly exceeds 81°C.

TSMC Allegedly Increasing Chip Prices By 20 Percent Amidst Ongoing Shortage

TSMC is reportedly increasing the prices of its chips, the company told its clients earlier in the week. According to a report by WSJ (paywall), the semiconductor manufacturer plans on raising its prices by as much as 10% for its advanced chips and 20% for less advanced components.

The announcement clearly isn’t happy or welcoming news, given that the world is still suffering from an ongoing chip shortage that many experts and industry leaders say could last well into 2022 and the early months of 2023. On top of that, TSMC’s price hike will most definitely be reflected within the final bill of finished products that use its components.

That list, by the way, unsurprisingly includes electronic goods like laptops, phones, PC components, and game consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Product that, by the way, are made by equally big name brands like Apple, AMD, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm, to name a few.

There is, of course, a silver lining of sorts in TSMC’s announcements. Raising the prices means that, for the first time since the pandemic began, demand for its chips could ultimately reduce and, in turn, take some pressure off already constricted supplies. At least, until its new factories in the US and Taiwan become operational.

iPhone 13 To Support Satellite Communications, Claims Analyst

The iPhone is one of the most popular of phones for the general public. But its next iteration is about to come with something that’s not usually for mainstream use. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts that the iPhone 13 will come with, of all things, support for satellite communications.

AppleInsider reports that in a note to investors, Kuo says that this will be made possible thanks to a modified Qualcomm X60 modem chip. This prediction is based on the company’s work with Globestar, a provider of such a service. And by extension, the analyst also predicts that Apple will be working with Globestar for its satellite comms tech for the iPhone 13.

For now, it’s not stated what sort of modifications Apple will be doing to the Qualcomm X60 modem for this to work. Though if the company can do so without changing the expected look of the iPhone 13, it will be an impressive feat. At least when you consider most satellite phones look like feature phones. Kuo also notes that other phone makers looking to give their devices satellite communications will have to wait until next year, for the Qualcomm X65 chip.

Kuo claims that this will be just the first Apple product to use satellite comms. In the future, the analyst predicts that the iPhone maker will also be using said tech to supplement other products like Apple Car. But as for the iPhone itself, it remains to be seen if the tech will debut in this year’s series or the next. After all, it’s possible that this year’s batch will be called the iPhone 12s.

Cloud Mining Company Wins Chinese Court Case; Regains More Than 485000 AMD Radeon GPUs

Genesis Mining, An Iceland-based cloud mining outfit, recently won a lawsuit in a Chinese court, against a Chinese hosting provider, Chuangshiji Technology Limited. By decree of China’s Supreme Court, the defendant was ordered to return the Radeon RX 470 8GB GPUs it seized from Genesis Mining and by all, we mean all 485681 units.

Genesis Mining’s legal woes began in 2018, when it took Chuangshiji Technology Limited to court, over multiple monetary issues with the latter. The lawsuit, which stretched over a span of several years, was filed in 2019, after the defendant began withholding said RX 470 GPUs, presumably purchased by Genesis Mining. The Genesis lawsuit specifically demanded that Chuangjishi hand over more than 560000 GPUs, along with 60000 ASIC miners after the company terminated its agreement with the company.

Naturally, things didn’t go according to plan for Genesis; Chuangjishi refused to comply and instead, began selling its ill-gotten gains, all without Genesis’ consent.

Sadly, Genesis’ victory in the Chinese court is a Pyrrhic one; while the Icelandic cloud-based mining company may have won back its nearly half a million RX 470 GPUs, China’s recent crackdown on cryptominers and their farms means that the company will have to consider two alternatives: shift its operations out of China and into a country where cryptomining isn’t banned or find new homes for them, the latter being an arduous task, given the age of the RX 470 and its GPU core.

That said, selling them to actual gamers might actually net Genesis a tidy profit, especially given the ongoing chip and GPU shortage that is happening around the world.

Updated PS5 Has A Smaller Heatsink According To Teardown

We’ve seen a new variant of the PS5, a first revision, if you will, go through SIRIM. In Australia, one of the markets that it is already available in, we can see that it also has a new screw, and weighs about 300g less. There is a new teardown video, which shows that the weight difference manifests in the form of a smaller heatsink.

Austin Evans on his YouTube channel got his hands on the new revision PS5 from Japan, which confirms the new, tool-free friendly screw for the stand. The wireless module is very slightly different, which also confirms that what was noted in the documentation we saw before this. But most significantly, the heat sink is significantly smaller. And it explains the 300g weight reduction.

The argument here is that the smaller heat sink leads to less effective cooling, especially over time once dust starts building up inside the PS5. That being said, the temperature test in Evans’ video only takes into account the exhaust temperature – rather than that of the components – of the two versions of the console. And it’s a difference of about three degrees Celsius, with the newer model being the warmer one.

Evans argues that the original PS5 model was “over-engineered”, and that the newer revision means a production cost reduction while not impacting performance. But that remains to be seen, especially with long term use and the actual internal components’ temperature.

Another New Report Strengthens The Rumour of iPhone 13’s Always-On Display

While we have heard plenty of rumours regarding the iPhone 13 (or 12s, depending on who you ask), some of them are more persistent than others. One such example is the always-on mode for its display.

Last weekend, the well-known Apple-oriented journalist, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg had made a passing remark regarding the feature inside the latest issue of his weekly “Power On” newsletter. Not only that, he also mentioned that the mode will work in a similar manner as per Apple Watch.

That being said, Mark didn’t provide in-depth details regarding the mode’s functionalities though. Nevertheless, what he has said regarding the always-on display in the newsletter generally mirrored the information that has been discussed by the reputable leakster Max Weinbach way back in February.

At that time, Max said that the always-on mode on iPhone may feature a toned down lockscreen with clock and battery capacity being made visible to users all the time if they choose to activate the mode. Try to imagine the always-on mode on Apple Watch Series 5 and Series 6, you’ll get the idea.

Aside from the always-on display mode, Gurman has also said that consumers should expect a faster A15 chip, a smaller notch, and video recording upgrades on the new iPhone. Not to forget, there is also the 120Hz refresh rate which is another rumour that refused to go away so far.

Despite that, do keep in mind that Apple is reportedly saving the bigger changes to next year’s iPhone series, such as a foldable screen and an in-screen Touch ID. In other words, the 2021 lineup may feature only minor upgrades as far as the rumour mill is concerned for the time being.

Tencent Acquires British Game Dev Sumo Digital For US$1.27 Billion

You may or may not have heard of a British video games developer called Sumo Digital. The studio has done its fair share as a support studio for new entries in the new Hitman series, as well as being the name behind titles like LittleBigPlanet 3 Team Sonic Racing. This developer will soon be under the Tencent umbrella, as the conglomerate has just announced its acquisition of the studio.

CNA reports that Tencent and Sumo Digital have agreed to a US$1.27 billion (~RM5.37 billion) deal. This will see the former acquire the latter, helping the Chinese conglomerate expand its presence globally and also growing its long list of dev teams now under its umbrella. Other developers that are already subsidiaries include the likes of League of Legends developer Riot Games, and Supercell, the company behind the many mobile games like Clash of Clans.

This acquisition comes soon after Tencent’s attempt to merge its own Huya streaming service with DouYu, the shares of which it owns 37%. Speaking of which, prior to the acquisition, Tencent already owns 8.75% of shares in Sumo Digital.

The acquisition of Sumo Digital is the second one Involving a UK-based developer in recent memory. The previous one was when Electronic Arts acquired Codemasters just earlier this year for a similar US$1.2 billion, outbidding previous prospective buyer Take-Two Interactive.

Instagram To Revamp Search Function To Prioritise On Photo And Video Content

Instagram has announced that it will be revamping its search function, making it easier to look up for images or videos relevant to the keyword used. This is an improvement over the current version, which instead prioritises on matching search terms to account names and hashtags.

In a video posted on the platform and Twitter, Instagram head Adam Mosseri explained that this update, which he coined as “Interest Search”, will help users to discover even more content on the platform beyond relying on hashtags and profile hits. The same video demonstrated the new search function, which now returns a gallery of images and videos relevant to the keyword in the “Top” tab. Account and hashtag related results, as well as those under Audio and Places are still discoverable and can be browsed via their respective tabs in the feature.

The improved search function is a much appreciated update, albeit arriving after more than a decade since Instagram’s debut. For the longest time, users have been mostly relying on the platform’s Discover feature which randomly lists content based on topics related to their recent Instagram activities. While interesting, most recommendations provided by this feature often appear irrelevant and less personalised than hoped. The alternative is using the existing version of the search function by using hashtags which do provide better results, but only displaying those that are actually tagged with the keyword.

Instagram did not reveal when this updated search feature will be rolled out. It also noted that it will enhance Interest Search further by adding more supported languages and other improvements in order to discover even more relevant content for users. 

Reimagining Small Space Living Our love letter to the visionaries and artists of small—footprint design.

We have carefully curated our 30 favourite ingenious projects under 50 square metres to inspire and delight you. 

You can drop-by at this website to support this book :

https://www.nevertoosmall.com/store/reimagining-small-spaces/

From Melbourne to Madrid, Athens to Amsterdam and Singapore to Sydney, we revisit some of our favourite designs while also sharing new spaces, not yet featured on our channel.

Architectural images, detailed floor plans and an extensive directory make this a rich resource for anyone looking to build, redesign or reimagine their own small space. We go beyond the designs and their creators to explore the historical context, the neighbourhoods and the cultures that shaped their inception.

You’ll discover ideas for creating less waste as we build our homes and expand our cities, ideas for reducing our footprints and living more sustainably, and compelling arguments for how these ends can all be achieved without compromising on comfort of style.

This is our celebration… our love letter to the visionaries and artists of small-footprint design.

For the first time, we introduce five key design principles to help us unpack and learn from their work.

• We explore how designs diversify living spaces to maximise their footprints and adapt to need or mood…
• And how they amplify a sense of space by allowing light and air to flow freely within it.
• We admire the architects and designers who don’t strip away but instead expand structures and add bulk to create greater function and comfort.
• We applaud those who revive the outdated and old to give it new life…
• And we marvel at the architects who innovate with bold features, materials and concepts to not only elevate and distinguish their own design but to challenge the notions of what small footprint living can be.

Nintendo Denies Reaping More Profit From New Switch Model And Shoots Down Pro Variant Rumour

Nintendo has taken to Twitter to deny allegations of squeezing out more profit from the newly announced Switch model. As you may recall, Bloomberg published a report last Friday suggesting that the Japanese video game giant is marking up the prices of the newly announced variant – earning an estimated US$40 (~RM168) more on each unit sold, where production would only cost the company a mere additional US$10 (~RM42) over the existing model. For your reference, the standard Nintendo Switch retails at US$300 (~RM1,267) while the OLED model is priced at US$350 (~RM1,458).

“A news report on July 15, 2021(JST) claimed that the profit margin of the Nintendo Switch (OLED Model) would increase compared to the Nintendo Switch,” the company stated via its official account on Twitter. “To ensure correct understanding among our investors and customers, we want to make clear that the claim is incorrect.”

It is pretty unusual for Nintendo to comment regarding any allegations or even rumours, let alone releasing an official statement intended to assure its investors via social media. Prior to this, the video game giant would often sidestep from commenting or would just provide vague details that neither confirm or deny certain information. Needless to say, this is indeed a rare occasion for the company.

Following the statement, the company also took the opportunity to shoot down rumours suggesting that it is developing or planning to release another variant of the console after releasing the OLED model in October. This is clearly referring to the numerous hearsays of the alleged Nintendo Switch Pro, which has been circulating around for months.

While that may sound disheartening for those looking forward to a beefier and 4K-capable version of the device, keep in mind that this isn’t the first time that the company has denied the development of a new model. In fact, Nintendo previously insisted that it had no plans to introduce a new Switch variant before finally removing the drape off from the recently launched 7-inch OLED model.

NVIDIA Shows Off RTX On ARM Using A MediaTek Chromebook CPU Paired With RTX 3060

If you are a gamer or PC hardware enthusiast, you most probably are well-aware of what NVIDIA RTX technologies are all about especially real-time ray tracing. Aside from having the appropriate GeForce RTX graphics cards, you also generally need a capable x86-64 processor too in order to utilise them but NVIDIA is now working to bring the RTX tech to ARM-based processors as well.

At the ongoing Game Developers Conference, the company has unveiled two demonstrations of RTX on ARM including one that utilises Wolfenstein: Youngblood. According to NVIDIA, both demos were run on a system that is equipped with a MediaTek Kompanio 1200 processor and a GeForce RTX 3060 GPU.

NVIDIA pointed out that there were five key RTX technologies that were being showcased in these demos including DLSS as well as RTX Direct Illumination, RTX Global Illumination, RTX Memory Utility, and NVIDIA Optix AI-Acceleration Denoiser. However, the company noted that MachineGames and Bethesda Softworks have no plans to put out the ARM version of Wolfenstein: Youngblood that was used for the demo as a commercial release though.

Considering that the Kompanio 1200 is essentially a Chromebook processor, what NVIDIA is trying to achieve here is indeed pretty interesting as it may lead to a future whereby an ARM-based device could become a decent gaming PC. That could be a fairly fruitful future for NVIDIA beyond its role as a GPU company since ARM is about to become a part of NVIDIA soon, although the acquisition deal has been met with resistance by a lot of parties including the UK government.

WhatsApp Officially Launches “View Once” Disappearing Feature

WhatsApp is finally rolling out its new “view once” feature to the general public in its latest update after being released a little over a month ago in the Android beta. The feature allows you to send photos and videos that can only be viewed once by the recipient, disappearing completely thereafter.

Similar to the disappearing messages in Snapchat and Instagram, it aims to give users more control over their privacy. Using it is simple: when sending pictures or videos to someone, click on the “1” button on the left of the send button. The recipient won’t see a preview of what you sent so they’ll have to click it to find out the content. Once they’re done viewing, you’ll see the message now says “opened” and they won’t be able to access it again. Of course, keep in mind that they can still take a screenshot and unlike Snapchat, you won’t be notified.

WhatsApp gave a use case example of sending somebody your WiFi password without having to worry about them sharing it with others, or maybe something like photos of new clothes you’re trying on at a store which you don’t need to take up your storage space. Seeing as how View Once messages are still end-to-end encrypted, maybe the feature would also be useful for espionage or just sending some “work-inappropriate” content.

The photos and videos sent through View Once can remain unopened for 14 days before they expire. Apparently, View Once messages can also be restored through backup if it was still unopened during backup. WhatsApp will also be able to see what you sent if the recipient reported your message for problematic content that breaks their terms of service. Obviously, you won’t be able to forward, save, star, or share View Once media.

Microsoft Edge Testing “Super Duper Secure Mode” To Show It’s Super Serious About Security

Microsoft’s Edge Vulnerability Research team has just released a new feature that’s laser-focused on security, adorably titled “Super Duper Secure Mode”. The experiment aims to make the browser as secure as possible without affecting performance, and will most likely receive a more polished name once it eventually rolls out to the public.

It’s still being tested so you can’t find this feature on the regular version of Edge, rather you’ll have to enable its flag through edge://flags in Canary, Dev, or Beta. Once you enable it, Super Duper Secure Mode will remove Just-In-Time Compilation (JIT) from the V8 processing pipeline. JIT was introduced way back in 2008 to improve the speed on specific Javascript tasks. The challenge here is removing this engine without it slowing down those tasks, thus making the user experience feel more laggy.

According to the VR team, JavaScript engine bugs are a favourite vulnerability of hackers as they “provide powerful exploit primitives, there is a steady stream of bugs, and exploitation of these bugs often follows a straightforward template.” They listed some of the most common Javascript exploits including Fake an object, Get AddrOf Primitive, and Achieve arbitrary write.

Disabling the JIT engine removes roughly half of the V8 bugs that must be fixed, says Microsoft. This would mean less frequent security updates for users, but how is the performance afterwards? Well, the team’s experiments show that whether JIT is enabled or disabled, users rarely notice a difference in their daily browsing.

Hundreds of performance tests confirmed that disabling JIT made no notable difference, with some factors such as power consumption actually improving slightly. Javascript benchmark scores do take a hit but Microsoft says this difference is negligible for those who are just browsing blogs and social media but users playing online games could possibly notice the decrease in performance.

Fitbit Charge 5 Now Official; Pre-Order Price At RM878

Not long after two significantly major leaks, Fitbit has unveiled its new Charge 5 fitness tracker. And much like what was unofficially revealed prior to this, the wearable will sport a new design, a full colour display, ECG capability, and plenty of other features – greatly exceeding those that are offered by its predecessors.

The new fitness tracker is 10% slimmer than the Charge 4, and comes with a 1.04-inch AMOLED touch screen with Always-On capability and Gorilla Glass 3 protection. On each side of its body are capacitive touchpads for user interaction, and can be used as a shortcut to activate the onboard Atrial Fibirilation (AFib) feature by pressing on both pads for 30 seconds. However, Fitbit noted that this feature would only be enabled some time after launch via an update.

As mentioned earlier, the Charge 5 comes with a variety of health and fitness monitoring capabilities which includes sleep tracking, a heart rate sensor to calculate Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and Resting Heart Rate (RHR), a SpO2 sensor for blood oxygen saturation monitoring, an ElectorDermal Activity (EDA) sensor to track stress levels, and an Electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor. The latter may first require an approval from the local ministry of health before it is made available to users once the wearable arrives in Malaysia.

Features-wise, the device will feature plenty of onboard workout trackers, stress relief sessions, and the new Daily Readiness Score app and subscription. Other than that, it also comes with smartphone notification and quick reply functions, GPS (+GLONASS) tracking, compatibility with both Android and iOS platforms, and is water resistant of up to 50 metres of depth. Fitbit claims that the fitness tracker can last up to 7 days of use with the Always-On and SpO2 features deactivated, and would take two hours for a full charge.

The new wearable is offered in Black, Lunar White and Steel Blue, and is also offered with a variety of watch straps that are made of silicone, leather, and nylon. Speaking of straps, included in the box are two different band sizes for small and large wrists.

The Fitbit Charge 5 is priced at RM878, and is slated to ship out by late September 2021. Pre-orders for the new fitness tracker are now open via the brand’s official Malaysian website. Keep in mind that in order to use the new Daily Readiness Score, you are required to have a Fitbit Premium subscription which is available at RM39 per month.

WD Currently In Talks With Kioxia On Possible Merger For US$20 Billion

Back in April, news began to surface online that Kioxia Holdings Corp, the Japanese chipmaker, was the subject of a potential acquisition by two storage brands: Western Digital (WD) and Micron Technology. Fast forward to today, and Micron has pulled out from the bid, leaving WD as the only party currently in talks for a potential merger.

According to Reuters, both companies are currently engaged in advanced talks. If an agreement is reached, both companies could be looking at a stock merger worth US$20 billion (~RM83 billion). Additionally, the merger would make a new entity that will be almost as big as Samsung.

As a quick recap, Kioxia was once a part of Toshiba Memory but gained its independence back in 2019. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and global chip shortage, the memory maker has been slowly foundering and forced to seek outside aid to help it out of its dire straits.

Kioxia isn’t the only memory company that has been consolidating its assets. Back in October last year, SK Hynix announced its acquisition of Intel’s own SSD business for US$9 billion (~RM37.7 billion), while Micron itself recently sold off its 3D Xpoint fabrication facility to Texas Instrument (TI), to the sum of US$1.5 billion (~RM6.25 billion).

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Super GPU With 21Gbps GDDR6X Memory Reportedly In The Works

As NVIDIA reportedly preps its next-generation GPU architecture, Ada Lovelace, rumours have surfaced that the GPU brand plans on sending off its current Ampere lineup with one last hurray. That hurray, by the way, is rumoured to come in the form of a GeForce RTX 3090 Super.

Rumours of the RTX 3090 Super first came to light via prominent leakster Greymon55 (@greymon55), who said that the card was going to ship out with 10753 CUDA cores, which is 256 CUDA cores more than the current RTX 3090. Additionally, they also said that the card would require upwards of 400W of power to run, which clearly exceeds the current 350W TGP of the RTX 3090.

Less than a day after that rumour, another popular leakster, kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi), posted more information about the RTX 3090 Super, saying that the card TGP was higher at 450W. Further, the card also would not have an NVLink unlike the RTX 3090, because SLI is pretty much dead at this point. On that note, it doesn’t appear that the card’s 24GB GDDR6X memory is getting increased, but until its launch, that is still up for change.

Another interesting plot point is that the RTX 3090 Super is expected to run on a new GA102-350-A1 architecture, along with GDDR6X memory running at 21Gbps. Again, for context, the GDDR6X on the currently existing RTX 3090 run at 19.5Gbps, which is already extremely fast. Even more interesting, though, is that kopite7kimi says that NVIDIA plans on launching the RTX 3090 Super before the year is out.

As exciting as this news may sound to us, it should also be noted that these rumours do not mention or affirm if NVIDIA also plans on releasing other Super variants of other RTX 30 series GPUs, including the RTX 3060, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080. That said, the chances of that happening for the latter two models are exceedingly slim, seeing how the company just recently launched the “Ti” versions of said cards.

If these rumours actually do become reality, it is also likely that NVIDIA’s AiB partners will have no choice but to fit their own custom-cooled versions of the GPU with no less than three 8-PIN PCIe power ports in order to run the card. That, or adopt the 12-pin power connector that NVIDIA uses on its Founders Edition cards.

On that note and as always, NVIDIA has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such a card, as is the brand’s policy. So, take this news with a liberal sprinkling of salt.

Singaporean Decks Out Hotel Room With RM31000 Custom Gaming PC For 14-Day Quarantine

While the world gradually gets a grip on the COVID-19 pandemic, countries like Singapore are still making it mandatory for visitors and citizens entering the country to undergo a 14-day quarantine in a hotel. In the case of one returning citizen and gamer, he made doubly sure his quarantine period wouldn’t be so boring by having his room equipped with a fully decked out gaming PC. Yes, really.

Aftershock, the Singaporean PC gaming brand, was contacted by the Singaporean gamer and tasked with kitting out the hotel room that he would be quarantining himself in with a powerful desktop gaming PC, complete with all the necessary peripherals.

In regards to the PC, the custom-built rig contains high-end components and on top of that, are entirely watercooled with custom loops and waterblocks. Naturally, such a display of power clearly doesn’t come cheap; the whole package costs SG$10000 (~RM31000) which, going by the current pricing for components these days, isn’t too far off for a PC featuring top-of-the-line components.

All in all, the only thing that could’ve made the gaming experience that little more comfortable would have been a gaming chair, but given the size of the hotel room, we’re guessing that may be a step too far.

Tech Experts Sign Open Letter Asking Apple To Not Implement Child Safety Plan

A few days ago, Apple announced that its new feature called neuralMatch would be used to scan devices and the iCloud for child abuse imagery. This was quite the surprise for the company that went against the FBI’s request to unlock a terror suspect’s iPhone. The blowback for this new move in the name of child safety was expected, to say the least. And now, that blowback has manifested in the form of an open letter to the Cupertino company.

The Apple Privacy Letter is a very straightforward one. It, and its signatories, as that the iPhone maker will not go ahead with its child safety plan. The open letter has over 4000 signatories at the time of writing.

The letter also explains why Apple’s plans on the matter is problematic. For one, because the neuralMatch tech is done on device, it circumvents end-to-end encryption. This introduces a backdoor to the system, even if Apple has claimed that this will not be the case.

Another key argument is that the tech, while well-meaning, is prone to being mutated to serve more nefarious means of surveillance. For example, the open letter quotes Dr Nadim Kobeissi, a Security & Privacy researcher, as saying that the tech may be modified to scan for homosexuality or offences against the monarchy, leading to abuse and persecution.

Ultimately, the Apple Privacy Letter asks for two things. One is that Apple doesn’t deploy the content monitoring tech. The other is so that the iPhone maker reaffirms its commitment to user privacy. After all, it has been a key point that the company won’t stop shouting about in nearly all of its announcements.

Alleged MSI Delta 15 Laptop With AMD Radeon RX 6700M GPU Leaks

Leaked information of an MSI Delta 15 with an AMD Radeon RX 6700M discrete GPU have reportedly made their way on to the internet. The leaks first appeared on the Chinese news site, Zhihu and seems to detail the synthetic performance of the AMD discrete GPU, as well as its expected specifications.

As per Videocardz, the 6700M will be a water-down version of AMD’s Navi 22 GPU, have 2304 Stream Processors, 10 GB GDDR6 running through a 160-bit memory bus, and possibly be available in three TGP variants: 80W, 110W, and 135W. In this instance, the GPU in question seems to be the 110W version. Additionally, the GPU seems to be paired with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX.

Moving on, the Zhihu post also seems to be benching the 6700M-powered Delta 15 against a Razer Blade 14 Ryzen, fitted with an 80W NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 GPU. Overall, the Radeon GPU appears to outperform its Team Green rival by an average of 9%, with the highest gains in performance seen with Hitman 2.

Of course, one important note to bear in mind about the real-world benchmarks is that only a handful of these games are DXR-capable and judging from the framerates, it is likely that these numbers were obtained without the feature turned on. As such, it is unclear how the 6700M will perform with the feature turned on.

As these things usually are, MSI has not released any official statement about the Delta 15, nor has AMD actively confirmed the existence of the Radeon RX 6700M GPU. So, take this news with a grain of salt.