Scott Herkelman ran the Radeon business unit since 2016, getting AMD back in the game.
He’s not the only AMD graphics boss to leave this year, as “Computing & Graphics EVP” Rick Bergman recently retired too. Bergman was replaced by Jack Huynh, whose previous division helped AMD dominate two generations of game consoles (PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series) with semi-custom gaming chips.
Microsoft’s spec sheet shows it’s a “Intel Gen3 Movidius 3700VC VPU AI Accelerator.” Intel’s website reveals that it’s a discrete chip roughly the size of my pinky’s fingertip at 14mm x 14mm.
It’s a PCIe Gen 3 device, so don’t be surprised if it comes on its own tiny SSD-sized M.2 expansion card. Here’s a whitepaper about its siblings. Meteor Lake won’t need a separate NPU like this:
It’s a convoluted story! Intel paid a $1.4B fine in 2009, lost its challenge in 2014, won its challenge in 2022, and today the EU says it still owes a fine of $400 million (via AP).
[European Commission - European Commission]
We’ve literally just now gotten word that Unity has changed its disastrous new pricing model after developers’ protests, which you can read about from Ash Parrish here.
AI-generated imagery is the new clip art, and Microsoft’s now making it dead easy to add to your chats — just swipe and type in SwiftKey to generate AI art on iPhone or Android.
Samsung’s keyboard has SwiftKey under the hood, so this is likely coming to a lot of phones. Microsoft’s also rolling out some “AI stickers” and “AI camera lenses,” but they’re pretty meh right now.
PG&E — not the most popular utility — can now just press a button to dispatch a self-flying Skydio X2 for inspections. It’s setting up automatic drone docks at 12 substations by end of year, and California will let the drones fly along power lines up to two miles away.
While the utility’s BVLOS waiver doesn’t seem to waive the need to have someone watching the drone from the ground, PG&E says it doesn’t need them.
Microsoft set its new Copilot ad to Amy McKnight’s “Rise Up Let’s Go.” Such energy... I might just keep it on repeat today!
