Sean Hollister

Senior Editor

Sean HollisterJul 27, 2023

Intel’s not out of the PC slump yet.

Q2 2023 earnings are down 15 percent to $12.9 billion, but Intel’s stopped the bleed — it’s actually making profit of $1.5 billion, after consecutive $2.8B and $0.7B quarterly losses. (Revenue dipped 36 percent last quarter.) Even PC chips are only down 12 percent, compared to the 16.6 percent or 13.4 percent decline in global PC shipments that Gartner and IDC reported two weeks back.

Intel says its slightly rebranded Meteor Lake chips are still coming in 2H 2023 — at least one of them in Q3 specifically.

Sean HollisterJul 27, 2023

The ACLU is warning of “an explosion in law enforcement use of drones.”

Today I learned one California police department freely shows you when, where, and why it flies surveillance drones over the city, so the public can sanity-check. But what about the other 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the USA?

Every city and state has to decide how much drone surveillance is appropriate, and the ACLU’s just-published overview of law enforcement drone surveillance fears can help bring you up to speed on the nuances.

Eye-in-the-Sky Policing Needs Strict Limits

[American Civil Liberties Union]

Oh my god, WD-40 is available in a Tide pen

Sean HollisterJul 26, 2023

Digital Foundry takes Ratchet & Clank’s PC port for a spin.

So far, the port looks... pretty OK! Also — LOL — they tried running it on an original PS4 hard drive to bust the myth that it never needed a new console.

Wondering whether it’ll truly play well on Steam Deck? An early test on YouTube suggests it’s actually pretty smooth, but relies on dynamically adjusting AMD FSR 2.1 which can make the game look mighty low-res in graphically intensive moments.

Sean HollisterJul 26, 2023

Google’s Android game collection for PCs now kinda sorta works on more machines.

Weirdly, Google spokesperson Nia Carter confirms to The Verge that the company’s minimum system requirements aren’t changing — 4 CPU cores and 8GB of RAM for Google Play Games on PC. But if you’ve got a dual-core CPU and 4GB, Google now says it can technically give you a “limited experience.”

You’ll still need hardware virtualization, which often means digging into your computer’s BIOS. The beta’s now available in 120 regions around the world.

Sean HollisterJul 25, 2023

The Ghost, from Ahsoka and Rebels, is now the biggest Star Wars action figure spaceship toy ever.

Imagine a smaller symmetrical Millennium Falcon, with its own detachable secondary spaceship. Now imagine paying $500 to crowdfund it before September 6th for a fall 2024 release.

It’s nearly three feet long, over two feet wide and over a foot tall, with all kinds of removable panels and landing gear, a detailed bridge and crew quarters, and of course a Dejarik table. Tested got hands-on at SDCC.

PS5 exclusive Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart will officially run on Steam Deck

Sean HollisterJul 25, 2023

Everything I wanted to know about undersea internet cables.

How many? How fast? How much do they cost, and who foots the bill? How much electricity do they require? How do we plant them under the sea, and how quickly, with what challenges? How thick are they, and how vulnerable?

Stephen Shankland’s CNET feature has so many of the fascinating answers. I’ll spoil one: “At any given moment, more than 10 cables are typically cut around the world.”

The Secret Life of the 500+ Cables That Run the Internet

[CNET]

Sean HollisterJul 25, 2023

Twitter’s half-sign is still hanging in there.

As you can see, Musk didn’t disappear the remainder of the Twitter HQ sign before 8:55PM last night, and this morning it was still hanging in there at 10:05AM.

(I love that the sign has a built-in clock.)

It’s still not clear why work stopped yesterday or when it will resume. The SFPD decided it was “not a police matter,” and yet a cruiser was reportedly on site an hour ago.