Latest News from around the web

Companies and cities love it when you supply driving data, but how do they convince you to hand it over? In Mitsubishi’s case, it’s simple: shower people with gifts. The automaker has launched a mobile app that asks American commuters to share data…

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AMD still has not formally announced its B450 chipset, but it looks like everything is ready for the launch. Pre-orders and listings for B450 boards from three major motherboard manufacturers have already appears in Europe, targeting customers with different budgets.

Multiple stores in Austria and Germany are taking pre-orders on AMD B450 boards from ASUS and ASRock, according to Geizhals.eu. Some stores actually list some of these motherboards as “in stock”, but they also note that the product will be ordered from their warehouse (or a distributor) after a customer order is placed. So the devices may be available to buy, but delivery will take several days.

Meanwhile, the ASUS Prime B450M-A seems to be available immediately. And GIGABYTE lists one of its B450 motherboards (the B450M DS3H), but it does not seem to be available for order anywhere. One thing to note is that neither of these board makers have said boards listed on their web sites, but stores mentioned by Geizhals.eu have all the official pictures of the products that can only be obtained from manufacturers.

ASRock already demonstrated its comprehensive lineup of four B450-based motherboards at Computex a month ago. In fact, the ASRock B450M-HDV was listed as “in stock” by multiple retailers, but at press time it could not be ordered (i.e., the order pages have been removed). This product is an entry level one, it is expected to cost €72 ($84).

ASUS is apparently prepping an even broader family of AMD B450 platforms that includes at least seven models. The listed items include the ROG Strix B450-F Gaming, the ROG Strix B450-I Gaming, the TUF B450-Plus Gaming, the TUF B450M-Plus Gaming, the Prime B450M-A, the Prime B450-Plus, and the Prime B450M-K. The higher-end ROG Strix models will traditionally feature a rich I/O feature set, a programmable RGB lighting, and vast overclocking capabilities. Less expensive TUF-series products will be aimed at gamers and therefore offer similar capabilities, but without ultra-premium features (e.g., high-end VRM, RGB, etc.). Meanwhile, Prime are basic motherboards without anything excessive. Prices of ASUS’ B450-based motherboards range from €86 to €186 ($100 to $217).

General features of AMD’s B450 south bridge are more or less known despite the fact that the product has not been announced. The new chipset from AMD is expected to support CPU overclocking, six PCIe 2.0 lanes for add-in cards (in addition to 8 or 16 lanes supported by AMD’s APUs/CPUs), two USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, two USB 3.1 Gen 1 connectors, six USB 2.0 headers, and so on. Some reports also indicate that the B450 will also support enhanced CPU boosting techniques (XFR2 Enhanced and Precision Boost Overdrive) and will be bundled with the AMD StoreMI software (re-badged Enmotus FuzeDrive software) to build hybrid storage sub-systems featuring SSDs and HDDs, but AMD yet has to confirm these.

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HTC can’t catch a break. The company has announced that in June its sales fell “nearly 68 percent,” according to Reuters. Earlier this week, the company revealed it would cull some 1,500 employees from its Taiwan manufacturing division in its chase f…

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There is an English soccer team which has toured the US and Spain, seen hundreds of thousands of fans tune into their weekend matches and played in some of the sport’s most hallowed arenas against stars like Steven Gerrard. The team’s captain alone h…

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When I first took a look at Cougar’s Revenger S gaming mouse, well, I shrugged. On first glance, it seemed to be another six-button gaming mouse with RGB LED lighting and a Pixart PMW3360 sensor. Then, I noticed something curious in the spec sheet: Cougar put down the Revenger S for a 2-KHz report rate. There’s only a few other mice on the market that have made that claim, and I was eager to see for myself if Cougar’s mouse was the real deal.

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Crystals won’t do anything to cure diseases, despite the latest health craze floating around, but here’s something they can do: cool down your computer. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Texas, Dallas…

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Over the past several years home entertainment has undergone a transformation, slowly replacing bookshelf style speakers for sound bar systems. While many enthusiasts still cling to their large speaker systems, others have seen the wisdom in downsizing. Offering big sound for under $100, the 2018 VIZIO 36-Inch 2.1 Sound Bar with Built-in Dual Subwoofers (model SB362An-F6) delivers more than you might expect. In this article for Benchmark Reviews, we test this Bluetooth/wired 2.1-channel sound system using Dolby Audio and DTS media.

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HyperX has a very big following with its Cloud series headsets. We are looking at its Cloud Alpha wired headset today. No 7.1 surround, no wireless, no software, no nonsense. Its claim to fame are “Dual Chambered Drivers,” and is the exact reason we purchased these for review. Are these worth the $100 price tag?

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Gundam is heading to the big screen — and, yes, we’re talking about a live action adaptation, not a movie-length anime movie you can see in theaters. Legendary Entertainment and Gundam’s creator, Japanese animation studio Sunrise, have announced tha…

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Elon Musk has offered assistance in the rescue of the boys’ soccer team trapped in a cave in Thailand. Engineers from SpaceX and The Boring Company will travel to the country on Saturday to help with what is becoming an increasingly perilous rescue e…

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After holding tech giants to account with fines and legislation, the European Commission (EC) sights are now trained on a new target. The commission is polling EU residents to figure out whether it’s time to reconsider daylight savings.

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But it should not do too much harm

Micron played down the likely impact on its business of a temporary Chinese ban on some chip sales but said it was unfair and would appeal.

The firm estimates that the ban imposed by a Chinese court in a patent infringement lawsuit would weaken quarterly revenue by just one percent.

Shares in the sector had been shaken on Tuesday by the first reports of the ruling, which added to a growing list of intellectual property disputes between Washington and China in the technology sector.

Micron said the ruling by a Fuzhou Court in a lawsuit filed by rivals UMC and Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co temporarily bans it from selling some memory chips and solid-state drives in China.

The chipmaker said it would comply with the ruling, but would request the court to reconsider or stay its decision.

Micron’s general counsel Joel Poppen said the Fuzhou Court issued this preliminary ruling before allowing Micron an opportunity to present its defence.

The lawsuit followed Micron’s complaint in December against Chinese government-backed Fujian and UMC in a California court alleging misappropriation of its trade secrets and other misconduct.

China is trying to build its own semiconductor industry as part of its “Made in China 2025” strategy and as it seeks to lower its reliance on foreign companies, many of them US-based.

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Marketing was a bit of an albatross

LG said operating profit likely rose 16.1 percent in April-June, although it was messed up by a big marketing budget for new products in its TV, smartphone and appliance divisions.

LG estimated its profit at $691.11 million which was slightly lower than Wall Street expected. In fact the company would have done better if it had not had a bit of a marketing blow out.

The estimate comes after LG posted its highest profit in nine years in January-March due to robust sales of high profit margin premium TVs. That in turn came after LG ended 2017 with a 33 percent share of the high end TV market, pulling away from Samsung.

Revenue likely climbed 3.2 percent from the same period a year earlier to 15 trillion won, LG said in a regulatory filing. That compared with analysts’ 15.5 trillion won estimate.
LG did not disclose further details of April-June operations and will announce full results at the end of July.

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Hey there! We lay out why Netflix’s new pricing tier (still in testing) is inevitable, Fortnite Playground is a (not-long-for-this-world) hit and how smart, secure bikes are changing one editor’s approach to cycling.

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Up to four radiators.

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Netflix is going all-in on anime, renewing another series and bringing in a bunch of new ones, it announced at the Anime 2018 festival. There’ll certainly be a lot of variety, starting with season 2 of Aggretsuko (below, arriving in 2019) about a red…

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Unlike the recently tested MA410P, MA610P and MA620P tower coolers, the small round Cooler Master G100M UFO cooler is more for the small space requirement in Micro ATX or Mini ITX enclosures, without sacrificing an optical highlight. We test whether the cooling performance is still satisfactory and also have the 360 degree view, a new video with sound and yet another video with all the RGB effects in our OCinside YouTube channel.

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Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco have uncovered a gene-editing technique which could provide safer treatments for patients with cancer and autoimmune diseases. The breakthrough — which involves the CRISPR/Cas9 system — w…

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News emerged back in May that global football sensation (and model, and philanthropist, and…) Cristiano Ronaldo was working on a scripted drama for Facebook Watch about an all-girls soccer team in upstate New York. But the social media giant might…

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If you have a Windows PC and don’t have a Windows Mobile handheld — and who could blame you — Microsoft has been making sure that core apps like Edge and Launcher would be available on Android and iOS devices so you can continue to use the company’…

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