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Oracle is fighting back against tens of thousands of former staffers with pension plans who want to take the firm to a jury trial. Not satisfied with a judgment earlier this month that saw it fend off a number of accusations from the group, Oracle is ploughing ahead in a bid to have the case decided out of the spotlight. The lawsuit was brought in the US District Court of Colorado in January 2016 by a group of complainants who said Oracle had breached the US Employee Retirement Income Security Act through a number of failures in the management of its employees' 401(k) plan. The complaint alleged that Oracle had allowed the plan to pay record-keeping and administrative fees that were "multiples" of the market rates offered for the same services by others. it also claimed Big Red had failed to monitor service providers to the plan and investment options in the plan. Overall, the group said the firm did not act in the best interests of the plan's participants, and prevented those staffers from discovering the breaches of ERISA "through a series of false and misleading communications". After the case had lumbered on for many years, the federal judge overseeing it, Robert Blackburn, earlier this month issued an order (PDF) that trimmed several of the specific claims in the complaint. There are still three claims left to be determined, the allegations of: imprudent investment in a particular fund; imprudent retention of another fund; and failures to monitor the breach of fiduciary duty in the retention of these two allegedly imprudent investments. But Oracle would prefer if these were tried by the court, and not a jury (the plaintiffs want a jury) on the grounds that there is no precedent for this under US law. Indeed, the firm pointed out that judges had rejected demands for jury trials in at least 18 ERISA cases in the past two years. "Plaintiffs' jury demand contradicts well-settled authority, including Tenth Circuit precedent, holding that jury trials are unavailable under ERISA," the firm said in its latest submission (PDF) to the court, made late last week. "The Tenth Circuit is not alone: every US Court of Appeals that has considered the question has held that no such right exists. Based on this same authority, over the past two years, no less than seven district courts have rejected jury demands in similar ERISA breach-of-fiduciary duty cases brought by Plaintiffs' same counsel." Judge Blackburn said in his 1 March order that there would be a call today for the parties to schedule a final pretrial conference, trial preparation conference and trial in the case. ®

NVIDIA’s flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card is a beast on its own but overclockers have managed to do some crazy things with custom variants that have been out for a while. When the card initially launched, KINGPIN, EVGA’s in-house and renowned overclocker, overclocked the FE model to a stunning 2.4 GHz on LN2 but his latest feast blows away the previous record. EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti KINGPIN Hybrid Overclocked To 2.7 GHz on Core, 17 Gbps Memory Clock on LN2 Earlier this year at CES 2019, we got our first look of the EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti KINGPIN Hybrid which is an overclocker and enthusiast aimed custom model. The monster of a graphics card will be a slight update of the KINGPIN design and go for a full hybrid design that will utilize both air and water cooling. The card would come with a similar shroud as the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti KINGPIN with angular cuts on the front incorporate with mesh panels and a large 100mm fan blowing air towards a full copper based heatsink.Since the card is using a hybrid cooling design, it will come with liquid tubing that leads to a pump on the GPU core itself and a 240mm radiator (CES model used a 120mm rad but Vince aka Kingpin has confirmed to Gamers Nexus that the final variant will come with a 240mm rad), on the other end of the tubing. The card is fitted with a 19 phase VRM that will be supplied power through triple 8 pin connectors which seems to be the standard for all high-end custom models of the RTX 2080 Ti graphics card. The card is rated at 520W TDP which should allow for much better clock speeds gain when overclocking since Turing cards are mostly limited by their power limit.The card would also come with an LCD display which will show various statistics of the card such as Voltage readings, Temps, Core clocks, GPU Utilization, etc. Next to the LCD would be the LEDs for diagnostics, voltage measurement points, BIOS switch, and headers which can be used with an Evbot module. There are no words on the pricing for either card but expect them at a premium range over existing models, probably above $1500 US. Now coming to the overclock, the EVGA RTX 2080 Ti KINGPIN Hybrid was overclocked to a massive 2.7 GHz core clock and memory overclock of 8509 MHz or 17018 MHz effective which is essentially 17 Gbps. The card is essentially getting a total bandwidth of 750 Gbps which is great but compared to the previous overclock of 8633 MHz or 17266 MHz effective which puts the bandwidth at 759.70 GB/s. The core clock, however, is a good 300 MHz ahead of what was possible with the Founders Edition model. The card was set to max power target (+7%) and LN2 was used during the OC. The system was also running a Core i9-9980XE under LN2 with an overclock of 5.6 GHz across all 18 of the cores (1.500V) on an EVGA X299 DARK motherboard and 32 GB of G.Skill TridentZ DDR4 ram clocked in at 4000 MHz. In the 3DMark Portal Royal benchmark, the card scored 11744 points which places it in the 1st position of the 3DMark Portal Royal Hall of Fame. For comparison, a heavily clocked RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z from MSI on air cooling does around 9500 points. This is definitely an amazing feat achieved by KINGPIN and the highest frequency ever recorded on an RTX 2080 Ti graphics card. If we compare it with Pascal, the GeForce GTX 1060 still holds the top frequency record with a mind-boggling 3 GHz record that was achieved at GALAX GOC event back in 2016.

American start-up company Fisker has released details of an electric SUV that's set to launch in the second half of 2021. The announcement comes just four days after the unveiling of the Tesla Model Y, a new seven-seat electric SUV with a range of up to 300 miles. Like the Model Y, the as-yet-unnamed Fisker will be priced from less than $40,000 (£30,200) in the US. It features what the firm calls “captivating design touches that have been traditionally reserved for supercars in the past”. Confirmed styling details include a front-mounted radar in place of a grille, a large front air intake, flared wheel arches and a futuristic headlight design. Performance details haven't been revealed, but an 80kWh lithium ion battery pack is claimed to provide of a range of nearly 300 miles. The car will be available in four-wheel-drive form with an electric motor mounted on each axle. Fisker hints at the presence of a targa-style removable roof section, stating that “with the touch of a button, an extended open-air atmosphere will be made possible without compromising the rugged and safe structural integrity of an SUV”. It also claims the interior will offer class-leading space and feature a large head-up display and an intelligent user interface. Henrik Fisker, company founder, said the new model will take the form of “a desirable, luxuriously rugged and green vehicle that’s accessible to people across the US and the world”. It's not yet confirmed where the new model will be produced, but Fisker said prototype testing will begin before the end of this year. Last year, Fisker unveiled its Emotion electric luxury saloon, claiming a top speed of 161mph, four-wheel drive and range of 400 miles, plus Level 4 autonomy. The company is also at work on developing solid-state battery technology, which it says would allow its vehicles to gain 500 miles worth of charge in as little as one minute. Fisker Inc. was formed in 2016, succeeding the bankrupted Fisker Automotive company that launched the Karma range-extender electric luxury saloon – now re-engineered and on sale as the Karma Revero – in 2011.l.

Veena Malik's time in Bollywood involved quite a few controversies. From her cover on an Indian lifestyle magazine to participating in show Bigg Boss, the celeb became the talk of town for all the wrong reasons. Fast forward eight years and Veena says that if she had the chance, she wouldn't work in India again. During a segment of Waseem Badami's ARY show Har Lamha Purjosh, the actor said that she would much rather focus her efforts in Pakistan than across the border. "The circumstances [back then] were such that I was destined to go to India for work. Maybe it's because whatever you do in life shape you and your future. If you ask me morally, I learned a lot working in India, and I've become mature [professionally] through those experiences," she said.Veena also threw shade at a few celebs who've worked in Bollywood recently by saying, "I left working in India, of my own accord. I never focused on the threats -- it's not like I came running back to Pakistan because of the threats, I chose to work there and I also chose to stop working there." "One of the biggest reasons I stopped working in India was that you can give your entire life to their entertainment industry but they will never recognise [the efforts of] a Pakistani artist in their history; for as long as I work in Pakistan, even after my death, I will be remembered." When asked whether she has any advice for our local celebs who wish to find work in India, she responds, "I'm not at a stage in life where I can advise others because I myself am evolving. However, I believe you should do whatever you want to do in life. If you have the option, you should go for it, you should learn from your own mistakes, as the person I am today is because of what I've learned through the choices I made in life." "If I were given the chance, I would never work in India again. When I was in India, I had many chances of working with Salman Khan, but in India I wanted to work as an artist through my efforts. I did female-centric films," she said. "But if given the same chance to work there again, I think I would much rather put in all that effort in my country. I would like to apply my efforts and potential in Pakistan."

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi arrived in Beijing on Monday to attend the first ever Pakistan-China Foreign Ministers’ Strategic Dialogue. He will be China from March 18 to March 20. During the three-day official visit, Qureshi will discuss bilateral relations with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The two sides will also exchange views on the regional situation and cooperation on multilateral forums. The foreign minister will also address the Political Parties Forum on CPEC and participate in the ruling party’s dialogue between the PTI and Communist Party of China during the visit. Related: Unfortunately, Islamophobia is spreading across Europe, says Shah Mehmood Qureshi “China is not only Pakistan’s good friend, but during every difficult situation China has stood by us,” Qureshi told the media before leaving for China. “China’s recent decision to support Pakistan amidst tensions between India and Pakistan is also proof of that friendship,” he said. The foreign minister and Wang Yi will also discuss the issue of peace and security in the region. “It was necessary that mutual consultation should be made for the future joint ventures,” he added. During his visit, he will also call on the Chinese leadership and will meet think tanks groups. He is also expected to address the media during the visit.

Microsoft used the Open Compute Project (OCP) Global Summit to announce the open-sourcing of the company's cloudy compression technology, Project Zipline. Disappointingly not a wire strung between data centres, along which techies can whizz with armfuls of USB sticks – an aerial Sneakernet if you will – Project Zipline is all about a compression algorithm, aimed at addressing the exponential growth of data created across the world. Those playing the Microsoft drinking game – namely taking a swig as soon as "Artificial Intelligence" is mentioned in the company's emissions – will be delighted to know that the company is waving the finger of blame at the technology as more and more datapoints are required to feed algorithms that drive everything from business processes through to taking a stab at predicting a meatbag's upcoming schedule. Pointing to IDC forecasts that over 22 ZB of storage capacity must ship across all media types from 2018 to 2025 to keep up with storage demand, Microsoft has been working on methods to prevent its Azure data centres bursting at their seams while data-intensive workloads continue to grow. Enter Project Zipline, a compression algorithm which, along with some optimised hardware, is geared up for the types of data Microsoft has spied in its cloud storage. We checked with Microsoft to find out if that included a look at customer bits and bytes, but have yet to receive a response. Naturally, the company reckons that it has "been able to simultaneously achieve higher compression ratios, higher throughput, and lower latency than the other algorithms that are currently available" before casting a little shade on the commonly used Zlib-L4 64KB model. Microsoft claims the Project Zipline tech can achieve up to 2X high compression ratios in comparison. Microsoft is open-sourcing the compression algorithms, hardware specs and Verilog code in the hope that the community and hardware vendors will pick it up and run with it. Contributions from the OCP ecosystem wouldn’t go amiss either – after all, everyone benefits, right? "Including Azure and our customers" according to the software giant. ®

It looks like Intel’s Comet Lake processors have been listed in the latest Linux support list which indicates that we might be looking at up to 10 cores with the upcoming lineup of processors. In regards to the process node, the Comet Lake family is likely to be built upon the 14nm process node but with a higher number of cores than what’s currently available on Intel’s mainstream S platform. Intel Comet Lake Processor Lineup To Feature Up To 10 Cores, Notebooks With Up To 8 Cores The Linux support list includes Comet Lake-S, Comet Lake-H, and Comet Lake-U families. Intel’s Comet Lake-S parts are aimed at the desktop platform and we can see two parts that have been listed, a 10+2 and an 8+2 SKU. The Comet Lake-S 10+2 SKU indicates that the chip would feature 10 cores and GT2 graphics. This is a higher core count than the Coffee Lake-S 8+2 part such as the Core i9-9900K. The other part is the Comet Lake-S 6+2 SKU which features 6 cores and the same GT2 graphics chip. This chip would be replacing the 6 core, Core i7-9700K. RELATED Intel May Face More 14nm CPU Shortages in Q2 2019, AMD Notebook Market Share To Increase Significantly With Ryzen Mobile From 10% in Q1 To More Than 18% in Q2 One thing to consider is that if the 10 core part does come at higher frequencies like the 8 Core Coffee Lake Core i9-9900K, then we might be looking at some extreme power consumption and temperature figures as the processor is still based on the 14nm node and we know how that performs with higher core count processors and frequencies that are around the 5 GHz mark. You’d definitely require some high-end liquid cooling setups to keep this beast cool and in terms of pricing, don’t expect this chip to cost below $550 US. Intel Comet Lake-S/H/U CPU Support Listings in Linux CoreBoot: The high-performance notebook family would be receiving two parts, the Comet Lake-H 8+2 with 8 cores and GT2 graphics and also the Comet Lake-H 6+2 with 6 cores and GT2 graphics. The high-end notebook parts would likely be launching soon with faster clocks. Some of the high-end notebook parts may already have started appearing on the internet. We know that Intel already has Coffee Lake H and HQ series 8th Generation parts out for high-end notebooks. Now considering that the Comet Lake family will essentially be a refresh of existing Coffee Lake parts, they might end up being branded as the 9th Generation parts too with Intel moving to a new naming scheme when 10nm finally hits retail. This theory also goes in line with the Frost Canyon NUC roadmap leak which we got last year.We already know several 9th Generation “H” series parts which were listed by Intel earlier and include the following: Intel Core i9-9980HK (8 Core/16 Thread/ Up To 5.0 GHz) Intel Core i9-9880H (8 Core/16 Thread/ Up To 4.8 GHz) Intel Core i7-9850H (8 Core/8 Thread/ Up To 4.6 GHz) Intel Core i7-9750H (8 Core/8 Thread/ Up To 4.5 GHz) Intel Core i5-9400H (4 Core/8 Thread/ Up To 4.3 GHz) Intel Core i5-9300H (4 Core/8 Thread/Up To 4.1 GHz) The remaining Comet Lake entries are the Comet Lake-U parts which are designed for ultra-low power platforms. The Comet Lake-U series includes 6 core, 4 core, and 2 core parts, all of which feature GT2 graphics. There’s also a single Comet Lake-ULX part with a quad core and GT2 chip design. This would be aimed at the more exclusive Core M devices but we cannot confirm this at the moment. Now one thing is for sure, don’t expect any major core enhancements aside from the core count jump and increased clocks. The Comet Lake lineup is essentially going to be one of the last CPU refreshes for the 14nm node before Intel finally shifts their lineup to 10nm. It’s easy to say that the desktop and high-end notebook parts would stick to 14nm this year with 10nm arriving next year. The 10nm Ice Lake CPUs will arrive this year but only around during the end of the year holiday season and in low power notebook platforms. It will be interesting to see how the 10 core parts on the LGA 1151 platform compare against the Ryzen 3000 series parts that are rumored to feature up to 16-12 cores

Pakistan’s flag will fly at half mast in solidarity with the people who lost loved ones in two mosque attacks in New Zealand. Over 50 people, including nine Pakistanis, were killed after a shooter opened fire at them in two mosques in Christchurch on Friday. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that Pakistan will give national award to its “brave son” Naeem Rashid for trying to stop the shooter. Prime Minister Imran Khan made the announcement in a tweet earlier in the day. Related: Death toll of Pakistanis in Christchurch attacks rises to 9 A Pakistani man has been injured in the attacks. “He is currently in a critical condition. He is being treated but his condition is not out of danger,” said the foreign minister in a press conference on Sunday. We said that Pakistani ambassador and deputy high commissioner in New Zealand have met the families of the deceased. “We have established contact with the 10 families and are constantly in touch with them,” he said. Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that he has spoken to his counterpart in New Zealand. “The foreign minister said that New Zealand is a peace loving nation.” He has expressed concern and said that the shooter was an Australian, Mr Qureshi said. Related: PM Imran Khan announces national award for the Pakistani man who tried to tackle the Christchurch shooter The federal minister said that bodies will be sent to the families on Monday. We asked the families about the burial and six of the families want their loved ones to be buried in Christchurch, while three bodies will be sent to Pakistan, he added. He shared that he has spoken to Turkish foreign minister. “We agreed to hold an urgent meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OIC,” he said. The meeting will be held in Istanbul on March 22.

The team at Whitewater Foundry have waved the rebranding wand at WLinux. Behold – Pengwin. With Microsoft's ongoing embracing of all things Linux and open source, it's a little surprising that the moniker hadn't already been adopted as a codename for an upcoming version of Windows. After all, with Lean, Lite and Core all doing the rounds, why not Pengwin too?Pengwin is the new name for WLinux, the Debian-based distro downloadable from the Microsoft Store and optimised for life within the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL.) Hayden Barnes, of Whitewater Foundry, told El Reg that WLinux was only ever supposed to be a codename, and the new name "reflects our distribution's connection to both Linux and Windows". He added "it is close to the Japanese pronunciation and transliteration of penguin, which is pengin." Japan remains the company's top market. Open source veteran Dennis D Bednarz also had a hand in the update, and Barnes noted that "It is also a small call-out to Cygwin, which is in many ways the spiritual ancestor to our project." We took a look at WLinux back in September and came away impressed with the seamless running of graphical Linux apps within the Windows 10 environment, if a little less so by the stream of alerts in the WSL console. The gang later emitted an Enterprise version and a remix of upstream Fedora, optimised for WSL (but lacking some of the more exciting WLinux features). Last month, the team trumpeted the ability to run Oracle Linux on WLinux Enterprise. The tagline goes "Putting the win in Windows", something even the crack team of Reg headline writers might baulk at. Better than "Shoving the ow into Windows", which could easily have been the slogan for the last couple of Windows 10 updates. The rebrand comes on the eve of the next release of WLinux, with 1.2 due in the next couple of weeks according to the company's Twitter orifice. The new version will be considerably more modular, something the team expects will make the thing more maintainable and lower the barrier for users wanting to submit features. It will also include an update to wslutilities. The release, described by Barnes as "our biggest, most important release to date" also adds OpenStack, delivery of Pengwin optimisations via apt and CLI tools for AWS and Azure. ® Bootnote Brit Doctor Strange actor Benedict Cumberbatch was the voice of a BBC/discovery channel documentary that showed just how many different ways there are to pronounce the word - he famously used about three different ones in his narration. Anglophones who pronounce it "ping-win" should note that etymologists believe the name of the aquatic flightless bird derives from the Welsh "pen gwyn" - meaning the Japanese transliteration is probably closest to the original.

Crytek has showcased a new real-time raytracing demo which is said to run on most mainstream, contemporary GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD. The minds behind one of the most visually impressive FPS franchise, Crysis, have their new “Noir” demo out which was run on an AMD Radeon RX Vega graphics card which shows that raytracing is possible even without an NVIDIA RTX graphics card. Crytek Shows Off Noir, A Real-Time Raytracing Demonstration Based on CRYENGINE That Runs on Most AMD and NVIDIA GPUs (No RTX Required) The Noir demo has various scenes crafted within CRYENGINE and rendered in real-time on an AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 graphics card. This particular demo makes use of the experimental raytracing features which will be implemented in CRYENGINE 5. While Raytracing has been used to enhance reflections and shadow quality, this particular demo focuses on real-time raytraced reflections and looks stunning.Crytek states that the experimental ray tracing feature based on CRYENGINE’s Total Illumination used to create the demo is both API and hardware agnostic, enabling ray tracing to run on most mainstream, contemporary AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. However, the future integration of this new CRYENGINE technology will be optimized to benefit from performance enhancements delivered by the latest generation of graphics cards and supported APIs like Vulkan and DX12. Crytek has released a new video demonstrating the results of a CRYENGINE research and development project. Neon Noir shows how real-time mesh ray-traced reflections and refractions can deliver highly realistic visuals for games. The Neon Noir demo was created with the new advanced version of CRYENGINE’s Total Illumination showcasing real time ray tracing. This feature will be added to CRYENGINE release roadmap in 2019, enabling developers around the world to build more immersive scenes, more easily, with a production-ready version of the feature. Ray tracing is a rendering technique that simulates complex lighting behaviors. Realism is achieved by simulating the propagation of discreet fractions of energy and their interaction with surfaces. With contemporary GPUs, ray tracing has become more widely adopted by real-time applications like video games, in combination with traditionally less resource hungry rendering techniques like cube maps; utilized where applicable.Now we have seen some implementations of real-time raytracing in AAA titles already. Both Metro Exodus and Battlefield V are the flagship carriers of real-time raytracing but these intense graphics features can only be enabled on NVIDIA’s RTX graphics cards. Considering that Crytek managed to get their demo run on a Radeon RX Vega 56 graphics card is very impressive indeed but it would be interesting to see if the extra raytracing performance on NVIDIA RTX graphics card can deliver even better performance than equally performing non-RTX parts (e.g. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080).

The reason Porsche no longer offers diesel engines in any of its cars is that it was never a core power source for the brand, and now diesel is in decline it makes sense to focus on the petrol, hybrid and electric powertrains that are its future. At least that’s the official version. And I’m sure Porsche’s desire to distance itself from the Volkswagen Group’s latterly besmirched reputation for producing good, honest diesels had absolutely nothing to do with it. Whatever the truth, Porsche’s decision to turn its back on diesel is an enormous gamble, at least in Europe. Certainly key to Porsche’s thought process is that diesel makes no impact at all on its biggest markets outside the continent – such as the US, China and Japan. But now that Porsche is predominately an SUV manufacturer (between them, the Macan and Cayenne accounted for more than 60% of Porsche sales last year), and SUV sales in Europe are still predominately diesel, you can see that cutting yourself off from such customers would be tough, even for Porsche.But will it? What Porsche would like its diesel customers to do is simply accept their preferred fuel has had its day and, such are the advances in petrol technology, there is little to lose and much to gain by replacing, say, their old Macan Diesel S with a new 2.0-litre petrol Macan. Like this one. We felt a need to put this theory to the test, hence the presence here of another new SUV, but one powered by the black pump. I’d say a diesel-powered SUV is no more true to Alfa Romeo heritage than it is to Porsche’s, but Alfa is sticking by diesel, for now at least. On paper, the diesel Stelvio and petrol Macan make an interesting pairing. Similar in price, performance and engine size, the diesel Alfa leads as expected with a healthy chunk of additional torque, the Macan with a commensurate power advantage. But before we put theory into practice, a thought or two about what’s actually being fought over here. The first thing to say is that were it not for the fallout from Dieselgate, I have no doubt at all Porsche would still be selling not only diesel Macans, but Cayennes and Panameras too. Of course they would: if your car is large and heavy, diesel offers a suite of advantages over petrol many would regard as insuperable. Most obviously they are more efficient, meaning they use less fuel – approximately 20% less or so, it is said, but my experience of big diesel burners is that their advantage over equivalent petrol cars can be greater still. In the case of these two and according to the latest WLTP measurements, the Alfa will return more than 40mpg, the Porsche less than 30mpg. And whatever you save in fuel, you also save in CO2. If you look at tailpipe CO2 emissions, you can see that they fall year after year until the moment people got spooked by Dieselgate. And they’ve been rising ever since. Coincidence? I think not. But there’s far more to it than that: I’d have the diesel Stelvio’s torque over the petrol Macan’s power because with heavy cars – and the Macan is properly heavy – torque is more useful. Peak power can only be developed once in the entire rev range, peak torque can be maintained from little more than idle to little less than peak power. And as it is torque that you feel when you accelerate, it would be hard to overstate its importance. Now consider that not only is the Stelvio more torquey than the Macan, it’s more than 200kg lighter too, so its crucial torque-to-weight ratio (probably the most important real-world determinant of performance potential despite the fact that hardly anyone uses it) is 209lb ft per tonne. The Macan? Just 146lb ft per tonne, a difference of more than 30%. And finally there’s range: the Stelvio has the potential to do more than 470 miles between fills even with its frankly pathetic 52-litre fuel tank. The Macan will take on board 65 litres of unleaded, but it will be a brave person who tries to stretch even that much fuel over 400 miles. Had the Stelvio the same-sized tank, it would get close to 600 miles. So it’s clear then? Porsche’s decision to bin diesel is akin to it taking a 12-bore shotgun and discharging both barrels into its feet. Or is there perhaps more going on here? Point one is that regardless of its considerable theoretical advantage, the Stelvio holds nothing like the additional performance over the Porsche you might think. The quoted acceleration figures suggest there’s little to choose between them and that’s the way it appears on the road too. So what’s going on? Two things in my view: first, I suspect far less of the Porsche’s power is getting lost in translation between flywheel and Tarmac. One eye-opening decision Porsche made when turning a previous-generation Audi Q5 into the Macan was to ditch its inexpensive, off-the-peg torque converter automatic gearbox for its own seven-speed DSG transmission. But here you can see why. Second, despite having one less ratio, the Porsche gearbox is snappier than the Alfa’s and good at keeping the Macan’s motor percolating at the energetic speeds it needs to do its best work. But is it desirable for a heavy SUV to require judicious use of the right foot to deliver its performance? The answer is an emphatic ‘no’. These are not supercars, they are large, family cars that should be effortless to drive and there’s no question the Alfa not only provides stronger low- and mid-range shove but requires less effort to do so. If it could do it without the accompanying diesel clatter, it could close its case with confidence. In the event, however, the engine’s coarseness perpetuates a narrative that says the Stelvio is just not sophisticated enough in execution to cut it alongside the long-time best car in its class. I’m not going to stray too far from the petrol/diesel debate that lies at the core of this story, but that rattle from under the bonnet sits alongside the rubbish materials in the cabin, the clunky navigation and at times irritating ergonomics as different colours in the same picture. It is as well for Alfa that the Stelvio looks so good and handles so well, for as a result it remains a car with genuine appeal for those happy to overlook such shortcomings. What we’re actually seeing here is the Macan beating the Stelvio despite and not because it is powered by petrol. The key difference between them is that the Porsche makes the most of petrol’s strength by having such a smooth engine and so responsive a gearbox, while the Alfa does not do enough to mitigate the drawbacks of diesel, principally its noise and harshness.Which rather begs another question: were the old Macan Diesel S still on sale, how would it fare against this petrol version? Well, it would cost more but, in my opinion, it would be worth it. It would be quicker, more responsive, still use less fuel, go further on a tank and, because it had six rather than four cylinders, would suffer few if any of the refinement issues that dog the Stelvio. There are wider inferences to draw here: although not everyone’s four-cylinder petrol engine is as smooth as the Macan’s, nor everyone’s four-cylinder diesel as challenging as the Stelvio’s, the truth is that diesel is inherently better suited to multi-cylinder applications. The smaller, lighter and cheaper a car is, the harder it is to make a case for diesel. At the other end of the spectrum, the V8 diesel is one of my favourite engine configurations, never bettered than when under the bonnet of the second-generation Porsche Panamera. What a shame it has been deleted, for it makes the V8 diesel also one of the most endangered configurations. In conclusion, I should point out that while the Macan would win this test if it were a straightforward comparison, I would maintain that the right diesel engine is inherently better suited to such a car than even the most fluently engineered petrol-powered equivalent. It is only because it does so well with such limited resources that the Porsche is able to overwhelm the Alfa here. That said, if running costs, range and low-down throttle response matter more than refinement, there is still a case for the Stelvio.

Like the Avengers when Thanos collected all of the Infinity Stones in last year's Infinity War, fans were not prepared for the release of the second trailer for Avengers: Endgame. With no advance warning, Marvel debuted another full-length trailer early on March 14. Just as you'd hope from a new look at what's likely to be the year's biggest movie, there are new scraps information to glean from this fresh footage, so a breakdown is in order. This trailer gives us a slightly better understanding of what the heck is going on in Endgame, aside from the fact everyone has multiple hair styles. Are they all Skrulls or fashion forward? That's the real question. Following the post-credits sequence in Captain Marvel, this new trailer brought us a bit of the first interaction between Carol Danvers and one of the Avengers. Just as you'd hope, it was a pretty fantastic moment as she meets Thor. The new trailer also provides some unique superhero team-ups, new outfits--which fans have speculated are tied to the Quantum Realm--and a heavy reliance on flashback sequences, as we see parts of Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America: Civil War. The new trailer was also accompanied by the release of a new poster, which has been updated since it was first shared to add actress Danai Gurira's name to the top. Below, we're taking a closer look at the latest trailer and breaking down what we think is going to happen in Endgame. Who will live? Who will die? Who will keep their same hair style into Marvel's Phase 4? Bear in mind, there's also the very legitimate question of whether anything in this trailer is meant to mislead audiences. Marvel knows we're going to examine each shot with a fine-toothed comb and could be effectively lying to us to throw us off. We saw just that with Infinity War, which for instance featured a shot of the Hulk running around Wakanda (when in fact Bruce Banner was piloting the Hulkbuster at that point in the movie). As such, we have plenty of Endgame theories about what to make of the new information. If you're looking for more on Endgame, check out the first trailer for the film, our theories about the story based on the first trailer, and new thoughts about Infinity War after a recent rewatch. Avengers: Endgame releases in theaters on April 26. If you've already seen Captain Marvel, we also have some thoughts on what we can take away from that movie and what it tells us about the final confrontation with Thanos that's surely coming in Endgame

Rashid, who was injured in his bid to overpower the attacker, breathed his last late Friday night. He hailed from Abbottabad. Rashid's son, Talha Naeem, was among those who were murdered in the Al Noor Mosque mass shooting. The foreign office, earlier on Friday, said that four Pakistani nationals had been injured in the terrorist attack on two Mosques in New Zealand, adding that five other Pakistani nationals were missing following the shootings. The brutal attacks on two Christchurch mosques left at least 49 Muslim worshippers dead Friday. A right-wing extremist who filmed himself rampaging through two mosques in the quiet New Zealand city of Christchurch killing 49 worshippers appeared in court on a murder charge Saturday. Dozens of people are still being treated in hospital for injuries, including a four year old child, after an attack thought to be the deadliest directed against Muslims in the West in modern times. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Saturday the victims were from across the Muslim world, with Turkey, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia among the countries rendering consular assistance. One Saudi citizen was killed and another wounded, according to Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television news channel. At least two Jordanians were among the dead, according to that country´s foreign minister. Ardern described the spree killing as a terrorist attack and said the shooter -- who was not on any watchlist and did not have a criminal record -- had legally purchased the two semi-automatic weapons, two shotguns and lever-action gun he used. "The offender was in possession of a gun licence" obtained in November 2017, and he started purchasing the weapons the following month, she said.

Huawei is building its own proprietary operating system platform in case the United States tries to isolate the manufacturer by cutting off access to Windows, Android, and other American-built software ecosystems. The admission came in an interview with Huawei’s mobile chief Richard Yu with German newspaper Die Welt. Yu said that the equipment maker would only fall back on its OS as a Plan B if it is prevented from using operating system platforms overseen by US organizations. It's not clear how far Huawei has progressed with its fall-back operating system, however, Yu implied it already has a first version ready. He was asked: "Are you thinking about building your own operating system so that your smartphones are not Google-based and computers are not Microsoft-dependent?" And he responded: "We have prepared our own operating system. Should it ever happen that we can no longer use these systems, we would be prepared. That's our plan B. But of course we prefer to work with the ecosystems of Google and Microsoft." The news is a sign that Huawei expects the United States to keep escalating its efforts to remove Huawei's equipment from mobile networks both in the US and in Europe. Earlier this month, Huawei sued the US government to overturn a ban on its equipment in federal agency networks. American officials have repeatedly claimed that Huawei represents a national security risk, and that its gear could provide Chinese spies secret backdoors into the world's next-generation communications networks. But in-depth reviews by the Germans rejected that argument. Economic interests What is more likely is that the US is trying to protect its economic interests: Huawei's equipment is 20 per cent cheaper that American equivalents, according to our industry sources, and is claimed be more technologically advanced. What really worries the US government and telecoms operators is that China will do exactly what Huawei is currently worried the US will do, and cut off American companies from underlying technology. If Huawei ends up underneath most 5G networks, to some extent it gets to dictate how those networks are built and evolve in future and that could, theoretically, lead to US companies being blocked, or at least handicapped. "We can not sell our smartphones in the US," Yu noted, before adding that the ban hasn't had much impact on its business or market share because the US represents only one part of the global market. That could be, conversely, why the US is going to such lengths to stop Europe from adopting Huawei, including explicit threats to cut countries off from US intelligence gathering on the pretext that such intelligence could be compromised by insecure networks running on Huawei equipment. Buy American, or else. This week German chancellor Angela Merkel pointedly noted at a press conference in Berlin that Germany decides its own standards, thank you very much. The UK government has, for now, banned Huawei kit from its core networks, though it is working with the Chinese goliath to iron out security weaknesses found during audits of its products source code and blueprints. Huawei meanwhile is going out of its way to appear reasonable and push for cooperation. "The US economy benefits from us. Nobody can do it all alone in this industry. Everyone has to work with other companies," Yu argued. Progress? It's also clear that Yu was not speaking off the cuff but was authorized to reveal Huawei has an operating system ready to go. Asked about his comments, the company admitted that it had started building its own operating system in 2012 when the US first opened an investigation into Huawei and fellow Chinese manufacturer ZTE.And a spokesperson noted: "Huawei does have backup systems but only for use in extenuating circumstances. We don't expect to use them, and to be honest, we don't want to use them. We fully support our partners' operating systems… Android and Windows will always remain our first choices." It may seem unlikely that Huawei has developed an operating system platform as advanced as Android or Windows in just five years from scratch. However, a modern OS is a well-understood problem that computer and software engineers know how to solve, plus Huawei has a huge skilled workforce, and there is no doubt the company has the necessary coding expertise to produce one. For one thing, it built a lightweight Internet-of-Things OS called LiteOS out of nowhere, so it's no stranger to operating system development. It could, of course, use Linux or the Linux-based Android open-source project or one of the BSDs or other open-source kernels, and build up from there, to create its new operating system. To use a mountain climbing analogy, though, writing or choosing a kernel is like reaching base camp: next comes the long slog to the summit, developing all the apps on top and fostering an ecosystem of third-party software as you ascend. Hence why Yu says he'd "prefer to work with the ecosystems of Google and Microsoft" – crafting a base OS is one thing, creating a viable platform is orders of magnitude more difficult. Theoretically, Huawei could create a better, tighter operating system platform since it would not be encumbered by generations of previous code, and could support just its own hardware, like Apple's iOS just runs on Cupertino's gear, reducing the amount of driver code needed and easing support desk burdens. But then it's just as likely that it has effectively copied the approach taken by Android and/or Windows because it's what users expect. It's impossible to know. But it does demonstrate that Huawei is not going to lie down and roll over – and it opens up the possibility that Chinese companies could do more that just dominate 5G networks; they could, if pushed, cut into the near complete dominance of American operating systems. ®

NVIDIA introduced their Turing GPU architecture last year, making a complete departure from traditional GPU designs and creating a hybrid architecture that would include a range of new technologies to power the next-generation immersive gaming experiences. While initially announced with Quadro lineup under the new Quadro RTX brand, we all knew that the Turing architecture was coming to the GeForce lineup. It arrived in the GeForce lineup a few months later under the new GeForce RTX branding. NVIDIA’s first big naming departure for two decades of GeForce GTX.The GeForce RTX 20 series was the enablement of real-time raytracing which is the holy grail of graphics and something NVIDIA spent 10 years to perfect. In addition to raytracing, NVIDIA also aims to place bets on AI which will play a key role in powering features such as DLSS or Deep Learning Super Sampling, a unique way of offering the same quality as the more taxing MSAA AA techniques at twice the performance. NVIDIA has announced for cards under the GeForce RTX 20 series family, the flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, the Enthusiast GeForce RTX 2080, the high-performance GeForce RTX 2070 and the main-stream GeForce RTX 2060. Now, NVIDIA is looking to offer Turing for more reasonable prices, so is also going back to the good old GeForce GTX branding and for good reasons. While GeForce RTX and GeForce GTX will exist alongside each other in this generation, the GeForce GTX lineup as the name suggests would be aiming for raw performance over the graphics intensive RTX features which only the RTX cards support.Last month, I tested the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, the first of the GeForce 16 series and Turing GTX lineup. The card hit an MSRP of $279 US which essentially meant that it replaced the GTX 1060 6 GB models. Today, I will be taking a look at the GeForce GTX 1660. The latest NVIDIA entrant with Turing GPU at a reference MSRP of $219 US which just about matches the GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB price point from two years ago and promises to deliver better performance at 1080p resolution at higher power efficiency than before. When it comes to pricing, the GeForce RTX 20 series are some of the most costly cards NVIDIA has offered to consumers. The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and GeForce GTX 1660, on the other hand, try to keep budget and more mainstream audiences in mind by offering a price closer to the GeForce GTX 1060 which became a po[CENSORED]r gaming card on Steam due to its $249 price point. Following is the current per segment price structure of the entire NVIDIA Turing lineup compared to its predecessors.For this review, I will be taking a look at two custom models from MSI, the GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X and the GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS. Both cards are based on a complete custom design and feature high-end cooling system to keep the GPU running cool. In terms of the price model, the GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X has a price of $249 US ($30 over reference) while the Ventus XS OC matches the $219 US price point.With just a few bucks of asking price over the reference models, the custom variants offer a range of features such as triple fan coolers, bulky heatsinks, and custom PCBs allowing for better heat dissipation, higher air flow and more overclocking performance and clock stability at their respective boost clocks which will be higher compared to the reference variants. The main barrier with overclocking on Turing GPUs is by far the power limit and those that offer the highest power limits out of the box are generally the ones with the best overclocking potential and performance output.

The Range Rover is in the running to be this year’s Autocar Awards Readers’ Champion. Each day a different member of the Autocar team will champion one of the 17 cars, but only one can be the Icon of Icons and it’s up to you to decide - vote here. It’s a good exercise, this. We should probably make it part of the interview test for a job at Autocar. Any motoring journo with a pulse could come up with an argument for the iconic status of any one of these cars with at least one compelling reason in it. Where the Range Rover is concerned, there are at least six by my count. The influence of the modern Range Rover seems like the right place to start. How vastly different would the SUV-obsessed car market look today, after all, if Spen King and Gordon Bashford hadn’t decided that the time was right, in the late 1960s, for a well-mannered, easy-going, both on-road-and-off-road-intended Land Rover? If those early Range Rovers hadn’t shown the untapped potential of the emergent SUV as a luxury car and object of desire, would we now have a Seat Ateca, a Honda CR-V or a Rolls-Royce Cullinan? Would the showroom model ranges of the likes of BMW, Audi, Mercedes and Porsche look remotely like they do? Not a chance. There are other cars in this exercise with a similar level of influence as the Range Rover, of course, but how many are as vitally important to the companies that make them? Mazda would survive just fine without the MX-5 these days; Fiat Chrysler Automobiles likewise without the Jeep Wrangler or the Fiat 500. For a company the size of BMW, no single model is too big to fail – Mini and 3 Series included. But more than half of Land Rover’s model range is now made up of ‘Range Rovers’ – and between the latest Range Rover itself and its various subordinate descendants, the Range Rover brand now accounts for more than two-thirds of Land Rover’s European sales volume. The Range Rover brand has become absolutely vital for both Jaguar Land Rover and the British car industry – and there’s no brand without the big guy. Which brings us neatly onto reasons number three and four: this car’s brilliance as a product, and its untouchable uniqueness in the market. The Range Rover might be UK manufacturing’s only world-class car – by which I mean undisputed king of its niche. Before the likes of Bentley and Rolls-Royce moved in to steal the Rangie’s lunch, it was probably the only SUV you would unflinchingly recognise as a true luxury car. That was the difference the third-generation L322 version made, and it remains BMW’s enduring gift to the Range Rover legend. Authenticity is reason number five: because, despite the incredible richness and luxury that the Range Rover has taken on, it remains a true Land Rover on capability – and, for strategic reasons, so it must. It can wade in almost a metre of water, has up to 275mm of ground clearance, can tow up to three and a half tonnes, and none of its off-road clearance angles is below 27deg when it’s jacked up on its air springs. All of that, remember – plus S-Class-level good manners. Staggering stuff. And finally – how many cars of this size and price, with this much ground to cover on sheer fitness for intended purpose, are also so decidedly likeable? You can start out as anti-SUV as you like, but a ride in a Range Rover will win you over. This car has, and does, everything you could possibly want from it – but it also has charm to spare. The Range Rover is an absolutely remarkable car, by any measure you care to judge it by; and a Range Rover was also the first car I ever drove. I just love ’em. For me, at least, we could call ‘blind prejudice’ reason number seven.

The Kree have the Supreme Intelligence and The Walt Disney Company has Bob Iger. He is the CEO and Chairman of the Mouse House’s constantly expanding entertainment empire. His approval means a lot, and just like the Supreme Intelligence, you don’t want to let him down. Fortunately, Carol Danvers did not disappoint and Bob Iger took to social media to say how proud he and Disney are of Captain Marvel. Take a look: Robert Iger ✔ @RobertIger The audience speaks! @captainmarvel is a film we are very proud of. Congratulations #BrieLarson, #SamuelLJackson, and the @MarvelStudios team! Now it’s on to @Avengers! CinemaScore @CinemaScore Congrats to @captainmarvel on your A #CinemaScore grade! Audiences loved it ? @brielarson @SamuelLJackson As savvy as they come, Bob Iger, who is held accountable by shareholders for Disney’s financial success, congratulated Captain Marvel not on its box office performance, but on how it was received by audiences. In his tweet, he said how proud he and the other Disney bigwigs are of the film while citing Captain Marvel’s “A” CinemaScore, which indicates that opening night audiences really liked the latest Marvel film and the newest superhero in the MCU. While the film business is just that, a business, and financial matters will always take precedence, Bob Iger obviously still prefers audiences to enjoy Disney’s films and it is gratifying when a film that you believe in is so well received by general audiences. Not everyone loves the film and some actively want it to fail, but that has done nothing to diminish its success. Of course, the audience spoke with more than their answers to CinemaScore ballots, they also spoke with their wallets, justifying Disney’s pride in the film with dollars and cents. Captain Marvel broke records in its opening weekend and has already cleared $500 million worldwide at the box office in less than a week in release. So critically, commercially and in terms of audience reception, there is a lot for Disney to be proud of with Captain Marvel. Disney is not one to rest on its laurels though, and as Bob Iger says, now it’s on to Avengers. That constantly moving forward mentality bore out this morning when the third trailer for Avengers: Endgame was released and wouldn’t you know it, with the assumption that many people have already seen Captain Marvel, this trailer had the character appear at the end and share a cute moment with probably the only other Avenger who is on her level power-wise: Thor. Something tells me Disney will have plenty to be proud of with that film as well, and really 2019 as a whole. This is a huge year for the company and it is having a huge month of March. On top of Captain Marvel being a hit with audiences and adding a hefty and growing sum to the company’s coffers, on March 20 Disney will complete its purchase of 21st Century Fox. Captain Marvel is now playing. Check out what we thought of the movie and see where we rank it in the MCU canon of films and take a look at our 2019 release schedule to keep track of all the big movies still to come this year.

WASHINGTON: China was the only member of the UN Security Council’s sanctions committee that objected to the proposal to declare Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief a UN-designated global terrorist on Wednesday. Three of the five permanent UNSC members — the United States, Britain and France — and a non-permanent member, Belgium, had jointly co-sponsored the proposal. They made the move on Feb 27, days after a JeM-claimed suicide bombing in India-held Kashmir killed 40 Indian troops. The committee had 10 working days to raise any objections to the proposal. Just before the deadline, China put a “technical hold” on the proposal seeking “more time to examine” it. This was China’s fourth ‘technical hold’ in a row. The committee included two other permanent members of the UNSC, China and Russia, and 10 non-permanent members — Belgium, Ivory Coast, Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Germany, Indonesia, Kuwait, Peru, Poland and South Africa. France, a co-sponsor of the proposal, is the president of the current session. The committee is also known as the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee after an Oct 15, 1999, resolution that established the body to monitor terrorist activities and sanction those responsible for committing these acts. There is no formal voting on a proposal. Members can either endorse or reject it by emails too. If a member chooses not to oppose a proposal, after it is formally circulated, it is seen as endorsement. So, among the 15 members, only China raised an objection by putting a “technical hold” on the suggested move to declare Masood Azhar a UN-designated global terrorist. Others are considered to have endorsed the proposal because they did not oppose it. Usually, when any of the five permanent members blocks a move, other members do not express their opinion as a “no” by a permanent member kills the proposal. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a news briefing in Beijing that China had blocked the proposal because it believed “only a solution that is acceptable to all sides could fundamentally provide a chance for a lasting solution to the issue”.

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