Mark-x

Technology is shaking up the American workplace. Amazon employs more than 100,000 robots in its US warehouses, alongside more than 125,000 human workers. Sears and Brookstone, icons of brick and mortar retailing, are both bankrupt. But as machines and software get ever smarter, how many more workers will they displace, and which ones? Economists who study employment have pushed back against recent predictions by Silicon Valley soothsayers like Elon Musk of an imminent tidal wave of algorithmic unemployment. The evidence indicates US workers will instead be lapped by the gentler swells of a gradual revolution, in which jobs are transformed piecemeal as machines grow more capable. Now a new study predicts that young, Hispanic, and black workers will be most affected by that creeping disruption. Men will suffer more changes to their work than women. The analysis, from the Brookings Institution, suggests that just as the dividends of recent economic growth have been distributed unevenly, so too will the disruptive effects of automation. In both cases, nonwhite, less economically secure workers lose out. “In general we see a rather manageable transition [for most workers], especially those who have a bachelor's degree,” says Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings. The study estimates only one in four jobs is likely to be greatly changed by automation over the next two decades, and history suggests that new technology will also create new jobs. “What is less reassuring is that beneath that broader arc, there is significant variation across geography and demographics.” THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION The Brookings study drew its data from the research arm of consultancy McKinsey, which estimated the share of tasks for different occupations that could be automated by 2040. Food preparation scores as 91 percent automatable, compared with software development at 8 percent. Combining those ratings with government data on the US workforce revealed who might find algorithms assuming their work tasks first. Brookings created a kind of weather map that shows the Rust Belt city of Toledo, Ohio, as the metro area most exposed to the power of machines that can take over workers’ tasks. Washington, DC is the least exposed. That fits with how recent AI advances have made computers good at simple and repetitive tasks, but not the kind of reasoning and persuasion characteristic of high-level bureaucracy, lobbying, or lawyering. THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION Drilling into demographics on the US workforce revealed who is most likely to be challenged by automation. On average, half of the tasks performed by workers aged 16 to 24 can be automated over the next couple of decades, the report says, compared with just 40 percent of the tasks of older workers. Hispanic workers are in jobs that are already 47 percent automatable; for Native American and black workers, those shares are 45 and 44 percent, respectively. For the average white worker, according to the study, only 40 percent of their job is within reach of machines in the next two decades. Men are more exposed to changes wrought by automation than women, the study says. Brookings estimates that 43 percent of an average male worker’s job could be automated by 2040, compared with just 40 percent for the average woman’s job. Those patterns aren’t exactly surprising. They are the natural consequence of trends in US employment, where ethnic minorities are more often found in lower-skilled jobs, and men are over-represented in manufacturing and construction jobs. Many young workers enter the workforce in routine jobs such as food service, which are being roiled by innovations in robotic food processing and app or kiosk-style ordering like that embraced by McDonald's. LEARN MORE THE WIRED GUIDE TO ROBOTS Still, mapping the likely inequalities of automation is useful to anticipate wider effects on society and minimize negative effects. “To make better policy you want to know the detailed numbers to know where to focus investment in things like reskilling workers,” says Hyejin Youn, an assistant professor at Northwestern University. Youn and researchers at MIT did their own study last year on how the burdens of automation will fall unevenly on different US cities. It used some different data, but noted similar geographic patterns to the Brookings study. Youn says the analysis also suggested that the uneven progress of automation may accelerate urbanization. Smaller cities tend to have more people in highly automatable jobs; larger cities have more of the high-value and service jobs that are expected to be slower to automate, and to grow in number. Muro hopes that the projected impacts of automation inspire federal, state, and local policymakers create programs to help workers adjust. He highlights the income support offered to people seeking work or training in Denmark, where working-age employment is higher than in the US, and worker productivity is on par with that of Americans. Recent concerns about the risk of slumping economic growth in the US and elsewhere make that more urgent, according to Muro. Evidence from the 2008 recession shows that companies accelerate deployment of new technology during tough economic times

Back in May of 2018, Micron introduced Quad-Level (QLC) NAND tech and, surprisingly, saw their stock tumble to pricing levels of ~$30 down from ~$60. This was the result of complex NAND pricing and supply/demand factors, not just the introduction of QLC, to be clear. I have just confirmed from multiple sources and stakeholders that Micron is intending to introduce their Octa-Level (OLC) NAND either in Q1 or latest by Q2 2019. I don’t generally cover memory pieces but this appears to be of significant public interest; enough to warrant a story. Micron’s Octa-Level OLC NAND Flash Memory Out Soon, Will Exceed Pace of Moore’s Law Here’s the interesting thing though: OLC NAND hasn’t even been publicly named yet. In fact, if you did a Google search for Octa-Level NAND / OLC before this article was published, you would not have found any results for it. This means that this article reveals not only the timeline of release for OLC NAND (1H 2019), but its very existence as well.The first form of NAND was SLC (Single-Level Cell), followed by MLC (Multi-Level Cell), then by TLC (Tri-Level Cell), and finally QLC (Quad-Level Cell). SLC consisted of a single cell layer and featured 1 bit per cell, while MLC consisted of two cell layers and consisted of 2 bits per cell (a 100% increase in density per NAND cell). Similarly, TLC consists of 3 layers per cell and denotes a 50% increase in density while finally, QLC with 4 layers per cell marked a 33% increase in density. Octa-Level Cell (OLC) NAND tech from Micron will feature 8 bits per cell for a 100% density increase over QLC and will be the first tech to essentially feature 1 byte per cell. This jump in density is something that will well exceed Moore’s Law and be a push for the industry and force the competition to play catch-up as well. SSD pricing for consumers will also almost certainly improve over the long term.Considering the events that happened last time with the introduction of QLC, it is clear that this technology swap will be met with price movements in Micron’s stock and I took the opportunity to get an idea of what multiple stakeholders think about the upcoming OLC NAND flash memory from Micron.The general consensus seems to be as follows: there will be a NAND shortage once OLC is introduced, leading to higher prices which will eventually normalize into pricing that is lower than the level it started from. To understand how the markets will respond to OLC, we need to look at the major factors that were involved with the QLC crash: namely, the flash and dram pricing oversupply, Micron’s buyback of 5 billion of their stock and the introduction of QLC. Keeping this in mind, when the technology swap occurs, there will be a quarter two where the tech is short supplied, this will be followed by normalization and their profits going up, followed by the price of the stock gaining significant upwards pressure (ceteris paribus!). After Micron rolls out its Octa-Level Cell NAND, there *will* be a gap where the supply isn’t enough to meet demand, there usually always is, but then as the manufacturer eventually transitions its lines to the new tech, the situation improves dramatically. The pricing of Micron is intrinsically linked to the pricing of flash and DRAM as well as the general supply/demand factors, and after OLC is introduced, you are looking at a significant improvement in the economics at play here over the course of 6-9 months to the point where the old high of $60 is definately not out of the question.

WASHINGTON -- Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said Thursday it paid $77 million in U.S. civil penalties late last year for failing to meet 2016 model year fuel economy requirements, in the first significant sign the auto industry is facing hurdles in meeting tougher emissions rules. The Italian-American automaker has been lobbying the Trump administration to revise fuel economy requirements and last year regulators proposed freezing requirements at 2020 model-year levels through 2026. Shane Karr, head of external affairs for Fiat Chrysler in North America, said in a statement the fuel economy program should be reformed rather than "requiring companies to make large compliance payments because assumptions made in 2011 turned out to be wrong." Karr added that the automaker is "committed to improving the fuel efficiency of our fleet and expanding our U.S. manufacturing footprint." The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a report dated Dec. 21 that the industry faced $77 million in fines in 2016 and that one unnamed manufacturer "is expected to pay significant civil penalties." The agency did not immediately comment on Thursday. The civil penalty payment is much higher than in prior model years. The industry paid $2.3 million in civil penalties in 2014 and $40 million in 2011. Under federal rules, automakers can accrue credits for overcomplying in some years. In 2012, the Obama administration finalized rules requiring automakers to nearly double the fleet-wide fuel efficiency of vehicles to more than 50 miles per gallon by 2025, but the Trump administration has proposed rolling back those requirements starting in the 2021 model year. NHTSA also noted that the number of automakers' fleets with credit shortfalls had risen to 26 in 2016, up from 18 in 2011, and the number of surpluses fell from 26 in 2011 to 15. Steve Bartoli, a Fiat Chrysler vice president who oversees fuel economy issues, said in September at a public hearing on the fuel rules that starting in 2016 the auto industry had been unable to meet current requirements without using credits earned from prior model years. Bartoli called the gap "a wake-up call that assumptions made seven years ago about the U.S. auto market need to be revisited." The NHTSA report also said automakers collectively face projected shortfalls of about $1.2 billion for both the 2017 and 2018 model years, but it was unclear how much in credits can be used to offset the deficits. Fiat Chrysler said the payment was anticipated and the costs were included in the company’s fourth-quarter financial results released on Thursday. The company has previously purchased emissions credits from Tesla Inc., Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. Fiat Chrysler paid penalties for its domestically produced light-vehicle fleet that did not meet efficiency requirements. It noted rules governing domestically produced vehicles restrict the use of credits. The company explained the shortfall in part by noting that starting in the 2011 model year some front-wheel-drive utility vehicles previously classified as trucks were moved to the car fleet, which have much tougher fuel-efficiency requirements. Fiat Chrysler noted those vehicles are taller and require more energy than sedans. In 2016, the company produced four such vehicles: the two-row Dodge Journey, Jeep Cherokee, Jeep Compass and Jeep Patriot. By contrast, Fiat Chrysler said its average light-truck fuel economy in 2016 was higher than Toyota, Ford Motor Co and General Motors Co, while its car figures were significantly lower. The Trump administration said last year the fuel economy freeze would save the automakers more than $300 billion in regulatory costs. Trump’s proposed freeze would result in 500,000 barrels per day more oil consumption by the year 2030. California says the proposal "would worsen air quality for the most vulnerable (and) waste billions of gallons of gasoline."

WWE has seen a loss in ratings, and if the same is any indication, it means that the boss needs to take effective measures to put things into perspective. The chairman of the board Vince McMahon addressed the same in the company's fourth quarter 2018 earnings call. While it sounded like a beat around the bush tactic, or him playing a blame game, we know that the Chairman has seen more bad days than this, but he needs to pull up his socks and bring things in order. In an attempt to do so, he needs to get rid of his believed agenda and set new benchmarks just like he did in the attitude era. The Boss is back in charge, and we did see some changes in WWE programming, but if you are spearheading the team, and it doesn't perform well, you can't put the blame on your subordinates. In accordance with the Vince McMahon blame game style, I take note of 3 reasons why this loss in ratings is all The Greater Power's fault: Vince McMahon likes muscular guys, and it's no hidden fact that this is the reason why Roman Reigns became the face of the company, to begin with. Another such muscular person that is currently reigning, (not) defending Universal Champion of the WWE, Brock Lesnar has brought more shame to the overall WWE product and its coveted title. The chairman was so involved in giving part-timers good space at the grandest stage of them all, that he even booked a match between Brock Lesnar and Goldberg at Wrestlemania. You can't have part-timers rule the competition, especially when they aren't showing up time in and again on TV, because it infuriated fans that don't want to see a part-timer on TV.

Gino Wensel, 40, was exercising his German Shepherd called Duke just outside Cape Town, South Africa when a man approached with a knife in his hand. Duke growled at the man who, instead of robbing Mr Wensel, plunged a steak knife into Duke's skull. The fearless dog still went for the attacker and scared him off before collapsing with blood pouring from his head. Mr Wensel thought he had lost his dog, but noticed he was breathing and rushed him to a local clinic. Thanks to skilled vets, Duke had a miraculous recovery and could be reunited with his owner.

Like an adaptation of the tabletop game crossed with the XCOM design template, BattleTech is a deep and complex turn-based game with an impressive campaign system. You control a group of mercenaries, trying to keep the books balanced and upgrading your suite of mechwarriors and battlemechs in the game's strategy layer. In battle, you target specific parts of enemy mechs, taking into account armor, angle, speed and the surrounding environment, then make difficult choices when the fight isn't going your way. It can initially be overwhelming and it's undeniably a dense game, but if that's what you want from your strategy games or you love this universe, it's a great pick

The humble train simulator has been around for almost as long as there’s been PC simulation games, and while the latest iteration of Train Simulator is the traditional choice, Train Sim World offers something a mite more ambitious – and it’s by the same developer, Dovetail Games, so fans of one should appreciate the other. It’s certainly the most realistic train sim game around – for example, you can’t even leave the station without priming the battery first. The whole game’s played in first-person, so all the driving, management, and upkeep is done from the ground level – just as if you were serving and running the train yourself. The whole point of simulation games is to make you feel like you’re actually doing the job, and Train Sim World does that better than any other – as we found while documenting our Train Sim World travel diary adventures. While it started off a little bare-bones when it released, Dovetail has consistently updated the game with new features, trains, routes, weather, and more. There’s also an array of DLC packs, too. It may all be a bit pricey for some, but the option to expand is there if you find yourself tiring of the same routes, and you certainly won’t be able to find a more in-depth and realistic train sim for your money.

Available on PC, Xbox One, PS4, Switch, Xbox 360, PS3 Pros: Huge scope Many gameplay options Exciting dragon fights Massive lore Cons: Not the prettiest title, especially on last-gen consoles More content than any human should ever be given to finish The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim has become the quintessential western RPG, having been released on nearly every platform under the sun since its original release in 2011, the most recent of which sees it grace Nintendo Switch. You are the Dragonborn, an ancient hero capable of absorbing the souls of dragons to unleash mystical powers once thought lost. Whether you decide to tackle the main narrative or bumble around the plains of Tamriel, Bethesda’s RPG is capable of absorbing hundreds upon hundreds of hours on a single save file. While it hasn’t aged spectacularly well and still exhibits a number of iconic Bethesda bugs, it’s hard to find someone in the modern gaming landscape who hasn’t laid their hands on Skyrim, hence why it belongs on our list.

The Xbox One X capitalizes on its former Xbox One model with some of the most powerful tech you’ll find in a gaming system today. If you’re looking to get the highest sense of realism from a current gaming console with the most powerful displays, the Xbox One X takes the cake. The Xbox One X contains six trillion floating point operations per second with 326GB/s and 12GB GDDR5 RAM, giving it the most graphical horsepower in rendering native 4K HD graphics at 60 frames per second. This makes games like Call Of Duty: WWII have a heightened sense of realism, detailing everything from flowing hair, rays of the sun and clothing fiber. All Xbox One games are compatible and run better on the Xbox One X in Full HD display as well. Microsoft even plans on bringing Original Xbox and Xbox 360 backward compatibility to the system too.

The first entry in Deceptive Games’ Initiate series delivered a satisfying plethora of complex puzzles, spread out over the space of an entire house in which the main character had been imprisoned. What there wasn’t much of was a meaty story to sink one’s teeth into, just the vaguest of teases about the circumstances surrounding the captors and the purpose of the puzzles themselves. Releasing a mere year later, The Initiate 2: The First Interviews has the opportunity to flesh out the universe barely hinted at previously, but it still offers frustratingly little in terms of narrative, despite featuring three captive protagonists this time around. It does, however, manage to provide some decent fodder for puzzle enthusiasts once again. The sequel starts the same way as the previous game: you awaken, locked in a room you have never seen before, and a voice from an overhead speaker instructs you to escape by solving puzzles throughout the room. One obvious change is that The Initiate 2 sports a more industrial “basement” feel as opposed to a suburban home setting, but this doesn’t really have any bearing beyond the aesthetics. We can surmise that this protagonist – Samantha Blake – may be in a bunker or cellar connected to the house from the first game; eventually there’s even a CCTV camera feed showing surveillance footage of rooms from The Initiate. Soon after escaping that opening room, it becomes clear that Samantha’s portion of the adventure – in contrast to having the run of the entire house as before – is limited to only a handful of connected rooms and hallways. Like last time, you'll need to freely roam (via keyboard/mouse controls) from room to room to piece together solutions, as clues are often scattered all around the spaces. Here, however, an optional over-the-shoulder third-person camera view is also available, though it adds little to the experience and first-person mode still feels the most natural. The new view actually makes it slightly more awkward getting through doorways, as it’s the protagonist on the screen periphery that must go through, while the actual center-screen camera will get stuck on or simply travel straight through the wall. Apart from Samantha’s self-contained starter area, the puzzles are far from linear. Once you’ve gained access to the rooms beyond the first door, you are presented with a sealed locker, a password-protected (and at first powered-down) computer, a switchboard terminal, and a locked trunk, to name but a few obstacles all begging to be worked on in any order you choose. But since not all puzzles can be completed right away, figuring out where to start and what puzzles to persist with can be tricky, though this makes solving them feel that much more rewarding. As a result, there will always be multiple challenges in various areas demanding your attention, and it provides a good sense of chipping away at the block little by little. View all screenshots » The other big difference in the sequel is that Samantha isn’t the only person being held captive this time. At predetermined moments, you will be introduced to Benjamin Clarke and Stephen Parfitt, two fellow abductees, each confined to an adjoining section of cellar with their own puzzles to complete. The game requires the trio to cooperate to find solutions, as clues and required items may be scattered across all three of their areas. This dependency on each other to succeed did lead to one frustrating moment for me, when one of the characters did not become accessible the first time until I arbitrarily walked to just the right spot, causing me to aimlessly wander around for a while, wondering what clue I had missed by accident. Once all three are active, control can be switched from one person to another with a simple keystroke, while items can be transferred between them via a little niche built into a rotating column of masonry. The process of exchanging items, while not particularly time-consuming, does get a little cumbersome, particularly when needing to transfer objects from one end of the basement to the other, using the character in the middle as the go-between. To top it off, items can only be moved one at a time, making the mechanic feel more like padding. A late-game puzzle, for example, requires six statues found in various areas to be transferred one by one to specific characters in order to trigger the mechanism. Thankfully, this small gripe about item sharing is more than made up for by the convenience of toggling back and forth between protagonists to solve a number of more involved puzzles. There’s a late-game mathematics challenge that Stephen must solve, for instance, that requires clever interpretation of the periodic table of elements. Finding a table in another character’s section and positioning them in front of it means that simply alternating between the two viewpoints gives Stephen the info he needs to solve the puzzle. Of course, you have to suspend disbelief a fair amount for this to fly – the characters do not communicate with each other outside of their item exchanges, and there’s no way one would be able to mind-read the info another is looking at. But it’s a small price to pay to reduce the amount of running around and writing down every little clue. This three-character narrative device, unfortunately, does not yield as much of a payoff as I would have liked. There is a (fairly clichéd) end-game twist that requires you to be emotionally invested in the protagonists by that point, but there is such a dearth of character interaction that it’s difficult to even remotely become attached to them as individuals. Furthermore, The Initiate 2 does very little to push the world-building teased in its predecessor. Although some documents mention the shadowy organization behind this game and its goals, it’s all still far too nebulous. Once again, three sudden, way-too-similar outcomes are available, predicated on which final choice you make, none of which offer any closure. View all screenshots » Though they are clearly the highlight, the puzzles aren’t entirely free from scrutiny either. While hunting down clues can be very enjoyable, it’s far too easy to miss something. A number of them are hidden on the backs of books or vases, forcing players to meticulously pick up and examine quite a few environmental objects from every angle in order to not miss anything. If you do miss a relevant detail, brute-forcing a puzzle is a possibility far too often, but obviously not as satisfying. Quite a few puzzles also offer nothing more as a reward than a clue for yet another puzzle, leading to even more random guessing which ones can or can’t be currently solved. The majority of challenges themselves, though, are more than fair and entertaining, with the noteworthy exception of one particular riddle about a digital clock that’s so poorly worded it’s almost impossible to even understand what it’s really asking. In fact, the writing in general contains some odd phrasing and spelling on more than a few occasions, which doesn’t help in trying to make more sense of the story. Like in the original game, The Initiate 2 asks for oddly high system specifications in order to run, though it will work at lesser specs, if not as smoothly. There were far fewer tribulations in getting the game to work on my Mac than the previous installment, though a glitch did teleport me through a wall, unable to return at one point, forcing me to reload a previous save. Manual saving is very user-friendly, once again using large reel-to-reel audio players for this purpose, each character having one in their area. With a capable system the game looks decent, though environments far outpace the dated character models. These basement areas are stuffed full of hobbyist paraphernalia, keeping them from looking too cookie-cutter. However, they’re far from pretty, particularly with everything having the same oppressively drab color palette, making puzzles involving splashes of bright color a welcome addition. Voice acting is not a highlight, so perhaps it’s a blessing that there isn’t much of it, though it is kind of odd how little attempt the protagonists make to talk to each other. A generic music track serves as background, but the thrilling atmosphere created by the first game’s sound design is noticeably absent here. Despite being a numbered entry, it’s actually unclear whether The Initiate 2 is meant to be a sequel or prequel, but with such a threadbare story it doesn’t really matter in the end. The First Interviews neither expands the world presented in the previous game nor uncovers much more of the mystery behind it all. What we do get is another several hours of predominantly engaging puzzle-solving, albeit on a slightly smaller scale even with more people involved than last time. More so than the original game, this one should be played for its puzzles alone, with the ongoing hope that someday the underlying story will develop into something worth paying more attention to.

Thunder Wolves is a third person action flight sim in which the player controls a helicopter, which itself is controlled by a pilot and a gunner working for the eponymous Thunder Wolves, an organization that kills terrorists. The player is tasked with destroying enemy infantry, vehicles, helicopters, and buildings, and with accomplishing other objectives. Most things in the game explode, yell, or explode and yell at some point. Thunder Wolves features nine helicopters, thirteen missions, eleven kinds of secondary weapons, one primary weapon, two alternative vision modes, explosions both nuclear and non-nuclear, three difficulty levels, twenty five hidden crates to collect, and some sequences in which instead of flying a helicopter, the player controls a sniper rifle, a ground vehicle, the gunner seat on the helicopter, a drone, or various devices. The secondary weapons in Thunder Wolves are different kinds of missiles. Each helicopter has dumb fire rockets and homing rockets, plus its own special kind of missile. The player can fire each kind of missile a certain number of times until it must recharge, and ammunition is otherwise unlimited. The player’s helicopter recharges its condition when it is not taking damage. Enemy fire can be avoided by maneuvering, deploying flares to evade homing missiles, and shooting enemies before they can fire. The graphics in Thunder Wolves are in a realistic style, with the exception of missiles and bullets, which are exaggerated in size and shape. The sounds in Thunder Wolves include the sounds of explosions, a warning tone notifying the player that enemy missiles have locked on, and lines spoken multiple times in multiple missions by the various characters when the player blows up enemies, which include “konnichiwa, bitches!” and “special delivery, bitch!” The music in Thunder Wolves is heavy metal music and sometimes classical music. The game features various control schemes to choose from, and it does not allow the player to rebind controls manually. One character in the game proclaims that “if it is made by man, then I can blow it the [CENSORED] up.” The game takes place in 1991, and includes flashbacks to the 1980s. One terrorist’s name is “Crazy Khalid.” During one mission, the player must detach a train car from the rest of a train so as to protect the civilians inside the train car. Elsewhere in the mission the player can destroy civilian buildings indiscriminately. Later in the mission, a nuclear bomb explodes less than a mile from the detached civilian train car.

Some things never go out of style, and Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus’ central premise – shoot loads of Nazis, preferably with the most outlandish gun you can loot – is as compelling in 2018 as it was back in 1992. This time, of course, it’s backed up with blockbuster-level set-pieces, exemplary shooter mechanics, and a genuinely engaging story, with its alternate-history backdrop providing some chilling examples of the consequences of fascism. It’s not all moralizing, of course: blasting giant Panzerhunds with a triple-barrel shotgun or pinging a grunt’s helmet off with a perfect sniper shot would be seriously satisfying even if they weren’t on the Reich side of history…but since they are, it’s all the sweeter. Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC Pros: Emotionally compelling Better stealth Great endgame content Cons: Weapons could be more creative Animations and character models occasionally feel ropey Tonally inconsistent at times

PRo

The Château de Versailles (or Palace of Versailles) is one of the most-visited attractions in France, but owing to a lack of savings, I haven't been able to make a trip there myself. Fortunately, for a broke millennial like me, the Palace has been brought to Singapore's shores via virtual reality. The experience at Ion Art Gallery is part of a project between the Palace of Versailles and ESSEC Business School to bring more insight to French culture to Asia. From Nov. 30 to Jan. 6, head over to the gallery along Singapore's iconic shopping district Orchard Road for a sneak peek of Versailles.

Today is the day and now is the time, AMD Radeon has unleashed the worlds first 7nm gaming graphics card, the Radeon VII. A trimmed down but faster version of the last generation Vega architecture with some reworking on the 7nm node along with double the memory should prove this to be a quite the contender in the high end space. The heart and soul of the aptly name Radeon VII is the 7nm variant of the Vega architecture dubbed Vega 20. Rather than the 64 or 56 CU variants that were used in the Radeon RX Vega 64 and RX Vega 56 AMD decided to go with a 60 Compute Unit variant. From numbers run in the past a RX Vega 56 that was vBIOS modded to run at RX Vega 64 clock speeds on the Core and HBM2 found that it was so close in performance that it made one question the need for the 64 Compute Unit model in gaming. So the decision to go with lower than the maximum Compute Unit design makes sense here since AMD has committed the space and power saving features of the 7nm node to put that budget towards clock speed. Because of that the Radeon VII is targeting a 1800MHz clock rate which is much higher than what any of the previous RX Vega cards would achieve on air. The only one that came close to those clock speeds was the RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled Edition that, while came with a nice watercooling design, carried a much higher TDP and power draw to reach those sustained clocks. The Radeon VII aims to break that barrier all on air and this time packing 16GB of HBM2 with a mind melting 1TB/s of memory bandwidth, which should help give it an edge at higher resolutions where memory tends to be a constraint.We would be remiss if we didn’t take a moment to discuss the much improved cooler design. While aesthetics are very much a subjective manner, we can’t deny the welcomed addition of axial fans over the traditional blower style cooler. And not only is AMD one upping the competition in terms of memory count, they are with fan count as well. Three, count them, three axial fans atop a vapor chamber and heat pipe combination cooler is a welcome sight for a graphics card maker who has been traditionally slammed with each new graphics card over heat and noise concerns as far back as I can remember. The question is, did they go for cooling performance with elevated fan noise, or go for silence at the expense of heat? I suppose the reviews will reveal that one.

Recently, AR Rahman attended the 10-year celebration of Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire in Mumbai. Almost all members of the cast and crew, including Anil Kapoor and Gulzar, were present to mark the important day. Interestingly, at the event, Rahman's daughter Khatija Rahman interviewed her father on stage. But it was her attire that generated more interested. The young girl was wearing a sari with a veil while on stage, something that did not go down well with many people. As a result, many started trolling her father for "forcing" this attire on her. Some even called Rahman a "hypocrite" and having "double

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (left) to emerge victorious from the political crisis gripping the country, Kremlin sources say. Moscow still publicly backs Maduro's regime but 'recognizes that the disastrous state of Venezuela's economy is inexorably draining what remains of his public support'.The unidentified sources also pointed out that the army, part of which is currently deployed to block an aid shipment of food and medicine from entering the country from Colombia (right), will be reluctant to continue crack downs on fellow Venezuelans.

Roundup Over the past week in MicrosoftLand, Windows Mixed Reality continued its slow shuffle to relevance, a new Project Rome ushered in a world of cross-platform data slinging and Insiders had a play with the latest Skype tweaks. Azure woes The services key to Microsoft's success continued to wobble last week. As well as the Office 365 outage earlier in the week, the Active Directory service tottered from 08:00 UTC on 1 February as some unlucky Europeans found themselves having problems accessing the cloudy services of the Windows giant. Functionality within the likes of Azure Portal, Azure Active Directory B2C, Azure Active Directory Privileged Identity Management, Managed Service Identity, Azure RBAC and Microsoft Teams took a dive while engineers scratched their heads. Stanislav Zhelyazkov @StanZhelyazkov @AzureSupport Can you check if there is Azure outage? Specifically trying to open Azure AD blade - users or applications and getting errors. 3 1:50 PM - Feb 1, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy See Stanislav Zhelyazkov's other Tweets Microsoft's Twitter support mouthpiece initially professed ignorance then suggested users give the thing a kick by logging off and logging on again, before swiftly unleashing the hardworking team of engineers tasked with tracking down the cause of the day's embuggerance as the reports came rolling in. The staggering subsided by 10:00 UTC as engineers dealt with the thing. New builds and getting skippy once again in Windows 10 While Azure had its woes, the Windows gang emitted another Windows 10 build and slammed the door on Skip Ahead invitations. Windows Insider ✔ @windowsinsider Heads up #WindowsInsiders - Skip Ahead is now FULL so opt-in's are now closed. Also FYI for those of you in Skip Ahead re: today's flight - you'll see Build 18329 come through in a few hours. Small delay in our targeting systems. Windows Insider ✔ @windowsinsider Hello #WindowsInsiders, have opened up Skip Ahead again so those Insiders interested in trying out super-early builds from our dev branch. Note opt-in's are limited and once Skip Ahead is full, you will no longer be able to opt-in. View image on Twitter 145 3:11 AM - Feb 2, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 75 people are talking about this Skip Ahead gives testers access to even newer Windows code. While the rest of the Windows Insider fast-ring crew continues to prod and poke at 19H1 (likely due for release in April), the lucky few on Skip Ahead will start receiving builds of 19H2, which will probably be released in October. We say "lucky few" because the option to enroll was only open between 30 January and 1 February. And, with the solitary bug-bash coming to a close, the Windows Insider team released a fresh build of 19H1 in the form of 18329. The steady-as-she-goes approach of this version of Windows 10 has continued, with tweaks to Search to show the most-used apps first and the addition of the ability to stick desktop Win32 apps into a Microsoft Mixed Reality environment. The gang pointed to opportunities afforded by the function such as cranking out some script in Visual Studio Code while sat in the company's virtual world rather than face the grim reality of an office cubicle. As if to indicate that this remains a work in progress, a large number of known issues remain, not least errors while unzipping files, problems getting the Windows Sandbox running and a vaguely horrifying scenario where two narrator voices end up talking at the same time. The Windows team advised a reboot to deal with the issue. The additional love given to Windows Mixed Reality comes as the headsets struggle to make much headway against the might of the Oculus Rift. According to a fresh batch of statistics from game distribution platform Steam, the tech accounts for just over 8.9 per cent of VR users on the service. The growth looks to have come at the expense of HTC, who lays claim to 40.6 and 2.6 per cent of users for its Vive and Vive Pro headsets respectively. The Rift retains its lead at 47 per cent usage. At the current rate of growth, Microsoft's take on VR might finally tip into double digits before long, assuming axeman extraordinaire Satya Nadella doesn't wield the blade in favour of the Hololens. His willingness to sacrifice consumer technology has been already ably demonstrated. Just ask Cortana. TypeScript, Project Rome and musical exec chairs – a week of developer goodness Microsoft continued flinging out toys for devs like an incontinent walrus on a waltzer. The previous week's release candidate of TypeScript 3.3 went to general availability for those that like a little type checking in their JavaScript, while Shanku Niyogi leapt from being director of Project Management for Google's Cloud Platform to the position of SVP of Product for Microsoft's code shack acquisition, GitHub. Niyogi has reassuring chops when it comes to development, having been Engineering GM and director of Visual Studio as well as Product and Engineering Leader of .NET Framework during an 18-year stint at Microsoft prior to his short-lived career at Mountain View. Microsoft famously ditched its mobile platform in favour of a pivot toward services (witness last week's financial results) and so it was that the Project Rome SDK for iOS and Android put in a version 1.0 release last week. The aim of Project Rome is to enable "seamless cross-device and cross-platform experiences". If you're thinking "that sounds a lot like Timeline" you'd be right, and well done for paying attention at the back. Of course, there is far more to Project Rome than having activities from mobile devices appear in Windows 10's Timeline. Device Relay lets users start activities on one device (say, an Android smartphone) and then resume them on another (perhaps Windows 10 desktop?) Finally Microsoft Graph notifications allow developers to make their apps stay in the face of specific users. And yes, those users will need a Microsoft account for any of it to work. Skype users – expressing themselves through emoticons Finally, Microsoft had a clutch of Skype tweaks for its platoon of Insiders to play with. Most usefully, a single tap on the screen during a video call will dispense with all the interface clutter, leaving only your visage and that of the person you're chatting to on the display. The gang has also shifted the speaker and audio button to make one-handed operation easier and embiggened the user's own video. Alas, with every handy new feature there must come some fripperies, and Skype Insiders have not been left out in this regard. The team has made it easier to pop a GIF in a message, with the imagery selectable from what is trending or manually searched for. The gang has also added personalised emoticons to the chat platform – a right-click on the desktop version or a longer press on the mobile incarnation allows lucky users to switch from the usual round, jaundiced head to a monkey, koala, kitten or dog.

NVIDIA and 3DMark have finally updated the 3DMark Port Royal Benchmark to include the ability to test out DLSS along with real time ray tracing. The DLSS update is big because it is something that NVIDIA has claimed would add a significant performance increase while maintaining, and sometimes improving, image quality. While the latter is a little harder to convey through a compressed YouTube video, we can confidently test the performance benefits. So we have done just that in this video. We take the entire lineup of RTX 20 series cards and see the benefits of DLSS as far as performance goes. Because the DLSS portion is a feature test and not part of the regular Port Royal benchmark we weren’t able to get an actual score, but had to stick to framerates instead. I feel like that is a bit more relatable as far as numbers go anyway. But just RTRT vs RTRT + DLSS is one thing, but I felt it would be more of an impact if we could see how the benchmark would perform under traditional rasterized shadows and screen space reflections so we doubled back and added those results as well. You’ll find all this information and more in the video below.

They’re not only cars that won’t cost you a lot of money, but they’re cars that’ll be a pleasure to own,” said Jamie Page Deaton, executive editor of U.S. News’ Best Cars. The rankings take a look at cars that have the best combination of quality and value in their classes. “You don’t want to just buy an inexpensive car that you’re going to hate,” Page Deaton added. Sweeping the awards this year were brands from Asia, with Kia and Honda tied for the most Here are some of the winners out of the 14 automotive categories, which Page Deaton said were the most po[CENSORED]r categories for people currently car shopping: Best compact SUV: 2019 Honda CR-V Best luxury compact SUV: 2019 Acura RDX Best minivan: 2019 Honda Odyssey Best compact car: 2019 Kia Soul Best luxury small car: 2019 Kia Stinger Best luxury midsize car: 2019 Lexus ES See the full list here. With Kia matched with Honda for awards, Page Deaton said that shakes up the view of Kia as a provider of just cheap cars — there’s quality, too. “Kia won as many awards as Honda, and I think for most people, Honda is really a stalwart when it comes to quality and when it comes to value,” Deaton said. “With the Kia, what you’re getting is great cars that come loaded with standard features.” And what helps with ownership costs is Kia’s substantial powertrain warranty, she added. U.S. News did not award any domestic or European brands this year. Even though a number of domestic and European models were finalists, U.S. News said it was their prices and ownership costs that ultimately kept them from taking home awards. “The American cars tended to lose when it came down to ownership costs and a little bit in price,” Deaton explained. U.S. News said cars are compared based on industry experts’ views, safety and reliability. Value is determined by looking at a vehicle’s five-year total cost of ownership and the average price paid for the vehicle, according to Deaton.. “You have some cars that may have a higher-than-average price but lower-than-average five-year ownership cost, so even though they cost a little bit more upfront at the dealer, over time, you actually end up saving money with them,” she said, adding that it’s important to look at those long-term costs. U.S. News’ Best Cars section have published rankings since 2007. Awards will be presented Thursday at this year’s Chicago Auto Show. WTOP’s Kristi King contributed to this report. Like WTOP on Facebook and follow @WTOP on Twitter to engage in conversation about this article and others. © 2019 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

The carnival, held in the Mediterranean city since 1873, runs from Feb. 16 until March 2 this year with the theme “King of Cinema”. It will honor the 100th anniversary of Victorine Studios, a mainstay of the film industry in the south of France. Artists and sculptors have been toiling for weeks to build and decorate the giant figures that will adorn dozens of colorful floats and bring the city’s streets life during three weekends of parades. “Politics is a little bit of cinema. So it’s good to mix them together,” said resident Fabienne Neuville, 65, with a laugh. From Marvel comic book characters to an array of massive Charlie Chaplin faces, with emotions ranging from angry to ashamed to confused, few people escape ridicule. “One imagines that’s how these characters are perceived, they create fear all around the world, and that’s sort of the point of carnival, and to bring that out through colors and costumes,” said float creator Cedric Pignataro. Alongside Trump and Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un are cast as cackling or alarming-looking clowns. Macron’s wife Brigitte, who at 65 is 24 years older than the president, is given a less-than-flattering makeover. Weinstein is portrayed with a Hollywood actress. The movie mogul is due to go on trial in May on charges of sexually assaulting two women. He has pleaded not guilty. More than 70 women have accused him of sexual misconduct. He has denied all accusations and said any contact was consensual. Once just a city affair, the Nice Carnival now draws visitors from all over France and tourists from abroad. In the middle weekend of the festival there is also “Lou Queernaval”, dubbed as France’s first gay carnival.

Nastasia Urbano, 57, (pictured left and inset at the height of her career, and right now) fronted fashion campaigns alongside supermodels like Linda Evangelista, was the face of Yves Saint Lauren's iconic Opium perfume, and dined with Jack Nicholson and Andy Warhol in the 1980s. She was signed by the famous Ford Models agency and claims to have made 'a million dollars a year for only 20 days of work, for three or four years'. However, she has fallen far since then, and now sleeps in bank foyers or at friends' houses in Barcelona, north-eastern Spain's Catalonia region.