Mark-x

It looks like the Ford Shelby GT500 and midengine C8 Chevrolet Corvette might share a gearbox, according to a report from Road & Track. It would make some sense considering we know the new GT500 will get a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission from Tremec. We've also heard rumors, and audio, that the C8 Corvette will also get a DCT. We didn't count the number of shifts, but seven is such a nice number. Adding to those rumors, a Tremec employee newsletter stated that the company contacted Fassler, a supplier, "regarding a new project called GM-DCT." Fassler said it would provide gear honing machines for the new transmission. Later in summer 2017, Tremec sent an order for more machines for a new project called Ford-DCT. That newsletter said that the company had to modify two honing machines for the Ford job. The letter, wherever R&T got it, has been removed from the internet, possibly because of the story. This all seems plausible, but we'll have to wait for more C8 news to get the final confirmation. We've contacted both Ford and Chevy, and we'll update when we hear back. H/T: Road & Track

Spain’s Atletico Madrid are taking on a challenge tougher than winning La Liga — developing football in cricket-mad Pakistan, where bat and ball are king, pitches come with stumps not goalposts, and even the prime minister is a former World Cup winner. During a recent session at the club’s new facility in Lahore — the country’s first European football academy — a cabal of Spanish coaches watched as a new class of young Pakistani hopefuls fired off penalty kicks. “We are not looking for players for Atletico Madrid because we know that this is going to be very difficult… Our target is to improve the football here,” coach Javier Visea told AFP. To succeed in carving out a place for football, they will need to overcome marginal government support, poor infrastructure and a troubled history with FIFA that has resulted in multiple bans for violating the body’s rules. Pakistan’s visa process under scrutiny after football superstars denied entry The country remains on thin ice with the governing organisation, currently sits 199th in the FIFA rankings and has still never qualified for a football World Cup. Things weren’t always so dire. The national squad boasted a top 10 place in Asian football until the 1970s. The sport remains widely watched by middle-class Pakistanis, and football video games like the FIFA franchise are as po[CENSORED]r as ever. Those seeds of fandom are what Atletico hopes to nurture with their facility, which opened last September in the nation of over 200 million. “We know cricket is the main sport,” said Visea. “But … there are a lot of football fans, they are following (the) Premier League, they are following La Liga.” Atletico aims to promote football, health, and sports in general, he said — along with their own brand in the vast untapped football market that is South Asia. And a promising future for football may not be as quixotic as it sounds. For decades, field hockey was the most po[CENSORED]r sport in the country as Pakistan dominated international competitions and won four World Cup titles. The sport was only overshadowed by cricket with the rise of the dashing all-rounder, and now prime minister, Imran Khan — culminating with the country’s World Cup win in 1992 under Khan’s leadership. Cricket has ruled the sporting roost ever since — but the hope is that another strong personality with a winning streak in football could change everything again. Ten-year-old Fiza Shahid dreams of becoming a footballer like her heroes Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, practising in her backyard before joining Atletico’s academy. As she sprinted down the new facility’s pitch, her father Muhammad Shahid said he takes great pride in watching his daughter play the beautiful game in conservative Pakistan, where boys are more likely to be allowed to compete in sports than girls. Real Madrid are offering this star to Liverpool in return for Mo Salah Shahid, who is from a humble background and holds conservative religious beliefs, is a firm believer in his daughter’s right to play. “Both the sons and daughters have equal rights,” he said. For 12-year-old Hussam Suhail the Atletico academy not only provides a place to emulate his idols but also a safe pitch to hone his skills. “In the streets there are trees and cars coming, you can’t play well, while here you can play very well without stopping,” he said. The opening of the academy also comes as security has dramatically improved across Pakistan after years of militancy, paving the way for the gradual return of international sports. “At the moment they asked us about coming here we were a little bit scared because all the news coming from Pakistan to Spain (is) not good news,” said coach Daniel Limones. But things changed when he landed in Pakistan. “We are feeling like if we are Spain, so there is no security issue or those things,” he sa

The lookalike of the Tiger Zinda Hai actor was spotted in the parking area of Karachi's famous Bolton Market with social media users startled at the uncanny resemblance of the Karachiite with that of the megastar. Along with the eerily similar appearance, the lookalike also appears to be donning a similar taste in fashion as well as hairstyle as the Bharat star, bringing about conjectures that perhaps aside from being a mirror image, he is also a fan of the actor.

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan Sunday reiterated his government's commitment to continue working with the United States and other regional stakeholders to find a political settlement in Afghanistan. He also underscored the need for normalizing relations with all the neighbouring countries to unleash the potential of regional cooperation. The prime minister was talking to senior US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who called on him. Senator Graham is visiting Pakistan to discuss bilateral ties and review the regional security situation, PM Office media wing in a press release said. The prime minister said his economic team was constantly striving to evolve business friendly policies for potential investors, which could be benefited by the US companies. In view of the historical linkages between Pakistan and the US, the two sides agreed to deepen the bilateral economic ties particularly in the context of trade and investment cooperation. Senator Graham conveyed his appreciation of Pakistan''s positive role in the on-going efforts to find a political settlement in Afghanistan and praised the prime minister''s vision to have advocated for a political solution to the Afghan conflict. He lauded the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan to improve the economy, eliminate corruption and create jobs for the people of Pakistan. The prime minister''s efforts to normalize relations with neighbouring countries were noteworthy, he added.

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He is old admin here + Respect n read rules PRO

Computer scientists at Rice University have created a deep-learning, software-coding application that can help human programmers navigate the growing multitude of often-undocumented application programming interfaces, or APIs. Known as Bayou, the Rice application was created through an initiative funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency aimed at extracting knowledge from online source code repositories like GitHub. A paper on Bayou will be presented May 1 in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the Sixth International Conference on Learning Representations, a premier outlet for deep learning research. Users can try it out at askbayou.com. Designing applications that can program computers is a long-sought grail of the branch of computer science called artificial intelligence (AI). "People have tried for 60 years to build systems that can write code, but the problem is that these methods aren't that good with ambiguity," said Bayou co-creator Swarat Chaudhuri, associate professor of computer science at Rice. "You usually need to give a lot of details about what the target program does, and writing down these details can be as much work as just writing the code. "Bayou is a considerable improvement," he said. "A developer can give Bayou a very small amount of information -- just a few keywords or prompts, really -- and Bayou will try to read the programmer's mind and predict the program they want." Chaudhuri said Bayou trained itself by studying millions of lines of human-written Java code. "It's basically studied everything on GitHub, and it draws on that to write its own code." Bayou co-creator Chris Jermaine, a professor of computer science who co-directs Rice's Intelligent Software Systems Laboratory with Chaudhuri, said Bayou is particularly useful for synthesizing examples of code for specific software APIs. "Programming today is very different than it was 30 or 40 years ago," Jermaine said. "Computers today are in our pockets, on our wrists and in billions of home appliances, vehicles and other devices. The days when a programmer could write code from scratch are long gone." Bayou architect Vijay Murali, a research scientist at the lab, said, "Modern software development is all about APls. These are system-specific rules, tools, definitions and protocols that allow a piece of code to interact with a specific operating system, database, hardware platform or another software system. There are hundreds of APIs, and navigating them is very difficult for developers. They spend lots of time at question-answer sites like Stack Overflow asking other developers for help." Murali said developers can now begin asking some of those questions at Bayou, which will give an immediate answer. "That immediate feedback could solve the problem right away, and if it doesn't, Bayou's example code should lead to a more informed question for their human peers," Murali said. Jermaine said the team's primary goal is to get developers to try to extend Bayou, which has been released under a permissive open-source license. "The more information we have about what people want from a system like Bayou, the better we can make it," he said. "We want as many people to use it as we can get." Bayou is based on a method called neural sketch learning, which trains an artificial neural network to recognize high-level patterns in hundreds of thousands of Java programs. It does this by creating a "sketch" for each program it reads and then associating this sketch with the "intent" that lies behind the program. When a user asks Bayou questions, the system makes a judgment call about what program it's being asked to write. It then creates sketches for several of the most likely candidate programs the user might want. "Based on that guess, a separate part of Bayou, a module that understands the low-level details of Java and can do automatic logical reasoning, is going to generate four or five different chunks of code," Jermaine said. "It's going to present those to the user like hits on a web search. 'This one is most likely the correct answer, but here are three more that could be what you're looking for.'"

AMD’s rumor mill, it definitely be a turning. According to Red Gaming Tech and OC3D AMD’s delayed Navi architecture could be launching as early as July this year. Indeed with Lisa Su announcing that: “you will hear more about Navi in 2019,” multiple sites are now reporting on a new source who’s suggesting that the company is very happy with the outcome of Navi so far, and expecting an announcement at E3 this year, followed by a hard launch one month later. Based off of the TSMC’s 7nm architecture debuted at CES with the Radeon VII, Navi is supposedly aimed at the low-mid range GPU portion for now, designed to tackle the likes of the GTX 1070 Ti/RTX 2060 respectively. What is surprising about this rumor is there’s no mention of a high-end Navi variant until early 2020, suggesting that Navi as a whole is a replacement for the now aging, and much refreshed Polaris graphics architecture. Looking back at the original notes we have from AMD on Navi’s architecture, the big key word that keeps popping up is its “scalability”, although there’s no actual confirmation on what that exactly means, whether it’s a multi-die chip similar to Ryzen, or just a better scaling architecture than GCN’s max 4,096 stream processor limitation, it’s an exciting prospect to see AMD break down that artificially imposed barrier, and opens up a lot of options for the company. If this is true, it should give the Radeon VII a healthy-ish shelf life, and at least give the company a chance to stymie the oncoming tide of Nvidia’s high-end flagship GPUs, at least for the time being. The big mystery now is going to be how exactly Navi will fit into the lineup. We know Arcturus, Navi’s successor should be launching some time in 2020 as well, as a true high-end successor. Yet Navi itself is being labelled as AMD’s prodigal son. Is it purely because of it circumventing GCN’s limitations? Who knows. If I were a betting man, and I’m afraid to say I am, I’d put my money on Navi being a true new architecture 7nm test, with the following Arcturus cards being enterprise oriented, followed by a big Navi, high-end flagship in 2020 with a 7nm+ refresh.

Ghosn remains in custody in Japan after being indicted on charges of serious financial misconduct, aggravated breach of trust and understating his income for three years. New allegations come direct from two of his former employers, claiming he failed to consult the board when receiving payments from Nissan-Mitsubishi BV (NMBV), a Netherlands-based joint venture set up to explore greater collaboration within the group. Prosecutors laid further charges against Ghosn last week, days after he issued a public statement claiming that he has been "wrongly accused" of serious financial misconduct. The 64-year-old was arrested by prosecutors in Japan in November last year. His hearing at a court in Tokyo on Tuesday was his first public appearance since then. In a prepared statement to the court issued by his legal team, Ghosn said: “I am innocent of the accusations made against me. I have always acted with integrity and have never been accused of any wrongdoing in my several-decade professional career. “I have been wrongly accused and unfairly detained based on meritless and unsubstantiated accusations.” The court hearing was requested by Ghosn’s lawyers to explain the reasons for his prolonged detention. The judge, Yuichi Tada, said it was because he was considered a flight risk, and the possibility of concealing evidence. According to reports, Ghosn was led into the court in handcuffs and with a rope around his waist, and appeared notably thinner than previously. Find an Autocar car review Driven this week Volkswagen Polo GTI 2018 long-term review - hero front 19 JANUARY 2019 FIRST DRIVE Volkswagen Polo GTI 2019 long-term review Does VW’s hot supermini prioritise quality over driving fun? Let’s find out Volkswagen Arteon 2018 long-term review hero front 18 JANUARY 2019 FIRST DRIVE Volkswagen Arteon long-term review Is this a shrewd, lower-cost route to sleek four-door luxury motoring? Let’s... Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio 2019 road test review - hero front 18 JANUARY 2019 CAR REVIEW Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio Alfa’s latest Quadrifoglio performance model meets the Autocar timing gear.... In his statement, Ghosn also listed his achievements during his time as head of Nissan, and added: “I have a genuine love and appreciation for Nissan. “I believe strongly that in all of my efforts on behalf of the company, I have acted honourably, legally and with the knowledge and approval of the appropriate executives inside the company – with the sole purpose of supporting and strengthening Nissan, and helping to restore its place as one of Japan’s finest and most respected companies.” While he has been removed as the chairman of Nissan and Mitsubishi, Ghosn remains the chairman and CEO of Renault. Ghosn denies claims in statement Responding to the claims of under-reporting his salary, Ghosn said: “I never received any compensation from Nissan that was not disclosed, nor did I ever enter into any binding contract with Nissan to be paid a fixed amount that was not disclosed.” Ghosn’s statement included rebuttals of several of the specific charges made against him, which include claims he moved personal investment losses totalling 1.85bn yen (£13.3m) to Nissan. He said he did ask the company to take on the collateral temporarily due to his foreign exchange contracts, but that the company did not lose money through this move. Ghosn has also been accused of using Nissan funds to make payments to Saudi businessman Khaled Juffali, in return for a letter of credit to help with investment losses. In response, Ghosn said that Juffali was “appropriately contributed” for helping Nissan secure funding, solve an issue with a distributor in the Gulf region and negotiate the development of a plant in Saudi Arabia. Representatives of the Khaled Juffali Company also issued a statement, saying that the payments it received from Nissan were "for legitimate business pusposes".

Perhaps when you want to learn a new cooking recipe, or when you're struggling with some tricky DIY. Maybe when you're getting stuck on the pronunciation of a trickily spelt tennis player. Prodigious Greek talent Stefanos Tsitsipas? He used the video-sharing website to learn from his idol Roger Federer. Now the pair will be filmed together on court in a case of the master versus the apprentice when they meet in the Australian Open fourth round on Rod Laver Arena. It will be their first competitive meeting, although they did play in the Hopman Cup last month when Federer nicked a tight two-set win. "It will be a great day facing him in one of the world's best arenas. I'm really excited," Tsitsipas said. An up-and-coming talent facing a player who's been put on a pedestal in their formative years is nothing unusual. There is, however, little usual about 20-year-old Tsitsipas in comparison to his peers. A playing style described as "old-school", his own travel vlog, a love of photography, a flowing mane of hair… it all adds up to Tsitsipas being one of the most talked about young talents on the ATP Tour Tsitsipas's fondness for wandering around the cities he visits and filming what he sees, describing those scenes on his social media accounts with what can be interpreted as 'philosophical' messages, has led to some public - and some might say cruel - Mickey-taking from Nick Kyrgios and other peers. After his third-round win over Georgia's Nikoloz Basilashvili, Tsitsipas admitted he does not have many friends in the locker room. "I think I'm comfortable meeting new people and having a discussion with someone," he said when asked about his perceived shyness. "Not many of the players want to be friends on the tour. That's a problem. "That's an issue unless you speak the same language. That makes sense. "But I would love to have more friends on tour." Greek journalist Vicky Georgatou, who first met him as a teenager, says that being what some might term a "loner" is nothing new for Tsitsipas. "His father told me when Stefanos was a little boy he didn't have many friends," she told BBC Sport. "But he liked it that way. It wasn't a problem. "He's not like the other guys on their phones, playing games, he likes to take pictures, he likes to read, he's very different."

The anthem for the latest Pakistan Super League was unveiled on Friday. The PSL 4 track, Khel Deewano Ka, was sung by EP’s frontman, Fawad Khan and produced by Coke Studio famed Shuja Haider. The first three anthems of the cricket league were sung by Ali Zafar and were very well received. However, the latest track has garnered mixed reactions from the audience. Soon after the track was released, Twitter lit up with hilarious (and mean) tweets. Here’s what people are saying Fawad and Shuja’s latest composition: Its not that bad but the lyrics and composition of the anthem made the whole anthem below average! #PSL4Anthem #FawadKhan

The devastated father of an Israeli student who was murdered on the way home from a night out has tearfully told of how he dreams to be with his daughter. Aiia Maasarwe (left), 21, was killed in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora after getting off a tram on Tuesday night, and her partially naked body was found in parkland near a shopping centre on Wednesday morning. Ms Maasarwe's heartbroken father Saeed (centre) broke down and cried while speaking to reporters at the spot her body was found on Friday. Police arrested a 20-year-old man (top right) on Friday afternoon as heartbroken local residents gathered in a vigil for the murdered woman (bottom right).

Accpet !

GTA

Call of Duty began as WW2-era shooter focused on recreating the tense drama of war. Since then, we've had CoD games set during the Cold War, Vietnam War, modern day, even the far future and outer space. Black Ops 3 is the current Goldilocks of the CoD legacy, which is to say it sits somewhere in the middle and manages to feel juuuust right. Not too futuristic, not too held back by the past, Black Ops 3 infuses smart design with fluid gameplay to create something that feels unique and powerful without straying too far from its roots. Choosing a specific character gives competitive multiplayer a slight MOBA feel, while the campaign re-introduces four-player co-op to the series. And of course, let's not forget our undead friends lurking in the Zombies mode, which gets an entire city in Black Ops 3. Best for: A night (or week, or month) of fast-paced, highly-competitive running and gunning, or anyone who wants to see Jeff Goldblum as a zombie-slaughtering magician. Sam Prell

The extra-hardcore run-out special edition is a feature that’s become more common than red piping and chrome pedals within the model lineage of the average modern hot hatchback. Even the most celebrated and well-established of them all, the VW Golf GTI, can’t last for a whole model lifecycle without one. We’re lucky it can’t, by the way – or we’d have missed out on some utterly brilliant fast hatchbacks over this car’s long and illustrious history: the ‘G60’-engined supercharged mkIIs, the mkV Edition 30 and the stellar mkVII Clubsport S. These fast Golfs are, at their best, irresistible enigmas: cars whose brilliance seems simultaneously to make both absolutely perfect sense and no sense whatsoever. The superbly adaptable Golf GTI has sat, for the past three model generations at least and arguably for even longer, precisely where real-world performance, driver reward, usability and value have met in the hot hatchback segment. Any change you make to that supreme compromise, therefore, ought to make for a lesser hot hatchback. And yet still Wolfsburg has tinkered – not least, you suspect, because the GTI’s ice-cool 'needn’t be the class hard man' positioning means there’s always been both the demand and the opportunity to do it. And when they’ve done it, perhaps not invariably but at least pretty regularly and so often against the odds, an even better Golf GTI has emerged. Emerging this time, as a farewell to what we might call the GTI mk7.5, is an ode to the FIA’s now globally po[CENSORED]r Touring Car Racing motorsport formula. The GTI TCR is also a clear attempt to keep VW’s evergreen hot hatchback competitive. In a field of increasingly powerful fast front-drivers, the regular GTI Performance version’s 242bhp (the 228bhp GTI having been removed from sale in the UK last year) doesn’t cut much Grey Poupon these days. So, here, power jumps to a peak 286bhp, and torque to 280lb ft, courtesy of a version of the 2017 GTI Clubsport Edition 40’s ‘EA888’ 2.0-litre turbo four pot that’s been updated with new software management, furnished with a couple of extra radiators, and made WLTP-emissions compliant. Unlike the pre-facelift GTI Clubsport 40, however, the GTI TCR only comes in two-pedal, DSG-gearbox form – and it uses the mk7.5’s seven-speed twin-clutch transmission rather than the Clubsport’s six-speed paddle-shifter. Like the GTI Performance, the GTI TCR gets VW’s electronic locking ‘eDiff’ as standard, but it adds the sizable composite brake discs and 17in calipers of the old GTI Clubsport S, as well as forged 18in alloy wheels. It comes as standard with passive suspension developed from that of the GTI Performance, with revalved, firmed-up dampers, and with shortened, stiffened coil springs that drop the car 5mm closer still to the Tarmac. “The Clubsport S was even stiffer again,” explained VW touring car racer Benny Leuchter (who had a hand in the development of the road-going GTI TCR), “but the bigger difference between them is how much more negative wheel camber the Clubsport S had. The TCR has been developed primarily for road use but also for more typical racing circuits. The Clubsport S was set up especially for the Nordschleife.” The Nordschleife – and just about any British B-road you cared to hurl it down, as it turned out. On the GTI TCR, you can choose between two optional rolling chassis upgrade packages. The first adds forged 19in rims and beefed up adaptive dampers, the second a slightly different set of forged 19in rims, the same sports adaptive dampers and Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres (the latter appeared as standard on the Clubsport S, you may remember). Both upgrade packages also see the car’s 155mph speed limiter removed. While UK prices on the GTI TCR and its options are to be confirmed, the more expensive of the two upgrade packages is likely to add about £3000 to your order. Outwardly, the TCR is probably best distinguished from the lesser GTI by its matt black alloy wheels, and the extended front splitter, rear diffuser and roof spoiler that make up its new TCR racer-inspired aero kit. Well, those and the car’s motorsport-tastic hexagonal side decals (which are effectively a no-cost option – so you can dispense with them if you prefer). You can add carbonfibre door mirror caps, which make for a classier-looking extra identifying visual touch; or you can opt for ‘pure grey’ paint if you like, which is exclusive to the TCR – but, in this tester’s opinion, looks about as exciting as a pallbearer’s cravat. On the inside of the car, meanwhile, a new pair of microfibre-and-cloth sports seats appear, as does a modified steering wheel with perforated leather grips and a competition-style dead-centre marker in red. VW insiders say the interior of the eighth-generation VW Golf, which is due for a public airing later this year, is a big step on from this car. But, while that’s an entirely believable claim, it’s not as if there’s much wrong with the cabin of the seventh-gen car. The TCR’s driving position is near-perfect for a hot hatchback. Its new sports seats are almost ideally, oh-so-comfortably clenching, and its interior fittings look and feel absolutely first class, showing very few signs of age. But most of that’s also true of a regular GTI, of course, and wouldn’t be a good reason for find an extra £5000. So what would be? Well, the TCR certainly delivers a dose more straight-line pace than the car on which it was based – though not a huge one. There is only 7lb ft of extra torque on offer here than in a GTI Performance, which probably isn’t enough to notice in terms of mid-range thrust – although the TCR doesn’t feel short on the stuff. Where the car really delivers on its makeover is at high revs, and particularly so over the last 1500rpm of the operating rev range, when that freed-up 2.0-litre pulls with notably greater enthusiasm and venom than GTI drivers will be used to. The engine also retains a nicely balanced broad spread of potency, and has better low-range response than the old Clubsport series cars thanks to better ECU mapping. It may not quite have the measure of absolutely every engine of its kind, but the TCR’s motor effectively banishes any semblance of meekness from the GTI’s character. If you want a really fast and exciting hot hatchback, this engine just about puts the Golf GTI back in the conversation. Whether the TCR’s ride and handling keep it in that conversation, however, is unexpectedly open to question. From an engineering team that could so easily have simply duplicated the axles of the superb GTI Clubsport S here, but for some reason chose not to, that comes as a surprise to say the least. The TCR is still a fine hot hatchback and a compelling driver’s car, but one that doesn’t have the otherworldly body control and wheel dexterity of the last extra-special GTI – and that’s regardless how you’ve got it its adaptive dampers configured. And yet – because the TCR is still a GTI at heart – it doesn’t have the hip-swivelling handling agility, tactile driver engagement or the sheer excitement value of its greatest rivals, either. The car is totally at home on track, particularly so on the optional Michelin Cup 2 rubber on which we tested it – but with more notable precision and unflappable stability about its handling than balance and direction-changing vigour. It’s enormously capable and viceless when being driven fast, keeping its body supremely flat and working its tyres very evenly, and sticking as assiduously to a chosen line as a besieged British cabinet minister. On the road, though, where you expect a fast Golf to be nothing short of brilliant, the TCR’s ride is guilty of the odd stumble and stutter. It can feel firm, stubborn and excitable when dealing with bigger, sharper intrusions – though it’s not so reactive as ever to deflect the car’s steering, nor is it any kind of barrier to your enjoyment of the car when the surface is good. But now and again, when a ridge or lump in the road taken at pace makes the car’s damping bristle and grab – and when the suspension seems keener on pummeling the road and rebounding off it than engaging with it – one particularly telling and unwelcome thought may begin to interrupt your enjoyment of this car, just as it did for me: “wouldn’t a standard GTI have dealt with that better”? Outwardly, the TCR is probably best distinguished from the lesser GTI by its matt black alloy wheels, and the extended front splitter, rear diffuser and roof spoiler that make up its new TCR racer-inspired aero kit. Well, those and the car’s motorsport-tastic hexagonal side decals (which are effectively a no-cost option – so you can dispense with them if you prefer). You can add carbonfibre door mirror caps, which make for a classier-looking extra identifying visual touch; or you can opt for ‘pure grey’ paint if you like, which is exclusive to the TCR – but, in this tester’s opinion, looks about as exciting as a pallbearer’s cravat. On the inside of the car, meanwhile, a new pair of microfibre-and-cloth sports seats appear, as does a modified steering wheel with perforated leather grips and a competition-style dead-centre marker in red. VW insiders say the interior of the eighth-generation VW Golf, which is due for a public airing later this year, is a big step on from this car. But, while that’s an entirely believable claim, it’s not as if there’s much wrong with the cabin of the seventh-gen car. The TCR’s driving position is near-perfect for a hot hatchback. Its new sports seats are almost ideally, oh-so-comfortably clenching, and its interior fittings look and feel absolutely first class, showing very few signs of age. But most of that’s also true of a regular GTI, of course, and wouldn’t be a good reason for find an extra £5000. So what would be? Well, the TCR certainly delivers a dose more straight-line pace than the car on which it was based – though not a huge one. There is only 7lb ft of extra torque on offer here than in a GTI Performance, which probably isn’t enough to notice in terms of mid-range thrust – although the TCR doesn’t feel short on the stuff. Where the car really delivers on its makeover is at high revs, and particularly so over the last 1500rpm of the operating rev range, when that freed-up 2.0-litre pulls with notably greater enthusiasm and venom than GTI drivers will be used to. The engine also retains a nicely balanced broad spread of potency, and has better low-range response than the old Clubsport series cars thanks to better ECU mapping. It may not quite have the measure of absolutely every engine of its kind, but the TCR’s motor effectively banishes any semblance of meekness from the GTI’s character. If you want a really fast and exciting hot hatchback, this engine just about puts the Golf GTI back in the conversation. Whether the TCR’s ride and handling keep it in that conversation, however, is unexpectedly open to question. From an engineering team that could so easily have simply duplicated the axles of the superb GTI Clubsport S here, but for some reason chose not to, that comes as a surprise to say the least. The TCR is still a fine hot hatchback and a compelling driver’s car, but one that doesn’t have the otherworldly body control and wheel dexterity of the last extra-special GTI – and that’s regardless how you’ve got it its adaptive dampers configured. And yet – because the TCR is still a GTI at heart – it doesn’t have the hip-swivelling handling agility, tactile driver engagement or the sheer excitement value of its greatest rivals, either. The car is totally at home on track, particularly so on the optional Michelin Cup 2 rubber on which we tested it – but with more notable precision and unflappable stability about its handling than balance and direction-changing vigour. It’s enormously capable and viceless when being driven fast, keeping its body supremely flat and working its tyres very evenly, and sticking as assiduously to a chosen line as a besieged British cabinet minister. On the road, though, where you expect a fast Golf to be nothing short of brilliant, the TCR’s ride is guilty of the odd stumble and stutter. It can feel firm, stubborn and excitable when dealing with bigger, sharper intrusions – though it’s not so reactive as ever to deflect the car’s steering, nor is it any kind of barrier to your enjoyment of the car when the surface is good. But now and again, when a ridge or lump in the road taken at pace makes the car’s damping bristle and grab – and when the suspension seems keener on pummeling the road and rebounding off it than engaging with it – one particularly telling and unwelcome thought may begin to interrupt your enjoyment of this car, just as it did for me: “wouldn’t a standard GTI have dealt with that better”? Outwardly, the TCR is probably best distinguished from the lesser GTI by its matt black alloy wheels, and the extended front splitter, rear diffuser and roof spoiler that make up its new TCR racer-inspired aero kit. Well, those and the car’s motorsport-tastic hexagonal side decals (which are effectively a no-cost option – so you can dispense with them if you prefer). You can add carbonfibre door mirror caps, which make for a classier-looking extra identifying visual touch; or you can opt for ‘pure grey’ paint if you like, which is exclusive to the TCR – but, in this tester’s opinion, looks about as exciting as a pallbearer’s cravat. On the inside of the car, meanwhile, a new pair of microfibre-and-cloth sports seats appear, as does a modified steering wheel with perforated leather grips and a competition-style dead-centre marker in red. VW insiders say the interior of the eighth-generation VW Golf, which is due for a public airing later this year, is a big step on from this car. But, while that’s an entirely believable claim, it’s not as if there’s much wrong with the cabin of the seventh-gen car. The TCR’s driving position is near-perfect for a hot hatchback. Its new sports seats are almost ideally, oh-so-comfortably clenching, and its interior fittings look and feel absolutely first class, showing very few signs of age. But most of that’s also true of a regular GTI, of course, and wouldn’t be a good reason for find an extra £5000. So what would be? Well, the TCR certainly delivers a dose more straight-line pace than the car on which it was based – though not a huge one. There is only 7lb ft of extra torque on offer here than in a GTI Performance, which probably isn’t enough to notice in terms of mid-range thrust – although the TCR doesn’t feel short on the stuff. Where the car really delivers on its makeover is at high revs, and particularly so over the last 1500rpm of the operating rev range, when that freed-up 2.0-litre pulls with notably greater enthusiasm and venom than GTI drivers will be used to. The engine also retains a nicely balanced broad spread of potency, and has better low-range response than the old Clubsport series cars thanks to better ECU mapping. It may not quite have the measure of absolutely every engine of its kind, but the TCR’s motor effectively banishes any semblance of meekness from the GTI’s character. If you want a really fast and exciting hot hatchback, this engine just about puts the Golf GTI back in the conversation. Whether the TCR’s ride and handling keep it in that conversation, however, is unexpectedly open to question. From an engineering team that could so easily have simply duplicated the axles of the superb GTI Clubsport S here, but for some reason chose not to, that comes as a surprise to say the least. The TCR is still a fine hot hatchback and a compelling driver’s car, but one that doesn’t have the otherworldly body control and wheel dexterity of the last extra-special GTI – and that’s regardless how you’ve got it its adaptive dampers configured. And yet – because the TCR is still a GTI at heart – it doesn’t have the hip-swivelling handling agility, tactile driver engagement or the sheer excitement value of its greatest rivals, either. The car is totally at home on track, particularly so on the optional Michelin Cup 2 rubber on which we tested it – but with more notable precision and unflappable stability about its handling than balance and direction-changing vigour. It’s enormously capable and viceless when being driven fast, keeping its body supremely flat and working its tyres very evenly, and sticking as assiduously to a chosen line as a besieged British cabinet minister. On the road, though, where you expect a fast Golf to be nothing short of brilliant, the TCR’s ride is guilty of the odd stumble and stutter. It can feel firm, stubborn and excitable when dealing with bigger, sharper intrusions – though it’s not so reactive as ever to deflect the car’s steering, nor is it any kind of barrier to your enjoyment of the car when the surface is good. But now and again, when a ridge or lump in the road taken at pace makes the car’s damping bristle and grab – and when the suspension seems keener on pummeling the road and rebounding off it than engaging with it – one particularly telling and unwelcome thought may begin to interrupt your enjoyment of this car, just as it did for me: “wouldn’t a standard GTI have dealt with that better”? Outwardly, the TCR is probably best distinguished from the lesser GTI by its matt black alloy wheels, and the extended front splitter, rear diffuser and roof spoiler that make up its new TCR racer-inspired aero kit. Well, those and the car’s motorsport-tastic hexagonal side decals (which are effectively a no-cost option – so you can dispense with them if you prefer). You can add carbonfibre door mirror caps, which make for a classier-looking extra identifying visual touch; or you can opt for ‘pure grey’ paint if you like, which is exclusive to the TCR – but, in this tester’s opinion, looks about as exciting as a pallbearer’s cravat. On the inside of the car, meanwhile, a new pair of microfibre-and-cloth sports seats appear, as does a modified steering wheel with perforated leather grips and a competition-style dead-centre marker in red. VW insiders say the interior of the eighth-generation VW Golf, which is due for a public airing later this year, is a big step on from this car. But, while that’s an entirely believable claim, it’s not as if there’s much wrong with the cabin of the seventh-gen car. The TCR’s driving position is near-perfect for a hot hatchback. Its new sports seats are almost ideally, oh-so-comfortably clenching, and its interior fittings look and feel absolutely first class, showing very few signs of age. But most of that’s also true of a regular GTI, of course, and wouldn’t be a good reason for find an extra £5000. So what would be? Well, the TCR certainly delivers a dose more straight-line pace than the car on which it was based – though not a huge one. There is only 7lb ft of extra torque on offer here than in a GTI Performance, which probably isn’t enough to notice in terms of mid-range thrust – although the TCR doesn’t feel short on the stuff. Where the car really delivers on its makeover is at high revs, and particularly so over the last 1500rpm of the operating rev range, when that freed-up 2.0-litre pulls with notably greater enthusiasm and venom than GTI drivers will be used to. The engine also retains a nicely balanced broad spread of potency, and has better low-range response than the old Clubsport series cars thanks to better ECU mapping. It may not quite have the measure of absolutely every engine of its kind, but the TCR’s motor effectively banishes any semblance of meekness from the GTI’s character. If you want a really fast and exciting hot hatchback, this engine just about puts the Golf GTI back in the conversation. Whether the TCR’s ride and handling keep it in that conversation, however, is unexpectedly open to question. From an engineering team that could so easily have simply duplicated the axles of the superb GTI Clubsport S here, but for some reason chose not to, that comes as a surprise to say the least. The TCR is still a fine hot hatchback and a compelling driver’s car, but one that doesn’t have the otherworldly body control and wheel dexterity of the last extra-special GTI – and that’s regardless how you’ve got it its adaptive dampers configured. And yet – because the TCR is still a GTI at heart – it doesn’t have the hip-swivelling handling agility, tactile driver engagement or the sheer excitement value of its greatest rivals, either. The car is totally at home on track, particularly so on the optional Michelin Cup 2 rubber on which we tested it – but with more notable precision and unflappable stability about its handling than balance and direction-changing vigour. It’s enormously capable and viceless when being driven fast, keeping its body supremely flat and working its tyres very evenly, and sticking as assiduously to a chosen line as a besieged British cabinet minister. On the road, though, where you expect a fast Golf to be nothing short of brilliant, the TCR’s ride is guilty of the odd stumble and stutter. It can feel firm, stubborn and excitable when dealing with bigger, sharper intrusions – though it’s not so reactive as ever to deflect the car’s steering, nor is it any kind of barrier to your enjoyment of the car when the surface is good. But now and again, when a ridge or lump in the road taken at pace makes the car’s damping bristle and grab – and when the suspension seems keener on pummeling the road and rebounding off it than engaging with it – one particularly telling and unwelcome thought may begin to interrupt your enjoyment of this car, just as it did for me: “wouldn’t a standard GTI have dealt with that better”?v Outwardly, the TCR is probably best distinguished from the lesser GTI by its matt black alloy wheels, and the extended front splitter, rear diffuser and roof spoiler that make up its new TCR racer-inspired aero kit. Well, those and the car’s motorsport-tastic hexagonal side decals (which are effectively a no-cost option – so you can dispense with them if you prefer). You can add carbonfibre door mirror caps, which make for a classier-looking extra identifying visual touch; or you can opt for ‘pure grey’ paint if you like, which is exclusive to the TCR – but, in this tester’s opinion, looks about as exciting as a pallbearer’s cravat. On the inside of the car, meanwhile, a new pair of microfibre-and-cloth sports seats appear, as does a modified steering wheel with perforated leather grips and a competition-style dead-centre marker in red. VW insiders say the interior of the eighth-generation VW Golf, which is due for a public airing later this year, is a big step on from this car. But, while that’s an entirely believable claim, it’s not as if there’s much wrong with the cabin of the seventh-gen car. The TCR’s driving position is near-perfect for a hot hatchback. Its new sports seats are almost ideally, oh-so-comfortably clenching, and its interior fittings look and feel absolutely first class, showing very few signs of age. But most of that’s also true of a regular GTI, of course, and wouldn’t be a good reason for find an extra £5000. So what would be? Well, the TCR certainly delivers a dose more straight-line pace than the car on which it was based – though not a huge one. There is only 7lb ft of extra torque on offer here than in a GTI Performance, which probably isn’t enough to notice in terms of mid-range thrust – although the TCR doesn’t feel short on the stuff. Where the car really delivers on its makeover is at high revs, and particularly so over the last 1500rpm of the operating rev range, when that freed-up 2.0-litre pulls with notably greater enthusiasm and venom than GTI drivers will be used to. The engine also retains a nicely balanced broad spread of potency, and has better low-range response than the old Clubsport series cars thanks to better ECU mapping. It may not quite have the measure of absolutely every engine of its kind, but the TCR’s motor effectively banishes any semblance of meekness from the GTI’s character. If you want a really fast and exciting hot hatchback, this engine just about puts the Golf GTI back in the conversation. Whether the TCR’s ride and handling keep it in that conversation, however, is unexpectedly open to question. From an engineering team that could so easily have simply duplicated the axles of the superb GTI Clubsport S here, but for some reason chose not to, that comes as a surprise to say the least. The TCR is still a fine hot hatchback and a compelling driver’s car, but one that doesn’t have the otherworldly body control and wheel dexterity of the last extra-special GTI – and that’s regardless how you’ve got it its adaptive dampers configured. And yet – because the TCR is still a GTI at heart – it doesn’t have the hip-swivelling handling agility, tactile driver engagement or the sheer excitement value of its greatest rivals, either. The car is totally at home on track, particularly so on the optional Michelin Cup 2 rubber on which we tested it – but with more notable precision and unflappable stability about its handling than balance and direction-changing vigour. It’s enormously capable and viceless when being driven fast, keeping its body supremely flat and working its tyres very evenly, and sticking as assiduously to a chosen line as a besieged British cabinet minister. On the road, though, where you expect a fast Golf to be nothing short of brilliant, the TCR’s ride is guilty of the odd stumble and stutter. It can feel firm, stubborn and excitable when dealing with bigger, sharper intrusions – though it’s not so reactive as ever to deflect the car’s steering, nor is it any kind of barrier to your enjoyment of the car when the surface is good. But now and again, when a ridge or lump in the road taken at pace makes the car’s damping bristle and grab – and when the suspension seems keener on pummeling the road and rebounding off it than engaging with it – one particularly telling and unwelcome thought may begin to interrupt your enjoyment of this car, just as it did for me: “wouldn’t a standard GTI have dealt with that better”?

The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has discovered the largest known prime number, 277,232,917-1, having 23,249,425 digits. A computer volunteered by Jonathan Pace made the find on December 26, 2017. Jonathan is one of thousands of volunteers using free GIMPS software. The new prime number, also known as M77232917, is calculated by multiplying together 77,232,917 twos, and then subtracting one. It is nearly one million digits larger than the previous record prime number, in a special class of extremely rare prime numbers known as Mersenne primes. It is only the 50th known Mersenne prime ever discovered, each increasingly difficult to find. Mersenne primes were named for the French monk Marin Mersenne, who studied these numbers more than 350 years ago. GIMPS, founded in 1996, has discovered the last 16 Mersenne primes. Volunteers download a free program to search for these primes, with a cash award offered to anyone lucky enough to find a new prime. Prof. Chris Caldwell maintains an authoritative web site on the largest known primes, and has an excellent history of Mersenne primes. The primality proof took six days of non-stop computing on a PC with an Intel i5-6600 CPU. To prove there were no errors in the prime discovery process, the new prime was independently verified using four different programs on four different hardware configurations. Aaron Blosser verified it using Prime95 on an Intel Xeon server in 37 hours. David Stanfill verified it using gpuOwL on an AMD RX Vega 64 GPU in 34 hours. Andreas Höglund verified the prime using CUDALucas running on NVidia Titan Black GPU in 73 hours. Ernst Mayer also verified it using his own program Mlucas on 32-core Xeon server in 82 hours. Andreas Höglund also confirmed using Mlucas running on an Amazon AWS instance in 65 hours. Jonathan Pace is a 51-year old Electrical Engineer living in Germantown, Tennessee. Perseverance has finally paid off for Jon -- he has been hunting for big primes with GIMPS for over 14 years. The discovery is eligible for a $3,000 GIMPS research discovery award. GIMPS Prime95 client software was developed by founder George Woltman. Scott Kurowski wrote the PrimeNet system software that coordinates GIMPS' computers. Aaron Blosser is now the system administrator, upgrading and maintaining PrimeNet as needed. Volunteers have a chance to earn research discovery awards of $3,000 or $50,000 if their computer discovers a new Mersenne prime. GIMPS' next major goal is to win the $150,000 award administered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation offered for finding a 100 million digit prime number. Credit for this prime goes not only to Jonathan Pace for running the Prime95 software, Woltman for writing the software, Kurowski and Blosser for their work on the Primenet server, but also the thousands of GIMPS volunteers that sifted through millions of non-prime candidates. In recognition of all the above people, official credit for this discovery goes to "J. Pace, G. Woltman, S. Kurowski, A. Blosser, et al." The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) was formed in January 1996 by George Woltman to discover new world record size Mersenne primes. In 1997 Scott Kurowski enabled GIMPS to automatically harness the power of thousands of ordinary computers to search for these "needles in a haystack." Most GIMPS members join the search for the thrill of possibly discovering a record-setting, rare, and historic new Mersenne prime. The search for more Mersenne primes is already under way. There may be smaller, as yet undiscovered Mersenne primes, and there almost certainly are larger Mersenne primes waiting to be found. Anyone with a reasonably powerful PC can join GIMPS and become a big prime hunter, and possibly earn a cash research discovery award.

Western Digital Black carries a sort of connotation that is synonymous with performance. I still have a WD Black 1TB operating in a PC in my house and it has been kicking strong since 2007, seriously bought it in 2007 and it has yet to skip a beat. But times have changed and gumstick size storage solutions are all the rage, and understandably so. Smaller, faster, and much easier to cable manage when they’re stuck straight to the motherboard. We had a chance to sit down with Western Digital during CES to talk about their future plans for NVMe and things are looking pretty interesting. Today they’re launching the 1TB model to join the 250GB and 500GB in the market with a single sided 2TB heatsinked model to come later. That big boy is the one we’re looking forward to as you can pretty much have just one massive and insanely fast NVMe drive for your entire gaming rig. They’re also Launching a new WD SSD Dashboard to give users more control and information regarding their drives. One of the more useful features for desktop users is the ‘game mode’ which will disable the lower power states so that the drive is always up and running in full performance in an effort to increase responsiveness after idle times. The second-generation NVMe SSD to be built on Western Digital’s own 3D NAND technology, firmware and controller,the WD BlackSN750NVMeSSD features a vertically integrated SSD platform designed to maximize NVMe SSD performance. Delivering exceptional sequential read up to 3,470 MB/s for 500GB and 1TB model and write performance up to 3,000MB/s for 1TB model. Additionally, the SSD features up to 515,000 random-read and 560,000 random-write IOPs for 1TB model. This enables higher responsiveness when accessing multiple files in various locations to load new levels or games, with less time required to save in-game recorded clips during game play.

First trailer for Keanu Reeves’ John Wick franchise, John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum was released on Thursday. It starts where Chapter 2 ended, with John running for his life after being declared Excommunicado by an secret outfit of assassins . The fans are preparing for gruesome violence unleashed by trained assassins. With a bounty on his head, Wick is running around killing everyone out with an intention to eliminate him. Directed by Chad Stahelski, John Wick: Chapter 3-Parabellum slated for release on May 16 .