Weekly Digest - 2020.36

Weekly Digest - 2020.36

GeForce RTX  30 Series

Nvidia announced next generation of the graphics cards, and they are beasts. Based on Ampere architecture they come with incredible core count. The RTX 3090 has 10,496 CUDA cores, the RTX 3080 has 8,704, and the RTX 3070 has 5,888. They also come with 24GB, 10GB, and 8GB of either GDDR6X or GDDR6 respectively.

Those specs ensure incredible performance, the RTX 3090 is 1.5x faster than the Titan RTX, the RTX 3080 is twice as fast as the RTX 2080, and the RTX 3070 can outperform the RTX 2080 Ti.

In terms of pricing., RTX 3090 will cost $1,499, the RTX 3080 coming in at $699 and RTX 3070 at $499.

RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 will be available in September, and RTX 3070 in October.

Image credits: Nvidia

Weekly Digest - 2020.06

Weekly Digest - 2020.06

Faking trafic jam on Google Maps

Google Maps monitors traffic data using various sources, including phones with location services turned on.  Sam Wecker tricked Google Maps and created virtual traffic jam by walking through empty streets of Berlin with 99 second-hand phones loaded on a small wagon.

Google is aware of this flaw and, in response to 9to5Google, stated that they liked the idea, and hope that it will somehow improve the service.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip leaked

A video showing upcoming Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip has been shared on Twitter. Phone itself looks more like a traditional flip phone that folds up into a compact device. There is not much information about this phone, but here is what we know so far based on the leaks:

  • It will have 6.1- inch foldable main screen,
  • Smaller screen on the back for clock & notifications,
  • Front facing camera built into the main screen,
  • Double camera system on the back.

The Galaxy Z Flip is expected to be revealed at Samsung's Unpacked event on February 11.

GeForce Now finally released

Nvidia's game streaming service -  GeForce Now - left the beta and is finally available for everyone. At the moment, players can choose one of two tiers:

Free

  • Play session is limited to 1 hour,
  • Raytracing is disabled.

Founders

  • Costs $4.99 a month,
  • Unlimited play time,
  • Priority access to servers,
  • Raytracing is available.

GeForce Now allows to play already purchased games from Steam, Uplay, and Epic Store. The list of compatible games is impressive.

At the moment, the client is available for Windows, macOS i Android, but Nvidia also plans to release the PWA version.

Microsoft forgot to renew a certificate, again

Microsoft Teams went down for nearly three hours after Microsoft forgot to renew a critical security certificate. Teams users couldn't sign into the service because the app was failing to establish an HTTPS connection to Microsoft’s servers.

This is not Microsoft's first incident with expired certificate. In 2013,  Microsoft Azure was not available for couple of hours.

AMD Powered macs?

New beta of macOS 10.15.4 Catalina continues to reference the AMD processors. Those references could mean one of couple of things:

  • Apple is just playing with AMD's hardware and there is nothing more to the story,
  • AMD's CPU and GPU will power rumored gaming computer,
  • Apple is going to replace Intel's chips with AMD ones in future iMacs and MacBooks.

Image credits: Google Maps