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Nvidia Engineer's Vulkan Driver For Raspberry Pi Runs Quake III Over 100 FPS at 720p

Earlier this year, the Raspberry Pi Foundation hooked up with Igalia to start development on an open-sourced Vulkan graphics driver for the Raspberry Pi. However, Martin Thomas, an engineer at Nvidia, beat them to the punch.

Thomas announced yesterday via his personal Twitter that his RPi-VK-Driver is ready for primetime. The talented engineer had been working on the Vulkan driver in his spare time for more than two years.

Technically, Thomas' iteration isn't a Vulkan driver per se because it doesn't comply with the official standards established by The Khronos Group. Nonetheless, the resourceful developer produced a driver that adheres to the Vulkan parameters as much as possible, and as close as the hardware would permit it. There's just one limitation with the RPi-VK-Driver though. Unlike the official Vulkan driver that's still in the works, Thomas' version is only compatible with the Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU that's found inside the Raspberry Pi 1, 2, 3 and Zero devices.

Maybe 3B+ will briefly have better performance than 4B in some games and benchmarks.

Also at Phoronix.

ODROID-H2+ An x86 Board to Challenge Raspberry Pi? (cache)

• Intel Celeron J4115 Gemini Lake quad core CPU 1.8 GHz, turbo to 2.3 GHz.
• Intel UHD Graphics 600 up to 700 MHz
• Dual-channel SO-DIMM Memory DDR4-PC19200 (2400MT/s) supporting up to 32GB RAM
• M.2 PCIe 2.0 x4 slot for one NVMe storage, 2x SATA 3.0 ports, eMMC flash support
• HDMI 2.0 up to 4K (4096×2160) @ 60 Hz
• DisplayPort 1.2 up to 4K (4096×2160) @ 60 Hz
• Dual 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet (RJ45) via RTL8125B chipset
• 24-pin header with I2C, UART (3.3V), USB2.0 and HDMI CEC signals
• 14V to 20V DC power input

ODROID-H2+ $119
ODROID-H2 $111

The change that stands out is the upgrade from 2x 1GbE to 2x 2.5GbE.

Atlanta Police Chief Resigns, Officer Fired After Police Shoot And Kill Black Man

A charred Wendy's, an officer fired and a police chief steps down in the aftermath of Rayshard Brooks' death

In Atlanta, protesters started gathering after Brooks was shot but tensions escalated Saturday night, when larger crowds congregated in the area surrounding the Wendy's where the shooting occurred. Some shattered the store's glass, CNN's Natasha Chen reported.

By nightfall, the fast-food eatery was engulfed in flames. It took firefighters more than an hour to approach the building as it was surrounded by protesters, CNN affiliate WSB reported.

Taser safety issues - "Non-lethal" designation

While they are not technically considered lethal, some authorities and non-governmental organizations question both the degree of safety presented by the weapon and the ethical implications of using a weapon that some, such as sections of Amnesty International, allege is inhumane. As a consequence, Amnesty International Canada and other civil liberties organizations have argued that a moratorium should be placed on Taser use until research can determine a way for them to be safely used. Amnesty International has documented over 500 deaths that occurred after the use of Tasers. Police sources question whether the Taser was the actual cause of death in those cases, as many of the deaths occurred in people with serious medical conditions and/or severe drug intoxication, often to the point of excited delirium.

The solution to police killings in America? Cops in space marine/Robocop suits with advanced integrated tasers.

Kimχ Micro: A powerful alternative to the Raspberry Pi that supports PCIe cards

The Kimχ Micro is a small but mighty single-board computer (SBC). At a footprint of just 65 x 32 mm, the Kimχ Micro is just slightly larger than the Raspberry Pi Zero. However, the Kimχ Micro offers greater possibilities and power reserves than its micro SBC counterpart.

Specifically, the Kimχ Micro includes an NXP i.MX 8M Mini processor, which features up to four ARM Cortex-A53 cores. These cores can clock up to 1.8 GHz and are complemented by an ARM Cortex-M4F real-time core, along with a Vivante GC NanoUltra 3D GPU. The latter will allow the Kimχ Micro to encode and decode 1080p content at 60 FPS.

Additionally, the micro SBC includes 1 GB of LPDDR4 RAM, 8 GB of eMMC flash storage and a micro SD card reader. There is a serial EEPROM too. The Kimχ Micro also features a built-in mPCIe connection for adding PCIe cards like a Wi-Fi card. The board should support LTE or LoRA cards, incidentally.

Kimx Micro Offers Open Source Hardware Raspberry Pi Alternative

This open-source hardware board is still under development but it is great to see the progress of the board being made publicly available. When the board is ready for purchase it will be offered via GroupGets.

Raspberry Pi Zero Sized Kimχ Micro SBC is Equipped with a Quad-Core Processor, an mPCIe Slot

Power supply options are quite interesting too, as I think it’s the first board of this type (tiny Linux board) to offer USB PD power/charging, and it also supports LiPo battery power. Another advantage is that it is open-source hardware, and that’s how I managed to derive somewhat detailed specifications since documentation is WiP: reading the BoM and KiCad schematics & PCB layout which you’ll find on Github. Everything is licensed under CERN-OHL-S V.2. Linux will be supported via a layer for the Yocto Project.

Kimχ = kimchi

Zoom suspends U.S.-based activist's account after Tiananmen Square commemoration event

Zoom shut down the account of an activist who was holding an event on the video conferencing platform to commemorate China's Tiananmen Square crackdown.

The move has prompted accusations that Zoom, a U.S. company, has bowed to pressure from Beijing.

U.S.-based rights group Humanitarian China held an event on Zoom on May 31 to commemorate those who lost their lives in the violent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in China's Tiananmen Square in 1989. The topic is taboo in China and references to it online are heavily censored.

The account that hosted the event was shut down on June 7, according to Zhou Fengsuo, who founded Humanitarian China and took part in the 1989 protests as a student. The account has since been reinstated.

Also at The Guardian.

North Korean leader's sister emerges as policymaker in spat with South Korea

The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is taking a leading role in a new, more hard-line pressure campaign against South Korea, highlighting what analysts say is a substantive policy role that goes beyond being her brother’s assistant.

[...] this year, Kim has taken on a more public policy role, cementing her status as an influential political player in her own right.

“Prior to this, Kim Yo Jong was portrayed in state media as Kim Jong Un’s sister, his protocol officer, or one of his accompanying officials,” said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a former North Korea open source intelligence analyst in the U.S. government. “Now, North Koreans know for sure there is more to her than that.”

Kim has worked behind the scenes in North Korea’s propaganda agencies, a role that led the United States to add her to a list of sanctioned senior officials in 2017 because of human rights abuses and censorship.

In March, state media carried the first ever statement by Kim, in which she criticised South Korean authorities. That was followed by several more, including a response to comments by Trump, and last week, a warning that the North would cut communications with South Korea.

Lee said Kim’s statements have a unique style, showcasing her wit and underscoring her powerful position.

“In addition to the harsh words and sarcasm, they can be bitingly witty in ways that the other statements are not,” Lee said. “She seems to have more leeway in crafting her statements, which of course is not surprising.”

Kim Yo-jong

Democratic leaders clash with Black Lives Matter activists over 'defund the police'

As Trump seizes on the slogan to paint his opponents as radicals who envision a world of lawlessness and anarchy, Biden and most other Democrats are resisting the left's calls and floating more modest measures to curtail bad police behavior.

“No, I don't support defunding the police," Biden told CBS Evening News on Monday. "I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness and, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community."

Johnetta Elzie, a civil rights activist and organizer, said Biden's calls for "reform" sound stale, mealy-mouthed and out of touch as "black people are still dying behind these antiquated ideas and policies."

"It's not enough. Joe Biden knows it's not enough. Joe Biden's team knows it's not enough. It's not at all answering the calls of the moment," Elzie said. "People have been saying to anyone who's f---ing up in this moment: Read the room. People are calling for defunding the police.

"People in power — politicians and policymakers — are still talking about reform. We're beyond that. We're over that," she said. "If they wanted reform, they would have done it six years ago when we actually had the chance to. But that's not what happened."

The clash pits an ideological movement aiming to transform the national debate against a Democratic electoral apparatus whose overriding goal is to defeat Trump. While activists say they believe the need for radical change is worth taking political risks, party leaders say they worry about alienating moderate white voters who sympathize with the protesters' cause but still support police.

[...] Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, was loudly booed and forced to retreat from a gathering of demonstrators Saturday after he responded to a question about whether he would commit to defunding the police by saying, "I do not support the full abolition of the police."

When pressed to explain what the slogan means in policy terms, activists say "defund the police" is not actually a call for a country with no cops.

"It does not mean a world where we do not have safety and justice. It does not mean a world where we do not have order," Robinson said. "But what it does mean is that right now we seem to try to solve all of our society's problems by increasing the role and responsibility of law enforcement, and it has not worked."

Elzie said "defund the police" means "reducing police budgets, to me, down to the bare minimum."

[...] "It's not the job of activists to present poll-tested ideas," said Sean McElwee, a left-wing organizer and data scientist who popularized #AbolishICE. "It's the job of activists to demand we imagine a world built on fundamentally different assumptions. We've already seen a number of concrete and actionable policies that can fundamentally change the way we understand policing in this country."

AMD Hints at More Than 4 GB Graphics Memory As Standard on Next-Gen Radeon RX Graphics Card

In a recent blog post, AMD might have hinted at the end of the 4 GB entry-level graphics cards era as we get closer to the launch of the first RDNA 2 powered Radeon RX graphics cards. The blog post that is cleverly titled 'Game Beyond 4GB' compares AMD's most entry-level Navi based Radeon RX graphics card, the 5500 XT, in both 4 GB and 8 GB flavors and shows how the increased VRAM size not only delivers better performance but has become crucial from a support point of view in next-generation AAA titles.

Currently, AMD's entry-level Radeon RX graphics card lineup consists of the Radeon RX 5500 XT which has two variants, one with 4 GB GDDR6 memory and a second variant with 8 GB GDDR6 memory. In addition to its Navi based cards, AMD's older Polaris based options continue to sell large volumes and have several options to select from with the majority being 8 GB variants that we saw become a standard in the last generation of Polaris offerings.

AMD in its own testing reports up to 24% performance improvement in AAA titles using an 8 GB Radeon RX 5500 XT versus a 4 GB variant. Modern titles such as Borderlands 3, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Forza Horizon 4, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Doom Eternal, and Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus were tested, all of which showed marked improvement over the 4 GB option.

Also at Guru3D.

Frankly speaking, neither is 8.

laughs (cries?) in heavily modified 8K textures Skyrim Mods

PineTab Linux Tablet will have an Optional RTL-SDR Expansion Module

What's interesting about the PineTab is that they are advertising that they are working on expansion options, with one expansion module being an RTL-SDR. It seems that the expansion module will allow cards to be inserted internally, keeping everything tidy on the outside. Apart from the RTL-SDR, they will also offer LoRa, LTE (with GPS) and sata SSD add on cards.

May Update: PineTab Pre-Orders, PinePhone Qi Charging & More!

It looks like AMD will launch some Zen 2 refresh CPUs to stave off Intel's Whatever Lake before the Zen 3 launch:

AMD Ryzen 9 3900 XT, Ryzen 7 3800 XT, Ryzen 5 3600 XT ‘Matisse Refresh’ Desktop CPUs Confirmed – Same Core Config, Higher Clocks & Price Cuts For Existing Models

If correct, these should replace the 3900X, 3800X, and 3600X, boosting clocks a bit. Pricing would be the same as the original lineup ($500, $400, $250 respectively), while the older chips will get price cuts.

Separately, Tom's Hardware reported replacements for 3800X and 3700X:

AMD Reportedly Planning Two New Ryzen 3000-Series CPUs

The Ryzen 7 3800X and Ryzen 7 3700X are the two potential Zen 2 candidates that could undergo the refresh treatment. If there is a tiny bit of credence in the rumors, AMD will market the rewarmed parts as the Ryzen 7 3850X and Ryzen 7 3750X with the latter having already surfaced in AMD's Product Master guide since last year. In other words, the Ryzen 7 3850X and Ryzen 7 3750X would just be higher-binned variants of their vanilla counterparts.