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F(x)tec Pro1 X smartphone runs LineageOS or Ubuntu, features a sliding keyboard (Crowdfunding)

Pro1-X: XDA Developers collaborates to create the world's first Lineage OS and Ubuntu Touch smartphone

SpaceX Starlink internet seeks final approvals to serve Australia

SpaceX has begun applying for Starlink gateway licenses in at least four Australian cities – Broken Hill, Boorowa, Wagin, and Pimba – in one of the final steps needed before Starlink internet can begin operating on the continent.

[...] SpaceX must gain a final, more challenging regulatory approval by obtaining a spectrum license that will allow the Starlink satellites to communicate to ground stations that are based in Australia. The ACMA stated that SpaceX’s “inclusion in the determination does not confer a right on that entity to obtain a license, rather it is a prerequisite before a space apparatus license can be issued.” Carrier license thus in hand, a spectrum license is still needed to ensure that Starlink does not interfere with existing Australian communications services.

SpaceX Starship fires up three Raptor engines in prelude to high-altitude flight

Update: At 1:21am CDT (6:21 UTC) on October 20th, Starship SN8 ignited all three of its Raptors’ preburners, producing a spectacular fireball noticeably larger than the one produced during the rocket’s first October 19th preburner test. A mere two hours later, with no break in between, the steel rocket prototype fully ignited all three Raptor engines for the first time ever, likely producing thrust equivalent to ~90% of a nine engine Falcon 9 booster for a brief moment.

Crucially, aside from physically demonstrating Raptor’s multi-engine capabilities, Starship SN8 – already a first-of-a-kind prototype – completed and survived a static fire seemingly unscathed on its first attempt. If the data SpaceX gathers from the milestone is as good as the test appeared to be, the company could be just a few days away from installing Starship SN8’s recently-stacked nosecone, followed by a second triple-Raptor static fire test. If that second static fire goes well, SN8’s next task will be the first high-altitude Starship flight test.

[...] Curiously, moments before preburner ignition, one of the three Raptor engines appeared to command an aggressive jet-like vent of liquid oxygen identical to a vent seen just a few hours prior during the first aborted preburner test. There’s thus a chance that only two of SN8’s three Raptor engines successfully started their preburners.

More details: Starship SN8 conducts milestone Static Fire test ahead of nosecone install

Update: SpaceX Starship go for nosecone installation forward after historic static fire

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6 Core Reportedly Offers Better Gaming Performance Than Intel Core i7-10700 8 Core CPU, Ryzen 5 5600 Comes In Early 2021 With a $220 US Price

The $150 gap between 5600X and 5800X is just waiting for a Ryzen 7 5700X to be dropped in.

Previously: AMD Announces Zen 3 CPUs

PlayStation 5 uses liquid metal — here’s why that’s cool

Typically, systems use a paste-style TIM, but that isn’t good enough for the PS5. During his teardown of the PS5, Sony engineering vice president Yasuhiro Ootori explained why.

“The PS5’s SoC is a small die running at a very high clock rate,” Ootori said. “This led to a very high thermal density in the silicon die, which required us to significantly increase the performance of the thermal conductor, also known as the TIM, that sits between the SoC and the heatsink.”

That need led Sony to go with liquid metal.

“The PS5 utilizes liquid metal as the TIM to ensure long-term, stable, high-cooling performance,” said Ootori.

[...] Earlier this year, Sony patented an insulating sheet that basically acts as a corral for the liquid metal. This is likely key to dealing with the conductivity and shifting issues.

Sony also isn’t the only company doing this. Asus is shipping its first laptop with a liquid-metal TIM this year. And that likely speaks to advances in the durability of the alloy.

Italian teenage computer whiz beatified by Catholic Church

A 15-year-old Italian computer whiz who died of leukemia in 2006 moved a step closer to possible sainthood Saturday with his beatification in the town of Assisi, where he is buried.

Carlo Acutis is the youngest contemporary person to be beatified, a path taken by two Portuguese shepherd children living in the early 1900s who were proclaimed Catholic saints in 2017.

At the beatification ceremony in Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, a portrait of Acutis was slowly unveiled, revealing a smiling teen in a red polo shirt, his curly dark hair illuminated by a halo of light. Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the papal legate for the Assisi basilicas, kissed each of the boy’s mask-wearing parents, Andrea Acutis and Antonia Salzano, after reading the proclamation decreed by Pope Francis.

Already touted as the “patron saint of the internet,” Acutis created a website to catalog miracles and took care of websites for some local Catholic organizations. While still in elementary school, Acutis taught himself to code using a university computer science textbook, and then learned how to edit videos and create animation.

“Carlo used the internet in service of the Gospel, to reach as many people as possible,’’ the cardinal said during his homily, adding that the teen saw the web “as a place to use with responsibility, without becoming enslaved.”

Carlo Acutis: Millennial generation has a Blessed

Carlo's motto reflects the life of a normal teenager who strived to be the best version of himself, living the ordinary in an extraordinary way. He used his first savings to buy a sleeping bag for a homeless man he often saw on the way to Mass. He could have bought himself another video game for his game console collection. He loved to play video games. Instead, he chose to be generous. This was not an isolated instance. His funeral was packed with many of the city's poor residents that Carlo had helped, demonstrating that the generosity he had extended to the homeless man on his way to Mass had been offered to many other people as well.

[...] He was a "natural jokester" as his mother, Antonia Salzano, once commented in an interview. His classmates would burst out in laughter at his remarks, and so would the teachers. Since he realized it could annoy and disrupt others, he made an effort to change in that regard as well. Making life pleasant for those around him through little acts was a constant in his life. He did not like the cleaning staff picking up after him, even if they were paid for that. So he set the alarm clock a few minutes earlier to tidy up his room and make the bed. Raejsh, a Hindu who cleaned at Carlo's house, was impressed that someone "as handsome, young and rich” decided to live a simple life. “He captivated me with his deep faith, charity and purity,” he remarked. Through Carlo’s example, Raejsh decided to be baptized in the Catholic Church.

[...] Our new Blessed also enjoyed putting on his diving goggles and playing “fetch trash from the bottom of the sea”. When he took the dogs out for a walk, he always picked up whatever garbage he came across. It was his way of improving his corner of the world.

Carlo Acutis

AMD announces Zen 3 CPUs tomorrow.

Intel Desktop Roadmap Through Q2 2021 Leaked – No HEDT Update Till 2H 2021, RKL-S In Mid March

Intel ‘Rocket Lake’ Desktop Processor With Next Generation Willow Cove Cores Landing In 2021

Intel Confirms Rocket Lake on Desktop for Q1 2021, with PCIe 4.0

Rocket Lake will compete with Zen 3, using backported "Willow Cove" cores on "14nm" instead of "10nm". That could improve performance by around 10%.

If it needs to, AMD could respond in the middle of 2021 with a Zen 3+ refresh, possibly on the new AM5 socket, or just wait until Zen 4 (late 2021, early 2022).

Intel 12th Generation ‘Alder Lake’ CPU With 8 + 8 Cores Spotted In Sisoft Sandra Benchmark

Alder Lake will likely end up competing with Zen 4.

This would be a second attempt at a hybrid x86 architecture, and it will probably find its way into laptops. Maybe even with the full "16" cores?

Intel Sapphire Rapids: MCM Design, 56 Golden Cove Cores, 64GB HBM2 On-Board Memory, Massive IPC Improvement and 400 Watt TDP

56 cores was expected, on-board HBM2e is new.

Kyrgyzstan election: Protesters storm parliament over vote-rigging claims

Protestors in Kyrgyzstan calling for the country's parliamentary election to be annulled have broken into parliament in the capital, Bishkek.

Footage showed people throwing papers from the building's windows, while others were seen entering the office of President Sooronbai Jeenbekov.

The break-in follows a day of clashes with police, who initially dispersed crowds with water cannon and tear gas.

The clashes come amid allegations of vote-rigging in last Sunday's election.

Following the vote, only four parties out of 16 passed the 7% threshold for entry into parliament, three of which have close ties to President Jeenbekov.

Kyrgyzstan election: 120 taken to hospital following result protest

Hailo-8 M.2 and mini PCIe AI accelerator cards deliver up to 26 TOPS

When looking at the performance chart released by Israeli startup Hailo, which pits Hailo-8 against Google Edge TPU and Intel Myriad X using popular ResNet and MobileNet models, I might as well titled this article as “Hailo-8 M.2 card mops the floor with Google Edge TPU and Intel Movidius Myriad X AI accelerators”.

The amount of AI processing power packed in such a tiny M.2 card is impressive, and it’s made possible by the higher 3 TOPS per watt efficiency compared to the typical 0.5 Watt per TOPS (or 2 TOPS per Watt) advertised by competitors. So a 26 TOPS Hailo-8 card will consume around 8.6 W, while a 4 TOPS Google Coral M.2 card should consume about 2 W.

As noted by LinuxGizmos who alerted us of the new cards, Hailo-8 was previously seen integrated into Foxconn fanless “BOXiedge” AI edge server powered by SynQuacer SC2A11 24x Cortex-A53 cores SoC and capable of analyzing up to 20 streaming camera feeds in real-time.

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X “Vermeer” 12 Core & 24 Thread Zen 3 CPU Allegedly Up To 5 GHz With 150W TDP

Rumors say:

AMD will skip over 4000 to name the new Zen 3 desktop CPUs. There were plenty of complaints about Zen+ APUs being lumped in with Zen 2 CPUs and so on.

Somewhere between 15-20% higher overall IPC, ~10% higher clocks. Higher TDP: 150 Watts for the 12-core. Single core boost to 5 GHz.

Part of the improvement will be a unified 32 MB L3 cache for an entire core complex die (CCD). Maybe applications that are sensitive to that will show the most improvement.

12-core might be the top model at launch. That's how it was with Zen 2. The 16-core 3950X launched 4½ months after the 12-core 3900X. But it used better binned chiplets and had higher power efficiency than the 3900X.