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PicoRio RISC-V SBC: Flame On
Board only exists on paper:
PicoRio Linux RISC-V SBC is an Open Source Alternative to Raspberry Pi Board
Linux capable RISC-V boards do exist but cost several hundred dollars or more with the likes of HiFive Unleashed and PolarFire SoC Icicle development kit. If only there was a RISC-V board similar to the Raspberry Pi board and with a similar price point… The good news is that the RISC-V International Open Source (RIOS) Laboratory is collaborating with Imagination technologies to bring PicoRio RISC-V SBC to market at a price point similar to Raspberry Pi.
From the comments:
I was compelled to comment after laughing hysterically at seeing “open source” and “Imagination Technologies” mentioned in the same breath.
Samsung 16 GB LPDDR5 DRAM Package Take Two
Samsung Begins Mass Production of 16Gb LPDDR5 DRAM
Samsung is now manufacturing 16 Gb LPDDR5 DRAM chips, which it will use to make 16 GB packages, among others.
They were stacking 8x 12 Gb and 4x 8 Gb chips in their previous abominations. These ones are likely to be cheaper. It's also 16.3̅6̅% faster at 6,400 MT/s instead of 5,500 MT/s.
No word yet on 24 GB or 32 GB packages.
Previously: Samsung Announces Mass Production of 16 GB LPDDR5 DRAM Packages
Statues + Machine Learning
XuanTie 910 / Alibaba XT910 RISC-V Core
More Details about Alibaba XT910 64-bit RISC-V Core
No GPU! "Legal challenges for a high-performance core"!
Previously: Alibaba Announces a 16-Core RISC-V CPU
Alibaba Claims its RISC-V Core is Faster than ARM Cortex-A73
AMD 2021-2022 Roadmap: Zen 3 Refresh on AM5?
AMD Ryzen 2021-2022 roadmap partially leaks
The big takeaways seem to be:
Warhol: A 2021 Zen 3 refresh desktop CPU (after this year's Zen 3 Vermeer), except that it may be on the new AM5 socket with DDR5 memory, so it would break compatibility with current motherboards. It could have some "Zen 3+" IPC enhancements, reminiscent of the slight gains of "Zen+". Still uses PCIe 4.0.
Raphael: 2022 Zen 4 desktop CPU. It could have an entry-level amount of integrated graphics on a chiplet. Most of Intel's desktop CPUs have integrated graphics, while AMD has forgone it. But there is probably plenty of room for the I/O die, 2-3x 8-core CPU chiplets, and a tiny GPU chiplet, especially given that it will be on TSMC's dense "5nm" node. This is the one I'm hoping will have gigabytes of L4 cache stacked on the I/O die.
Dragon Crest: Early 2022 successor to the low power Van Gogh APU, featuring Zen 3 cores and enhanced RDNA2. If the target is really early 2022, then AMD is being very aggressive about introducing new products at a fast pace.
AMD's Van Gogh: Low Power Zen 2 + RDNA2 + LPDDR5
This looks excellent for low power laptops/2-in-1s and maybe SBCs/SFF. Some details have been known for a while but this fleshes it out a bit. I'm expecting it will top out at quad-core but hexa/octo-core would be hilarious. One piece of information that came out at Hot Chips 2020 was that AMD originally planned for Renoir to have up to 6 cores, but was able to bump that up to 8 cores because of how good the "7nm" node was. It looks like an enhanced version of "7nm" will be used here which should have some performance, power, and maybe density improvements.
If it features RDNA2 graphics, it may have real-time ray-tracing support. This is presumed to work in AMD's IP by repurposing a number of the GPU's cores (i.e. they can't be used for rasterization at the same time). Van Gogh may have more GPU die area than you would expect for low power integrated graphics, just clocked low enough to meet the TDP target.
The main downside I see is that almost every single device will have soldered (non-expandable) RAM. That's the norm these days but it's still disappointing.
Alexei Navalny Poisoned
Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny in coma after suspected poisoning: spokeswoman
Russian opposition leader and outspoken Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny is in a coma after falling ill from suspected poisoning, his spokeswoman said Thursday.
Navalny, 44, started feeling unwell while on a return flight to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk, his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said on Twitter. The plane later made an urgent landing in Omsk, she added.
Loud groaning can be heard in video footage apparently filmed on the flight taken by Navalny, which was shared on the Baza Telegram channel. More video apparently filmed through the airplane window shows an immobile man being taken by wheeled stretcher to a waiting ambulance.
He only drank black tea in an airport cafe before takeoff, Yarmysh told Russian radio station Echo of Moscow. "We assume that Alexey was poisoned with something mixed into the tea. It was the only thing that he drank in the morning. Doctors say the toxin was absorbed faster through the hot liquid," Yarmysh tweeted.
Alexei Navalny: 'Poisoned' Russian opposition leader in a coma
The Kremlin said that it wished Mr Navalny a "speedy recovery".
[...] Ms Yarmysh said later that Mr Navalny was on a ventilator and in a coma, and that the hospital was now full of police officers. All of his belongings were being confiscated, she added.
She also said that doctors were initially ready to share any information but then they later claimed the toxicology tests had been delayed and were "clearly playing for time, and not saying what they know". Diagnosis would be "towards evening", she was told.
Both Mr Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, and doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, have arrived at the hospital. Mrs Navalnaya was initially denied access to her husband because authorities said the patient had not agreed to the visit, Ms Yarmysh said, although she was later allowed on to the ward.
Dr Vasilyeva said they were seeking to transfer the opposition leader to a specialist poison control centre in Europe, but hospital doctors were refusing to provide records of his condition.
Alexei Navalny: Plane to bring 'poisoned' Russian critic to Germany
A German peace foundation is hoping to send an air ambulance to bring Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny to Berlin for treatment following his suspected poisoning.
Heat Shield Tiles on Starship, Installed With Robots
SpaceX installs orbital Starship heat shield prototype with robots
As with all SpaceX programs, the company began Starship heat shield installation development as soon as possible, installing a handful of tiles (presumably early-stage prototypes) on Starhopper as far back as H1 2019. This continued with small hexagonal tile installation tests on Starships SN1, SN3, SN4, SN5, and SN6 throughout 2020. While those coupon tests obviously didn’t involve orbital-class reentry heating or buffeting, they were still useful to characterize the mechanical behavior of heat shield tiles under the stress of cryogenic propellant loading, Raptor static fires, and hop tests.
In 2019, SpaceX even tested a few ceramic Starship heat shield tiles on an orbital Cargo Dragon mission for NASA. The fact that no more orbital Cargo or Crew Dragon tests were acknowledged seems to suggest that the demonstration was a success, proving that the tiles can stand up to the stresses of reentry from low Earth orbit (LEO).
Hopefully, this is just to speed up construction and not a sign that the tiles need to be removed and inspected after every launch.
Do Not Hold Grudges
‘Top Cop’ Kamala Harris’s Record of Policing the Police
As a leading contender to be Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s running mate, Ms. Harris has emerged as a strong voice on issues of police misconduct that seem certain to be central to the campaign. Yet in her own, unsuccessful presidential run, she struggled to reconcile her calls for reform with her record on these same issues during a long career in law enforcement.
Indeed, an examination of that record shows how Ms. Harris was far more reticent in another time of ferment a half-decade ago.
Since becoming California’s attorney general in 2011, she had largely avoided intervening in cases involving killings by the police. Protesters in Oakland distributed fliers saying: “Tell California Attorney General Kamala Harris to prosecute killer cops! It’s her job!”
Then, amid the national outrage stoked by the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., came pleas for her to investigate a series of police shootings in San Francisco, where she had previously been district attorney. She did not step in. Except in extraordinary circumstances, she said, it was not her job.
Still, her approach was subtly shifting. During the inaugural address for her second term as attorney general, Ms. Harris said the nation’s police forces faced a “crisis of confidence.” And by the end of her tenure in 2016, she had proposed a modest expansion of her office’s powers to investigate police misconduct, begun reviews of two municipal police departments and backed a Justice Department investigation in San Francisco.
Critics saw her taking baby steps when bold reform was needed — a microcosm of a career in which she developed a reputation for taking cautious, incremental action on criminal justice and, more often than not, yielding to the status quo.
[...] In her 2009 book, “Smart on Crime,” she wrote that “if we take a show of hands of those who would like to see more police officers on the street, mine would shoot up,” adding that “virtually all law-abiding citizens feel safer when they see officers walking a beat.”
Earlier this summer, in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, she told The New York Times that “it is status-quo thinking to believe that putting more police on the streets creates more safety. That’s wrong. It’s just wrong.”
How Kamala Harris Fought to Keep Nonviolent Prisoners Locked Up
Biden’s notes: ‘Do not hold grudges’ against Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris is clearly the official candidate of white guilt, but her pick is not going down well with at least some BLM supporters. The "cop" label isn't in vogue right now. It probably doesn't matter as the election will probably be a referendum on Trump's handling of the coronavirus and economy, possibly with an October surprise thrown in the mix.
Previously: Kamala Harris Endorses White Segregationist
Onyx Boox Poke2 Color eReader
Onyx Boox Poke2 Color eReader Launched for $299
Manga and comics fans, rejoice! After years of getting black & white eReaders, the first commercial color eReaders are coming to market starting with Onyx Boox Poke2 Color eReader sold for $299 (but sadly sold out at the time of writing).
The eReader comes with a 6-inch, 1448 x 1072 E-Ink display that supports up to 4096 colors, and runs Android 9.0 on an octa-core processor coupled with 2GB RAM and 32GB storage.
I think I would rather have an OLED/microLED tablet.
