AMD Unveils New Radeon RX 6700 XT Midrange GPU To Take On GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

MojoKid writes: AMD announced a new member of its Radeon RX 6000 series graphics card line-up today, dubbed Radeon RX 6700 XT. Based on AMD’s RDNA 2 GPU architecture, the Radeon RX 6700 XT targets high frame rate 1440p gaming at max image quality with an MSRP of $479. The new GPU has 40 Compute Units (CUs) with 40 Ray Tracing…

Gulf Stream at its weakest in over 1,000 years

A new study suggests that the Gulf Stream – an Atlantic Ocean current that plays a large role in shaping Earth’s weather patterns – is weaker now than at any point in the last 1,000 years. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/gulf-stream-atlantic-weakest-in-over-1000-years…

Microsoft’s Dream of Decentralized IDs Enters the Real World

For years, tech companies have touted blockchain technology as a means to develop identity systems that are secure and decentralized. The goal is to build a platform that could store information about official data without holding the actual documents or details themselves. Instead of just storing a scan of your birth certificate, for example, a decentralized ID platform might store a…

Cities Are Starting To Ban New Gas Stations

Petaluma, California, has voted to outlaw new gas stations, the first of what climate activists hope will be numerous cities and counties to do so. From a report: The movement aims to accelerate the shift to electric vehicles. “This is not a ban on the existing gas stations, which are providing all the gas currently needed,” Matt Krogh, U.S. oil and…

A Digital Firewall in Myanmar, Built With Guns and Wire Cutters

The Myanmar soldiers descended before dawn on Feb. 1, bearing rifles and wire cutters. At gunpoint, they ordered technicians at telecom operators to switch off the internet. For good measure, the soldiers snipped wires without knowing what they were severing, according to an eyewitness and a person briefed on the events. The New York Times: The data center raids in Yangon…

Google Finally Adds iOS Privacy Labels To Gmail

Google today quietly added App Privacy labels to its Gmail app, marking the first of its major apps to receive the privacy details aside from YouTube. From a report: Though App Privacy information has been added to Gmail, Google has done so server side and has yet to issue an update to the Gmail app. It has been two months since…

Spotify Expands To 80 New Markets, Targeting 1 Billion Customers

Spotify is introducing its audio service in 80 markets across Asia, Africa and the Caribbean in coming days, expanding the company’s potential market by some 1 billion people. From a report: The steps announced Monday will nearly double Spotify’s geographic footprint and add regions where streaming music is in its infancy. The company already operates in 93 countries or territories. Spotify…

Microsoft Word is Getting Text Predictions Next Month

Microsoft is planning to add text predictions to Word in March. From a report: The new feature will work similarly to Google Docs’ Smart Compose option, using machine learning to predict what words an author will need to speed up document creation. Microsoft originally announced a beta of text predictions last year, but it’s now on the Microsoft 365 roadmap to…

NVIDIA Limits RTX 3060 Crypto Speeds As it Introduces Mining Cards

Worried that the GeForce RTX 3060 will be sold out as cryptocurrency miners snap up every GPU in sight? NVIDIA thinks it has a simple way to help: make the new card unattractive to the crypto crowd. From a report: The company has revealed that it’s cutting the hash rate (mining efficiency) of the RTX 3060 in half for Ethereum miners….

Google Launches the First Developer Preview of Android 12

Almost exactly a year after Google announced the first developer preview of Android 11, the company today released the first developer preview of Android 12. From a report: Google delayed the roll-out of Android 11 a bit as the teams and the company’s partners adjusted to working during a pandemic, but it looks like that didn’t stop it from keeping Android…