As identified by Tom’s {Hardware}, it’s been 26 years for the reason that introduction of the gigahertz desktop CPU. AMD beat Intel to the punch by dropping the 1 GHz Athlon chip on March sixth of 2000, and partnered with Compaq and Gateway (keep in mind them?) to ship pre-built machines that includes the speedy silicon only a week later. The archived press launch saying the provision of the chip makes for some attention-grabbing studying: AMD compares the accomplishment with Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier, and mentions a retail value of $1,299 for the CPU when bought in 1,000 unit portions. In response Intel “launched” their 1 GHz Pentium III chip two days later for $990, however provide issues saved it out of buyer’s fingers for many of the yr.
Talking of breaking a barrier, Cellular World Congress passed off this week in Barcelona, the place TechCrunch studies there was appreciable curiosity in growing a sub-$50 smartphone. The GSM Affiliation’s Handset Affordability Coalition is working with main telecom carriers in Africa and as of but unnamed {hardware} companions to develop the low-cost 4G system with the hopes of bringing a further 20 million folks on-line. Whereas the aim is worthy sufficient, trade insiders have identified that the skyrocketing value of reminiscence will make it notably difficult to fulfill the group’s aspirational value level.
Whereas we’re massive followers of inexpensive {hardware} at Hackaday, we’re much less enthusiastic when it comes at the price of repairability. Plainly received’t be an issue with Lenovo’s new T14 and T16 ThinkPads nonetheless, as earlier this week iFixit introduced they have been giving the laptops a provisional repairability rating of 10 out of 10. As spectacular as this sounds, there’s a little bit of a caveat right here: Lenovo apparently achieved this milestone by working carefully with iFixit to determine ache factors that may very well be improved.
In fact, this doesn’t invalidate the work each firms put into these new machines, however you do should surprise if it didn’t put a thumb on the dimensions. To deal with this there’s an Editor’s Word on the prime of the submit denying that any preferential therapy was given whereas scoring.
Though we’re thrilled to see a producer apart from Framework really put effort into making their laptops cheaper and simpler to restore, it’s a disgrace that issues have gotten to the purpose that repairability is now thought-about a particular characteristic. We’re not simply speaking about computer systems both; fashionable automobiles are notoriously troublesome to work on, and electrics doubly so. Which is what makes the Aria EV so interesting.
Developed by college students on the Eindhoven College of Know-how within the Netherlands, the electrical automobile is designed to be as repairable as potential. Earlier than you get too excited, the thought isn’t to try to get the automobile to market. Actually, the workforce cautions that the automobile isn’t technically road authorized. Quite it serves as an technical demonstrator and check mattress for ideas that someday the most important gamers would possibly embody in their very own autos, comparable to utilizing a number of smaller battery packs which might be simpler to service than one gargantuan array of cells.
Lastly, we’re not fairly positive how lengthy it’s been round, however we’ve been having a blast shopping via Famelack not too long ago. It permits you to watch free Web TV streams from all around the world proper in your browser. The About web page mentions a number of open supply tasks getting used beneath the hood, comparable to Three.js, which powers the slick 3D globe used to pick out which nation you wish to tune into. Maybe most notably nonetheless, it’s utilizing the assortment of streams curated by the iptv-org mission, a beneficial useful resource to bear in mind for future tasks. If you find yourself watching something notably noteworthy, tell us within the feedback.
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