Analyzing Intel Core M performance: How 5Y10 can beat 5Y71 & the OEMs' dilemma A processor architect can battle between two major opposing principles. The one most of us seem to enjoy is performance, which when taken to the extreme exhibits an all-or-nothing approach. At the other end is low-power operation which has become the main focus of the laptop and notebook market where battery capacity and density is at a premium. The position in the middle of this is efficiency, trying to extract the best of performance and power consumption and provide a product at the end of the day which attempts to satisfy both. AnandTech

How flight tracking apps work: volunteers Aviation disasters tend to make headlines, particularly because they are so rare and can involve so many fatalities. Statistically, however, flying is still one of the safest ways to travel, and that doesn't appear to be changing. But a curious phenomenon has emerged recently in the way these disasters are reported: Watch a news report about a downed or missing plane, and you're likely to see graphics that show the locations of thousands of other planes in the sky, sourced from free flight-tracking apps that are already popular among airlines, airports, and aviation geeks. Fast Company

Leaked details, if true, point to potent AMD Zen CPU For more than a year, information on AMD's next-generation CPU architecture, codenamed Zen, has tantalized the company's fans -- and those who simply want a more effective competitor against Intel. Now, the first concrete details have begun to appear. And if they're accurate, the next-generation chip could pack a wallop. ExtremeTech

What new things should you expect in GTA V PC? It's been a long road, but Grand Theft Auto V is finally coming to PCs next week. As well as the requisite improved graphics we all expect from the PC version, Rockstar is throwing some new features into the game, including a ton of visual options and a host of new additions and improvements to the editor mode. We spoke to the team at Rockstar North to find out more about the PC version, including why there was such a huge focus on making the game run at 4K resolutions, why the PC version always lags behind consoles, their thoughts on modding, and more. Gamespot

Aluminum battery offers safe alternative to conventional batteries Stanford University Professor Hongjie Dai and colleagues have developed the first high-performance aluminum battery that's fast charging, long lasting and inexpensive. The flexible, non-flammable device produces 2 volts of electricity. The research team was able to generate 5 volts - enough to power a smartphone - using two aluminum batteries and a converter. In this video, graduate student Ming Gong and postdoctoral scholar Yingpeng Wu demonstrate how the new technology could offer a safe alternative to lithium-ion and other batteries in wide use today. Stanford

Inkjet-printed liquid metal could bring wearable tech, soft robotics New research shows how inkjet-printing technology can be used to mass-produce electronic circuits made of liquid-metal alloys for "soft robots" and flexible electronics. Elastic technologies could make possible a new class of pliable robots and stretchable garments that people might wear to interact with computers or for therapeutic purposes. However, new manufacturing techniques must be developed before soft machines become commercially feasible... Purdue (also, Robots for humans: addressing the engineering challenges)

First episodes of Game of Thrones season 5 leak online The first four episodes of the new Game of Thrones season have leaked online a day before the official premiere. The leaked episodes, which appear to come from review copies sent to the press, have been downloaded more than 100,000 times in just three hours. Starting a few hours ago several episodes of the new Game of Thrones season started to appear online. The copies were first spotted on the private torrent tracker IPT, but they soon made their way to more public sites such as The Pirate Bay, RARBG and KickassTorrents. TorrentFreak

Gone in a Flash: The race to save the Internet's least favorite tool ​Navigating awful, 100 percent Flash-based sites is an experience many of us have had, and is unequivocally part of internet canon. And it's on the verge of going away forever. Let's take a quick trip down memory lane. It's 2006 and you're wondering where you should eat tonight. So you fire up your Gateway, ​flick on Internet Explorer, and Google some local restaurants. You load up some Italian place's website, wait for Flash to load, listen to some blaring cello play in the background, and search for the tiny speaker button. Vice

Philadelphia finally releases results of Comcast customer service survey; it's not pretty Earlier this week we told you how the city leadership here in Comcast's hometown of Philadelphia appeared to be dragging their feet in getting around to releasing the results of 15-month-old survey of city residents about Comcast service, even though the cable company had already been shown the report. Today, the city finally got around to sharing this info with the public and it's about as unpleasant as you'd expect. Consumerist

How to turn your whole car into a video game simulator Along with doing dumb things with old cars, I also sometimes like to do dumb things with oldcomputers and video games. Occasionally, I can convince someone to let me parade these things out in front of a lot of people. That's why the Indianapolis Museum of Art will let you play Pole Position with an actual car this summer. Let me explain. Jalopnik

Lynda.com: A 60-year-old earns internet glory At a time when some of the biggest deals in technology make overnight billionaires out of 20-something startup founders, the story of Lynda Weinman's success may come as a welcome counterweight. A "mother of the Internet" and author of some of the earliest books on Web design, Ms. Weinman has spent two decades teaching scores of would-be Web experts through lynda.com, the e-learning site she co-founded with her husband, Bruce Heavin, in 1995. The WSJ

Future-proofing HTPCs for the 4K Era: HDMI, HDCP and HEVC 4K (Ultra High Definition / UHD) has matured far more rapidly compared to the transition from standard definition to HD (720p) / FHD (1080p). This can be attributed to the rise in popularity of displays with high pixel density as well as support for recording 4K media in smartphones and action cameras on the consumer side. AnandTech (also, 4K monitors: Everything you need to know about UltraHD PC displays)

Has Mortal Kombat finally gone too far? In the new installment of the Mortal Kombat video game franchise, produced by Chicago's NetherRealm Studios, the signature "fatality" of a hooded green-eyed ninja named Ermac is an act of medieval torture as imagined by Tolkien. With a few waves of his hand, he levitates a doomed opponent, telekinetically twisting his victim's limp body until his spine audibly snaps. Chicago Reader

Fans have dropped $77m on this guy's buggy, half-built game The United Empire of Earth Navy caused quite a stir last November when it announced that it would be putting 200 decommissioned Javelin Destroyers up for sale. Each 1,132-foot-long spaceship has the sort of amenities that your average interstellar mercenary finds hard to resist... Wired

HDD and floppy music: Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit