Weekend tech reading: The Radeon team's AMA, 3D printing a jaw, is Amazon Prime worth it?

Matthew DeCarlo

Posts: 5,271   +104
Staff

Radeon Technologies Group Q&A is happening here on March 3rd 10AM-5PM central time The Q&A is open to all topics dealing with anything under the Radeon Technologies Group (the Radeon division of AMD). Some big secrets could be unveiled this Thursday, so bring your best questions! Likely topics of discussion will most likely include Vulkan, FreeSync, GPUOpen, Polaris (in part), Fury X2, VR, DirectX 12, and anything else you're curious about. Reddit (also, AMD looking into External GPU standardization)

Who needs Apple when the FBI could hack terrorist iPhone itself The Federal Bureau of Investigation has put the onus on Apple Inc. to break into the iPhone 5c carried by San Bernardino terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook. In fact, the feds almost certainly could do it themselves. Security experts say there are many ways the FBI could hack the iPhone now at the center of a standoff between Apple and the U.S. government. Bloomberg (also The beginning of the end for encryption schemes?)

Microsoft's push for a unified cross-platform gaming experience backfires Over the past few years, Microsoft has made a few attempts to build bridges to the PC gaming community. More often than not, though, those efforts have ended with unhappy customers and the perception that Redmond is out of touch with PC gamers. For some time now, it's felt like Microsoft and the PC gaming community have reached an uneasy peace. Over the past week, though, it feels like we've gone from zero to "WTF?" again at a rapid pace. The Tech Report

Silicon Valley has not saved us from a productivity slowdown American middle class wages haven’t been rising as rapidly as they once were, and a slowdown in productivity growth is probably an important cause. In mature economies, higher productivity typically is required for sustained increases in living standards, but the productivity numbers in the United States have been mediocre. Labor productivity has been growing at an average of only 1.3 percent annually since the start of 2005, compared with 2.8 percent annually in the preceding 10 years. The NY Times

When two trucks go to war This video showcases a mod for Euro Truck Simulator 2 that turns a humble 90 km/h-capped truck into a monster racer doing 560 km/h. That’s roughly half the speed of sound in case you’re wondering. I enjoy the sedateness of driving in ETS2. It's humdrum in a good way and requires only low-level attention and skill (until you suddenly remember your turn at the last minute). It can be a way to drift into a slightly meditative/sleep-ready state. Bold and Dashing

Bitcoin's capacity issues no 'nightmare', but higher fees may be new reality While bitcoin may not be facing a "nightmare" scenario as indicated by the media, digital currency users are now paying higher-than-average fees and waiting longer for transactions to confirm due to an unknown disruptive network user. The incident has sparked a flurry of questions about the nature of the increased transaction load on the network as it comes amid the ongoing debate over scaling the bitcoin network. Coindesk (also, The looming problem that could kill bitcoin & What happened at The Satoshi Roundtable)

Video capture & edit guide I have mentioned in a few of the reviews I have written that I have changed the process by which I capture and edit gameplay video. Since I mentioned it and it may be a topic some of you are interested in or curious about, I thought it would be a good idea to put something together about it. Originally I used NVIDIA ShadowPlay (external link) to capture video. It is a fairly useful utility included with the GeForce Experience software suite from Nvidia, but it does have some drawbacks. Overclockers Club

Is Amazon Prime really worth it? Amazon Prime is Amazon’s deluxe subscription model that initially only offered free two-day shipping on select items when it started. However, it has since expanded quite a bit into a slew of varied services that run the gamut from books to movies to, yes, additional shipping perks. This gradually increasing range of services was precipitated by a price hike in 2014 from $79 per year to $99 per year. Android Authority (also, Is paying for antivirus a waste of money?)

China tries its hand at pre-crime China's effort to flush out threats to stability is expanding into an area that used to exist only in dystopian sci-fi: pre-crime. The Communist Party has directed one of the country’s largest state-run defense contractors, China Electronics Technology Group, to develop software to collate data on jobs, hobbies, consumption habits, and other behavior of ordinary citizens to predict terrorist acts before they occur. Bloomberg

KB3140743 issues appear: Failed downloads and installs, BSODs, slow system & more As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." If a machine is doing its job, reliably and without error, then common sense dictates that you just shouldn't mess with it. This is doubly true for computers and quadruply true for government computers. This lends itself to an obvious question: what's the government computer most in need of an upgrade? Windows Report

Incredible 3D printer can make bone, cartilage, and muscle A team of biomedical researchers at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine has just completed an invention 10 years in the making. It's a 3D printer that can craft relatively simple tissues like cartilage into large complex shapes -- like an infant's ear. Using cartridges that are brimming with biodegradable plastic and human cells bound up in gel, this new kind of 3D printer builds complex chunks of growing muscle, cartilage, and even bone. Popular Mechanics

Scientists gear up to drill into 'ground zero' of the impact that killed the dinosaurs This month, a drilling platform will rise in the Gulf of Mexico, but it won’t be aiming for oil. Scientists will try to sink a diamond-tipped bit into the heart of Chicxulub crater -- the buried remnant of the asteroid impact 66 million years ago that killed off the dinosaurs, along with most other life on the planet. They hope that the retrieved rock cores will contain clues to how life came back in the wake of the cataclysm... Science

What one year of space travel does to the human body Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko have done a lot this past year. In the 340 days they spent on the International Space Station, the American astronaut and Russian cosmonaut orbited Earth 5,440 times, conducted hundreds of experiments, and floated out in space in bulky suits, secured only by a tether, to maintain one of humanity’s most sophisticated pieces of engineering. The Atlantic

Join us on the hunt for the government's oldest computer As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." If a machine is doing its job, reliably and without error, then common sense dictates that you just shouldn't mess with it. This is doubly true for computers and quadruply true for government computers. This lends itself to an obvious question: what's the government computer most in need of an upgrade? Muckrock.com

The DROWN Attack DROWN is a serious vulnerability that affects HTTPS and other services that rely on SSL and TLS, some of the essential cryptographic protocols for Internet security. These protocols allow everyone on the Internet to browse the web, use email, shop online, and send instant messages without third-parties being able to read the communication. DROWN Attack

EA's Ultimate Team earning around $650 million a year "The extra content business is $1.3 billion a year. Half of that is roughly our Ultimate Team business" The Ultimate Team modes in EA's FIFA, Madden and NHL franchises are now earning around $650 million in annual revenue - half of all sales generated by the extra digital content released to accompany the publisher's games. Games Industry

These engineers are developing artificially intelligent hackers Could you invent an autonomous hacking system that could find and fix vulnerabilities in computer systems before criminals could exploit them, and without any human being involved? That's the challenge faced by seven teams competing in Darpa's Cyber Grand Challenge in August. The Guardian

Permalink to story.

 
Amazon prime is definitely a good choice if you watch a lot of movies or buy items online. You only need to buy items online 50 times or less to have it pay for itself. (I do that in a month) or watch 50 movies ( we do that in a month and a half) so its like a free deal for us.
I buy all supplies, sundries, gifts, auto parts, cleaning products, electronics, snacks and everything else from Amazon and only go out to pick up meats, vegetables, fruits and dairy at the market.
The only purchases I have made of non food items I made that weren't through Amazon ate the cars and trucks we have bought, and those we got from dealerships or in the case of Tesla, the manufacturer.

I did buy rolls of field fencing and posts at tractor supply to fence some acreage up at our mountain home last summer.
 
Just wondering if someone was sleepy, when they posted those news bits. I seen the same quote used on 2 articles, just lead me to wonder if I was somehow confused. xD

Also I have to say Amazon Prime is only useful, if you're likely living in the US to take advantage of it's perks. Since you can have Prime as a Canadian or such you are basically restricted, to only a fraction of what the US takes advantage of on Amazon. Want to use your prime on the US side? Better sign up for a second Prime membership, overall it's good if you can use it's full benefits. Otherwise I would say only get it, provided you do a lot of shopping and like the quick shipping feature.
 
I don't ever find amazon prime useful. Shipping is only five dollars. Our american car gets about 2 mpg, really, and the dashboard has a fake mileage display that gives a much higher, tho dismally low, mileage that you think you're getting. And also, the way microsoft insists on manditory windows 10 updates when they have such problems as above..
 
I don't ever find amazon prime useful. Shipping is only five dollars. Our american car gets about 2 mpg, really, and the dashboard has a fake mileage display that gives a much higher, tho dismally low, mileage that you think you're getting. And also, the way microsoft insists on manditory windows 10 updates when they have such problems as above..
Indeed, 5 dollars times 600 orders in a year is significant. If you are not the head of a household I am sure it wouldn't amount to much, but as head of household you purchase a lot more.
 
I buy from a wide range of sites and don't really find Amazon prime useful in any way. Most of the time they don't carry what I want to buy. I don't use Amazon much without a prime membership either. They're free shipping speed is the slowest of any online store. It takes 1 week on average for my packages to even ship. Now with the recent price hike on shipping I'll probably buy even less from them.

Compare this to even Top Sellers on Ebay who usually ship within 1 day and is almost always 3 day delivery or less. Heck, I get packages from Germany that are delivered faster than Amazon's "free" shipping option.
 
I can't stream. I don't borrow books. I like free shipping. It's worth it if used.
Productivity? Only somewhat effective. Ours is measured routinely and the numbers don't reflect so much of what is required to do our work. That's the point of beancounters

When they do find out what killed the dinosaurs...nobody knows but it is fun to theorize, they will find out smoking and over regulation were primary
 
I buy from a wide range of sites and don't really find Amazon prime useful in any way. Most of the time they don't carry what I want to buy. I don't use Amazon much without a prime membership either. They're free shipping speed is the slowest of any online store. It takes 1 week on average for my packages to even ship. Now with the recent price hike on shipping I'll probably buy even less from them.

Compare this to even Top Sellers on Ebay who usually ship within 1 day and is almost always 3 day delivery or less. Heck, I get packages from Germany that are delivered faster than Amazon's "free" shipping option.
Wow, that must suck. I get things the next day in most cases for free or by the second day in some cases. I sell art on eBay, but I don't buy anything there.
 
[Amazon Prime] I buy it for my girl every year and she loves it, but she watches the sh!t out of TV shows it has.
The shipping aspect of it is nice, but not that nice. I like Amazon but lately I've been finding much lower prices elsewhere, on everything from car stereo equipment to computer parts. I really think that, just like Newegg they feel they can price things normally due to their name and reputation.
 
Back