Author: batteryforpc

Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology is expected to enable rather massive increase of hard drives capacity in the coming years. It took the industry several decades to develop this technology and its mass roll-out was delayed several times. In fact, Western Digital even decided to use energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) and microwave-assisted (MAMR) technologies before moving on to HAMR. Yet, its rival Seagate is on track to introduce HAMR-based HDDs this year. 

At its earnings conference last week Seagate reiterated plans to ship its 20 TB HAMR HDDs this December. Initially, the drives will be available to select customers as well as inside Seagate’s Lyve modular storage systems. Seagate appears to be so confident of its HAMR technology that it also reiterated plans to introduce 50 TB hard drives in 2026. 

“We remain on track to ship 20-TBHAMR drives starting in December, which is an important milestone, as we believe HAMR technology will be the industry’s path to scaling a real density and increasing drive capacities,” said Dave Mosley, CEO of Seagate. “Seagate will be the first to ship this crucial technology with a path to deliver 50-TB HAMR drives forecast in 2026.” 

At present, Western Digital offers its Ultrastar DC HC650 20 TB HDD, but this drive uses energy-assisted shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology with all of its peculiarities when it comes to re-writing data. Therefore, Seagate’s 20 TB HAMR drives will offer numerous performance advantages when compared to their direct rival, at least for customers who can get these HDDs. 

Since HAMR HDDs will use new heads and new platters, it will take some time for Seagate to fully ramp up production of new hard drives. Furthermore, technology transition will cost money as Seagate will have to upgrade some of its manufacturing equipment.

The Sony Xperia 1 II is already out in a special 12GB RAM configuration in Taiwan. Now we get a Geekbench listing for the device which shows out the small performance gains compared to the regular 8GB RAM model.

The 12GB RAM Xperia 1 II manages a 908-point single-core run and 3387 points in the multi-core department. For comparison, the standard 8GB RAM model pushes around 895 points in the single-core test and just over 3,225 in the multi-core department.

The 12GB RAM Xperia 1 II is expected to launch in more regions on October 30.

Microsoft is “experimenting” with a new feature – called start-up boost – that could increase the speed with which its web browser Edge is able to launch from the Windows 10 desktop or taskbar.

The speed gain will be achieved by activating select Microsoft Edge processes when a Windows 10 machine is powered on. With these processes already running in the background, using up minimal computing resources, Edge will exist in a state of readiness that should improve launch times.

The start-up boost feature is already available as an option in Edge version 88, which was recently released to the Dev Channel but is not expected to launch as a stable build until mid-January.

Early users can activate the feature via Edge settings and administrators can also put in place a blanket policy for all devices running the appropriate browser version.

Microsoft Edge for Windows 10

With the latest Windows 10 update, Microsoft’s Edge browser has become much more tightly integrated with the operating system. This means the browser is now impossible to uninstall via traditional methods, which could be a frustration for some users, but also paves the way for improvements like start-up boost.

According to a Microsoft Q&A, start-up boost will be available to all Windows 10 users, but the firm could withdraw the feature from certain devices “that do not see expected positive impact”.

The firm also warned it is “in the process of experimenting with the feature, so it may be a little while before you see it in your respective channel and build.”

In recent months, Microsoft has not been shy about its ambitions for Edge, which is now indisputably the company’s flagship browser.

As of this week, for example, users of now defunct Internet Explorer will be redirected automatically to Edge when they visit certain websites. A recent Windows 10 update also saw the new browser force-installed onto users’ devices.

The company has also delivered a host of new upgrades to the browser of late, including a secure password generator, in-built price comparison tool, screenshot capture facility and scrolling tab bar.

Microsoft Edge still has a meagre share of the overall market (2.16%) when compared with leading browser Google Chrome (66.34%), but its userbase has more than doubled since June and Microsoft will hope recent improvements will help claw back users lost with the decline of Internet Explorer.

For many people, WhatsApp has become the conversation platform of choice, with over 2 billion people using the Facebook-owned app to keep in touch with friends and family. In addition to offering encrypted messaging, WhatsApp boasts several features that appeal to a variety of users. And it’s about to expand its bag of tricks.

Specifically, WhatsApp is gaining two new capabilities that figure to broaden its appeal — the ability to mute conversations with others indefinitely, and a way to shop directly from within WhatsApp.

The ability to simply mute some conversations for the foreseeable future is probably WhatsApp’s most radical change. Up until now, WhatsApp has only ever offered muting for 8 hours, one week, or a full year. Now, you can make the decision to effectively ghost someone by never seeing their messages again with the option to mute a conversation forever.

You must have the most up-to-date version of WhatsApp to accomplish this— and even then, it seems like the muting feature is getting updated on a staggered basis — but it’s a useful capability that’s been a long time coming. On either iOS or Android, choose the conversation you want to mute, long press on its icon, and then you’ll see a few options pop up in relation to muting the account. 

To keep the conversation out of sight and out of mind forever, tap the check box next to “Always” and then ensure “show notifications” remains unchecked. You’ll remain in the chat, but you won’t receive pings night and day from the various members within. This should (mercifully) cut down on the amount of messages you get, especially from groups. 

But not-so-subtly butting out of conversations isn’t all that’s coming to WhatsApp. Users will also soon be able to go shopping from right within the app. According to the WhatsApp blog, prospective buyers will be able to purchase items directly from within chats. This means shopping can potentially take place in the same manner as a conversation would. 

A WhatsApp user could text a video game retailer looking to purchase a certain title, then receive product information and a link to seal the deal, adding items to a virtual shopping cart and checking out right from within WhatsApp.

WhatsApp calls the process “business messaging,” as lined out in a special video the company made to demonstrate the concept. It looks as though it could potentially be a vehicle for Facebook Pay, which the social media network utilizes as part of Facebook Shops, but this hasn’t been totally confirmed — it’s just a safe bet.

There’s also no confirmed rollout date for the new shopping-centric features. WhatsApp users in Brazil were able to test drive a pilot program to purchase items from local vendors, but the country’s Central Bank put the kibosh on the experiment, citing potential compliance with rules and regulations regarding cash. 

Little by little, WhatsApp continues to evolve. You may want to check your own download to see if you’re able to mute that noisy group chat without leaving forever right now. As far as shopping goes, that could certainly take a while. 

Preliminary benchmarks are starting to appear, and they paint a good picture for AMD’s upcoming RX 6000 series GPUs.

Multiple leaks purported to be for the unreleased AMD Radeon RX 6800XT graphics card have appeared online—although the results are far from definitive. Claiming to show performance for a high-end RDNA 2 graphics card, multiple sites and leakers are reporting the AMD RX 6800XT toppling the RTX 3080 in 3DMark test, Firestrike, while falling behind in ray-traced workloads.

These figures are all unverified at this time, and it’s unlikely we’ll receive any concrete information regarding the RX 6000 series graphics cards until AMD’s announcement stream on October 28, 2020. Beyond that, it’ll be down to whenever the review embargo is up.

Until then, we can at least paw over these preliminary results. 

Results from Igor’s Lab (collated over at Videocardz) claim to show Nvidia’s RTX 3080 falls some 18.2% slower than AMD’s RX 6800 XT (an unconfirmed SKU as of today, but likely) in 3DMark Firestrike Extreme running at 4K and not its default 1440p. WCCFTech confusingly reports the same percentage difference for FireStrike Ultra, which is a native 4K benchmark, reporting a score of 12,871 for the AMD card and 10,531 for the RTX 3080.

Either way, it sounds like both have received similar information for the most part, purported to be from an AIB partner testing an engineering sample (EVT stage), and likely one with the Navi 21 XT GPU within.

Both also suggest the RX 6800 XT leads the way in the DX12 benchmark, Time Spy Extreme, also at its default 4K setting.

It’s hardly an open and shut case, however. CapFrameX on Twitter suggests much closer scores at FireStrike Ultra, with Big Navi at 11,500 and the RTX 3080 at 10,600—a difference of nearly 9% in favour of an RDNA 2 GPU. It has been suggested that newer drivers are causing the significant uplift between these scores and the aforementioned results.

Further benchmarks have also been put forward by Twitter leaker KittyYYuko once again suggesting a Navi 21 XT GPU lead in Fire Strike Ultra, although this time reporting slower performance in Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme. 

What appears to be fairly consistent across results is that AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture will fall short of Ampere in ray-traced workloads, which isn’t all that surprising considering Nvidia’s focus on the burgeoning rendering tech. 

It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how Radeon’s ray tracing solution shapes up in the final shipping product, however. What’s perhaps more important will be the impact AMD’s adoption of the tech may have on ray tracing development and adoption.

It’s all a little confusing, to say the least. What is promising is that AMD next-gen card is trading blows with the RTX 3080 in rasterised gaming workloads—which makes up the bulk of your GPU’s day-to-day efforts—and that’s a great sign for a competitive GPU market to come. AMD has already confirmed strong performance in a handful of 4K games at high settings, over 60fps in the results offered, and that means we should be looking at much more attainable 4K gaming across the board with the latest graphics cards—even if these exact numbers don’t end up coming to pass.