Author: batteryforpc

Micron announced its X100 SSD today, which its bills as the world’s fastest SSD with 9GB/s of sequential performance in both read, write, and mixed workloads, and up to 2.5 million random IOPS.

Micron touts the new PCIE 3.0 x16 device as delivering an impressive 8 microseconds of latency, which is faster than Intel’s claimed 10 microseconds of latency from its Optane SSDs. The SSD is also notably faster at sequential and random performance than any of Intel’s competing Optane devices.

Intel and Micron co-developed the revolutionary 3D XPoint storage media, which blends “DRAM-like” performance with a much lower price point and persistence (data remains on the storage device after power is removed). After the initial announcement in 2015, Intel went on to develop a wide range of 3D XPoint-powered devices, branded Optane, that encompass both storage and memory devices.

Micron initially announced QuantX, a series of high-performance SSDs that promised to upend the enterprise storage market, in 2016, but those drives never made it to market. In the interim, Micron and Intel have parted ways on joint 3D XPoint development, leaving Micron with no vehicle to sell it own 3D XPoint-infused devices on the open market.

That changes today with the debut of Micron’s X100 SSD. Here are the product highlights:

High-performance local storage – offers up to 2.5 million input/output operations per second (IOPs), more than three times faster than today’s competitive SSD offerings

Industry’s highest bandwidth – has more than 9GB/s bandwidth in read, write and mixed modes and is up to three times faster than today’s competitive NAND offerings

Ultralow latency – provides consistent read-write latency that is 11 times better than NAND SSDs

Application acceleration – enables two to four times the improvements in end-user experience for various applications with prevalent data center workloads

High-performance in small size storage – eliminates the need for overprovisioning storage for performance

Ease of adoption – because the Micron X100 SSD uses the standard NVMe interface, requires no changes to software to receive the full benefits of the product

The back of the card reveals 16 emplacements for 3D XPoint packages, but it isn’t clear if the SSD uses the first generation of the memory, or the soon-to-arrive second generation.

We also see the X100 has an auxiliary 8-pin power connector, which means this drive will consume quite a bit of power. The cooling solution is passive and designed to take advantage of the linear airflow in servers. Micron isn’t sharing specifics of its controller, though we are told it is a proprietary design.

Unfortunately, Micron’s X100 series is aimed at the data center for now, meaning we won’t see an equivalent for the desktop market in the near term. However, with Micron now finally making headway on its own 3D XPoint-infused SSDs, we hope that will change in the future. Micron says it is sampling the drives to early customers now, but hasn’t shared information about the various capacity points or pricing. 

AOC is getting ready to expand its growing gaming monitor lineup with a high refresh rate model, the Agon AG273QX. It’s a 27-inch display with a VA panel capable of up to 165Hz at 1440p.

This is also a certified FreeSync 2 HDR monitor. As such, it supports variable refresh rates to keep the action in sync with your Radeon GPU for smoother gameplay, and technically supports HDR content.

I stay “technically” because the brightness level peaks at 400 nits. That’s enough to qualify for VESA’s entry-level DisplayHDR 400 certification, but for LCD monitors, brightness plays a big role in the quality of HDR content—a monitor with a 1,000 nits peak brightness is going to outshine this display.

Brightness aside, the overall specs look good for a gaming display. Here’s a quick and dirty rundown of the pertinent details:

Size—27 inches

Panel—VA w/ 90 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space

Resolution—2560×1440 resolution

Refresh rate—165Hz

Response time—1ms MPRT

Inputs—2x DisplayPort 1.2, 1x mini DisplayPort, 2x HDMI 2.0

Connectivity—4x USB 3.0 Type A, 2x USB 3.0 Type B

Audio—2x 5W speakers

The display allows users to make pivot, tilt, swivel, and height (up to 110mm) adjustments. It can also be mounted to a wall via VESA 75×75 monitor mounts.

Not to be confused with the AG273QCX, which is also a 27-inch monitor but with a 144Hz refresh rate, the faster AG273QX (there’s no “C” in the model name) will launch at £439 in the UK in November, according to Overclock3D. There’s no mention of when it will be available in other territories.

It’s also worth noting that AOC recently bolstered its warranty coverage, albeit just in the US. The overall warranty period on its premium Agon models is 4 years and includes a zero dead pixel guarantee, along with an advanced replacement service and accidental damage protection for the first year of ownership (good for a single replacement claim).

FanlessTech, the source for news on miniature PCs, has published the purported specifications for Intel’s Gemini Lake Refresh (GLK-R) processors. The refreshed chips are rumored to come out next November, and you’ll probably start to find them in budget and low-power desktops and laptops.

The original Gemini Lake (GLK) chips are built on Intel’s 14nm process node and feature the chipmaker’s Goldmont Plus microarchitecture. Gemini Lake Refresh will most likely follow suit, but we do expect the new processors to arrive with higher clock speeds.

The Pentium Silver J5040 and Celeron J4125 exhibit 500 MHz higher base clock and 400 MHz and 200 MHz higher boost clocks, respectively, in comparison to their antecessors. The Celeron J4025 only shows a 200 MHz boost clock upgrade.

In regards to the 6W models, they seem to have the same base clocks of the previous generation. The Pentium Silver N5030 boasts a 400 MHz boost clock increase while the Celeron N4120 and Celeron N4020 upgrades are limited to 200 MHz.

The amount of cache should be the same 4MB across all Gemini Lake Refresh models. Since FanlessTech didn’t share the specifications for the processors’ iGPUs, we’re uncertain if they will also get beefed up by Intel. Our hunch says yes, but we’ll have to wait until Intel formally launches Gemini Lake Refresh to really be sure.

Like many of you, I’ve been tracking a feature request to sideload Android apps on Chromebooks for more than two years. And finally, this feature is coming soon: Likely with Chrome OS 80 to be exact.

Oddly, I didn’t find this out by the bug from September of 2017. Instead, I noticed earlier this week a non-public bug as well as corresponding code changes that will bring the sideloading of Android apps to the Android container on Chromebooks.

Here’s the change description:

While this feature is under development, it will require a special command when starting the Crostini container; you’ll need to add –enable-features=ArcAdbSideloading when starting Linux from the command line on a Chromebook.

Eventually, I’d expect this to be a typical flag setting. And of course, as noted in the change description, this can be disabled or enabled by policy on managed Chromebooks. This is the internal message listing that further explains how it will look from an end-user standpoint:

Once the feature arrives, you should be able to install Android apps from sources other than the Google Play Store.

Obviously there are risks involved, so most Chromebook users won’t want to do this. However, there are plenty of Android apps not yet compatible with Chromebooks that I’d like to install and try.

And of course, this makes life easier for Android developers who are building their apps on a Chromebook using Android Studio.

Indeed, this specific feature was noted as coming with Chrome OS 80 earlier today at the Android Dev Summit, getting a solid round of applause. As it stands now, devs have to connect an Android device via USB cable to a Chromebook and then push their app to the device for testing or use Chrome OS Developer Mode, neither of which is ideal.

iOS 13.2 beta 4, iPadOS 13.2 beta 4, watchOS 6.1 beta 5, and tvOS 13.2 beta 4 are now available. iOS 13.2 and iPadOS 13.2 public beta 4 also now available.

Apple today is releasing the fourth developer beta of iOS 13.2 and iPadOS 13.2. Today’s release comes exactly one week after the release of the third iOS 13.2 beta with Deep Fusion camera technology, Siri changes, and more.

Deep Fusion is Apple’s new camera processing technology that works in the background to improve image quality for iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro users.

In addition to Deep Fusion, iOS 13.2 also includes new changes such as the addition of Announce Messages with Siri, new iPadOS settings, HomeKit tweaks, and more. There are also new emoji, new Siri privacy settings, and more.

When might iOS 13.2 be released to the public? Given that we’re now on the fourth developer beta, we expect a stable release soon.

Apple is also currently beta testing watchOS 6.1. The update appears to improve battery life performance for the Apple Watch Series 5. watchOS 6.1 beta 5 will also likely be released today.