Category Archives: Computer Hardware + Systems Articles!
Here is everything on computer hardware and systems articles at Tech ARP!
This is where you will find our articles on computer hardware like CPUs, graphics cards and monitors, to computer systems like laptops and gaming desktops!
Please bookmark and check back for updates on computer hardware and system articles, reviews and news!
NetApp, a leader in intelligent data infrastructure, has unveiled its cutting-edge NetApp ASA A-Series all-flash storage systems. Designed specifically for block storage, these systems empower organizations to modernize their storage solutions without compromising on operational simplicity, performance, or affordability.
With these new systems and continued advancements to NetApp’s intelligent data infrastructure, customers no longer need to make tradeoffs between operational simplicity, high-end capabilities, and affordability in their storage.
“Our customers tell us that the demands on their infrastructure keep intensifying so they need storage systems that deliver real value through power, affordability and simplicity,” said Sandeep Singh, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise Storage at NetApp. “With the new NetApp ASA A-Series systems, our customers can modernise their operations to meet the demands of more powerful workloads on block storage without having to choose between operational simplicity and high-end capabilities. Simpler operations at an affordable price point ensure our customers have the time and resources to apply their powerful storage systems to drive innovation across their business.”
With the new all-flash ASA A-Series, businesses can manage their most demanding block storage workloads through three pivotal benefits:
Simplicity
The ASA A-Series prioritizes ease of use, enabling quick deployment and management:
Fast Deployment: Setup takes just minutes, with provisioning accomplished in seconds.
User-Friendly Management: Thanks to built-in AIOps and seamless integration with VMware, everyday management is streamlined, allowing virtually anyone to operate the system without extensive IT training.
Power
Designed to handle advanced workloads, the ASA A-Series delivers outstanding performance:
Market-Leading Performance: Experience millions of IOPS and consistent sub-millisecond latency, ensuring your VMware and database applications run efficiently.
Advanced Features: Scale-out clustering, workload balancing, and a “six 9s” availability guarantee ensure that your critical operations remain reliable. Additionally, NetApp’s Ransomware Recovery Guarantee and application-aware backup capabilities provide peace of mind.
Affordability
Cost-effective storage solutions are vital for modern organizations:
Lower Upfront Costs: Organizations can enjoy a 25-50% reduction in initial expenses while benefiting from high storage efficiency.
Total Cost of Ownership: With low power consumption and minimal operational overhead, the ASA A-Series significantly reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO), allowing for better budget management over time.
To complement the ASA A-Series, NetApp has upgraded its Data Infrastructure Insights service (formerly Cloud Insights). These enhancements provide customers with improved visibility and optimization capabilities, helping them maximize savings and performance across their data infrastructure.
At launch, there are five ASA A-Series models – ASA A150, ASA A250, ASA A400, ASA A800, and ASA A900.
NetApp is now accepting orders for the ASA A-Series, which will begin shipping by the end of October 2024.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
At Computex 2024, we had the opportunity to tour the Synology showcase, and interview Jason Sin about the new ActiveProtect and AI Console, as well as other forthcoming products!
Synology Computex 2024 Showcase!
At Computex 2024, Synology gave us an exclusive tour of their new ActiveProtect appliance, as well as other current and upcoming products!
At 0:36, we started with Synology’s upcoming scale-out file and object storage solution – the GS6200. Powered by GirdStation Manager (GSM), the Synology GS6200 supports between 3 to 96 nodes per cluster, offering up to 20 petabytes of raw capacity per cluster.
A full 96-node Synology GS6200 cluster is capable of supporting up to 150,000 simultaneous uploads and downloads. At 4:56, you can see the actual GS6200 cluster of six nodes in action. They also showed us what it looks like inside of a Synology HC6500 node at 8:36, which has 60 drive bays.
At 10:19, we had an in-depth look at the new Synology ActiveProtect appliance – what it does, and how does it accomplish its objectives. You can also see how easy it is for IT administrators to manage backups using the ActiveProtect Manager software.
At 17:00, Synology showcased its Office Suite of productivity apps, which will soon be enhanced by artificial intelligence. Those AI features will be managed and controlled through Synology AI Console, which will not only verify the API keys for your preferred generative AI services, it will also monitor AI usage, and perform de-identification – filtering out sensitive data in AI requests.
Synology also demoed its BeeStation NAS at 23:12, its Synology Photos app at 27:51, and its BeeDrive portable storage solution at 30:58. Finally, Synology showed us its latest surveillance systems at 33:23.
Synology Computex 2024 Interview With Jason Sin!
After the showcase t our, we had the opportunity to sit down with Jason Sin, the Sales Account Manager of Synology to talk about what Synology announced during Computex 2024.
Here are some quick points we gathered from our interview session:
one SKU (DP7400) offering 140TB of storage capacity will be available in Q4 2024.
it achieves 99% reduction in data transmission through source deduplication.
it also speeds up backups through its integrated SSD cache.
while he was not able to share (at that time) the size of the SSD cache, Synology late revealed that the DP7400 appliance will use two 4TB SSDs in RAID 1.
it can keep costs low by automatically transferring “cold data” to cheaper archiving servers, while maintaining “hot data” in its local storage.
this is a scale-out file and object storage solution
it can support up to 150,000 concurrent transfers (uploads / downloads) per cluster
Synology Surveillance Systems
Synology provides AI features like AI analytics, human detection, facial recognition, people counting, etc.
Synology will be releasing two new cameras – a fisheye camera, and a zoomable camera which is designed for licence plate recognition, both with some AI features.
Synology Surveillance System centralises all cameras, and simplifies the job of the IT administrator.
Synology designs its own cameras, which are manufactured by a partner company.
They will launch a new camera that will upload all footage to the cloud, and will be subscription-based.
These cameras can be used with any NVRs, but if they are paired with Synology NVRs, they will support end-to-end encryption.
Synology AI Console
It will support key AI models like ChatGPT, Azure AI, and Gemini.
Synology is already using its own generative AI model for customer support service.
Synology is planning to eventually release its own generative AI model.
Synology AI Console will debut with DSM 7.2.2
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Synology just unveiled new ActiveProtect data protection appliances with a highly-scalable architecture! Here is what you need to know…
Synology Unveils ActiveProtect Data Protection Appliances!
On 5 June 2024, Synology unveiled new ActiveProtect appliances during Computex 2024, starting with the ActiveProtect DP7400!
ActiveProtect is a new series of purpose-built data protection appliances that combine centralised management, with a highly-scalable architecture, to offer up to 2X faster backups, 2:1 deduplication, and up to 99% lower data transmission.
Quick Deployments
It takes less than 10 minutes to deploy the Synology ActiveProtect appliance, and just 15 minutes to start protecting your data.
IT teams can quickly deploy ActiveProtect appliances in minutes and create comprehensive data protection plans via global policies using a centralized console. ActiveProtect is designed to be intuitive, significantly reducing operational overhead.
Role-Based Access Control
Maintain control over data by granting access permissions such as workload restoration, and data viewing rights.
Protect Against Ransomware
Secure your data with flexible immutable backups. Instead of a fixed lock period of repository, Synology ActiveProtect offers a flexible lock period for your immutable backups.
You can also isolate your data with air-gapped backups – ActiveProtect supports physical and logical air-gapping through the firewall, by disabling network ports, as well as a shutdown schedule.
Scale your data with ease to meet changing business requirements, to support up to 2,500 sites and backup servers, and up to 150,000 endpoint devices and cloud accounts.
Each ActiveProtect appliance can operate in standalone or cluster-managed modes. Storage capacity can be tiered with Synology NAS/SAN storage solutions, C2 Object Storage, and other ActiveProtect appliances in the cluster.
Additionally, existing Synology Active Backup for Business deployments are manageable from the unified interface, providing high deployment flexibility.
Recover With Confidence
Leverage bare-metal or file-level restoration, or perform P2V (physical to virtual) or V2V (virtual to virtual) restoration to instantly recover data.
Guaranteed Data Backup
Detect and restore corrupt data, verify backups, and test your disaster recovery strategy in a sandboxed environment with a built-in hypervisor.
Fast And Efficient
Purpose-built ActiveProtect appliances leverage incremental backups with source-side, global, and crosssite deduplication to ensure fast backups and replication with minimal bandwidth usage. ActiveProtect is up to 7 times faster at backing up with a typical deduplication ratio of over 2:1, significantly reducing operating costs.
“The launch of ActiveProtect reflects Synology’s unceasing commitment to empowering our users with the tools to manage their most valuable asset—data,” said Philip Wong, Chairman and CEO of Synology. “In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, businesses face unprecedented challenges in safeguarding their data. With the new ActiveProtect offering, we aim to empower organizations of all sizes to address cybersecurity challenges head-on.”
ActiveProtect centralizes organization-wide data protection policies, tasks, and appliances to offer a unified management and control plane. Comprehensive coverage for endpoints, servers, hypervisors, storage systems, databases, and Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace services dramatically reduce IT blind spots and the necessity of operating multiple data protection solutions.
“Organizations are tasked with maintaining overly complex and costly data protection strategies, and we aim to solve all the challenges at once with ActiveProtect,” stated Jia-Yu Liu, Executive Vice President at Synology. “ActiveProtect is the culmination of extensive research, development, and experience working with our customers. We are confident in delivering a solution that will exceed modern businesses’ expectations.”
Synology ActiveProtect : Models + Specifications
At Computex 2024, Synology only officially unveiled one ActiveProtect model – the DP7400, which is a 2U rackmount appliance.
However, Synology also revealed to us that DP7400 will be followed by two other ActiveProtect appliances – a 2U all-flash array appliance, as well as a thinner 1U rackmount appliance.
The Synology ActiveProtect DP7400 will be available for deployment in Q4 2024. There is no timeline for the other two unnamed ActiveProtect models.
Synology will offer a simplified storage-based licence for the ActiveProtect appliance:
only hardware cost for the first year, with free software licence
only software cost for the second year onwards.
While Synology did not reveal the price of the ActiveProtect DP7400, the line-up is expected to provide up to 90% in annual savings over its competitors.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
I unfortunately missed the AMD keynote at Computex 2024, but managed to join Dr. Lisa Su’s Q&A session! Check it out!
AMD Computex 2024 Q&A With Dr. Lisa Su!
I could not make it to Dr. Lisa Su’s keynote at Computex 2024, but I managed to join her Q&A session after the keynote. Enjoy the full recording of the Q&A session with Dr. Lisa Su!
For those who missed it, here is a quick summary of new AMD products and technologies that Dr. Lisa Su announced at Computex 2024
AMD Ryzen 9000 Series Desktop Processors
Dr. Lisa Su unveiled the AMD Ryzen 9000 series (codenamed Granite Ridge) of desktop processors, slated for release in July 2024. These processors are built around the Zen 5 microarchitecture, which AMD says will offer a 16% average performance boost over the previous Zen 4 microarchitecture.
Here is the first slew of AMD Ryzen 9000 processors announced at Computex 2024:
Ryzen 9 9950X : 16C/32T, up to 5.7 GHz max boost, 80MB L2+L3 cache, 170W TDP
Ryzen 9 9900X : 12C/24T, up to 5.6 GHz max boost, 76MB L2+L3 cache, 120W TDP
Ryzen 7 9700X : 8C/16T, up to 5.5 GHz max boost, 40MB L2+L3 cache, 65W TDP
Ryzen 5 9600X : 6C/12T, up to 5.4 GHz max boost, 38MB L2+L3 cache, 65W TDP
3rd Gen AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series Laptops
Microsoft, HP, Lenovo, and ASUS, unveiled their laptops based on the 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen AI 300 series mobile processors.
Ryzen AI is combination of a dedicated AI engine, AMD Radeon graphics engine, and Ryzen processor cores that enable AI capabilities.
5th Gen AMD EPYC Server Processors
Dr. Lisa Su also previewed the 5th Gen AMD EPYC server processors (codenamed Turin), which are on track to launch in H2 2024. Like the new Ryzen 9000 series desktop processors, the 5th Gen EPYC processors are built around the Zen 5 core microarchitecture.
AMD Versal AI Edge Series Gen 2
The new AMD Versal AI Edge Series Gen 2 brings together FPGA programmable logic for real-time pre-processing, next-gen AI Engines powered by XDNA technology for efficient AI inference, and embedded CPUs for post-processing to deliver the highest performing single chip adaptive solution for edge AI.
AMD Versal AI Edge Gen 2 devices are available now for early access with over 30 key partners currently in development.
AMD Instinct MI325X Accelerator
The AMD Instinct MI325X accelerator will be available in Q4 2024, offering 288 GB of ultra-fast HBM3E memory.
AMD Instinct MI350 Series
The AMD Instinct MI350 series is expected to debut in 2025, based on the next-generation AMD CDNA 4 architecture. AMD expects it to deliver up to 35X better inference performance compared to the AMD Instinct MI300 series, which is based on the current CDNA 3 architecture.
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
I managed to make it to the exclusive NVIDIA Keynote at Computex 2024! Join me as I cover it live at the NTU Sports Centre!
Please REFRESH the page for the live updates, in case they don’t show up.
NVIDIA Computex 2024 Keynote Live Coverage!
Despite a flight delay, I managed to make it to the exclusive NVIDIA Keynote at Computex 2024! Join me as I cover it live at the NTU (National Taiwan University) Sports Centre here in downtown Taipei!
5:35 PM : It’s a wet and gloomy day, but the NVIDIA keynote at Computex 2024 is fully booked!
5:55 PM : The holding area is packed with people! 😅
6:15 PM : I finally have the opportunity to catch up with old friends 😆
6:23 PM : Inside the NVIDIA Keynote hall, NTU Sports Centre
6:57 PM : The MC just announced that the NVIDIA keynote for Computex 2024 is about to start… Stay tuned!
7:10 PM : The NVIDIA keynote event just kicked off with an intro video!
7:12 PM : Jensen Huang appears on stage.
7:13 PM : Jensen Huang speaks about the importance of NVIDIA partners in Taiwan.
7:15 PM : Jensen Huang kicks off the Omniverse demo which he said is entirely created using computer graphics.
7:18 PM : Jensen Huang made a joke about the video, saying in Hokkien – It’s not too bad, right?Beh pai kuah hoh?
7:20 PM : Jensen Huang speaks of the dangers of computational inflation, due to slowing CPU [performance] scaling.
7:25 PM : Huang’s law? The more you buy, the more you save. 😆
7:35 : Jensen Huang – CUDA has achieved the virtuous cycle.
7:36 : Jensen Huang unveils the NVIDIA Earth-2 – a digital twin of planet Earth, built on its Corrdiff AI. Interestingly, the globe is centred on Malaysia!
7:40 : Jensen said that while he wrote the words, AI was used to make him appear to speak in Mandarin in that Earth-2 video.
7:50 PM : Tesla invented an AC generator, NVIDIA invented an AI generator.
7:51 PM : The $3 trillion IT industry will soon support $100 trillion of industry.
7:53 PM : The computer industry has been reinvented. In the past, computers retrieve existing data, while in the future, computers will generate data. Generative AI will drive a full stack reinvention.
7:54 PM : NVIDIA Inference Microservice (NIM) offer pre-trained AI models packaged and optimised to run across CUDA installed base.
8:02 PM : Jensen Huang showcases the ultra-realism of NVIDIA’s current “digital humans”.
8:14 PM : Jensen Huang shows off a production unit of the NVIDIA Blackwell DB200 super chip, which features two Blackwell GPUs and one Grace CPU.
8:16 PM : NVIDIA Blackwell reduced the energy required to train GPT4-1.8T by 350X in the past 8 years.
8:20 PM : NVIDIA DGX Blackwell GB200 super chip offers significantly more performance in a single GPU domain, than the previous DGX Hopper.
8:24 PM : Jensen Huang shows the massive NVLink spine used in the NVIDIA DGX Blackwell.
8:30 PM : NVIDIA Spectrum-X switches will scan from tens of thousands of GPUs (Spectrum-X800) to hundreds of thousands of GPUs in next year’s Spectrum-X800 Ultra, and the future Spectrum-X1600 will support millions of GPUs.
8:34 PM : NVIDIA continues its one-year rhythm for datacenter platforms, which are designed to be fully-integrated, but is offered to customers as desegregated options.
8:37 PM : NVIDIA will introduce the Blackwell Ultra GPU next year, with the Spectrum X-1600 switch.
8:38 PM : Jensen Huang reveals that Rubin is the codename for NVIDIA’s post-Blackwell platform!
8:47 PM : Video shows Foxconn’s new factory designed using NVIDIA Omniverse. The Omniverse Digital Twin is also used to train its robots.
8:54 PM : Jensen Huang shows off humanoid robot examples, as well as more “conventional” looking robots.
8:55 PM : Video shows Taiwan’s contribution to NVIDIA’s success story. The crowd rapturously applauds at the end of the video.
8:57 PM : The NVIDIA Keynote ends! Thanks for staying tuned!
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
The US government has quietly revoked some export licences from Intel and Qualcomm, cutting off more chip supplies to Huawei!
US quietly revokes Intel + Qualcomm export licences to Huawei!
A week after Huawei unveiled its MateBook X Pro laptop, which is powered by the latest Intel Core Ultra 9 processor, the US government quietly revoked some export licences from Intel and Qualcomm, cutting off more chip supplies to Huawei!
It does not appear that Intel has violated any sanctions by supplying its latest Core processors to Huawei for its laptop. After all, Intel received a licence to export laptop CPUs to Huawei in 2020. Qualcomm also received a licence in 2020, to sell older 4G chips to Huawei.
However, American politicians who are critical of China have said that any authorisation by the Commerce Department “would be unacceptable and a failure to enforce export controls against a blacklisted champion of the Chinese Communist Party.”
That could explain the quiet revocation of existing export licences on Tuesday, 7 May 2024, not only affecting Intel and Qualcomm, but also other unnamed companies as well.
The US Department of Commerce confirmed that it revoked some export licences, but did not specify which licences were cancelled, and which companies were affected. However, Intel and Qualcomm have confirmed that some (but not all) of their licences were revoked.
While AMD has not been mentioned, it seems likely that Intel’s rival could also be affected.
Revoked Intel + Qualcomm Export Licences Will Hurt Huawei
The export licences being revoked appear to target processors and System-on-a-Chip (SoCs) used in laptops and smartphones, although it is still unknown which exact chips are affected.
The loss of high-performance computer chips will be particularly hurt Huawei, as it has no viable alternative, especially if AMD had its export licences revoked as well.
Huawei was able to circumvent US sanctions by developing last year’s HiSilicon Kirin 9000S mobile SoC for its Mate 60 series of smartphones, and fabricating it using SMIC’s 7nm process technology. But it won’t be able to do this for its laptops, which are based on the x86 architecture.
That said, it seems likely that the US government is only interested in curtailing the export of high-performance processors to Huawei. If Intel and Qualcomm are still allowed to sell less powerful chips to Huawei, it may not be quite the death knell for the embattled Chinese company. But it will certainly hurt its competitiveness.
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Read our comprehensive review of the HP Smart Tank 580, and find out if this is the all-in-one colour printer for you!
HP Smart Tank 580 All-in-One Printer
Designed for homes and small businesses, the HP Smart Tank 580 is an all-in-one printer with scan and copy capabilities, and wireless connectivity. It has four separate ink tanks which can be topped up independently.
The HP Smart Tank 580 comes with a set of four ink bottles, allowing it to print up to 18,000 pages of black, and 6,000 pages of colour. Assuming you only print 150 pages a month, even the included ink bottles will last you nearly three years. Thereafter, you can simply buy ink bottles to refill the Smart Tank 580.
Thanks to the ink tank design, the cost of printing is also low at just 0.004 cents per page, regardless of whether it’s black or colour!
Together with support for wired USB printing, the HP Smart Tank 580 also supports wireless printing through Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct.
Here are some online purchase options (we may receive a commission from your purchase):
The HP Smart Tank 580 comes as a complete kit, with everything you will need inside the box. Once you unbox it, these are the items you should find inside:
HP Smart Tank 580 printer
One set of printheads (Black, Tri-Colour)
One set of ink bottles (GT53XL Black, GT52 Cyan, GT52 Magenta, GT52 Yellow)
One set of three power cables with different plugs
The provided set of ink bottles is enough to print 18,000 pages of black, and 6,000 pages of colour. However, this may vary according to country, and region.
But if your region offers this complete kit, then you can get printing very quickly, as installation and setting up takes less than half an hour.
Now, let us go through the key features of the HP Smart Tank 580, and share with you our experience using it…
Spill-Free Ink Tanks
Like Epson EcoTank printers, the HP Smart Tank 580 uses an ink tank design, with four separate colours – Black, Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow.
By using permanent printheads and allowing for the refill of ink, such ink tank printers cut down on waste, and offer much cheaper printing – just 0.004 cent per page with the HP Smart Tank 580!
It is easy to fill and refill the HP Smart Tank 580, because it uses a spill-free design. However, the nozzles of its ink tanks, and its ink bottles, are generic in design and not “keyed”. So it is possible for you to fill the wrong ink tank with the wrong ink!
In that respect, Epson EcoTank printers (like the L3150/ET-2710) have a better design – their keyed ink bottle and ink tank nozzles prevent the wrong ink from being filled into the wrong ink tank.
Low-on-ink Sensors
To ensure you don’t run out of ink, the HP Smart Tank 580 not only lets you visually eyeball the amount of ink left in its four ink tanks, they also have low-on-ink sensors.
This is much better than the Epson EcoTank L3150/ET-2710 for example, which lacks low-on-ink sensors, and requires you to visually monitor the ink levels in its ink tanks.
Like other printers, the HP Smart Tank 580 can be connected to your computer using a USB cable. However, it is not even necessary to use the cable.
The HP Smart Tank 580 has WiFi-N connectivity built-in, so you can just plug in the power cable, and print wirelessly from your computer, or even a smartphone or tablet!
And I have to point out that its Wi-Fi connectivity appears to be much more stable and reliable than the Epson EcoTank L3150, which can fail midway, causing a print error.
HP also provides both desktop and mobile apps to help you setup your printer wirelessly, as well as print your photos directly from your computer or mobile devices.
Plain Paper Printing Performance
The HP Smart Tank 580 supports plain paper of between 60 to 90 grams per square meter (16 to 24 lb), with a recommendation to use 75 grams (20 lb).
It can print up to 12 black / grayscale pages per minute at a maximum resolution of 1200 x 1200 dpi, and up to 5 colour pages per minute at a maximum resolution of 4800 x 1200 dpi. The speed of its printing, of course, depends highly on the amount of detail in the page, and the type of paper used.
In this video, we tested its plain paper printing performance using two photos. The less complex photo of an American flag at Alcatraz island took 1.5 minutes to complete, while the more complex photo of the Golden Gate Bridge took a minute longer.
Needless to say – plain paper printing delivers a duller, flatter look in photos. You should restrict colour printing on plain paper to flatter graphics like posters.
Please note that by default, the print driver defaults to Letter size, so you need to change it before printing. It also defaults to Borderless printing, which is not supported with plain paper printing. But what’s really odd is that the print driver cannot detect the portrait orientation of the Golden Gate Bridge photo, so you will need to manually select the correct orientation.
If you intend to print photos, please make sure you use photo paper. The HP Smart Tank 580 supports photo paper of up to 300 grams per square meter (80 lb).
You don’t have to splurge on premium HP Photo Paper. Any kind of photo paper would produce far better results than plain paper when it comes to photos.
In this video, we tested its photo paper printing performance using the same two photos as we did in the earlier video.
The HP print driver defaults to plain paper printing, so make sure you select one of the Photo Paper options before printing. You should also make sure to check the orientation, because the print driver defaults to landscape, and cannot seem to detect photos in the portrait orientation.
By default, Borderless printing is enabled for photo paper printing. However, the photo appears to be cropped at the four edges, even more than with borderless printing disabled!
With photo paper printing, both photos took 3.5 minutes. Far slower than the “up to 5 pages per minute” specification, but the output was fabulous.
The HP Smart Tank 580 can print at up to 4800 x 1200 dpi – less than the Epson EcoTank L3150, but you can’t really tell their prints apart, even if you compare them side-by-side. The resolution on photo paper is really good.
The colours are also vivid, with accurate colour reproduction. Needless to say – we highly recommend you use photo paper whenever you use the HP Smart Tank 580 to print photos.
Flip open the top cover, and you will find a high resolution colour scanner, which can scan at up to 1200 dpi, with a 24-bit colour depth.
You can use the HP Smart Tank 580 to make black and white, or colour photocopies, albeit only at a lower scan and print resolution of 600 dpi.
Low Printing Cost
According to HP, the printing cost for the Smart Tank 580 printer is dirt cheap at just 0.004 cents per page, regardless of whether it’s black and white, or colour.
That’s because the large GT53XL black ink bottle (135 ml) can print up to 18,000 pages, while the three GT52 colour ink bottles (50 ml each) can print up to 6,000 pages.
The HP Smart software is an app for desktop and mobile devices, that is designed to make it easier for you to setup and use their printers.
After setting up the Smart Tank 580 printer, you will need to install and run the HP Smart software on your computer, or mobile device, to connect to it wirelessly. Then you can start printing, or scanning.
The setup process using the HP Smart software is easy, and makes it pretty effortless even for non-techies to quickly setup and use the Smart Tank 580 printer. That said, the HP Smart software leaves much to be desired in other aspects…
For one thing – the HP Smart app requires you to create a HP account, just to print your documents or photos through the app! This is really ridiculous.
I can understand if you need to create an account to print via the cloud – printing a photo or a document on your printer at home, while you are overseas, for example. However, it is ridiculous if you need to create an account before you can print your photos or documents on your own local network!
So fine – I created a HP account, only to discover that the HP Smart software does not support the modern HEIC files using the High Efficiency Image File Format!
Whenever I select HEIC photos, it will give me the error message – “This file type is not supported“. I could only select photos using the older JPEG format.
This is a big problem because HEIC files have been in common use for many years now, becoming the standard for iPhones in 2017, with Android devices supporting it since 2019. It is unthinkable that any modern app would still not support the High Efficiency Image File Format!
On top of that, the HP Smart app only supported simple photo printing – just one photo at a time. You can change its orientation, crop it, rotate or flip it, add a border, but that’s about it. You cannot, for example, select multiple photos and print two or four of them in one page (2-Up / 4-Up printing).
Fortunately, you do not need to use the HP Smart app beyond setting up the printer. You can use other photo editing apps to create 2-Up, 4-Up images to print. I wouldn’t waste my time registering a HP account to use its extremely basic printing features.
HP Smart Tank 580 Review Summary + Verdict
The HP Smart Tank 580 is an impressive colour printer with scanning and copying capabilities, and wireless connectivity. It produced excellent print-outs, with outstanding results on photo paper.
It is also extremely cheap to use – as low as 0.004 cent per page, regardless of whether it’s black and white, or colour.
Of course, the cost will be higher when you print on photo paper, but it is still very cheap even if it uses 10X as much ink. In fact, the photo paper will certainly cost far more than the ink you use to print.
In any case, you won’t need to worry about refilling the HP Smart Tank 580 for some time. It comes with a full set of ink bottles that will last some three years, if you print an average of 5 pages per day / 150 pages per month!
When the time comes to refill the ink tanks, you must be extra careful as the ink bottles and ink tanks are not keyed. People have, and will continue, to wrongly fill the ink tanks with the wrong ink.
I also like how easy it is to setup the printer, and get printing, using the HP Smart software. Unfortunately, that’s about all the HP Smart software is good for. It has extremely basic printing features, and cannot even support the HEIC file format. Fortunately, you can simply ignore the HP Smart software, and just use any other photo editing, or printing app you want.
I am a little annoyed with the HP print driver, which always reverts to Letter, Plain Paper printing, and Landscape, even after I set my preferences. HP should definitely look into these usability issues. It’s not a deal-breaker, just annoying.
But if you can ignore those niggling issues, the HP Smart Tank 580 is an affordable colour printer that does a great job printing, scanning, and copying photos, with a very low cost of printing. If you run a small business, or just need a cheap and easy-to-use printer with scanning, you should definitely consider the HP Smart Tank 580.
Here are some online purchase options (we may receive a commission from your purchase):
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He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Ahead of World Backup Day on March 31, Synology held an exclusive briefing and demo of its cutting-edge data management, and security features! Watch the video, and find out what Synology demonstrated!
Synology World Backup Day 2024 Briefing + Demo!
On 21 March 2024, Jason Sin, Country Manager at Synology Malaysia, gave an exclusive briefing and demo of its latest data management, and security features, in Kuala Lumpur.
The live session showcased Synology’s exclusive backup features like Active Backup Suite, and Snapshot Replication; highlighting practical use cases against malicious access, accidental deletion, and ransomware threats.
Jason Sin also emphasised the importance of data integrity, and data recovery in the face of virus or ransomware attacks.
During his presentation, he showcased three critical phases of a robust data protection process using Synology solutions:
Prevention of Ransomware Attacks
Synology demonstrated Secure SignIn, a secure login framework designed to enhance account security of Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM), the operating system that powers every Synology NAS.
This feature verifies sign-ins using multiple methods, including approved sign-ins, verification codes (OTP), and hardware security keys. This allows users and businesses to significantly reduce the risk of unauthorised access and potential ransomware attacks.
Centralised Data Protection
Active Backup for Business is Synology’s all-in-one data protection solution. Synology highlighted its ability to centralise protection across diverse IT environments, including virtualised environments, physical servers, file servers, and personal computers.
In the demo session, Synology showcased how administrators can efficiently deploy and manage data protection strategies through a centralised admin console, ensuring comprehensive backup coverage and seamless continuity of operations.
Synology demonstrated how Snapshot Replication efficiently streamlined data recovery, providing backup capabilities against threats like accidental deletion and viruses. Synology also simulated a ransomware attack by encrypting a file, followed by a swift data recovery conducted through Snapshot Replication.
This showcased its effectiveness in restoring systems to a previous state and emphasized that only a rapid, comprehensive data solution is effective for both end users and enterprises. Administrators can configure scheduled snapshots and retention settings, ensuring efficient data management and recovery, even in scenarios where ransomware attacks occur.
Selected Synology NAS Drives
If you are interested in purchasing Synology NAS drives, here are some highly-rated options you can buy online.
Please note that Tech ARP may receive a referral fee through these and other purchase links.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Is Microsoft planning to disable your computer if you post or share fake news / misinformation?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : Microsoft To Disable Your Computer If You Share Fake News!
People are sharing an article (archive) by The People’s Voice (formerly NewsPunch), which claims that Microsoft is planning to disable your computer if you post or share fake news / misinformation!
Microsoft To Disable Computers of Users Who Share ‘Non-Mainstream Content’ Online
Microsoft has announced plans to disable the computers of people who share ‘non-mainstream’ content online, in an attempt to combat so-called ‘misinformation’ in the run-up to the 2024 election.
During an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was questioned about how AI might either assist or endanger the future election.
Reclaimthenet.org reports: However, Nadella’s response seemed to imply a willingness to use technology for censoring content in pursuit of fighting what he identified as disinformation.
Nadella stated, “This is not the first election where we dealt with disinformation or propaganda campaigns by adversaries and election interference.
“We’re doing all the work across the tech industry around watermarking, detecting deep fakes and content IDs. There is going to be enough and more technology quite frankly in order to be able to identify the issues around disinformation and misinformation.”
Truth : Microsoft Won’t Disable Your Computer If You Share Fake News!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created / promoted by The People’s Voice, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : Microsoft Did Not Announce Plans To Disable Computers
Let me start by pointing out that Microsoft did not announce any plans to disable computers of people who share “non-mainstream” content online, in an attempt to combat “misinformation” in the run-up to the 2024 US Presidential election.
If Microsoft actually announced such plans, it would have been major news covered by news outlets all over the world. It would also have gone viral on social media, with conservative and right-wing personalities criticising those plans.
Microsoft certainly made no such announcement, and The People’s Voice offered no evidence to back up its “fact checked” claim.
Fact #2 : Satya Nadella Is Microsoft CEO, Not Bill Gates
Interestingly, The People’s Voice article used a photo of Bill Gates, even though he handed over day-to-day operations at Microsoft more than 24 years ago. He also stepped down as Microsoft Chairman, when Satya Nadella was appointed as CEO in February 2014.
If Microsoft does indeed plan to disable computers to fight fake news, that decision would have to be approved by its CEO and Chairman, Satya Nadella. Not its former founder, Bill Gates.
How is Bill Gates involved in this “story”? Nothing in the article even remotely suggests that Bill Gates is, in any way, involved in Microsoft affairs, or the non-existent plan to disable computers of people who share fake news / misinformation.
Fact #3 : Satya Nadella Never Said Anything About Disabling Computers
The People’s Voice article used a video of Lester Holt from NBC News interviewing Satya Nadella as evidence that Microsoft plans to disable computers of people who share misinformation. However, that’s completely nonsensical.
The NBC News video only shows Satya Nadella saying that the tech industry is using technological solutions like watermarking [AI created content], detecting deep fakes, and implementing content IDs, to fight disinformation and misinformation.
This is not the first election where we dealt with disinformation or propaganda campaigns by adversaries and election interference.
We’re doing all the work across the tech industry around watermarking, detecting deep fakes and content IDs. There is going to be enough and more technology quite frankly in order to be able to identify the issues around disinformation and misinformation.
Fact #4 : Microsoft Can’t “Magically” Disable Computers Remotely
Even if Microsoft is so inclined, disabling a computer remotely isn’t like waving a magic wand, or chanting “Abracadabra”!
With the possible exception of specifically hacking into your computer to gain access, or tricking you into installing malware, it is not possible for Microsoft to remotely disable your computer simply because you shared fake news or misinformation.
The People’s Voice article certainly offered no explanation of how Microsoft might conceivably disable your computer remotely… like magic!
Fact #5 : The People’s Voice Is Known For Publishing Fake News
The People’s Voice is the current name for NewsPunch, which possibly changed its name because its brand has been so thoroughly discredited after posting numerous shocking but fake stories.
Founded as Your News Wire in 2014, it was rebranded as NewsPunch in November 2018, before becoming The People’s Voice. A 2017 BuzzFeed report identified NewsPunch as the second-largest source of popular fake news on Facebook that year.
Its articles have been regularly debunked as fake news, so you should never share anything from NewsPunch / The People’s Voice. Here are some of its fake stories that I fact checked earlier:
Please help us FIGHT FAKE NEWS by sharing this fact check article out, and please SUPPORT our work!
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Baidu just denied any link between its ERNIE Bot generative AI service, and a Chinese military AI!
SCMP : Baidu ERNIE Bot Linked To Chinese Military!
On 12 January 2024, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that a research laboratory under the Strategic Support Force cyberwarfare division of the People’s Liberation Army “forged a physical link” between its AI system, and large language models in China, specifically the Baidu ERNIE Bot, and the iFLYTEK Spark.
According to SCMP, the project was detailed in a peer-reviewed paper published in the December 2023 issue of the Chinese academic journal, Command Control & Simulation. It also reported this as the first time the Chinese military has publicly confirmed its use of commercial large language models.
According to scientists involved in the project, a research laboratory with the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Strategic Support Force, which oversees the Chinese military’s space, cyber, intelligence and electronic warfare, has forged a physical link between its AI system and Baidu’s Ernie and iFlyTek’s Spark, which are large language models similar to ChatGPT.
The military AI can convert vast amounts of sensor data and information reported by frontline units into descriptive language or images and relay them to the commercial models. After they confirm they understand, the military AI automatically generates prompts for deeper exchange on various tasks such as combat simulations. The entire process is completely free of human involvement.
The paper by Sun Yifeng and his team from the PLA’s Information Engineering University, discussed how they fed military AI data on the 2011 US military intervention in Libya to large language models like the Baidu ERNIE Bot, and after several rounds of dialogue, they were able to predict the US military’s combat strategy.
In the paper, Sun’s team discussed one of their experiments that simulated a US military invasion of Libya in 2011. The military AI provided information about the weapons and deployment of both armies to the large language models. After several rounds of dialogue, the models successfully predicted the next move of the US military.
After the publication of that story, Baidu’s shares fell by more than 11.5%, amidst fears that such a direct link to the Chinese military would result in US sanctions, not unlike what happened to HUAWEI.
Baidu Denies ERNIE Bot Link To Chinese Military Research!
Initially, Baidu only stated that it has no knowledge of the research project:
We have no knowledge of the research project, and if our large language model was used, it would have been the version that is publicly available online
However, after its stock price fell, Baidu issued a stronger denial on 15 January 2024.
Baidu stated that it did not have any “business collaboration” with Sun Yifeng’s team, or the PLA’s Information Engineering University, and stated that if ERNIE Bot was used in that research, it would have been the publicly-available version.
ERNIE Bot is available to and used by the general public.
The academic paper, published by scholars at a Chinese university, described how the authors built prompts and received responses from LLMs, using the functions available to any user interacting with generative AI tools.
Baidu has not engaged in any business collaboration or provided any tailored service to authors of the academic paper or any institutions with which they are affiliated.
Baidu also sated that SCMP has since “clarified and corrected” its report.
The South China Morning Post, the first media outlet that reported on this academic paper, has clarified and corrected its original media report.
SCMP removed its reference to a physical link between Ernie Bot and any Chinese military AI system, amending it t o say that the PLA laboratory tested its AI system system on Baidu Ernie and iFLYTEK Spark.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Military institutions, AI research institutes and universities in China are still able to source and buy NVIDIA AI chips, albeit in small quantities!
AMD + NVIDIA Banned From Selling AI Chips To China!
Both AMD and NVIDIA were ordered by the US government to stop selling high-performance AI chips to both China and Russia on 26 August 2022. This ban was introduced to prevent both countries from using those high-performance AI chips for military purposes.
With immediate effect, the US government banned the export of all AI chips that are equal to, or faster than, the NVIDIA A100 (and H100), or the AMD Instinct MI250 chips. NVIDIA then created slower A800 and H800 AI chips for the Chinese market, but even they were also banned in October 2023.
China Still Has Access To High-Speed NVIDIA AI Chips!
Despite the ongoing ban on the sale of high-performance AI chips to China and Russia, it appears that Chinese military-linked research institutes are still able to source and buy NVIDIA AI chips, albeit in small quantities!
According to a Reuters report on 14 January 2024, public tender documents show that dozens of military institutions, AI research institutes and universities in China with links to the military, have purchased and received high-performance NVIDIA AI chips like the A100 and the H100, as well as the slower A800 and H800 AI chips.
Harbin Institute of Technology purchased six NVIDIA A100 chips in May 2023, to train a deep-learning model
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China purchased on NVIDIA A100 in December 2022, for an unspecified purpose.
Both universities are subject to the US export restrictions, although the sale of those AI chips are not illegal in China.
More than 100 tenders were identified, in which Chinese state entities successfully purchased NVIDIA A100 and H100 chips, and dozens of tenders show successful purchases of the slower A800 chips.
Tsinghua University purchased two H100 chips in December 2023, as well as about eighty A100 chips since September 2022.
A Ministry of Industry and Information Technology laboratory purchased a H100 chip in December 2023.
An unnamed People’s Liberation Army (PLA) entity based in Wuxi sought to purchase three A100 chips in October 2023, and one H100 chip in January 2024
Shandong Artificial Intelligence Institute purchased five A100 chips from Shandong Chengxiang Electronic Technology in December 2023
Chongqing University purchased an NVIDIA A100 chip in January 2024.
To be clear – neither NVIDIA or its approved retailers were found to have supplied those chips. NVIDIA said that it complies with all applicable export control laws, and requires its customers to do the same:
If we learn that a customer has made an unlawful resale to third parties, we’ll take immediate and appropriate action.
– NVIDIA spokesperson
Even though Chinese state entities appear to be able to purchase high-performance AI chips, the Reuters report also shows the effectiveness of the American AI chip ban.
The training of large artificial intelligence models require thousands of high-performance AI chips, and China does not seem to be able to procure more than a handful of these critical chips.
That does not mean China is slowing down its AI initiatives. Instead of relying on “gray imports” of AMD or NVIDIA AI chips, Chinese entities are doing their best to switch to local alternatives. In 2023, HUAWEI received orders for some 5,000 of its Ascent 910B chips.
Chinese mega-companies like Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent also have their own in-house AI chips like the Kunlunxin Gen 2, Hanguang 800, and Zixiao.
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
[/su_note]
Recommended Reading
Baidu Denies Ernie Bot Link To Chinese Military Research!
In this review, we are going to take a close look at the Synology DiskStation DS223j – its latest 2-bay NAS system, and find out how well it performs!
Synology J Series NAS Systems
The Synology J Series are its entry-level NAS systems – offering an affordable way to get networked storage for backup, or personal storage. They also have a more consumer look, with a white chassis.
The Synology J series comes in below the Value series, and lacks hot-swappable drives, and front USB ports. However, it has most of its key features, including support for the Btrfs file system.
Synology currently has two J series models – the 2-bay DS223j, and the single-bay DS120j.
Synology DiskStation DS223j Price
As its entry-level 2-bay NAS system, the Synology DiskStation DS223J comes at an affordable price point.
It has a suggested retail price of US$189.99 (diskless), but you can get some pretty good deals online, with or without bundled drives:
100 V to 240 V DC power input
50/60 Hz, single phase
Operating Temperature
0°C to 40°C (32°F to 104°F)
Storage Temperature
-20°C to 60°C (-5°F to 140°F)
Size
165 mm high
100 mm wide
225.5 mm deep
Weight
0.88 grams
Warranty
2 Year Hardware Warranty
Synology DiskStation DS223j Box Contents
The Synology DiskStation DS223j comes in a large cardboard box, with a label to let you know exactly what’s inside the box. On opening the box, you will find the following items:
However, when it comes to writing files to the NAS, the number of bays, and the drive speeds are what counts.
The 4-bay MyCloud EX4100 is far ahead, because it’s able to write to two drives at the same time (in RAID 1).
The faster 4TB Synology Plus drives used in the DS223j allowed it to pull ahead of the DS214+ by 16%.
Small Files Read Speed
This is quite a surprising result. For some reason, the Synology DS214+ did very well in this test, beating even the 4-bay MyCloud EX4100 by almost 30%!
And the Synology DS223j, which is much faster in every way, delivered a much lower speed of just under 48 MB/s.
Small Files Write Speed
That’s completely flipped when it came to write speed – copying small files to the NAS systems.
Again, the 4-bay MyCloud EX4100 has the advantage here, because it can write to two drives at the same time.
But the Synology DS223j did very well here, coming within 23% of the MyCloud EX4100. This is likely due to its faster 4TB Synology Plus drives.
The Synology DiskStation DS223j is a cheap but solid 2-bay NAS system. Its plastic chassis feels cheap, but it packs all of the key features most home users would need.
You get an affordable RAID 1 backup solution, with fast Gigabit LAN connectivity, and two USB 3.0 (rebranded as USB 3.2 Gen 1) ports at the back for when you need to copy files to or from a USB flash drive or portable HDD.
It also gives you access to the excellent Synology DiskStation Manager operating system, as well as hundreds of add-on packages which you can use to add capabilities to your NAS.
Synology updates its DiskStation Manager regularly, which is great, because it fixes bugs that may cause considerable grief. For example, when I started testing the DS223j, I encountered a problem accessing it on macOS with a VPN enabled.
No matter what I did, the Mac computer simply could not “see” or “locate” the DiskStation on the network. The only way was to disable the VPN. Fortunately, the problem “magically” went away a few updates later. *
Mac users will also be happy to know that it supports Time Machine backup. While it requires some simple setting up, it works perfectly… which is not something I can say about the MyCloud EX4100!
Prosumers might want to spend a bit extra to upgrade to the non-J version – the DiskStation DS223 from the Value series. Not only does it come with a front USB port (for more convenient use), it allows you to hot swap drives.
If any drive fails on the DS223j, you will need to power it down and open it up to swap out the drive. On the non-J version, you can simply slide out the old drive and replace it with a new one without even powering down the DS223 NAS. But of course – this is a nice feature that most home users probably won’t need.
Performance-wise – the DS223j runs on the same Realtek RTD1619B process as the non-J model. Its four Arm Cortex-A55 cores is more than fast enough for transferring files. Its CPU usage is usually less than 50%. Even when I ran data scrubbing, its CPU usage was around 15% on average.
And if you are wondering about whether you can live with just 1 GB of RAM on the DS223j, yes, you can. The RAM usage is usually less than 20% on our DS223j.
Generally, if you want something cheap and good from Synology, you can’t go wrong with the DiskStation DS223j. For these reasons, we think it deserves our Reviewer’s Choice Award!
* It would have lost the award if Synology did not manage to fix the accessibility problem for macOS.
Synology DiskStation DS223j : Where To Buy?
As its entry-level 2-bay NAS system, the Synology DiskStation DS223J comes at an affordable price point.
It has a suggested retail price of US$189.99 (diskless), but you can get some pretty good deals online, with or without bundled drives:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
In this review, we are going to take a close look at the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) hard disk drive, and find out how well it performs!
Updated @ 2023-11-09 : Updated with operating temperature results, and minor changes. Originally posted @ 2023-10-05
Synology Plus Series (HAT3300) NAS Drives
The Synology Plus Series (HAT3300) hard disk drives are designed to populate their Network-Attach Storage (NAS) systems for homes and small businesses.
These Synology Plus Series drives are designed for light-to-intermediate use. Based on the Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) technology, they are similar to the WD Red and Seagate Iron Wolf range of NAS drives, with a 1 million hour MTBF and 180 TB per year workload rating.
The main advantage of these drives is that their firmware can be automatically updated using the DiskStation Manager (DSM) in Synology NAS systems.
4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) Price
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) hard disk drive commands a slight premium over comparable drives like the 4TB WD Red (Price Check) and the 4TB Seagate IronWolf (Price Check).
Retailing at about $90 as of 3 October 2023, it works out to a cost of $22.50 per TB. Here are some online purchase options:
The Synology Plus series offers storage capacities of 4TB, 6TB, 8TB and 12TB. With the exception of the 12TB model, all drives in this family are air-filled, and have a 5,400 RPM spindle speed.
The baby of this family, which we are reviewing today, is the 4TB Synology Plus drive, which has a model number of HAT3300-4T. Here are its key specifications:
Specifications
4 TB Synology Plus
Model
HAT3300-4T
Capacity
4 Terabytes
Form Factor
3.5-inch
Drive Design
Air
Recording Technology
Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR)
Interface
SATA 6 Gb/s
Cache
256 MB
Rotational Speed
5,400 RPM
Max. Data Transfer Speed
202 MB/s
Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF)
1,000,000 hours
Workload Rating
180 TB / year
Power Consumption
Idle : 3.96 W
Random Read : 4.85 W
Random Write : 4.85 W
Operating Temperature
0°C to 65°C
32°F to 149°F
Non-Operating Temperature
-40°C to 70°C
-40°F to 158°F
Operating Shock
80 Gs (2 ms duration)
Non-Operating Shock
300 Gs (2 ms duration)
Operating Vibration
10 Hz to 22 Hz: 0.25 Gs, Limited displacement
22 Hz to 350 Hz: 0.50 Gs
350 Hz to 500 Hz: 0.25 Gs
Non-Operating Vibration
5 Hz to 22 Hz: 3.0 Gs
22 Hz to 350 Hz: 3.0 Gs
350 Hz to 500 Hz: 3.0 Gs
Acoustics
Idle : 23 dBA
Seek : 27 dBA
Size
20.20 mm high
101.85 mm wide
147 mm long
Weight
490 g
Warranty
3 Years
4TB Synology Plus HDD Unboxing + Hands-On
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) hard disk drive comes in a large cardboard box, with a window to let you peek inside.
On opening the box, you will see that the drive is well-protected. It’s sealed in an anti-static bag, placed within a plastic enclosure, and further protected from shock and vibration by two large foam inserts.
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) hard disk drive is designed for the light-to-intermediate usage requirements of personal and SMB (small and medium business) NAS systems. Here are its key features:
Manufactured By Seagate
Synology does not make this hard disk drive, which was manufactured by Seagate. Think of this as a Seagate IronWolf hard disk drive that was customised to Synology’s requirements, and with custom firmware for Synology.
Under The PCB
In the following video, we took a look under its PCB, and here was what we found:
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) comes with a large 256 MB SDRAM cache, courtesy of a Samsung K4B2G1646F memory chip. This is a DDR3-1866 SDRAM chip with 16 memory banks, and a peak transfer rate of about 466 MB/s.
It also uses a Seagate Dillon motor drive controller, which features ST Microelectronics’ proprietary Smooth Drive pseudo-sinusoidal digital drive technology. The drive controller itself has a thermal pad to help keep cool, by transferring heat to the drive chassis.
Finally, this NAS drive has two sensors on its PCB, which allow it to better detect shock and vibration events, and dynamically adjust the flying height of the read/write heads to avoid head crashes.
The 4TB Synology Plus is backed by a million hour MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) rating, and is rated for a workload of 180 TB per year.
That works out to 15 terabytes per month, and is about par for the course for consumer-grade NAS drives.
Easy Firmware Updates
Unlike third-party NAS drives from Western Digital or Seagate, you can easily update the firmware of the 4TB Synology Plus hard disk drive using DiskStation Manager (DSM) in Synology NAS systems.
This is a convenient feature for those who use Synology NAS systems – you won’t need to remove the drive, or use a separate computer, to update its firmware.
Low Power Consumption
Power consumption is pretty low, at just under 5 watts. Even if you run this drive 24/7, it will only consume 42.5 kW per year.
Real world usage will be significantly lower, since NAS systems are designed to power down drives during periods of inactivity.
4TB Synology Plus Operating Temperature
We monitored the surface temperature of the three hard disk drives while idle, and during their benchmarks. The following chart shows their operating temperature range, from idle to maximum load.
Please note that instead of giving you the absolute numbers, we are showing the temperature delta, which is the difference between the actual temperature and the ambient room temperature.
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) appears to run slightly hotter than the 4TB WD Red, but significantly cooler than the 6TB WD Red. This is good news, because it can get really hot inside the NAS enclosure!
4TB Synology Plus CrystalDiskMark Performance Results
Let’s take a look at the 4TB Synology Plus hard disk drive’s sequential read and write performance, compared to the 4TB WD Red, and the 6TB WD Red drives.
Sequential Read Performance
With a queue depth of 1, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum sequential read speed of 215 MB/s.
This is about 6% over its rated transfer rate of 202 MB/s, and puts it 20% ahead of the 6TB WD Red drive, and 39% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
When queue depth increased to 8, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum sequential read speed of just under 217 MB/s.
This is about 7% over its rated transfer rate of 202 MB/s, and puts it 20% ahead of the 6TB WD Red drive, and 38% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
Sequential Write Performance
With a queue depth of 1, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum sequential write speed of 214 MB/s.
This is about 6% over its rated transfer rate of 202 MB/s, and puts it 29% ahead of the 6TB WD Red drive, and 42% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
When queue depth increased to 8, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum sequential write speed of just over 214 MB/s.
This is about 6% over its rated transfer rate of 202 MB/s, and puts it 24% ahead of the 6TB WD Red drive, and 42% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
Now, let’s take a look at the 4TB Synology Plus hard disk drive’s random read and write performance, compared to the 4TB WD Red, and the 6TB WD Red drives.
Random Read Performance
With a queue depth of 1, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum random read speed of 670 KB/s.
That puts it 6% ahead of the 6TB WD Red drive, and 15.5% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
When queue depth increased to 32, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum random read speed of 2.08 MB/s.
That puts it on par with the 6TB WD Red drive, and just 4% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
Random Write Performance
With a queue depth of 1, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum random write speed of 1.85 MB/s.
That puts it 23% behind the 6TB WD Red drive, but 44.5% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
When queue depth increased to 32, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum random write speed of just over 1.8 MB/s.
That puts it 24% behind the 6TB WD Red drive, but 43% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
4TB Synology Plus ATTO Benchmark Performance Results
Let’s take a look at the 4TB Synology Plus hard disk drive’s peak read and write speeds, compared to the 4TB WD Red, and the 6TB WD Red drives.
Peak Read Performance
The ATTO Benchmark shows that the 4TB Synology Plus drive delivered a peak read speed of just under 205 MB/s, putting it 12% ahead of the 6TB WD Red, and 36% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
Peak Write Performance
The ATTO Benchmark shows that the 4TB Synology Plus drive delivered a peak write speed of just over 205 MB/s, putting it 25% ahead of the 6TB WD Red, and 48% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
Peak Read IOPS
The ATTO Benchmark shows that the 4TB Synology Plus drive delivered a peak read IOPS of just under 64.75K, putting it 50% ahead of the 6TB WD Red, and 65% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
Peak Write IOPS
The ATTO Benchmark shows that the 4TB Synology Plus drive delivered a peak write IOPS of just over 61.25K, putting it 46% ahead of the 6TB WD Red, and an incredible 81% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
4 TB Synology Plus Review Conclusion
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) is, without doubt, a fast NAS hard disk drive. Our benchmark results show that it consistently outperforms the 4TB and 6TB Western Digital Red drives.
It may be sold at a slight price premium, but its better performance and the ability to conveniently upgrade its firmware (rare as that may be) directly using the DiskStation Manager (DSM) makes it a no-brainer choice for Synology NAS users.
If you are planning to use a Synology NAS system for your home or SMB use, you would be well-served to purchase the Synology Plus drive to populate it. We definitely think it deserves our Reviewer’s Choice Award!
4 TB Synology Plus : Where To Buy?
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) hard disk drive retails at about $89.90 as of 3 October 2023, it works out to a cost of $22.50 per TB. Here are some online purchase options:
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) drive also comes bundled with certain Synology NAS systems.
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Maxis just rushed out its own broadband deals, and is offering a free speed upgrade for existing customers! Find out why it’s really too little, too late.
New Maxis Home Broadband Deals In October 2023!
In early October 2023, Unifi announced that all broadband customers will receive a free upgrade of their Internet speeds – up to 3X their current speeds!
Weeks later – on 27 October 2023, Maxis belatedly announces new 1 Gbps and 2 Gbps broadband packages, as well as its own broadband deals to fight back. Unfortunately, they are pretty much too little, too late.
On top of introducing the new 1 Gbps and 2 Gbps (overkill) packages, Maxis announced RM10 discounts for their cheaper broadband packages.
Broadband
Speed
Old
Price
New
Price
Promo
Price *
2 Gbps (New)
NA
RM 319
NA
1 Gbps (New)
NA
RM 249
Free Max Wifi
500 Mbps
RM 159
RM 159
RM 149
300 Mbps
RM 149
RM 139
RM 129
100 Mbps
RM 129
RM 99
RM 89
* Only for new subscribers, and applicable to the first 24 months.
However, the pitiful RM10 discount is limited to new subscribers, and even then, only for the first 24 months! After that, the price goes back to the “New Price” list above.
This is quite unlike Digi or Unifi, whose prices are not limited to the first 24 months:
Broadband
Speed
Maxis
Unifi *
Digi
2 Gbps
RM 319
RM 289
NA
1 Gbps
RM 249
RM 159
RM 269
500 Mbps
RM 149 x 24
Then RM 159
RM 139
RM 149
300 Mbps
RM 129 x 24
Then RM 139
RM 129
Free 6 months Then RM 129
100 Mbps
RM 89 x 24
Then RM 99
RM 89
RM 89
* After free speed upgrade
If you are an existing customer, Maxis has announced a free speed upgrade for customers on 100 Mbps or faster packages. However, details on this free upgrade – how much faster, and when they kick in – are only coming in November 2023.
New Maxis Business Broadband Deals In October 2023!
Maxis also announced a new 1 Gbps business broadband package, but curiously did not offer a 2 Gbps package for business users. You would think that a business would need a 2 Gbps package more than home users, right?
In any case, Maxis is offering slightly better discounts on its business broadband packages. However, you must be a new subscriber, and you must register by 30 November 2023!
If you are an existing customer – too bad, so sad. Unlike Home Fibre customers, Maxis did not announce any free speed upgrade for their Business Broadband customers. It appears that the only way to get an upgrade and save money is probably to migrate to a different provider…
Broadband
Speed
Old
Price
New
Price
Promo
Price *
1 Gbps (New)
RM 189
(early bird)
RM 299
NA
500 Mbps
RM 269
RM 219
RM 199
300 Mbps
RM 149
RM 179
RM 139
100 Mbps
RM 139
RM 119
RM 99
* Only for new subscribers who register by 30 November 2023
That said – a quick check on their April prices show that Maxis was actually offering cheaper prices back then!
The 1 Gbps package was only RM189 – RM110 less than their “new price”, while the 300 Mbps package was only RM149 – RM30 less than their new price, and just RM10 more than their October-November 2023 promo price.
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Was Bill Gates just destroyed in an ABC News interview with Sarah Ferguson?!
Take a look at the viral video, and find out what the facts really are!
Updated @ 2023-10-07 : Updated with new information after video went viral again Originally posted @ 2023-03-08
Claim : Bill Gates Was Destroyed In ABC News Interview!
People are sharing a TikTok video with the title “Bill Gates caught in corner”, which shows Bill Gates getting destroyed in a recent ABC News interview.
Here are the accompanying subtitles from the interview, but it’s rather long, so feel free to skip to the next section for the facts!
ABC News : So Mr Gates, in your own words, what have you contributed to the world?
Bill Gates : Um I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I created the world’s most popular computer operating system.
ABC News : No, of course, but as we all know, it wasn’t actually you who created it as a matter of fact, the predecessor of Windows, Emma’s [sic] DOS was created by Gary Kildahl, which you then basically stole from him for a couple of dollars.
Bill Gates : It’s not just development, there’s a whole lot of important factors to running an enormously successful company like Microsoft.
ABC News : So then let’s leave the computer world for a moment. You have been a major spokesperson for COVID vaccines during the pandemic yes [sic], what exactly makes you, a computer engineer who didn’t even programme his initial product himself, a valid representative of the pharmaceutical industry?
Bill Gates : I have read a lot of books about that topic, yes, how does that, wait, wait a second, and met with specialist from the field all over the world.
ABC News : Mister Gates, with all due respect, how do you feel about it now, now that it’s becoming more and more evident that the medication you were promoting whilst having heavily invested in it yourself thus making billions of [sic] it, has caused countless injuries, side effects and death.
Bill Gates : That’s a very immature way of looking at it.
ABC News : Quite frankly, so here’s my final question to you, is this a behavioural pattern?
Bill Gates : What do you mean exactly?
ABC News : Taking technology from other people that you don’t understand, selling a product full of bugs, causing massive damage, and profiting from it in a spectacular way.
Bill Gates : No no no no no no this is not how the world works.
ABC News : Can you sleep at night?
Bill Gates : Okay that’s enough. This interview is over. Thank you.
Truth : Bill Gates Was NOT Destroyed In ABC News Interview!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created to go viral on TikTok, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : ABC News Interviewed Bill Gates On Jan 31, 2023
First, let’s start by sharing some basic context on the ABC News interview with Bill Gates.
The interview was conducted by Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist, Sarah Ferguson, on her current affairs show – 7.30, and released on Tuesday, 31 January 2023.
Fact #2 : ABC News Did Not Destroy Bill Gates In That Interview
Anyone who watches the actual ABC News interview of Bill Gates will be puzzled by the viral video and claim, because Sarah Ferguson never “destroyed” Bill Gates.
You can read all about her interview and even watch the video in an article written by Sarah Ferguson and her colleague Myles Wearring. In her interview, she only asked Bill Gates about:
COVID-19 conspiracy theories
Elon Musk buying Twitter
the rise of artificial intelligence
climate change and renewable energy
his association with Jeffrey Epstein
his philanthropy, and pledge to give away most of his wealth
Sarah Ferguson ended the interview by thanking Bill Gates, who only nods. He never quit the interview in frustration as shown in the viral video.
Fact #3 : Gates Foundation Called Viral Video Fake
The media department for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation labelled the viral video as fake:
We confirm that the audio in this altered video is fake.
Fact #4 : Viral Video Was Edited Using Artificial Intelligence
The viral video was created by a TikTok creator called bdti989, who posted it with the caption:
How dangerous AI can be 😱 #BillGates #billgates #microsoft #Microsoft #followformore #follow #msdos #uops #ups #ops #world #interview #interviews #artificialintelligence #ai
bdti989 also stated several times that he edited the ABC News interview using artificial intelligence. It is basically a deep fake video.
Yes, it’s AI generated!
Fact #5 : Fake Video Was Not Satire
While some people are trying to justify the creation and/or sharing the video as “satire”, that is not true. Even the content creator himself did not call it satire.
bdti989 does not appear to create satire. His account is full of typical edited news content pushing right wing conspiracies, not satire.
Most of his videos aren’t particularly popular, typically with less than 3,000 views. Only his AI-generated fake video of the ABC News interview of Bill Gates has gone viral, with over 1.4 million views.
It is likely he created it to test his ability to create fake videos using artificial intelligence. Hopefully, it does not inspire him to create more of such deep fake videos to increase the popularity of his TikTok channel.
Did this journalist just destroy Bill Gates in an ABC News interview?! 😆
Regardless of what we may think of Bill Gates as a businessman and/or person, he was well regarded as a programmer. Both Gates and Paul Allen developed Altair BASIC – a BASIC programming interpreter for the MITS Altair 8800 and S-100 computers.
Paul Allen would famously write a bootstrap program for it during a flight to demonstrate their Altair BASIC interpreter, but Bill Gates would famously win the bet on who could write the shortest possible bootstrap program.
Fact #6 : MS-DOS Was Not Created By Gary Kildall
Gary Kildall (wrongly named as Gary Kildahl in the fake video) was the creator of the CP/M operating system that was once considered by IBM for its first PC.
Bill Gates not only did not steal MS-DOS from Gary Kildall, it was Gates who suggested that IBM should purchase CP/M-86 from Kildall for its forthcoming PC.
However, Gary Kildall famously went flying on his private plane instead of meeting IBM representatives, and they failed to reach an agreement.
Fact #7 : MS-DOS Was Based On 86-DOS
MS-DOS (wrongly named as Emma’s DOS in the fake video) was based on 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products.
After IBM and Digital Research failed to reach an agreement on CP/M-86, IBM lead negotiator Jack Sams asked Bill Gates to find a usable operating system for the IBM PC. Gates later proposed using 86-DOS.
Microsoft then purchased a non-exclusive licence for 86-DOS in December 1980 for US$25,000, and hired Tim Paterson to port it to the IBM PC, so it would work on the Intel 8086 processor. IBM would submit over 300 change requests before accepting the final port.
It was only in July 1981 – a month before IBM released the PC, that Microsoft purchased all rights to 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products for US$50,000. Microsoft then licensed the modified 86-DOS to IBM, and it became PC DOS 1.0.
In short, MS-DOS (rebranded from PC DOS) was based on 86-DOS, which was a different operating system from CP/M invented by Gary Kildall.
Kildall would later persuade IBM to offer CP/M-86 with the PC. That would not be possible if Kildall really sold CP/M to Microsoft “for a couple of dollars” as the fake video alleges.
Fact #8 : COVID-19 Vaccines Have Been Proven Safe + Effective
Anti-vaccination proponents are not interested in your health, which is why they keep lying about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.
The truth is – COVID-19 vaccines were only approved AFTER they have undergone extensive safety and efficacy tests, involving tens of thousands of volunteers.
The reason why doctors and health authorities STRONGLY advocate vaccination is because the vaccines have been PROVEN to protect the vast majority of people from getting COVID-19 in the first place.
And even if you do get infected after vaccination, the vaccine will protect you against hospitalisation and death from COVID-19.
Please help us FIGHT FAKE NEWS by sharing this fact check article out, and please SUPPORT our work!
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Millions of Gigabyte motherboards and laptops shipped with a built-in backdoor in its UEFI firmware!
Here is what you need to know about this cybersecurity danger, and what you can do about it!
Gigabyte Motherboards Shipped With Firmware Backdoor!
On 31 May 2023, researchers at the cybersecurity firm Eclypsium revealed that 271 Gigabyte motherboard models have been compromised with UEFI firmware with a built-in backdoor!
Eclypsium’s heuristic detection methods recently began flagging suspicious backdoor-like behaviour in Gigabyte motherboards. When its researchers looked into it, they found that Gigabyte motherboard firmware was executing a Windows native executable during the system start up process. This executable then insecurely downloads and executes additional payloads.
From their analysis, the executable appears to be a legitimate Gigabyte module called WpbtDxe.efi:
it checks to see if the “APP Center Download & Install” feature is enabled
it downloads executable payloads from Gigabyte servers
it has a Gigabyte cryptographic signature
They also found that the downloaded payloads have Gigabyte cryptographic signatures too, which suggest that this firmware backdoor was implemented by Gigabyte itself.
However, Eclypsium researchers discovered that the Gigabyte implementation had a number of problems, which would make it easy for threat actors to abuse the firmware backdoor:
one of its payload download locations lacks SSL (using plain HTTP, instead of the more secure HTTPS), allowing for Machine-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks
remote server certificate validation was not implemented correctly even when the other two HTTPS download locations were used, which allows for MITM attacks
one of its payload download locations is a local network-attacked storage device (NAS), which could allow a threat actor to spoof the location of the NAS to install their own malware
the Gigabyte firmware itself does not verify any cryptographic signatures, or validates the downloaded executables.
In short – millions of Gigabyte motherboards have a cybersecurity vulnerability, due to their firmware which includes an insecure / vulnerable OEM backdoor. As John Loucaides from Eclypsium put it:
If you have one of these machines, you have to worry about the fact that it’s basically grabbing something from the Internet and running it without you being involved, and hasn’t done any of this securely.
The concept of going underneath the end user and taking over their machine doesn’t sit well with most people.
Note : This vulnerability affects all computers using Gigabyte motherboards, including laptops.
Gigabyte Rolls Out New Firmware To Mitigate Backdoor!
After the news blew up inconveniently during Computex 2023, Gigabyte quickly rolled out new beta firmware upgrades for its AMD and Intel motherboards.
According to Gigabyte, the new beta firmware upgrades have “improved security mechanisms” that will “detect and prevent malicious activities during the boot process“. It also appeared to have implemented other changes:
enhanced the signature verification process for fils downloaded from its remote servers
conduct more thorough checks of file integrity to prevent the introduction of malicious code
enabled standard cryptographic verification of remote server certificates
The new firmware has just been released for AMD 600-series motherboards, as well as Intel 500- and 400-series motherboards, but will eventually be introduced for older motherboards. The new firmware will have the description, “Addresses Download Assistant Vulnerabilities Reported by Eclypsium Research“.
As Gigabyte does not intend to remove the backdoor feature, you might want to consider Eclypsium’s advice on how best to reduce the risk of malicious actors taking advantage:
Scan and monitor systems and firmware updates in order to detect affected Gigabyte systems and the backdoor-like tools embedded in firmware. Update systems to the latest validated firmware and software in order to address security issues like this one.
Inspect and disable the “APP Center Download & Install” feature in UEFI/BIOS Setup on Gigabyte systems and set a BIOS password to deter malicious changes.
Administrators can also block the following URLs: – http://mb.download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Swhttp/LiveUpdate4 – https://mb.download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Swhttp/LiveUpdate4 – https://software-nas/Swhttp/LiveUpdate4
For starters, you should definitely download and update your Gigabyte motherboard or laptop with the improved firmware. Then disable APP Center Download & Install in the BIOS.
Let’s hope Gigabyte will be able to quickly issue new and improved firmware to mitigate, if not remove, the backdoor vulnerability for the affected 271 motherboard models, and its future motherboards and laptops. Even so, many users might not be aware of this vulnerability or these updates.
It seems likely that threat actors will have access to this backdoor vulnerability in many Gigabyte motherboards and laptops for years to come. Even Eclypsium’s Loucaides believes so:
I still think this will end up being a fairly pervasive problem on Gigabyte boards for years to come.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
HP just launched its new 2023 Smart Tank and LaserJet printers targeted at home / hybrid workers, and enterprises!
2023 HP Smart Tank 580 / 520 Printers
HP just unveiled a new line of budget-friendly 2023 Smart Tank printers to cater to home- and office-based hybrid workers.
The 2023 HP Smart Tank 580 and 520 printers offer an intuitive setup process, with smart features and better connectivity, including self-healing Wi-Fi, and Smart App and Smart Advance capabilities.
They also offer low printing costs with a pre-filled ink supply that can print up to 6,000 black or colour pages. Assuming a monthly output of 150 pages a month, that’s almost 3 years of printing from the start!
Smart Experience
HP Smart App helps to guide you through everyday tasks like print, scan, copy and fax.
Automatically detects IDs, and prints with the ID copy button
Comes with self-healing Wi-Fi and better mobility with Smart App and Smart Advance.
Protected by HP Wolf Essential Security to protect sensitive information.
Affordable Cost
Engineered for high-volume printing with cost-effective colour and monochrome printing
Up to 6,000 pages of black or colour from ink bottles provided in-box
Easy monitoring of ink levels with integrated ink sensors
Sustainably Designed
Sustainably manufactured using 45% post-consumer recycled content.
HP also introduced new laser printers – the LaserJet Managed E800 and E700 series printers, which are intelligent solutions to streamline enterprise workflows.
The new HP LaserJet Managed E800 / E700 series offers enterprises centralised control with HP Web Jetadmi, and HP Workpath for personalised, integrated digital workflow.
Customisable design – they come with five colour panels, to match your office decor, and HP Speed Licence for flexible configurations to meet different business needs
Comprehensive workflow solutions with new Flow 2.0 features, including the ability to make edits directly to the content on the control panel (highlight, redact, even sign) as customised shortcuts.
Reverse and Retry technology which detects and resolves double feed issues and paper jams.
Better performance with up to 70 ppm print speed, and 300 ipm duplex scan, powered by HP’s custom-designed quad-core processor.
Auto-sensing technology to save time with tone and colour management, two sided document detection, and automatic job separation features.
Protected by HP Wolf Enterprise Security, the HP LaserJet Management E800 / E700 series protects, detects, and self-recovers. They also come with Memory Shield, which helps to detect malicious attacks on the printers, and automatically self-heals if detected. Memory Shield uses a hardware-protected solution called Runtime Intrusion Detection to actively scan memory for anomalies, and Guard CFI from Karamba to monitor the execution flow of the printer firmware to help prevent zero-day attacks.
HP is giving away a RM50 e-wallet rebate for the Smart Tank 580, and a RM100 e-wallet rebate for the Smart Tank 520. And if you purchase any of these printers from now until 30 April, you will get an extra black ink bottle.
Here are online purchase options for your convenience:
HP did not reveal the prices for the LaserJet Managed E800 or E700 series printers, but they are available for sale to interested enterprise customers.
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just unveiled its 2023 TV lineup of Neo QLED 8K, OLED, sound devices and monitors at the Unbox & Discover virtual livestream!
Samsung Unveils 2023 QLED, OLED TVs + Monitors!
Samsung just unveiled its 2023 TV lineup of Neo QLED 8K, Samsung OLED, sound devices and monitors at the Unbox & Discover virtual livestream, which showcased its latest innovations in smart connectivity, sustainability initiatives, premium viewing, and gaming experiences.
According to Samsung, its 2023 lineup focused on enhancing the user experience by making complex technologies more intuitive and seamlessly integrated into people’s lives, while delivering impeccable picture and sound quality consumers expect from Samsung screens.
At Samsung, we understand that technology should empower and enhance people’s lives, not complicate them.
By choosing Samsung, consumers can expect to experience an unparalleled level of wow factors, all while participating in eco-conscious practices for a sustainable future.
– Jong-Hee (JH) Han, Vice Chairman, CEO and Head of DX (Device eXperience) Division at Samsung Electronics
In his opening remarks, JH Han underscored the company’s commitment to calm tech and innovation, providing consumers with the latest technologies that make life better. In particular, he introduced five core foundations of SmartThings, which aims to provide increased convenience when setting up their smart homes.
Instant Connection: SmartThings enables users to easily connect their devices in just one step, allowing them to enjoy the synergy created by Samsung devices more easily.
Automated Connection: SmartThings automatically connects devices, like TVs or smartphones, with other Samsung devices such as the air conditioner, dryer, refrigerator, and washer, eliminating the need for manual setup.
Hub Everywhere: The IoT hub is built into various Samsung products, including Samsung Smart TVs, making IoT setup a breeze.
Expansive Compatibility: SmartThings goes beyond just the Samsung ecosystem, enabling devices from any brand to work seamlessly together thanks to the Home Connectivity Alliance and the international IoT communication standard, MATTER.
Security: With CC EAL 6+ certification, the new Samsung Knox Vault hardware chip encrypts all information from connected devices, ensuring the highest level of security and offering peace of mind for users.
Samsung also helped form the Home Connectivity Alliance, and support MATTER – an international IoT communication standard, so that the diverse intelligent devices that our homes contain can work together, regardless of brand.
2023 Samsung QLED, OLED TVs + Monitors Unveiled!
At Unbox & Discover 2023, Samsung focused on showcasing its 8K QLED and OLED TVs.
Neo QLED 8K QN900C is its top-of-the-line model with technologies like Auto HDR Remastering and 8K AI upscaling
New 98-inch Neo QLED 8K model with enhanced audio through Dolby Atmos and Q-Symphony 3.0.
2023 Samsung OLED lineup features Neural Quantum Processor 4K’s perceptional color mapping, making them the “World’s First Pantone-Validated HDR OLED” televisions!
In addition to QLED and OLED TV models, Samsung also unveiled two new Odyssey monitors:
Odyssey Neo G9 – the world’s first dual UHD resolution monitor, and
Odyssey Ark – a 55-inch curved screen with a powerful sound system and multitasking capabilities.
The new 2023 Odyssey models will be available in 2H 2023 in 57-inch Odyssey Neo G9 and the 49-inch Odyssey OLED G9 options.
Samsung also upgraded its Gaming Hub to allow gamers to play their favourite games directly from the cloud without a console or PC.
In addition to its advanced features for viewing experiences, the 2023 Odyssey lineup also offers gamer-centric features such as Game Bar, which places gamer controls front and center, as well as Mini Map Zoom and Virtual Aim Point, which can make all the difference between winning and losing in competitive gameplay.
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
MSI users are at risk of rogue BIOS / firmware updates, after hackers got hold of its source codes, private keys and BIOS firmware!
MSI Hit By Ransomware Attack + Data Theft!
On 7 April 2023, MSI (Micro-Star International) was hit by a ransomware attack, in which the hackers allegedly exfiltrated 1.5 terabytes of source codes, BIOS firmware, private keys and other data from its servers.
In its terse regulatory filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE), MSI admitted that it was hacked, but did not detail the circumstances or nature of the attack.
After detecting some information systems being attacked by hackers,MSI’s IT department has initiated information security defense mechanism and recovery procedures. The Company also has been reported the anomaly to the relevant government authorities.
MSI claimed that the attack had “[no] significant impact our business in terms of financial and operational currently“, but said that it was “enhancing the information security control measures of its network and infrastructure to ensure data security.”
In a public statement, MSI also urged users to only obtain firmware / BIOS updates from its official website, and refrain from using other sources.
Stolen Data Exposes MSI Users To Rogue BIOS / Firmware Updates!
The MSI ransomware attack and data theft appear to be committed by the Money Message ransomware gang, which has threatened to release the 1.5 terabytes of critical data that it exfiltrated from MSI servers.
While MSI has apparently restored files encrypted by the ransomware, exposure of the private keys and source codes, will likely allow Money Message or other threat actors to develop rogue BIOS or firmware updates.
Installing rogue BIOS / firmware updates will give the malware the access level of a super-low-level rootkit, giving it full control over your computer, with the ability to spy on almost everything you do. Such malware will also be extremely difficult to detect and remove. After all, it boots up before the operating system!
These days, rogue BIOS or firmware updates are much less of a problem because they are usually digitally-signed by the vendor, MSI in this case. Even if threat actors distribute Trojanised downloads for MSI users, they cannot create the right digital signatures for those files.
However, now that MSI’s private keys have been stolen, they can be used to create rogue BIOS or firmware updates with authentic digital signatures! MSI users downloading and installing those updates will never know the difference.
The biggest risk right now is with PC hardware enthusiasts who enjoy installing unofficial firmware updates to gain access to special settings. That is precisely why MSI is urging its users to only download files from its official website.
Of course, this assumes that the MSI download servers are secure, and have not been compromised. If the threat actors have access to the MSI download servers, they can insert Trojanised downloads with proper signatures, and MSI system administrators may be none the wiser!
Let’s hope that this incident forces MSI to take a much closer look at its cybersecurity measures, and run penetration tests to ensure that its download servers are secure. Otherwise, some threat actors will likely hit pay dirt with MSI users!
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
MSI just got hit by a massive ransomware attack, but even worse – it lost a ton of critical data to the hackers!
MSI Hit By Ransomware Attack + Data Theft!
On 7 April 2023, MSI (Micro-Star International) was hit by a ransomware attack, in which the hackers allegedly exfiltrated 1.5 terabytes of source codes, BIOS firmware, private keys and other data from its servers.
In its terse regulatory filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE), MSI admitted that it was hacked, but did not detail the circumstances or nature of the attack.
After detecting some information systems being attacked by hackers,MSI’s IT department has initiated information security defense mechanism and recovery procedures. The Company also has been reported the anomaly to the relevant government authorities.
MSI claimed that the attack had “[no] significant impact our business in terms of financial and operational currently“, but said that it was “enhancing the information security control measures of its network and infrastructure to ensure data security.”
In a public statement, MSI also urged users to only obtain firmware / BIOS updates from its official website, and refrain from using other sources.
Hackers Demand $4 Million From MSI To Not Release Stolen Data
The MSI ransomware attack and data theft appear to be committed by the Money Message ransomware gang.
While MSI has apparently restored files encrypted by Money Message’s ransomware, the gang now has access to about 1.5 terabytes of critical MSI data.
According to BleepingComputer, chats between Money Message and an MSI representative show the gang demanding a ransom payment of $4 million. Otherwise, Money Message will release the stolen files.
To show that they did indeed steal those MSI files, Money Message posted screenshots of what they describe was MSI’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) databases and files containing software source code, private keys, and BIOS firmware.
If Money Message releases MSI confidential data, it may not just be embarrassing for the Taiwanese company, it could allow other threat actors to use the source code and private keys to create malware targeting their customers.
In light of that, MSI users should only download and install software or BIOS firmware from the official MSI website.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Apple may be planning to limit data transfer and charging speed on USB-C ports used in its devices, by introducing MFI certification!
Earlier : Apple Forced To Adopt USB-C Port!
Apple has been hesitant about moving to the superior USB-C port for years, limiting it to Mac computers and iPad tablets.
The 12-inch MacBook was the first Mac computer to get USB-C in 2015, while the 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro tablets made the switch from Lighting to USB-C in 2018. However, Apple stubbornly refused to migrate its iPhones to USB-C.
The choice to stick with their proprietary Lightning port was taken out of their hands on October 4, 2022, when the European Parliament voted decisively to adopt the USB-C (USB Type C) port as the new standard for all portable devices.
By the end of 2024, all portable devices sold in the EU must come with a USB-C charging port. This directive is more or less directed at Apple, which is the only brand that continues to use its own proprietary Lighting connector.
Apple MFI plan to limit speed, power on USB-C leaked!
Now that the EU is firmly forcing everyone to use USB-C, Apple will start using the USB Type C port in its upcoming iPhone 15 models.
However, Apple apparently isn’t going to give up its lucrative side gig of selling its users MFI (Made for iPhone) cables and accessories at exorbitant prices.
According to ShrimpApplePro, who accurately leaked on the iPhone 14, Apple will introduce MFI for its USB-C cables and accessories.
And even worse – cables that lack MFI certification will have their data and charging speeds limited.
Yeah usb-c with MFI is happening
Foxconn already in mass production accessories like EarPods and cables
Cables w no MFI will be software limited in data and charging speed
MFI-certified cables have a small authenticator chip to verify that they are “certified” to work with Apple devices. If you use cables that lack this authenticator chip, you will get the “This accessory is not supported” warning on your Apple device.
Apple gets paid for every authenticator chip, so MFI cables and accessories are priced at a premium, even if they work just as well as non-MFI cables and accessories.
Apple is already expected to limit the iPhone 15 base model, and iPhone 15 Plus, to USB 2.0 data transfer speeds of up to 480 Mbps (60 MB/s), while Pro models will get the much higher transfer rates of 20 Gbps (USB-C 3.2) or even 40 Gbps (Thunderbolt 3).
People may not bat an eye at Apple limiting data transfer speeds to differentiate their Pro models from the non-Pro models, but limiting battery recharging speeds for non-MFI cables should ruffle some feathers. After all, there is technically no good reason why Apple cannot allow their devices to benefit from faster charging using non-MFI cables.
Naturally, Apple benefits financially from introducing MFI for USB-C. It will force Apple users to pay the notorious “Apple tax” on top of the “Apple premium” they paid for their Apple devices.
Imagine if Apple introduces MFI for USB-C and phases that in for future Mac computers and iPad tablets, as well as the upcoming iPhone 15 smartphones. Even those who have been happily using regular, non-MFI USB-C cables will have to switch them to MFI cables, and for what?
There is really no discernible benefit for Apple users to use MFI-certified cables over regular USB-C cables. It’s not like they will give your Apple devices magical powers. If there is any reduction in transfer rate or charging speed, it will only happen because Apple intentionally chose to make it so.
Of course, this leak may turn out to be true, and Apple may not be quite so evil as to foist the MFI tax on its loyal users. But I fear that Apple believes its users are more loyal than discerning, and will yet again, quietly pay for MFI cables just because Apple said so.
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Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung recently gave us a closer look at the massive 55-inch Odyssey Ark curved gaming monitor!
Samsung Odyssey Ark Gaming Monitor : A Quick Look!
The Samsung Odyssey Ark gaming monitor is truly a gamer’s dream come true – a massive 55-inch display with a 1000R curvature, and a 165 Hz refresh rate!
It is now just a large gaming display, it’s chockfull of gaming-specific features like:
4K display resolution, with 1 million to 1 contrast ratio, and HDR 10+ support
Up to 165 Hz refresh rate, with 1 ms (GTG) response time
Variable refresh rate support with AMD FreeSync Premium Pro
Quantum Mini-LED panel for next-generation colour depth and picture quality
sAGAR (Super Anti-Glare, Anti-Reflection) film reduces glare
Neural Quantum Processor Ultra automatically analyses each frame to improve image quality
Dolby Atmos with Sound Dome technology for immersive surround sound
Four corner speakers with two central woofers for a 60 watt 2.2.2 channel audio
It also comes with an exclusive Ark Dial that lets you quickly adjust screen size and ratio, to enjoy multiple content sources at the same time!
Even though it’s so large, the Samsung Odyssey Ark gaming monitor can be rotated clockwise to Cockpit Mode. It is not motorised but it’s not difficult to rotate the monitor.
In both vertical and horizontal orientations, its Multi View capability lets you take full advantage of its massive display by splitting it into sections.
You can add up to four screens in the standard landscape mode, and three screens in the vertical Cockpit Mode, allowing you to easily multitask. You can simultaneously game, while chatting on social media, or watching YouTube videos, all on the same display!
The 55-inch Samsung Odyssey Ark gaming monitor (LS55BG970NEXXS) is available with immediate effect, at these price points:
United States : $2,999
United Kingdom : £2,599
Malaysia : RM13,999
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Two thieves made off with $35,000 worth of Apple products at an Apple Store in broad daylight… in just 60 seconds!
Take a look at the viral video, and find out what happened!
Gone In 60 Seconds : Apple Store Robbed Of $35K!
At around 4:17 PM on Friday, November 25, 2022, a pair of thieves brazenly stole $35,000 worth of Apple products in front of shocked customers and store workers at the Apple Store in Palo Alto, California!
The Black Friday heist showed the two masked men yanking multiple iPhones and MacBook laptops from the display tables to stuff in their bags, while pushing past customers and store workers.
A customer can be heard on the video asking, “Should we stop them?”, and an Apple Store worker responded, “Let them go”.
The minute-long video showed just how quickly the two thieves were able to “work the room”, to steal all those Apple devices!
Even though they were unchallenged by the customers and store workers, one of the thieves “made a general statement to the crowd of physical violence” if they attempted to stop the robbery.
That escalated the crime from merely “shoplifting” to a robbery, according to the police, who confirmed that about $35,000 worth of Apple phones and laptops were taken.
One of the suspects was wearing a beige hoodie with blue jeans, white shoes and a red backpack, while the other was wearing a blue camouflage hoodie with black Adidas pants, red shoes and a black Adidas backpack.
The police are currently looking for both men, described as black males in their late teens or early 20s, who fled in a red Mazda hatchback and were last seen by a security guard driving north on Highway 101 at around 4:30 PM.
The Palo Alto Apple Store has been robbed three times in recent years. In 2018, it was robbed twice within 24 hours, with thieves taking over $100,000 worth of merchandise, while in 2016, robbers smashed a rental car through its store front and made off with thousands of dollars worth of Apple products.
As its products are considered high-value, Apple has seen its store in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland and Washington, D.C. targeted in large heists.
As a result, Apple has initiated several measures to make it difficult for thieves to sell their loot of stolen Apple devices.
For example, demo devices like the ones just stolen from the Palo Alto Apple Store would have been registered with an Apple ID, and can therefore be easily tracked using the Find My iPhone service.
These demo devices also have proximity software installed since 2016, which automatically disables them once they are taken outside of their assigned Apple Store.
Apple also has the ability to disable and track stolen devices, even those that are brand-new, in-the-box. Those who purchased them will find that their devices can’t be turned off, and their location would be sent to local authorities.
The stolen iPhones will also display a warning to the user, informing them that the device has been disabled and being tracked, and that the local authorities has been alerted. The user is advised to return the iPhone to the Apple Store where it was stolen from.
Please return to Apple Walnut Street
This device has been disabled and is being tracked. Local authorities will be alerted.
This pretty much makes these stolen devices useless, if the thieves intend to sell them to other people. They may, however, find some use as spare parts for far less profit, of course
Apple is also blocking access to repairs for lost or stolen devices. For starters – Apple will refuse to repair iPhones if its Find My iPhone feature cannot be disabled (to prove ownership).
In addition, Apple repair technicians can now see if an iPhone has been reported lost or stolen in the internal MobileGenius or GXS system. If the device was reported lost or stolen, they will decline to repair the device.
All these measures will mean that the viral $35,000 heist at the Palo Alto Apple Store will not amount to much for the thieves.
In fact, Apple is the winner in this robbery – its demo devices would have certainly been insured. In a way, Apple “sold” the stolen $35,000 inventory in this robbery to their insurance company!
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Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Find out how NVIDIA created the new A800 GPU to bypass the US ban on sale of advanced chips to China!
NVIDIA Offers A800 GPU To Bypass US Ban On China!
Two months after it was banned by the US government from selling high-performance AI chips to China, NVIDIA introduced a new A800 GPU designed to bypass those restrictions.
The new NVIDIA A800 is based on the same Ampere microarchitecture as the A100, which was used as the performance baseline by the US government.
Despite its numerically larger model number (the lucky number 8 was probably picked to appeal to the Chinese), this is a detuned part, with slightly reduced performance to meet export control limitations.
The NVIDIA A800 GPU, which went into production in Q3, is another alternative product to the NVIDIA A100 GPU for customers in China.
The A800 meets the U.S. government’s clear test for reduced export control and cannot be programmed to exceed it.
NVIDIA is probably hoping that the slightly slower NVIDIA A800 GPU will allow it to continue supplying China with A100-level chips that are used to power supercomputers and high-performance datacenters for artificial intelligence applications.
As I will show you in the next section, except in very high-end applications, there won’t be truly significant performance difference between the A800 and the A100. So NVIDIA customers who want or need the A100 will have no issue opting for the A800 instead.
However, this can only be a stopgap fix, as NVIDIA is stuck selling A100-level chips to China until and unless the US government changes its mind.
The US government considers the NVIDIA A100 as the performance baseline for its export control restrictions on China.
Any chip equal or faster to that Ampere-based chip, which was launched on May 14, 2020, is forbidden to be sold or exported to China. But as they say, the devil is in the details.
The US government didn’t specify just how much slower chips must be, to qualify for export to China. So NVIDIA could technically get away by slightly detuning the A100, while offering almost the same performance level.
And that was what NVIDIA did with the A800 – it is basically the A100 with a 33% slower NVLink interconnect speed. NVIDIA also limited the maximum number of GPUs supported in a single server to 8.
That only slightly reduces the performance of A800 servers, compare to A100 servers, while offering the same amount of GPU compute performance. Most users will not notice the difference.
The only significant impediment is on the very high-end – Chinese companies are now restricted to a maximum of eight GPUs per server, instead of up to sixteen.
To show you what I mean, I dug into the A800 specifications, and compared them to the A100 below:
NVIDIA A100 vs A800 : 80GB PCIe Version
Specifications
A100
80GB PCIe
A800
80GB PCIe
FP64
9.7 TFLOPS
FP64 Tensor Core
19.5 TFLOPS
FP32
19.5 TFLOPS
Tensor Float 32
156 TFLOPS
BFLOAT 16 Tensor Core
312 TFLOPS
FP16 Tensor Core
312 TFLOPS
INT8 Tensor Core
624 TOPS
GPU Memory
80 GB HBM2
GPU Memory Bandwifth
1,935 GB/s
TDP
300 W
Multi-Instance GPU
Up to 7 MIGs @ 10 GB
Interconnect
NVLink : 600 GB/s
PCIe Gen4 : 64 GB/s
NVLink : 400 GB/s
PCIe Gen4 : 64 GB/s
Server Options
1-8 GPUs
NVIDIA A100 vs A800 : 80GB SXM Version
Specifications
A100
80GB SXM
A800
80GB SXM
FP64
9.7 TFLOPS
FP64 Tensor Core
19.5 TFLOPS
FP32
19.5 TFLOPS
Tensor Float 32
156 TFLOPS
BFLOAT 16 Tensor Core
312 TFLOPS
FP16 Tensor Core
312 TFLOPS
INT8 Tensor Core
624 TOPS
GPU Memory
80 GB HBM2
GPU Memory Bandwifth
2,039 GB/s
TDP
400 W
Multi-Instance GPU
Up to 7 MIGs @ 10 GB
Interconnect
NVLink : 600 GB/s
PCIe Gen4 : 64 GB/s
NVLink : 400 GB/s
PCIe Gen4 : 64 GB/s
Server Options
4/ 8 / 16 GPUs
4 / 8 GPUs
NVIDIA A100 vs A800 : 40GB PCIe Version
Specifications
A100
40GB PCIe
A800
40GB PCIe
FP64
9.7 TFLOPS
FP64 Tensor Core
19.5 TFLOPS
FP32
19.5 TFLOPS
Tensor Float 32
156 TFLOPS
BFLOAT 16 Tensor Core
312 TFLOPS
FP16 Tensor Core
312 TFLOPS
INT8 Tensor Core
624 TOPS
GPU Memory
40 GB HBM2
GPU Memory Bandwifth
1,555 GB/s
TDP
250 W
Multi-Instance GPU
Up to 7 MIGs @ 10 GB
Interconnect
NVLink : 600 GB/s
PCIe Gen4 : 64 GB/s
NVLink : 400 GB/s
PCIe Gen4 : 64 GB/s
Server Options
1-8 GPUs
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
TSMC stopped making artificial intelligence chips for China’s Biren Technology, and it was all Biren’s own fault!
TSMC Stops Making Biren AI Chips Over US Sanctions
TSMC – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company – has suspended production of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips for China’s Biren Technology.
TSMC was forced to make this decision after public domain information revealed that the Biren BR100 and BR104 chips outperformed the NVIDIA A100 chip, which was used as the baseline of US sanctions.
While TSMC has not reached a conclusion on whether the top-of-the-line Biren BR100 or the slower BR104 meet or exceed US government threshold on advanced AI chip technology restrictions, it decided to stop production and supply of the Biren chips for now.
For TSMC to continue producing BR100 or BR104 chips, Biren must now prove that their chips do not offer “peak performance and chip-to-chip I/O performance equal to or greater than thresholds that are roughly equivalent to the [NVIDIA] A100“, or get an export licence from the US Department of Commerce.
And believe it or not – it was Biren Technology that created this mess for itself!
How Biren Screwed Up Its Own BR100 AI Chips
Biren, which is one of China’s most promising semiconductor design firms, earlier claimed that its AI chips that were being produced by TSMC are not covered by the latest US export restrictions.
However, its own website touts that the BR100 family of chips offers “world-class performance“, and has “improved by more than 3X” compared to mainstream rivals.
On top of that, Biren actually released a press statement on September 9, 2022, declaring that the slower BR104 was proven by the MLPerf to beat the NVIDIA A100!
Releasing such a statement less than 2 weeks after the US government ordered both AMD and NVIDIA to stop exporting their MI250 and A100 and faster AI chips to China is either amazing chutzpah, or a combination of hubris and idiocy.
Either way, the US government took notice, and TSMC came under pressure to comply with American export restrictions. Awesome PR, but stupid move, Biren…
Take a look at the benchmark results that Biren itself released into public domain, showing that the slower BR104 chip was between 27% and 58% faster than the NVIDIA A100.
With such results, the BR104 would certainly fall under the latest US tech export restrictions. No wonder TSMC quickly stopped making and supplying Biren BR100 series chips.
As powerful as the BR100 and BR104 GPGPU chips may be, they are now dead in the water as TSMC will not manufacture them anymore, and Biren Technology has no plausible alternatives for 7nm fabrication.
The Biren BR100 and slower BR104 are General Purpose GPU (GPGPU) chips, which are targeted at artificial intelligence applications.
They are both fabricated on the TSMC 7nm process technology, and use chipset and 2.5D Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate (CoWoS) packaging technologies to achieve high yield, and high performance.
The Biren BR100 family of GPGPU chips supports up to eight independent virtual instances (SVI) – each physically isolated with their own hardware resources, for improved security.
Their chips are designed with a proprietary Blink high-speed GPU interconnect bus offering bandwidth of up to 448 GB/s, with the ability to connect up to 8 cards in a single node, using state-of-the-art PCI Express 5.0.
Biren Technology offers two BR100-based products – the Bili 100P OCP Accelerator Module (OAM), and the Bill 104P PCI Express accelerator card.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Two Chinese spies were caught interfering with US federal prosecution of Chinese telecommunications company, HUAWEI!
Chinese Spies Caught Interfering With HUAWEI Case!
On Monday, October 24, 2022, the US Justice Department announced charges against two Chinese citizens, who were accused of working to undermine federal prosecution of Chinese telecommunications company, HUAWEI.
The charging documents charged two People’s Republic of China (PRC) citizens of two counts of money laundering, and one count of obstructing an official proceeding, specifically interfering with the pending prosecution of HUAWEI by the Eastern District of New York (EDNY).
Gouchun He, who is also known as Dong He or Jacky He, and
Zheng Wang, who is also known as Zen Wang
The US Justice Department called them intelligence officers of the PRC conducting foreign intelligence operations targeting the United States, on behalf of the PRC government and for the benefit of Company-1 (HUAWEI).
How These Chinese Spies Were Caught Interfering With HUAWEI Case!
The US Justice Department’s charging documents tell a really compelling story of how the two Chinese spies were foiled by the very asset they recruited.
When US Department of Justice apparently began their investigation of HUAWEI in 2017, Gouchun He and Zheng Wang recruited a US law enforcement official around February 2017. Unbeknownst to them, the official they recruited as their asset became a “double agent” for FBI supervision.
He and Wang began asking the official for sensitive information about the US government’s criminal case against HUAWEI, and received payment in return:
approximately $14,000 in cash
jewellery worth approximately $600
approximately $61,000 in Bitcoin
The official also received payments unrelated to this case (suggesting He and Wang asked for information on other cases) :
After charges were announced against HUAWEI around January 2019, Gouchun He and Zheng Wang repeatedly asked their agent for secret information regarding the investigation and prosecution of HUAWEI:
September 2021 : The official was asked to provide information on meetings with the prosecution team at the US Attorney’s Office for EDNY on strategising for the jury trial.
October 2021 : In response to a request for documents, the official passed Gouchun He a document marked SECRET that purportedly claimed to discuss a potential plan to charge and arrest two HUAWEI principals residing in China.
The official was paid $41,000 in Bitcoin for that single page, and later paid another $20,000 in Bitcoin the same month.
December 2021 : Gouchun He told the official that HUAWEI “demanded to communicate with him/her directly”, but he allegedly “refused it” because “it’s too dangerous”.
The US official repeatedly indicated that he/she knew and expected the materials he/she passed would be shared with HUAWEI, and Gouchun He and Zheng Wang never denied that they would be sharing the documents or information with HUAWEI.
In fact, when the US official handed them the SECRET document, Gouchun He explained, “HUAWEI didn’t give me specifically feedback now yet [about the document], but they are obviously interested in it, and my boos and they need further information”
Both Gouchun He and Zheng Wang then asked the US official for information on witnesses who were working with the US government to prosecute HUAWEI.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Artificial intelligence chip developer, Habana Labs, just laid off over 10% of its workforce, just as Intel plans to layoff up to 20% of its employees.
Intel’s Habana Labs Cuts Over 10% Of Workforce!
Intel acquired artificial intelligence chip developer Habana Labs in 2019 for $2 billion. The acquisition allowed Habana Labs to rapidly increase its workforce from 180 people to over 900.
That breakneck expansion has not only come to a shuddering halt, it is being reversed – Habana Labs is laying off 100 of their employees. According to an Intel statement:
Habana Labs assesses and updates its technical and business focus from time to time in order to adapt to the current business reality and to continue and improve its competitiveness.
As part of these processes, it makes adjustments to its workforce and the balance between different disciplines from time to time. This is a normal process which occurs constantly and allows Habana to continue and develop attractive and competitive products and solutions.
Habana Labs was founded by David Dahan and Ran Halutz in San Jose in 2016, for the purpose of developing processors optimised for Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications.
Both Dahan and Halutz were former executives of PrimeSense Limited, which was acquired by Apple for $360 million in 2013. Its first investor and chairman was Israeli tech entrepreneur Avigdor Willenz.
Habana Labs Cuts Employees Before Major Intel Layoffs
Habana Labs functions as an independent unit within Intel, which is why it announced its layoffs before Intel announced its own major layoffs later this month.
According to Bloomberg News, Intel is planning major layoffs of its staff, “as early as this month” – around the same time its third quarter earnings report is announced on October 27.
This reduction in headcount will be substantial, affecting Intel sales and marketing team the hardest – around 20% of their members are expected to receive pink slips.
This decision comes after two years of booming sales during the COVID-19 pandemic, and just as Intel is set to receive billions in funding from the US government under the CHIPS Act.
Gartner recently announced that worldwide PC shipments only totalled 68 million units in the third quarter of 2022 – a 19.5% drop from a year ago. This was the steepest market decline it recorded since it started tracking the market in the mid-1990s.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Intel is planning major layoffs of its staff, due to declining demand for its chips, even as it is set to receive billions in funding from the CHIPS Act!
Intel Planning Major Layoffs, Amid Market Downturn!
According to Bloomberg News, Intel is planning major layoffs of its staff, “as early as this month” – around the same time its third quarter earnings report is announced on October 27.
This reduction in headcount will be substantial, affecting Intel sales and marketing team the hardest – around 20% of their members are expected to receive pink slips.
This decision comes after two years of booming sales during the COVID-19 pandemic, and just as Intel is set to receive billions in funding from the US government under the CHIPS Act.
Gartner recently announced that worldwide PC shipments only totalled 68 million units in the third quarter of 2022 – a 19.5% drop from a year ago. This was the steepest market decline it recorded since it started tracking the market in the mid-1990s.
On October 11, 2022, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger announced a new path for growth during this economic downturn – the creation of an internal foundry model for external customers, and Intel product lines.
Intel will also create an IDM 2.0 Acceleration Officer under the leadership of Stuart Pann. IDM is short for Integrated Device Manufacturing.
IDM 2.0 is Intel’s plans to become a major provider of semiconductor foundry capacity in the US and Europe to serve customers globally.
Intel Not Alone In Layoffs During This Market Downturn
Intel wouldn’t be alone in cutting jobs. Meta and Microsoft had already announced layoffs. Meta quietly laid off about 12,000 “underperforming” Facebook employees recently, while Microsoft announced in July 2022 that it laid off almost 1,800 employees.
Even Sundar Pichai – the CEO of mighty Alphabet hinted at the possibility of layoffs, saying he wanted to make Google 20% more efficient and that could include cutting its headcount.
Many other corporations have also been laying off employees amidst the global economic slowdown and high inflation that is fuelling recession fears – Tencent, Alibaba, Tesla, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, etc.
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Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
The US government just imposed sweeping chip and chipmaking export restrictions that target Chinese military capabilities!
US Targets Chinese Military With New Chip Export Ban!
On Friday, October 7, 2022, the US government announced new regulations on computer chips and chipmaking technologies designed to target Chinese military capabilities.
The stated goal of these new export restrictions is to “block the People’s Liberation Army and China’s domestic surveillance apparatus from gaining access to advanced computing capabilities that require the use of advanced semiconductors.”
According to US officials, these rules target not only the sale and export of chips, but also the tools and software that might help the Chinese military in any way, including aiding the development of weapons of mass destruction.
Unlike earlier rules that target specific Chinese companies (like HUAWEI), the new rules have far greater reach, covering everything from chips made by AMD and NVIDIA, to complex and expensive hardware and software used to design and manufacture semiconductor chips.
These rules, some of which go into effect immediately, build on existing restrictions that were earlier applied to top chip toolmaking companies in the US, like KLA Corporation, Lam Research Corporation, and Applied Material Incorporated.
It’s not just advanced chips used for AI computing and national security or military applications that are being targeted.
The new rules are more generic, and forbid US companies from selling technologies to indigenous Chinese companies that will enable the production of:
DRAM chips at 18 nm or below,
NAND flash chips at 128 layers or above, and
logic chips at 14 nm or below.
Even foreign companies operating China are somewhat affected. US companies will need to obtain a license to export more advanced equipment to them.
But in a concession to South Korea, the US government will spare SK Hynix and Samsung from these measures. US companies will be able to continue supplying their production facilities in China.
Many of the rules aim to block foreign companies from selling advanced chips or chipmaking technologies and tools to China. However, the US government will need to “lean” on those countries to introduce similar measures.
Most advanced chips are manufactured in South Korea and Taiwan. If they continue to export to China, they will allow China to bypass US restrictions.
On Saturday, the Chinese government criticised the new US chip export ban, calling it a violation of International economic and trade rules that will “isolate and backfire” on the US.
Out of the need to maintain its sci-tech hegemony, the U.S. abuses export control measures to maliciously block and suppress Chinese companies.
It will not only damage the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies, but also affect American companies’ interest.
– Mao Ning, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson
Despite Mao’s assertions that US actions will not stop China’s progress, the new wide-ranging chip and chipmaking export ban will undoubtedly be detrimental to the Chinese semiconductor industry, and set back its attempts at indigenous production by many years.
On the other hand, this export ban will spur China to redouble its efforts to develop its own chipmaking capabilities, and possibly “strike back” by restricting exports of rare earths to US companies.
US Chip Export Rules Affecting Chinese Companies Summarised
Here is a summary of the new restrictions that take effect on Friday (October 7, 2022):
Tools that are capable of producing logic chips made using fin field-effect transistors (FinFET) are blocked from sale to China.
Tools capable of fabricating NAND flash storage chips with 128-layer technology or greater, and DRAM based on 18-nanometer half-pitch or less technology are blocked from sale to China.
Servicing and maintenance of restricted tools are also banned, which would prevent keeping advanced equipment in good enough shape to keep producing quality chips at high volume.
US citizens currently servicing or supporting tools on the restricted list must halt their activities by Wednesday, October 12.
Export of items that China can use to make its own chip manufacturing tools, such as a photolithography light source and other specialised components are also blocked from sale to China.
The US Commerce Department also enacted these additional measures on Friday:
31 Chinese entities were added to the Unverified List, which consists of companies that the US government believes could divert technology that they purchase to restricted entities.
The Commerce Department expanded the scope of controls for the 28 Chinese firms already on the US Entity List, including presumptively denying any licenses because of the risk they will divert technology to the Chinese military.
Then two weeks later, these restrictions will take effect on Friday, October 21, 2022:
Using a new foreign direct product rule, the U.S. will block any chips that used in advanced computing and artificial intelligence applications.
The foreign direct product rule can block chips made by non-US companies — including Chinese chip designers — if they use American technology or software.
TSMC may be forced by this new rule to halt production on advanced AI or supercomputer chips designed by Chinese firms that are fabricated in Taiwan, unless it gets an exemption.
A new foreign direct product rule will apply to components and chips destined for supercomputers in China.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
EVGA just confirmed that it is quitting the GPU business for good, citing disrespect and unfair behaviour by NVIDIA!
Here is what we know so far…
EVGA Won’t Produce Next-Gen NVIDIA Graphics Cards!
EVGA has been a long-time NVIDIA partner for over 20 years, and exclusively produces only graphics cards based on their GPUs.
But on 16 September 2022, the veteran NVIDIA partner confirmed that it was quitting the graphics card business for good in a terse community forum post.
EVGA will continue to sell the current GeForce RTX 30-series graphics cards, and support their existing customers.
However, it will no longer produce the next-generation GeForce RTX 40-series (Lovelace) graphics cards.
Hi all,
You may have heard some news regarding the next generation products from EVGA. Please see below for a message on future products and s
EVGA will not carry the next generation graphics cards.
EVGA will continue to support the existing current generation products.
EVGA will continue to provide the current generation products.
EVGA is committed to our customers and will continue to offer sales and support on the current lineup. Also, EVGA would like to say thank you to our great community for the many years of support and enthusiasm for EVGA graphics cards.
EVGA Management
The majority – about 78% – of EVGA’s revenue comes from sales of its NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics cards, which will run out eventually.
But the company does not plan to layoff its employees even after they finish selling their stock of RTX 30-series graphics cards. Instead, it will focus on other products like motherboards and power supplies, although it does not plan to expand into new product lines.
EVGA is not even entertaining the idea of “working with Intel or AMD” to produce graphics cards. It will quit the graphics card business for good.
The California-based company currently employs about 280 people worldwide, and employees currently working on graphics cards will be reassigned to other departments, although it also expects some “attrition” to take place.
EVGA Quits GPU Business Over NVIDIA Disrespect!
While EVGA did not officially mention the reasons for its drastic decision, it was apparently over the way NVIDIA disrespected them and behaved unfairly.
EVGA CEO Andrew Han pointed out that the margin on graphics cards is incredibly thin, and they make 300% more profit on power supplies. Yet NVIDIA was a bad partner to them.
NVIDIA would not tell EVGA their cost price for GPUs before announcing the price of cards like the RTX 3080, making it difficult for EVGA to figure out how much to charge for their own cards.
NVIDIA sends journalists drivers for the new graphics cards before sending them to EVGA
NVIDIA keeps EVGA in the dark about how many GPUs it would receive.
NVIDIA competes directly with EVGA with their Founders Edition cards. EVGA complained that it had to sell high-end cards like the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 at a loss of “hundreds of dollars” to compete with the Founders Edition cards.
NVIDIA blocks partners from selling cards below a price floor for some models, and above a price ceiling for other models.
Han reportedly said that “the decision to stop working with NVIDIA was easy, because working with NVIDIA was so hard”.
This discontent had been simmering for a long time, and NVIDIA leadership was well-aware as far back as April 2022.
When asked for a response to those allegations, NVIDIA spokesperson Bryan Del Rizzo said :
We’ve had a great partnership with EVGA over the years and will continue to support them on our current generation of products. We wish Andrew [Han] and our friends at EVGA all the best.
Even though EVGA has been with NVIDIA since the RIVA TNT2 days in 1999, the GPU giant probably couldn’t care less as they can still count on their other “partners” to fill in the hole.
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
