Month: July 2017

Enlarge (credit: Mark Walton)

Intel's latest 10-core, high-end desktop (HEDT) chip—the Core i9-7900X—costs £900/$1000. That's £500/$500 less than its predecessor, the i7-6950X. In previous years, such cost-cutting would have been regarded as generous. You might, at a stretch, even call it good value. But that was at a time when Intel's monopoly on the CPU market was as its strongest, before a resurgent AMD lay waste to the idea that a chip with more than four cores be reserved for those with the fattest wallets.

The i9-7900X—which debuts the "i9" moniker alongside the new X299 platform, replacing X99—is the most powerful consumer desktop chip money can buy. In nearly every benchmark, it delivers the highest scores. In multitasking and heavily multithreaded applications like photo editors, video editors, and 3D computer graphics, it ably demonstrates the appeal of more cores. But as a product, a piece of aspirational tech to flaunt on Reddit, Intel's HEDT chips are far less alluring.

It doesn't help that X299 is a confusing mess of chips, PCIe lanes, and consumer-unfriendly feature lockouts that hint at a rushed launch in the wake of increased competition from AMD. Nor does it help that, like Intel's mainstream Kaby Lake architecture before it, Skylake-X offers little in the way of raw instructions-per-clock (IPC) performance improvement over Broadwell-E.

Enlarge (credit: Veniamin Geskin)

The next iPhone (the iPhone 7S, iPhone 8?), which is due to be released in September, might replace the TouchID fingerprint sensor with whole-face 3D scanning.

According to Bloomberg, which is usually quite reliable when it comes to Apple rumours, the face-scanning tech will allow iPhone users to log in, authenticate payments, and unlock secure apps. This will be powered by a new 3D sensor. Apple is also testing eye scanning tech, which would provide additional security and redundancy alongside the face scanner. The tech might be ready for the next iPhone, or it might not be, according to people familiar with the product.

In case you ever wondered, this is the first image that pops up if you search for 'Windows Hello' on Getty Images. (credit: Dennis Oulds/Getty Images)

The same people said the new 3D face-scanning chip is incredibly fast and accurate: it can scan and authenticate the user's face within "a few hundred milliseconds." It apparently doesn't require a close-up of your face, either, which is good news: holding an iPhone up to your face is hardly more ergonomic or convenient than a fingerprint scanner.

Sebastian Anthony

I stand on a curb in Greenwich, admiring some reasonably attractive new-build homes. Everything is a bit too clean, a little like Disneyland. Young professionals mill around. In the distance, I can hear the hum of the Thames Clipper river bus service that goes up and down the river. And then, out of frickin' nowhere, a van stealthily crawls around a nearby corner. The vehicle is electric and completely silent, and it's heading straight towards me. A bit like the Speed episode of Father Ted.

As the van gets closer I can see there's someone in the front seat: a guy in a high-vis jacket. A couple of seconds later, I can see there's a giant nerdy grin on his face and his hands aren't on the steering wheel. The van slowly trundles forward and eventually stops in front of me. The man hops out of the cab, clearly enjoying the baffled look on my face.