Month: July 2017

(credit: Flickr: Rego Korosi )

Google is notorious for having many services that do similar things, like its array of chat apps. Google's music services have been fragmented for years, but the company may change that soon. According to a report from The Verge, YouTube's head of music Lyor Cohen stated at the New Music Seminar conference in New York last night that YouTube Red and Google Play Music should merge to make a singular, cohesive service.

Although the report doesn't mention YouTube Music (which is a another separate service), it's safe to say that all three streaming offerings could be combined into one. Google merged the YouTube Music and Google Play Music product teams together earlier this year, and that move came shortly after the business development teams for both services merged in 2016.

Google didn't confirm or deny the merger, but the company did say users would be given notice well before any big changes occur. "Music is very important to Google and we’re evaluating how to bring together our music offerings to deliver the best possible product for our users, music partners, and artists," reads the statement in the report. "Nothing will change for users today and we’ll provide plenty of notice before any changes are made."

Enlarge / On the road, near the summit. There are presently 10 optical telescopes on top of Mauna Kea. (credit: Eric Berger)

The Big Island of Hawaii has perhaps the best astronomical seeing conditions in the northern hemisphere, and the University of California system and Caltech have a $1.4 billion plan to build the world's largest telescope there. The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) would open up an unprecedented window into the early history of the universe—and other unknown wonders.

But some native Hawaiians do not want further telescopes built on the sacred summit of Mauna Kea, which at nearly 14,000 feet is the highest point in the chain of Pacific islands. They have put up fierce opposition to the telescope's construction alongside other instruments already on the summit and have scored some wins. For example, after the state's Board of Land and Natural Resources issued a building permit to the TMT institutions, the State Supreme Court invalidated it in 2015 because proper state procedures had not been followed.

Now, the telescope builders have won an important victory. On Wednesday retired judge Riki May Amano, who is overseeing contested-case hearing, issued a ruling that granted the TMT institutions a construction permit. It included 31 conditions, such as "ensuring that employees attend mandatory cultural and natural resources training," and a "substantial" but unspecified amount of sublease rent.

Enlarge (credit: Mark Walton)

Ryzen 3 1300X and Ryzen 3 1200, AMD's budget-focused quad-core CPUs, launch today for $130 and $110 respectively. UK pricing is yet to be confirmed, but don't expect much change from £120 and £100 respectively.

Like the rest of the Ryzen line-up, Ryzen 3 offers more cores compared to a similarly priced Intel chip. The Ryzen 3 1200—which features four cores, four threads, a base clock of 3.1GHz and a boost clock of 3.4GHz—is priced below Intel's Core i3-7100, a dual-core chip with hyperthreading. The Ryzen 3 1300X—which is also a 4C/4T chip with a base clock of 3.5GHz and a boost clock of 3.7GHz—is cheaper than the 2C/4T Intel Core i3-7300. Both sport a TDP of 65W.

While the Intel chips offer higher out-of-the-box clock speeds along with better IPC performance, Ryzen 3 should perform better in multithreaded tasks. AMD's own Cinebench results put Ryzen 3 ahead of Core i3 by as much as 29 percent. AMD claims Ryzen 3 will match Core i3 in 1080p gaming performance too, thanks to its two extra physical cores.

In Wolfenstein: The New Order, which tells the story of an alternate history where the Nazis win the Second World War, veteran William "B.J." Blazkowicz awakens from a coma to find the Nazis have acquired the technology to build giant killer robots powered by the brains of fallen soldiers.

In an effort to stop the Nazis, B.J. infiltrates a Nazi research facility, stealing its flagship nuclear submarine only to find that the codes to operate it are hidden on the Moon. Naturally, Blazkowicz proceeds to the Moon, before returning to Earth to fight the robotic reincarnation of a former soldier.

As stories go, The New Order's—even for a video game—is wonderfully ludicrous. But that raises a question for the sequel. When you've already battled giant killer robots and travelled to the Moon, just where do you go from there? The answer, in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, is travelling to the most ridiculous, confusing, and downright terrifying place on earth: the good ol' US of A.