Month: October 2017

Enlarge (credit: Mark Walton)

For those that game, there's no better processor than Intel's Coffee Lake Core i7-8700K. Where its predecessor, the Kaby Lake Core i7-7700K, offered little more than slightly higher clock speeds and a way to decode DRM-laden 4K video over 2015's 6700K, the 8700K boosts performance with six cores, 12 threads, and a mighty 4.7GHz boost clock, the fastest out-of-the-box clock speed Intel has ever produced. The 8700K handles content creation admirably too, its high clock speed partly compensating for the two extra cores of AMD's Ryzen 7.

But it's not an outright smash. Much like Intel's Skylake-X i9 processors, there are signs that the 8700K was rushed to combat a resurgent AMD, as well as to fill the gap created by the now delayed 10nm Cannon Lake architecture. Reaching such high clock speeds across six cores has dramatically increased power consumption, and made managing heat a headache. Overclocking isn't for the faint hearted, or at least those without a substantial cooling setup. And, despite being based on an architecture that stretches back to Skylake, Coffee Lake requires a new motherboard, turning what might have been a compelling upgrade, even for Kaby Lake owners, into a far more considered purchase.

The 8700K is undoubtedly a fine processor; those shopping for a mainstream system, particularly one with a top-of-the-line graphics card, should buy it. But, while more than stopgap solution, Coffee Lake merely paints over the cracks that emerged when Intel braved its way into a post-"tick-tock" world. It's damage control, not an outright victory.

Boy, is it a sharp piece of hardware. It's wrapped in aluminum, like previous Chromebook Pixels. The palm rest is covered in a rubbery silicon pad, which feels fantastic to rest your wrists on while typing. It also serves as a great gripping point when you fold the laptop into its various modes. Hopefully this surface can stand up to the wear and tear of a laptop palm rest.

Enlarge / Vice President Mike Pence speaks at Kennedy Space Center earlier this year. (credit: NASA)

For close observers of space policy, a likely human return to the Moon has been one of the worst-kept secrets of the new Trump administration. First, new space companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Bigelow Aerospace started to introduce plans that involved lunar exploration. Then, Vice President Mike Pence picked Scott Pace to serve as executive director of the National Space Council—a Moon-first guy. Finally, the Trump administration nominated Jim Bridenstine, an Oklahoma representative who sees the Moon as the critical next step in human exploration, to serve as NASA administrator.

Now, the Trump administration has finally made its lunar ambitions official. In an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal on the eve of the first National Space Council meeting, Pence has set returning to the lunar surface at the forefront of human exploration.

On the Moon

"We will refocus America's space program toward human exploration and discovery," Pence wrote. "That means launching American astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit for the first time since 1972. It means establishing a renewed American presence on the Moon, a vital strategic goal. And from the foundation of the Moon, America will be the first nation to bring mankind to Mars."

Enlarge / Apple CEO Tim Cook. (credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The European Commission on Wednesday stepped up its campaign to force big American technology companies to pay more taxes on Wednesday. It ruled that Luxembourg had violated EU rules by allowing the bulk of Amazon's European profits to go untaxed, and it announced it was taking Ireland to court for failing to collect higher taxes from Apple, after Ireland ignored a similar ruling from the EC last year. If the EC wins the battle, Apple could owe €13 billion ($15 billion), while Amazon could owe an extra €250 million ($290 million).

The EU's competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, says that she's just trying to create a level playing field by preventing big multinational companies from getting sweetheart deals not available to most companies. But critics say Vestager is meddling in the internal tax policy decisions of democratic nations—and some have also insinuated that she has been singling out American multinationals for extra scrutiny.

Small European countries have found they can attract business from big companies by creating business-friendly tax regimes. Technology companies have taken full advantage. Both Apple and Amazon set up convoluted corporate structures that attribute the bulk of their European profits to shell companies carefully designed to minimize tax payments. Vestager wants to stop some of the most egregious tax dodges in this area, but her campaign is generating a lot of controversy.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

You're going to hear a lot about initial coin offerings (ICOs) in the coming months. As investors have poured more and more money into newly created virtual currencies, they have created a gold-rush mentality. In recent months, some ICOs have raised tens of millions of dollars, and in early October the cryptocurrency market as a whole was worth about $140 million.

Some ICOs have been for serious projects trying to solve hard technical problems. Others seemed like little more than cynical attempts to cash in on the speculative boom. Celebrities like Paris Hilton, Floyd Mayweather, and Ghostface Killah have endorsed ICOs The launch video for the cryptocurrency Hilton endorsed, called LydianCoin, consisted entirely of cliches: "Purpose isn't defined by what you want to achieve but what you want to live for to achieve happiness." (Hilton has since deleted her tweet endorsing LydianCoin.)

But throughout 2016 and 2017, ICOs of all shapes and sizes have repeatedly set new fundraising records as existing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and ether simultaneously soared in value. Experts we talked to—like Peter Van Valkenburg, an expert at a blockchain advocacy group called Coin Center—didn't think that was a coincidence.