Month: October 2021

Enlarge / Ultra Cruise will ultimately enable door-to-door hands-free driving on all public paved roads in the US and Canada, says the company. (credit: General Motors)

On Wednesday and Thursday, General Motors laid out its plan for the coming years to its investors. The company wants "a world with zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion," said Chair and CEO Mary Barra, explaining that GM's investment in electric vehicles and autonomous driving technology has given it an early start.

GM revealed that a new electric Silverado truck will be formally unveiled at CES in 2022, and a $30,000 Chevrolet electric crossover is also in development. Both of these models, as well as electric Buicks, GMCs, Hummer EVs, and Cadillacs, will use GM's new family of Ultium batteries and Ultium Drive motors.

Some or all of those vehicles will be equipped with GM's Super Cruise hands-free driver-assistance system, but the company soon plans to deploy an even more capable hands-free driver-assistance system. Called Ultra Cruise, it will eventually allow for "hands-free driving in 95 percent of all driving scenarios," GM says.

Enlarge / SteelSeries' Arctis headsets are well-known among gamers. (credit: SteelSeries)

Gaming peripherals-maker SteelSeries is being purchased by GN, the owner of audio equipment company Jabra. The deal announced Wednesday gives GN access to SteelSeries’ headsets, keyboards, mice, and other peripherals for PC and console gaming, as well as its sub-brands, like Nahimic.

Denmark-based GN is buying SteelSeries from Axcel, a Nordic private equity firm, in a deal that reportedly amounts to 8 billion DKK (about $1.2 billion).

Founded in 2001 in Denmark, SteelSeries has made a name for itself with a large selection of advanced peripherals targeting console and PC gamers. As an audio company, GN is undoubtedly interested in SteelSeries’ Arctis headset lineup, which comprises a wide range of prices and form factors and has become a go-to brand among gamers. SteelSeries also has a reputation with other types of peripherals, including its Apex Pro mechanical keyboard (you’ll regularly see gamers sharing social media posts of the keyboard as they peel the sticker off its unique OLED screen).

Enlarge (credit: AMD)

Most people shouldn't rush out to install brand-new operating system versions on day one, and Windows 11 is no exception to that rule. AMD has published information about a pair of bugs that can reduce performance for Ryzen processors running Windows 11 by as much as 15 percent, though how much slowdown you observe will vary based on what you're doing and the CPU you're using. AMD expects both bugs to be fixed later this month.

The first issue AMD has identified increases L3 cache latency by up to three times, affecting apps that rely on fast memory performance. AMD says that most affected apps will slow down by between 3 and 5 percent but that some "games commonly used for eSports" could see dips of between 10 and 15 percent. AMD says that a Windows update will fix this issue later this month, so as long as you're checking for and installing Windows updates regularly, you won't need to do anything special to resolve the problem.

The second bug is related to an AMD processor feature that tries to use your fastest individual CPU cores when running lightly threaded tasks rather than treating all cores the same. AMD doesn't put a number on this one but says the problem "may be more detectable" in processors with eight or more cores and a 65 W or higher TDP. This would include most 2000, 3000, 4000, and 5000-series Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 desktop CPUs and APUs. AMD says that a "software update," not a Windows update, will be released to fix the problem later in October, so you may need to install new AMD chipset drivers or some other software to get the fix.

Enlarge / Elizabeth Holmes, founder and chief executive officer of Theranos, is on trial for wire fraud. (credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes’ charisma may have convinced the CEO of a major grocery store chain to form a partnership with the company, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the relationship from souring when the blood-testing startup inevitably couldn’t deliver on its promises.

In court for Holmes’ criminal trial yesterday, former Safeway CEO Steven Burd described how his admiration of Holmes and her company rose and then fell over the course of three years, from 2010 until 2013, when he retired. Holmes has been charged with 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

When Burd first heard of Holmes’ startup and its promised rapid blood testing technology, he said he was “immediately interested in meeting Theranos, particularly the founder.” The idea that people could give a small amount of blood and quickly receive the results “was a fascinating concept.”