Month: February 2022

Four fast chargers every 50 miles—US unveils EV infrastructure plan

Nationwide EV charging network is moving forward quickly.

An Electrify America charging station.

Enlarge / An Electrify America charging station. (credit: Electrify America)

About five years from now, a common complaint about electric vehicles—range anxiety—will be a thing of the past across much of the US.

Starting this year, the federal government will begin doling out $5 billion to states over five years to build a nationwide network of fast chargers. The plan initially focuses on the Interstate Highway System, directing states to build one charging station every 50 miles. Those stations must be capable of charging at least four EVs simultaneously at 150 kW.

Once states have completed the Interstate charging network, they’ll be able to apply for grants to fill in gaps elsewhere. The Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, a new agency formed to help the Transportation and Energy Departments administer the program, will allow case-by-case exceptions to the 50-mile requirement if, for example, no grid connection is available nearby.

Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Factory contamination ruins “at least” 7 billion gigabytes of flash memory

Two factories used by Western Digital and Kioxia have been affected.

Western Digital's recent WD Black SN770 SSD.

Enlarge / Western Digital's recent WD Black SN770 SSD. (credit: Western Digital)

Solid-state storage devices have so far been spared from the scarcity and high prices that the chip shortage has wrought upon graphics cards, cars, Raspberry Pi boards, and innumerable other products. But that may change soon, due in part to a "contamination" at two Japanese factories used by Western Digital and Kioxia to make flash memory.

According to a short Western Digital press release, the contamination issue has affected "at least" 6.5 exabytes of flash memory, which works out to just under 7 million terabytes or 7 billion gigabytes—that's a lot of NAND that will suddenly be unavailable for SSDs, phones, memory cards, and USB drives. An analyst speaking to Bloomberg suggested that the final total of affected memory could be as much as 16 exabytes.

The contamination issue could be compounded by other factors, like a recent COVID-19-related shutdown at one of Samsung's Chinese NAND factories. Real or perceived scarcity of SSDs or other components could also lure in scalpers seeking to make a quick buck by snapping up available stock and selling it on eBay or elsewhere at inflated prices.

Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

AMD’s acquisition of Xilinx set to close within days

NVIDIA’s high-profile acquisition of chip designer ARM might have fallen apart this week. But consolidation continues to be a trend in the semiconductor space: AMD has just announced that it’s acquisition of Xilinx is set to close “on or about February 14, 2022.” AMD had announced in October, 2020 that it planned to buy Xilinx […]

The post AMD’s acquisition of Xilinx set to close within days appeared first on Liliputing.

NVIDIA’s high-profile acquisition of chip designer ARM might have fallen apart this week. But consolidation continues to be a trend in the semiconductor space: AMD has just announced that it’s acquisition of Xilinx is set to close “on or about February 14, 2022.”

AMD had announced in October, 2020 that it planned to buy Xilinx for $35 billion, and nearly a year and a half later the company says it’s received all the necessary approvals from government regulators, which will allow the deal to close soon.

AMD is probably best known for its CPU and GPU business: the company’s Ryzen processors have become increasingly popular options with laptop and desktop PC makers, while its Radeon graphics cards are used for gaming PCs and mobile workstations. The company also produces chips for use in servers.

Xilinx, meanwhile, is one of the biggest names in the FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) space, a type of chip that can be programmed to work in different ways without the need to physically replace the processor.

AMD has said that its purchase of Xilinx will help the company expand its offerings for data centers, but FPGAs can also be used in 5G networking gear, automotive, industrial, medical, and security applications, among other things. They’ve also proven popular with niche devices like the Analogue Pocket (a handheld game console that can emulate the chip architecture of classic game systems) and the Precursor (an open mobile hardware device).

Another likely reason AMD wanted to buy Xilinx? To keep up with rival Intel, which acquired FPGA maker Altera for $16.7 billion in 2015.

press release (1)(2)

The post AMD’s acquisition of Xilinx set to close within days appeared first on Liliputing.

Zeitbombe Syrien: Ein fataler Fehler von Nato-Ländern

Wie der Angriff eines US-Spezialkommandos auf den IS-Anführer Abu Ibrahim al-Qureishi den al-Qaida-Abkömmling HTS stärkt und die Sanktionen eine repressive Herrschaft auf Kosten der Bevölkerung

Wie der Angriff eines US-Spezialkommandos auf den IS-Anführer Abu Ibrahim al-Qureishi den al-Qaida-Abkömmling HTS stärkt und die Sanktionen eine repressive Herrschaft auf Kosten der Bevölkerung

Google’s Material You dynamic color theming coming to more Android 12 phones

When Google introduced Android 12 last year, one of the biggest changes was the introduction of a new Material You design language that, among other things, allowed you to adjust the color scheme of the operating system just by picking a wallpaper and then choosing a related color palette automatically generated based on the colors in […]

The post Google’s Material You dynamic color theming coming to more Android 12 phones appeared first on Liliputing.

When Google introduced Android 12 last year, one of the biggest changes was the introduction of a new Material You design language that, among other things, allowed you to adjust the color scheme of the operating system just by picking a wallpaper and then choosing a related color palette automatically generated based on the colors in that wallpaper.

But that dynamic color feature was largely confined to Google’s own Pixel phones at launch. Now Google says it’s coming soon to more phones running Android 12 including models from Samsung, OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, Realme, Xiaomi, and Tecno.

Google says it’s working with those phone makers and others to make sure that “key design APIs” including the ones responsible for the dynamic color features work properly even on phones that are running custom skins rather than stock Android.

The announcement comes a few days after a report from Android Police indicated Google would begin making Material You and dynamic theming a requirement starting in mid-March. Basically any phone maker that wants to use Google Mobile Services will need to adopt Material You and Google’s dynamic theming features.

Theoretically phone makers could still choose to ship Android 12 devices that don’t support dynamic theming, but then they wouldn’t be able to include some of Google’s key apps including the Google Play Store, Gmail, Chrome, and Google Maps. So it’s likely that most Android phones will support the feature moving forward.

You can find more details about Google’s Material You design language and dynamic color at the Material blog.

The post Google’s Material You dynamic color theming coming to more Android 12 phones appeared first on Liliputing.

Dr. Paul Sutter breaks down how hard it is to get to Mars—and then to live there

Episode two of “Edge of Knowledge” continues, focusing on the red planet.

Produced and directed by Corey Eisenstein. Click here for transcript. (video link)

Welcome to the second episode of "Edge of Knowledge," our science explainer series starring astrophysicist Paul Sutter. In part one, Paul took us on a journey to the edges of our galaxy and talked about dark matter, the strange stuff that appears to make up the majority of the Milky Way's total mass—even though we can't observe it or interact with it in any meaningful way. It's odd, it's counterintuitive, and yet it's real. Dark matter is one of the current great unknowns of modern astrophysics.

This time, we're focusing our science vision somewhat closer to home. A lot closer to home, in fact: we're taking a look at our planetary next door neighbor, Mars.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments