Month: September 2022

Enlarge / Intel's GPU performance tiers. The gap between 3 and 5 is much larger than the gap between 5 and 7. (credit: Intel)

Intel’s slow, steady drip of information about its upcoming Arc GPUs continued last week when the company released the final specs for its four A-series desktop graphics cards. As with the laptop GPUs the company announced earlier this year, the desktop Arc cards are split between the entry-level Arc 3, midrange Arc 5, and high-end Arc 7 tiers.

The only Arc GPU that has been extensively vetted by independent testers is the entry-level A380, which is also the only one that has had any kind of official launch in the US (this back-ordered $140 ASRock Challenger model listed on Newegg, not counting more expensive cards imported from China). It's by far the weakest GPU in the lineup, with just eight of Intel's Xe cores and ray tracing units and 6GB of GDDR6 memory on a 96-bit memory bus. Reviews usually show the A380 trading blows with older and budget-focused GPUs like Nvidia's GTX 1650 or AMD's RX 6400, depending on the game.

The other three GPUs are all a lot more similar. The A580, A750, and A770 have 24, 28, and 32 Xe cores, respectively, all increasing in clock speed as you climb upwards. But they all share a 256-bit memory bus and 8GB of GDDR6 RAM (with a 16GB option available for the A770). Intel showed off its own "Limited Edition" first-party versions of the A770 and A750; they share the same basic board and fan design and 225 W board power, but the A770 has built-in LEDs, and the A750 doesn't. Intel is presumably leaving the lower-end A580 and A380 cards to its board partners, rather than making its own versions.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | SOPA Images )

SpaceX's Starlink division has appealed the Federal Communications Commission decision to block it from receiving $885.51 million in broadband funding. Starlink called the funding reversal "grossly unfair" and "flawed as a matter of both law and policy."

The appeal submitted Friday asks the commission to undo the FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau ruling from last month. The FCC isn't likely to reverse the decision, as it had the public support of Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. But SpaceX's action could be a precursor to filing a lawsuit against the FCC.

In its conclusion, SpaceX said that "the Commission should reverse the Bureau Decision by finding that SpaceX is reasonably capable of meeting its performance obligations in its winning bid areas," and order the Bureau to grant SpaceX's application.

Enlarge / Back in 2015, Faraday Future looked like it could be a proper rival for Tesla. In 2022, we're still waiting for its first EV, the FF91, to be ready for prime time. (credit: Faraday / Aurich Lawson)

PEBBLE BEACH, CALIF.—In a parking lot next to Peter Hay Hill sat two square-ish, blobby vehicles. They weren't attractive, and they seemed both inordinately squat and huge, but there were plenty of looky-loos who wanted to check them out. One vehicle was a static "show car," and when a man in pink pants and a polo shirt with a popped collar tried to find a way to open a door, a product specialist flapped him away. Truthfully, even if you could figure out a way to open the doors, there weren't any handles to grab.

Plenty of people milled down the hill from where the more established automakers had taken up residence to stop and gawk at the pair of FF91 pre-production vehicles, one giving rides around the block in Pebble Beach traffic—mixing with Koeniseggs, McLarens, and Ferraris—and the other hulking across two parking spots, with the doors on the passenger side open to passers-by.

The weirdly shaped vehicle stood out in a sea of low-slung supercars crawling all over the bucolic, fog-shrouded Pebble Beach peninsula. The color of both the display and test vehicles was white, so they looked like refrigerators in a sea of praying mantises. I waited while another journalist took a ride around the block in the mobile pre-production FF91, the first and only vehicle from beleaguered California startup Faraday Future.

Enlarge / While the iPhone 14 battery will seemingly be much the same as the iPhone 13 (pictured), the cost to replace it goes up 43 percent. (credit: iFixit)

While the iPhone 14 hardware lineup costs largely the same as the previous generation, the cost of replacing the battery has gone up considerably, surpassing the prices Apple was charging before its 2016/2017 "Batterygate" reckoning.

Replacing the battery in any of the iPhone 14 models will cost $99, up from the $69 Apple charges for the 13, 12, 11, and X lines. The newest iPhone SE and iPhones in the 8 and older series cost $49. Those prices are for out-of-warranty and non-AppleCare+ replacements at an Apple Store, while prices at authorized Apple repair stores may vary.

Apple typically only replaces a battery within AppleCare+ service if the device's battery health is at 80 percent or lower. Apple states that its batteries are rated to last 500 cycles before hitting 80 percent, though factors like temperature, leaving the battery at low charge, and others can decrease battery lifespan quickly.

Enlarge / An unofficial render of the OnePlus 11 Pro. The camera is round now, and the alert slider returns. (credit: OnLeaks and Smartprix)

The OnePlus 10T was announced just a month ago, and we're already getting details about the next big OnePlus flagship. Steve Hemmerstoffer (aka OnLeaks) and SmartPrix have created a render of the OnePlus 11 Pro, which is apparently rapidly approaching release. The report says these images are "based on an early prototype of the device."

Of course, the camera bump needs to look different every year, so the OnePlus 11 Pro is now sporting a big circle on its back. Just like how the OnePlus 10 and 10 T camera bump connected to the side of the phone, this circle sits on a similar-looking platform.

One returning feature that didn't make it to the OnePlus 10T is OnePlus' trademark alert switch. This is a three-position switch on the side of the phone that lets you toggle between vibration and silent mode.

Enlarge / An assortment of robot portraits generated by Stable Diffusion as found on the Lexica search engine. (credit: Lexica)

Confronted with an overwhelming amount of artificial-intelligence-generated artwork flooding in, some online art communities have taken dramatic steps to ban or curb its presence on their sites, including Newgrounds, Inkblot Art, and Fur Affinity, according to Andy Baio of Waxy.org.

Baio, who has been following AI art ethics closely on his blog, first noticed the bans and reported about them on Friday. So far, major art communities DeviantArt and ArtStation have not made any AI-related policy changes, but some vocal artists on social media have complained about how much AI art they regularly see on those platforms as well.

The arrival of widely available image synthesis models such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion has provoked an intense online battle between artists who view AI-assisted artwork as a form of theft (more on that below) and artists who enthusiastically embrace the new creative tools.