Month: April 2023

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There are so many streaming services pushing for our dollars these days that the industry's feeling a lot like cable—except more people are streaming than they are watching cable. Streaming services debut, combine, and rebrand constantly, and the streaming wars have never been hotter. Yet, the original streaming king remains on top when it comes to eyeballs on the screen. As Bloomberg calculated via Nielsen data this week, Netflix accounts for 70–80 percent of the 10 most-watched TV shows in the US weekly.

On Sunday, Bloomberg shared a detailed and handily interactive breakdown of streaming data accumulated from Nielsen and third-party analyst firms Antenna and Parrot. Critically, though, the report lacks data on what shows are driving Paramount+, since "it's the only major streaming service that doesn’t participate in the Nielsen charts" and Prime Video, since Nielsen doesn’t include viewership on third-party services.

Having launched in March 2021, Paramount+ is relatively new, but Antenna reports it acquired more new subscribers (7.6 million) from January to March 2023 than other streaming services recorded (Prime Video isn't included). However, "about 7 percent of the people who pay for Paramount+ cancel every month," Bloomberg said. Still, the streaming service with the second most subscriber gains during this period (HBO Max) was behind 26.3 percent. Paramount+ may be an interesting service to keep track of as the battle for subscribers continues.

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California is far and away the country's largest adopter of plug-in electric vehicles. Because of the state's ability to regulate its own air quality and spurred on by a large economy and plenty of affluent residents, the EV has gained plenty of traction in the Golden State. So much so that last month, California met its goal of having more than 1.5 million clean vehicles on the road two years ahead of schedule.

"No other state in the nation is doing as much as we are to accelerate our electric and zero emissions future," said California Governor Gavin Newsom. "California is setting the bar for climate action—and we're achieving our goals years ahead of schedule thanks to unprecedented investments secured in partnership with the legislature. We're making real progress on the world's most ambitious plan to end the tailpipe so our kids and grandkids are left with a cleaner, healthier planet."

California's Air Resources Board (CARB) began its Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) program in 1990 with the intent of ameliorating the state's severe smog problem. By the early years of this century, air quality had improved to the point where CARB could begin using the ZEV regulations to help drive down climate emissions.

Enlarge / One user's broken 7800X3D processor; the bulging spot on the bottom of the CPU also bent the pins in the motherboard socket. (credit: Speedrookie/Reddit)

Update, 4/27/2023: AMD says that it has identified the issue that was causing some Ryzen 7000 CPUs to burn out and that it has released a new version of AGESA (an AMD-controlled part of every Ryzen system's BIOS) "that puts measures in place on certain power rails on AM5 motherboards to prevent the CPU from operating beyond its specification limits, including a cap on SOC voltage at 1.3V."

"None of these changes affect the ability of our Ryzen 7000 Series processors to overclock memory using EXPO or XMP kits or boost performance using [Precision Boost Overdrive]," the company's statement continues. Motherboard makers should release new BIOS versions with these updates "over the next few days."

"We recommend all users to check their motherboard manufacturer's website and update their BIOS to ensure their system has the most up to date software for their processor," says AMD.

Enlarge / A photo of the Moon taken by the ispace lander's on-board camera from an altitude of about 100 km above the lunar surface. (credit: ispace)

Update, April 25 at 1:15 pm ET: The Japanese company ispace maintained communication with its Hakuto-R spacecraft until the final moments before was supposed to land on the Moon, the company's founder, Takeshi Hakamada, said Tuesday. His comments came about 25 minutes after the company's lander was due to make a soft touchdown on the lunar surface. Then, they lost contact. As a result, it is highly likely the lander crashed into the Moon.

"We have to assume that we did not complete the landing on the lunar surface," Hakamada said on the company's webcast, his voice filled with emotion. "We will keep going, never quit in our quest."

The company's engineers will continue assessing data from the spacecraft during its descent on Tuesday. They will use that knowledge, Hakamada said, to improve future versions of the company's lander. With this apparent failure, ispace's lander becomes the second privately funded effort attempting to make a soft landing on the Moon that has failed. The Israeli Beresheet spacecraft crashed into the Moon in 2019 after a main engine failure.