Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

Brother Printers Accused of Functionality Degradation with Third-Party Cartridges

2025-03-05

A controversy is brewing around Brother laser printers and their compatibility with third-party cartridges. YouTube videos and Reddit posts claim that firmware updates render key features, like color registration, non-functional when non-Brother cartridges are used. While Brother denies intentionally crippling functionality, users report degraded print quality and complete failure. The lack of older firmware versions and automatic updates adds fuel to the fire, raising concerns about anti-consumer practices in the printer industry.

(arstechnica.com)

Hardware third-party cartridges Brother

Apple's New MacBook Air: M4 Chip, Sky Blue, and a Lower Price

2025-03-05

Apple unveiled its new MacBook Air, featuring the powerful M4 chip, delivering a significant performance boost and up to 18 hours of battery life. The new model boasts a stunning sky blue color, a 12MP Center Stage camera, and support for up to two external displays. Starting at just $999 (with education pricing at $899), it offers exceptional value. The M4 chip enhances efficiency for everyday tasks and professional workloads, while macOS Sequoia's Apple Intelligence features further improve user experience.

(www.apple.com)

Hardware

Apple Unveils Most Powerful Mac Ever: Mac Studio with M4 Max and M3 Ultra

2025-03-05

Apple announced the new Mac Studio, its most powerful Mac yet, featuring the M4 Max and the groundbreaking M3 Ultra chip. Boasting up to 512GB of unified memory and a 16TB SSD, this pro desktop delivers unparalleled performance, especially for AI tasks like running LLMs with over 600 billion parameters in memory. The M3 Ultra offers a massive performance leap over previous generations, featuring a 32-core CPU and 80-core GPU. Enhanced connectivity with Thunderbolt 5 and Apple Intelligence, a privacy-focused AI system, round out this powerhouse machine. Available for pre-order now, shipping March 12th.

(www.apple.com)

Hardware

Apple Unveils M3 Ultra: A New Peak in Mac Chip Performance

2025-03-05

Apple has announced the M3 Ultra, its most powerful chip yet, pushing Apple silicon to new extremes. Boasting the most powerful CPU and GPU ever in a Mac, double the Neural Engine cores, and the largest unified memory ever in a personal computer (up to 512GB), the M3 Ultra delivers up to 2.6x the performance of the M1 Ultra. Built using Apple's innovative UltraFusion packaging architecture, it connects two M3 Max dies via over 10,000 high-speed connections for low latency and high bandwidth. Its significant AI capabilities allow it to run large language models (LLMs) with over 600 billion parameters directly on the device. The M3 Ultra also features Thunderbolt 5 with over double the bandwidth and support for up to eight Pro Display XDR displays.

(www.apple.com)

Hardware

MacBook Air with M4: Multitasking Redefined

2025-03-05

The new MacBook Air, powered by the M4 chip, delivers a significant performance boost. Multitasking is smoother than ever, effortlessly handling video editing, demanding games like Sid Meier's Civilization VII, and numerous apps and tabs simultaneously. Its silent, fanless design enhances the user experience. The faster Neural Engine in the M4 chip brings powerful AI capabilities to the MacBook Air, enhancing everything from auto-framing in video calls to AI image upscaling and running the latest large language models, boosting productivity and creativity. With up to 18 hours of battery life and fast charging (50% in 30 minutes), you can power through your work without battery anxiety.

(www.apple.com)

Hardware M4 chip

Resurrecting a Vintage JavaStation: A NetBSD Network Boot Adventure

2025-03-05

Driven by nostalgia for childhood dreams, the author acquired a vintage JavaStation network computer. After a long wait and some initial setbacks, the author discovered the problem was a dead NVRAM battery and a lack of patience. Through serial port debugging and clever network configuration (RARP, TFTP, DHCP, NFS), the author successfully booted NetBSD on the JavaStation, completing a thrilling retro tech resurrection.

(fatsquirrel.org)

Hardware network boot

TCL Overtakes LG in Premium TV Shipments

2025-03-05

TCL has surpassed LG to become the world's second-largest premium TV vendor in Q4 2024, according to Counterpoint Research. TCL's premium TV shipments more than doubled year-on-year, capturing a 20% market share, exceeding LG's 19%. While Samsung remains the leader, TCL's impressive growth, along with that of Hisense, signals a significant shift in the global TV market. Despite strong premium TV growth, the overall TV market saw slower growth, and new tariffs on Mexican-produced TVs could impact the industry.

(www.techspot.com)

Hardware Premium TV Market Share

RepairTuber Rossmann Slams Brother for Anti-Consumer Printer Practices

2025-03-04

Louis Rossmann, a renowned repair YouTuber, expressed his disappointment with Brother printers in a recent video. He highlighted how Brother is disabling third-party toner cartridges and color registration functionality through firmware updates, harming consumers. Rossmann, who previously recommended Brother printers as a solution to cartridge DRM issues, now retracts his advice. He urges users to keep their printers offline and disable automatic updates to avoid issues. Brother's actions are seen as anti-consumer and raise concerns about individual property rights.

(www.tomshardware.com)

Hardware printer anti-consumer

Apple Unveils iPad Air with M3 Chip and New Magic Keyboard

2025-03-04

Apple announced the new iPad Air powered by the M3 chip, boasting significant performance improvements, with up to a 4x graphics performance boost. Available in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes, the new iPad Air features a more powerful Neural Engine and supports Apple Intelligence, offering enhanced AI capabilities like Photo Cleanup and Image Wand. A new, lower-priced Magic Keyboard designed for the iPad Air also launched. Additionally, the standard iPad received an update, featuring the A16 chip and double the starting storage.

(www.apple.com)

Hardware M3 chip

HP's FreeDOS Surprise: A Three-Layered OS Mystery

2025-03-03

A user's recent purchase of an HP ZBook laptop with FreeDOS revealed a curious three-layered operating system setup. Boot times were unusually long, with fleeting glimpses of what appeared to be Linux kernel messages before FreeDOS loaded. Investigation uncovered a Debian 9 Linux base running a virtual machine that, in turn, hosted two identical FreeDOS installations. One of the FreeDOS instances was actually an ancient Debian 6.0.3 setup, configured as a rudimentary web kiosk. This convoluted and outdated FreeDOS implementation highlights potential issues with HP's hardware and software compatibility updates.

(blog.tmm.cx)

Hardware

Apple's C1 Modem: Lower Power Consumption, Comparable Performance

2025-03-03

Apple's self-developed C1 modem, debuting in the iPhone 16e, shows comparable performance to previous 5G chips but with significantly reduced power consumption. Tests in lab and real-world scenarios (like subway trains) show the C1 matching Qualcomm's modems in 5G speeds, while boasting roughly a 24% lower average power consumption. The iPhone 16e achieved 53 minutes more 5G video streaming time than the iPhone 16. While the iPhone 16e has a larger battery, the results highlight the significant power efficiency gains of Apple's in-house silicon design, going beyond just saving licensing fees. The success suggests Apple's reported development of a C2 modem is likely.

(appleinsider.com)

Hardware Apple C1 5G modem power efficiency

Lenovo's ThinkBook Flip: A Foldable AI PC Concept

2025-03-03

Lenovo unveiled the ThinkBook “Flip” AI PC Concept at MWC, a productivity laptop with a flexible OLED display. Transforming between a 13.1-inch clamshell, a 12.9-inch tablet, and an 18.1-inch vertical laptop, it uses the same screen as the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 but folds differently, eliminating motors and potentially lowering costs. Folded, it functions as a standard laptop; unfolded, it boasts a massive screen and ergonomic viewing angle. A unique Smart ForcePad trackpad offers customizable shortcuts. While still a concept, Lenovo shared specs including an Intel Ultra 7 processor and 32GB of RAM, hinting at a potential market launch.

(www.theverge.com)

Hardware flexible display foldable laptop

Rackmounting the Unrackmountable: A HiFi DIY Adventure

2025-03-03

This article chronicles the author's journey to build a custom 2U rack unit for their HiFi system, integrating a DAC, input selector, and streaming device. Using OpenSCAD for design and CNC turret punching for fabrication, they encountered challenges with curve precision in the DXF output, solved by using FreeCAD. Initial attempts with a HiFiBerry hat proved unreliable, leading to a switch to a Wiim Pro. The project highlights the joys and challenges of DIY, resulting in a functional and aesthetically pleasing unit. Code is available on Github.

(calbryant.uk)

Hardware Rack Mounting

MALIBAL: Linux Hardware Manufacturer's Bizarre Business Practices and 'Zombiegate'

2025-03-03

A Linux hardware manufacturer, MALIBAL, is embroiled in controversy due to its aggressive customer communication and erratic business practices. The author recounts their experience with MALIBAL, detailing how the company insulted customers and partners, referring to them as "zombies." The article exposes MALIBAL's bizarre actions, such as banning entire countries and technologies (like Google and Apple products). Their collaboration with the Coreboot project also ended in acrimony, with mutual accusations and personal attacks. The article humorously reveals serious internal problems within the company, prompting questions about its business model and management.

(thelibre.news)

Hardware Linux hardware business disputes

78% of Hardware Companies Lack Security.txt

2025-03-03

A developer maintaining a public list of companies using libexpat in hardware found that 78% (39 out of 50) of the companies tested in 2025 did not serve a /.well-known/security.txt file as specified by RFC 9116. This reveals a concerning lack of proactive security posture in many companies, making it difficult to contact their security teams. The author urges affected companies to fix this issue and share a link to securitytxt.org.

(blog.hartwork.org)

Hardware security.txt

Resurrecting 30-Year-Old Apple SCSI Hard Drives: The Rubber-Decay Data Recovery

2025-03-02

This post details the author's experience restoring 1990s Apple-branded Quantum and Conner SCSI hard drives. These drives commonly suffer from a failure mode where they spin up and immediately stop. By opening the drives, the author discovered the root cause: aging rubber bumpers causing the read/write head to stick. Two methods—manually moving the head and using Kapton tape to hold it in place—were successfully employed to recover data. The article also shares interesting details about how data is physically stored on these drives and serves as a reminder to regularly back up important data.

(www.downtowndougbrown.com)

Hardware vintage hardware SCSI hard drive

The Pentium's Mysterious ×3 Circuit: A Deep Dive into Chip Design

2025-03-02

In 1993, Intel released the high-performance Pentium processor. This article delves into the surprisingly complex design of a seemingly simple circuit within the Pentium: the multiply-by-three circuit (×3 circuit). This circuit is part of the floating-point multiplier; the Pentium uses radix-8 multiplication, which is faster than binary multiplication, but multiplication by three requires special handling. The article explains how this circuit combines techniques like carry lookahead, Kogge-Stone adders, and carry-select adders to maximize performance. Analysis of microscope images of the chip reveals the intricate structure of the ×3 circuit and its crucial role in the Pentium, highlighting the ingenuity and technical innovation in processor design.

(www.righto.com)

Hardware processor design chip architecture radix-8 multiplication

Motorola Edge 2024 and Moto G Power 2025 Review: Budget Kings?

2025-03-02

This review compares the Motorola Edge 2024 and Moto G Power 2025. The Edge 2024 offers good value at its $300 sale price, but suffers from shutter lag in its camera and limited software updates (only two Android OS upgrades). The Moto G Power 2025 boasts IP68 water resistance, longer battery life, and extended software support, but its performance is slightly weaker than its predecessor, and the camera is just adequate. Ultimately, both phones have strengths and weaknesses, requiring careful consideration based on individual needs.

(www.wired.com)

Hardware phone review Motorola budget phones

AMD Unveils RDNA 4 Architecture and Radeon RX 9070 Series GPUs

2025-03-01

AMD officially revealed its RDNA 4 GPU architecture and the Radeon RX 9070 series, built upon it. RDNA 4 boasts significant improvements in efficiency, ray tracing, and AI performance. Featuring a single-chip design, it includes enhanced Infinity Cache and higher memory bandwidth. Targeting the mid-range market, the RX 9070 series offers performance comparable to the RTX 4070 Ti or RTX 5070 Ti, bundled with technologies like FSR 4 and HYPR-RX. AMD also introduced new software features, including an AI Apps Manager and the LLM-powered chatbot, AMD Chat, enhancing user experience.

(hothardware.com)

Hardware

World's Craziest Video Wall: A Chromebook Frankenstein

2025-03-01

Two high school students embarked on a three-year odyssey to transform a fleet of discarded Chromebooks into the world's most unconventional video wall. Overcoming numerous software and hardware hurdles, including ChromeOS limitations, precise video synchronization challenges, and aging hardware compatibility issues, they created a custom Linux distro, a clever video syncing algorithm, and ingenious mounting hardware. Their project showcases ingenuity, resourcefulness, and the power of collaboration, turning e-waste into an impressive technological marvel.

(varun.ch)

Hardware video wall

Enhanced Spin-Orbit Torque via Orbital Hall Effect for High-Density SOT-MRAM

2025-03-01

Researchers significantly improved Spin-Orbit Torque (SOT) Magnetic Random-Access Memory (MRAM) device performance by leveraging the enhanced orbital Hall effect (OHE) of Ru, Nb, and Cr layers in combination with a perpendicularly magnetized [Co/Ni]3 ferromagnetic layer. Experiments showed a ~30% increase in damping-like torque efficiency with a positive sign for the Ru/Pt OHE layer compared to pure Pt. This resulted in a ~20% reduction in switching current across >250 devices and a >60% reduction in switching power. This work paves the way for next-generation SOT-MRAM devices with enhanced performance for high-density cache memory applications.

(www.nature.com)

Hardware Orbital Hall Effect Spin-Orbit Torque

Zen 5: AMD's Graceful Handling of AVX-512 at High Frequencies

2025-03-01

This article delves into the performance of AMD's Zen 5 architecture running AVX-512 instructions at high frequencies. Unlike Intel's Skylake-X, which suffered from fixed frequency offsets and lengthy transition periods, Zen 5 leverages improved on-die sensors and adaptive clocking to achieve full AVX-512 performance at its 5.7GHz peak frequency. Tests reveal that Zen 5 doesn't experience significant frequency drops when encountering AVX-512 workloads; instead, it employs fine-grained IPC (instructions per cycle) adjustments as needed to maintain high performance. This dynamic adjustment mechanism effectively avoids frequent frequency transitions, ensuring smooth performance transitions between high and low loads. While brief IPC drops might occur under extreme conditions, overall, Zen 5's AVX-512 support is impressive, significantly outperforming previous Intel architectures.

(chipsandcheese.com)

Hardware

Warping in Fan-out Wafer-Level Packaging: Modeling, Measurement, and Control

2025-02-28

The end of Moore's Law has spurred advancements in advanced semiconductor packaging, such as fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP). FOWLP enhances performance and efficiency by packaging chips at the wafer level and redistributing interconnects. However, warping during FOWLP manufacturing poses a significant challenge. This paper reviews methods for measuring (Moiré interferometry, digital fringe projection, digital image correlation), modeling (Stoney's equation, Timoshenko's theory, finite element method, AI/ML models, multi-scale approaches), and controlling warping. Warping is primarily determined by material properties (coefficient of thermal expansion, glass transition temperature, Young's modulus), process parameters (temperature profiles, mold cure rate, mold flow rate), and geometry (layer thickness, chip geometry, chip layout, redistribution layer). Future research directions include the need for more accurate material data, multi-scale models, and the development of digital twin technology for real-time warping control.

(www.frontiersin.org)

Hardware Fan-out Wafer-Level Packaging Warping Finite Element Analysis

Walkman Interface Enhancement Addon: Revamp Your Music Experience

2025-02-27

A new addon called Walkman One enhances the interface and adds features to Sony's NW-A50, ZX300, WM1A, and WM1Z series Walkman players. It boasts Winamp 2 skin support, custom cassette skins, on-the-fly skin changing, a volume table editor, per-song audio options, and access to all audio filters. Additional features include a clock, larger cover art, a digital clock skin, a low-latency USB DAC module, and FM radio (on compatible models). While supporting many Walkman models, some older ones require Walkman One firmware. Installation is easy: download and run the installer, select your model and firmware version.

(github.com)

Hardware Interface Enhancement

Chipmakers' Software Ecosystem Anxiety

2025-02-27

Chipmakers often worry about others writing software that interfaces with their chips, fearing that poorly written software will reflect badly on their products. This fear stems partly from the close relationship between hardware and software, and partly from an undervaluation of external engineers' capabilities. However, Joy's Law states that "No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else." Chipmakers need to acknowledge this and actively embrace external engineers to build successful software ecosystems.

(rfd.shared.oxide.computer)

Hardware chips software ecosystem Joy's Law

Retrofitting an M4 Mac Mini into an iMac G4: A Hackintosh Odyssey

2025-02-26

The author embarked on a project to integrate an M4 Mac Mini into a 17-inch iMac G4, creating a powerful retro-futuristic machine. Initially, a Juicy Crumb DockLite G4 was attempted but its color banding, low resolution, and lack of automatic screen shutoff proved problematic. The author ultimately replaced the screen with a high-resolution Sharp LQ170R1JX42 LCD and corresponding driver board. Custom 3D-printed and CNC-machined parts were created to manage cable routing and Mac Mini mounting. Challenges included backlight control and exposed ports, but the resulting 'iMac G4(K)' successfully runs, blending retro aesthetics with modern performance.

(jcs.org)

Hardware

Hive Roaster: Revolutionizing Home Coffee Roasting

2025-02-26

The Hive Roaster Cascabel is a lightweight, durable home coffee roaster inspired by commercial designs. It allows for high-quality coffee bean roasting at home with ease. Its unique design combines convective and conductive heat for low-smoke, mess-free indoor roasting, and it's incredibly easy to learn. User reviews are overwhelmingly positive, praising its simplicity and professional-level results, even in small apartments. The Hive Roaster is available internationally, including Thailand, and has earned endorsements from professional coffee roasters.

(hiveroaster.com)

Hardware coffee roasting home appliance

Framework Expands Beyond Laptops: Desktops and a Student-Focused Convertible Arrive

2025-02-26

Framework unveiled its second-generation products, including an updated Framework Laptop 13 with AMD Ryzen AI 300, a 4.5-liter Mini-ITX desktop powered by Ryzen AI Max and Radeon 8060S graphics, and a new 12-inch convertible laptop aimed at students. The desktop, a significant expansion into a new market, emphasizes customizability and boasts 1440p gaming capabilities. The company highlights the repairability and modularity characteristic of its previous laptops across its new lineup. Prices range from $899 to $1999.

(www.tomshardware.com)

Hardware

Framework's First All-in-One Mini PC: Powerful, But Not Upgradable

2025-02-25

Framework has launched its first all-in-one mini PC, boasting a compact 4.5-liter chassis, comparable to a game console. Powered by Ryzen AI Max processors and starting with 32GB of RAM, it's capable of 1440p gaming and workstation tasks. Pricing starts at $1099, topping out at $1999 for the highest configuration. While offering strong performance at a relatively competitive price, its soldered CPU, GPU, and RAM make it non-upgradeable – a significant departure from Framework's usual modular design philosophy.

(arstechnica.com)

Hardware mini PC

Microsoft Locks Out Older Intel CPUs from Windows 11 24H2

2025-02-25

Microsoft's published CPU support list for Windows 11 24H2 confirms that only 11th-generation Intel CPUs and later are supported. This means OEMs can no longer build new PCs with older Intel chips for Windows 11 24H2. While the restriction applies to OEMs, it has sparked concerns among users about future hardware compatibility. Although Microsoft's official hardware compatibility list currently supports older CPUs (e.g., 8th, 9th, and 10th gen Intel chips), this change could signal further tightening of hardware requirements in the future.

(www.theregister.com)

Hardware Hardware Compatibility

Category: Hardware