Hardware·
One model per chip: AMD bought Taalas, whose test part hit 17,000 tokens a second
Taalas casts a model's weights into transistors. Its 6nm test chip served Llama 3.1 8B at roughly 17,000 tokens per second, and AMD just bought the company.
#hardware
RSS
Gaming·
€200 more for an Xbox Series X: Microsoft's memory bill lands on European buyers
Microsoft's August 1 increase put the 1TB Series X at €799.99 and £669.99. The cheapest Series S rose 43%, and Microsoft says storage and memory now cost more than 2.5x.
Hardware·
Google blamed the Pixel 11 price hike on RAM. A gigabyte now costs $12, up from $2.80.
HBM stacks for AI accelerators outbid the DRAM in phones and laptops. Qualcomm, Roku and Google have all repriced, and IDC sees PC prices up 18.3% this year.
Hardware·
Flipper Zero's 700 KB flash wall: the firmware future is now community-driven
Flipper Devices says the Flipper Zero isn't abandoned, but a 700 KB flash limit is pushing firmware work onto the community while its team builds new hardware.
Hardware·
Realta Fusion pulled electricity straight from a fusion plasma. That's a first, not net power.
Realta Fusion says it converted fusion plasma energy directly into electricity on its WHAM device, an apparent industry first. It is not net-energy gain.
Hardware·
Renault ditched rare-earth magnets in its EVs in 2012. China's export squeeze made that look smart
A Renault explainer on rare-earth-free EV motors hit Hacker News. Here's how electric cars run without the magnets China controls, and who's shipping them.
Hardware·
GM is spending $900 million on a battery bet that could cut $6,000 off an EV truck
GM is pouring $900M into a new LMR battery plan, betting a cheaper chemistry gets its EVs to price parity with gas trucks by 2028. Here's the play.
Hardware·
AMD walled off Linux Vivado behind a paid tier. The free FPGA tier is now Windows only.
Vivado 2026.1 introduces a five-tier licensing model. The free BASIC tier supports Windows only; Linux requires the paid CORE tier. FPGA hobbyists are pushing back.
Hardware·
Japan's NICT shrank picosecond time sync into a phone-sized box. They call it Wi-Wi.
NICT's Wi-Wi prototype hit 30 ns time sync with 20 ps jitter at 900 MHz. It isn't Wi-Fi. Jeff Geerling found a working demo at the NAB show.
Apple·
Apple solved the iPhone Fold crease. The hinge is what's stalling production.
Trial production of Apple's foldable iPhone hit a wall on hinge durability. The crease problem is over; the rattle isn't.
Hardware·
Google and Samsung set Fall 2026 for Android XR glasses. Gentle Monster and Warby Parker are doing the frames.
The Android Show confirmed Fall 2026 for Google and Samsung's first AR glasses, plus three new features for the Galaxy XR headset that launched in October.
Gaming·
Nintendo hiked the Switch 2 by $50. AI data center demand for memory chips drove it.
Nintendo confirmed a $50 Switch 2 price increase effective September 1 in the US, citing market conditions. The DRAM shortage caused by AI buildouts is the trigger.
Gaming·
Valve open-sourced the Steam Controller's shell. Dbrand had a skin ready in 48 hours.
Valve published STP and STL CAD files for the Steam Controller and Puck under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 on GitLab. Anyone with a 3D printer can now mod it.
Hardware·
Texas Instruments shipped the TI-84 Evo. $160, USB-C, 3x faster, still exam-approved.
TI's first big redesign of the TI-84 in over a decade ships April 28 with a 156 MHz Cortex chip, a 50% larger graphing area, and Python on board. Exam boards still approve it.
Hardware·
'Physical buttons are better': Mercedes is retrofitting its steering wheels across the lineup.
Mercedes software chief Magnus Östberg confirms physical buttons return on the new GLC and CLA, citing software-defined vehicle telemetry from CLA drivers.
Hardware·
AMD's 'Gorgon Halo' refresh leaks with 192GB memory. Strix Halo tops out at 128GB.
A leaked Geekbench listing puts AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ 495 on a 192GB platform with a Radeon 8065S iGPU. The Strix Halo chip it replaces capped at 128GB.
Policy·
FCC just voted to bar Chinese labs from certifying US electronics. 75% of devices are tested there now.
Brendan Carr's FCC advanced the 'Bad Labs' rule on April 30 in a 3-0 vote, kicking off a 60-90 day comment period. The rule covers 126 labs in China and Hong Kong.
Apple·
Apple killed the $599 Mac mini. The cheapest one is now $799 with 512GB.
Apple quietly pulled the 256GB Mac mini from its store on May 1. Tim Cook had warned the day before that demand was outpacing supply for months.