(Photo: Ian Hutchinson/Unsplash)The Supreme Court has voted 5-4 against a controversial Texas law that would prevent social media companies from removing questionable content. The law, called HB20, would prohibit social media platforms with more than 50,000 monthly users from removing or even demonetizing content based on a user’s “viewpoint.” This would include content that spreads misinformation or sympathizes with those who have committed horrifying crimes, like the Holocaust or any one of the United States’ many mass shootings. As written, the law makes few exceptions: a platform may remove a user’s content if it violates a formerly agreed-upon acceptable use policy, and if the platform gives the user the opportunity to appeal.
(Photo: Maurizio Pesce/Wikimedia Commons)The world’s largest tech firms are currently grappling with the status of remote employees. As the pandemic fades, opinions differ on whether or not to require employees to return to the office. However, there’s one CEO who has now made it clear where he stands. Elon Musk has sent an email to Tesla executives stating the work from home era is over. The TL;DR version of his missive is simply, “Come back to the office now or don’t come back at all.” In his email, which was titled, “Remote work is no longer acceptable,” Musk provided some caveats to this new policy.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently took a break from all of his Twitter negging to talk about the upcoming deployment of Starlink 2.0. On an episode of the YouTube series “Everyday Astronaut,” Musk confirms that the company has built the first Starlink 2.0 satellite, which is much larger and more powerful than the originals. In fact, the Starship mega-rocket (above) is the only way SpaceX will be able to get Starlink 2.0 into orbit. In the past few years, SpaceX has rocketed ahead to become the single largest satellite operator in the world with more than 4,400 total units.
(Photo: Anthony Choren/Unsplash)In an attempt to preserve the “purity” of its language, France has banned English terms that refer to common pillars of gaming culture. As of Monday, French government employees are not allowed to use English video game jargon, per changes rolled out by the Académie Française (France’s centuries-old ministry for issues pertaining to the French language). Instead, employees are required to use French versions of each term—regardless of how much more complicated the French alternatives are. “While some expressions find obvious translations—‘pro-gamer’ becomes ‘joueur professionnel’—others seem a bit more strained, as ‘streamer’ is transformed into ‘joueur-animateur en direct,’” The Guardian, which learned of the updates from Agence France-Presse.
Intel’s 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs have been in the news recently for becoming slightly warped over time. This is due to the combination of their rectangular shape and uneven pressure placed on them by the chip’s retention mechanism. Intel has even gone on the record to confirm this is happening, but says it’s all within spec. Intel’s position is sure, it might bend a bit, but it won’t be enough to trip thermal sensors. For a lot of enthusiasts, that’s not a satisfying answer. This has lead people to take matters into their own hands, such as German overclocker der8auer.
(Photo: ORNL)The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has finally fired up its Frontier supercomputer. The AMD-powered system has been under construction for over three years, and just had its first test results submitted to the Top500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers. Frontier took the number one spot in the newest rankings, and became the first supercomputer to crack the exascale barrier in the process. It delivered 1.1 Exaflops/s of performance in the High-Performance Linpack test, which is over a quintillion calculations per second. “Flops” or “FLOPS” are Floating Point Operations per Second, a measure of compute capability.
Microsoft’s tiniest laptop is getting an overhaul today. After leaking earlier this week, the Surface Laptop Go 2 . It shares a lot with the last-generation model, but Microsoft did fix a few shortcomings to modernize this low-cost computer, which you can pre-order today or Best Buy. The Surface Laptop Go 2 sits at the bottom of Microsoft’s laptop lineup, starting at just $599. That puts it in competition with Chromebooks and tablets, a place Microsoft’s hardware usually avoids. As a result, the specs are somewhat modest. There’s a 12.4-inch PixelSense Display at 1536 x 1024. That’s not a very high resolution, but it is a 3:2 ratio like the previous model.
As regular readers know, I’ve been a long-time fan of Dell’s high-end laptops. I’ve purchased four or five XPS 15 models and have been mostly happy. The last time around, I decided to go even more upscale and purchase a pricey Dell Precision 5540 workstation, with all the bells and whistles. Part of that purchase is the expectation of business grade support. After the hall of mirrors of the last two weeks, I wish I hadn’t. If I wanted to write a script for a sit-com send up of customer service, I would probably have fallen short of the reality.
(Photo: Michael Geiger/)We’re all familiar with ransomware. It encrypts your computer’s data, and to decrypt it you usually have to send the ne’er-do-wells cryptocurrency. It’s a vicious attack that targets innocent people, and can be extremely disruptive. Now however, a new form of ransomware has emerged that might actually benefit society. It’s called GoodWill, and it requires the victim to take part in a string of charitable acts to get their data back. Whoever gets hit with this will have a long day ahead of them if they ever want to see their data again. This ransomware was discovered by threat analysis firm , which identifies it as “global malware.
