New Samsung Notes, Fold2, Tab S7, Galaxy Watch 3 & Galaxy Buds Live
Man who stole Waymo’s trade secrets and took them to Uber is going to jail
Dutton unveils 2020 Cyber Security Strategy, hints at new tech laws for cops
Anandtech begins quest to benchmark every modern CPU
Cheap 27” Lenovo monitor, 3 month trial of Apple News+, 16GB DDR4 laptop RAM
Samsung has new personal mobile computation devices for you to purchase. The Note20 and Note20 Ultra are big boy version of the Galaxy S20 with beefier specs too. The Ultra has a 120Hz 6.9-inch screen, 12GB of RAM, 5G mmWave support, 8K video recording, triple rear cameras, 802.11ax and an under-screen fingerprint sensor. The 5G version of the Note20 Ultra is A$1,999 and comes out August 21st. Samsung is giving folding phones another shot, with the Galaxy Z Fold2 5G. Not much info about it besides some pics - it'll get a proper announcement in September. For those wanting a tablet but don't want an iPad, you'll probably end up with a new Galaxy Tab S7 or S7+. New Snapdragon 865+ SoC, 5G support, 120Hz screens and a ridiculously thin 5.7mm chassis that goes on sale later in August. There's also a new Galaxy Watch 3 and Galaxy Buds Live bean shaped earphones.
Anthony Levandowski has copped an 18 month prison sentence for what the judge called "the biggest trade-secret crime I have ever seen". Levandowski was ultimately charged with "downloading Google files that included details about its driverless program's goals, metrics, and challenges the company faced and overcame" on his way out from Waymo and into Uber's competing self-driving car program. In addition to the prison sentence, the judge ordered Levandowski to give "why I went to federal prison" speeches to the public after his release. After all these escapade Anthony Levandowski is now a bankrupted convicted felon and will forever be remember for that, not his engineering talent.
Australia has a new 2020 Cyber Security Strategy, handed down by Peter Dutton himself this morning. There's nothing particularly outrageous in it, lots of the same stuff like giving the AFP extra cash to "go after cyber criminals" and dragging more government departments into supporting modern security practices like the Essential Eight. Where the 2020 Cyber Security Strategy gets interesting is the vague and repeated mentions of new legislation. One such proposed law will make it so designated critical infrastructure operators have to meet a certain standard of security or face punishment. There will also be new powers for cops to target "criminal activity on the dark web", whatever that means.
Anandtech has done what I always wanted to do - get every modern CPU in the one room and benchmark the fuck outta em. Personally I'd want to do this to find out what CPU offers the best bang for buck for the tasks I want to do. Used CPUs from just a few years ago are cheap as hell (particularly server CPUs) and considering the very incremental changes in CPU performance between each generation, you could really snag a bargain. Combine it with power consumption benchmarks and you can find out what the best CPU to crunch data all day is whilst also being cost effective electricity wise. Anandtech's results still have a few gaps, but they've got over 270 CPUs in there now with more or less the same set of benchmarks. Would be nice if they released it as a CSV file too, but now I'm just being greedy.
Patriot 16GB PC4-21300 (2x 8GB) DDR4 SO-DIMM kit - $83 on Amazon
3 month free trial of Apple News+ (normally 1 month)
Lenovo ThinkVision T27h-20 2560x1440 USB-C monitor - $447.20 from Lenovo’s eBay store
🎶 Water Sports - James Clarke
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