EnGenius ECW336 Wi-Fi 6e Cloud Managed Access Point Review

EnGenius ECW336 Wi-Fi 6e Cloud Managed Access Point Review

The EnGenius ECW336 Wi-Fi 6e Cloud Managed Access Point offers solid performance and stability, but it comes with a mighty big price tag.

TT Show Episode 26 - Dune gets an epic new game and Samsung sends Galaxy phones into Space

Kosta Andreadis | TweakTown | Mar 15, 2024 12:33 AM CDT

The TT show is back, and this week, Jak and Kosta take a closer look at several cool-looking games on the horizon. With the smash hit Dune Part Two now in cinemas, the sci-fi franchise is getting a massive open-world survival MMO called Dune Awakening from the creators of Conan Exiles. With new info and gameplay, the Arrakis-set title is looking very spicy.

TT Show Episode 26 - Dune gets an epic new game and Samsung sends Galaxy phones into Space

The duo also looks at PlayStation classic Ghost of Tsushima, finally coming to PC (Assassin's Creed meets Shogun), and the breathtaking indie action RPG No Rest for the Wicked.

In the world of science and space, Jak brings up Samsung's recent (and super fun) marketing stunt, which sent Galaxy phones into the lower atmosphere to take a few snaps of planet Earth. Plus, new solar-powered implants that can restore someone's vision are paving the way for a Cyberpunk future.

Continue reading: TT Show Episode 26 - Dune gets an epic new game and Samsung sends Galaxy phones into Space (full post)

OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Google, Tesla, and more are all on the NVIDIA Blackwell train

Kosta Andreadis | Artificial Intelligence | Mar 19, 2024 1:59 AM CDT

NVIDIA has unveiled its next-gen Blackwell AI GPU, which features 208 billion transistors, 192GB of super-fast HBM3E memory, a cutting-edge custom TSMC 4NP process, and groundbreaking new networking that sees NVIDIA NVLink deliver 1.8TB/s bidirectional throughput per GPU.

OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Google, Tesla, and more are all on the NVIDIA Blackwell train

The company also announced its new NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip, which connects two NVIDIA B200 Tensor Core GPUs to the NVIDIA Grace CPU "over a 900GB/s ultra-low-power NVLink chip-to-chip interconnect." With serious AI horsepower, NVIDIA's powerful next-gen AI hardware arrives during the AI boom, so, unsurprisingly, it announced its long list of Blackwell partners.

NVIDIA writes, "Among the many organizations expected to adopt Blackwell are Amazon Web Services, Dell Technologies, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, Tesla, and xAI." Even though most, if not all, of these companies are investing in creating their own AI chips and hardware for generative AI-which is used in everything from scientific research to medicine and chatbots-Blackwell will drive many of the advances over the next few years.

Continue reading: OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Google, Tesla, and more are all on the NVIDIA Blackwell train (full post)

Microsoft and NVIDIA to integrate generative AI and Omniverse tech in Azure and Microsoft 365

Kosta Andreadis | Artificial Intelligence | Mar 19, 2024 1:02 AM CDT

It's been a massive day for AI news, with NVIDIA's premiere GTC 2024 AI conference underway. Earlier today, the company unveiled its next-gen Blackwell AI GPU - an unprecedented AI monster with 208 billion transistors and 192GB of super-fast HBM3E memory.

Microsoft and NVIDIA to integrate generative AI and Omniverse tech in Azure and Microsoft 365

NVIDIA's first multi-GPU die is built on a cutting-edge TSMC 4NP process. It allows organizations to run real-time generative AI on "trillion-parameter large language models" at up to 25X less cost and energy consumption than its Hopper predecessor. Throw in the latest version of NVIDIA NVLink that delivers 1.8TB/s bidirectional throughput per GPU, and it's no wonder everyone is signing up to join the Blackwell family - including Microsoft.

Alongside the big Blackwell reveal, NVIDIA and Microsoft have announced that Microsoft Azure will adopt NVIDIA Grace Blackwell Superchips to help accelerate customer and first-party (Microsoft's own) AI offerings, Including Microsoft 365, aka the online versions of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. NVIDIA GPUs and NVIDIA Triton Inference Server will help power Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365.

Continue reading: Microsoft and NVIDIA to integrate generative AI and Omniverse tech in Azure and Microsoft 365 (full post)

NVIDIA Audio2Face uses AI to generate lip synching and facial animation, showcased in two games

Kosta Andreadis | Artificial Intelligence | Mar 19, 2024 12:04 AM CDT

Localization is a big thing in gaming, where a game's dialogue and presentation are recorded in various languages to reach a global audience. Like how Netflix dubs all of its original programming into multiple languages, localization for games is a complex process that requires accurately translating dialogue and text, maintaining dramatic or comedic tones, and then re-recording dialogue with voice actors from different countries.

NVIDIA Audio2Face uses AI to generate lip synching and facial animation, showcased in two games

Where games differ from movies or television drama is that all performances are digital and completely malleable, which is why you've got a situation where Sony's PlayStation-exclusive Ghost of Tsushima (which is coming soon to PC) offers both English and native Japanese language options with full lip-syncing and correct facial animation.

Although it's possible to do this for dozens of languages, Ghost of Tsushima limits full lip-synching to two language options due to the task's complexity and the animation involved. This is where generative AI, specifically NVIDIA's Audio2Face technology, will step in.

Continue reading: NVIDIA Audio2Face uses AI to generate lip synching and facial animation, showcased in two games (full post)

NVIDIA's Covert Protocol tech demo has you become a detective investigating AI Digital Humans

Kosta Andreadis | Artificial Intelligence | Mar 18, 2024 11:31 PM CDT

At GDC 2024, NVIDIA presented a new tech demo for a theoretical detective game, Covert Protocol, created in collaboration with Inworld. If you recall NVIDIA's recent AI collabs, which created cyberpunk-style tech demos featuring AI avatars you can interact with, this takes it all one step further. It presents an old-school adventure game where you're talking to characters to solve a mystery in a brand-new way.

NVIDIA's Covert Protocol tech demo has you become a detective investigating AI Digital Humans

In Covert Protocol, you play a private detective and explore a realistic environment, speaking to 'digital humans' as you piece together critical and key information. The game is powered by the Inworld AI Engine, which fully uses NVIDIA ACE (the technology we've been following over the past year) services to ensure that no two playthroughs are the same.

"This level of AI-driven interactivity and player agency opens up new possibilities for emergent gameplay," NVIDIA writes. "Players must think on their feet and adapt their strategies in real-time to navigate the intricacies of the game world."

Continue reading: NVIDIA's Covert Protocol tech demo has you become a detective investigating AI Digital Humans (full post)

NVIDIA creates Earth-2 digital twin: generative AI to simulate, visualize weather and climate

Anthony Garreffa | Artificial Intelligence | Mar 18, 2024 11:09 PM CDT

NVIDIA isn't just changing up the GPU and AI GPU game with its Blackwell AI GPU chips, announcing Earth-2 today during the GPU Technology Conference (GTC).

NVIDIA creates Earth-2 digital twin: generative AI to simulate, visualize weather and climate

NVIDIA announced its new Earth-2 climate digital twin cloud platform so people could simulate and visualize weather and climate at scales never seen before. Earth-2's new cloud APIs are available on NVIDIA DGX Cloud, allowing virtually anyone to create AI-powered emulations to make interactive, high-resolution simulations ranging from the global atmosphere to localized cloud cover all the way through to typhoons and mega-storms.

The new Earth-2 APIs offer AI models that use new NVIDIA generative AI model technology called CorrDiff, using state-of-the-art diffusion modeling, capable of generating 12.5x higher resolution images than current numerical models that are 1000x faster and 3000x more energy efficient.

Continue reading: NVIDIA creates Earth-2 digital twin: generative AI to simulate, visualize weather and climate (full post)

Honor reveals the first laptop with 24GB RAM, also packs Intel Core Ultra 'Meteor Lake' CPU

Anthony Garreffa | Laptops | Mar 18, 2024 10:08 PM CDT

It looks like Honor is the first to market with a new laptop featuring 24GB of DDR5 memory, with its new MagicBook Pro 16 AI laptop teased on Geekbench. Check it out:

Honor reveals the first laptop with 24GB RAM, also packs Intel Core Ultra 'Meteor Lake' CPU

The new Honor MagicBook Pro 16 AI laptop features 24GB of LPDDR5X memory, versus the usual SO-DIMM memory modules. Inside, there are 8 individual memory chips, each packing 3GB for a total of 24GB of LPDDR5X-6400 memory. This is great to see, as 24GB of RAM is a fantastic step up from 16GB, and while it's not quite 32GB, it's once again, not 16GB. Great stuff.

We should see 12GB SO-DIMM memory modules in the near future, which will allow for up to 48GB of DDR5 memory as long as the laptop of choice has four DIMM slots, of course.

Continue reading: Honor reveals the first laptop with 24GB RAM, also packs Intel Core Ultra 'Meteor Lake' CPU (full post)

GIGABYTE teases DGX, Superchips, PCIe cards based on NVIDIA's new Blackwell B200 AI GPUs

Anthony Garreffa | Artificial Intelligence | Mar 18, 2024 9:00 PM CDT

GIGABYTE is showing off its next-gen compact GPU cluster scalable unit: a new rack with GIGABYTE G593-SD2 servers, which have NVIDIA HGX H100 8-GPU designs and Intel 5th Gen Xeon Scalable processors inside.

GIGABYTE teases DGX, Superchips, PCIe cards based on NVIDIA's new Blackwell B200 AI GPUs

The company has said it will support NVIDIA's new Blackwell GPU that succeeds Hopper, with enterprise servers "ready for the market according to NVIDIA's production schedule". The new NVIDIA B200 Tensor Core GPU for generative AI and accelerated computing will have "significant benefits," says GIGABYTE, especially in LLM inference workloads.

GIGABYTE will have products for HGX baseboards, Superchips, and PCIe cards with more details to be provided "later this year," adds the company.

Continue reading: GIGABYTE teases DGX, Superchips, PCIe cards based on NVIDIA's new Blackwell B200 AI GPUs (full post)

Sony's next-gen PlayStation 6 should hit 4K 120FPS or 8K 60FPS thanks to PSSR upscaling tech

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Mar 18, 2024 8:37 PM CDT

Sony reportedly awarded AMD with the contract to build a next-generation SoC for its next-generation PlayStation 6 console... which could be capable of 4K 120FPS or 8K 60FPS gaming.

Sony's next-gen PlayStation 6 should hit 4K 120FPS or 8K 60FPS thanks to PSSR upscaling tech

We've had plenty of leaks and rumors about the beefed-up PlayStation 5 Pro console coming later this year, as well as Sony's new PlayStation Spatial Super Resolution (PSSR) technology, which is "currently aiming" for 4K 60FPS and 8K 30FPS gaming, with leaker Tom Henderson reporting "but it's unclear if those internal milestones can be passed".

The upgraded PlayStation 5 Pro playing games at 4K 60FPS and 8K 30FPS will most likely be driven with PSSR upscaling, and that makes sense: 45% more rendering power, with 2-3x the ray tracing performance in PS5 Pro-powered games at 4K 60FPS... and some, not all, at 8K 30FPS would be huge for Sony.

Continue reading: Sony's next-gen PlayStation 6 should hit 4K 120FPS or 8K 60FPS thanks to PSSR upscaling tech (full post)

TSMC rumored to build new CoWoS advanced packaging facility in Japan, only place outside Taiwan

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Mar 18, 2024 7:02 PM CDT

TSMC is reportedly considering building advanced packaging capacity in Japan, which would fuel Japan's efforts to reboot its semiconductor industry.

TSMC rumored to build new CoWoS advanced packaging facility in Japan, only place outside Taiwan

In a new report from Reuters, "two sources familiar with the matter" report that the Taiwanese giant is in the early stages, with the sources "declining to be identified as the information was not public." According to one of the sources who was briefed on the matter, TSMC is considering building a chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology in Japan.

All of TSMC's new CoWoS capacity is located in Taiwan, so this would be a significant move for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. TSMC recently built a new fab in Japan in just two hours, with workers working 24-hour days around the clock, which has earned the site the nickname "Nightless Castle." I'm sure there will be many more sleepless nights if TSMC does indeed build new CoWoS packaging technology in Japan.

Continue reading: TSMC rumored to build new CoWoS advanced packaging facility in Japan, only place outside Taiwan (full post)

NVIDIA's new Project GROOT: fully humanoid robot to compete against Tesla Optimus AI robot

NVIDIA had plenty to announce during its GPU Technology Conference (GTC) event, with the launch of Project GROOT: a new foundational model that helps in the development of robots for industrial use (and more).

NVIDIA's new Project GROOT: fully humanoid robot to compete against Tesla Optimus AI robot

The new Project GROOT stands for "Generalist Robot 00 Technology," with NVIDIA CEO and founder Jensen Huang teasing robots powered by Project GROOT during GTC 2024, which have been designed to understand natural language and emulate movements made by humans by watching them.

Huang said: "Building foundation models for general humanoid robots is one of the most exciting problems to solve in AI today. The enabling technologies are coming together for leading roboticists around the world to take giant leaps towards artificial general robotics".

Continue reading: NVIDIA's new Project GROOT: fully humanoid robot to compete against Tesla Optimus AI robot (full post)