MAINGEAR has just unveiled its all-new 17-inch ML-17 gaming laptop, packing in the flagship Intel Core i9-14900HX mobile processor, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU.

The US company worked with CLEVO on the new ML-17 gaming laptop, which features a large 17.3-inch 16:9 display with a native 2560 x 1440 resolution and super-smooth 240Hz refresh rate. Inside, you've got an advanced cooling system with dual fans, 4 vents, and 9 heatpipes which will keep the MAINGEAR MG-17 gaming laptop cool even after lengthy gaming marathons, says MAINGEAR.

The ML-17 gaming laptop features a full-sized keyboard with a number pad and customizable per-key full-color RGB illumination, with a large touchpad for precise control, when not using a gaming mouse, that is.

Windows has had a hell of a week as last Friday, cybersecurity company CrowdStrike rolled out an update that caused approximately 8.5 million Windows machines to be thrown into infinite boot loops.

While the fault of the global outage that disrupted airlines, banks, telecommunications systems, supermarkets, and point of sale systems lies at the feet of CrowdStrike and not Microsoft, the Redmond company was lumped into the negative wave of press simply because it was their platform the disruption occurred on. Unfortunately, Microsoft has another negative press story that perhaps wouldn't even be discussed if the CrowdStrike meltdown didn't happen.

Microsoft has confirmed a security update for Windows 11 is sending PCs into recovery. The fault was spotted by BleepingComputer, which states the fault affects versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft confirmed this via an update on its Windows release health dashboard where it explained that users may see a "BitLocker recovery screen upon booting your device".

Last Friday, cybersecurity company CrowdStrike issued an update to its kernel-level software that caused approximately 8.5 million Windows PCs to be thrown into infinite blue screen of death boot loops.

The IT outage was global, impacting multiple facets of society, such as point-of-sale systems, hospital services, emergency services, airlines, and various businesses. Unfortunately, for the systems that downloaded the update, the only way to implement a fix was to boot it into Safe Mode and delete the faulty files. This means an individual must be physically present to boot the system into Safe Mode.

Grant Thornton Australia, the Australian arm of one of the world's leading assurance, tax and advisory firms, was hit by the CrowdStrike outage. No less than 100 servers were knocked out of service by the update, and facing an untold number of maintenance hours ahead of them, the IT staff there began work on bringing the servers back online. However, senior systems engineer Rob Woltz and infrastructure manager Ben Watson remembered the utility of barcode scanners.

Yellowstone National Park sits atop the largest super volcano on the continent, and while it is considered to be a dormant volcano it still causes geological events across the park, such as hydrothermal geysers.

Yellowstone is home to more than half of the world's geysers and contains the tallest active geyser, the Steamboat Geyser, which erupts every 90 minutes. Geyser explosions are commonplace in Yellowstone, but not every day is there a significant explosion caught on video. The large explosion took place in the Biscuit Basin, and reports indicate it was a hydrothermal explosion and (luckily) wasn't a catalyst to awaken the dormant super volcano.

A hydrothermal explosion is a rapid ejection of boiling water, steam, mud, and rock fragments. The event occurs when pockets of fluids rapidly transition to steam, and since vapor particles are much larger than water particles, extreme pressure is placed on the surrounding rocks. Pressure reaching a proverbial "boiling point" and boom. Mud, boiling water, and steam are all launched outwards. The above video shot by visitors at the park shows them running in fear as the explosion is taking place.

Apple has been working on an in-house 5G modem for many years now, but for years it has been using Qualcomm 5G chips inside of its iPhone... but the company is now prepping a couple of new iPhones with Apple's in-house 5G chip inside.

According to analyst and insider Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will debut its in-house 5G chip inside of two new iPhones in 2025: the iPhone SE 4 and a new ultra-slim iPhone 17. The iPhone SE 4 will launch in the spring, while the new ultra-slim iPhone 17 model will debut in the fall, says Kuo.

Apple won't be using its in-house 5G modem across its entire fleet of iPhones, but in these two models specifically. This means that outside of the upcoming iPhone SE 4 and ultra-slim iPhone 17, every other member of the iPhone 2025 family will be using Qualcomm 5G modems inside.

iOS 18 is Apple's biggest overhaul to its operating system in years. It will be the first update to introduce AI-powered features to the Cupertino company's product lineup.

The new operating system update coming to the iPhone, Mac, and iPad contains Apple's version of artificial intelligence, which it's calling Apple Intelligence. Last week, Apple rolled out the public beta for iOS 18, but it doesn't include the suite of Apple Intelligence features, leaving users confused as Apple said it would be included in iOS 18. However, it will likely first go to developer beta and then to a public opt-in beta before being pushed out to the wider public.

So, when will you be able to try Apple's new AI features? I can see Apple limiting access to its AI features all the way up until the launch of the iPhone 16, as the company won't want to prematurely release its biggest selling point for its new generation of devices only to see its customers go out and buy now-discounted previous generations that are still AI compatible.

Microsoft has just announced Bing Generative Search, an overhaul and upgrade of Bing Search that is provides AI-generated results directly on the Bing search page.

At the top of Bing search you'll soon find an AI-generated answer that is created from small and large language models that have reviewed millions of sources to provide what Microsoft hopes is the most accurate (AI-powered) answer.

The AI-powered Bing Generative Search will break the answer down into a document index that provides more information about what you're searching for, if you want to know more. The Bing search page will also provide a list of sources that the AI-generated text was created from, and show traditional search results in the sidebar on the right, if you dont' care about the AI-powered Bing search.

SK hynix has announced its Q2 2024 financial results, with quarter revenues hitting an all-time high, and SK hynix cementing its position as the leader of AI memory providers.

The South Korean memory giant recorded 16.4 trillion won in revenue, 5.46 trillion won in operating profit (with an operating margin of 33%), and 4.12 trillion won in net profit (with a net margin of 25%) in Q2 2024.

SK hynix notes that quarter revenues reached an all-time high, "far exceeding" the previous record of 13.81 trillion won in Q2 2022. SK hynix said that the continuous rise in overall prices of DRAM and NAND products, with unstoppable demand for AI memory, including HBM, led to a 32% increase in revenues compared to the prior quarter.

Elon Musk recently flicked the 'power on' switch to his new Memphis Supercluster, which is the world's fastest AI data center, with 100,000 liquid-cooled NVIDIA H100 AI GPUs, but just how much power does this AI data center need? Lots, lots and lots of power.

In a new X post by AI and semiconductor analyst who runs SemiAnalysis, Dylan Patel, ruminated on X that it would be impossible for Elon Musk to run his Memphis Supercluster because he doesn't have enough power. He said that only 7MW is being drawn from the grid, which is enough power to run just 4000 of the H100 AI GPUs.

How do you get $5 billion out of Tesla to invest into your AI startup? You poll your followers on X if you're Elon Musk, which is exactly what he did:

The Tesla and SpaceX founder asked his followers "should Tesla invest $5 billion into xAI, assuming the valuation is set by several credible outside investors? (Board approval & shareholders vote are needed, so this is just to test the waters).