If you thought magnetic tape backup was dead, you'd be wrong... with the manufacturers behind the Linear Tape-Open (standard) shipping 152.9 exabytes of magnetic tape capacity (compressed) in 2023 alone, and increase of 3.14% over 2022.

If you're old enough, tape backup has been around for decades and was slowly fading out of the market as a digital storage medium. Zip drives were disappearing, and external HDDs were meant to replace LTO tape for backup and archival storage. We've got tens of terabytes inside of external HDDs, terabytes of ultra-fast Gen4 and Gen5 SSDs, cloud storage, and other forms of storage... but tape backup isn't dying.

Tape backup has a massive capacity, it's durable, and can safely store data for up to 30 years. Better yet, once the data is stored and doesn't need to be accessed, it can last for decades without maintenance or checking on them. They're cheaper than external HDDs, and can be stored away safely from ransomware infections.

GIGABYTE is preparing to launch its new B650E AORUS PRO X USB4 motherboard, which has a PCIe Ultra Durable slot that supports graphics cards that weigh up to an incredibly hefty 58kg (!!!).

In a new report from Benchlife, we're learning that AMD's new AM5 motherboards ready for Zen 5 will feature the 800-series chipset naming, not the 700-series chipset everyone thought would succeed the 600-series chipset that powers current Zen 4-ready motherboards.

Benchlife received a new GIGABYTE B650E AORUS PRO X USB4 motherboard, noting that it should have specs and features one would expect from the new flagship X870 motherboards. GIGABYTE is most likely testing its new features and support for its new motherboards, gearing up for the 800-series motherboards that will debut later this year.

AMD's next-gen Zen 5 desktop processors will be released later this year, with new AM5 motherboards featuring the 800-series chipset -- not the 700-series chipset to succeed the current-gen 600-series chipset -- with a new flagship X870 on the way.

This is something we heard about in leaks earlier this year from leaker Moore's Law is Dead, and now we're hearing the 800-series chipset news again, this time from Benchlife. Benchlife has 'confirmed' that AMD's new Ryzen 9000 series "Zen 5" desktop CPUs -- not the Ryzen AI 300 series -- will debut in July, with new 800-series motherboards to join the fun.

Benchlife reports: "Obviously, we can expect various motherboard manufacturers to display AMD and Intel 800 series chip motherboards at Computex 2024; it has been confirmed that the chips used with AMD Ryzen 9000 will be called the 800 series, the same as Intel. However, there are still motherboard manufacturers working hard on the first-generation AM5 pin motherboards, such as the upcoming B650E AORUS PRO X USB4 from GIGABYTE".

Total GTA franchise revenues have broken $9 billion since late 2013.

According to Take-Two Interactive's latest earnings report, Rockstar Games has generated over $9 billion in total revenue from the Grand Theft Auto series since GTA V's launch. Arranged figures indicate the mega-hit franchise has made cumulative earnings of $9.118 billion from GTA 5's original release in Q4'13 all the way through the end of March 2024.

These revenues include full game sales of GTA V across all 3 console generations, sales of the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition re-release from 2020, in-game purchases in GTA Online, and all other sales of previous games made available.

The total installed base of 9th generation consoles is expected to break 111 million by the end of 2024, new reports from Take-Two Interactive indicate.

Take-Two Interactive's latest Q4 earnings call revealed an interesting snippet on console market expectations. During the call, TTWO CEO Strauss Zelnick gave out IDG's console expansion forecasts for the current 9th hardware generation. These numbers combine both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S console sales.

IDG expects the installed base for the 9th console generation to reach 111 million by the end of calendar 2024, up +37% from the previous figure given by Zelnick. The most eye-opening figure is for 2027 and beyond, where the 9th gen console installed base is expected to jump to 175 million.

NVIDIA's next-generation flagship GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card will sport the "physically monolithic" GB202 "Blackwell" GPU die, according to the latest leaks.

We should expect the GB202 GPU to power the GeForce RTX 5090 with up to 192 SMs that will see a monster 24,567 CUDA cores (if the GB202 chip retains its 128 cores per SM design from the AD102 "Ada Lovelace" GPU inside of the RTX 4090). In a new reply on X, leaker "kopite7kimi" said that the GB202 GPU is a "physically monolithic" chip.

The reason this is important, is that NVIDIA used a chiplet design for its HPC and AI GPUs including the Blackwell B100 and B200 AI GPUs, but looks to use a physically monolithic GPU design for its gaming-focused GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs. We should also see NVIDIA rolling out next-generation GDDR7 memory on its RTX 50 series GPUs, with the RTX 5090 rumored to feature a hefty 32GB of ultra-fast GDDR7 memory.

AMD's next-generation Zen 5 CPU architecture will be launched at Computex 2024 next week, with name changes all over the place... now we've got the Ryzen AI 300 series.

Why the Ryzen AI 300 series? Intel's next-generation Core Ultra 200 series "Arrow Lake" CPUs will be launching, so AMD can't have the previously rumored Ryzen AI 100 series names, with Chinese leaker Golden Pig Upgrade giving us the update on what he's hearing regarding AMD's next-gen desktop-focused Zen 5 processors.

Golden Pig Upgrade explains: "Strix Point was renamed again: Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, Ryzen AI 9 365, those who are familiar with DIY must be familiar with this practice. After all, the Core Ultra 200 series will be released soon. If AMD starts from 100 again, it will suffer a numerical loss, so they will start directly from the 300 series. If you want to make up for it, you can also say this is the third generation with NPU".

Samsung Electronics has denied claims alleging its High Bandwidth Memory (HBM, and more specifically, HBM3E memory) products failed NVIDIA's quality standards.

In a recent report from Reuters, the outlet claimed from sources that Samsung had been denied by NVIDIA, failing its HBM quality tests. The issues were reportedly surrounding excessive heat generation and power consumption, but in a new statement released by Samsung on May 24, the South Korean giant said it is "smoothly conducting tests for HBM supply with various global partners".

Samsung emphasized that it is "continuously testing technology and performance in close cooperation with multiple companies" to ensure that the quality and reliability of its products is perfect.

ASML is rumored to have signed a contract to lease a commercial office in North Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and has officially entered Kaohsiung, to help the installation of TSMC's new 2nm plant in Kaohsiung.

ASML is the world's largest wafer lithography equipment manufacturer, with TSMC being the world's largest contract chip manufacturer, the two powers combined make for a force to be reckoned with... mostly against Samsung and Intel. ASML has four offices spread out in Taiwan right now, located in Hsinchu, Linkou, Taichung, and Tainan.

Linkou has a smart manufacturing center that is responsible for machine refurbishment and measurement equipment protection, while Tainan has an E-beam electron beam inspection equipment manufacturing center, and an EUV Global Training Center.

Microsoft unveiled its new Copilot+ PC family last week, with its new Recall feature remembering every single thing you type, and do into your PC... but it required an NPU. Well, a developer has worked it out... without needing an NPU.

A developer posted on X with "great progress" on enabling Copilot+ features like Recall on current Arm64 hardware, with no Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor (which is a hardware requirement of Copilot+ on Windows 11). The developer explained in his post that it "should theoretically work on Intel/AMD" processors, too, and that OEMs only received Arm64-specific ML model bundles, so "there's not much I can do yet" added @thebookisclosed on X.

Without an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) to speed-up AI workloads, does that mean that AI workloads run slower without an NPU? We don't know yet, but I'm sure we're not very far from knowing how much slower -- if it is at all -- which would bring into question... do we really need NPUs for AI workloads that are being shoved down our throats by every processor maker on the market? Interesting.

Lenovo has just launched their latest Legion desktop gaming PCs with new Mobile on Desktop (MoDT) designs that offer up to an Intel Core i9-14900HX processor.

Lenovo is the largest PC maker in China, with MoDT platforms used by Chinese companies for years now, Lenovo is the latest one with its new Legion 7000K desktop PC series. Lenovo's new Legion 7000K systems feature Intel's current-gen 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" CPUs.

The company is using two of these CPUs: the Core i9-14900HX (24 cores, 32 threads) at up to 5.8GHz and a 190W TDP (!!!) and the Core i7-14650HX (16 cores, 24 threads) at up to 5.2GHz with a 160W TDP. Lenovo uses a custom desktop motherboard with the CPU pre-installed, which means it's not upgradeable at all. There's no IHS (integrated heat spreader) on the CPU, which Lenovo says is an advantage, as some enthusiasts will delid (remove the IHS) off their processor.

GIGABYTE will unveil an entire fleet of next-gen Z890 motherboards at Computex 2024, with the flagship Z890 AORUS EXTREME AI TOP motherboard officially teased.

We knew about 8 of the new Z890 motherboards from recent leaks, but now the official AORUS account on Instagram is teasing their Computex 2024 motherboards. In the post on Instagram, GIGABYTE goes through many years of its different motherboards, asking people what their favorite motherboards were in general, and their favorite motherboards shown off on the Instagram post.

Google's custom Tensor processor was developed in collaboration with Samsung's silicon division, but now we're hearing Google has teamed with TSMC for its next-gen Tensor G5 processor for the next-generation Pixel 10 smartphones.

In a new report from Android Authority, the site says that Google will have TSMC manufacture its next-gen Tensor G5, which would be the first time Google has moved away from Samsung Foundry for one of its custom processors. Android Authority has some new information regarding the Tensor G5, which you can see in the photo above.

A shipping manifest has listed the Tensor G5 sample chip, something that can be found in publicly available databases. Android Authority breaks this all down, explaining: "First of all, how do we even know this is the chip we think it is? It's simple: "LGA" is the abbreviated codename of the Tensor G5, "Laguna Beach," which has been known for a while now. Similarly, Google used to abbreviate "Whitechapel" (first-generation Tensor) as "WHI" and "Zuma Pro" (Tensor G4) as "ZPR.""

Microsoft has officially launched its Auto SR (Automatic Super Resolution) technology, its new system-level super resolution tech, which is available on new Copilot+ PCs powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite processor.

In order to use Microsoft's new Auto SR technology, you'll need a new Copilot+ PC powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite processor, which you can't even buy today. Microsoft has paper launched Auto SR, with Copilot+ PCs required to play it, unavailable to buy today.

You'll also need Windows 11 version 24H2, a 1080p display at a minimum, and automatic updated to be enabled. That is, once you've got your new Copilot+ PC powered by a Snapdragon X Elite processor. The 12 games that will work on the Copilot+ PCs with Auto SR supported out of the box include:

NVIDIA's next-generation AI PC processor will feature Arm-based Blackhawk CPU cores, Blackwell RTX GPU cores, and next-gen LPDDR6 memory.

The new details on NVIDIA's next-gen Arm-based AI PC processor comes from @XpeaGPU on X, quoting an article that talked about a new handheld and console SoC designed by NVIDIA based on the same architecture. NVIDIA looks to use multiple next-gen IPs on a single package, similar to how AMD and Intel are rolling out their new processors with CPU cores, GPU cores, NPUs, and even on-package memory.

NVIDIA is reportedly tapping TSMC's new 3nm process node for its Arm processor, with an advanced packaging solution containing Arm-based Cortex A5 Blackhawk CPU cores, and NVIDIA's in-house Blackwell RTX GPU cores, which should make for a potent AI PC processor.

SpaceX, in a significant move, has announced its fourth Starship launch scheduled for June 5, pending regulatory approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). This launch marks another milestone in the company's ambitious space exploration journey.

Starship has been launched three times, and each of those launches had the main mission objective of reaching orbit. SpaceX managed to reach orbit on its last launch, along with the separation between the Super Heavy booster and Starship. With that goal out of the way, the Elon Musk-led company is switching its focus to arguably the most important part of Starship, getting it back on the ground safely and undamaged to enable reliable reusability.

Given the immersive size of Starship, 400-feet in total, it's not going to be easy to land the world's largest rocket. Before any land-based attempts are made, SpaceX will first gather its bearings over the ocean. Once it's happy there, it will move to rocket launch pads at its facilities.

The next installment in the DOOM franchise is purportedly called "DOOM: The Dark Ages," and it will be revealed at the Xbox Games Showcase on June 9, according to a new report from Insider Gaming.

The new report comes after previous rumors that ID Software was preparing to reveal its next DOOM project at the Xbox Games Showcase, but at the time of those reports the new DOOM project was under the codename Year Zero. Insider Gaming has now revealed the name for title, writing it has been in development for at least four years and will take players to a "medieval inspired doom world".

The exclusive report mentions the new title could be taking players back to a much younger Doomslayer, perhaps a prequel story about his earlier life before all the blood, dust and glory. Insider Gaming writes that it can independently verify the rumors that the next DOOM game will be unveiled at the upcoming Xbox Showcase.

NVIDIA is feeling the squeeze by the US government sanctions aimed at stifling China's progression in the AI race, which the chip manufacturer has responded to by slashing prices to beat the local Chinese competition.

The GPU manufacturer is attempting to make high-end products for the lucrative Chinese market that accounts for approximately 17% to its revenue for fiscal 2024., but it must now work within the strict US restrictions that ban the exportation of powerful chips that will likely be used to train AI models. NVIDIA plans to still release new GPUs in China, but these new models will have to be cutdown versions of new hardware that's limited to a specific performance point.

Reports indicate that NVIDIA found some of its Chinese customers weren't to thrilled about the new performance capped hardware, and would instead opt for domestically manufactured chips that are exponentially growing in presence. Reuters now reports NVIDIA has been forced to slash prices of some of its products to compete with new kits from Chinese technology giant Huawei.

The CEO of AMD, Lisa Su, has taken center stage at imec's ITF World 2024 conference to accept an award and outline AMD's goal of reaching 100x power efficiency by 2027.

Su accepted the prestigious Imec Innovation Award for innovation and industry leadership, joining prominent technology figures such as Bill Gates. Following the award's acceptance, Su began illustrating AMD's quest to achieve 100x performance improvement by 2027 and how AMD is going to overcome big problems such as the compute/energy required to train exponentially growing advanced AI models.

Su explained AI models typically doubled in size every two years, but now its growing at 20x per year, completely outpacing computing and memory advancements. To combat these problems AMD will be implementing a multi-facet strategy that will introduce new silicon architectures, AI-specific architectures, software, system and data tuning, and hardware co-designs.

Windows 11 looks like it may have a new default app in the future, or at least there are early signs in testing that this is the case - with a notable caveat.

The app in question is PC Manager, and it's an optimization app along the lines of CCleaner, but as it's Microsoft's own take on the idea, there are some dubious additions here. Most notably suggested fixes like a 'repair' for your PC that involves making Bing the default search in Edge.

We shouldn't get carried away, though, as for now, PC Manager is only being turned into a default app in Windows 11 in China (and that's just in testing, with the current incarnation of the Windows 11 24H2 update for that matter).