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NVIDIA has had its offices in France raided by the French government and is set to be charged by the French antitrust regulator for allegedly anti-competitive practices.

The news is coming from Reuters and people with "direct knowledge of the matter" that makes this the first government to fight NVIDIA over anti-competitive behavior. The French authority has a statement of objections or chart sheet, which follows previous raids into the graphics card business in September 2023, which Reuters' sources said "targeted NVIDIA". These raids were part of a "broader inquiry into cloud computing".

NVIDIA's untouched dominance of the GPU market, but more specifically -- and far more dominantly -- in the AI GPU business, has put a France-sized magnifying glass over the chipmaker. This was amplified over the last year with generative AI leader OpenAI and its ChatGPT, which Reuters reports has been "triggering regulatory scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic".

TSMC with its massive global expansion and multiple semiconductor fabs in the US, will only account for around 10% of its total production capacity.

In a new report from Taiwan TV News (TTV), TSMC's new fabs in the USA, Japan, and Germany have raised "domestic concerns" over industrial relocation from Taiwan. TSMC has been expanding its production facilities into other countries, but there are now concerns growing in Taiwan about the potential impacts on domestic industries, as TSMC is one of Taiwan's biggest companies with massive global influence.

Bonnie Glaser, director of German Marshall Fund, saying that even at full production, TSMC's various overseas semiconductor plans will continue less than 10% of its global output, according to TTV, which didn't share any exact numbers.

The International Space Station (ISS) is truly a remarkable piece of the achievements of civilization, as humans quite literally have a floating laboratory in space that orbits the planet every 90 minutes.

Being able to orbit the planet every 90 minutes means the ISS is traveling extremely fast, precisely 17,900 mph, or 5 miles per second. For this reason, and it's altitude of 250 miles, its quite difficult to take a photo of the ISS, especially if you want its silhouette to appear in front of the Sun. Professional astrophotographer and science communicator Miguel Claro achieved this, and explained to Space.com his process.

The above video shows the ISS crossing in front of the Sun at a distance of 275 miles from Earth, and due to the speed of the ISS, Claro had to capture more than 200 images over for just two seconds of footage. Claro used a fast video camera from Player One Astronomy, the Apollo-M Max, and set the shutter to 109 images per second. Claro captured the footage on June 2, 2024, from Figueira da Foz on northern cost of Portugal.

In 2023, Microsoft announced a partnership with NVIDIA to see its first-party PC games become available via the GeForce NOW cloud gaming service. A direct competitor of Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming service for Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, but the move was seen by many as a means to get Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard over the line.

Many see GeForce NOW as the best cloud gaming service for visual fidelity, latency, and features, which lets you play games you own on a cloud-based GeForce RTX-powered rig. GeForce NOW offers up to GeForce RTX 4080 levels of performance with DLSS, Frame Generation, Reflex, and even G-Sync support. And now, based on a few images that have surfaced on Resetera - GeForce NOW is being integrated with Xbox in some way.

The images come from the Xbox PC app, showing titles like Street Fighter 6, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Resident Evil Village with the text 'Included with NVIDIA GeForce NOW.' So, what's going on?

Sabrent is highlighting its USB-C 3-Port Hub with USB PD 3.0 today (HB-C4WP), one hub to rule them all for your storage needs with a single 5Gbps (USB 3.2 Gen 1x1) USB-A port for power-hungry devices, and two 480Mbps (USB 2.0) USB-A ports.

The Sabrent USB-C 3-Port Hub with USB PD 3.0 costs just $14.99 and acts as essential connectivity to "let you focus on your priorities without additional clutter," explains the storage company. No drivers are required, which makes using the USB-C hub even easier, with simple plug-and-play functionality.

The Sabrent USB-C 3-Port Hub with USB PD 3.0 includes an integrated USB-C cable that will work with Windows, macOS, Linux, and more right out of the box. The single USB-C port is the magic, capable of bypass charging and power delivery of up to 100W (USB PD 3.0). This makes the Sabrent USB-C 3-Port Hub with USB PD 3.0 perfect for powerful devices like laptops, ultrabooks, and portable gaming products like the ASUS ROG Ally and Valve Steam Deck.

With the new Copilot+ PCs featuring the Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite processor, Microsoft is banking on AI features (exclusive to Copilot+ PCs), battery life, and Windows on Arm compatibility to drive interest. The latter includes PC gaming, with native and emulated support. The idea is simple: if you can play a PC game on a traditional Windows 11 laptop or desktop rig, you should be able to do the same on one of the new Copilot+ PCs.

Even though the DirectX team has worked hard to ensure compatibility (and stable performance) with various titles, it sounds like Windows on Arm gaming is still in the early 'beta' days. Translation: expect incompatibility and performance issues with a range of titles.

Each Elite chip features an integrated Qualcomm Adreno X1 GPU, and with the most powerful variant put to the test by PCWorld, there's still a lot of work to be done. The outlet goes so far as to compare the launch to the early days of Intel Arc graphics.

Team Fortress 2 is suffering from a community of unhappy gamers who are now taking to the title's Steam listing to voice their distaste toward Valve for a recent collaboration.

The problems began mounting when Team Fortress 2 started becoming a cesspit for bots, with reports saying for many months now the classic title was being overrun by bots that resulted in players taking to the Steam listing to leave negative reviews. However, that distaste was exacerbated when Valve and 10:10 Games announced it a new collaboration that would bring Team Fortress 2 to Funko Fusion in a new DLC.

The announcement of the DLC pack sparked a wave of negative reviews by players, many of whom wish Valve would fix Team Fortress 2 before releasing "marketable plushies". Some players responded to the Funko Fusion DLC with comments such as, "I feel like I'm being pranked" and "I know it's just a license but this does not feel like the time for a fucking TF2 FUNKO pop DLC LMAO, especially when the community is planning to boycott, unless we see permanent change."

Opera GX, the self-described 'browser for gamers' (it has a built-in VPN and other gamer-friendly features), is ramping up its AI support with new features. The browser's built-in AI assistant, Aria, was previously part of the experimental AI Feature Drops program for the Opera One browser and is now part of Opera GX. Let's go through Aria's capabilities.

The first is image generation, powered by Imagen2 by Google. If you've used an image generation tool before, this will be pretty straightforward, as Aria will turn text prompts into images with a 'regenerate' option to refine the output. Users will be able to generate up to 30 images per day.

Second is AI Voice Output, powered by Google's WaveNet model. This will give users an AI-powered screen reader while using Opera GX.

Nintendo is currently preparing to unveil its long-anticipated next-generation console, which has presumably been placeholder-named the Nintendo Switch 2, especially considering the incredible popularity of the original Switch (about to beat PS2 unit sales in the US).

The Nintendo Switch was released back in 2017 and was met with quite a lot of demand despite the console releasing with a bunch of Wii U games ported over and only a few first-party titles. However, the sluggishness of Switch sales could at least in part be attributed to the chip shortage that was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This debacle resulted in many Nintendo Switch consoles appearing in reseller markets at exorbitant prices.

That apparently isn't going to happen with Nintendo's next console, or at least Nintendo will have a plan in place to mitigate the likelihood of it occurring. During a Q&A with investors, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa was asked if Nintendo has a plan to avoid resellers with the coming launch of the new console. Furukawa responded by simply saying Nintendo will already have enough units of its next-generation console at launch and that we shouldn't see a reseller market like we did with the launch of the Nintendo Switch.

Researchers have used NASA and the European Space Agency's (ESA) James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to discover previously unseen regions above an iconic spot on Jupiter.

Being the largest gas giant in the solar system, Jupiter is very easy to see in the night sky, but astronomers still struggle to observe the planet's upper atmosphere, which is where the JWST comes in. Using JWSTs sensitive infrared instruments researchers were able to peer into Jupiter's upper atmosphere above the iconic Great Red Spot in unprecedented detail, revealing structures that have been detailed in a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

According to the results, the team discovered above the Great Red Spot, a massive storm that is so large that it could completely consume Earth - ranking first in the biggest storms in the solar system - what the space agency describes as "a variety of intricate structures, including dark arcs and bright spots". The space agency writes in its blog post these are atmospheric waves that are similar in structure to waves crashing on a beach.

A week after Neuralink's first brain chip patient appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the company has reportedly canceled the surgery for its second patient following the discovery of medical issues that led to the unsuitability of the patient entering the trial.

A new report from Bloomberg has revealed the candidate Neuralink had teed up for its second brain-computer interface (BCI) surgery suffered from neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal motor neuron disease that causes progression degeneration of nerve cells in the spinal cord and brain.

Unfortunately, the second patient experienced unnamed medical issues that made them unsuitable for the trial. They will be replaced by another patient who is scheduled to undergo surgery next month. Neuralink hasn't officially mentioned the patient's cancellation or responded to Bloomberg's questions about it.

Last week, Microsoft took to its blog to confirm the existence of a "Skeleton" or "Master Key" that can jailbreak popular AI chatbots, causing operating policies to be circumvented.

Mark Russinovich, CTO of Microsoft Azure, Microsoft's cloud service that provides power to popular AI chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, explained in a blog post that a Skeleton Key is a technique used to bypass an AI's guardrails implemented by its creators, which gives the AI the ability to generate prohibited content. According to Russinovich, the discovered Skeleton Key exploit worked on multiple AI models up until May, with the following AI models being unlocked to provide a user with information on how to make a Molotov cocktail.

The Skeleton Key exploit worked with simple text prompts that told the AI model to revise its response that outlined its safety instructions. With each new prompt, the AI model is given more context on why it's allowed to provide an uncensored response and that it should update its internal policies to represent its newly unlocked potential. An example of the Skeleton Key working can be found below.

A group of scientists have wired a robot with human stem cells and attached a brain-computer interface, enabling the robot to complete tasks assigned to it.

Human brains, much like computers, run on electrical signals that are fired from our neurons. Every single movement, thought, and aspect of the human body is run by electrical signals firing from the brain. Due to the similarities with computers, engineers have designed brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that can monitor and respond to the electrical signals fired by neurons. Elon Musk's brain chip company Neuralink has achieved this with Nolan Arbaugh, a paraplegic individual who can now control a computer mouse cursor with his thoughts.

Now, a team of researchers from Tianjin University and the Southern University of Science and Technology connected brain tissue to a neural interface, which enables the robot to theoretically train itself by analyzing the electrical signals provided to it. This would give the robot a version of "sight" as it would be able to interpret the world through electrical signals. The team suggests the BCI could lead to robotics training themselves on avoiding obstacles, using hands and arms, and more.

Last month, Apple held its WWDC event, where it unveiled its highly anticipated iOS 18 update, which it will launch alongside its new line-up of iPhones.

A massive part of iOS 18 is Apple integration with artificial intelligence, or as the Cupertino company is calling their version of AI, Apple Intelligence. This integration will come in the form of many features designed to improve the user experience and make communicating through voice much more natural.

These improvements in software functionality will require some extra oomph under the hood, as Apple outlines on its website that Apple Intelligence will be coming to M1-powered devices and above, along with the iPhone 15 Pro models. Not even the iPhone 15, a device that was only released last year.

Intel is currently hosting a bunch of events for distributors and board partners to show off their new LGA-1851 socket, and new 800-series chipset that will power its upcoming Core Ultra 200 series "Arrow Lake" desktop CPUs.

In some new leaks, we're getting some details on the new 800-series chipset that shows us the full PCIe configuration, with Arrow Lake-S processors featuring 16 dedicated PCIe Gen5 lanes for graphics, with an additional 4 Gen5 lanes for SSD storage.

On top of that, there's an additional Gen4x4 interface that's attached directly to the CPU, which will allow users to connect another Gen4 SSD directly to the CPU. This means that users and gamers that adopt the new Core Ultra 200 series "Arrow Lake" CPU platform with the new 800-series chipset, won't have to sacrifice Gen5 lanes for GPUs and storage.

SK hynix has announced it has completed the development of "PCB01" which is a new SSD for on-device AI PCs which boasts the industry's highest performance, with mass production expected to begin within the year.

The South Korean memory giant underlined the breakthrough in performance, including data processing speeds, by using an 8-channel PCIe 5th generation standard for the first time with its new PCB01. SK hynix said: "Following our leadership in ultra-high-performance DRAM represented by HBM, we have now also achieved the highest level of product development in NAND solutions, solidifying our leadership in the AI memory sector".

We can expect SK hynix's new PCB01 SSD to feature 14GB/sec sequential reads, and 12GB/sec sequential writes, which will make it one of the top (but not the tippy top) of SSDs for the PC. SK hynix is pushing the AI side of things with its new PCB01 SSD, which is capable of running Large Language Models (LLMs) which are needed for AI training and inference, within a single second.

Amazon plans to spend over $100 billion on building new data centers over the next 10 years, announcing the official launch of its "era of great expansion" of data centers for the future of AI.

Amazon AWS (Amazon Web Services) is the global leader in cloud servers, launching its new data center expansion plans, which will create rather big business opportunities for AI server shipments. AWS server OEMs Quanta, Wiwynn, and Inventic are "gaining momentum" reports UDN, in their "shipping engines".

The US-based giant has big plans for its data center expansions, with large-scale construction to stimulate growth of demand in high-speed transmission, where in the future, the demand for optical modules in AI data centers will increase, reports UDN.

ASML leads the semiconductor world with its High-NA EUV lithography machines, which reportedly cost $380 million a pop... but its next-generation Hyper-NA EUV lithography machines will reportedly cost over $700 million when they're unleashed in 2030.

In a new report from Ctee, we're learning that ASML's expensive EUV lithography machine prices are a "huge burden for customers" with conventional EUV machines costing around $181 million each, its next-gen High-NA EUV lithography machines has doubled to nearly $370 million... but now its future-gen Hyper-NA EUV lithography machines are expected to sell for as high as $724 million.

According to Ctee's sources, "relevant people" in the semiconductor industry said that TSMC introduced EUV machines later than Samsung in the past, with TSMC reducing the investment burden caused by the new High-NA EUV lithography machines by using existing equipment, and upgrading to multi-patterning.

Micron announced nearly a month ago now that it was sampling its next-generation GDDR7 graphics memory, where we can expect 30% more performance in gaming at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K over GDDR6-based cards.

The US-based memory company teases that its new 32Gbps GDDR7 memory modules will provide up to 30% more performance in gaming -- in both ray tracing and rasterization -- compared to GDDR6 (to be specific, non-X) memory. Micron says its next-gen GDDR7 memory provides over 1.5TB/sec of memory bandwidth, which should have all gamers excited compared to the GDDR6X-powered GeForce RTX 4090 and its 1TB/sec memory bandwidth.

Micron's new GDDR7 memory with 32Gbps of bandwidth is 10Gbps high than the fastest GDDR6X memory modules on the market, with a test setup by Micron using 12 GDDR7 ICs connected to a 384-bit memory bus teasing a whopping 1.5TB/sec of memory bandwidth.

The world's first Thunderbolt 5 cable has just been unleashed, with Cable Matters unveiling its new Thunderbolt 5 cable that enjoys its full 120Gbps of bandwidth and 240W of charging... starting from just $23.

Cable Matters' new Thunderbolt 5 cable is manufactured by Lintes Technology and is available from Cablle Matters' own Amazon store. The 1ft cable costs $22.99, the 1.6ft cable costs $26.99, and finally, the largest 3.3ft cable costs $32.99.

Thunderbolt 5 has a single standard, so you will enjoy the full specs, bandwidth, and power of Thunderbolt 5 no matter the cable length. This includes 120Gbps of uni-directional bandwidth, up to 80Gbps of bidirectional bandwidth, up to 240W of power delivery, and backward compatibility with Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 3 Type-C ports (as well as USB4 and USB Type-C).