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Deus Ex, the iconic PC game, just got an impressive RTX Remix ray-tracing mod

Kosta Andreadis | Gaming | Apr 4, 2024 12:29 AM CDT

Deus Ex is a series of first-person games. The iconic and groundbreaking original, released by Ion Storm in 2000, mixes shooting, stealth, adventure, and role-playing elements. With its moody futuristic setting and story, it's widely considered one of the greatest PC games of all time, which makes it a perfect candidate for an RTX Remix makeover.

Deus Ex, the iconic PC game, just got an impressive RTX Remix ray-tracing mod

NVIDIA's impressive modding and remastering tool allows budding developers and modders to take just about any classic games, add full ray-tracing (path tracing), remaster textures, replace models with new updated versions, and generally remaster titles with a robust set of tools add access to tech like DLSS, Frame Generation, and Reflex.

Deus Ex Echelon Renderer, from modder onnoj, is "a fixed-function rendering pipeline intended for use with NVIDIA's RTX Remix." It's not technically a mod, but it allows RTX Remix users to play through Deus Ex with full path-traced lighting. The results are awesome.

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Continue reading: Deus Ex, the iconic PC game, just got an impressive RTX Remix ray-tracing mod (full post)

NVIDIA does not expect 'any impact on' chip supply from TSMC after Taiwan earthquake

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Apr 3, 2024 11:51 PM CDT

The large 7.5-magnitude that struck close to Taiwan yesterday has had no supply chain effects for NVIDIA in the country.

NVIDIA does not expect 'any impact on' chip supply from TSMC after Taiwan earthquake

NVIDIA said in a statement: "After consulting with our manufacturing partners, we don't expect any impact on our supply from the Taiwan earthquake". We also recently heard from Wen-Yee Lee, a Taiwan-based semiconductor reporter, who posted on X, providing some updates from TSMC. The company said that "due to safety concerns, TSMC has decided to suspend work at fab construction sites across Taiwan today. Construction will resume after the inspection".

But the latest update from TSMC was extremely positive, with he post explaining: "Based on TSMC's rich experience and capability in earthquake response and disaster prevention, and regular safety drills to ensure full preparedness. Within just 10 hours after the earthquake on April 3rd, the recovery rate of wafer fab equipment has exceeded 70%, and the recovery rate of newly built fabs (such as Fab 18) has exceeded 80%. Although a few pieces of equipment in some areas were damaged, affecting production lines, major machines including all Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment remained undamaged".

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Continue reading: NVIDIA does not expect 'any impact on' chip supply from TSMC after Taiwan earthquake (full post)

ASUS AM5 mobos get next-gen Zen 5 'Granite Ridge' CPU support with new BIOS

Anthony Garreffa | Motherboards | Apr 3, 2024 11:28 PM CDT

ASUS has just pushed out some new BIOS updates for its fleet of X670E-powered AM5 motherboards, which supports AMD's next-gen Zen 5-based "Granite Ridge" processors coming later this year.

ASUS AM5 mobos get next-gen Zen 5 'Granite Ridge' CPU support with new BIOS

The next-gen AMD Ryzen "Zen 5" family of processors is codenamed Granite Ridge, powered by the new Zen 5 core architecture, and is now supported on ASUS X670E-based motherboards with a new AMD AM5 AGESA 1.1.7.0 BIOS update. This is the second notable BIOS update from ASUS, the previous one added 256GB DDR5 RAM support through the latest 64GB modules... and now, Zen 5 support.

HardwareLuxx posted the latest AM5 SMU table, showing all of the latest updates found in the AMD AGESA firmware, with the latest AGESA 1.1.7.0 UPDATE dropping the ComboAM5PI scheme to FireRangePI. FireRange, you say? Fire Range is the codename of AMD's upcoming mobile-focused Zen 5-based processors, with Granite Ridge being the desktop-focused Zen 5-powered CPUs.

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Continue reading: ASUS AM5 mobos get next-gen Zen 5 'Granite Ridge' CPU support with new BIOS (full post)

TSMC took just 10 hours after Taiwan's M7.5 earthquake to resume 70-80% operations

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Apr 3, 2024 11:07 PM CDT

Taiwan was rocked by a huge 7.5-magnitude earthquake yesterday, seeing TSMC evacuate its facilities, but the Taiwanese semiconductor giant was back to nearly 70% operations within 10 hours.

TSMC took just 10 hours after Taiwan's M7.5 earthquake to resume 70-80% operations

Wen-Yee Lee, a Taiwan-based semiconductor reporter, posted on X, providing some updates from TSMC. The company said that "due to safety concerns, TSMC has decided to suspend work at fab construction sites across Taiwan today. Construction will resume after the inspection".

But the latest update from TSMC was extremely positive, with he post explaining: "Based on TSMC's rich experience and capability in earthquake response and disaster prevention, and regular safety drills to ensure full preparedness. Within just 10 hours after the earthquake on April 3rd, the recovery rate of wafer fab equipment has exceeded 70%, and the recovery rate of newly built fabs (such as Fab 18) has exceeded 80%. Although a few pieces of equipment in some areas were damaged, affecting production lines, major machines including all Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment remained undamaged".

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Continue reading: TSMC took just 10 hours after Taiwan's M7.5 earthquake to resume 70-80% operations (full post)

Patriot teams with MSI on new white-themed Viper Xtreme DDR5 RAM for MSI MPOWER motherboard

Anthony Garreffa | RAM | Apr 3, 2024 10:27 PM CDT

Patriot has just teased that it partnered with MSI on some new Viper DDR5 memory, themed with a gorgeous all-white design and RGB lighting strip at the top. Check it out:

Patriot teams with MSI on new white-themed Viper Xtreme DDR5 RAM for MSI MPOWER motherboard

Patriot's Viper memory account on X said that this is NOT an April Fool's joke and that the MSI x Patriot Viper DDR5 memory was "coming soon." The new all-white DDR5 memory will be part of the Viper Extreme 5 RAM family, but we don't know how high the speeds will be.

MSI replied to Patriot Viper's tweet, saying, "That's exactly what someone doing an April Fool's Day would say," but this isn't an April Fool's Day joke; it's real.

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Continue reading: Patriot teams with MSI on new white-themed Viper Xtreme DDR5 RAM for MSI MPOWER motherboard (full post)

US government is adjusting export regulations for China, RTX 4090 D and H20 AI GPUs now banned

Anthony Garreffa | Graphics Cards | Apr 3, 2024 10:08 PM CDT

The US government is clamping down even harder on high-performance GPUs and AI GPUs being imported to China, with beefed-up US trade regulations stopping the cut-down GeForce RTX 4090 D graphics card, and H20 AI GPU.

US government is adjusting export regulations for China, RTX 4090 D and H20 AI GPUs now banned

We've seen NVIDIA and AMD restricted on the number of silicon it can send to China, depending on specific performance metrics by the Biden administration. Starting on April 4, GPUs with rated compute performance that is over 70 TFLOPs -- including the cut-down GeForce RTX 4090 D and H20 AI GPUs -- are now restricted, as they offer over 70 TFLOPs of compute performance.

The updated SEC document explains: "License is required (NLR) for computers with an "Adjusted Peak Performance" ("APP") not exceeding 70 Weighted TeraFLOPS (WT) and for "electronic assemblies" described in 4A003.c that are not capable of exceeding an "Adjusted Peak Performance" ("APP") exceeding 70 Weighted TeraFLOPS (WT) in aggregation".

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Continue reading: US government is adjusting export regulations for China, RTX 4090 D and H20 AI GPUs now banned (full post)

SK hynix confirms $3.87 billion advanced packaging plant, R&D facility for AI in Indiana, USA

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Apr 3, 2024 9:29 PM CDT

SK hynix is officially building a new advanced packaging facility in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA with an investment of around $3.87 billion. The South Korean memory giant will build next-gen HBM memory for future-gen AI GPUs, and would be the first advanced packaging for AI products on American soil.

SK hynix confirms $3.87 billion advanced packaging plant, R&D facility for AI in Indiana, USA

The new $3.87 billion facility will see Indiana with a new advanced packaging fabrication and R&D facility for AI products, the first of its kind in the United States, with expectations that it will drive innovation in the nation's supply chain for AI products, as well as create over 1000 new jobs in the region.

SK hynix held an investment agreement ceremony this week, with officials from Indiana State, Purdue University, and the US government at Purdue University in West Lafayette, officially announcing the plan.

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Continue reading: SK hynix confirms $3.87 billion advanced packaging plant, R&D facility for AI in Indiana, USA (full post)

PCIe 7.0 specs released: 512GB/sec bandwidth total, next-gen PCIe 7.0 SSDs will pump 128GB/sec

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Apr 3, 2024 9:00 PM CDT

PCI-SIG initially announced the next-generation PCIe 7.0 standard back in 2022, but now the organization behind the PCIe standards -- PCI-SIG, duh -- has announced version 0.5 of PCIe 7.0, now available for member review.

PCIe 7.0 specs released: 512GB/sec bandwidth total, next-gen PCIe 7.0 SSDs will pump 128GB/sec

PCIe 7.0 is gearing up for a full release in 2025, but don't think you'll see workstations or gaming motherboards with PCIe 7.0 connectivity when we don't have PCIe 6.0 in the consumer space just yet, and PCIe 5.0 is only penetrating that market now. We will be living with PCIe 5.0 for a while on the desktop and laptop before we see PCIe 6.0, let alone PCIe 7.0.

For now, the full specification of PCIe 7.0 were released by PCI-SIG, which include:

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Continue reading: PCIe 7.0 specs released: 512GB/sec bandwidth total, next-gen PCIe 7.0 SSDs will pump 128GB/sec (full post)

The Matrix 5 announced: resurrected, reloaded, refreshed with Drew Goddard directing

Anthony Garreffa | TV, Movies & Home Theatre | Apr 3, 2024 8:24 PM CDT

The Matrix 5 has just been announced -- and no, this is NOT an April Fool's Day joke -- with Drew Goddard directing, with the Wachowskis not directing a Matrix movie for the first time in franchise history.

The Matrix 5 announced: resurrected, reloaded, refreshed with Drew Goddard directing

Warner Bros. has officially greenlit The Matrix 5, with the only news of the movie being the name of the director and that a Matrix movie will go into production. Goddard directed one of my favorite surprise movies from years ago, Cabin in the Woods, and will direct The Matrix 5.

The Matrix Resurrections was released last year after Lana Wachowski solo-directed the fourth installment in the franchise with returning stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss. Reeves and Moss play Neo and Trinity, respectively, who could reprise their roles, but I'd like to see Hugo Weaving return -- at least in some form -- as Agent Smith, as he was sorely missed in The Matrix Resurrections.

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Continue reading: The Matrix 5 announced: resurrected, reloaded, refreshed with Drew Goddard directing (full post)

Knights of the Old Republic PS5 remake is 'alive and well,' but we still have no release window

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Apr 3, 2024 3:02 PM CDT

The highly anticipated Knights of the Old Republic remake has been officially confirmed to be in development...but there's still no word on a potential release window or concrete updates about the project.

Knights of the Old Republic PS5 remake is 'alive and well,' but we still have no release window

The KOTOR remake was announced in 2021 by Sony, but since the tne project has been shuffled around. Aspyr, the team behind many of the Star Wars re-releases, was originally developing the KOTOR remake. Aspyr was acquired by Saber Interactive in 2021 for $100 million. At the time, Saber was still part of Embracer, and Embracer re-assigned the KOTOR remake to Saber's principal dev teams.

Reports indicated that the remake was put on ice in 2022, but apparently the project is still happening.

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Continue reading: Knights of the Old Republic PS5 remake is 'alive and well,' but we still have no release window (full post)

Google engineers hacked PS Portal to play PSP games, then handed the secrets to Sony

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Apr 3, 2024 1:57 PM CDT

Google engineers spent a month hacking the PlayStation Portal to run PSP games natively...but then they handed the secrets right to Sony.

Google engineers hacked PS Portal to play PSP games, then handed the secrets to Sony

It's official: The PS Portal's is once again a "remote player." Sony has released a new firmware patch for the PS Portal that fixed a big security vulnerability that ultimately led to PSP games running on the device. The $199 PS Portal is specifically designed as a profitable accessory that requires a PS5 in order to stream games to the controller-screen hybrid. Being able to play games without needing a PS5 goes against the entire point of the handheld.

Two Google security experts--Andy Nguyen and Calle Svensson--spent an entire month hacking the PS Portal to see if it could run games natively. It turns out that it can indeed do this, at least when it comes to 20-year-old PSP games. Yesterday, Nguyen confirmed that Sony had been notified of the vulnerability and that a fix has been employed with PS Portal's new v2.0.6 firmware update.

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Continue reading: Google engineers hacked PS Portal to play PSP games, then handed the secrets to Sony (full post)

AI safety expert predicts a 99.999999% chance of p(doom). What's that mean? Well, it isn't good

Darren Allan | Artificial Intelligence | Apr 3, 2024 10:24 AM CDT

Could AI spell doom for humankind eventually? Depending on which expert you talk to, the chances vary considerably, but one researcher definitely has a gloomy (and doomy) opinion - one that Elon Musk doesn't share.

AI safety expert predicts a 99.999999% chance of p(doom). What's that mean? Well, it isn't good

Business Insider reported on revelations made at the recent Abundance Summit (held last month), which included a 'great AI debate' where Musk estimated the risk of AI ending humanity was "about 10% or 20% or something like that."

Obviously that's something akin to wild guesswork, but the general gist of the billionaire's philosophy is that we should push ahead with AI development as the probable positive outcomes outweigh any negative scenario.

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Continue reading: AI safety expert predicts a 99.999999% chance of p(doom). What's that mean? Well, it isn't good (full post)

Microsoft's Copilot key for Windows 11 AI PCs has a secret - it dates back to the mid-1980s

Darren Allan | Software & Apps | Apr 3, 2024 6:06 AM CDT

You've doubtless heard about the Copilot key - the dedicated physical key that's present on the keyboard of AI PCs running Windows 11 - but there's a surprising secret behind this new feature.

Microsoft's Copilot key for Windows 11 AI PCs has a secret - it dates back to the mid-1980s

This was highlighted by Tom's Hardware, who did some digging with new Dell XPS 14 and XPS 16 laptops that have the Copilot key on their respective keyboard decks, in an effort to find out how the key works.

In other words, what's behind the Copilot key in terms of mapping, and is it a new key with a new scan code? Well, the answer to that question is a short no.

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Continue reading: Microsoft's Copilot key for Windows 11 AI PCs has a secret - it dates back to the mid-1980s (full post)

US government tasks NASA with creating an out-of-this-world clock

Jak Connor | Science, Space, & Robotics | Apr 3, 2024 3:40 AM CDT

The White House has tasked NASA and other agencies to come up with an idea to keep track of time on Earth, but not on Earth.

US government tasks NASA with creating an out-of-this-world clock

The White House has officially instructed NASA and other US agencies to work with the appropriate international agencies to develop a preliminary idea by the end of the year that creates a moon-centric time reference system, or a moon clock. Notably, there is less gravity on the moon due to its lower mass, which means time moves slightly differently than here on Earth, precisely 58.7 microseconds quicker every day. Why do we need a moon clock?

Highly sophisticated computer systems rely on timing to make communications possible, and with NASA's push back into space exploration with its Artemis missions and future plans, along with other countries' space agencies, keeping track of the time has become more paramount than before. NASA has already proposed creating an atomic clock for the moon, an extremely precise clock that would create a unified time for the moon. Furthermore, the moon will not have a daylight saving time, according to Kevin Coggins, NASA's top communications and navigation official.

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Continue reading: US government tasks NASA with creating an out-of-this-world clock (full post)

Scientists set world record in creating an 'artificial Sun'

Jak Connor | Science, Space, & Robotics | Apr 3, 2024 2:55 AM CDT

The pursuit to create an "artificial Sun" through nuclear fusion has been a dream of scientists for quite some time, and now a team of researchers has inched a little bit more closer to making that dream a reality.

Scientists set world record in creating an 'artificial Sun'

South Korean scientists have now set a new world record with the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) device, a nuclear fusion reaction that is capable of generating plasma temperatures of up to 100 million degrees Celsius, or seven times hotter than the Sun's core. The team was able to achieve this temperature for just 48 seconds, with the previous record being set in 2021 at 30 seconds.

The idea behind fusion reactors is quite simple - superheat two elements until they combine into one, which gives off heat and energy. However, maintaining the reaction is the challenging part. The most common way to achieve fusion energy is by heating hydrogen variants within a donut-shaped reactor called a tokamak.

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Continue reading: Scientists set world record in creating an 'artificial Sun' (full post)

AMD FSR 3 Frame Generation is coming soon to PS5 and Xbox, and will debut in Immortals of Aveum

Kosta Andreadis | Gaming | Apr 3, 2024 2:29 AM CDT

AMD recently announced a big FSR 3.1 update was 'coming soon,' which would improve upscaling and Frame Generation visual fidelity, decouple the two technologies and introduce console support.

AMD FSR 3 Frame Generation is coming soon to PS5 and Xbox, and will debut in Immortals of Aveum

With NVIDIA's DLSS 3 and AMD's FSR 3, frame generation has been among the most talked about and exciting PC technologies of the past couple of years. And now, it's finally headed to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

As part of a developer update on Immortals of Aveum, Ascendant Studios announced that, in addition to a new HDR patch dropping for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S today, the team was working on bringing "AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 (FSR 3), including its frame generation capability" to the game on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

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Continue reading: AMD FSR 3 Frame Generation is coming soon to PS5 and Xbox, and will debut in Immortals of Aveum (full post)

Discord's April Fool loot box video garnered 1.4 billion views in a day by accident

Kosta Andreadis | Internet & Websites | Apr 3, 2024 1:58 AM CDT

An April Fools' gag can be amusing, cringeworthy, miss the mark, or fall flat in that 'meh' way. In the case of the popular social, chat, and online community platform Discord, its little April Fools was seen by 17% of the world's total population in 24 hours.

Discord's April Fool loot box video garnered 1.4 billion views in a day by accident

Discord's April Fools' gag is a simple joke: a short clip announcing that Loot Boxes are coming to Discord - a funny enough gag that would have been funnier during the height of videogame Loot Boxes, around 2017. You can watch it above.

So, how did this video get 1.4 billion (that's right, billion) views on YouTube, making it one of the most popular videos ever? A figure that makes the Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer we all watched in December look like a clip from a niche channel that posts the odd instructional video on how to, I don't know, untangle headphone cables? Apparently, it was a software error.

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Continue reading: Discord's April Fool loot box video garnered 1.4 billion views in a day by accident (full post)

Apple's new AI system can 'see' and could be a game-changer for Siri

Jak Connor | Artificial Intelligence | Apr 3, 2024 1:27 AM CDT

Apple is diving head first into artificial intelligence-powered systems and according to reports citing Apple researchers behind these new systems, one specifically is designed to take on OpenAI's GPT products.

Apple's new AI system can 'see' and could be a game-changer for Siri

Reports indicate that Apple is developing the ReaLM system, which stands for "Reference Resolution As Language Modeling", a new system that is designed to make interacting with AI much more natural. Additionally, ReaLM is able to "see" on-screen content, with the researchers behind the project saying it outperforms OpenAI's GPT-4, the underlying technology powering ChatGPT, in determining context and interpreting linguistic expressions.

Additionally, the researchers behind the project believe ReaLM is "an ideal choice" for a context deciphering system that would be present "on-device without compromising on performance". So, how would it work? Imagine asking Siri to show you a list of local groceries around your location. After Siri has completed bringing that list up you will then be able to ask her "Call the bottom one." With ReaLM implementation Siri would be able to identify the bottom option and proceed to call them. Apple researchers say ReaLM outperformed GPT-4 in this context deciphering area.

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Continue reading: Apple's new AI system can 'see' and could be a game-changer for Siri (full post)

GeForce RTX 4060 and RTX 4070 are the most popular current-gen GPUs, and it's not even close

Kosta Andreadis | Graphics Cards | Apr 3, 2024 1:04 AM CDT

The Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for March 2024 are now available, and the data once again shows that the GeForce RTX 3060 is still the most popular GPU among Steam gamers. As reported earlier today, its share rose dramatically in March, with 6.71% (+0.71%) of PC gamers rocking the mainstream Ampere card.

GeForce RTX 4060 and RTX 4070 are the most popular current-gen GPUs, and it's not even close

What about the current generation of GPUs? The GeForce RTX 40 Series, the Radeon RX 7000 series, and Intel's first generation of Arc graphics cards. Although we've seen new models and variants arrive at a steady clip, most recently with the SUPER refresh from NVIDIA and the Radeon RX 7900 GRE global relaunch from AMD, we're now well over a year into the generation.

Now's as good a time as any to take stock and see what's hot and what's not. So, let's examine some trends, starting with the current generation of GPUs - where the GeForce RTX 4060 and GeForce RTX 4070 are the most popular new cards.

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Continue reading: GeForce RTX 4060 and RTX 4070 are the most popular current-gen GPUs, and it's not even close (full post)

NASA achieves world's first observation from within a Sun burp

Jak Connor | Science, Space, & Robotics | Apr 3, 2024 12:45 AM CDT

The Sun goes through an 11-year cycle that ranges from extreme activity to very minimal activity, and when our host star is at the height of its activity, astronomers detect numerous solar flares, plasma ejections, and tumultuous conditions.

NASA achieves world's first observation from within a Sun burp

NASA sent its Parker Solar Probe to orbit the Sun and monitor our star's ever-changing conditions with the goal of researchers learning more about its constitution and evolution. With that knowledge, scientists can more accurately predict potentially dangerous space weather caused by the Sun. Now, the Parker Solar Probe has made some ground-breaking observations while passing through a Coronal Magnetic Ejection (CME), a wave of charged particles ejected from the Sun, similar to a burp.

According to reports, the Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (WISPR) instrument has captured turbulent eddies, which are what physicists call Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities (KHI). These events occur when one patch of fast-moving fluid interacts with another. This phenomenon has been detected in clouds when the wind speed at one end of the cloud is different from the other end. However, it has never been observed within a solar eruption but was theorized by solar physicists for quite some time.

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Continue reading: NASA achieves world's first observation from within a Sun burp (full post)

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