Three million smart toothbrushes infected by malware were used in a massive DDoS attack

Kosta Andreadis | Hacking, Security & Privacy | Feb 7, 2024 12:33 AM CST

UPDATE: Turns out the following story was just a hypothetical situation and not real, an error in translation. "To clarify, the topic of toothbrushes being used for DDoS attacks was presented during an interview as an illustration of a given type of attack, and it is not based on research from Fortinet or FortiGuard Labs," Fortinet confirmed in a statement. "It appears that due to translations, the narrative on this topic has been stretched to the point where hypothetical and actual scenarios are blurred." The original story follows.

Three million smart toothbrushes infected by malware were used in a massive DDoS attack

In the age of every household object doubling as a smart device, this headline might not be as strange as it sounds - and could soon become the norm. It seems that recent Swiss DDoS attacks that caused millions in damage resulted from - get this - three million smart toothbrushes infected by hackers with malware forming a botnet. Yeah, it is not exactly something you can (apologies in advance) brush off - as it highlights some of the dangers of smart devices like toothbrushes connecting to a network for seemingly simple tasks like tracking oral hygiene habits.

Apparently, there was a vulnerability in the Java-based OS, but the report doesn't indicate which online toothbrush brands were involved in the attacks. Probably all of them when you consider that next to no one is sitting there updating the firmware and monitoring the network traffic on their toothbrush.

Continue reading: Three million smart toothbrushes infected by malware were used in a massive DDoS attack (full post)

After a few years of decline, the global display market is set to grow in 2024

Kosta Andreadis | Displays & Projectors | Feb 7, 2024 12:06 AM CST

According to a new market analysis and report from TrendForce, the global monitor and display market is on track to recover in 2024, with shipments projected to increase by around 2%. That's not exactly a high number, but it's welcome news after the hardware boom of 2020 and 2021, which saw shipments for brands like Dell, HP, and Lenovo decrease by 20%.

After a few years of decline, the global display market is set to grow in 2024

Interestingly, even though global shipments were down, the gaming display sector has grown thanks to demand from China's gaming market. Companies like AOC and Philips recorded an increase in shipments in 2023. The report also notes that after Acer upgraded a number of its displays from 60 and 75 Hz to 100 Hz - the result was a 6.7% boost in shipments.

It seems that PC gaming monitors are in a great place, with companies like MSI and ASUS targeting ambitious growth of around 10% in 2024. That said, the report does indicate that Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and BenQ have more conservative shipping goals - instead focusing on profitability and high-end products.

Continue reading: After a few years of decline, the global display market is set to grow in 2024 (full post)

Stormgate is a new RTS from ex-Warcraft 3 and StarCraft 2 devs, play the demo right now

Kosta Andreadis | Gaming | Feb 6, 2024 11:34 PM CST

Blizzard's Warcraft and StarCraft games are legendary examples of brilliant RTS games, and if you're a fan of the genre, you probably want to keep an eye on Stormgate. It's a brand-new next-gen RTS game from a team of WarCraft III and StarCraft II veterans at Frost Giant Studios, who left Blizzard so they could continue to work on the genre they love.

Stormgate is a new RTS from ex-Warcraft 3 and StarCraft 2 devs, play the demo right now

You can now play a Stormgate demo as part of the Steam Next Fest event - which ends on February 12, 2024. The demo features DLSS 3 Frame Generation support for those rocking GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs. And the Stormgate Steam Next Fest Demo is also playable via the GeForce Now cloud gaming service.

With its sci-fi setting, it's more StarCraft than Warcraft, focusing on epic large-scale battles with armies, vehicles, and lots of firepower. Stormgate is still a work in progress, with an Early Access launch slated for mid-2024.

Continue reading: Stormgate is a new RTS from ex-Warcraft 3 and StarCraft 2 devs, play the demo right now (full post)

AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XT price drops to $699 for the first time, cheaper than RTX 4070 Ti SUPER

Kosta Andreadis | Video Cards & GPUs | Feb 6, 2024 11:02 PM CST

Ahead of the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER's launch in January 2024, AMD announced a "special promotional pricing program" that would see the price of the Radeon RX 7900 XT drop to $749 USD and lower for a limited time.

AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XT price drops to $699 for the first time, cheaper than RTX 4070 Ti SUPER

The Radeon RX 7900 XT originally launched in late 2022 with a $899 price tag, which at the time was viewed as a serious misstep when the Radeon RX 7900 XTX was only $100 more - and significantly more powerful. In time, the price slowly dropped to around $799 - in line with the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti and its more powerful replacement, the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER.

AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XT has always felt like a great GPU in search of the right price, and today it might just have found it - with the reference specced SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7900 XT 20GB currently on sale for $699.99 via Newegg and Amazon.

Continue reading: AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XT price drops to $699 for the first time, cheaper than RTX 4070 Ti SUPER (full post)

AYANEO Pocket S is a flagship Android handheld with the Snapdragon G3x Gen 2 gaming platform

The AYANEO Pocket S is the company's new high-end flagship Android handheld, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon G3x Gen 2 gaming platform - the enthusiast gaming class chip from Qualcomm that boasts an Adreno A32 GPU twice as fast as the first generation. Throw in a 30% faster eight-core Kryo CPU, and you're looking at mobile tech powerful enough to support real-time ray tracing.

AYANEO Pocket S is a flagship Android handheld with the Snapdragon G3x Gen 2 gaming platform

The AYANEO Pocket S is a sleek handheld with a 6" 1440p screen, borderless mirrored glass finish, and ultra-thin body of just 14mm. The specs here are impressive, with 490PPI pixel density, 100% sRGB coverage, and a peak brightness of 400 nits. A 'standard' model is also coming, with a 6" 2K display.

The Snapdragon G3x Gen 2 is backed up with up to 16GB of memory and up to 1TB of onboard storage. The good news for handheld gamers is that the Pocket S has been designed to deliver 15W of sustained performance, fully using the 1GHz boost clock speed on the GPU.

Continue reading: AYANEO Pocket S is a flagship Android handheld with the Snapdragon G3x Gen 2 gaming platform (full post)

JPR: CPU industry has fully recovered from recession, AMD and Intel are booming again

Anthony Garreffa | CPU, APU & Chipsets | Feb 6, 2024 10:08 PM CST

CPU shipments from AMD and Intel reached 66 million units in Q4 2023, up 7% quarter-to-quarter and 22% year-over-year, according to the latest JPR report.

JPR: CPU industry has fully recovered from recession, AMD and Intel are booming again

Jon Peddie Research's new report also states that integrated GPU shipments (CPUs with integrated graphics or APUs with integrated graphics) increased to 60 million units, an increase of 7% over the quarter, while year-over-year, the increase of iGPU shipments was increased by 18%. Over the next 5 years, JPR estimates the penetration of iGPUs in the PC segment will grow to 98%, up from 84% in Q4 2023.

Jon Peddie, president of JPR, said in the report: "Q4's increase in client CPU shipments from last quarter is positive news in what has been depressing news in general. The increase in upsetting news in the Middle East, combined with the ongoing war in Ukraine, the trade war with China, and the layoffs at many organizations, has been a torrent of bad news in spite of decreased inflation and increased GDP in the U.S. CPU shipments are showing continued gains and are a leading indicator".

Continue reading: JPR: CPU industry has fully recovered from recession, AMD and Intel are booming again (full post)

Analyst: TSMC the world's biggest semiconductor maker by revenue: beats Intel, Samsung, NVIDIA

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Feb 6, 2024 9:33 PM CST

TSMC is a leader in semiconductor manufacturing, but now the company is the world's largest semiconductor maker by revenue, beating out the big tech titans, including Intel, NVIDIA, and Samsung in TSMC's dust.

Analyst: TSMC the world's biggest semiconductor maker by revenue: beats Intel, Samsung, NVIDIA

Taiwan-based analyst Dan Nystedt, reports from compiled numbers from calendar-year revenue figures, not fiscal-year revenue. These figures also include revenue from other sources within each company and aren't just from income derived from manufacturing silicon.

TSMC Is now the world's largest semiconductor company in the world, earning $69.3 billion in 2023 which is much more than Intel earning $54.2 billion in the same year. Samsung dropped down to $50.9 billion, while NVIDIA is still doing good with over $58 billion for 2023.

Continue reading: Analyst: TSMC the world's biggest semiconductor maker by revenue: beats Intel, Samsung, NVIDIA (full post)

GKMtec K8 Mini-PC features AMD Hawk Point APU, up to 32GB RAM, 1TB storage with AR glasses

Anthony Garreffa | Computer Systems | Feb 6, 2024 9:09 PM CST

GMKtec has just launched its first Ryzen 8000 series "Hawk Point" APU-powered Mini-PC system, with its new K8 Mini-PC system a successor to the GMKtec NuvBox K6 Mini-PC.

GKMtec K8 Mini-PC features AMD Hawk Point APU, up to 32GB RAM, 1TB storage with AR glasses

The new GMKtec NuvBox K8 Mini-PC has a drop-in replacement APU over the K6 system, with AMD's new Ryzen 7 8845HS APU an upgrade over the Ryzen 7 7840HS inside of the K6. The new Ryzen 7 8845HS APU has the same 8-core, 16-threads of CPU power, but now it features a built-in NPU for AI workloads.

AMD has boosted the XDNA AI processor from 10 TOPS to 16 TOPS of AI performance, with the same 8 cores and 16 threads of Zen 4 processing power clocking at up to 5.1GHz, with 12 RDNA 3-based Compute Units that have a boost clock of 2.7GHz.

Continue reading: GKMtec K8 Mini-PC features AMD Hawk Point APU, up to 32GB RAM, 1TB storage with AR glasses (full post)

Palit GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER PCB: there's room for two regular 8-pin PCIe power connectors

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Feb 6, 2024 8:37 PM CST

NVIDIA mandated before the release of its new GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER that all custom AIB models would exclusively use the 16-pin "12VHPWR" power connector and NOT use regular 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

Palit GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER PCB: there's room for two regular 8-pin PCIe power connectors

Well... it looks like RTX 4080 SUPER graphics cards with dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors could hopefully be something we see in the near future. Palit's new GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER GamingPro OC graphics card has space for dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors, reports Japanese reviewer Jisakuhibi.

This isn't the first appearance of a new GeForce RTX 40 SUPER graphics card with dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors, as the MaxSun GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER was spotted -- then deleted -- from their website. NVIDIA would've flipped the ban hammer on that thing so fast, but what about Palit? Hmm.

Continue reading: Palit GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER PCB: there's room for two regular 8-pin PCIe power connectors (full post)

TEAMGROUP PD20M Magnetic External SSD connects and sticks to your smartphone

Kosta Andreadis | Storage | Feb 6, 2024 8:01 PM CST

TEAMGROUP's latest external storage solution is the new TEAMGROUP PD20M Magnetic External SSD, a thin and lightweight unit designed to be taken on the go with the ability to snap onto a mobile device. Weighing in at a featherweight 40 grams and a thickness of just 0.82 cm, it's a portable SSD that attaches to a smartphone.

TEAMGROUP PD20M Magnetic External SSD connects and sticks to your smartphone

And it's MagSafe-compatible, which is great to see - snap it on, and you're good to go. TEAMGROUP says it's "one of the lightest and thinnest MagSafe-related products on the market," easy to grip, and comfortable to hold.

The PD20M Magnetic External SSD includes a USB Type-C interface with TEAMGROUP confirming in the announcement that it's compatible with the latest Apple iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max smartphones - with up to 10 Gbps transfer speeds.

Continue reading: TEAMGROUP PD20M Magnetic External SSD connects and sticks to your smartphone (full post)