NVIDIA is planning its second R&D center in Taiwan, with new reports suggesting that Team Green is looking at the southern city of Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

The new R&D center will be partly financed by the Taiwanese government and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and its "Big+ Project" subsidies. In a new report from Ctee, we're learning that with AI leading the charge, the Ministry of Economic Affairs' "Leading Enterprise R&D Deepening Plan" (aka Big+) will encourage overseas tech companies to set up forward-looking R&D centers in Taiwan.

NVIDIA was first with the Big+ funding, setting up the first AI innovation R&D center in Neihu, Taipei, then completing its supercomputer (HPC) at the NVIDIA building in Kaohsiung Software Park towards the end of 2023, with the company providing part of the computing power for new applications and the development of AI-powered products and services.

Samsung Electronics teamed with Naver to make its next-gen Mach-1 AI accelerator, but it seems that the two South Korean companies are experiencing "discord" according to reports.

In a new report from Chosun, we're learning that the executive officer of Naver Cloud, who is leading the Mach-1 AI accelerator project, from his own personal social media. Lee Dong-soo, CEO of Naver Cloud, said: "It was Naver who proposed to create Mach-1 first and planned its development, but now I don't even see Naver's name mentioned. I don't know how to understand this".

As for Mach-1, it's a new AI semiconductor that doesn't require HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) which is a big change to AMD and NVIDIA's various AI accelerators and AI GPUs that use the ultra-fast HBM memory standard. Mach-1 is expected to both be cheaper and more energy efficient, which makes it perfect for AI startups that require AI hardware.

Microsoft has announced that DirectSR is now available via the Agility SDK 1.714.0-preview release for game developers working with DirectX 12. Microsoft partnered with AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA to create this new API, allowing developers to integrate all the various upscaling technologies into their games.

This includes AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), Intel XeSS, and NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution. "These cutting-edge solutions elevate the gaming experience by boosting frame rates while maintaining exceptional visual quality," Microsoft's Joshua Tucker writes in the announcement. "Yet as the number of SR variants continues to grow, developers are in search of a common SR API that will seamlessly scale across the hardware ecosystem."

DirectSR breaks upscaling down to a common set of inputs and outputs so that a "single code path" can then plug straight into DLSS, FSR, and XeSS. With DirectSR, more PC game releases will support all three technologies at launch. It's a standalone solution that doesn't require "vendor-specific SDKs" or additional tools.

Sabrent's new USB Type-C 6-Port Docking Station with M.2 Port (the DS-SDNV) is currently on sale, with the company dropping $10 off its price, with a limited time deal of just $69.99.

The new Sabrent USB Type-C 6-Port Docking Station with M.2 Port (DS-SDNV) is perfect for the Steam Deck, with the useful and stylish docking station providing connectivity to your Valve Steam Deck, ASUS ROG Ally, or other compliant USB-C devices.

It allows connectivity of up to 1000Mbps through your network, faster storage through an internal M.2 SSD slot with 5Gbps transfer speeds, multiple USB ports, and display output to 4K 60Hz in extended, or mirror mode. The Sabrent USB Type-C 6-Port Docking Station with M.2 Port (the DS-SDNV) works with Windows, Linux, and macOS, but also other USB-C devices with DisplayPort Alternative (DP Alt) mode supporting output through HDMI 2.0 (HDCP 1.4).

AMD will be spending over 5 billion yuan ($155 million USD or so) on a second R&D center in Taiwan, with both Tainan and Kaohsiung "actively seeking" AMD's favor to settle down.

In a new report from news outlet UDN, AMD CEO Lisa Su will visit Tainan next week, as well as visiting Nanke and Sharon to look for suitable places for its new R&D center. It's not just AMD that is eyeing off another R&D center in Taiwan, with GPU competitor NVIDIA also building a new R&D center in the country.

Both companies have applied to the Ministry of Economic Affairs' and its "Big+ Project" subsidy, with local governments rubbing their hands together with glee that NVIDIA and AMD are opening up new R&D centers in the country, especially in the southern parts of Taiwan.

A Chinese national who worked for SK hynix is currently on trial for allegedly stealing key semiconductor technology from the South Korean memory giant, giving it to Chinese company Huawei.

In the report, The Korea Times reports that the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police that a woman in her 30s, a Chinese national, was sent to prosecutors last month on the suspicion of violating the Act on Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology.

The Chinese national who worked for SK hynix was hired all the way back in 2013, working in the department that handled analyzing defects in semiconductor designs. From 2020 to 2022, she was involved with consultations with business-to-business clients in CHina, according to the police agency.

Windows 11 is continually evolving, and that doesn't just mean adding new features (AI, more AI, and, oh yes, yet more AI) but also taking some away.

With every major release, certain features get the chop, and with the 24H2 update now in the final stretch of testing, Sweclokers (via PC Gamer) picked up on what's been ditched in the preview build which is the release candidate for this upgrade.

In the 24H2 update, we are waving goodbye to WordPad, and as you may recall, that was previously announced - as were all these revelations (this is just final confirmation that they're being removed from Windows 11, essentially).

Since the release of the RTX 3090/Ti and RTX 4090 graphics cards have seemingly been getting bigger and bigger, with both of the aforementioned GPUs taking up three slots on a motherboard.

The idea behind making graphics cards larger is simply for cooling, as the GPUs become more sophisticated and provide more compute performance, more power is required. And when more power is required more cooling is required to thermal regulation. With the release of the RTX 3090 and RTX 4090 we were seemingly taking on a trajectory of bigger and bigger graphics cards with each new generation. But that might not be the case.

Renowned GPU leaker @Kopite7kimi recently took to Twitter and gave some information regarding NVIDIA's Blackwell gaming GPUs expected to launch sometime later this year. According to the leaker NVIDIA will be moving backwards in terms of size, with the company purportedly opting for a dual-slot, dual-fan solution over a three-slot solution. Notably, NVIDIA hasn't released a dual-slot GPu since the RTX 2080 Ti in 2019.

Activision has solidified itself with another victory in an ongoing legal battle against a creator of Call of Duty cheats, which it then sold on a website.

The company sued EngineOwning back in 2022 and since then has been engaged in a legal battle over the cheats the entity made and then sold on its website. Notably, District Judge Michael Fitzgerald ordered several defendants to pay Activision, including EngineOwning, which was ordered to pay $14,465,600 for creating and distributing Call of Duty cheats. Furthermore, the cheat maker was ordered to give its website to Activision, stop creating cheats, stop selling cheats, and pay nearly $300,000 in attorney fees to Activision.

Notably, Activision has already won $3 million in a two settlements from Ignacio Gayduchenko and Manuel Santiago, who are reportedly involved with EngineOwning. As for the most recent orders, the court filings name the founders of EngineOwning, Valetin Rick, and Leon Risch, along with several others that were also involved in the operation.

Windows 10 is easily Microsoft's most-popular operating system, accounting for more than 70% of all Windows users, but what are the chances that all of those millions of Windows 10 users know the truth about the classic default background for the operating system. I would guess, very little of them do.

The release of Windows 10 came at a time when users were making their way through the trainwreck that was Windows 8, which even pushed many users back to Windows 7 - a renowned operating system. Windows 10 was a breathe of fresh air when it released and that is part of the reason why its still Microsoft's most-popular operating system.

All of these Windows 10 systems had at one stage or another, the classic Windows 10 default background wallpaper that many - and I would guess more than 90% - thought was a simple computer generated image. However, that isn't the case. The Windows 10 default wallpaper is actually a real photograph and the process to capture it was quite lengthy. First the team behind the image arranged a laser projector behind a large Windows 10 logo. The lasers were fired through the windows while volumetric smoke was released.