The Meta Name Change: A Blow to Gamers?

As gamers, we've grown accustomed to certain names and brands in the tech industry. One such brand that has been a staple for many enthusiasts is Crucial's Ballistix line of RAM. However, in a shocking move, Crucial recently announced that they have discontinued their popular Ballistix Ballistics and Ballistix Max RGB lineup. This news comes as a surprise to many, especially given the popularity of these products over the past few months.

The discontinuation of the Ballistix Ballistics line has left many enthusiasts wondering what's next for Crucial. While the company will continue to produce memory and other products, it appears that their focus has shifted away from this particular brand. This change may impact those who were looking for a viable alternative to Samsung-based RAM. It's a shame, really, as the Ballistix line was known for its high-quality products and affordability.

Bionic Implants: A Cautionary Tale

In more pressing news, there's been a dark development in the world of medical technology. Bionic implants, which were once touted as revolutionary advancements in vision rehab, have turned out to be flawed and unreliable. Several hundred people who received these implants from a company called Second Sight, which has been in business since 2004, are now facing a difficult reality.

Troubles began to surface in 2020 when the company let go its entire vision rehab therapist staff. This move was met with concern by many, as therapists play a crucial role in helping patients adjust to their new implants. Now, Second Sight is on the brink of bankruptcy and has stopped supporting former patients. The implants themselves are also prone to failure, leaving those who received them without the sight they had regained.

The Fallout: Newegg Visit

Meanwhile, Steve from Gamers Nexus left the tech community in suspense this week with a surprise visit to embattled online retailer Newegg. After meeting with the executive team, Steve emerged with some positive news – Newegg has made revisions to their return policy and handling of open box items. This change is expected to make it easier for customers to get refunds or exchanges for faulty products.

Steve also announced that he's working on a video interview with the executive team, which may have already been posted by the time you read this article. On behalf of the community, Steve has been vocal about his concerns regarding Newegg's return policy and customer support in the past. His efforts to bring attention to these issues have helped make a tangible difference for customers.

A Farewell to Dr. Ian Cutress

In other news, esteemed tech journalist Dr. Ian Cutress has announced that he'll be departing AnandTech. The long-time contributor to the site has written a heartfelt goodbye letter to the community, expressing his gratitude for the opportunity to work with such a talented team. While Cutress won't be continuing at AnandTech full-time, he's set to join forces with tech YouTuber Linus Sebastian on his popular show.

A Change in Plans: Computex 2022

Unfortunately, it seems that Computex 2022 – one of the most anticipated tech conferences of the year – may not be happening as planned. The Taiwanese government has recently relaxed its quarantine protocols, allowing visitors to leave their hotels after just 10 days. However, this change comes with a caveat: the convention is now expected to take place in October or November, when temperatures are milder and it's less likely to feel like an overheating sauna.

For those who were looking forward to attending Computex this year, the news may be disappointing. While some conferences have been rescheduled for later dates due to various reasons, it seems that Computex will have to wait until next year. As always, we'll keep you updated on any developments regarding Computex 2022.

The Community Thanks You

As always, I want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you liked this article, please consider liking it or leaving a comment below. Your feedback is invaluable in helping me create content that resonates with the tech-savvy community. And if you're interested in checking out my store at Paul's Hardware dot net, I've got some great merchandise available – from t-shirts to hoodies and beer sets.

Finally, if you haven't subscribed to this channel yet, I highly recommend it. Your support means the world to me, and I promise to continue bringing you high-quality content on all things tech-related.

Thanks again for your attention, and we'll see you next week!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome back to paul's tech news you know some weeks i just don't want to do the tech news i actively collude with all the companies people and primal forces of nature to ensure that nothing of note happens so we can just take a week off and maybe talk about that new star wars the older public trailer or how nice it is to have an open schedule but despite my best efforts tech news still happened this week with intel cagely pushing back on their arc gpu promises amd imbuing their ceo lisa sue with god-like power and authority and moderately interesting product launches from corsair cooler master and evga so let it never be said that i do not follow through on my commitments because just like life the tech news finds a way but do note that i'm all out of puns that rely on sexual innuendo i kind of shot my load with those last week except for that one excellent today's video is brought to you by lexar ssds and memory kits if you're looking to upgrade your gaming pc drop a lexar nm 620 nvme ssd into your motherboard's m.2 2280 slot up to two terabyte capacities are available and the pcie gen 3x4 interface allows for up to 3 300 megabytes per second reads and 3000 megabytes per second rights or try a lexar hades rgb ddr4 memory kit available in 3200 or 3600 speed with xmp 2.0 support vibrant rgb lighting and a smooth and stylish design controllable by most motherboard rgb software too for more on lexar hades memory or the nm620 ssd click the sponsor link in the video description intel had a lot going on once again this week with their investor and analyst today taking place on thursday where they shared a bunch of info about their current and upcoming plans and strategies and even that was all after tuesday's announcement that they would be acquiring the israel-based specialty foundry company tower semiconductor and a 5.4 billion deal that has received board approval from both companies but still needs to go ahead from stockholders and regulators the investor meeting thursday then covered everything from data center and ai to foundry services and networking but the most significant takeaway for pc building enthusiasts is probably what intel said or didn't say about their arc gpus that we're all waiting for with baited breath the short version is that the first round of arc alchemist gpus are still coming in q1 but only to laptops and mobile devices discrete desktop gpus are now expected in q2 which pushes the launch by as much as three months as indicated by videocards.com's sad face tweet here the sad face is implicit also i believe that's supposed to be a strikethrough and you might have heard intel reps crowing about shipping 4 million arc gpus soon but that has been clarified too 4ml is the total number for all of 2022 including mobile and desktop variants which only represents about a 10 increase if you compare 2021 add-in board numbers across the industry as pointed out by anand tech editor-in-chief ryan smith and again that's comparing industry-wide desktop add-in board sales with intel's 4 million gpu claim which also includes mobile gpus so color me disappointed and no raja kaduri showing off another demo to prove to us that hey arc gpus actually work here's one running shadow of the tomb raider from 2018 with xcss enabled is just not very exciting since they already pretty much did that at ces guys we believe you that you have functional arc gpus right now it would be a big big problem if you did not we just want you to launch them and yes we do understand on some level that these things take time but we're going by your promises which were originally that we'd have arc gpus by q4 2021 if you recall apart from that though there was also some good info like the confirmation of meteor lake aero lake and lunar lake cpus in development coming in 2023 and 2024 is that a plus 2024 plus intel we don't like pluses anymore they remind us of the 14 nanometer plus plus plus quagmire that you just recently crawled out of oh and they also confirmed raptor lake cpus with up to 24 cores and 32 threads just like the leaks in the past one to two months predicted what might also have been predicted is intel's stock slipping by about five to six percent after the investor day news was posted not because the markets are also disappointed by the arc gpu delay but because intel is in investment mode right now buying and building out foundries which means it will take some time before team blue starts to churn out those profits once again meanwhile amd is congratulating themselves for finally beating intel once and for all by passing them in market cap for the first time ever team red hit 197.75 billion at the close of market on tuesday compared to intel's 197.24 billion pathetic and sure the reason might be because amd closed the deal on their xilinx acquisition which converted a bunch of xilinx shares to amd ones 428 million of them to be specific meaning that there are now 1.6 billion shares of amd instead of 1.2 billion but it just goes to show how sensible and realistic the stock market actually is when on one hand amd's 2021 revenue was 16.4 billion versus intel's which was 79 billion intel still controls 75 of the x86 cpu market and intel owns multiple fabs while amd outsources their chip designs but on the other hand market cap though guys amd is just worth more as a company to be fair amd has had a remarkable turnaround in the last six years and i think it's safe to say that their success has been good for consumers who are getting tired of intel running the show amd ceo dr lisa sue has led that charge and to reward her efforts she has now also been granted the role of chair of the board of amd providing her with more authority and influence within the company as well as the ability to transform into a being of pure energy at will it will take a while to announce her arrival at formal events now though dr lisa sue first of her name queen of the andals and the rhoynar and the first men protector of the seven kingdoms the mother of dragons khaleesi of the great grass sea the unburnt breaker of chains ceo and chair of the board at amd and careful holder of newly announced silicon and then there's nvidia who we haven't heard much from lately but maybe that's because they're just too busy counting their money finance reports came out wednesday for team green and to all of our surprises they made lots of money again hitting record quarterly and fiscal year revenue numbers that were up 50 to 60 percent including 26.91 billion dollars for the fiscal year 2022 up 61 and likely the reason they felt so cozy that they could just completely miss on their promise to tell us more about the rtx 3090 ti which they promised at ces and then just never followed up on well they did finally in an interview with the verge where nvidia spokesperson jen anderson gave us the juicy details that we've been waiting for we don't currently have more info to share on the rtx 3090 ti but we'll be in touch when we do said anderson flipping everyone the bird as she strutted out of the building and hopped into her top-down convertible giving a knowing look to the supermodel chad and the passenger seat and peeling out in the parking lot blasting come on feel the noise while laughing maniacally like a preppy villain from an early 90s coming-of-age movie metaphorically speaking of course valve is keeping the news cycle fed leading up to the february 25th launch of their steam deck but they can be maybe forgiven as they keep making suspiciously consumer-friendly decisions such as last week's publishing of cad files for the device so 3d printed accessories and other mods could be more easily contrived now they're going all in with the announcement of replacement parts official components from the manufacturer that can be used to fix a broken or damaged steam deck something that iphone users are likely unfamiliar with as apple's policy in the same scenario is to provide a replacement phone right to repair advocates we'll be happy to hear that ifixit will be an authorized seller of steam deck and valve index vr headset replacement parts that's one of the authorized sellers so good that they're not granting ifixit and exclusive as the whole point is to have choices and options for how you go about getting your technology fixed to encourage reuse rather than dropping problem devices into the nearest landfill ifixit has a full steam deck teardown video if you're interested but be warned they might be tearing down your apprehensions about getting down and dirty with tech repair at the same time how alluring and now i present to you a new segment about new that was announced this week that maybe you want to buy starting with corsair who launched the lc100 tuesday little triangles of rgb lighting eerily similar to those nanoleaf rgb wall decorations from a different company but small and cute so they can fit inside your computer each set comes with nine triangles and you can use two sets together for up to 18 triangles and they have magnets too that's super fun alienware announced their 34 34-inch qd oled monitor at ces last month model aw3423dw which would be one of the first quantum dot oleds on the market and many assumed it would be very pricey too but no it's not at least not as bad as it could be with thirteen hundred dollars being the asking price for the ultra wide 3440x1440 display with a 175 hertz refresh rate over displayport since hdmi 2.1 isn't included but it does have g-sync support too thirteen hundred dollars is still a lot of money of course but it's arguably competitive given the feature set and the newly introduced panel technology cooler master launched a new case this week as well the half 700 evo which is impressive and unique due to its size rgb accents across the front and the little integrated lcd panel but it costs five hundred dollars too which is steep for a case no matter how many rgb leds are included nada over at tech testers posted an excellent launch review of the case it's linked in the description so feel free to check it out in full but the verdict is as you might assume it's a unique design that may or may not appeal to you it's huge so it's a joy to build in and it's feature packed as you might expect but it's also 500 freaking dollars so it's hard to recommend when there are so many excellent cases in the 150 to 250 range but at least they didn't try to call it the master half evga announced what will presumably be their highest end motherboard with the z690 chipset late thursday night the z690 dark kingpin with a 21 phase vrm and 10 layer pcb support for up to 64 gigabytes of ddr5 memory at up to 6600 speed pcie gen 5 of course and what appears to be most of a gpu cooler fin stack embedded in the lower half of the board it looks meaty and substantial and likely this board will break some overclocking records in the near future but given that msi's meg godlike board from last week will sell for over 2 grand how much will this thing cost oh it's only 830 dollars that is still way too much for a motherboard finally here's some news for anyone agonizing over ddr5 prices and whether or not it's worth the upgrade cost according to ee times next generation ddr6 memory will arrive in late 2024 or early 2025 and while the new standard will theoretically double data transfer speeds yet again a three or four year delay between cycles seems just a bit short given that ddr4 was the standard for a good seven or eight years allowing more flexibility with upgrades along the way but i guess the memory market is known to be volatile volatile speaking of volatility it's time for tech briefs where news prices rise and fall at a dizzying pace due to high frequency trading windows 11 was almost barely on the verge of more widespread acceptance but now we're hearing of new microsoft shenanigans windows 11 pro might soon require an internet connection and a microsoft account during initial setup and installation that sucks microsoft has been pushing people towards using microsoft accounts more and more in recent years because they can then monitor how you use your computer and sell that data for their own profit local accounts have been my go to for a long time and i will continue to champion them i just hope there's enough pushback on this that microsoft chooses not to go through with the decision it's just in the testing phase for now the united states fcc voted this week to adopt new rules for internet service in apartment buildings basically internet service providers would often collude with apartment building management to only allow one isp to provide service to residents allowing the provider to charge higher rates due to a lack of competition the isp would then share those profits with the landlord and everybody wins except all the people who live in the building the new rules approved with a 4-0 vote prohibit broadband providers from entering into those agreements and requires owners to tell tenants if their building has an exclusive marketing arrangement already good news for the roughly one-third of us residents who currently live in apartments facebook or meta as the company is now known shared some new corporate values with employees tuesday and one of them is the mantra meta metamates me and while one might assume that this is just normal corporate speak in 2022 with the implication being that your company and your co-workers priorities should be placed above your own the glaring standout is the word metamates which is i guess what meta employees are called now the internet was quick to extend this nomenclature to other brands so by the metamates standard amazon prime employees will now be known as primates playstation devs will be called playmates and linkedin staff will of course be inmates at least the employee name change happened after the meta name change though as it would really suck to be called a face mate micron long time manufacturer of memory and stuff inexplicably decided to kill off their popular crucial ballistics line of gaming ram wednesday announcing in a press release that they have discontinued the ballistics ballistics max and ballistix max rgb lineups this does somewhat explain why there were no ballistics ddr5 announcements and crucial will continue to produce memory and other products but without the ballistics enthusiast sub brand that many saw as a very viable alternative to samsung based ram that's out there so rip ballistics and thanks for those ddr4 blowout sales over the past few months bionic implants sure do sound exciting but here's a dark downside to consider technology is usually developed by private companies so what if the company that built your implant goes belly up that scenario has become a reality for about 350 people who got retinal implants from a company called seconds site that started up in 2004. troubles began to surface in 2020 when the business let their entire vision rehab therapist staff go and now they are on the brink of bankruptcy and have stopped supporting former patients working implants will eventually fail and in many cases already have meaning the patient loses whatever amount of visibility the technology had granted them and the implants are both expensive to remove and can conflict with medical procedures like mris second site didn't even bother to contact their former customers about shutting down either many only learned when their implants failed and they were unable to have them repaired it's a cautionary tale about the overlap between technology science and business but our hearts go out to the victims who were quite literally left in the dark gamers nexus left the tech world in a state of heightened suspense this week as steve announced an in-person visit to embattled industry e-tailer newegg and then went silent for a few days he was just traveling to be fair and just when the internet had decided that newegg must have either assaulted him with lawyers or attacked dogs or actual eggs to keep him quiet steve emerged with an announcement that he met with the executive team and some positive things were already happening as a result nueg has stated further revisions to their return policy and handling of open box items hassle-free they say and steve has a video in the works with that interview that might have already been posted by the time you watch this i will link it if it's available and on behalf of myself and others just wanted to say thank you to steve for hitting this so hard on behalf of the community for anyone with an outstanding problem or formerly rejected rma there's a dedicated email address returns.issue at newegg.com for you to get in touch with now to hopefully get you some help and resolution and great big shout outs to dr ian cutress who announced friday that he is departing anandtech the long-time much-respected tech media outlet originally founded by anand shippy and now headed up by editor-in-chief ryan smith ian wrote a heartfelt goodbye letter to the community and he promises he will be moving on to a new role that we may find out about sometime soon probably going full time on the tech tech potato youtube channel if he knows what's good for him but thanks for all your work at anantec ian and best of luck in your future endeavors one of my future endeavors was supposed to be computex this year as i discussed briefly with linus on the wan show last week computex 2022 is scheduled for may 24th to 27th but things are not looking good for the likes of myself linus and crew or any of the regular tech youtube channels that you might watch taiwan just recently relaxed their kobe quarantine protocols so now you only have to sit in a hotel for 10 days after arrival before you can move about the country yeah it was even more strict before that and as much as i like computex and taiwan and taipei it's hard to justify that much downtime for a few days at a tech conference i'm still hoping that the quarantine time may be further reduced or that the convention might be rescheduled for later in the year like maybe in october or november when being outside in taipei doesn't feel like the ass end of an overheating sauna we'll have to wait and see but there you have it guys tech news for the week and if you liked it click the like button let me know you can also let me know other things by leaving me a comment down below which is always appreciated while you're down there all the articles i talked about today are linked in the description if you're interested and check out my store at paul's hardware dot net for high quality merch t-shirts hoodies beer sets and more and if you're not subscribed i highly recommend it thanks again everyone and we'll see you next weekwelcome back to paul's tech news you know some weeks i just don't want to do the tech news i actively collude with all the companies people and primal forces of nature to ensure that nothing of note happens so we can just take a week off and maybe talk about that new star wars the older public trailer or how nice it is to have an open schedule but despite my best efforts tech news still happened this week with intel cagely pushing back on their arc gpu promises amd imbuing their ceo lisa sue with god-like power and authority and moderately interesting product launches from corsair cooler master and evga so let it never be said that i do not follow through on my commitments because just like life the tech news finds a way but do note that i'm all out of puns that rely on sexual innuendo i kind of shot my load with those last week except for that one excellent today's video is brought to you by lexar ssds and memory kits if you're looking to upgrade your gaming pc drop a lexar nm 620 nvme ssd into your motherboard's m.2 2280 slot up to two terabyte capacities are available and the pcie gen 3x4 interface allows for up to 3 300 megabytes per second reads and 3000 megabytes per second rights or try a lexar hades rgb ddr4 memory kit available in 3200 or 3600 speed with xmp 2.0 support vibrant rgb lighting and a smooth and stylish design controllable by most motherboard rgb software too for more on lexar hades memory or the nm620 ssd click the sponsor link in the video description intel had a lot going on once again this week with their investor and analyst today taking place on thursday where they shared a bunch of info about their current and upcoming plans and strategies and even that was all after tuesday's announcement that they would be acquiring the israel-based specialty foundry company tower semiconductor and a 5.4 billion deal that has received board approval from both companies but still needs to go ahead from stockholders and regulators the investor meeting thursday then covered everything from data center and ai to foundry services and networking but the most significant takeaway for pc building enthusiasts is probably what intel said or didn't say about their arc gpus that we're all waiting for with baited breath the short version is that the first round of arc alchemist gpus are still coming in q1 but only to laptops and mobile devices discrete desktop gpus are now expected in q2 which pushes the launch by as much as three months as indicated by videocards.com's sad face tweet here the sad face is implicit also i believe that's supposed to be a strikethrough and you might have heard intel reps crowing about shipping 4 million arc gpus soon but that has been clarified too 4ml is the total number for all of 2022 including mobile and desktop variants which only represents about a 10 increase if you compare 2021 add-in board numbers across the industry as pointed out by anand tech editor-in-chief ryan smith and again that's comparing industry-wide desktop add-in board sales with intel's 4 million gpu claim which also includes mobile gpus so color me disappointed and no raja kaduri showing off another demo to prove to us that hey arc gpus actually work here's one running shadow of the tomb raider from 2018 with xcss enabled is just not very exciting since they already pretty much did that at ces guys we believe you that you have functional arc gpus right now it would be a big big problem if you did not we just want you to launch them and yes we do understand on some level that these things take time but we're going by your promises which were originally that we'd have arc gpus by q4 2021 if you recall apart from that though there was also some good info like the confirmation of meteor lake aero lake and lunar lake cpus in development coming in 2023 and 2024 is that a plus 2024 plus intel we don't like pluses anymore they remind us of the 14 nanometer plus plus plus quagmire that you just recently crawled out of oh and they also confirmed raptor lake cpus with up to 24 cores and 32 threads just like the leaks in the past one to two months predicted what might also have been predicted is intel's stock slipping by about five to six percent after the investor day news was posted not because the markets are also disappointed by the arc gpu delay but because intel is in investment mode right now buying and building out foundries which means it will take some time before team blue starts to churn out those profits once again meanwhile amd is congratulating themselves for finally beating intel once and for all by passing them in market cap for the first time ever team red hit 197.75 billion at the close of market on tuesday compared to intel's 197.24 billion pathetic and sure the reason might be because amd closed the deal on their xilinx acquisition which converted a bunch of xilinx shares to amd ones 428 million of them to be specific meaning that there are now 1.6 billion shares of amd instead of 1.2 billion but it just goes to show how sensible and realistic the stock market actually is when on one hand amd's 2021 revenue was 16.4 billion versus intel's which was 79 billion intel still controls 75 of the x86 cpu market and intel owns multiple fabs while amd outsources their chip designs but on the other hand market cap though guys amd is just worth more as a company to be fair amd has had a remarkable turnaround in the last six years and i think it's safe to say that their success has been good for consumers who are getting tired of intel running the show amd ceo dr lisa sue has led that charge and to reward her efforts she has now also been granted the role of chair of the board of amd providing her with more authority and influence within the company as well as the ability to transform into a being of pure energy at will it will take a while to announce her arrival at formal events now though dr lisa sue first of her name queen of the andals and the rhoynar and the first men protector of the seven kingdoms the mother of dragons khaleesi of the great grass sea the unburnt breaker of chains ceo and chair of the board at amd and careful holder of newly announced silicon and then there's nvidia who we haven't heard much from lately but maybe that's because they're just too busy counting their money finance reports came out wednesday for team green and to all of our surprises they made lots of money again hitting record quarterly and fiscal year revenue numbers that were up 50 to 60 percent including 26.91 billion dollars for the fiscal year 2022 up 61 and likely the reason they felt so cozy that they could just completely miss on their promise to tell us more about the rtx 3090 ti which they promised at ces and then just never followed up on well they did finally in an interview with the verge where nvidia spokesperson jen anderson gave us the juicy details that we've been waiting for we don't currently have more info to share on the rtx 3090 ti but we'll be in touch when we do said anderson flipping everyone the bird as she strutted out of the building and hopped into her top-down convertible giving a knowing look to the supermodel chad and the passenger seat and peeling out in the parking lot blasting come on feel the noise while laughing maniacally like a preppy villain from an early 90s coming-of-age movie metaphorically speaking of course valve is keeping the news cycle fed leading up to the february 25th launch of their steam deck but they can be maybe forgiven as they keep making suspiciously consumer-friendly decisions such as last week's publishing of cad files for the device so 3d printed accessories and other mods could be more easily contrived now they're going all in with the announcement of replacement parts official components from the manufacturer that can be used to fix a broken or damaged steam deck something that iphone users are likely unfamiliar with as apple's policy in the same scenario is to provide a replacement phone right to repair advocates we'll be happy to hear that ifixit will be an authorized seller of steam deck and valve index vr headset replacement parts that's one of the authorized sellers so good that they're not granting ifixit and exclusive as the whole point is to have choices and options for how you go about getting your technology fixed to encourage reuse rather than dropping problem devices into the nearest landfill ifixit has a full steam deck teardown video if you're interested but be warned they might be tearing down your apprehensions about getting down and dirty with tech repair at the same time how alluring and now i present to you a new segment about new that was announced this week that maybe you want to buy starting with corsair who launched the lc100 tuesday little triangles of rgb lighting eerily similar to those nanoleaf rgb wall decorations from a different company but small and cute so they can fit inside your computer each set comes with nine triangles and you can use two sets together for up to 18 triangles and they have magnets too that's super fun alienware announced their 34 34-inch qd oled monitor at ces last month model aw3423dw which would be one of the first quantum dot oleds on the market and many assumed it would be very pricey too but no it's not at least not as bad as it could be with thirteen hundred dollars being the asking price for the ultra wide 3440x1440 display with a 175 hertz refresh rate over displayport since hdmi 2.1 isn't included but it does have g-sync support too thirteen hundred dollars is still a lot of money of course but it's arguably competitive given the feature set and the newly introduced panel technology cooler master launched a new case this week as well the half 700 evo which is impressive and unique due to its size rgb accents across the front and the little integrated lcd panel but it costs five hundred dollars too which is steep for a case no matter how many rgb leds are included nada over at tech testers posted an excellent launch review of the case it's linked in the description so feel free to check it out in full but the verdict is as you might assume it's a unique design that may or may not appeal to you it's huge so it's a joy to build in and it's feature packed as you might expect but it's also 500 freaking dollars so it's hard to recommend when there are so many excellent cases in the 150 to 250 range but at least they didn't try to call it the master half evga announced what will presumably be their highest end motherboard with the z690 chipset late thursday night the z690 dark kingpin with a 21 phase vrm and 10 layer pcb support for up to 64 gigabytes of ddr5 memory at up to 6600 speed pcie gen 5 of course and what appears to be most of a gpu cooler fin stack embedded in the lower half of the board it looks meaty and substantial and likely this board will break some overclocking records in the near future but given that msi's meg godlike board from last week will sell for over 2 grand how much will this thing cost oh it's only 830 dollars that is still way too much for a motherboard finally here's some news for anyone agonizing over ddr5 prices and whether or not it's worth the upgrade cost according to ee times next generation ddr6 memory will arrive in late 2024 or early 2025 and while the new standard will theoretically double data transfer speeds yet again a three or four year delay between cycles seems just a bit short given that ddr4 was the standard for a good seven or eight years allowing more flexibility with upgrades along the way but i guess the memory market is known to be volatile volatile speaking of volatility it's time for tech briefs where news prices rise and fall at a dizzying pace due to high frequency trading windows 11 was almost barely on the verge of more widespread acceptance but now we're hearing of new microsoft shenanigans windows 11 pro might soon require an internet connection and a microsoft account during initial setup and installation that sucks microsoft has been pushing people towards using microsoft accounts more and more in recent years because they can then monitor how you use your computer and sell that data for their own profit local accounts have been my go to for a long time and i will continue to champion them i just hope there's enough pushback on this that microsoft chooses not to go through with the decision it's just in the testing phase for now the united states fcc voted this week to adopt new rules for internet service in apartment buildings basically internet service providers would often collude with apartment building management to only allow one isp to provide service to residents allowing the provider to charge higher rates due to a lack of competition the isp would then share those profits with the landlord and everybody wins except all the people who live in the building the new rules approved with a 4-0 vote prohibit broadband providers from entering into those agreements and requires owners to tell tenants if their building has an exclusive marketing arrangement already good news for the roughly one-third of us residents who currently live in apartments facebook or meta as the company is now known shared some new corporate values with employees tuesday and one of them is the mantra meta metamates me and while one might assume that this is just normal corporate speak in 2022 with the implication being that your company and your co-workers priorities should be placed above your own the glaring standout is the word metamates which is i guess what meta employees are called now the internet was quick to extend this nomenclature to other brands so by the metamates standard amazon prime employees will now be known as primates playstation devs will be called playmates and linkedin staff will of course be inmates at least the employee name change happened after the meta name change though as it would really suck to be called a face mate micron long time manufacturer of memory and stuff inexplicably decided to kill off their popular crucial ballistics line of gaming ram wednesday announcing in a press release that they have discontinued the ballistics ballistics max and ballistix max rgb lineups this does somewhat explain why there were no ballistics ddr5 announcements and crucial will continue to produce memory and other products but without the ballistics enthusiast sub brand that many saw as a very viable alternative to samsung based ram that's out there so rip ballistics and thanks for those ddr4 blowout sales over the past few months bionic implants sure do sound exciting but here's a dark downside to consider technology is usually developed by private companies so what if the company that built your implant goes belly up that scenario has become a reality for about 350 people who got retinal implants from a company called seconds site that started up in 2004. troubles began to surface in 2020 when the business let their entire vision rehab therapist staff go and now they are on the brink of bankruptcy and have stopped supporting former patients working implants will eventually fail and in many cases already have meaning the patient loses whatever amount of visibility the technology had granted them and the implants are both expensive to remove and can conflict with medical procedures like mris second site didn't even bother to contact their former customers about shutting down either many only learned when their implants failed and they were unable to have them repaired it's a cautionary tale about the overlap between technology science and business but our hearts go out to the victims who were quite literally left in the dark gamers nexus left the tech world in a state of heightened suspense this week as steve announced an in-person visit to embattled industry e-tailer newegg and then went silent for a few days he was just traveling to be fair and just when the internet had decided that newegg must have either assaulted him with lawyers or attacked dogs or actual eggs to keep him quiet steve emerged with an announcement that he met with the executive team and some positive things were already happening as a result nueg has stated further revisions to their return policy and handling of open box items hassle-free they say and steve has a video in the works with that interview that might have already been posted by the time you watch this i will link it if it's available and on behalf of myself and others just wanted to say thank you to steve for hitting this so hard on behalf of the community for anyone with an outstanding problem or formerly rejected rma there's a dedicated email address returns.issue at newegg.com for you to get in touch with now to hopefully get you some help and resolution and great big shout outs to dr ian cutress who announced friday that he is departing anandtech the long-time much-respected tech media outlet originally founded by anand shippy and now headed up by editor-in-chief ryan smith ian wrote a heartfelt goodbye letter to the community and he promises he will be moving on to a new role that we may find out about sometime soon probably going full time on the tech tech potato youtube channel if he knows what's good for him but thanks for all your work at anantec ian and best of luck in your future endeavors one of my future endeavors was supposed to be computex this year as i discussed briefly with linus on the wan show last week computex 2022 is scheduled for may 24th to 27th but things are not looking good for the likes of myself linus and crew or any of the regular tech youtube channels that you might watch taiwan just recently relaxed their kobe quarantine protocols so now you only have to sit in a hotel for 10 days after arrival before you can move about the country yeah it was even more strict before that and as much as i like computex and taiwan and taipei it's hard to justify that much downtime for a few days at a tech conference i'm still hoping that the quarantine time may be further reduced or that the convention might be rescheduled for later in the year like maybe in october or november when being outside in taipei doesn't feel like the ass end of an overheating sauna we'll have to wait and see but there you have it guys tech news for the week and if you liked it click the like button let me know you can also let me know other things by leaving me a comment down below which is always appreciated while you're down there all the articles i talked about today are linked in the description if you're interested and check out my store at paul's hardware dot net for high quality merch t-shirts hoodies beer sets and more and if you're not subscribed i highly recommend it thanks again everyone and we'll see you next week\n"