Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: Extreme Tech- Hardware and Software

Friday, April 17, 2015

Computing

US regulators may scuttle Time Warner Cable-Comcast merger April 17, 2015 at 4:05 pm

The Comcast/Time Warner merger may not happen after all. New information suggests the government will block the deal on the basis of potential harm to consumers.
Leaked Sony emails show MPAA’s opposition to fair use, confirms users are viewed as thievesApril 17, 2015 at 3:55 pm

The MPAA has often claimed it favored free use despite operating more like a mustachioed villain from an old movie serial. Documents from the Sony leak show otherwise.
AMD takes a beating in Q1, abandons SeaMicro, dense server business April 17, 2015 at 8:35 am

AMD’s quarterly results for Q1 are in, and it’s an ugly situation overall. The company’s revenue has taken a hammering over the past 12 months, and its core GPU and CPU markets are the worst affected.
Split loyalties: Apple may pull back from Samsung chip deal due to low yieldsApril 16, 2015 at 3:13 pm

A new rumor suggests that Apple has pulled back 30% of its A9 orders from Samsung, opting instead to take the design to TSMC. That’s a huge blow, if true — but the timeline is hard to square with Apple’s traditional launch cycles.
Xbox One vs. PS4: How the hardware specs compare (updated for 2015) April 16, 2015 at 2:05 pm

How do the PS4 and Xbox One compare with each other in 2015? If you’re thinking about buying one of these two consoles–or just want ammunition for bragging rights–here’s what you need to know.
Moore’s Law is dead, long live Moore’s LawApril 16, 2015 at 11:23 am

Moore’s Law is dead. Moore’s Law is very much alive. As the nature of computing has changed over the past 50 years, the promises and potential of the semiconductor industry have changed as well.
Apple’s LinX purchase: DSLR-killer or just long-term planning? April 16, 2015 at 9:46 am

Array cameras aren’t new, but now that Apple has bought an Israeli startup specializing in the technology, speculation about them is running rampant. What’s the real story?
Backblaze pulls 3TB Seagate HDDs from service, details post-mortem failure rates April 16, 2015 at 8:45 am

Backblaze has published a new data set demonstrating how poorly one model of Seagate HDD performed in its tests — and why it decided to cut that drive altogether.
New Samsung 840 Evo firmware will add ‘periodic refresh’ capability April 15, 2015 at 4:30 pm

Samsung’s upcoming fix for the 840 Evo is being prepped, but we now more about what it entails. The drive will periodically refresh data to prevent performance degradation.