Chinese tech firms are reportedly using a rental loophole to get around US export bans on advanced AI chips. A report claims Tencent secured access to Nvidia's newest Blackwell processors, including the B200 and B300 models, through a Japanese cloud provider named Datasection. The arrangement, valued at over a billion dollars, involves renting computing power from servers located outside China, primarily in Japan and Australia.
This model is becoming a preferred workaround for companies like Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu. Analysts note that renting this foreign computing capacity provides significantly more power than the downgraded Nvidia hardware they are permitted to purchase directly within China. Even the available Hopper...
Scammers are now pushing fake DDR5 memory kits through major online retailers like Amazon. A user on a PC building subreddit discovered this after buying what was advertised as a Corsair Vengeance DDR5 kit. The modules physically would not fit into his motherboard, which was the first red flag.
Upon closer inspection, the notch on the connector was in the wrong position for a DDR5 stick, matching the older DDR4 standard instead. After removing the heatsink, he found an unbranded and unknown RAM module underneath. This suggests someone earlier in the supply chain swapped the real components, then resealed the packaging with inferior parts inside. This follows a pattern of similar scams involving fake graphics cards and processors that...
Multiple leaks now suggest Samsung's Galaxy S26 series will hit stores much later than usual. Reliable sources indicate an official unveiling at a February Unpacked event in the United States, with actual sales not starting until March. This schedule would miss the key Chinese New Year sales period in February, a notable shift from their typical launch rhythm.
The phones themselves appear to be evolutionary updates. The standard S26 model might get a slightly larger display, while the S26 Ultra is expected to be thinner with more rounded edges and a larger front camera cutout. All models are slated to bring improved iPhone-level wireless charging speeds and the return of distinct rear camera islands. The Ultra variant will supposedly...
That whole Battlefront II launch disaster with the loot boxes is still legendary. EA's official response on Reddit about earning a sense of pride and accomplishment got absolutely nuked with downvotes, a record holder. They yanked the pay-to-win stuff at the last second, but the damage was done. It's a shame because the actual game was solid, and DICE kept updating it for years after.
That's where this KYBER thing comes in. It's a total replacement for the dead official servers on PC, a custom platform run by fans. It just hit open beta after four years of work. This mod launcher sets up player-run dedicated servers with custom rules, full mod support, and a server browser that the original game never had. They even added proximity...
Samsung just made a major hire for its chip division, bringing on former AMD executive John Rayfield. He is now the Senior Vice President of the Samsung Austin Research Center and the Advanced Computing Lab. This move signals a clear push to revitalize their Exynos processor lineup, with Rayfield tasked to oversee innovation in GPU design, architecture, and other silicon fundamentals.
Rayfield stated that the teams at these divisions have already reached console-quality graphics on mobile platforms through GPU enhancements. He specifically praised the Xclipse 960 GPU in the new Exynos 2600, which Samsung claims offers a fifty percent ray tracing improvement over its predecessor and uses a proprietary upscaling tech called ENSS...
Two new Intel Panther Lake processors just popped up on Geekbench, the Core Ultra 5 335 and 325. These are the regular non-H series chips aimed at thinner laptops, sitting in a higher power range than the current Lunar Lake parts. Both are eight-core chips using a mix of four performance cores and four low-power efficiency cores, lacking the standard E-cores entirely. They look like the direct follow-ups to the Ultra 200V lineup.
The benchmark listings, spotted in a Dynabook laptop, show similar performance between the two models. The Ultra 5 335 hit around 1991 in single-core and 9527 in multi-core tests on Geekbench 5.5.1, while the 325 scored roughly 1923 and 9397. These numbers are basically meaningless for comparison, though...
Apple might be kicking off mass production for its 2026 iPhones way earlier than usual, according to online leaks. The rumor, from a source on Weibo, suggests testing for iPhone 18 production lines is imminent, with full-scale manufacturing potentially starting before the Lunar New Year in February. The reported reason for this accelerated timeline is a lack of major external design changes from the upcoming iPhone 17 series, simplifying the process.
The whispers indicate the 2026 flagship models could be the first to feature a fully integrated in-screen Face ID system, eliminating the need for a front-facing camera cutout. While design alterations may be minimal, previous speculation mentioned a possible shift to a slightly...
A company called Gooey just dropped a new plugin called Next, built for rhythmically slicing samples and loops. This thing is basically a pattern-based gate sequencer with an internal ADSR for super precise trance-gated effects, like those chopped vocal lines from classic dance tracks.
It packs eight sequences, each with thirty-two steps for amplitude and panning. You also get a per-sequence filter, a mixer for the patterns, swing control, and different playback modes, including triplets. They included more than fifty presets, ranging from vintage trance gates to modern dotted rhythms. It's designed to hook right into your DAW's automation, letting you jump between different patterns on the fly.
They have a walkthrough video up. The...
That Yamaha CS-80 synth is basically a unicorn at this point, a dream machine way too pricey for most. Back in the nineties, you could maybe grab one for a few hundred bucks, but now forget it. Sure, you can get a plugin, but it’s never the same as tweaking the real deal.
That’s where this new PM-80 controller comes in, from a company called GLT Audio. They're basically building a dedicated MIDI box that mimics the original synth's famous control panel. It's packed with seventy-five faders and a ribbon controller, aiming to copy that hands-on feel. They tweaked a few things for practicality, like swapping the original organ-style levers for faders and skipping the detents. There's also an extra toggle for modern plugin features. They...
