Some dude on Reddit with an iPhone 16 Pro Max strapped a cooling setup to their phone and managed to beat the binned A19 Pro chip inside the iPhone Air in benchmark tests. The actively cooled A18 Pro pulled 3,630 single-core and 9,648 multi-core on Geekbench 6 while the iPhone Air with its A19 Pro hit 3,687 single and 9,390 multi.
Apple basically left performance on the table by skipping a vapor chamber in the previous generation flagships. With proper thermal management, the older silicon runs neck and neck with the newer stuff, which makes the whole generation gap look pretty weak. Another test showed the 16 Pro Max hitting 90 percent performance stability in 3DMark when strapped with M.2 SSD coolers, proving thermal solutions...
A repair shop in Utah called DVD Game Exchange Repair Center got handed a busted PlayStation 5 that turned into an absolute nightmare when techs cracked it open. The console from Orem was completely infested with cockroaches that were actively crawling out while they were trying to diagnose power supply problems. Roach droppings covered pretty much every internal component.
The shop wrapped the whole thing in plastic and sent it back to the owner for actual debugging duty. Other repair techs chimed in with their own horror stories about finding black widow spiders living inside PC towers. This serves as a legit reminder to clean your gaming hardware regularly because dust is far from the worst thing that can set up camp inside your...
Nintendo just scooped up Bandai Namco Studios Singapore after basically telegraphing the move in their latest financial report. The studio helped develop Splatoon 3 alongside other titles like Soul Calibur VI and Ace Combat 7, but their work on the squid shooter franchise is what sealed the deal.
Nintendo grabs 80% of the shares next April and picks up the rest later once everything stabilizes. The studio gets rebranded as Nintendo Studios Singapore after the acquisition wraps. Splatoon 3 has moved over 12 million copies since launch and became the fastest-selling game in the series, which probably made Nintendo want to lock down the dev relationship permanently instead of keeping it as contract work.
Intel's apparently prepping at least four Nova Lake-S desktop chips with that new bLLC cache setup, according to leaks from Kopite7kimi. The unlocked models are split between dual compute tile configs that pack up to 48 cores plus 4 low-power efficiency cores with 288 MB of bLLC, and single tile variants maxing at 24 cores with 144 MB cache. The dual tile parts use either 8+16 or 8+12 core arrangements per tile, while single tile models follow the same core split patterns.
Motherboard makers are gonna face some heat dealing with power delivery on the new LGA 1954 socket for these chips. This whole bLLC push looks like Intel trying to match what AMD's been doing with 3D V-Cache on Ryzen processors, which have been crushing it for gaming...
SSSTC just dropped their ER4 enterprise SATA drives that max out at 16TB, which is pretty massive for SATA tech these days. The drives hit 98K read IOPS and between 30K to 55K write IOPS, depending on capacity, with sequential speeds capping at 550MB/s read and 530MB/s write. They use a standard 2.5-inch form factor with hot swap support so data centers can yank old spinning drives and slot these in without rebuilding infrastructure.
The company built these specifically for AI inference workloads, online transaction processing, and cloud platforms that need low latency under heavy concurrent access. They pack enterprise features like end-to-end data protection, power loss protection, AES 256-bit encryption, and 3 million-hour MTBF...
discoDSP just rolled out Discovery Pro 8.10 with some pretty solid upgrades for synth nerds. The big one is 16x oversampling for bouncing tracks, which gives you that extra audio quality when rendering final mixes. They added mono mode priority that lets you pick which note plays when you hit chords in mono or legato, with options for last note, first note, lowest, highest, or random. There's also per-voice panning where each note in a chord gets its separate pan position based on velocity, making everything spread out naturally in stereo.
The update brings a classic filters toggle so you can switch between the old algorithm with hard clipping or the newer, smoother sound. CPU usage got way better when nothing's playing, dropping from...
AIR Music Tech just dropped Tape Double Track as a freebie, which is wild because they normally charge a hundred bucks for it. The plugin recreates that old school Automatic Double Tracking effect from the 60s that made Beatles recordings sound so thick and layered without having the artists record the same parts twice.
The ADT technique used tape delay and speed variations to fake double-tracked performances, and this plugin brings that vintage Abbey Road vibe to modern production setups. You get control over modulation shapes, panning for each channel, drive settings, and even some bass management features to keep the low end tight. It works in standalone MPC gear and regular DAWs on Mac and Windows.
The giveaway runs through early...
Johnny Cash's estate is going after Coca-Cola for allegedly using a tribute singer to fake the country legend's voice in their college football ads without asking permission. The beverage company hired someone who markets himself as a Cash impersonator to record vocals that would sound as close as possible to the real thing for their campaign, which started running in August.
The trust controlling Cash's rights filed suit in Nashville, claiming Coke knows better since they regularly license celebrity voices for commercials and have cut deals with artists like Taylor Swift before. They are citing Tennessee's ELVIS Act that protects voice and likeness rights even after death, and want damages plus an injunction to kill the ad. Some...
Oasis is setting up temporary merch shops in London and Dublin that stay open until late December after wrapping their reunion tour. The London spot on Regent Street opens first with a room showing tour footage and fan content, while Dublin launches at Stephen's Green Shopping Centre the next day. Both locations stock restocked adidas gear, plus new stuff like hats and colored vinyl, along with the usual tour merch.
The stores let people customize their gear on certain days and fans can book slots for the London media room or just walk in. Warner Music Group handles all the merch through their WMX division, which helped push their artist services revenue up 64 percent last quarter, off the back of Oasis demand. The reunion concerts got...
