news and current affairs.
Zim’s new digital tax hits foreign firms, not your EcoCash
The government has just found a new way to slide into your DMs and bank account. Officials in Zimbabwe rolled out the Digital Services Withholding Tax, effectively demanding a fifteen percent cut from payments made to foreign tech giants starting at the beginning of 2026. This levy targets offshore platforms, such as Netflix or Starlink, that draw revenue from locals without maintaining offices within the country. Banks and payment processors must now grab that slice before sending the rest abroad to the service provider. The treasury claims this move creates fairness because local businesses already bleed taxes, while international digital heavyweights essentially operated tax-free until recently. They argue that letting foreign...
ASUS tweaked Matrix RTX 5090 thermal paste, pulled early units
ASUS quietly fixed its flagship GPU mess without admitting any actual mistakes occurred. Tech YouTuber Der8auer cracked open a retail ROG Matrix RTX 5090 to find internal changes contradicting official denials regarding recall rumors. Evidence points toward sloppy thermal compound application, forcing the manufacturer to rethink their assembly process completely. Previous teardowns revealed liquid metal splashing everywhere like a chaotic science experiment. This fresh unit utilizes a smarter technique where thermal paste acts as a barrier to keep conductive fluid centered on the die. Engineers added vertical lines that leave breathing room while preventing dangerous leakage onto sensitive components. That containment strategy looks...
Intel Panther Lake handhelds target Sony's PS6, not AMD
Intel finally decided to stop letting AMD bully them in the portable gaming playground. The tech giant confirmed at CES that Panther Lake chips will target handhelds directly to fight upcoming threats like the Sony PS6 device. This shift moves away from previous Meteor Lake or Lunar Lake attempts that failed against Z-series processors found inside rival machines. Engineers plan on stripping excess baggage from these Core Ultra Series 3 silicon slices. Expect higher Xe3 graphics counts paired alongside decent CPU power, while potentially dumping the neural processing unit completely. Removing useless AI bloat allows the processor to focus purely on driving frame rates without wasting energy on nonsense. Team Red barely touched their...
Micron says memory shortages won't ease before 2028
Gamers screaming about expensive RAM, better get comfortable because artificial intelligence eats the global supply. Micron executive Christopher Moore confirmed that memory availability will remain tight until at least 2028, thanks to data centers hoarding inventory. He insists the company hasn't abandoned regular buyers despite exiting their consumer brand to focus on supplying integrators like Dell or ASUS directly. Enterprise demand exploded from roughly thirty percent to nearly sixty percent of total market share recently. That massive shift forces manufacturers to prioritize server farms over custom PC builders. Moore claims every supplier faces this identical bottleneck while trying to keep up with insatiable tech giants...
AMD's RDNA 5 GPUs reportedly delayed past NVIDIA's RTX 60
PC gamers are screwed because next-gen GPUs are apparently delayed forever. Rumors suggest Team Red plans on shipping RDNA 5 cards only once Team Green drops their RTX 60 series. Kepler_L2 claims this schedule ensures a massive waiting period before anyone sees fresh silicon. Reports indicate AMD intends to use TSMC N3P nodes targeting a release deep into the future. That schedule implies a drought lasting over eight hundred days since the RX 9070 XT arrived. NVIDIA Rubin architecture faces a similarly long gap following the Blackwell debut. Delays supposedly happen because Jensen Huang holds massive profit margins that allow aggressive price cuts. Launching a second prevents the market leader from instantly countering with cheaper...
Snapdragon X2 Plus loses to last-gen Apple M4 again
Qualcomm just embarrassed itself when losing to vintage Apple hardware yet again. Benchmarks show the fresh Snapdragon X2 Plus getting absolutely destroyed whenever it tries fighting the standard M4 processor. Testers found that the new chip flops hard despite supposedly replacing the cheaper model intended for budget Windows laptops. This failure tracks with the X2 Elite Extreme getting smoked recently during similar comparisons. Results reveal this latest budget silicon dropping four out of five synthetic rounds against the base Apple chip. That looks incredibly painful, considering the rival processor has been sitting on shelves for quite a while. Single-core speeds in Cinebench 2024 saw the M4 running thirty percent faster...
Original MacBook Pro turns 20, still iconic as hell
Two decades have passed since Steve Jobs killed the PowerBook to change laptops forever. He showed off the original MacBook Pro at Macworld San Francisco as a replacement for professional gear. The release marked a massive shift away from PowerPC architecture to Intel silicon. People paid 1,999 dollars for the entry-level rig featuring a 15.4-inch screen. That money bought a 1.83GHz Core Duo processor paired with 512MB of DDR2 memory. Internal storage seems laughable because it only offered an 80GB hard drive. Rich users dropped 2,499 dollars to get a faster 2.0GHz or 2.16GHz chip option. This premium tier doubled RAM to 1GB while bumping drive capacity up to 100GB. Subsequent versions added legendary features like magnetic MagSafe...
Xiaomi 17 Air leak shows 5.5mm thinness, dual cams
Slim phones are dead, but leaks keep exposing these failed anorexic prototypes. Xiaomi supposedly killed its ultra-thin flagship after watching rivals crash and burn. Ice Universe posted footage of a Xiaomi 17 Air chassis measuring a ridiculous 5.5 millimeters thick while housing dual rear cameras. That leaked shell sports a 6.59-inch display with a visible hump for wireless charging hardware. The design blatantly rips off Apple, which tracks perfectly for a brand famous for copying homework. Engineers likely planned on using silicon-carbon batteries to power the internals. Marketing teams probably hoped to brag about battery life beating the Galaxy S25 Edge. Previous benchmarks showed their Pro Max model barely surviving five minutes...
SpaceX cleared to launch 7,500 more Starlink sats
Elon Musk just secured ultimate orbital supremacy to beam the internet straight into your pocket. The Federal Communications Commission permitted SpaceX to maintain a swarm totaling fifteen thousand Gen2 satellites. This green light lets the company blast roughly seven thousand fresh units into orbit. Brendan Carr claims this authorization changes the game entirely for future connectivity services. These second-generation Starlink units promise twenty times more throughput while slashing latency. Each satellite features autonomous collision avoidance systems and better maneuverability for dodging space junk. They also bring Direct-to-Cell tech that connects standard handsets without needing bulky modifications or extra hardware. Rumor...
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