Techreport

And that's three for three now. Intel has joined the Windows 10 release party with updated IGP drivers for the new OS, with the version number 15.40.4.64.4256—which I'm sure means something in Lost. Here's a direct link for your convenience.Besides support for Windows 10 and the shiny new DirectX 12 API, the new driver supports DirectX 11.3, PlayReady 3, and Miracast. It also fixes a bug with improper ...Read more...

Those of you interested in building a new Skylake-based system once Intel's newest CPUs launch will need DDR4 memory, but why just buy plain old DDR4 memory when you can get DDR4 memory? G.Skill has just updated its memory lineup with the Trident Z and Ripjaws V series of DIMMs. The company claims that the fastest Trident Z kits are the first capable of running at speeds of 4,000 MT/s. ...Read more...

Nvidia has just released version 353.62 of its GeForce drivers, with WHQL certification and support for the just-released Windows 10.For your convenience, here are direct download links for the Windows 10 version , or for previous versions of Windows if you're ...Read more...

Windows 10 just came out today, and it's safe to say that a few of you are already installing it. In tandem with the OS's release, AMD has made available a minor update to its Catalyst drivers, version 15.7.1, which you can download here.As you can probably guess, the big, new feature is official support for Windows 10, which includes ...Read more...

Now that the official launch day is here, some folks who reserved Windows 10 upgrades for their PCs are getting prompts to install the OS via Microsoft's upgrade tool.If, however, you don't want to wait or would prefer to create installation media for a fresh install, you can now download the Windows 10 media creation tool . This tool will let ...Read more...

Gigabyte is bringing blower-style coolers back with its newest GTX 970 Twin-Turbo (or GV-N970TTOC-4GD, if you're not a fan of nicknames.) The Twin-Turbo card is based on a short GTX 970 PCB with a blower-style HSF, which might sound boring at first. What makes this variant distinctive is its dual air intakes: one above the fan, one below. ...Read more...

Have you heard? Windows 10 is out today, and if you have a PC running Windows 7 or Windows 8, it's a free upgrade for the next year.Many websites have published their Windows 10 reviews, but Peter Bright's at Ars Technica deserves special recognition for its depth. Bright says Windows 10 is the best version yet –or at least it will be, once Microsoft squashes the ...Read more...

Mionix has pulled back the curtain on its new Castor mouse, named after a star in the Gemini constellation (Castor is also Portuguese for "beaver," so pun away in the comments.) The company claims to have designed the new rodent for all three of the common grip types: palm, claw, and fingertip. Southpaw fraggers will have to look elsewhere, however, as the Castor is for righties only. ...Read more...

Say hello to the Moto X Play. Fitting between the refreshed Moto G and the Moto X Style, this mid-range handset looks to offer plenty of battery life in a more affordable package than the flagship Style. ...Read more...

Before the Fiji chip in AMD's Radeon R9 Fury X and R9 Fury graphics cards was revealed, we knew quite a bit about its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) tech. Now that those cards have been released, TechInsights has dissected the Fury family's unique memory architecture. EETimes has a meaty taste of the full report, including several close-up photos of the insides of the HBM and GPU dies.The report shows how SK Hynix built and connected groups of memory dies to build each stacked HBM module, down to the oxide bonds. Another photo shows the 2,100 through-silicon ...Read more...

At a special presentation today, Intel and Micron jointly announced the introduction of a new type of memory technology called 3D XPoint. Intel VP Rob Crooke and Micron president Rob Adams called this memory the first major new memory technology since the introduction of NAND in 1989.3D XPoint (pronounced "3D cross-point") is described as a high-performance, very dense, non-volatile memory, and it's meant to help computers get more data closer to the processor. Crooke says it's a thousand times faster than today's flash memory and a thousand times more durable. ...Read more...

Motorola has just unveiled two new Moto X phones: the Moto X Style, and the Moto X Play. The former is meant to be Motorola's new flagship phone, so let's start with that one.The Style features a 5.7" 2560x1440 screen (520 PPI) in a svelte frame, which works out to a 76% screen-to-bezel ratio. Despite the 5.7" screen, the handset's dimensions aren't enormous—154 mm x 76 mm x 11 mm—and it weighs in at 179 g. The phone is powered by a Snapdragon 808 ...Read more...

Motorola unveiled a refreshed version of its cheap-and-cheerful Moto G during its live event this morning. The new phone has a number of features that are pretty surprising to see in an entry-level device, like IPX7 waterproofing and a 13-megapixel camera that's claimed to be an improved version of the shooter in the Nexus 6. ...Read more...

Smartphone maker OnePlus has pulled back the curtain on its second smartphone, the OnePlus 2. The sequel to last year's OnePlus One brings both upgraded specs and an upgraded body in an affordable package. The company unveiled the phone in a slick YouTube video and a launch event in VR. ...Read more...

Like so many weeds in my herb garden, Google+ has long been deeply rooted in many of Google's services. Now, just as I've weeded my herb garden, Google is disentangling Google+ from its other properties. In a blog post, vice president of Streams, Photos, and Sharing Bradley Horowitz says Google will make more changes to Google+ in an effort to improve the service.Horowitz says Google is responding to its users' complaints – it's "heard that it doesn’t make sense for your Google+ profile to be your identity in all the other Google products you use." Google plans to break Google+ features out into several ...Read more...

TechPowerUp's "W1zzard", who makes the wonderful and ubiquitous GPU-Z software, has taken it upon himself to overclock AMD's R9 Fury X card and report back on its voltage scaling. He accomplished this feat after struggling to add Fury X voltage monitoring and controls to GPU-Z, which he describes as no easy task.The card was first tested at its 500-MHz stock memory clock, with stock fan speeds. The power limit was set at +50% to avoid throttling. Battlefield 3 was the testing title of choice, running at 4K resolution. W1zzard worked upward in 24 mV steps from stock, recording the maximum stable GPU clock speed at each step. He eventually found ...Read more...

Razer has purchased Android game console maker Ouya's software assets, app store and games library. Ouya's software development and technical staff will be joining Razer, as well. The company plans to relaunch Ouya's software platform under the name Cortex for Android TV, and it plans to publish games and other Android TV content under the Ouya name. Financial details of the deal weren't disclosed. ...Read more...

Joshua Drake, a researcher from Zimperium's zLabs, is about to drop a bombshell at the upcoming Black Hat conference: details of an Android remote code execution exploit that could use a single MMS message to crack as many as 950 million phones, or roughly 95% of all Android handsets, according to statements Drake provided to Forbes. The attack is called Stagefright, named after Android's system-wide media playback component, where the vulnerabilities lie—and which various messaging apps use to display multimedia content. zLabs even goes so far as to call this "the worst Android vulnerability in the mobile OS['s] history."Depending on the messaging app in question, a victim may not even have to view the booby-trapped MMS. Drake told Forbes that Google's Hangouts allows for a fully silent attack on a vulnerable handset—the exploit triggers before a notification is even issued. ...Read more...

Asus has officially released its X99-M WS microATX motherboard. This pint-sized workstation board plays host to both Core i7 and Xeon E5-2600 Haswell-E CPUs. Four DIMM slots handle up to 64GB of RAM, and ECC RAM support is available if you're using a compatible Xeon CPU. Four PCIe slots (three x16 and one x1) make dual-SLI and CrossFire setups possible. ...Read more...

Asus has officially released its X99-M WS microATX motherboard. This pint-sized workstation board plays host to both Core i7 and Xeon E5-2600 Haswell-E CPUs. Four DIMM slots handle up to 64GB of RAM, and ECC RAM support is available if you're using a compatible Xeon CPU. Four PCIe slots (three x16 and one x1) make dual-SLI and CrossFire setups possible. ...Read more...

Have a phone with Qi wireless charging built-in? Samsung's latest displays take advantage of a natural place for such a charging station—the monitor stand. Its SE370 23.6" and 27" monitors let you charge your Qi-compatible phone while you work by placing it on the base of the display. As a bonus, these monitors have AMD's FreeSync tech baked in. ...Read more...

Some Steam accounts were stolen during the period from July 21 to July 25 due to a security flaw in the service's password reset procedure, Kotaku reports. The hole, which Valve learned of on July 25, allowed an attacker to reset a Steam account's password without a security code using only the account's name. Valve claims it has since closed the security hole.This YouTube video shows how the attack worked. This user then ...Read more...

The Fantastic Four

Eight is Enough

We recorded the latest episode of The Tech Report Podcast last night, and it's an eventful episode. We welcomed new host Luke McCready and contributor Ben Funk to the show, talked about Scott's shiny new microphone, examined the fortunes of Apple and Qualcomm, and discussed our parts picks for the latest TR System Guide. We also talked a lot about buffalo, for reasons. If you missed our stream last night, settle in and catch up with the YouTube version:...Read more...

The brightest-eyed proponents of the Internet of Things often seem to envision a world where everything that can have an embedded computer and a network connection of some kind should have those things. Open the door of a modern car, for example, and you're likely to find a sophisticated computer system that's absorbed functions like navigation, entertainment, and climate control into one central interface.Dig a little deeper, and you'll find that most every onboard system, like the accelerator, brakes, steering, and engine control, are linked together using a standard called the Controller Area Network , or CAN bus. If this sounds similar to the setup of Battlestar Galactica , it kind of is—and recent events on the automotive ...Read more...

In case you've been living under a rock, Windows 10 is coming. PCWorld senior editor Mark Hachman's in-depth review of Windows 10 is worth reading to get up to speed on the new operating system.Hachman's review covers some familiar additions. The Start Menu has returned, and it blends in some Live Tiles from Windows 8. Virtual assistant Cortana has made the jump ...Read more...

Happy Friday, dear readers. Let's delve into the depths of online retail once again and see what discounted gems we can find. Best Buy is holding a "Black Friday in July" sales event today, and some of their deals are actually quite good, especially on Apple products. Let's get to it.First up, we have the 128GB version of Apple's iPad mini 3 for just $449 . The Wi-Fi only model of this slate is normally $600, but Best Buy has slashed $150 off the regular price for ...Read more...

Full-page ads on the Internet are like commercial breaks in TV programs—see one, and it's time to flip around and see what else is out there. On smartphones and tablets, many websites present full-page ads to try to get users to download native apps. Google has published the results of an informal study on the performance of these interstitial ads for its own Google+ native app, based on data gathered in July 2014, and the results are surprising.The study found that only 9% of users clicked through the advertisement to head over to the the app. Just because somebody clicked through the ad doesn't mean they also downloaded the app, however: Google+ is installed on many Android phones ...Read more...

The Pick 6

During the QuakeCon 2015 welcome session today, Bethesda announced Fallout Anthology. This collection of games from the long-running series ships on disc in a replica of the game's signature mini-nuke. It's pretty sweet - check it out: ...Read more...

Come join us for the live recording of the latest episode of The Tech Report Podcast on Twitch. We'll be discussing Radeon availability, Apple's financials, Qualcomm's future, and whatever listener questions our viewers throw at us....Read more...

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is coming to the PC, and if you buy a shiny new GeForce like those we recommend in our latest System Guide, you may be able to get the game for free. Nvidia has announced that the game will be bundled with some GeForce GTX 900-series graphics cards and laptops with GeForce mobile graphics. Konami's latest stealth adventure will be available with some GTX 960, 970, 980, and 980 Ti graphics cards and certain GTX 980M and 970M-equipped mobile systems at select retailers worldwide. MGSV replaces Batman: The Phantom Game Arkham Knight in its bundle offerings.If you're not familiar with The Phantom Pain , take a ...Read more...

Owners of Nvidia's Shield Portable, take note: the handheld-on-steroids is getting some love today in the form of an Android 5.1 update. The new OS should give owners access to all of the new features in Android 5.0 Lollipop and the minor fixes and tweaks in the point release. A new version of the bundled Twitch app is also installed by default.The update does remove a few features and apps from the Android KitKat version of the Shield software. Built-in apps like Sonic 4 , Expendable: Rearmed , ...Read more...

We'll be casting the pod over on our Twitch channel at 6:30PM PT/9:30 PM ET tonight. As usual, we'll take questions from the chat, discuss the latest news, and perhaps unleash a few surprises. Come by and join us if you can.If you can't make it, or if you'd just like to get your question queued up, feel free ...Read more...

We use Twitch to stream our podcasts at TR, and untold millions more use the service to entertain others with their live in-game exploits. We may all be able to breathe a collective sigh of relief soon when we use the service. Twitch announced yesterday that it's begun moving its streaming platform off Flash in favor of HTML5.Right now, the company is only using HTML5 controls over a Flash video, and it expects a gradual rollout process for this new ...Read more...

Big changes are in store at Qualcomm. According to Reuters, the chipmaker announced that it will cut 4,500 full-time staff—approximately 15% of its workforce—as part of a profit warning it issued for the upcoming quarter. The cuts are part of an effort to reduce costs by around $1.4 billion and boost capital returns to shareholders.Alongside the cost reductions, the company may also spin off its its chip business, retaining the more profitable patent licensing portion. In an interview with Reuters, Qualcomm president Derek Aberle ...Read more...

Maybe the old adage "better late than never" is true. Plenty of options for in-home game streaming are readily available (or at least on the way), but if we read deeply into Xbox head Phil Spencer's tweets, we find that the Xbox One may join the fun with game streaming from Windows 10 PCs. I found the perfect recipe for such a feature on Twitter. Let's bake it together, shall we?First add a cup of "Microsoft's current-gen console will ...Read more...

Outside of MMOs and Blizzard games, we rarely hear of a decade-year-old game getting an official patch, but here we are. Publisher Aspyr breathed some life into Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords yesterday with not just a patch, but also support for Linux and the Mac.The new patch adds a bevy of features along with the newly supported operating systems. Aspyr has added support for native widescreen resolutions (including 4K and 5K) and game controllers. Steam features are along for the ride as well: perks like cloud saves, achievements, and Steam Workshop are all present. Aspyr ...Read more...

Asus' ZenFone 2 is already pretty affordable, but the company is making its Atom-powered smartphone lineup even more accessible today. The ZenFone 2E offers a dual-core Clover Trail+ Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, an eight-megapixel camera, and 8GB of expandable onboard storage for just $119.99. AT&T will be the exclusive US carrier of this device on its pre-paid GoPhone service. ...Read more...

Big corporate mergers can take a while to complete, but AT&T's proposed acquisition of DirecTV is one step closer. CNN reports FCC chairman Tom Wheeler has recommended regulatory approval of the deal. In a statement to CNN, Wheeler said that the acquisition will "directly benefit consumers by bringing more competition to the broadband marketplace." CNN also noted that an AT&T-DirecTV merger is different from the failed Comcast-TWC merger because neither AT&T nor DirecTV control programming like Comcast. DirecTV also doesn't provide broadband service to as many households.The conditions for the sale that Wheeler proposed in his recommendation are meant to protect customer access to online video services. AT&T will be required to submit regular network performance reports to the ...Read more...

Microsoft released its Q2 financial report. Thanks in part to its previously-announced phone hardware business restructuring, the company has posted a $2.1 billion loss. A $7.5 billion non-cash impairment charge, a $780 million charge to assets and a $160 million restructuring charge are to blame. Revenues totaled $22.2 billion, while gross margin came in at $14.7 billion. Had it not been for the write-downs related to Microsoft's phone business, non-GAAP numbers show that the company would have posted a $6.4 billion profit.The company's numbers were down all around compared to the year-ago quarter, with total revenues declining around 5%, gross margin down 7%, and profit down, well, $8.5 billion. Notably, Windows OEM revenue was down 22% ...Read more...

Apple's Q2 financial results are out, and as we've come to expect, growth is largely the word of the day. The company posted $49.6 billion in revenue, up 33% from this time last year, and earned $10.7 billion in net profit, up 39% year-over-year. Gross margin was 39.7% compared to 39.4% a year ago.The company attributed its success to iPhone sales of 47.5 million units and Mac sales of 4.8 ...Read more...

Remember that potential TRIM bug in Samsung drives we reported on a few weeks ago? It may not be Samsung's fault, after all. Samsung and developer Algolia have been working together to try and get to the root of things, and after weeks of work, Samsung is blaming the problem on a bug in the Linux kernel. An update to the blog post in which Algolia first broke news of the problem says "Samsung [has reached] a concrete conclusion that the issue is not related to Samsung SSD or Algolia software, but is related to the Linux kernel."Algolia says Samsung has developed a patch for the Linux kernel that solves the problem. The patch was set to be released to the Linux community on July 18, along with Samsung's official statement on the matter and ...Read more...

Convertible notebooks have been something of a rage since Windows 8's debut, but Chromebooks have generally stuck to the tried-and-true clamshell laptop design. Asus is bringing Chrome OS to the flexible-notebook party in the form of the Chromebook Flip C100PA. The Flip's hinge folds around a full 360 degrees to accommodate convertible positions like laptop, tent, stand, and tablet modes. ...Read more...

If your working conditions would turn an iPad to scrap, Dell has a tablet for you. The Latitude Rugged 12 is a bruiser of a slate with environmental certifications including IP65 dust and water resistance and MIL-STD-810G temperature and impact ratings. ...Read more...

Last week's report that Tsinghua Unigroup would bid $23 billion to buy out memory maker Micron Technologies may have been premature. Reuters reports that according to its sources, Micron has told Tsinghua that the deal would likely be blocked. These same sources also indicated that Tsinghua had expressed interest in Micron, but had not made a formal proposal.Micron believes that the acquisition will ultimately be blocked by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), citing national security concerns. Reuters says CFIUS has three options to choose from: block the ...Read more...

There may be some sort of new Intel processor release coming soon, something that I, as a new contributor to TR, wouldn't know anything about. I dunno. But as luck would have it, we've obtained a little bit of information about what MSI's next-gen motherboards may feature. I'll show you if you can keep a secret. Shh—don't tell anybody, okay? ...Read more...

Nobody outside of Cupertino really knows how many Watches Apple has sold, but the people who own them appear to be quite satisfied with their purchases. According to a recent poll of 1,000 Watch owners by Wristly (full PDF), 97% of respondents are at least "somewhat satisified" with their Apple Watch, while 67% are very satisified or delighted. Wristly broke out respondents by occupation, too. 53% of those surveyed have non-tech-related jobs, and 34% are technology workers (referred to as "tech insiders"). A further 9% are app developers. Across the spectrum, all owners gave their Watches higher marks than the first generation iPhone or iPad.While the respondents as a whole like their Watches well enough, the non-techies in the Wristly survey give it the highest marks. 73% of respondents who identify as "non-tech users" indicated they're very satisfied or delighted with the device. On the other hand, ...Read more...

AMD has added a new processor to its Godavari APU lineup this morning. The A8-7670K packs four Steamroller CPU cores clocked at 3.6GHz with Turbo speeds up to 3.9GHz. The graphics side of the die holds six GCN Radeon "cores" clocked at 757 MHz. Those numbers are a modest bump over the Kaveri A8-7650K, which features similar CPU and GPU resources at lower clock speeds.The A8-7670K is the second Godavari APU to hit the market, after the A10-7870K back in May. According to the PR briefing distributed to a variety of sites, including Hexus , AMD believes the 7670K is a better performer in games than a combo like Intel's Pentium ...Read more...