Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 11/16 – Is Big Sur Apple’s Vista?

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

Continued problems with Big Sur have some people wondering if this is Apple’s version of Windows Vista. But actual benchmarks continue to show Apple Silicon is probably a big win. All the details of the Galaxy S21 lineup have leaked. A monster new GPU for supercomputers. And a PC monitor that can actually double as a modern smart tv. Sponsors: MasterWorks.io: code RIDE to skip the waitlist BuyRaycon.com/tech Links: macOS Big Sur Update Bricking Some Older MacBook Pro Models (MacRumors) Apple Silicon M1 Emulating x86 is Still Faster Than Every Other Mac in Single Core Benchmark (MacRumors) Exclusive: Specs and features of Samsung's Galaxy S21 smartphones (Android Police) Nvidia launches A100 80GB GPU for supercomputers (VentureBeat) Samsung’s new Smart Monitor is like a TV for your PC (The Verge) HBO Max Is Finally Coming to Amazon Fire TV (Variety) 'Godspeed': 4 astronauts make history as SpaceX's 'Resilience' launches for International Space Station (USAToday) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech Meme Right Home for Monday, November 16th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. Continued problems with Big Sur have some people wondering if this is Apple's version of Windows Vista. But actual benchmarks continue to show Apple Silicon is probably a big win. All the details of the Galaxy

S-21 lineup have leaked. A monster new GPU for supercomputers is released, and a PC monitor that can actually double as a modern smart TV. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. OS Big Sur continues to report a whole range of problems. Folks on Hacker News have been beginning to whisper that maybe they're getting Windows Vista vibes from Big Sur, though I suppose one should note that even that OS's bad reputation was probably overblown and not really deserved. The latest thing to get reported over the weekend was that a large number of late 2013 and mid-2014 MacBook Pro users are saying that upgrading to Big Sur is that. straight up bricking their computers, quoting Mac rumors. Users are reporting that during the course

of updating to MacOS Big Sur, their machines are stuck displaying a black screen. Key reset combinations including NV RAM, SMC, Safe Mode, and Internet Recovery are all reportedly inaccessible after attempting to install the update, leaving no way to bypass the static black screen. It appears that the overwhelming number of users experiencing problems are owners of the late 2013 and mid-2014-13-13 inch MacBook Pro, but it is unclear exactly how many of those users have been affected. It is also of note that these are the oldest models supported by macOS Big Sur. One commenter on Reddit said that they were told by Apple support to book their MacBook Pro in for a repair. Another on an Apple support thread said that the issue has been escalated to Apple's engineering team, so Apple should now

be aware of the problem, end quote. Again, I always wait a long time to actually do an OS update. I think I only updated to Catalina sometime this summer, but that's just me. On the better side of the ledger for Apple, evidence continues to pile up, which suggests maybe why Apple has been so confident in releasing the new M1 chip. Results uploaded to GeekBench show that the Apple Silicon M1 chip scores higher than every previous Mac. Note that that is not just every previous Mac book, but every single previous Mac, at least in the single core benchmark, even when the M1 is emulating X86, quoting from Mac rumors again. The new Rosetta 2 Geekbench results uploaded show that the M1 chip running on a MacBook

error with 8 gigabytes of RAM has single core and multi-core scores of 1313 and 5,88, respectively. Since this version of Geekbench is running through Apple's translation layer Rosetta 2, an impact on performance is to be expected. Rosetta 2 running X86 code appears to be achieving 78 to 79% of the performance of native Apple Silicon code. Despite the impact on performance, the single core Rosetta 2 score results still outperforms any other Intel Mac, including the 2020 27-inch iMac with Intel Core I-9 at 3.6 gigahertz. initial benchmarks for the MacBook Air running M1 natively featured a single core score of 1,687, and a multi-core score of 7,433.

Additional benchmarks with M1 have since surfaced and are available on Geekbench, end quote. Quoting John Masters on Twitter, roughly what I expected would be the case. It's pretty embarrassing when you can run translated code faster than native, shows why there was a need to make a transition, end quote. Also over the weekend, we got a huge leak. about the entire upcoming Galaxy S-21 lineup. Remember, we think that this is coming not too long

after we all switch our calendars over to 2021 in the new year. Basically, leakers expect we will see an S-21, an S-21 plus, and an S-21 Ultra. The Ultra will have a 108-m megapixel main camera sensor and three-time optical and 10-times super-optical telephoto sensors. Quoting Android Police. Across the board, Samsung will be adding more features to the cameras. All of the cameras will support 4K 60 frames per second recording, which was previously limited to the main sensor. Samsung's super steady stabilization will also be getting 60 frames per second recording.

The camera will be able to automatically switch between 30 frames per second and 60 frames per second depending on the lighting conditions, just like the Google Pixel. For the three of you who actually care, Samsung is also adding an 8K 30 frames per second option to the camera instead of the 8K 24. frames per second that's on the Galaxy S20 and Note 20 series. Samsung's also adding a dual recording mode where you can record out of the front and rear camera at the same time. As of now, it appears Samsung will allow you to either have these in one video side by side as picture and picture, or saved as two files. Samsung will also be improving the night mode with more manual controls. Additionally, it will improve the moon mode that's included in 1UI3.0, which will lock onto the moon and use EIS to make sure it's in frame while taking the photo. The Galaxy S-21 and S-21

Plus will both feature FHD Plus 120 Hertz displays, but they will not receive the advanced adaptive refresh LTPO panels featured on the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. The Galaxy S-21 will have a 6.2-inch display. The S-21 Plus is 6.7 inches. The Galaxy S-21 Ultra has what we are told is one of the best displays on any smartphone. It's a 6.8 inch. WQD Plus LTPO display with an adaptive refresh rate of 1 Hz to 120 hertz. The S-21 Ultra will max out at an incredible 1,600 nits peak brightness. By comparison, the Galaxy S-20 Ultra has a peak brightness of 1,400 nits. On top of that, Samsung will allegedly be improving the display's contrast ratio to 3 million to 1

as opposed to the 2 million to 1 on the previous generation. Our sources also say the Galaxy S-21 Ultra will offer S-Pen support. The stylus will not be included in the box. Instead, Samsung is planning to sell cases that will store the S-Pen outside the body of the phone. Battery capacities for the phones will largely remain similar to the S-20 series. The Galaxy S-21 will have a 4,000-m-amp-hour battery, while the Galaxy S-20 Plus will clock in at 4,800-mmph hours, 300 milanph hours more than the current S20 plus, and the Galaxy S21 Ultra at 5,000 milamph hours. Our sources couldn't confirm maximum charging speeds quite yet, but all models will support

25-watt fast charging at minimum. Powering the devices will be two processors, and as usual, which one you'll get depends on region. Samsung will be using both the Snapdragon 875, the yet-to-be-announced successor to the Snapdragon 865 and the Exinos 20100. We are told the Exenos 2100 could be, quote, on par or better than the Snapdragon 875, though it's unclear exactly how the chips will benchmark comparatively. We are also told the new Exenos will be a more power-efficient chip than prior generations improving battery life. Both the Exenos 2100 and Snapdragon 875 are 5G compatible chips,

and there will be 5G versions of every Galaxy S-21 model, as was the case with the S-20. We don't know if Samsung is working on LTE-only models quite yet. We do know that the Galaxy S-21 Ultra will be the only model to receive Wi-Fi 6E support, which Samsung claims is about two times faster than standard Wi-Fi 6, end quote. Media has announced the A-180-gigabyte GPU for supercomputers, which, it says, offers twice the memory of its predecessor, which was only introduced back in May, quoting Venture Beat. The chip is based on the company's,

Ampere graphics architecture and is aimed at helping businesses and government labs make key decisions more quickly by enabling better real-time data analysis. Invidia made the announcement at the outset of the SC20 supercomputing conference this week. The 80-gabyte version has twice the memory of its predecessor, which was introduced six months ago. We've doubled everything in the system to make it more effective for customers. Invidia executive Peresh Karya said in a press briefing, He also said 90% of the world's data was created in the last two years. The new chip provides researchers and engineers with more speed and performance for the AI and scientific applications.

It delivers over 2 terabytes per second of memory bandwidth, which enables a system to feed data more quickly, the GPU. Quote, supercomputing has changed in profound ways, expanding from being just focused on simulations to AI supercomputing with data-driven approaches that are now complementing traditional simulations, Karya said. He added that Nvidia's end-to-end approach to supercomputing from workflows for simulation to AI is necessary to keep making advances. Kari has said, Nvidia now has 2.3 million developers for its various platforms and added that

supercomputing is important for the leading edge of those developers. He also said a recent simulation of the coronavirus simulated 305 million atoms and that the simulation which used 27,000 Nvidia GPUs was the largest molecular simulation ever completed. The Nvidia A-180-Gigabyte GPU is available in the Nvidia DGX A-100 and NVIDIA-D-GX-Station A-100 systems that are expected to ship this quarter. Computer makers Aetos, Dell, Fujitsu, Gigabyte, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, InSper, Lenovo, Quanta, and Super Micro will offer four GPU or eight GPU systems based on the new A-180-Gabyte GPU in the first half of 2021, end quote. This is one of those products where when I heard about it, I thought to myself, wait, this hasn't existed before. It seems eminently logical. Samsung has a new computer monitor called the Smart Monitor M7. Smart Monitor, because it functions almost exactly like a smart TV as much as a PC monitor. It supports streaming TV apps and things like AirPlay 2, which is why I thought, yeah, why are most PC monitors dumb screens? One wonders. Quoting The Verge. The company is releasing the smart monitor, which it claims is the first monitor to combine

over-the-top media services, mobile connectivity, and remote PC capabilities. Samsung is releasing the M5 lineup consisting of a 27-inch size for $230 and a 32-inch size for $280. A 32-inch 4K monitor called the M7 is also coming that costs $400. It's not as immediately eye-catching as the aforementioned space monitor, but it makes up for it with having more features. Like Samsung's line of TVs, the smart monitor runs Samsung's TizzenOS software and can connect to your Wi-Fi network to stream HDR-10 content from apps like Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV, YouTube, and more without the need for any extra hardware connection. You can install other apps from the embedded app store like Samsung's health app.

All variants of the monitor can be mounted to your wall or to a monitor arm via 100-by-100 VESSA mounts. Each has two five-watt speakers built in and includes a remote control with voice assistant support for Bixby 2.0, Alexa, and Google Assistant. They're even Airplay 2 compatible, making it easy to cast from Apple devices. It sounds a lot like a TV, yeah? If you want to use it like a monitor for getting things done, it has a few more tricks up its sleeve as well. For instance, you can connect a mouse and keyboard via Bluetooth 4.2 and connect to Office 365 through a virtual machine without the need for any additional computing hardware. You can also connect wirelessly via Dex, Samsung's utility that lets your Galaxy S8,

or newer phone power a desktop-like PC experience on the monitor. You can also quickly mirror your Samsung phones running Android 8.1 or higher display by tapping it to the top right edge of the monitor where its NFC tag is located, end quote. Speaking of, HBO Max is finally coming to Amazon Fire TV almost six months after that streamers launch. The HBO Max app for Amazon's devices will be available Tuesday, November 17. The launch will bring WarnerMedia's flagship direct-to-consumer product to Amazon's estimated 40 million-plus active fire TV users as well as the company's fire tablet customers. For now, HBO Max remains unavailable on the Roku platform, which had about 46 million

active accounts for its devices at the end of Q3. Terms of WarnerMedia's deal with Amazon for the fire devices are not being disclosed. One of the key sticking points in the deal talks was that WarnerMedia wanted to remove Legacy HBO as a channel from Amazon's Prime Video Channel's offering, and the company's pact lays the groundwork to do that. WarnerMedia's strategic goal is to keep customers within the HBO Max app experience, giving it the ability to gather data for recommendations, and, starting next year,

advertising targeting for an ad-supported HBO Max tier. Starting November 17, current subscribers of HBO through Amazon's Prime Video Channels will be able to log in to the HBO Max app with their Amazon credentials at no additional cost. Earlier this year, Amazon said it had nearly 5 million HBO subscribers through Prime. prime video channels, end quote. So does this maybe indicate that a deal with Roku is incoming as well? One would certainly think so. Finally today, did you happen to watch last night? SpaceX is successfully delivering four astronauts to the International Space Station, I believe even as we speak, since it takes around 20 hours for them to get there after launching

and leaving the Earth, quoting USA Today. SpaceX launched four astronauts to the international Space Station on Sunday on the first full-fledged taxi flight for NASA by a private company. The Falcon rocket thundered into the night from Kennedy Space Center with three Americans and one Japanese, the second crew to be launched by SpaceX. The Dragon capsule on top was due to reach the space station late Monday and remain there until spring. The three men, one-woman crew led by Commander Mike Hopkins, an Air Force colonel, named their capsule resilience in a nod not only to the pandemic, but also racial injustice and contentious politics. It's also about as diverse as space crews come, including physicist Shannon Walker, Navy commander

Victor Glover, the first black astronaut on a long-term space station mission, and Japan's Sochi Noguchi, who became the first person in almost 40 years to launch on three types of spacecraft. The historic launch was pushed from Saturday to Sunday evening due to rough sea conditions that would not enable the drone ship to reach the discarded first stage of the Falcon 9, rocket. It's important for NASA to recover the booster because it will be reused for the next crude launch, which is slated for March 30th. Congratulations to NASA and SpaceX on today's launch. President-elect Joe Biden tweeted Sunday. It's a testament to the power of science and what we can accomplish by harnessing our innovation, ingenuity, and determination. I join all Americans and the people

of Japan in wishing the astronauts godspeed in their journey, end quote. President Donald Trump called it a, quote, great launch on Twitter, end quote. I tried to introduce Penny to Minecraft for the first time over the weekend. It did not go well, sort of stressed her out and sent her back to the comfort of Animal Crossing. Maybe we were a bit premature. But then again, we did introduce her to Animal Crossing and Breath of the Wild six months ago. It was a bit too much for her at that point. So maybe we'll just revisit Minecraft in a few months, and she'll be ready for it. I actually bought a whole step-by-step book to ease our way into it, but my girl is just a bit of a perfectionist, I guess.

She hates something that she can't master right away. Conversely, we watched that behind Pixar documentary that's on Disney Plus, and she spent all weekend sketching her own cartoons, wants me to show her how to make them into a movie. Did I mention that I was a film major in college? So all things considered, I feel like it was a mostly successful Papa weekend for me. Talk to you tomorrow.