Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 01/12 – Intel Unveils New Core i9-11900K Flagship Chip

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 Tuesday, January 12th, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Intel's new flagship chips are here. Lenovo's new laptop lineup is here. Walmart wants in on the FinTech startup game. GM is spinning off a new electric delivery truck startup. And I know foldable phones haven't exactly taken over the world, but could I interest you in a rollable phone?

Starting point is 00:00:58 Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Let's hit some CES news. Intel is a company that always looks to make a big splash at CES. Frankly, they could use a splash at the moment. So they took this week as the opportunity to unveil their new flagship 11th-gen processors, the 14-nometer Rocket Lake Core I-9, 11,900K. This will be their main consumer processor this year coming in Q1 and promising up to 50% better integrated graphics performance. Quoting an Antek.

Starting point is 00:01:36 Spending five generations on the same base micro architecture is a long time. Progress and excitement can be sustained through optimizing a process node, adding cores, and extracting every drop of frequency. But at some point, the base design becomes the bottleneck and it's time to move on. Intel's enthusiast desktop market has been waiting for an update for a couple of generations, and while the new 11th-gen-core rocket lake doesn't migrate off the 14-nometer process node, we are at least getting a new micro architecture that stands to deliver, according to Intel, a 19% IPC improvement.

Starting point is 00:02:11 Promising a Q1 launch, Intel lifted the lid a little on its next consumer flagship, the core I-9-11900K. We already know that Rocket Lake is the processor that is plugging the gap while Intel continues to work on getting 10 nanometers ready for high-performance desktop use. Rocket Lake is built upon Cyprus Cove, the reimagining of Sunny. Cove that has been backported to Intel's 14-nanameter process. The goal here was to enable Sunny Cove performance and instruction support such as AVX 512 on consumer 14 nanometer, albeit with the larger core size and any related power and efficiency changes. Rocket Lake also uses Intel's new G graphics, also redesigned for 14 nanometers. Intel saw fit to build Rocket Lake, which wasn't in its original plans due to the delays on 10 nanometers, and now it's

Starting point is 00:03:03 seems ready to discuss its productization. Replacing Comet Lake, fifth iteration of Skylake, due to the increased size of the Rocket Lake core, Intel's flagship moves down from the 10 cores of Comet to eight cores of rocket, but gains AVX512 instructions, a new cash hierarchy, and up to 19% instructions per clock improvement. Meanwhile, briefly discussing the upcoming Core I911,100K skew in particular, Intel states that it will hit the same, turbo frequencies as the current Core I-9-10-900K, which means we will see 5.3 gigahertz with one core, as well as 4.8 gigahertz all-core turbo. No word on the die-size difference and also no direct word on TDP. However, in the footnotes, we see that the Intel Rocket Lake Core I911900K is set to have

Starting point is 00:03:55 a TDP PL1 of 125 watts and a PL2 turbo power limit of 250 watts with a turbo time of 50 seconds, end quote. So that might be your next computer chip. And if you're in the business world, this has a very good chance to be your next laptop. Lenovo has announced the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga, which is a stunning less than half an inch thick, but still boasts a 2K touch display with 450 nits of brightness, 11th gen Intel I7V Pro, and it all starts at 18.5.5.5.5. And it all starts at 18.5.5. $1,99. Quoting the verge. The convertible X-1 titanium is covered in what Lenovo calls titanium material and is just 0.45 inches

Starting point is 00:04:47 or 11.5 millimeters thick. It's Intel Evo certified, meaning Intel vouches for its performance features and battery life, along with most of the X-1 portfolio. You can configure it with up to 16 gigabyte's memory and one terabyte of PCIE SSD storage, and it includes 5G connectivity and two Thunderbolt 4 ports. Lenovo has added a few other think pads to its lineup this year, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9, and the ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6 are the first two laptops to support Dolby Voice, which Lenovo says will deliver a video conferencing experience that, quote,

Starting point is 00:05:23 feels more natural, reduces listener fatigue, and sounds stunningly clear, end quote. They also include a low blue light feature, fingerprint readers integrated into the power button, and presence detection sensors. The X-1 Carbon Gen 9 has a new 16 by 10 screen and rear venting, as well as a wider touchpad, and larger battery than its previous generation. It'll be available starting at $1,429 in February 2021, end quote. FinTech is arguably the hottest sector in all of tech at the moment, and Walmart wants in. Walmart says it is launching a fintech startup with Ribbett Capital,

Starting point is 00:06:07 one of the investment firms behind Robin Hood. Ribbitt will own the minority share in the new startup with Walmart owning the majority share. You know how one of the dreams of fintech and even crypto has always been to reach underbanked people or folks who say don't have a relationship with a bank or financial advisor? I feel like it's possible. A lot of Walmart customers fit that profile, quoting CNBC. The big box retailer did not share the name of the new company or say when it's services will be available. It said it will develop unique and affordable financial products for Walmart employees and customers. The fintech startup will be majority owned by Walmart, and its board will include several company executives, including Chief Financial Officer Brett Biggs

Starting point is 00:06:50 and Walmart U.S. CEO John Ferner. Walmart said it will also name independent industry experts to the board and may acquire or partner with other fintech companies. Six percent of adults don't have a checking, savings, or money market account according to the Federal Reserve. About 16% are underbanked, meaning they have a bank account but also use alternative financial service products like a money order. Those Americans are more likely to turn to short-term solutions such as a pawn shop or a payday loan, which can lead to additional charges or high interest fees. Walmart already offers some financial services for customers. For example, it has Walmart Money Card, a prepaid debit card that customers can load with money and use for purchases.

Starting point is 00:07:34 The card has some features that encourage money management or help people who may have a challenged credit history, such as no overdraft or monthly fees and no minimum balance requirement. The retailer also offers alternative payment plans for customers on a tight budget, such as layaway and a firm, a fintech company that allows customers to buy an online item immediately and pay in installments, end quote. Walmart's partner here, Ribbitt is, by the way, also an investor in a firm. Auto Supplier Active has announced its next generation self-driving platform, which it claims could save up to 20 to 30 percent of costs for carmakers who adopt it compared to its earlier

Starting point is 00:08:19 system. Also, this system can be used across a range of vehicles and can be upgraded wirelessly to fix bugs and add new features, quoting Reuters. Active Chief Technology Officer Glenn DeVos told Reuters the core of the new platform was the same, whether a manufacturer was building a compact car or a full-sized sedan. The larger vehicles merely require more sensors or cameras. One of the biggest problems facing global carmakers as they develop the sensors, radars, and cameras necessary for self-driving technology is the cost. Fully self-driving vehicles are years away, but assisted driving features such as adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assistance are becoming more common. For carmakers, developing and

Starting point is 00:09:00 validating these systems can cost many hundreds of millions of dollars in development and testing Devast said. This platform dramatically reduces the system validation costs and represents dramatic savings for manufacturers, end quote. In 2019, Hyundai and Aptiv launched a $4 billion venture called Motional to develop self-driving technologies and be among the first to deploy fully autonomous cars on public roads. Active, headquartered in Dublin, also unveiled zone controllers for carmakers to break down computing functions in cars into more manageable pieces that will improve computing power and reduce vehicle weight and cost, end quote. And GM has announced a new electric delivery van with 260 miles of range as a part of a

Starting point is 00:09:48 completely new spin-off business, quoting the verge. General Motors announced Tuesday it will be spinning out a new delivery and logistics business called Bright Drop, the first products of which will be an electrified pallet and delivery van. Both vehicles, which will be powered by GM's Altium battery platform, are slated for release this year. The announcement of the new logistics business comes as GM is undergoing a massive $27 billion pivot to the business of designing and manufacturing electric vehicles. For example, the company, which is the largest automaker in North America, just unveiled a new logo as part of an overall brand redesign.

Starting point is 00:10:26 GM has been nipping at the heels of Tesla and other EV makers as it attempts to convince its investors that it has a firm grasp on the future of electric powered transportation. Bright drop will be a key piece of that pivot in which hundreds of thousands of electric delivery vehicles are expected to hit the road in the years to come. GM envisions the new company, quote, creating a one-stop shop, a complete ecosystem for electric-powered delivery, including vehicles, software, and other services, said Pamela Fletcher, VP of GM's Global EV program. The first vehicle to roll out with the bright drop branding will be a delivery palette called EP1, the palette which can be used to transport packages from a delivery vehicle to a customer's front door, will have an ultium-powered electric

Starting point is 00:11:10 propulsion that will allow a top speed of three miles per hour. Packages can be secured within the EP1 palette, which comes with adjustable shelving and lockable cabinet-style doors. In addition, EP1 can carry up to 23 cubic feet of cargo and will have a payload capacity of 200 pounds, end quote. All right, can't put this off any longer. Let's go ahead and get to the political mischigas of the day. Parlor is suing Amazon after its AWS suspension, leveling a fairly broad antitrust allegation, essentially saying Amazon was basically in cahoots with Twitter in order to take out a Twitter competitor, quoting TechCrunch. The antitrust argument suggests a conspiracy by Amazon to protect and advance the interests of Twitter. Specifically, the argument is

Starting point is 00:12:02 that because Twitter is a major customer of AWS and Parlor is a threat to Twitter, Amazon wanted to take Parlor out of the picture. Given the context of Parlor's looming threat to Twitter and the fact that the Twitter ban might not long muzzle the president if he switched to Parlor, potentially bringing tens of millions of followers with him, AWS moved to shut down Parlor. This argument is not convincing for several reasons, but the most obvious one is that Parlor was at the time also an AWS customer. If people are going from one customer to another, why would Amazon care at all, let alone enough to interfere to the point of legal and ethical dubiety, end quote. Twitter, by the way, says it has suspended over 70,000 accounts

Starting point is 00:12:45 related to the Q&ON conspiracy theory since Friday. Facebook said yesterday, it is now removing content containing the phrase stop the steel under Facebook and Instagram's coordinating harm policy. And, just as I told you I had been hearing, the information has confirmation of an internal memo where Facebook has advised employees to avoid wearing company-branded apparel in public as it might put them at risk. Quote, in light of recent events, and to err on the side of caution, global security is encouraging everyone to avoid wearing or carrying Facebook branded items at this time, said the memo, which was posted by the company's security team in an internal workplace service available

Starting point is 00:13:29 to its more than 56,000 employees. Other tech companies involved in actions against Trump or Parlor, a social media app where some of Trump's supporters had discussed taking violent actions at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, also have cautioned employees to be on guard for potential reprisals. Over the weekend in Amazon Web Services, Executive told the cloud services data center employees to, quote, be vigilant and report any unusual activity around the company's facilities. Business Insider reported on Monday, AWS on Sunday night, removed Parlor from its hosting service prompting threats of violence from some users of the app. On Monday, dozens of police officers gathered around Twitter's San Francisco headquarters due to rumors of a pro-Trump

Starting point is 00:14:09 protest scheduled to take place, though only one person showed up to protest according to the verge, end quote. And finally today, let's jump back to CES because last year, CES was cresting the wave of that whole foldable phone fad. If you'll recall, I went around trying to find all the foldable phones I could to get my hands on them and see if the hype. was real, and I know maybe I got hoodwinked into buying into that fad more than I should have, but hey, if we covered all that, I figure it's at least worth mentioning this. LG has a rollable phone, not a screen that folds up but one that unrolls, and LG says it's going to launch this this year. Quote, the LG rollable has what the company calls

Starting point is 00:15:03 a unique resizable screen that extends from a phone into a small tablet display, the screen slides in and out of place to provide a bigger screen area. Quote, our management wanted to show that it is a real product, as there were many rumors around the rollable phone, says an LG spokesperson in a statement to Niki. As it is released at CES 2021, I can tell you it will be launched this year, end quote. Niki also reports that LG is working with China's BEOE technology group on the rollable screen technology. LG has not yet confirmed what display tech the rollable is using, or any details on the different display sizes. LG first started working on the rollable as part of the

Starting point is 00:15:44 company's Explorer Project experiments. The company has used this project to previously launch its LG wing smartphone with a rotating design and two OLED displays. Now that LG has branded its new LG rollable phone and confirmed its coming to market this year, we'll likely see a race among phone manufacturers to roll this rollable screen technology out, end quote. To which I say, eh, maybe. As I said, it's not like foldable phones have set the world on fire or anything. Also, given the limited promo video they've released, which you can see in the link to the story and the show notes, it's not really clear to me how this technology works. So I'm not convinced it's practical yet. We'll see, I guess. Apparently, I've been saying 2020 at the top of the show a few times recently.

Starting point is 00:16:43 I was joking originally about forgetting that it was 2021, but it seems that it's no longer that, no longer a joke. So today in the show script, I actually wrote it out. 2021. I will point out that only a couple of you noticed, or at least only a couple of you told me that I was making that mistake. So what does that say? Either y'all are more polite than most people on the internet are, or we're all in this weird mindset. where 2021 is not that far away mentally from 2020. We're kind of all in the same mental boat.

Starting point is 00:17:20 Like, the distance between 2019 and 2020 seems obvious when you say to read it. And even if it were 2022, I feel like I wouldn't be making the same mistake. I bet that 2022 would be enough of a distance from 2020 to do the trick. But for whatever reason, that one in there in 2021 just doesn't feel substantial enough to make an impact, at least on my brain. This has been deep number thoughts with Jack Handy. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 01/12 – Intel Unveils New Core i9-11900K Flagship Chip

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