Something to look forward to: AMD is reportedly planning an initial launch of four Zen 5 CPUs ranging from 6 to 16 cores. The Ryzen 9 9950X flagship will be a 16-core / 32-thread CPU, followed by the 12-core / 24-thread Ryzen 9 9900X, the 8-core / 16-thread Ryzen 7 9700X, and the 6-core / 12-thread Ryzen 5 9600. The TDPs range from 65W for the 9600 to 170W for the 9950X.
The big picture: The 2024 e-bike market is valued at $34.98 billion and is projected to grow to $51 billion by 2029. With so many options for e-bike conversion kits, CLIP is vying for your attention with its portable, tool-less kit that will have you cruising in no time.
Forward-looking: Jeep had its fun stuffing 707 horsepower, 6.2 liter supercharged Hellcat engines in Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawks, but the auto world is bound and determined to go electric and Jeep is just along for the ride. The Stellantis-owned automaker's first official EV is the Wagoneer S, a premium battery-electric vehicle (BEV) boasting a range of more than 300 miles on a single charge.
The Year of Firefox: Google initially announced the Manifest V3 API in 2018, but the new extension technology was delayed several times because of the intrinsic limitations it imposed on ad blockers and security add-ons. Now that it is ready for release, Mountain View will begin phasing out Manifest V2 extensions in Chrome next month.
Some reviewers are calling XDefiant the "free Call of Duty." They also say the game is fun at times, but lackluster mechanics, way too large maps, and missing features (ping system and skill-based matchmaking) prevent it from truly standing out from the crowd, for now.
Facepalm: One of Google Cloud's worst nightmares came true in early May, when an embarrassing snafu completely erased a customer's account and data backups. The unlucky victim was Australian pension fund UniSuper, which manages a staggering $135 billion in assets for over 600,000 members. The pension fund was essentially frozen for two weeks, unable to fully operate while it scrambled to recover from third-party backups.
The big picture: The Office of the US Trade Representative has extended tariff exemptions on certain PC components several times since the Trump administration recommended tariffs on Chinese imports in 2018. Although there are no signs of an eventual end to the trade action, PC hardware vendors can breathe a sigh of relief until the middle of next year.
Something to look forward to: Nvidia introduced its deep learning super sampling technology a few years ago, and other GPU makers soon followed with their own solutions for graphics upscaling. Now, Microsoft is planning to bring the three main competing upscaling algorithms under the same DirectX 12 roof.
As part of their 15th anniversary celebrations, Mojang has reached a deal with Netflix to make an animated series based on Minecraft. With so many story lines, it'll be interesting to see which way they go.