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Corsair’s New Memory Supplier, HP’s Broken BIOS Updates, California Age Verification Law Backlash + more!
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Corsair has been spotted selling Vengeance DDR5 RAM kits built with chips from Cxmt, a Chinese memory maker that the US has been trying to choke out for years, instead of from the usual Samsung, sk, Hynix and Micron. I'm James Strive, this is techlinked, and Corsair didn't exactly announce this. A user on Twitter ran CPU Z on a stick and outed the chips like the world's least sexy paternity test. Wait, are paternity tests ever sexy? This is the first time a major Western memory brand has shipped CXMT silicon, and it's happening because Samsung, sk, Hynix and Micron have sold most of their DRAM output to AI data centers, leaving consumer brands fighting over scraps. CXMT has spare capacity precisely because the US won't let them tool up for hyperscalers, which makes them the first realistic fourth DRAM supplier in years. The kit itself is a normal 16 gig DDR5 6000 CL36 stick with XMP and Expo support just marked CN for China exclusive Nikkei reports HP, Dell, Acer and Asus are quietly exploring using Chinese memory too. So no, your RAM isn't getting cheaper right away, but for once the supply side has a plan that doesn't depend on data centers suddenly developing self control Certain HP laptop owners have found themselves living in hell over the past few months thanks to an automatic critical BIOS update installed via Windows Update cause nothing's better than a critical fix that causes crit damage. Owners of The AMD based ZBook Ultra G1A and EliteBook XG1A have posted to several threads and forums relaying their experiences with unbootable devices, the blue screen of death and fans spinning so fast you'd think they'd create enough resistance to avoid a crash in the first place. Since the update was flagged as critical, Windows installed it automatically, leaving owners with no warning before things went sideways. HP says they're investigating the matter and you can reference a GitHub gist by Jeff Nash cataloging all the issues, effective BIOS versions and workarounds. EliteBook users have an official patch now, however, ZBook owners are still waiting, but don't feel too bad for them. They now have a legitimate excuse for missing their zoom meetings. California lawmakers are backpedaling on a controversial OS level age verification requirement after a backlash from the open source community. The new amendment AB 1856 would exempt mainstream Linux distros by creating a carve out for software that users are allowed to copy, change and redistribute this would modify the Digital Age Assurance act signed last year, which would have required every operating system to collect a user's age at setup and pipe an age bracket signal to apps. Open source advocates were upset that the original wording was so broad and it could rope in volunteer run projects with no accounts, no telemetry, no legal team. The EFF's Aaron Mackey called the laws well intentioned, but said they're written so broadly they missed the point. To her credit, Assemblymember and person whose name is definitely not made up, Buffy Wicks heard the community's feedback to the first bill and drafted the amendment in response. So fingers crossed the bill gets passed in the coming weeks and all those open source maintainers can go back to being stressed about regular stuff like triaging a million pull requests from overzealous vibe coders, something that would never happen if more people used our sponsor has this
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ever happened to you? You're at Jenny Tabuno's house party surrounded by a bunch of cool programmers who are using words like JavaScript and SQL and you have no clue what they're talking about. Then a group of girls comes in and one of them asks you if you prefer Python or Go and you panic and say your favorite Snake movie is Anaconda. Oh, then they laugh at you for a long time. Like a really, really long time, and you can't leave the party because you got double parked by an ice cream truck. Has that ever happened to you? Yeah, me neither. But if it did, I would say you could figure out what they were talking about by using boot.dev. which is a platform designed to teach you backend web development from start to finish. And it makes sure you learn by gamifying the experience and letting you write real code with which keeps you from getting bored and quitting. And if it ever gets too hard, Bootsta Bear wizard is there to help you get back on track, not laugh at you for easily 10 minutes straight like Jenny Tabuno. Come on. So click the link below to start learning and use code TECHLINK for 25% off your first payment.
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In the immortal words of Curtis 50 Cent Jackson, we can head to the crib in a quick bit. I can show you how I live in a quick bit. Sorry. I'm so sorry I don't write these China's underwater data center off Shanghai, featuring 2,000 servers in sealed modules powered by wind and cooled by seawater, is now operational. The facility is meant to cut energy costs and handle AI and mobile network workloads though critics worry about corrosion, cable reliability and maintenance. Microsoft tested a similar underwater system with Project Natick. Despite promising results, though, they eventually ended the project in 2024 because they determined it was impractical. Surprise. But China clearly wasn't listening to Microsoft because China does what China wants. Ask the Qin Dynasty. According to reports, TSMC is desperately trying to walk back rumored CEO comments about slashing employee bonuses by up to 30% after Taiwanese staff began threatening a Samsung style revolt. TSMC has since reportedly issued an explicit two part statement that reads, and I'm paraphrasing here, haha jk actually bonuses might be even higher this year. We love our employees. Please don't strike. It seems TSMC may have an even bigger problem on their hands though, explaining to shareholders why employee bonuses are higher than last year. OmniDrive, a custom firmware for MediaTek MT1959 based Blu Ray drives, is letting supported drives including a bunch from LG and Asus, Read and RIP, GameCube, Wii, Xbox and many other game discs, producing raw or potentially playable backups for preservation. Flashing requires specific firmware files and tools and can brick drives if done wrongly. So be safe out there, especially from Nintendo's lawyers. A garage built drone unofficially smashed the unmanned aerial vehicle speed record by hitting approximately 453 miles per hour. That's 730 kilometers per hour for people on the good system. This drone briefly exceeded the cruising speed of many fighter jets. However, with no certified timing or formal observers, this is more of a demonstration than an official world record. I'm excited to one day see a King of Kong style documentary about the petty internal politics of drone records. Who is the Billy Mitchell of drones? If you don't know, it could be you. Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical just dropped and Chicago Pope is taking some shots at AI. For those of you who don't know, the encyclicals are like the Vatican substack where the Pope gives advice to the world at large. He presented the 42,300 word document on Monday and its central thesis was warning against concentrating AI's power in the hands of the few, calling for the technology to be disarmed and comparing it to the Tower of Babel. Damn Chicago Pope hates our techno feudal overlords as much as he loves the white socks and deep dish pizza. Respect. I can't confirm this, but I heard this Pope's second favorite return of all time is TechLinked returning to your screen this Wednesday. Apparently it's gonna be miraculous. See you there.