Today, Samsung's foundry division, dedicated to the manufacturing of DRAM chips, is facing challenges from mistakes that happened a few weeks ago. Those mistakes are in the form of contamination of the clean rooms, where all the tools necessary for the manufacturing of DRAM chips on 200 mm wafers got infected, and now Samsung is taking a multi-million dollar loss because the new wafers have to be scrapped.

Clean rooms are essential for the semiconductor manufacturing process, because they keep all the pollutants away from silicon, keeping silicon clean and ready for use. However, Samsung has not managed to keep a clean room for its DRAM manufacturing facility working with 200 mm wafers for 1x nm-class DRAM chips. The tools used for wafer processing have been contaminated and, therefore, the wafers themselves because of their interactions. Samsung has admitted that they have lost around "several billion South Korean won," resulting in millions of US dollars. The re-assuring thing that this will not significantly impact the DRAM market is that production is now going as planned, and the issue is sorted out, so we can hope this doesn't have any big impact on the DRAM prices.

A racing bar chart over time of the most popular music artists from 1969 to 2019 ranked by yearly certified record sales.

If you really want to nail down 60fps or greater in Red Dead Redemption 2 at high/medium settings, you'll need to pack at least an Nvidia 16-series GPU or greater. While the GTX 1060 6GB is one of the most popular graphics cards on the market for mainstream gaming, it only just scrapes 1080p60 on average in most benchmarks. Across the board, framerates above and beyond 60fps are possible at 1080p, but don't expect ultra-smooth high refresh rate gaming on anything other than the very best Nvidia Turing graphics cards – such as the RTX 2080 Super and RTX 2080 Ti. The 1440p club is even more elusive. At this resolution even the latest 16-series mainstream cards fall a little short of 60fps. An RTX 2060 Super will net you acceptable frame times, although its bitter rival, the AMD RX 5700, manages just a few frames more. Ramping up to 4K is a privilege enjoyed only by graphics card royalty. Red Dead Redemption demands serious silicon to reach 60fps at 4K, and even the RTX 2080 Super struggles to get there despite its power and price tag. The RTX 2080 Ti is the only option for 4K in Red Dead Redemption 2 – at least without drastically dropping graphics settings.

We've just about forgotten what the original iPhone looked like and it's interesting to see how things have progressed these past 12 years.

Alcatel has revealed the 2019 edition of its 3V affordable Android phone for the US market, which will launch soon on Metro by T-Mobile. The phone has a large 6.7-inch HD screen and a large 4,000 mAh battery with fast charging via USB-C. It also has a 16-megapixel main camera aided by a depth camera for portrait effects, and an 8-megapixel selfie camera. It's powered by a MediaTek P22 processor paired with 3 GB of RAM. Its 32 GB of storage is expandable via microSD memory cards. Other features include a standalone fingerprint reader on the back, 3.5mm headset jack, stereo speakers, Google Assistant, and Google Lens. Pricing and launch date were not announced.

Google this week announced a new program to collaborate with other companies to screen apps for harmful code before they reach the Google Play Store, the app store for Android devices. The App Defense Alliance includes Google, ESET, Lookout, and Zimperium. "As part of this Alliance, we are integrating our Google Play Protect detection systems with each partner's scanning engines. This will generate new app risk intelligence as apps are being queued to publish."

"Under the Graveyard" is the first song from Osbourne's upcoming album, Ordinary Man, which will be released in early 2020. Recorded in Los Angeles, the LP features producer Andrew Watt on guitars, Duff McKagan of Guns N' Roses on bass and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on drums. The five-minute track features echoes of the Black Sabbath classic 'Paranoid' in its lyrics, which include the lines 'My misery owns me' and 'I don't wanna be my enemy' – though the music is something of a departure in both its sound and construction.

Today, AMD introduced the third-generation of Ryzen Threadripper processors for creative professionals, starting at a whopping $1399. But if you don't need that much power, AMD also announced the release date for the Ryzen 9 3950X CPU, which was announced in June and later delayed. As the top-tier offering in the Ryzen lineup, the Ryzen 9 3950X has 16 cores and 32 threads, with a base clock speed of 3.5GHz that can boost up to 4.7GHz. It has 72MB of cache and 44 PCIe lanes in conjunction with an X570 motherboard. The TDP matches the Ryzen 9 3900X at 105W. Just like the new Threadripper CPUs, the new AMD Ryzen 9 3950X is coming on November 25, and it will cost $749 - a significant step up from the 12-core 3900X, which cost $499 when it was announced. For "mainstream" desktop computers, AMD also announced a new Athlon processor today, the Athlon 3000G. It's the first Athlon processor based on the Zen architecture that can be overclocked, and it also comes with Radeon Vega 3 graphics. It has two cores and four threads running at 3.5GHz. The TDP is just 35W and it will cost $49 when it launches on November 19.

Lastly, AMD announced a fascinating new platform feature called ECO Mode. Applicable to all socket AM4 processors that have "Zen 2" CPU cores (Ryzen 5 3500 and above), ECO Mode is essentially a cTDP (configurable TDP) implementation for the desktop platform. You flick a toggle in Ryzen Master, and the processor's TDP is capped at 65 Watts on-the-fly. So when not gaming or doing serious work, you can turn on ECO Mode and ensure your processor never draws more than 65 Watts. For the mighty Ryzen 9 3950X, ECO Mode offers 77 percent performance, but 44 percent lower power-draw, and 7°C lower temperatures.

Seagate announced its roadmap for the coming years, and the company is naturally fighting tooth and nail for the relevance of HDD technology in the market. While the benefits of SSDs are already well understood by the entire industry, in some scenarios, it makes more sense to make use of high-density HDDs - particularly where deployment space is at a premium, and in scenarios where seek times for information stored on the media aren't all that important. This is why the company is aggressively pushing its new HAMR technology as a way to increase areal density on traditional platter-based media. Plans to achieve 18 TB and 20 TB density HDDs in the first semester of 2020 seem to be well within reason, considering the company has recently shipped 16 TB HDDs. These HDD solutions will still make use of older technologies such as CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording), for the 18 TB drives) and SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) for their 20 TB 2020 products. The company will later make use of their proprietary HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording) technology in order to upgrade their 20 TB, and 20 TB+ HDDs with higher performance (and density) than can be achieved with the tried and true SMR. When it comes to performance improvements, a latent disadvantage in HDDs compared to solid state solutions, the company will eventually deploy HDDs which make use of two sets of read/write heads instead of a single one.

Microsoft has released a public preview of its new, completely revamped Office app for Android and iOS. A single Office app replaces the previously separate Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps. It also includes the previously-announced features that let users take a photo of a document to create an editable Word document, and use the camera to import table data directly into Excel. It includes dedicated sections for non-Office documents: PDF, Media, and Notes. An Actions panel makes it easy to transfer files between phone and computer, or with nearby phones. It also includes shortcuts to create PDFs and add signatures to them. Anyone can try out the public preview, but it requires extra steps of enrolling in the testing program, a process that requires joining a group for Android, or using TestFlight for iOS.

Google has added a rewards program called Google Play Points to the Android app store. The program is free to join and members earn points for everything they buy through Google Play, and even for downloading "featured" free apps and games. Points can be redeemed for Google Play purchases, in-app purchases and discounts, as well as donations to charity. The program has four tiers, with higher levels offering weekly prizes. The program is launching this week in the US, but has been available in Korea and Japan for a year.

It appears that PC gamers can take advantage of an exploit on the Epic Games Store to access and keep games to their accounts for free. Willian Worrall of CCN discovered this new vulnerability and - for anyone interested - Epic Games has not fixed it yet. If you install a game through the store by logging into someone else's account, you can continue to play the installed game even if you log back into your own account.

While logging into my account earlier today, I discovered that a game I didn't own but which was already installed from another Epic Games Store account was appearing in my library. Trying to boot the game resulted in it running fine, no error messages or stops at all. This was replicated on another machine and the result was always the same. As long as you had a game installed in the Epic Games directory, you could run the game even if you didn't own it.

The exploit was consistently replicable even when creating a completely new account that doesn't own any games. As well as making a new account we even tested the exploit on a third machine and the exploit persisted, meaning that it is almost certainly possible to do this with any account, on any machine.

The exploit was consistently replicable even when creating a completely new account that doesn't own any games. As well as making a new account we even tested the exploit on a third machine and the exploit persisted, meaning that it is almost certainly possible to do this with any account, on any machine.

I refunded Borderlands 3 and uninstalled it from the Epic Games Store but found its install directory and its executable is still there and I can unfortunately continue to play Borderlands 3 even though it's gone.

TALK ABOUT SICK DRM pic.twitter.com/nEtpke2Ckt

— Marty (@TimeCommando) September 16, 2019

This exploit seems to have something to do with a lack of DRM or license-checking on the part of the store. Back when Borderlands 3 was released, gamers on Reddit and Twitter discovered that they could still play the game after refunding it by locating the executable on their PC.

Microsoft's cloud computing business unveiled Project Silica, a cold-storage device that's designed to stand the test of time. Essentially an optical storage media, it is a 7.5 cm x 7.5 mm x 2 mm square piece of glass that can store up to 75.6 GB of data (inclusive of error-correction code). Unlike conventional optical media such as CD or Blu-ray, which relies on etching pits of different lengths on a plastic substrate to denote ones and zeros, project silica uses nanoscale gratings and deformations, while AI is used for error-correction to overcome any aging of the media. The company developed a proof-of-concept using quartz glass. "A laser encodes data in glass by creating layers of three-dimensional nanoscale gratings and deformations at various depths and angles. Machine learning algorithms read the data back by decoding images and patterns that are created as polarized light shines through the glass," writes Microsoft in its description of how Project Silica works. CD can typically hold data for 1-2 centuries provided that the disc is stored properly. After that, the plastic physical layer decays, losing data integrity. Project Silica, on the other hand, is designed to be resilient not just in a box, but also outside it. The media can "withstand being boiled in hot water, baked in an oven, microwaved, flooded, scoured, demagnetized and [withstand] other environmental threats that can destroy priceless historic archives or cultural treasures if things go wrong," says Microsoft.

Nvidia released a major update to its Game Ready graphics drivers last week, adding a wide range of new features and capabilities. Today, the company has released a minor update to that driver, bringing the version number up to 441.12. The latest version mostly focuses on adding Game Ready support for the PC version of Red Dead Redemption 2 and Need for Speed: Heat. It also adds a new SLI profile for the former, as well as one for Borderlands 3. The new driver also adds support for new G-Sync Compatible monitors from LG. The new additions were announced last week, and they're the new E9, C9, and B9 models released this year. You can check the full list of G-Sync monitors here. There's only one new fix in this release, which addresses crashes in Super Robot Wars V.

Game Ready

• The new Game Ready Driver provides the latest performance optimizations, profiles, and bug fixes for Red Dead Redemption 2.
• This new driver also includes the latest optimizations for Need for Speed Heat and Borderlands 3.

New G-SYNC Compatible Monitors

• The list of G-SYNC Compatible displays increases to over 55 options with the addition of the LG
• B9, C9, and E9 4K OLED TVs. Make sure to update your firmware first for the best experience.

Application Performance Profiles
Added or updated the following performance profiles:

• Borderlands 3
• Red Dead Redemption 2

New Features and Other Changes

• Added security updates for driver components.
• Adds support for new LG TV G-SYNC compatible monitor.

Fixed Issues in this Release

• [Super Robot Wars V]: The game crashes to a white screen. [2720588]

Arnold Schwarzenegger breaks down his most iconic characters, including his roles in 'The Terminator,' 'The Terminator 2: Judgement Day,' 'Predator,' 'Batman & Robin,' 'Pumping Iron,' 'Conan the Barbarian,' 'Twins,' 'Kindergarten Cop,' 'Jingle All the Way,' 'Total Recall,' 'True Lies' and 'Terminator: Dark Fate.'

Playstation and Adult Swim team up for one the most ambitious crossover events in history...just kidding.

Physarum polycephalum is a single-celled, brainless organism that can make 'decisions,' and solve mazes. Anne Pringle, who is a mycologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explains everything you need to know about what these slime molds are and how they fit into our ecosystem.

AT&T is introducing new unlimited plans that drop the live and on-demand TV package included with the existing Unlimited &More plans. Accounting for that and other minor changes, pricing stays about the same, with unlimited plan choices (and price points) increasing from two to three.

• The new entry-level plan is called Unlimited Starter and costs $65/month for a single line, down from $70/month for the old Unlimited &More plan. Multi-line discounts can bring that down to $35/month/line for an account with four lines. As with the plan it replaces, data, voice, and texting are unlimited across the US, Canada, and Mexico, and texts from the US to over 120 countries are free, but video is limited to SD quality and mobile hotspot is not allowed.
• The new step-up plan is called Unlimited Extra, replacing Unlimited &More Premium. The new plan is cheaper, but does not include a premium streaming service of choice, nor HD video streaming. It does include everything in the Starter plan plus 15 GB of mobile hotspot data. Unlimited Extra will run $75/month for a single line, (down from $80/month for the old Unlimited &More Premium plan.) Multi-line discounts can bring that down to $40/month/line for an account with four lines. Both Unlimited Starter and Unlimited Extra will launch on November 3rd.
• Unlimited Elite is AT&T's new top-end plan, and AT&T's only unlimited plan to allow HD video streaming. It also includes 30 GB of mobile hotspot data. Instead of a choice of premium streaming service, HBO is included. AT&T owns HBO. Unlimited Elite will cost $85/month for a single line. Multi-line discounts apply, such as $50/month/line for four lines. This plan will be available "in the coming weeks".

All of the pricing cited above is after applying AT&T's discount for auto-pay and paperless billing, (which was true of AT&T's existing plans as well.) AT&T offers an additional 25% discount for military, veterans, and first responders and their families.