A tiny phone, tablet and laptop charger, the first to use gallium nitride rather than silicon chips, has seen sales four times greater than predicted [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled], prompting the Chinese company behind it to try to ramp up production. From a report: Anker, a Shenzhen-based company that specialises in computer and mobile phone accessories, unveiled a line of chargers using gallium nitride (GaN), which conducts electrons 1,000 times faster than silicon, in January. The use of GaN allowed Anker to virtually halve the size of its charger, while retaining full-speed charging. Another Chinese-owned company, RAVPower, has also started using GaN in its chargers. "Silicon limits have been pushed almost to the extreme," said Steven Yang, co-founder and chief executive of Anker. "But GaN is at [the next] phase."

The introduction of the new semiconductor into the consumer market came after a series of military and other commercial applications, in everything from electric vehicles to radar systems. Raytheon, the US defence group, said in 2017 that it had spent $300m researching GaN since 1999. Like some of its peers, it uses the material in its active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars, which are able to detect stealth fighters at long range. "Once the power technology is out of the box it will be widely adopted around the world and that means everyone can produce power-switching modules," said Stephen Bryen, a former deputy undersecretary of defence and senior fellow at the American Center for Democracy. "And that is what is used in the radars -- that's the nexus between commercial and military use."

schwit1 quotes a report from ZDNet: On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said that Yi-Chi Shih, a part-time Los Angeles resident, attempted to secure semiconductor chips used in US military applications in order to transfer them to Chinese associates. The 64-year-old was subject to a six-week trial in a Los Angeles, California federal court. Prosecutors alleged that Shih, alongside co-defendant Kiet Ahn Mai of Pasadena, California, conspired to gain access to a sensitive system belonging to an unnamed U.S. firm which manufactured semiconductor chips and Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMICs).

The victim company's PC systems were accessed fraudulently after Mai posed as a potential customer, giving Shih the opportunity to obtain custom processors. While the firm in question believed the chips would only be used in the United States, Shih transferred the products to the Chengdu GaStone Technology Company (CGTC), a Chinese firm building an MMIC manufacturing plant. Evidence suggested that Shih managed to "defraud the U.S. company out of its proprietary, export-controlled items, including its design services for MMICs." A sentencing hearing is yet to be scheduled. The range of charges could see Shih face a maximum sentence of 219 years in federal prison, and the judge presiding over the case is also considering the prosecution's request for hundreds of thousands of dollars to be made forfeit.

According to Thurrott's Brad Sams, Microsoft is still developing a low-cost, cloud-based Xbox console. "Sams suggests the low-power box will be just capable enough to allow a player to 'move around in a virtual environment,' but crucially, game elements like NPCs, interactables, text and even graphics won't be there," reports VG247. From the report: This is obviously not playable, but the idea is that having movement calculations run locally reduces input lag compared to a 100% streamed game. Though this might make technical sense, it's hard to imagine the company pushing this hard unless the difference is really perceptible. Of course, there's a lot we still don't know about the streaming market, and some segment of that audience may opt to pay $80 or so to get an experience better than running the game through a web browser.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has released the software development kit (SDK) for its open-source Shakti processor. Shakti is based on the open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture and was funded by the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The institute promised that a development board will also be released soon. Tom's Hardware reports: The RISE group at IIT Madras started working on the Shakti project in 2016 with a plan to release a family of six classes of processors, each serving a different market. The group promised that the reference processors will be competitive with commercial offerings in terms of area, performance and power consumption. Now India, like China and the European Union, are showing interest in designing their own processors, rather than relying on ones designed by U.S. manufacturers. With the release of the Shakti SDK, developers can begin to develop applications for the Shakti processors, even before they're commercialized.

Apple says a "very small number" of MacBook Air models have an issue with the main logic board and can be replaced at no cost to customers. 9to5Mac reports: Apple's memo to repair staff notes that it has identified "an issue" with the main logic board specifically in Retina, 13-inch, 2018 MacBook Air models with certain serial numbers. Apple will be emailing customers with machines with the serial numbers they've identified as being affected, otherwise customers can take their machine to Apple Stores or authorized repair staff to have their devices checked out. Apple's documents list symptoms as issues with "power," but do not elaborate on what problems users are experiencing exactly. A quick search online for problems with the 2018 MacBook Air logic board shows reports back to when the device first launched with some users' machines not able to power on at all. The affected machines will be covered for four years from the original purchase date. Users that think they might be experiencing the issue can take their MBA to Apple Stores or an Apple authorized service provider.

MojoKid writes: NVIDIA just launched three new GeForce RTX gaming GPUs to battle against AMD's forthcoming Radeon RX 5700 series. The GeForce RTX 2080 Super, GeForce RTX 2070 Super and GeForce RTX 2060 Super will all be shipping this month. GeForce RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2060 Super cards are out making the rounds in benchmark reviews, while the RTX 2080 Super will arrive in a couple of weeks. The GeForce RTX 2070 Super is more than just an overclocked RTX 2070 but actually based on the GeForce RTX 2080's TU104 NVIDIA Turing GPU with 40 active SMs, for a total of 2,560 CUDA cores at 1,605MHz and 1,770MHz base and boost clocks, respectively. The RTX 2060 Super is still based on the original TU106 GPU, but it has four additional SMs enabled, which brings the CUDA core count up to 2,176 (from 1,920) at a somewhat higher 1470MHz base clock and boost clock 30MHz lower at 1,650MHz.

There is an additional 2GB of GDDR6 memory on the card too for a total of 8GB now. Performance-wise, both cards are significant upgrades over the originals, with roughly 10 -- 23 percent gains, depending on the resolution or application. The GeForce RTX 2070 Super is often faster than the pricier AMD Radeon VII, especially at 1440p. At 4K, however, the Radeon VII's memory bandwidth advantage often gives it an edge. The new GeForce RTX 2060 Super is faster than a Radeon RX Vega 64 more often than not. It will be interesting to see how these cards compete with AMD's Radeon RX 5700 Navi-based card when they arrive later this month. NVIDIA could have just thrown a wrench in the works for AMD.

carbonnation writes: As Spock so elegantly opined, "Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Today Stanford U researchers presented the clearest proof to date that self-sacrifice can also benefit wind farms. In their demonstration at an Alberta wind farm, one turbine sacrifices a fifth of its generating potential to enable better performance by neighboring turbines, boosting the group's collective output. And all it takes to harness this altruistic behavior is a small (but intelligent) tweak to their control systems. "It is called 'wake steering' because rotors are turned about their towers to point slightly away from the oncoming wind and thus deflect their wakes away from downstream turbines," reports IEEE Spectrum. "To determine the best yaw angle for their experiment, the Stanford team fed five years of wind speed, wind direction and power generation data from the six test turbines to their proprietary optimization algorithm. Combining that data with a simple wind model, the algorithm projected that yawing each of the five upstream turbines about 20 degrees to the north would maximize the group's generation from the northwest winds."

Next, since the researchers couldn't reprogram the control systems running at Pincher Creek, they repositioned the direction-tracking wind vanes atop the turbines' nacelles during the 10-day test and thereby tricked the control system to turn 20 degrees off the wind. The results were significant: power generation rose 13 percent under 7-8 meters per second (mps) wind speeds. "Steering had a still greater impact amidst slower northwest winds by reducing the times when the wind hitting turbines fell below the 5 mps -- the threshold at which they automatically shut down," the report adds. "For 5-6 mps winds wake steering boosted generation by up to 47 percent."

On July 1st, 1979, Sony revolutionized the way we listen to music when it released the iconic Walkman TPS-L2, the first real portable music player. "Boomboxes and portable radios had been around for a while, but the Walkman made portable music private, ushering in a whole new era of people listening to music away from home," writes Chaim Gartenberg for The Verge. The Walkman stood the test of time by continuing to sell well even through the CD era. "[It] would go on to see numerous hardware iterations over the years, including 'Discman' CD models and MiniDisc players, as well as more modern portable media player devices that Sony still sells today," writes Gartenberg. It wasn't until Apple unveiled the iPod in 2001 and digital downloads began to dominate that Walkman sales started to plummet.

What do you remember about the Sony Walkman? Do you have any fond memories of the music player that are worth sharing? Let us know in a comment.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Tesla's head of production in charge of its Fremont factory, Peter Hochholdinger, is going to hold a similar position at Lucid Motors, an electric car startup looking to soon move to production. Lucid Motors has kind of spun out of Tesla. It was started by a former Tesla board member and executive and it is led by Peter Rawlinson, the former chief engineer of the Tesla Model S. Several other Tesla engineers and executives have also joined the startup and they are now also adding Hochholdinger to the team. Today, the startup announced that the Tesla and Audi veteran is joining as Vice President of Manufacturing and he will lead "Lucid's global manufacturing operations, commencing with Lucid's plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, as well as manufacturing engineering." Rawlinson commented on the hire: "We are delighted to welcome Peter to the Lucid team. Peter's extensive experience and proven leadership in premium-vehicle manufacturing will prove invaluable as we continue our progress towards the launch of Lucid Air and future models. In joining Lucid, Peter is empowered to create an industry-leading manufacturing process that will deliver the quality products our discerning customers demand and deserve."

"Robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) is about to eat the world of work" argues Hooman Radfar, a partner at the startup studio Expa who's been "actively investing in and looking for new companies" catalyzing the change." Companies buy massive robots and software solutions that are customized -- at great cost -- to their specific needs. The massive conglomerates that sell these robots have dominated the field for decades, but that is about to change. One major factor driving this change is how dramatically globalization has reduced hardware production costs and capabilities. At the same time, cheap and powerful computing and cloud infrastructure are now also readily available and easy to spin up. As a result, vertical-specific, robotic-powered, solutions can today be offered as variable cost services versus being sold at a fixed cost. Just as cable companies include the costs of set-top boxes in their monthly bill, robots and their associated software will be bundled together and sold in a subscription package. This change to the robotics business model will have profound implications, radically transforming markets and at the same time changing the future of work.

With a new variable cost model in place as a result of subscription packages, it's simple to calculate when a market is about to tip to favor RaaS. A market has hit its automation tipping point when an RaaS solution is introduced with a unit cost that is less than or equal to the unit cost for humans-in-the-loop to conduct the same task... One market that has already reached its automation tipping point is the enterprise building security market... Crop dusting ($70 billion), industrial cleaning ($78 billion), warehouse management ($21 billion), and many more service markets are tipping. When these sectors hit their automation tipping point, we will see the same level of industry disruption currently taking place in the building security market.

The changes taking place in the enterprise will also deeply impact consumer markets, and ultimately society, in profound and potentially challenging ways. We are at the start of a massive shift in how work gets done.
One study predicted the worldwide RaaSS market would be $34.7 within three years, according to the article, which also explores how the building security market is already being disrupted. "Instead of manning a building with three to four people, you can have one human managing a few remote robots" -- at a cost that's 30% cheaper.

"Moreover, all the data and insights collected via these robots is organized and made available for building and security optimization. It isn't just cheaper, it's better. There's no turning back -- this market has hit its automation tipping point."

Lancaster University has announced a "universal computer memory" breakthrough combining the fast, low-energy storage of DRAM memory with the robustness of flash memory. They're now envisioning ultra-low energy consumption computers which would never need to boot up -- and can "instantaneously and imperceptibly" slip into an energy-saving sleep mode.

Long-time Slashdot reader Hrrrg pointed us to this announcement: A U.S. patent has been awarded for the electronic memory device with another patent pending, while several companies have expressed an interest or are actively involved in the research. The inventors of the device used quantum mechanics to solve the dilemma of choosing between stable, long-term data storage and low-energy writing and erasing... [Specifically, "by exploiting the quantum-mechanical properties of an asymmetric triple resonant-tunnelling barrier."]

Physics Professor Manus Hayne of Lancaster University said, "Our device has an intrinsic data storage time that is predicted to exceed the age of the Universe, yet it can record or delete data using 100 times less energy than DRAM."
The announcement predicts the technology could reduce peak power consumption in data centers by 20%.

Pursuing a renewable energy strategy, Arizona's largest electric company "installed massive batteries near neighborhoods with a large number of solar panels, hoping to capture some of the energy from the afternoon sun to use after dark," reports the Associated Press.

Slashdot reader pgmrdlm shares their report on what happened next: But an April fire and explosion at a massive battery west of Phoenix that sent eight firefighters and a police officer to the hospital highlighted the challenges and risks that can arise as utilities prepare for the exponential growth of the technology. With an investigation ongoing and no public word on the fire's cause, the incident is being closely watched by energy storage researchers and advocates... "Absent battery storage, the whole value proposition of intermittent renewable energy makes no sense at all," said Donald Sadoway, a battery researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-founder of battery storage company Ambri...

Nearly all of the utility-scale batteries now on the grid or in development are massive versions of the same lithium ion technology that powers cellphones and laptops... Arizona Public Service (APS) has assembled a team of engineers, safety experts and first responders to work with the utility, battery-maker Fluence and others to carefully remove and inspect the 378 modules that comprise the McMicken battery system and figure out what happened....

The APS fire was the third involving a utility-scale battery. One was at an APS-owned battery in Flagstaff in 2012, and the other was in Hawaii. APS has shut down its two similar batteries while awaiting the investigation's results, but the utility is not slowing down its plans to deploy new massive batteries, said Alan Bunnell, a company spokesman. "We believe energy storage is vital to a clean energy future here in Arizona," Bunnell said.

Thursday the Wall Street Journal wrote a piece about AMD's joint venture with Chinese holding coming THATIC -- titled "How a Big U.S. Chip Maker Gave China the 'Keys to the Kingdom'." The article argues that AMD "essentially granted China access to advanced processor IP that could be used to threaten U.S. national security," reports Forbes.

But they add that the same day, AMD executive Harry Wolin wrote an angry blog post in response, complaining that the story "contains several factual errors and omissions and does not portray an accurate picture." Forbes reports: From Wolin's post, "Starting in 2015, AMD diligently and proactively briefed the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce and multiple other agencies within the U.S. Government before entering into the joint ventures. AMD received no objections whatsoever from any agency to the formation of the joint ventures or to the transfer of technology -- technology which was of lower performance than other commercially available processors. In fact, prior to the formation of the joint ventures and the transfer of technology, the Department of Commerce notified AMD that the technology proposed was not restricted or otherwise prohibited from being transferred. Given this clear feedback, AMD moved ahead with the joint ventures."

Not only does AMD claim it had the green light from multiple government entities to enter into the deal, the post claims that the WSJ article is simply wrong. "The Wall Street Journal story omits important factual details, including the fact that AMD put significant protections in place to protect its intellectual property (IP) and prevent valuable IP from being misused or reverse engineered to develop future generations of processors."

Iranian authorities have seized about 1,000 bitcoin mining machines in two abandoned factories, after warnings that the activity had led to a spike in consumption of government-subsidized electricity. Reuters reports: "Two of these bitcoin farms have been identified, with a consumption of one megawatt,"; Arash Navab, a power official in the central province of Yazd, told the television. The machines, which produce cryptocurrencies that are banned in Iran, were mostly to blame for a 7% increase in power consumption in the month to June 21, according to an Energy Ministry spokesman, quoted by the website of state-run Press TV. In 2018, Iran's central bank banned the country's banks from dealing in cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, over money-laundering concerns.

Last week, Apple launched a voluntary recall and replacement program for the 15-inch 2015 MacBook Pro with Retina Displaying, saying that batteries on some of these devices could overheat and "may pose a fire safety risk." Thanks to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), we now know that Apple has received 26 reports of batteries overheating in affected notebooks, and that about 432,000 potentially affected MacBook Pro units were sold in the U.S., plus 26,000 in Canada. MacRumors reports: The CPSC has since indicated that Apple has received 26 reports of batteries overheating in affected notebooks, including five reports of minor burns and one report of smoke inhalation, as well as 17 reports of minor damage to nearby personal property. About 432,000 potentially affected MacBook Pro units were sold in the United States, plus 26,000 in Canada, according to a joint recall announcement from the CPSC and Health Canada. As of June 4, 2019, Apple has received one report of a consumer incident and no reports of injuries in Canada. Apple has asked customers to stop using affected MacBook Pro models and to contact the company to initiate a replacement. Apple's recall program page provides further details and instructions.

Apple is manufacturing its new Mac Pro computer in China (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), shifting abroad production of what had been its only major device assembled in the U.S. The Wall Street Journal reports: The tech giant has tapped Taiwanese contractor Quanta Computer Inc. to manufacture the $6,000 desktop computer and is ramping up production at a factory near Shanghai, the people said. Apple can save on shipping costs for components given the proximity of many of its suppliers to Shanghai, rather than having to supply a factory in the U.S. While the Mac Pro isn't one of Apple's higher-volume products, the decision on where to make it carries outsize significance. Apple's reliance on factories in China to manufacture its products has been an issue for the company, especially under President Trump, who has pressured Apple and other companies to make more in the U.S. An Apple spokesman said the new Mac Pro is designed and engineered in the U.S. and includes U.S.-made components. Apple said it supports manufacturing in 30 U.S. states and spent $60 billion last year with more than 9,000 U.S. suppliers.

"Final assembly is only one part of the manufacturing process," the spokesman said, adding that the company's investments support two million American jobs.

Apple iOS developer David Smith noticed something that really jumped out at him when he was reviewing his iPhone's device analytics. "People really, really like the 4.7-inch iPhone," he writes. "When I look at the iPhone distribution for Pedometer++ the four most popular devices are all that size. Together they account for nearly 50% of all devices I see in use." The next most popular screen sizes are the 5.5-inch Plus size (19%) and the 5.8-inch X size (12%).

There are two main reasons for why this is the case: people find the 4.7-inch display to be the perfect size, whether that be for one-handed usability or pocketability, and/or the specs and features found in the 4.7-inch iPhone models still perform well to this day, prompting users to hold off on upgrading to a larger model. Whatever the case may be, the numbers show that 4.7-inch iPhones are still very popular in 2019. Are you still using an iPhone with a 4.7-inch display? Which iPhone model is your favorite?

Ericsson announced its plans to build a 5G factory in the U.S. sometime early next year. "The factory will be the Swedish telco equipment maker's first fully-automated factory, the company said, and will be used to produce 5G radios designed for urban areas," reports ZDNet. "It will also make Advanced Antenna System radios that it said are components for large-scale deployments of 4G and 5G networks for both rural and urban coverage." From the report: Ericsson did not provide details about where the factory will be located, but the company has plans to initially employ around 100 people at the factory, which will have "highly automated operations." Ericsson is currently signed on by T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, US Cellular, and GCI to help build out their respective 5G mobile networks. According to the Ericsson's latest mobility report, North America is expected to lead in the adoption of 5G, with the company predicting that 63% of North American mobile subscriptions will be 5G-based in 2024. Fierce Wireless says the company has made a direct investment of about $100 million, "which will kick in during the third quarter of this year."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Transient Plasma Systems has its roots in pulsed power technology developed for the Department of Defense at the University of Southern California, specifically nanosecond-duration pulses of power. Since 2009, it has been working on commercializing the technology for the civilian market in a number of applications, but obviously it's the automotive one that interests me. In a conventional four-stroke internal combustion gasoline engine, which works on the principle of suck-squeeze-bang-blow, the bang is created by a spark plug igniting the fuel-air mixture in the cylinder. That spark typically lasts several milliseconds, and although the control of that spark is now controlled electronically rather than mechanically, the principle is the same today as it was in 1910 when Cadillac added it to its engines.

TPS's system does away with the conventional coil-on-plug approach. Instead, much shorter pulses of plasma -- several nanoseconds -- are used to ignite the fuel-air mix inside the cylinder. These have a much higher peak power than a conventional spark; thanks to their much shorter duration, however, the ignition is actually still rather low-energy (and therefore lower temperature). Consequently, it's possible to achieve better combustion at high compression ratios, more stable lean burning, and lower combustion temperatures within the cylinder. And that means a more efficient engine and one that produces less nitrogen oxide. TPS says that using its system, it can increase the thermal efficiency of an already very efficient internal combustion engine like the one Toyota uses in the current Prius (which is ~41 percent) up to 45 percent -- similar to the turbulent jet ignition systems that have recently seen Formula 1 gasoline engines reach that level. TPS has designed the system to replace existing spark plugs, so companies don't have to redesign their engines to use it, the report says. With that said, you can forget about fitting it to your own car as "TPS's going-to-market strategy is to work with an established tier-one supplier to leverage existing relationships with OEMs as well as existing manufacturing capacity."

Apple has hired one of ARM's top chip engineers as the iPhone maker looks to expand its own chip development to more powerful devices, including the Mac, and new categories like a headset. Bloomberg reports: The company hired Mike Filippo in May for a chip architect position, according to his LinkedIn profile. At ARM, Filippo was a lead engineer behind chip designs that power the vast majority of the world's smartphones and tablets and was leading a new push into parts for computers. ARM, owned by SoftBank, designs microprocessors and licenses technology that is fundamental to the chip development efforts of Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm and Huawei.

Prior to his work at ARM, Filippo was also a key designer at chipmakers Advanced Micro Devices and Intel. For Apple, the hire could help fill the void left by the departure of Gerard Williams III earlier this year. Williams was Apple's head architect of chips used in the iPhone and iPad. Apple's A series chips power its mobile devices using ARM technology. Its Mac computers have used processors from Intel for nearly two decades.