Apple on Tuesday sent out invitations to the media for an event on March 8, with the tagline "Peek Performance." According to CNBC, the company is "expected to announce a new low-cost iPhone model" and a midrange iPad. From the report: Apple could announce a new low-cost iPhone with 5G support and a fingerprint reader, as well as a midrange iPad, according to media and analyst reports. The company currently offers a low-cost iPhone called the iPhone SE, which was introduced in the spring of 2020, and retails for $399. It's the most recent iPhone model with Apple's Touch ID fingerprint sensor. The new iPad is expected to be an updated version of the iPad Air, according to Bloomberg. That device was last updated in October 2020 and currently retails for $599.

Apple could also release iOS 15.4, the latest version of iPhone software, with several new features including the option to use facial recognition to unlock the device while wearing a mask, and the ability to accept contactless credit card payments without additional hardware.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Italy plans to set aside more than $4.6 billion until 2030 to boost domestic chip manufacturing as it seeks to attract more investment from tech companies such as Intel, a draft decree seen by Reuters showed on Tuesday. The government is trying to persuade the U.S. group to spend billions of euros on an advanced chipmaking plant in Italy that uses innovative technologies to weave full chips.

Rome is ready to offer Intel public money and other favorable terms to fund part of the overall investment, which is expected to be worth around $9 billion over 10 years, Reuters reported in December. To boost domestic chipmaking, Italy is also in talks with French-Italian STMicroelectronics , Taiwanese-controlled MEMC Electronic Materials Inc and Israeli Tower Semiconductor, which is set to be bought by Intel. Negotiations with Intel are complex as the U.S. group has tabled very tough demands, a government source involved in the talks told Reuters.

As part of an 8 billion euro package to support the economy and curb surging energy bills, Italy plans to allocate 150 million euros in 2022 and 500 million euros per year from 2023 until 2030, the decree showed. The Italian government will promote "research and development of microprocessor technology and investments in new industrial applications of innovative technologies," the legislation added. Rome aims to use the funding also to convert existing industrial sites and favor the construction of new plants in Italy.

A research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced last month it has been working with the Philadelphia-based company Ghost Robotics to develop a robot dog for the border. Now a small group of Latino U.S. House members recently expressed "extreme concern" about the plan. From a report: A letter obtained by Axios Latino shows that U.S. Reps. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) and Nanette Diaz Barragan (D-CA) are seeking a meeting with U.S. Customs and Border Protection about the robots. In the letter, the House members write that the term "robot dogs" is a "disingenuous moniker that attempts to soft-pitch the use of this technology."

"It downplays the threat the robots pose to migrants arriving at our southern border and the part they play in a long history of surveillance and privacy violations in our border communities." The letter also said they are concerned that the robot dogs will inevitably result in armed patrols and that they could critically injure, or even kill, migrants or American citizens. Robots used in combination with drones, facial recognition technology and license plate readers, pose civil liberties risks, the letter said.

Germany aims to fulfill all its electricity needs with supplies from renewable sources by 2035, compared to its previous target to abandon fossil fuels "well before 2040," according to a government draft paper obtained by Reuters on Monday. From the report: Economy Minister Robert Habeck has described the accelerated capacity expansion for renewable energy as a key element in making the country less dependent on Russian fossil fuel supplies. According to the paper, the corresponding amendment to the country's Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) is ready and the share of wind or solar power should reach 80% by 2030. By then, Germany's onshore wind energy capacity should double to up to 110 gigawatts (GW), offshore wind energy should reach 30 GW - arithmetically the capacity of 10 nuclear plants -- and solar energy would more than triple to 200 GW, the paper showed.

Germany's Enercon on Monday said a "massive disruption" of satellite connections in Europe was affecting the operations of 5,800 wind turbines in central Europe. MarketScreener reports: It said the satellite connections stopped working on Thursday, knocking out remote monitoring and control of the wind turbines, which have a total capacity of 11 gigawatt (GW). "The exact cause of the disruption is not yet known. The communication services failed almost simultaneously with the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine," Enercon said in a statement.

Enercon has informed Germany's cybersecurity watchdog BSI and is working with the relevant providers of the satellite communication networks to resolve the disruption, which it said affected around 30,000 satellite terminals used by companies and organisations from various sectors across Europe. "However, no effects on power grid stability are currently expected due to redundant communication capabilities of the responsible grid operators. Further investigations into the cause are being carried out by the company concerned in close exchange with the responsible authorities," BSI said. There was no risk to the turbines as they continued to operate on "auto mode," the company said. The report also notes that Viasat was "investigating a suspected cyberattack that caused a partial outage in its residential broadband services in Ukraine and other European countries"

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: VESA, which makes the DisplayPort spec, today announced a certification program aimed at helping consumers understand if a DisplayPort 2.0 cable, monitor, or video source can support the max refresh rates and resolutions the spec claims. VESA's latest certification is around DisplayPort 2.0. The spec can support a max throughput of 80Gbps compared to DisplayPort 1.4's 32.4Gbps. This enables extreme uses, like 16K resolution with display stream compression (DSC), 10K without compression, or two 8K HDR screens at 120 Hz. But just because a monitor or cable, for example, is DisplayPort 2.0-certified doesn't mean that's the performance you'll get.

The Ultra-high Bit Rate (UHBR) Certification is what you'll have to check for if you want to be certain about these figures. VESA's new "DP80 UHBR" certification means the display, cable, or video source supports up to a 20Gbps link rate (what VESA calls UHBR20) and a throughput of up to 80Gbps via four lanes. Meanwhile, "DP40 UHBR" certification calls for support for a 10Gbps link rate (UHBR10) and a maximum throughput of 40Gbps via four-lane operation. Of course, it's possible that some products will still claim such performance without going through VESA's certification process, but UHBR certifications seem to be the only way to know for sure if the DisplayPort 2.0 product will give you that impressive bandwidth.

There should eventually be UHBR-certified monitors and video sources, but today's announcement is only accompanied by UHBR-certified cables. According to VESA, there are now DisplayPort and Mini DisplayPort DP40 and DP80 cables from companies including Accell, Bizlink, and WIZEN. The cables are also backward-compatible with other DisplayPort link rates, such as HBR 3 and 2. [...] In terms of DisplayPort over Alt Mode, VESA noted that "full-feature passive USB-C cables already support UHBR bit rate speeds." It added that UHBR-certified USB Type-C-to-DisplayPort converter cables will be available "soon." VESA also said that "multiple video source and display products" it's currently testing should be DisplayPort UHBR-certified "soon."

Qualcomm is using Mobile World Congress to show off some new technology that should improve 5G connectivity and wireless audio. From a report:The Snapdragon X70 5G modem-RF system attempts to improve your phone's 5G connection with the help of an AI processor. This helps it maximize 5G signal for better coverage -- particularly important for mmWave signals, which are short-range compared to the broader coverage of low and mid-band frequencies. Qualcomm says this improvement is limited to situations like stadiums and city blocks, and that it doesn't address one of mmWave's key weaknesses: the signal's inability to travel from outdoors to indoors. But where there's no mmWave signal, the new AI processor should boost sub-6GHz coverage and speeds, too. The new audio features, wrapped up in a platform called Snapdragon Sound, include a feature teased last year: wireless earbud support for 16-bit "CD-quality" lossless audio over Bluetooth.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Lenovo has dumped a whole bunch of new ThinkPads into the world, and there's some exciting stuff in there. We're getting a brand-new ThinkPad X13s powered by Snapdragon chips, a fifth-generation ThinkPad X1 Extreme with a WQXGA 165Hz screen option, and new additions to the P-series and T-series as well. The news I'm personally most excited about is the screen shape. A few months ago, Lenovo told me that much of its portfolio would be moving to the 16:10 aspect ratio this year. They appear to be keeping their word. Across the board, the new models are 16:10 -- taller and roomier than they were in their 16:9 eras. Some news that's a bit more... intriguing is the all-new ThinkPad X13s, which is the first laptop to feature the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 compute platform. Qualcomm made some lofty claims about this platform upon its release, including "60 percent greater performance per watt" over competing x86 platforms and "multi-day battery life." The ThinkPad X13s will run an Arm version of Windows 11, with its x64 app emulation support. The P-series models and Intel T-series models will all be here in April, with prices ranging from $1,399 to $1,419.

This week the governors of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming announced plans for a "hydrogen hub," reports the Associated Press.

The states hope to use $8 billion in recently approved federal infrastructure funding to make hydrogen — the most abundant element in the universe — "more available and useful as clean-burning fuel for cars, trucks and trains." Hydrogen can be derived from water using an electric current and when burned emits only water vapor as a byproduct. The fuel could theoretically reduce greenhouse emissions and air pollution, depending on how it's obtained. As with electric vehicles, however, hydrogen's potential has been limited by infrastructure. Lack of fueling stations limits the market for hydrogen-fueled vehicles. Few hydrogen-fueled vehicles limits investment in producing and moving hydrogen....

Critics point out that as it's now produced, hydrogen isn't green, carbon-free or unlimited. Currently nearly all hydrogen commercially produced in the U.S. comes not from water but natural gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. While advocates say using fossil fuels to produce hydrogen now can help to develop a clean industry later, environmentalists are skeptical. "It's essentially a push for expanded oil and gas development. More oil and gas development is completely at odds with the need to confront the climate crisis and drastically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels," Jeremy Nichols with the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based environmental group WildEarth Guardians said by email.

Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming rank seventh, eighth and ninth, respectively, for U.S. onshore gas production. Utah also is significant gas-producing state, according to the Energy Information Administration.

America's power grid consists of 3,000 public and private sector power companies, with 55,000 substations scattered across the country. On the CBS News show 60 Minutes, reporter Bill Whitaker notes that each grid hold grid-powering transformers — then tells the story of "the most serious attack on our power grid in history" on the night of April 16, 2013: For 20 minutes, gunmen methodically fired at high voltage transformers at the Metcalf Power substation. Security cameras captured bullets hitting the chain link fence.

Jon Wellinghoff: They knew what they were doing. They had a specific objective. They wanted to knock out the substation.

At the time, Jon Wellinghoff was chairman of FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a small government agency with jurisdiction over the U.S. high voltage transmission system.... [T]he attackers had reconnoitered the site and marked firing positions with piles of rocks. That night they broke into two underground vaults and cut off communications coming from the substation.

Jon Wellinghoff: Then they went from these vaults, across this road, over into a pasture area here. There were at least four or five different firing positions.

Bill Whitaker: No real security?

Jon Wellinghoff: There was no security at all, really.

They aimed at the narrow cooling fins, causing 17 of 21 large transformers to overheat and stop working.

Jon Wellinghoff: They hit them 90 times, so they were very accurate. And they were doing this at night, with muzzle flash in their face.

Someone outside the plant heard gunfire and called 911. The gunmen disappeared without a trace about a minute before a patrol car arrived. The substation was down for weeks, but fortunately PG&E had enough time to reroute power and avoid disaster.

Bill Whitaker: If they had succeeded, what would've happened?

Jon Wellinghoff: Could've brought down all of Silicon Valley.

Bill Whitaker: We're talking Google, Apple; all these guys--

Jon Wellinghoff: Yes, yes. That's correct.

Bill Whitaker: Who do you think this could have been?

Jon Wellinghoff: I don't know. We don't know if they were a nation state. We don't know if they were domestic actors. But it was somebody who did have competent people who could in fact plan out this kind of a very sophisticated attack....

A few months before the assault on Metcalf, Jon Wellinghoff of FERC commissioned a study to see if a physical attack on critical transformers could trigger cascading blackouts... The report was leaked to the Wall Street Journal. It found the U.S. could suffer a coast-to-coast blackout if saboteurs knocked out just nine substations....

In 2016, an eco terrorist in Utah shot up a large transformer, triggering a blackout. He said he'd planned to hit five substations in one day to shut down the West Coast. In 2020, the FBI uncovered a white supremacist plot called "lights out" to simultaneously attack substations around the country.
While the threats can also come from the internet, America's deputy national security advisor for cyber (formerly at the NSA) tells the reporter "We've taken any information we have about malicious software or tactics that the Russian government has used, shared that with the private sector with very practical advice of how to protect against it."

The reporter later spoke to the president's homeland security advisor, who points out there's no specific national regulation for the power plants, arguing that one of the system's strengths is "the resources for energy are different in different regions."

But they also acknowledged the federal government is now setting standards "in a variety of arenas."

Countries imposing sanctions on Russia also depend on it for oil and natural gas, notes Slate's web editor.

"Noah J. Gordon, an adviser at the Berlin-based, climate-focused think tank Adelphi, thinks there's an opening here for Europe to take a different route — to pursue more energy self-sufficiency not by building out gas reserves, but by expanding its renewable energy sources at a faster pace." Noah Gordon: [O]nly about 15 percent of Germany's huge gas consumption — almost all imports — is used in power production, and only 15 percent of German power is generated from gas. Most of that gas from Russia or elsewhere is used for heating buildings and in industry.... I think this crisis has really changed the terms of debate. There's a lot of talk today on massive European mobilization to build heat pumps so that Germany and the rest of Europe could heat their buildings with electricity instead of gas, and to renovate buildings for energy efficiency. This is a thing called the EU Renovation Wave, which is a buzzword that can now really get going....

[T]he answer is to reduce fossil fuel use as much as we can. There might not be a wartime mobilization to build weapons for this conflict, but there could be to build heat pumps and to renovate buildings. That's really the way out of this, and to get the clean energy to back it up.... Building a heat pump today isn't going to cut emissions on its own, and you need clean electricity to power the heat pumps, or you haven't made that much progress. But at least with heat pumps and efficiency, you're not locking in future fossil fuel use....

[Y]ou could get a paradigm shift after this, like we did after 1973 and the Arab oil embargo with a greater focus on alternative energy, such as nuclear, and an energy efficiency drive back then in the EU and Japan and even the U.S. in terms of car fuel economy standards.

"Volkswagen AG has lost hope that many of its roughly 4,000 vehicles aboard a cargo ship that caught fire last week in the Atlantic can be saved," Bloomberg reported Friday, citing estimates that the total cargo loss for the Felicity Ace could exceed a third of a billion dollars.

"The blaze is believed to have lasted more than a week after the Panama-flagged ship's crew members were evacuated and it was left adrift." VW's Golf compact cars and ID.4 electric crossovers were among the vehicles aboard the ship, according to an internal email last week from the automaker's U.S. operation. Headquartered in Wolfsburg, Germany, the group manufactures cars under brands including VW, Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini — all of which were on the ship.
Earlier this week Qz.com argued that the fire was being fueled by lithium-ion batteries. Slashdot reader McGruber shared their report: It's not clear if the batteries contributed to the fire starting in the first place — a greasy rag in a lubricant-slicked engine room or a fuel leak are the usual suspects in ship fires — but the batteries are keeping the flames going now.

A forensic investigation will take months to determine the cause. [Last] Saturday, João Mendes CabeÃas, captain of the port of Faial, the nearest Azorean island, told Reuters that the batteries in the ship's cargo are "keeping the fire alive...." Large quantities of dry chemicals are needed to smother lithium ion battery fires, which burn hotter and release noxious gases in the process. Pouring water onto the Felicity Ace wouldn't put out a lithium-ion battery fire, CabeÃas told Reuters, and the added water weight could make the ship more unstable.

Electric vehicle fires are rare, but pose their own kind of flammability risk, and one that becomes heightened as EVs go mainstream. Large numbers of EVs grouped together, as when they are transported by cargo ship, or electric buses parked in an overnight lot, raise the risk that one flaming battery could ignite a chain reaction in adjacent batteries. According to a research proposal at the National Academy of Sciences' Transportation Research Board, "Lithium-ion battery fire risks are currently undermanaged in transit operations."

There have been more than 35 large lithium-ion battery fires since 2018, Paul Christensen, an expert in lithium fires, told the Financial Times, including a 13-ton Tesla megapack storage battery in Victoria Australia that burned for three days. An electric ferry in Norway caught fire in 2019, and in April 2021, a battery fire at a Beijing mall killed two firefighters.

In addition, car-carrying ships and ferries can face higher risks from fires, according to insurer Allianz Global's head of marine risk. Due to the internal areas not being divided to make it easier to transport cars, when a fire starts it can spread more easily.

Redwood Materials, founded by ex-Tesla CTO J.B. Straubel, is launching an electric vehicle battery-recycling program in California. Automakers Ford and Volvo are the first to partner with the Carson City, Nevada-based company. Protocol reports: Redwood Materials announced in a press release this week that it will be collecting and recycling hybrid and EV battery packs at the end of their useful life into new battery materials. It says it will accept all lithium-ion and nickel metal hydride batteries in the state of California. Though hybrids have been around for decades, we're still a few years out from the first major wave of EV getting retired from the road. But Redwood Materials is not alone in getting a head start on developing recycling technology and infrastructure to deal with the coming influx of tapped-out batteries. Last year, Massachusetts-based startup Ascend Elements announced a partnership with Honda to provide the automaker with new cathodes made from recycled lithium-ion batteries, with plans to build the largest battery recycling plant in North America.

Redwood Materials currently recycles more than 6 gigawatt hours of batteries each year, enough for 60,000 EVs, according to the company. Volvo is aiming for its lineup to be fully electric by 2030 and be a circular business by 2040, something battery recycling will help it achieve. Ford's carbon-neutral target date is 2050, and the company had previously invested $50 million in Redwood Materials. "It goes without saying that California is in the front lines of climate change," Gov. Gavin Newsom said in the company's promotional video. "With raging wildfires and record droughts, we know there's no time to waste."

echo123 shares a report from the Washington Post: The U.S. Postal Service finalized plans Wednesday to purchase up to 148,000 gasoline-powered mail delivery trucks (Warning: paywalled; alternative source), defying Biden administration officials' objections that the multibillion dollar contract would undercut the nation's climate goals. The White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency asked the Postal Service this month to reassess its plan to replace its delivery fleet with 90% gas-powered trucks and 10% electric vehicles, at a cost of as much as $11.3 billion. The contract, orchestrated by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, offers only a 0.4-mile-per-gallon fuel economy improvement over the agency's current fleet.

Federal climate science officials said the Postal Service vastly underestimated the emissions of its proposed fleet of "Next Generation Delivery Vehicles," or NGDVs, and accused the mail agency of fudging the math of its environmental studies to justify such a large purchase of internal combustion engine trucks. But DeJoy, a holdover from the Trump administration, has called his agency's investment in green transportation "ambitious," even as environmental groups and even other postal leaders have privately questioned it. [...] Environmental advocates assailed the agency's decision, saying it would lock in decades of climate-warming emissions and worsen air pollution. The Postal Service plans call for the new trucks, built by Oshkosh Defense, to hit the streets in 2023 and remain in service for at least 20 years.

DeJoy said in a statement that the agency was open to pursuing more electric vehicles if "additional funding - from either internal or congressional sources -- becomes available." But he added that the agency had "waited long enough" for new vehicles. The White House and EPA had asked the Postal Service to conduct a supplemental environmental impact statement on the new fleet and to hold a public hearing on its procurement plan. The Postal Service rejected those requests: Mark Guilfoil, the agency's vice president of supply management, said they "would not add value" to the mail service's analysis. Now that the Postal Service has finalized it agreement with Oshkosh, environmentalists are expected to file lawsuits challenging it on the grounds that the agency's environmental review failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. They will probably base their case on the litany of problems Biden administration officials previously identified with the agency's technical analysis.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Three men pleaded guilty on Wednesday in a plot to attack power grids in the United States, which they believed could lead to economic and civil unrest and create the opportunity for white leaders to rise, federal prosecutors said. The men, Christopher Brenner Cook, 20, of Columbus, Ohio; Jonathan Allen Frost, 24, of West Lafayette, Ind., and of Katy, Texas; and Jackson Matthew Sawall, 22, of Oshkosh, Wis., each pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Columbus on Wednesday to one count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. They will each face up to 15 years in prison when they are sentenced. A date has not been scheduled.

In fall 2019, Mr. Frost and Mr. Cook met in an online chat group, and they began talking about the possibility of attacking a power grid, according to plea agreements. Within weeks, the two men began making efforts to recruit others and began sharing reading material that promoted white supremacy and neo-Nazism. By late 2019, Mr. Sawall, a friend of Mr. Cook's, also joined the efforts, prosecutors said. As part of their plot, each man focused on substations in different regions of the country, and how to attack the power grids with rifles, according to court documents. The three men discussed that by knocking out power across the country for an extended period, civil unrest would spread, a race war could break out and the next Great Depression could be induced, according to court documents.

In February 2020, the three men met in Columbus for more talks about their plot, according to court documents. When they met, Mr. Frost gave Mr. Cook an AR-47, and the two men trained with the rifle at a shooting range, according to court documents. Mr. Frost also gave Mr. Cook and Mr. Sawall suicide necklaces that he had filled with fentanyl, which were to be ingested if they were caught by the police, according to court documents. While they were in Columbus, Mr. Sawall and Mr. Cook bought spray paint and used it to write the phrase "Join the Front" on a swastika flag under a bridge at a park, according to court documents. The men had more plans to spread propaganda while they were in Ohio until they encountered the police during a traffic stop, during which Mr. Sawall ingested his suicide necklace but survived, according to a plea agreement. The F.B.I. searched the homes of the three men in August 2020. Agents found multiple firearms, chemicals that could have been used to create an explosive device, and Nazi-related books and videos, according to court documents. Samuel Shamansky, a lawyer for Mr. Frost, said on Wednesday that Mr. Frost had "accepted complete responsibility for his reprehensible conduct."

"He has completely disavowed the racist viewpoints previously embraced," Mr. Shamansky said. "Regrettably, Mr. Frost fell prey to the misinformation espoused on the internet and now recognizes how dangerous the medium can be. Moreover, Mr. Frost has committed himself toward rehabilitation and doing everything within his power to remedy his misdeeds."

"Slashdot has always had an interest in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which CNN describes as 'the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster,'" writes Slashdot reader DevNull127. "Today, CNN is reporting that Chernobyl has been captured by Russian troops." From the report: Troops overran the plant on the first day of Russia's multi-pronged invasion of Ukraine, a spokesperson for the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management, Yevgeniya Kuznetsov, told CNN. "When I came to the office today in the morning (in Kyiv), it turned out that the (Chernobyl nuclear power plant) management had left. So there was no one to give instructions or defend," she said.

Earlier Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russian forces were attempting to wrest control of the nuclear plant. "Russian occupation forces are trying to seize the Chernobyl (nuclear power plant). Our defenders are sacrificing their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 will not be repeated," Zelensky tweeted."This is a declaration of war against the whole of Europe." The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry echoed the President's warning, raising the specter of another nuclear disaster in the city. "In 1986, the world saw the biggest technological disaster in Chernobyl," the ministry tweeted. "If Russia continues the war, Chernobyl can happen again in 2022." "A map shows the power plant is nearly adjacent to the northern border of Ukraine -- so when Russian troops began their invasion, it was one of the first things they encountered," adds DevNull127.

Latest Slashdot stories regarding Russia's invasion of Ukraine:
Ukraine War Flashes Neon Warning Lights for Chips
Companies Shut Ukraine Operations and Watch for Sanctions as Russia Attacks
Russia Attacks Ukraine
Twitter Accounts Sharing Video From Ukraine Are Being Suspended When They're Needed Most

Russia's invasion of Ukraine by land, air and sea risks reverberating across the global chip industry and exacerbating current supply-chain constraints. Reuters Breakingviews: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas critical for lasers used in chipmaking and supplies more than 90% of U.S. semiconductor-grade neon, according to estimates from research firm Techcet. About 35% of palladium, a rare metal also used for semiconductors, is sourced from Russia. A full-scale conflict disrupting exports of these elements might hit players like Intel, which gets about 50% of its neon from Eastern Europe, according to JPMorgan. ASML, which supplies machines to semiconductor makers, sources less than 20% of the gases it uses from the crisis-hit countries.

DidgetMaster writes: Hard drive costs now hover around $20 per terabyte (TB). Drives bigger than 20TB are now available. Fast SSDs are more expensive, but the average user can now afford these in TB capacities as well. Yet, we are still using antiquated file systems that were designed decades ago when the biggest drives were much less than a single gigabyte (GB). Their oversized file records and slow directory traversal search algorithms make finding files on volumes that can hold more than 100 million files a nightmare. Rather than flexible tagging systems that could make searches quick and easy, they have things like "extended attributes" that are painfully slow to search on. Indexing services can be built on top of them, but these are not an integral part of the file system so they can be bypassed and become out of sync with the file system itself.

It is time to replace file systems with something better. A local object store that can effectively manage hundreds of millions of files and find things in seconds based on file type and/or tags attached is possible. File systems are usually free and come with your operating system, so there seems to be little incentive for someone to build a new system from scratch, but just like we needed the internet to come along and change everything we need a better data storage manager.

See Didgets for an example of what is possible. In a Substack article, Didgets developer Andy Lawrence argues his system solves many of the problems associated with the antiquated file systems still in use today. "With Didgets, each record is only 64 bytes which means a table with 200 million records is less than 13GB total, which is much more manageable," writes Lawrence. Didgets also has "a small field in its metadata record that tells whether the file is a photo or a document or a video or some other type," helping to dramatically speed up searches.

Do you think it's time to replace file systems with an alternative system, such as Didgets? Why or why not?

Intel launched the first wave of its 12th Gen Alder Lake chips at CES 2022 -- but only for its H-series lineup of chips, destined for the most powerful and power-hungry laptops. And now, it's rolling out the rest of its Alder Lake laptop lineup: the P-series and U-series models it briefly showed off in January, which are set to power the thinner, lighter, and cheaper laptops of 2022. From a report: In total, there are a whopping 20 chips fit for a wide range of hardware across the P-series, U-series (15W), and U-series (9W) categories, with the first laptops powered by the new processors set to arrive in March. Like their more powerful H-series cousins (and the Alder Lake desktop chips that Intel launched in late 2021 and at CES 2022), the new P-series and U-series chips have a lot more cores than 2020's 11th Gen models, with a hybrid architecture approach that combines performance and efficiency cores to maximize both power and battery life. And Intel is promising some big improvements focused around those boosted core counts, touting up to 70 percent better multi-thread performance than previous 11th Gen (and AMD) hardware. The company also says that it wins out in benchmarks against chips like Apple's M1 and M1 Pro (although not the M1 Max), and AMD's Ryzen R7 5800U in tasks like web browsing and photo editing.

Elon Musk said that Tesla is working to make Steam's library of video games work on its onboard vehicle computer. Electrek reports: As we previously reported, Tesla has a team of software engineers working on video games in Seattle and they recently started building a similar team in Austin. The automaker has been building a video game platform called Tesla Arcade inside its vehicles, and it has been working with video game studios to port games to it. Right now, it is mainly to create some added value to its ownership experience, but Tesla might have bigger plans for gaming inside its vehicles. In preparation for that, the automaker has been releasing more video games in its Tesla Arcade and it has indicated that it might turn it into a business.

Now Musk announced on Twitter today that Tesla is working to make Steam's library of games work directly on Tesla's software instead of porting specific games: "We're working through the general case of making Steam games work on a Tesla vs specific titles. Former is obviously where we should be long-term." In the Twitter thread, Musk reiterated his goal to make Cyberpunk, a demanding game graphic-wise, work on the upcoming Cybertruck.