Michael Larabel reports via Phoronix: With the Framework 16 laptop one of the performance pieces I've been meaning to carry out has been seeing out Linux performs against Microsoft Windows 11 for this AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS powered modular/upgradeable laptop. Recently getting around to it in my benchmarking queue, I also compared the performance of Ubuntu 23.10 to the near final Ubuntu 24.04 LTS on this laptop up against a fully-updated Microsoft Windows 11 installation. The Framework 16 review unit as a reminder was configured with the 8-core / 16-thread AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS Zen 4 SoC with Radeon RX 7700S graphics, a 512GB SN810 NVMe SSD, MediaTek MT7922 WiFi, and a 2560 x 1600 display.

In the few months of testing out the Framework 16 predominantly under Linux it's been working out very well. With also having a Windows 11 partition as shipped by Framework, after updating that install it made for an interesting comparison against the Ubuntu 23.10 and Ubuntu 24.04 performance. The same Framework 16 AMD laptop was used throughout all of the testing for looking at the out-of-the-box performance across Microsoft Windows 11, Ubuntu 23.10, and the near-final state of Ubuntu 24.04. [...]

Out of 101 benchmarks carried out on all three operating systems with the Framework 16 laptop, Ubuntu 24.04 was the fastest in 67% of those tests, the prior Ubuntu 23.10 led in 22% (typically with slim margins to 24.04), and then Microsoft Windows 11 was the front-runner just 10% of the time... If taking the geomean of all 101 benchmark results, Ubuntu 23.10 was 16% faster than Microsoft Windows 11 while Ubuntu 24.04 enhanced the Ubuntu Linux performance by 3% to yield a 20% advantage over Windows 11 on this AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS laptop. Ubuntu 24.04 is looking very good in the performance department and will see its stable release next week.

Apple is doubling down on 8GB of RAM for many of its entry-level Macs, claiming that it's "suitable for many tasks," including browsing, video streaming and even "light" video and image editing. As of this writing, all MacBook Air laptops, the Mac Mini, and the MacBook Pro 14 all start with a base configuration of 8GB RAM -- which can't be upgraded at a later date since the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard. "That might have been OK were it not for the fact that Apple charges a ridiculous $200 to upgrade any of those machines from 8GB to 16GB," notes PC Gamer's Jeremy Laird. Even if an 8GB Mac does some of the previously stated tasks tolerably well, Laird argues that "8GB still isn't acceptable." From the report: That's because a Mac with 8GB can easily run out of memory just browsing the web. That's particularly true with Chrome, which just so happens to be the most popular browser around. Regular Chrome users will know what a memory hog Chrome can be. Right now, I have about 15 tabs open, which is actually pretty low for me. Often, my tab count can blow well past 50 in multiple windows. Handily, Chrome shows you memory usage if you mouse-over a given tab. And three of my current tabs are chewing up over 500MB each. So, that's 1.5GB for just three Chrome tabs. Add a couple more, plus MacOS's underlying memory footprint for just being up and running and you're bang out of RAM.

Overall, I'm using 12.5GB of memory and the only application I have open is Chrome. Oh, and did I mention I'm typing this on a 16GB MacBook Air? I used to have an 8GB Apple silicon Air and to be frank it was a nightmare, constantly running out of memory just browsing the web. That's the point most observers miss. The usual narrative is that 8GB isn't good enough for serious workflows. It isn't but that completely misses the more important point. 8GB isn't even enough for browsing the web.

Jess Weatherbed reports via The Verge: It's alive! A day after announcing it was retiring Atlas, its hydraulic robot, Boston Dynamics has introduced a new, all-electric version of its humanoid machine. The next-generation Atlas robot is designed to offer a far greater range of movement than its predecessor. Boston Dynamics wanted the new version to show that Atlas can keep a humanoid form without limiting "how a bipedal robot can move." The new version has been redesigned with swiveling joints that the company claims make it "uniquely capable of tackling dull, dirty, and dangerous tasks."

The teaser showcasing the new robot's capabilities is as unnerving as it is theatrical. The video starts with Atlas lying in a cadaver-like fashion on the floor before it swiftly folds its legs backward over its body and rises to a standing position in a manner befitting some kind of Cronenberg body-horror flick. Its curved, illuminated head does add some Pixar lamp-like charm, but the way Atlas then spins at the waist and marches toward the camera really feels rather jarring. The design itself is also a little more humanoid. Similar to bipedal robots like Tesla's Optimus, the new Atlas now has longer limbs, a straighter back, and a distinct "head" that can swivel around as needed. There are no cables in sight, and its "face" includes a built-in ring light. It is a marked improvement on its predecessor and now features a bunch of Boston Dynamics' new AI and machine learning tools. [...] Boston Dynamics said the new Atlas will be tested with a small group of customers "over the next few years," starting with Hyundai.

Framework, the company known for designing and selling upgradeable, modular laptops, has struggled with providing up-to-date software for its products. Ars Technica's Andrew Cunningham spoke with CEO Nirav Patel to discuss how the company is working on fixing these issues. Longtime Slashdot reader snikulin shares the report: Driver bundles remain un-updated for years after their initial release. BIOS updates go through long and confusing beta processes, keeping users from getting feature improvements, bug fixes, and security updates. In its community support forums, Framework employees, including founder and CEO Nirav Patel, have acknowledged these issues and promised fixes but have remained inconsistent and vague about actual timelines. [...] Patel says Framework has taken steps to improve the update problem, but he admits that the team's initial approach -- supporting existing laptops while also trying to spin up firmware for upcoming launches -- wasn't working. "We started 12th-gen [Intel Framework Laptop] development, basically the 12th-gen team was also handling looking back at 11th-gen [Intel Framework Laptop] to do firmware updates there," Patel told Ars. "And it became clear, especially as we continued to add on more platforms, that just wasn't a sustainable path to proceed on."

Part of the issue is that Framework relies on external companies to put together firmware updates. Some components are provided by Intel, AMD, and other chip companies to all PC companies that use their chips. Others are provided by Insyde, which writes UEFI firmware for Framework and others. And some are handled by Compal, the contract manufacturer that actually produces Framework's systems and has also designed and sold systems for most of the big-name PC companies. As far back as August 2023, Patel has written that the plan is to work with Compal and Insyde to hire dedicated staff to provide better firmware support for Framework laptops. However, the benefits of this arrangement have been slow to reach users. "[Compal] started recruiting on their side towards the end of last year," Patel told Ars. "And now, just at the beginning of this year, we've been able to get that whole team into place and start onboarding them. And especially after Lunar New Year, which is in early February, that team is now up and running at full speed." The goal, Patel says, is to continuously cycle through all of Framework's actively supported laptops, updating each of them one at a time before looping back around and starting the process over again. Functionality-breaking problems and security fixes will take precedence, while additional features and user requests will be lower-priority. ... snikulin adds: "As a recent Framework 13/AMD owner, I can confirm that it does not sleep properly on a default Windows 11 install. When I close the lid in the evening, the battery is dead the next morning. It's interesting to hear from Linus Sebastian (LTT) on the topic because he is a stakeholder in Framework."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: An owl. A sharky looking bullet. The Hindu deity Ganesh. The Yin and Yang sign. All painstakingly selected and etched onto a microchip that measures about an inch square. Each microscopic silicon doodle was the handiwork of engineers at Qualcomm Incorporated, a San Diego-based company that creates wireless technology-related products and services. The engineers slipped the drawings into Qualcomm's Q1650 data decoder with care not to disturb any of the chip's functions. They were purposeless etchings, never meant to be uncovered.

These doodles, also known as silicon art, chip graffiti or chip art, and dozens others like it, are remnants of tech history -- from Silicon Valley's infancy to the early 2000s -- when innovation was rapid fire and the tech still had a very human touch. Engineers would add the sketches to their microchip designs in the techie equivalent of signing their artwork. They'd etch them on chips that may end up in your cellphone, laptop or calculator. They spent hours crafting them, even though they were frowned upon by those in the C Suite.

The existence of these doodles came to light decades ago, but social media is discovering them anew. And there is now a small but determined group of online hobbyists working to keep that history alive. They are still cataloguing the miniscule drawings -- many smaller than the width of a human hair and can't be seen without a microscope. These devotees post glossy videos of themselves shucking chips like oysters to see their iridescent insides and the itsy bitsy sketches that may be hidden on them. And they are eagerly saving them from the scrap heap.

Robotics firm Boston Dynamics, owned by Hyundai, has retired its humanoid robot Atlas after a decade, despite significant funding pouring into the category. TechCrunch adds: Boston Dynamics has been focused on commercializing technologies for a number of years now. Hyundai's 2021 acquisition of the firm, coupled with the appointment of Rob Playter as its second-ever CEO, has further accelerated that path. Given the tremendous interest around companies like Agility, Figure, 1X and Apptronik, it stands to reason that -- at the very least -- the Waltham, Massachusetts-based company has -- at the very least -- seriously explored the commercial humanoid category.

Boston Dynamics was, of course, well ahead of the current humanoid robotics curve. Last July marked the 10th anniversary of the bipedal robot's debut. The company teamed with DARPA for Atlas' early development, leading the robot to be heavily incorporated into challenges of the era.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: In a major clean energy benchmark, wind, solar, and hydro exceeded 100% of demand on California's main grid for 30 of the past 38 days. Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering Mark Z. Jacobson has been tracking California's renewables performance, and he shares his findings on Twitter (X) when the state breaks records. Jacobson notes that supply exceeds demand for "0.25-6 h per day," and that's an important fact. The continuity lies not in renewables running the grid for the entire day but in the fact that it's happening on a consistent daily basis, which has never been achieved before.

At the two-week record mark, Ian Magruder at Rewiring America made this great point on LinkedIn: "And what makes it even better is that California has the largest grid-connected battery storage facility in the world (came online in January ...), meaning those batteries were filling up with excess energy from the sun all afternoon today and are now deploying as we speak to offset a good chunk of the methane gas generation that California still uses overnight." On April 2, the California Independent System Operator (ISO) recommended 26 new transmission projects worth $6.1 billion, with a big number being devoted to offshore wind. In response, Jacobson predicted on April 4 that California will entirely be on renewables and battery storage 24/7 by 2035.

Meanwhile, in Southern California, nonprofit news site Canary Media reports that an old gas combustion plant is being replaced by a "power bank" named Nova.

It's expected to store "more electricity than all but one battery plant currently operating in the U.S." The billion-dollar project, with 680 megawatts and 2,720 megawatt-hours, will help California shift its nation-leading solar generation into the critical evening and nighttime hours, bolstering the grid against the heat waves that have pushed it to the brink multiple times in recent years... The town of Menifee gets to move on from the power plant exhaust that used to join the smog flowing from Los Angeles... And the grid gets a bunch more clean capacity that can, ideally, displace fossil fuels...

Moreover, [the power bank] represents Calpine's grand arrival in the energy storage market, after years operating one of the biggest independent gas power plant fleets in the country alongside Vistra and NRG... Federal analysts predict 2024 will be the biggest-ever year for grid battery installations across the U.S., and they highlighted Calpine's project as one of the single largest projects. The 620 megawatts the company plans to energize this year represent more than 4% of the industry's total expected new additions.

Many of these new grid batteries will be built in California, which needs all the dispatchable power it can get to meet demand when its massive solar fleet stops producing, and to keep pace with the electrification of vehicles and buildings. The Menifee Power Bank, and the other gigawatts worth of storage expected to come online in the state this year, will deliver much-needed reinforcement.
The company says it's planning "a portfolio" of 2,000 megawatts of California battery capacity.

But even this 680-megawatt project consists of 1,096 total battery containers holding 26,304 battery modules (or a total of 3 million cells), "all manufactured by Chinese battery powerhouse BYD, according to Robert Stuart, an electrical project manager with Calpine. That's enough electricity to supply 680,000 homes for four hours before it runs out." What's remarkable is just how quickly the project came together. Construction began last August, and is expected to hit 510 megawatts of fully operational capacity over the course of this summer, even as installation continues on other parts of the plant. Erecting a conventional gas plant of comparable scale would have taken three or four years of construction labor, due to the complexity of the systems and the many different trades required for it, Stuart told Canary Media... That speed and flexibility makes batteries a crucial solution as utilities across the nation grapple with a spike in expected electricity demand unlike anything seen in the last few decades.
The article notes a 2013 Caifornia policy mandating battery storage for its utility companies, which "kicked off a decade-long project to will an energy storage market into existence through methodical policies and regulations, and the knock-on effects of building the nation's foremost solar fleet." Those energy storage policies succeeded in jumpstarting the modern grid battery market: California leads the nation with more than 7 gigawatts of batteries installed as of last year (though Texas is poised to overtake California in battery installations this year, on the back of no particular policy effort but a general openness to building energy projects)... California's interlocking climate regulations effectively rule out new gas construction. The state's energy roadmap instead calls for massive expansion of battery capacity to shift the ample amounts of solar generation into the evening peaks.
"These trends, along with the falling price of batteries and maturing business model for storage, nudged Calpine to get into the battery business, too."

Intel, Nvidia, AMD, and Arm are among Canonical's "silicon partners," a program that "ensures maximum Ubuntu compatibility and long-term support with certified hardware," according to Web Pro News.

And now Qualcomm is set to be Canonical's next silicon partner, "giving Qualcomm access to optimized versions of Ubuntu for its processors." Companies looking to use Ubuntu on Qualcomm chips will benefit from an OS that provides 10 years of support and security updates.

The collaboration is expected to be a boon for AI, edge computing, and IoT applications. "The combination of Qualcomm Technologies' processors with the popularity of Ubuntu among AI and IoT developers is a game changer for the industry," commented Dev Singh, Vice President, Business Development and Head of Building, Enterprise & Industrial Automation, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc...
"Optimised Ubuntu and Ubuntu Core images will be available for Qualcomm SoCs," according to the announcement, "enabling enterprises to meet their regulatory, compliance and security demands for AI at the edge and the broader IoT market with a secure operating system that is supported for 10 years." Qualcomm Technologies chose to partner with Canonical to create an optimised Ubuntu for Qualcomm IoT chipsets, giving developers an easy path to create safe, compliant, security-focused, and high-performing applications for multiple industries including industrial, robotics and edge automation...

Developers and enterprises can benefit from the Ubuntu Certified Hardware program, which features a growing list of certified ODM boards and devices based on Qualcomm SoCs. These certified devices deliver an optimised Ubuntu experience out-of-the-box, enabling developers to focus on developing applications and bringing products to market.

Popular Science reports that early last week, researchers at the U.S. Energy Department's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory revealed their new "MUSE" stellarator — "a unique fusion reactor that uses off-the-shelf and 3D-printed materials to contain its superheated plasma."

The researchers' announcement says the technique suggests "a simple way to build future devices for less cost and allow researchers to test new concepts for future fusion power plants." Stellarators typically rely on complicated electromagnets that have complex shapes and create their magnetic fields through the flow of electricity. Those electromagnets must be built precisely with very little room for error, increasing their cost. However, permanent magnets, like the magnets that hold art to refrigerator doors, do not need electric currents to create their fields. They can also be ordered off the shelf from industrial suppliers and then embedded in a 3D-printed shell around the device's vacuum vessel, which holds the plasma.

"MUSE is largely constructed with commercially available parts," said Michael Zarnstorff, a senior research physicist at PPPL. "By working with 3D-printing companies and magnet suppliers, we can shop around and buy the precision we need instead of making it ourselves." The original insight that permanent magnets could be the foundation for a new, more affordable stellarator variety came to Zarnstorff in 2014. "I realized that even if they were situated alongside other magnets, rare-earth permanent magnets could generate and maintain the magnetic fields necessary to confine the plasma so fusion reactions can occur," Zarnstorff said, "and that's the property that makes this technique work." [...]

In addition to being an engineering breakthrough, MUSE also exhibits a theoretical property known as quasisymmetry to a higher degree than any other stellarator has before. It is also the first device completed anywhere in the world that was designed specifically to have a type of quasisymmetry known as quasiaxisymmetry. Conceived by physicist Allen Boozer at PPPL in the early 1980s, quasisymmetry means that although the shape of the magnetic field inside the stellarator may not be the same around the physical shape of the stellarator, the magnetic field's strength is uniform around the device, leading to good plasma confinement and higher likelihood that fusion reactions will occur. "In fact, MUSE's quasisymmetry optimization is at least 100 times better than any existing stellarator," Zarnstorff said.

"The fact that we were able to design and build this stellarator is a real achievement," said Tony Qian, a graduate student in the Princeton Program in Plasma Physics, which is based at PPPL.
Also covered by Gizmodo. Thanks to Slashdot reader christoban for sharing the news.

"An improved charging protocol might help lithium-ion batteries to last much longer," writes Science Daily: The best commercial lithium-ion batteries...have a service life of up to eight years. Batteries are usually charged with a constant current flow. But is this really the most favorable method? A new study by Prof. Philipp Adelhelm's group at HZB and Humboldt-University Berlin answers this question clearly with "no." [In collaboration with teams including the Technical University of Berlin.]

Part of the battery tests were carried out at Aalborg University. The batteries were either charged conventionally with constant current (CC) or with a new charging protocol with pulsed current (PC). Post-mortem analyses revealed clear differences after several charging cycles: In the CC samples, the solid electrolyte interface (SEI) at the anode was significantly thicker, which impaired the capacity... PC-charging led to a thinner SEI interface and fewer structural changes in the electrode materials.
The study is published in the journal Advanced Energy Materials and analyzes the effect of the charging protocol on the service time of the battery, according to the article. "The frequency of the pulsed current counts..."

"Doubling the life of your EV's battery or even your smartphone's battery is no small thing," says Slashdot reader NewtonsLaw...

Calpine's billion-dolllar Nova Power Bank near Los Angeles will be among the largest in the world when it comes online later this year. According to Reuters, the plant is built on the site of a failed gas-fired power plant and "will be able to power about 680,000 homes for up to four hours when charged." From the report: The 680-megawatt lithium-ion battery bank is big even for California, which boasts about 55% of the nation's power storage capacity, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Calpine will bring online 620 MW of the bank in two phases this year starting in the summer and open the remaining 60 MW in 2025. [...] Calpine, best known in the state for its fleet of gas plants, has about 2,000 MW of battery capacity under development. California was a pioneer in mandating that its utilities begin procuring energy storage more than a decade ago. The state is expected to need about 50 gigawatts of battery storage to meet its 2045 goal of getting all of its power from carbon-free sources, up from about 7 GW today.

AmiMoJo writes: Huawei Technologies is building a massive semiconductor equipment research and development center in Shanghai as the Chinese tech titan continues to beef up its chip supply chain to counter a U.S. crackdown. The centre's mission includes building lithography machines, vital equipment for producing cutting-edge chips. To staff the new center, Huawei is offering salary packages worth up to twice as much as local chipmakers, industry executives and sources briefed on the matter told Nikkei Asia. The company has already hired numerous engineers who have worked with top global chip tool builders like Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA and ASML, they said, adding that chip industry veterans with more than 15 years of experience at leading chipmakers like TSMC, Intel and Micron are also among recent and potential hires. The report says Huawei is investing about 12 billion yuan ($1.66 billion) for this R&D chip plant, making it one of Shanghai's top projects for 2024.

Working for the company is no easy task, says one chip engineering: "Working with them is brutal. It's not 996 -- meaning working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. ... It will literally be 007 -- from midnight to midnight, seven days a week. No days off at all. The contract will be for three years, [but] the majority of people can't survive till renewal."

Tom's Hardware: Intel is discontinuing its boxed overclockable Core i5, i7, and i9 Raptor Lake CPUs. Every K-series chip in the lineup will be discontinued on May 24th, 2024, after which vendors will no longer be able to purchase them. Intel's product change document states that the last product discontinuance order date and non-cancelable/non-returnable cut-off points will start on May 24th, 2024, and final shipments will end on June 28th, 2024.

We don't expect 13th Gen K-series CPU supply to evaporate instantly but expect availability to gradually dissipate, along with price increases as vendors move to sell off all remaining overclockable Raptor Lake CPU inventory. That said, most 12th-Gen Alder Lake CPUs are still priced very competitively, even to this day, so we could potentially see the same behavior with these discontinued Raptor Lake CPUs (until stock inevitably runs out).

An anonymous reader shares a report: The story of warehouse robotics is a story of attempting to keep up with Amazon. It's been more than a decade since the online giant revolutionized its delivery services through its Kiva Systems acquisition. As Walmart works to remain competitive, it's taking a more piecemeal approach to automation, through partnerships with a range of different robotics firms.

On Thursday, the mega-retailer announced a partnership with Fox Robotics, which brings 19 of the Austin-based startup's robotic forklifts to its distribution centers. Today's news follows a 16-month pilot, which found Walmart trialing the technology in Distribution Center 6020. That Florida distribution center is the first of what the company calls its "high-tech DC." These are warehouses where it trials automation and various other technologies, before rolling them out to its wider channel of distribution and fulfillment centers. DC 6020 is the place where Walmart began trials with Symbotic's package sortation and retrieval technologies.