Maximum PC - USA (2022-04)

APR 2022MAXIMU MPC 9

TRIUMPHS TRAGEDIES

THE DA VINCI MODE

An engineering team has proven

that da Vinci’s doodle of an aerial

screw helicopter could fly, given

modern materials and motors.

BETTER FPS CONTROL

The Alt Avatar Motion Controller

aims to replace the keyboard

in FPS games with customized

analog controls and buttons.

TETRACHROMACY IS REAL

Scientists say tetrachromacy,

a term for those who see many

more shades of color, does exist.

FAKE QR

The FBI has warned of a growth

in scam QR codes that direct the

unwary to malicious websites.

FACEBOOK’S FALL

Meta set an unenviable record

for the biggest daily fall in stock

price by shedding $232bn due

to a poor revenue forecast.

LAWFUL STOP

Tesla has recalled 53,822 cars

as they’d been programmed to

drive through four-way Stop

signs if no cars were detected.

A monthly snapshot of what’s good and bad in tech

Tech Triumphs and Tragedies

INSTALLING A FRESH copy of Windows

11 Home requires a Microsoft account,

and always has done. There is a fiddly

and undocumented way to avoid this, but it’s not something your average user

is likely to know about. It hasn’t been a popular move and makes Windows

the only major OS that requires an online account to use. That isn’t always

practical or desired as it makes it a pain to pass on a rig or for third parties to

repair it, as you often need to know the account details.

Microsoft has decided to add this restriction to Windows 11 Pro, too.

Currently, it’s only part of an insider build but it’s planned to go live soon.

This hasn’t gone down well with the typical ‘Pro’ user, who expects control

over their accounts. Not every feature of an insider build goes live, and given

enough push-back, Microsoft has been known to back down. We’ll just have

to see if the company will listen to its customer base on this one. –CL

Microsoft to insist

on authentication

NO ACCOUNT,

NO WINDOWS PRO

BYE-BYE BALLISTIX

GRAB THEM IF YOU CAN, because Crucial Ballistix memory modules have reached the

end of the line. Ballistix has long been a favorite of modders, overclockers, and builders

of awesome gaming rigs, but now the entire range has been axed, explaining why we’ve

seen no announcements on DDR5 kit to date. Crucial is a consumer brand of Micron

Technology, one of the big three with Samsung and Hynix. Why Micron pulled the plug

isn’t clear, although its statement could give us a clue: “JEDEC standard DDR5 memory

provides mainstream gamers with DDR5-enabled computers with better high-speed

performance, data transfers, and bandwidth than previously available with Crucial

Ballistix memory”. It seems that with modern manufacturing methods, pretty much

every chip is a good one, and enthusiast memory modules aren’t a big enough market.

The company will “intensify its focus on the development of Micron’s DDR5 client and

server product roadmap”, and the Crucial brand will live on, selling various SSDs.–CL

NO MORE ENTHUSIAST

MODULES FROM CRUCIAL

A SHARP BUMP in the price of SSD kit will

soon make its way down the supply chain

thanks to a major ‘incident’. Western

Digital revealed that, due to an unspecified

contamination in the manufacturing

process, it has scrapped up to 6.5 exabytes

of 3D NAND chips. One exabyte is a billion

gigabytes, so that’s a lot of lost silicon.

The issue came to light after an

inspection of production lines at the

two fabrication plants at Yokkaichi and

Kitakami in Japan, which are joint ventures

between Western Digital and Kioxia. As

yet, we don’t know officially if Kioxia, which

used to be part of Toshiba and is credited

with inventing flash memory, has anything

significant to add to the losses. It released

a statement saying it assumed there were

issues with impurities. However, other

sources put Kioxia’s loss at least as large

as the one suffered by Western Digital.

This fab partnership is responsible for

about a third of the world’s supply of NAND

chips so, at a conservative estimate, the

contamination has binned 10 percent of the

world’s modules for the first quarter. This

is expected to lead to a price spike of 5 to 10

percent over the summer.

Western Digital has warned that

“costs have increased significantly in the

short term” and that it will “immediately

increase the price of all Flash products”.

Flash memory had previously escaped the

price hikes, as well as the shortages which

hit the rest of the semiconductor market.

What exactly was the contamination?

We aren’t being told. More importantly,

why didn’t the fabs notice? It takes at least

a month to build a 3D memory chip from

the base materials, so if you only uncover

a problem at the final testing stage,

your problem just became a much more

significant one. Whatever quality control

system was used, it failed spectacularly.

We wouldn’t want to have to explain this

one to our bosses. –CL

Contamination hits

fabs, production binned

DUFF MEMORY

INCREASES

PRICES

© WD, MICROSOFT