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Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Elite chips have been the star of many AI PCs released to market in 2024, greatly enhancing performance and battery life compared to their previous gen iterations. However, the manufacturer’s recent endeavor to improve on one of its negative points hasn’t panned out.

Qualcomm has canceled its dev kit, a Snapdragon mini-PC powered by Windows on Arms. Originally, it was planned for a June 2024 release window but missed that entirely. Now, as part of an official announcement, Qualcomm has stated that the kit has been canceled because it “has not met our usual standards of excellence.”

Interestingly enough, The Verge spotted that multiple developers had already received the mini-PC including YouTuber Jeff Geerling, who reviewed the product and performed a detailed hardware teardown of it. Despite Qualcomm not providing any specific reasons for why the PCs had been canceled, the conclusions from Geerling’s review are that despite it matching the Apple M3 Pro’s performance, it lacks Linux support and had restrictions around reselling the device.

There’s another theory for the cancellation as well, which comes down to the HDMI port — or lack thereof. Though the shipped mini-PCs all came with the chips for internal DisplayPort to HDMI conversion, the actual port was missing for some reason.

According to Richard Campbell, founder of DEVIntersection, the HDMI port could have been the cause of the massive delays if it failed FCC compliance testing. This seems to be supported by the fact that Qualcomm emailed anyone who ordered the PC in September that they would be sent a USB-C to HDMI dongle with their dev kit.

But what does this mean for the consumer?

One of the most well-known drawbacks to anything Qualcomm is that Windows on Arms still has compatibility issues with some Windows programs, tools, and apps. The manufacturer has improved this by leaps and bounds to the point that the average user wouldn’t know the difference, but for gamers and others using specialized programs, those compatibility problems can be quite difficult to parse.

In comes the Qualcomm mini-PC dev kit, which would have been the perfect tool for developers to port their apps to Windows on Arms. This potentially could have introduced a large amount of apps to the OS that otherwise would have never seen the light of day on Arm chips. This is especially important for the consumers who have been left in the dark due to the lack of app support for tools that they need themselves, limiting Qualcomm’s sales of its AI PCs to them in turn.

And with fellow industry rivals Intel and AMD teaming up to form the “x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group,” in response to Qualcomm and other competitors, the latter must figure out either how to fix the issues with the dev kits or figure out another way to resolve these app compatibility issues if it wants to see Arms continue to thrive.

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Earlier this month, Japanese electronics company Casio was hit with a cyberattack that led to the shutdown of parts of its digital infrastructure. Now, almost a week on from the incident, Casio is struggling to overcome the damage.

Ransomware group ‘Underground’ claimed responsibility for the attack, and shared samples of alleged stolen data on its dark web site. A spokesperson for Casio told TechCrunch that the firm sees no end to the outage in the near future and that several systems are still unusable after servers were disconnected to prevent damage spreading.

“This countermeasure is affecting our receiving and placing orders with suppliers and schedule of product shipments,” said Casio's Ayuko Hara. “There is no prospect of recovery yet, but we are prioritizing our customers as we move forward with recovery."

Long road to recovery

Casio is said to have lost sensitive data in the attack belonging to employees, business partners, job applicants, and contractors. Thankfully, the company confirmed no customer credit card information was taken.

As of yet, Casio have not confirmed the ransom amount or if contact has been made with the cybercriminals. The difficulties seem to primarily be affecting Japanese customers, as shipping has been indefinitely delayed, but internal systems failures seem to be the biggest concern.

It’s not uncommon for recovery from a ransomware attack to be a lengthy and expensive process, with the average incident costing $3 million and almost a month to recover from. At a ransomware simulation hosted by Orange Cyberdefense and attended by TechRadar Pro it was explained that “recovery is a marathon, not a sprint”, and that while paying a ransom may provide the victims with a decryption key, it can take months to fully recover data, and longer still to return to business-as-usual

Advice from law enforcement and cybersecurity experts is generally for organizations to refrain from paying the ransom, as it emboldens cybercriminals and adds fuel to the fire, but it is certainly not an easy choice to make.

By always having contingency plans in place and robust cybersecurity measures is the most that firms can do to protect themselves from attacks. Being vigilant and ensuring all employees are trained and aware will help protect potential points of entry.

Via TechCrunch

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Ferrari has lifted the lid on the most powerful road-going supercar it has ever built, cramming the carbon fibre-laden F80 with a three-liter twin-turbo six cylinder engine that develops 900hp on its own.

The combustion engine is then paired up with three electric motors (all developed in house) that throw an additional 300hp into the mix. That’s 1200 horses in total from a propulsion system that is essentially derived from its 499P Le Mans race car, but is equally as happy popping to the shops for a pint of milk.

Far from an attempt to reduce Ferrari’s overall carbon emissions, this is instead an exercise in extracting maximum performance. The diminutive 800V/2.3kWh battery that is stashed behind the seats, for example, uses F1 technology to ensure it can charge and discharge in the quickest and most efficient way possible.

That means customers won’t be able to drive the F80 in an all-electric mode, but will instead be able to rocket from a standstill to 62mph in 2.15 seconds, reach 124mph in just 5.75 seconds and max out at 217mph. Mind-melting stuff.

(Image credit: Ferrari)

The F80 is engineered for raw performance, using a carbon-fiber chassis that is as narrow as engineers could get away with to ensure less aerodynamic drag. Inside, there’s just about enough room for the driver and one very small passenger.

Ferrari calls it a "1+" vehicle, seeing as the second seat is slightly staggered to allow the controls to envelope the driver. To highlight that this isn't some romantic grand tourer, the driver’s seat is bright red, while the poor passenger has to make do with black... and race harnesses.

There’s so much tech trickery going on underneath the spaceship-style body and butterfly wing doors that engineers from Maranello could easily fill an entire Netflix documentary series with content. The motor-controlled active suspension system, for example, negates the need for anti-roll bars and allows the vehicle to transform from hunkered down track monster to a pliant road ride with ease.

Ferrari has harnessed 3D printing technology to create the suspension wishbones, and also used copious amounts of carbon fiber for its five-spoke alloys wheels and has also introduced some serious software trickery to squeeze the most out of race circuit lap times.

Boost Optimization, which race fans can access in the two high performance driving modes (Performance and Qualify), maps warm-up laps of a favored circuit and then automatically delivers additional horsepower in the section that it deems need it most, such as when accelerating along a straight.

A technological powerhouse

(Image credit: Ferrari)

The Ferrari F80 won’t actually go into production until 2025 – from then, the 799 lucky customers that are selected to receive one will have to wait until 2027 to experience it. Handily that's Ferrari’s 80th anniversary, hence the name.

It will cost around €3.6million, which is over $4million and almost AU$6million, by far the most expensive Ferrari road car ever built and up there with some of most expensive production super cars of all time.

But it moves the game on for the Italian automaker, not just in the raw figures when compared to the LaFerrari it usurps but also in the active aerodynamic technology, track-focussed features and extensive use of e-motors in everything from the turbochargers to the suspension system.

The proof is in the pudding, as the marque claims the F80 posted a new lap record of its Fiorano test track of 1min 15.3secs – that’s 4.4 seconds faster than the LaFerrari.

This might sound like marginal gains, but the numbers are huge in the cutthroat world of low-volume but hideously expensive super cars.

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Intel’s new Xeon 6900P "Granite Rapids" CPU family is here, and the first reviews say it provides solid competition for AMD’s EPYC processors. The top-of-the-line model, the 6980P, has 128 high-performance cores and 256 threads, with a 2.0 GHz clock speed and 504MB of L3 cache.

We know a lot about the 6980P processor, but until now what we didn’t know how much it was going to cost.

Based on other processor estimates and some educated guesswork, The Next Platform suggested it would come in at around an eye-watering $24,980. Intel has since added the costs for its new Xeon 6 6900-series CPUs to its Ark database, and it’s actually more affordable than expected. That’s not to say it’s cheap - far from it.

Not cheap

The flagship Xeon 6980P is priced at $17,800, making it the most expensive modern x86 CPU currently available. In comparison, AMD’s EPYC 9754 “Bergamo” processor, with 128 cores, has a list price of $11,900 - a substantial difference of almost $6,000 and if you shop around you can easily get it for $8500, half the price of Intel’s processor.

We have pricing for the other models in the 6900-series lineup as well. The 120-core Xeon 6979P is listed at $15,750 ($131 per core), and the 96-core Xeon 6972P comes in at $14,600 ($152 per core), which, as Tom’s Hardware points out, is $2,795 more than AMD’s 96-core EPYC 9654 ($123 per core). The 72-core Xeon 6960P is priced at $13,750 ($191 per core), making it one of the most expensive options per core in the range despite its lower core count.

Interestingly, Tom’s Hardware notes that Intel’s 96-core Xeon 6952P, priced at $11,400 ($119 per core), is the only Granite Rapids CPU currently cheaper than AMD’s EPYC 9654.

Historically, Intel has not priced its processors as highly as AMD’s multi-threaded performance has led the market. This shift may indicate a new pricing strategy from Intel in a bid to position itself as a premium option, but it could also be indicative of the high production costs involved in creating this new generation of CPUs.

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Infamous ransomware group BianLian has claimed responsibility for a cyberattack which recently targeted Boston Children's Health Physicians (BCHP).

It’s not yet clear how much the ransom demand is, or the group’s deadline. The BCHP confirmed on September 6 it identified unusual activity and by the 10th, systems had been shut down due to unauthorized access detected within the network.

The compromised information is said to contain patient, employee, and guarantor information, including social security numbers, medical record numbers, health insurance, and billing information, as well as personally identifiable data like full names and dates of birth.

BianLian crosses the line

The threat actor claims to have an unspecified amount of finance and HR data, as well as the health records, insurance details, and email correspondence relating to children treated by the organization.

Healthcare organizations have not been off the cards for cyberattacks and have become one of the most popular targets for ransomware due to the sensitive nature of the data they hold and the high stakes of their operations.

Whilst hospitals are not off the cards, targeting an organization that exclusively deals with children is pretty rare, as most ransomware groups would consider that particularly morally egregious.

In fact, last year infamous group Lockbit issued a formal apology for targeting a children’s hospital in Canada, admitting the attack violated its rules of engagement. After the incident, the group said in a statement that it removed the affiliate and blocked them from the group.

Lockbit gave back the decryptor for free and affirmed that it forbids affiliates from encrypting endpoints whose operations are crucial to save patient’s lives.

Via BleepingComputer

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