T.G.N

THE PIXEL FOLD WAS LEAKED, HERES WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR

AMD will release the RX 7900 XTX, along with the cut-down RX 7900 XT, on December 13, 2022. The RX 7900 XTX starts at $1,000 for AMD’s reference design, though you should expect board partner cards, especially those that come with an overclocked already applied, to go for $50 to $100 more. It’s hard to say how big of a price difference there will be right now, though.

AMD says board partner cards will release on the same day as the reference design, so you don’t have to wait to pick up a card if you don’t want the reference model. Although it’s possible that prices will go up after the cards are in the wild.

PANTONE FIASCO

ANOTHER FORCED SUBSCRIPTION

Pantone

Photoshop

While the two companies said that the change would be minimally invasive to workflows, that doesn’t appear to be the case. While Pantone colors have not historically been particularly important to photographers, it has been for decades a major resource for graphic designers that use Photoshop.

As expected, Pantone is extremely protective of its colors. As Kotaku explains, as it has become an industry standard for color matching, via the Pantone Color Matching System, it vehemently defends that intellectual property and prevents others from creating “Pantone-compatible” color systems without licensing it. Apparently, this schism was supposed to take effect in March,but that seems to have been pushed until this month when users started to notice problems with projects that use

Pantone colors. Basically, any document, new or old, that referenced a Pantone color now opened with that color showing as black:

“This file has Pantone colors that have been removed and replaced with black due to changes in Pantone’s licensing with Adobe.” Pantone’s solution appears to be a plugin that will “minimize workflow disruption and to provide the updated libraries to the Adobe Creative Cloud users,” for

ELON MUSK BUYS TWITTER

It’s for real this time. After months of legal drama, bad memes and will-they-or-won’t-they-chaos to put your favorite rom-com to shame, Elon Musk has closed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. Musk sealed the deal Thursday night, taking Twitter private and ousting a handful of top executives — CEO Parag Agrawal included — in the process. Musk reportedly cleaned house on Thursday, firing CFO Ned Segal, Head of Legal, Policy and Trust Vijaya Gadde and General Counsel Sean Edgett right out of the gate. Though it’s still an aggressive and abrupt Day One move, Agrawal was inevitable, given his well-documented clashes and a failed virtual

It’s also no surprise that Gadde was among the first to go, in spite of being a well-respected figure in the company. Musk previously singled out the top executive with accusations of “left wing bias” over her role in policy decision making at Twitter, driving a wave of racist hate and harassment her way.

EU ADOPTS NEW LAW

REQUIRING APPLE TO CHANGE IPHONE CHARGERS TO USBC

A landmark law requiring Apple and other electronics makers to adopt USB-C as a universal charging standard in the European Union has cleared its final procedural hurdle, after EU member states voted to approve the legislation on Monday.

The new law, which is targeted at smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, portable speakers and a wide array of other small devices, is the first of its kind anywhere in the world. It aims to streamline the number of chargers and cables consumers must contend with when they purchase a new device, and to allow users to mix and match devices and chargers, even if they were produced by different manufacturers.

Apple could be among the most affected by the legislation. The iPhone maker has historically required users to charge its mobile devices using a proprietary charging connector known as Lightning; under the new rules, Apple would be forced to migrate away from Lightning in its devices sold in the EU. That change, which Apple is reportedly testing for iPhones, could potentially extend to devices Apple sells in other markets as well.

The EU law must still be signed by the presidents of the EU parliament and European Council, according to a release, but those are considered formalities. Earlier this month, the legislation received final approval from EU lawmakers.

In addition to covering new, small electronics going on the market at the end of 2024, the rules will also extend to larger electronics such as laptops beginning in 2026. It will also commit European officials to streamlining standards for wireless charging, a technology that is only just becoming more widespread.

GOD OF WAR: RAGNAROK HOW IS THE COMBAT IN THIS GAME?

The upcoming Smash World Tour Championships, as well as the entirety of the 2023 Smash World Tour, has been cancelled, the organisers shared via a statement.

The cancellation is due to a notice sent by Nintendo, the developer of Super Smash Bros, to the organisers of the Smash World Tour. As a result, there will be no Smash World Tour tournaments going forward, but the organisers did plea to Nintendo to reevaluate its decision.

The Tour, as it’s known, was one of the largest FGC tournament series in esports and has helped dozens of organisers create Super Smash Bros tournaments. The tournament series also had the highest prize pool of any Super Smash Bros tournament and planned to increase it from $250,000 (~£208,000) to over $350,000 (~£291,000) for 2023. However, in a statement shared via Medium, the organisers of the Tour announced that they will no longer be able to create events.

The news comes after the largest fighting game tournament in the world, EVO, also didn’t feature Super Smash Bros. The company said that the decision was made by Nintendo earlier this year.

Super Smash Bros esports recently had its first official licensed tournaments through Nintendo’s partnership with esports company Panda Global. The aim of the partnership, first signed in 2021, was to create better Smash tournaments in North America and to improve the quality of the competitive landscape.

According to the Smash World Tour organisers, the partnership between Nintendo and Panda Global saw Panda Global make moves towards tournament organisers to convince them to join the Panda Cup, the flagship tournament series organised by both parties.

Panda Global CEO also allegedly reached out to tournament organisers that were part of the Tour, saying that the Tour will be shut down. According to Smash World Tour, Nintendo assured the company that is not the case.

Another allegation comes in the form of a relationship between Beyond The Summit, a tournament organiser, and Panda Global. According to Smash World Tour, the CEO of Panda Global “wanted broadcasting rights to be included as part of the deal of the events joining the Panda Cup.” BTS declined, and according to a tweet from David Gorman, the Managing Partner at Beyond The Summit, “Alan (Alan Bunnay, Panda CEO) spent several months basically running a protection racket telling TO’s including BTS ‘it’d be a shame if your event got shutdown for being unlicensed’ in an effort to scare them into signing onto the Cup.”

After a number of events declined to participate in the Panda Cup, the company, according to Smash World Tour, started recruiting events which were part of the Smash World Tour. However, due to rules from Nintendo, a single event could not count towards two tournament series, so organisers mostly stayed with the Smash World Tour, since the tournament was already underway.

After the Panda Cup was announced in May 2022, communication between Nintendo and Smash World Tour reportedly slowed. Smash World Tour shared via Medium: “Nintendo expects us to only operate with a commercial license, and that we would not be granted one for the upcoming Championships, or any activity in 2023.”

GAMES

PIXEL FOLD LEAKS

HERE IS WHAT WE KNOW

If you thought we were done with leaks this year with the iPhone SE 4 oh boy, were you wrong! Here is your first look at Google’s unannounced Pixel Fold. Seriously, this is insane.

This is one of Google’s most secretive projects ever, brought to you by some impossibly sneaky sources who will remain nameless. This is also an ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE LEAK – we got it all, renders based on images, the (as of now) colors and names of the colors and even the price and release date. If you want to see the Pixel Fold in action, check out today’s Front Page Tech episode as well! All the images are available in full-resolution at the bottom of the page as well.

So sit back, relax and enjoy your FrontPageTech.com exclusive look at the Google Pixel Fold:

So there ya go! As far as we know, the colors available will be Chalk (white) and Obsidian (black) – and are you ready for the price? Sit down if you’re standin’ up because this puppy is coming in at a hot $1,799. GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY! Our sources also said release is set for May of 2023, so this expensive foldy boy is on its way sooner than later.

Other spec related information isn’t currently available, however our sources have said we should expect usual Pixel-esque performance, alongside the “Pixel flagship camera” treatment we’ve all grown to love.

Other spec related information isn’t currently available, however our sources have said we should expect usual Pixel-esque performance, alongside the “Pixel flagship camera” treatment we’ve all grown to love. A direct quote from one source was that the Pixel Fold is “really f**king heavy” –that’s better than plastic-y and cheap feeling, I guess.

GPU SCALPERS ARE LOSING MONEY

THIS IS A VICTORY FOR THE

CONSUMERS

It is not secret anymore that RTX 4080 is a poor sell. This overpriced high-end GPU has been met with cold response from the gaming community and even NVIDIA enthusiasts. Both equally tired of 2 years of PC hardware shortages and overpriced GPUs.

With the release of new cards, everyone was counting on something more affordable to appear soon. But what NVIDIA did instead was to cancel the cheaper $899 RTX 4080 12GB model essentially leaving both available RTX 40 GPUs at $1200+ price range.

The gamble to buy RTX 4080 at launch has not paid off for scalpers. One of them who purchased six RTX 4080 graphics cards is now selling each card at MSRP (actually still a bit higher), but there is a good reason why.

Retailers have enough stock of RTX 4080 cards for gamers to consider paying just a little more to get full warranty. Furthermore, the scalper still needs to pay for the shipping of the cards back to the retailer, not to mention any possible restocking fees.

The problem of scalpers returning cards has become so big that some retailers are now removing the option to apply for refund. With more RTX 4080 cards coming to the market each day, and the imminent launch of Radeon 7900 series, scalpers will have to make a tough decision, either to return the cards they never should’ve bought (while they still can) or sell them at a loss.

RTX 4090 POWER CONECTOR

WHATS CAUSING THEM TO BURST IN FLAMES

Igor Wallossek from IL has laid out the likely reason behind the burning and melting of the 12VHPWR adapter. The 16-pin power connector, part of the PCIe Gen 5 suite, can deliver up to 600W of power to a GPU using a single cable, greatly simplifying the setup. Unfortunately for NVIDIA, several users have reported the melting and/or burning of the 12VHPWR connector required to power the GeForce RTX 4090. In addition, board partner models appear to be more prominently affected than their FE counterparts. It turns out that the reason behind all these mishaps is rather straightforward: Cheap soldering.

NVIDIA’s partners have employed a low-quality, manual solder to connect the twelve wires to the 12VHPWR plug. However, as Igor explains it, a much better alternative would be crimping them for a much cleaner layout Crimping is more durable, keeping external factors such as oxygen and moisture…external. Soldering leaves them open to rusting, in addition to bending and breaking. Soldering employs alloys that tend to form rigid coats vulnerable to tension and tensile load. Furthermore, it has a higher contact resistance leading to an increased thermal load, causing it to turn soft and brittle and break off.

The other flaw boils down to the two-layered design, which causes the cable to bend at the intersection. A proper 90-degree bent wouldn’t have caused the thermal or tensile issues we’ve seen all over Reddit.

AMD ANNOUNCES NEXT GENERATION RADEON

WHAT HAS BEEN REVEALED

AMD has officially announced its next-generation Radeon RX GPUs today. After months of rumors and some teasing from AMD, the Radeon RX 7000 is officially here.

As part of its "together we advance_gaming," event, AMD unveiled the first two GPUs in the Radeon RX 7000 family: Radeon RX 7900 XTX and the Radeon RX 7900 XT. As AMD previously announced, the RX 7000 series uses the company's new RDNA 3 graphical architecture.

AMD also confirmed that both GPUs have two 8-pin connectors — meaning it will not use the 12VHPWR power connectors found in the RTX 4090 graphics card. Recently, the power connector used in Nvidia's new GPU has stirred up controversy as some owners of Nvidia's new flagship graphics card reported that the power connectors have either burned or melted.

In an interesting move, AMD announced that both the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT include DisplayPort 2.1. Meaning that these GPUs will support higher refresh rates in 4K and 8K resolutions. For context, Nvidia's new RTX 40-series GPUs use DisplayPort 1.4.

Succeeding RDNA 2, AMD's new graphical architecture, RDNA 3, promises 61 teraflops (38 more teraflops than found in RDNA 2), 24GB of GDDR6 memory, with the tech giant touting this as the "world's most advance gaming graphics."

Both the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT will launch on December 13. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX will retail or $999, while the RX 7900 XT will retail for $899.