The Hot Take: Another company given x86 tech? Will it go the way of VIA, or will they run and enhance it to bring a 4th strong competitor to the x86 ISA market?
Intel is handing Atom chip IP to Rosaic, a startup run by one of Lip-Bu Tanâs old mates, Amarjit Gill.
Gill has history with Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan, who has spent years as a semiconductor investor as well as an industry operator.
According to Reuters, Gill invested with Tan in high-performance chip startup Nuvia and worked with him on RISC-V chip outfit Rivos. Chipzillaâs Atom chips are built for low-power jobs, where they mostly scrap with designs from British chip blueprint outfit Arm.
At one point, Chipzilla aimed Atom at Android devices through a partnership with Google, before that plan went pear-shaped.
The latest Atom chips arrived in the first quarter of 2026, after Chipzilla refreshed its P-series line. Those chips are aimed at server and networking jobs.
The refresh followed the announcement of two new Atom X series chips in the third quarter of 2025. Reuters said Chipzilla will transfer register-transfer level code for Atom processors to Rosaic.
That RTL code describes how input data moves through CPU registers before turning into output, which is proper crown-jewels stuff.
It seems likely that sharing would give Rosaic deep access to Chipzillaâs intellectual property and help it build custom chips. That makes the arrangement more interesting than a routine licence deal, especially given Gillâs ties to Tan.
Tan joined Chipzilla in 2025 and is trying to turn the company around through AI and its battered foundry business. Chipzilla and AMD remain the worldâs biggest designers and sellers of x86 chips.
Chinaâs Shanghai Zhaoxin Semiconductor and Hygon Information Technology serve Chinaâs domestic market for personal computing chips.
Under Tan, Chipzilla wants to ride the need for agentic AI computing, where traditional processors could get another spell in the sun.
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The Hot Take: APU is the cousin of ARM's SoC. Mid-range across the board if you ask me is what I'm seeing the industry shifting to.
Intel is reportedly developing a socketed Nova Lake-S processor with substantially stronger integrated graphics than recent desktop Core products. Information attributed to hardware leaker Jaykihn describes a configuration with twelve Xe3P graphics cores.
The Hot Take: AMD past manufacturing arm getting US funds? We will see if they do anything productive to the industry, as it seems they aren't since they were created in my eyes.
The US government has signed a letter of intent to provide GlobalFoundries with $300 million in CHIPS Act funding and, at the same time, receive a one percent stake in the company worth roughly $269 million. The money's supposedly not a tit-for-tat, but an investment designed to spur development of silicon photonics networking technologies that the AI industry needs for datacenters. âWith todayâs compute supply chain investments, the Trump Administration is accelerating Americaâs innovation engine,â Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a canned statement. âThese strategic investments will enhance our countryâs domestic capabilities, create high-paying jobs and keep America at the forefront of the semiconductor industry.â GlobalFoundriesâ previously announced Silicon Photonics Co-Packaged Advanced Light Engine (SCALE) is one of the technologies itâs pushing in order to support 400 Gb/s per lane connectivity, which is about the speed at which copper interconnects become problematic for large scale systems. Both CPO, where optical engines are integrated directly into the compute logic, and NPO, where the optics reside in a module adjacent to the compute, are expected to be big business over the next couple of years. At Computex in Taipei last month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang quipped that these technologies would make Marvell Technology the next trillion dollar company. Over the past two years, system designs from Nvidia and AMD have grown from eight GPUs in a box to rack systems packing six dozen accelerators into a single machine. To meet growing AI demand, the chip designers are plotting even larger row-scale systems using optical interconnects. Since its spinoff from AMD, GlobalFoundries has moved away from leading-edge CMOS technologies in order to focus on more specialized processes. The company has become a leading producer of silicon photonics used in modern AI datacenters. In addition to next-gen silicon photonics tech, GlobalFoundries says the CHIPS Act funding will also support the development of novel optical materials, advanced packaging capabilities like 3D hybrid bonding, which will support the rollout of domestically manufactured near-packaged optics (NPO) and co-packaged optics (CPO). And thanks to the Trump administration, regular Americans will have a stake in the success of these technologies â or at least the ones GlobalFoundries ends up manufacturing. GlobalFoundries would not be the first American fab operator that Uncle Sam has secured equity from in exchange for CHIPS Act funding. Last summer, the Commerce Department converted $5.7 billion in previously awarded but not yet disbursed CHIPS Act grants, along with $3.2 billion awarded under the Secure Enclave program, into roughly a 10 percent stake in the struggling chipmaker. Bootnote: On Tuesday, Intel announced the Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes - Commercial (RAMP-C) program had reached its conclusion. The Department of Defense (DoD)-sponsored program offered incentives to industry partners to develop test chips in Intel fabs on the companyâs 18A process technology. The programâs end comes as Intel shifts its manufacturing might to a new government program called the Secure Enclave, which will manufacture semiconductors for use by US defense industrial base (DIB) customers. âEarly access to Intel 18A has positioned DIB customers to leverage Secure Enclave while meeting critical size, weight and power requirements,â the company wrote. ÂŽ
The Hot Take: Good, USA needs a strong Intel manufacturing.
Intel has overcome one big challenge that will lead to the creation of hyper-large chips beyond 12x reticle size through advanced packaging technologies. Intel Is Creating The World's Most Advanced & Largest Chips in the US at Its New Mexico "Rio Rancho" Facility, Leveraging Next-Gen Packaging Innovations Modern-day chips don't rely on a single piece of silicon, and instead utilize a range of silicon dies, interconnected together using the latest packaging solutions. The terminology used for such designs is chiplets, and chiplets were made to overcome scaling bottlenecks and the growing demand for compute. Inside Intel's Rio Rancho, New Mexico [âŚ]Read full article at https://wccftech.com/intel-cracks-encapsulation-wall-blocking-hyper-large-chips-using-advanced-packaging/
By ckasprzak | TkOut | August 1, 2026 | Hardware, MSI
The Hot Take: Was only a matter of time. Warranties mean nothing with these shortages and price hikes.
An MSI Raider GE77HX 12UHS sporting an Intel Core i9-12900HX and an RTX 3080 Ti might be considered aged at this point, but the gaming laptop can still hold its own in a truckload of titles, assuming it still works. One Redditor has shared evidence that the company refused to honor a motherboard replacement for the machine, simply because it would have been too expensive for them. Talk about a punch in the gut for the customer who spent $6,000 on a top-tier gaming laptop like this. The Raider GE77HX 12UHS was deemed âBeyond Economical Repair,â but the customer still [âŚ]Read full article at https://wccftech.com/msi-refuses-motherboard-replacement-6000-gaming-laptop/
The Hot Take: Just deeper and deeper into our lives.... I dropped OneDrive because the "backup" nag screens. Thankfully I have Synology NAS with Drive client to replace it.
The year is 2026, and Iâm still amazed when I find a new entry in my Start menuâs All apps list for an app I donât remember installing. This time, itâs Microsoft again, and the product is OneDrive Photos, which appears to be yet another photo editor and viewer for Windows 11 that nobody asked for.
While searching for Microsoft Photos, a new app called âOneDrive Photosâ showed up in my results out of nowhere, and it appears to have arrived either via a Windows Update or an update for the OneDrive sync client on Windows.
For those unaware, Windows already comes with OneDrive pre-installed, and it syncs your personal files to the cloud.
Right now, you can manage OneDrive files directly in File Explorer and control sync from the system tray on the taskbar. It looks like the nagging during Windows setup to use OneDrive, along with the backup feature being turned on by default, wasnât enough, as Windows is now adding âOneDrive Photos.â
If Windows has already installed OneDrive Photos on your PC, you can find its entry in the Start menu or Windows Search, whether youâve signed in to a Microsoft account or not.
In my case, I have the OneDrive sync app installed because it was bundled with Windows, but I havenât signed in with a Microsoft or work account. I donât use it. Yet the OneDrive Photos app still appeared.
Testing the new OneDrive Photos app for Windows 11
In our tests, Windows Latest noticed that the new âOneDrive Photosâ app is part of the existing OneDrive installation and runs through âC:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive\OneDrive.App.exe.â I also noticed that itâs based on WebView2, so itâs not a native app.
OneDrive Photos doesnât need a Microsoft account to work, as it can also detect your local files. At one point, I started to wonder whether itâll eventually replace the Microsoft Photos app because OneDrive Photos immediately started acting like a second Photos app on my PC.
It already had access to the drives where I had images saved, and the experience isnât exactly terrible. Although OneDrive Photos is a web app and appears to load OneDrive.comâs new design, itâs actually quite decent in terms of performance.
As you can see in the above screenshot, OneDrive Photos has a beautiful interface, and it tries to mimic Windows 11âs acrylic effect on the web. On the left side of the app, you have dedicated sections for Moments, Gallery, People, Albums, Favorites, and This PC. These are the same sections youâd find on the OneDrive web app, with âThis PCâ being an exception.
When you open Gallery and are not signed in to your Microsoft account, you are automatically shown your local images. You also have the choice to switch layouts, but currently, there are only two layouts: River and Square. You can also choose between Roomy or Compact density and adjust the thumbnail size.
When you open an image, you can edit, share, favorite, copy, delete, print, open it in File Explorer, or set it as your lock screen or desktop background. Again, all of that might sound a bit similar to the Microsoft Photos app because image editing in the Microsoft Photos app is based on OneDrive.
Once you sign in, the app becomes a full OneDrive gallery, and you have access to AI-powered cloud search.
For example, you can search for anything vague, and OneDriveâs AI will find the most appropriate image or file. In the case of photos, it can OCR the content and locate the best one.
Thereâs also a People section, which goes a step further by grouping similar faces in your photos. Microsoft asks for permission before turning it on and explicitly warns that the facial data could be considered biometric data in some regions.
The company says only you can see the grouped faces, but wants you to believe the data isnât shared with third parties, and you can delete it by disabling the feature.
Overall, OneDrive Photos appears to be more of a full photo viewer than a simple extension of the OneDrive sync client. Unfortunately, you canât just remove OneDrive Photos and use only OneDrive sync, as the former is tied to the latterâs installation.
If you want to block the OneDrive sync client from installing OneDrive Photos, you will need to remove OneDrive entirely from Settings > Installed apps.
The post Windows 11 is quietly installing OneDrive Photos, and it wants to scan your photos for faces if you allow it appeared first on Windows Latest
The Hot Take: "Hey look an OS we can't control all of the users data or track and monitor them, ATTACK!"
GrapheneOS is defending its duress-password feature after an environmental activist used it to wipe his Pixel phone during a U.S. Customs search and was later indicted for allegedly destroying property under government control. The nonprofit says the operating system is "completely legal," cannot recover the erased data, and should not be weakened with encryption backdoors. Meanwhile, the activist faces up to five years in prison if found guilty. PCMag reports: In a post on Saturday, the Canadian nonprofit behind the operating system, the GrapheneOS Foundation, explained that the software offers a range of features to prevent data extraction. For example, one safeguard is the "auto-reboot timer" that'll reboot a locked device after a set period of time to put the data at rest, leaving all files inside encrypted.
The group's post subtly suggests that GrapheneOS phones can withstand law enforcement searches without requiring users to resort to a duress password. "People should carefully consider how to use it in an actual duress situation where there can be physical or legal consequences for wiping the device," the nonprofit wrote. "GrapheneOS doesn't require it to protect data from being extracted from the device, but it takes recovering it completely off the table even with the PIN/password for each profile on the device."
On X, the nonprofit has also said it can do nothing to help US law enforcement recover data from Tunick's phone. "Data cannot be recovered after the key derivation material is reliably wiped. It's not possible and there's nothing we can do to assist with it," the group wrote. "Similarly, it's not possible to assist with bypassing encryption because the hardware and software has been designed to prevent it."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Hot Take: As it should be, given all of the other ones are own by foreign entities.
Intel has completed its RAMP-C program, which now aims to enable customers to move from test chips to domestic high-volume manufacturing. Intel RAMP-C Leads To Successful Development of a Strong "Design Enablement Infrastructure" Which Enables Commercial & Defense Customers To Design & Fabricate Chips Within the US Press Release: Intel Foundry has completed the Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes - Commercial (RAMP-C) program. Launched in September 2021, the program supported development of domestic, leading-edge CMOS technology and manufacturing in the United States, establishing a foundation for expanded trusted domestic semiconductor manufacturing. âThe collaboration between the DoW and Intel on the Trusted [âŚ]Read full article at https://wccftech.com/intel-emerges-as-americas-only-leading-edge-chipmaker-as-ramp-c-hands-domestic-18a-production/
The Hot Take: Is ARM going to shine or show it's mid-range performance?
The NVIDIA N1X is surely powerful enough for the Windows-on-Arm market, but the current prototype software prevents it from reaching its full potential. User Puts Microsoft's Unreleased NVIDIA N1X-Equipped Surface Laptop Ultra To Test; Discovers Chip Being Held Back by Unfinished Drivers The NVIDIA RTX Spark laptops will debut in the coming weeks, and if you were wondering about their performance numbers, here is an early sneak peek by a TechPowerUp user, who got his hands on an early prototype from Microsoft. The user "Fouquin" says he found the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra with NVIDIA's RTX Spark N1X on the [âŚ]Read full article at https://wccftech.com/nvidia-rtx-spark-shows-strong-potential-but-early-prototype-leaves-plenty-of-performance-on-the-table/
The Hot Take: Again, Nvidia doing anti-competitive practices?
Nvidiaâs graphics card prices are reportedly jumping again as memory costs rise and retailers start clearing shelves in panic.
With Samsung reportedly raising DRAM prices by about 20 per cent for the current quarter, Nvidia appears to have decided customers can pay. The result is another price rise for consumer graphics cards, the third such inflationary episode this year, according to the reports.
This one has reportedly emptied store shelves as distributors shift into full panic mode.
Unlike Nvidiaâs May price rise, the latest bout appears to cover far more consumer graphics card models.
According to Taiwanâs Economic Daily, Nvidia has increased prices on consumer-facing graphics cards by between 20 per cent and 30 per cent. That follows a price rise of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent in January 2026.
The May increase was aimed mainly at high-end cards such as the GeForce RTX 5090 series. The latest hike, therefore, looks like Nvidiaâs third attempt to test how much pain gamers and system builders can absorb this year.
BenchLife claims Nvidiaâs price notices to downstream supply chain partners now cover entire GPU bundles. That means the GPU itself and the GDDR memory are being lumped together on the same grim little invoice.
The notices, helped along by runaway rumours, have reportedly triggered a proper panic among retail channel distributors.
One major Chinese e-commerce platform went so far as to remove many mainstream Nvidia graphics cards from sale last week. Retailers that have already adjusted prices are showing a chunky difference.
The 16GB GDDR7 Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti is now selling for 10,700 yuan (âŹ1,389, $1,581), up from 9,299 yuan (âŹ1,207, $1,374) last week.
In November 2025, the same card was selling for 7,200 yuan (âŹ934, $1,064). The price rises are producing some daft results in the GDDR market as well.
Standard 2GB GDDR7 video memory now sells for $20, while a 3GB chip costs between $60 and $70. That means the 3GB GDDR7 part offers just 50 per cent more video memory but costs more than three times as much.
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