Last year, Apple, Google, Microsoft and the FIDO Alliance announced passkeys (aka WebAuthN) as a way to log into your stuff instead of a password. Rather than typing in some characters and then applying a second authentication method (TOTP, hardware key, whatever), an app or device stores a unique passkey and uses that as your authentication method once you've unlocked it with a PIN/biometric/master password. Apple added support for this in iOS 16 and macOS Ventura recently and Microsoft's been doing it for a while with their Authenticator app. Today Google announced they now support passkeys for logging in to your Google account. The holy trinity of big tech companies sticking their beaks into a new part of my life is now complete.
AMD's got a new range of mobile CPUs based on the latest Zen 4 architecture and built on the cutting edge TSMC 4nm node process. The Ryzen Mobile 7040U series (aka Phoenix) sit in the 15W-30W TPD range and feature 4 to 8 cores depending on the SKU. The beefier but more power hungry 35-54W TDP parts were announced earlier this year, but still haven't shipped. There's also an Xilinx XDNA FPGA baked in to this CPU, which AMD calls "Ryzen AI" but technically can be programmed on the fly to do a bunch of different things - will be interesting to see what people do with that piece of kit. Framework has announced laptops using these new CPUs that are available for pre-order now and shipping "as early as Q3 this year". Looking forward to seeing some benchmarks, particularly of the integrated GPU.
It's not news that Microsoft really wants you to use Edge instead of Chrome or Firefox, but in the past few days they've been taking it to the extreme. Windows update KB5025221 targeted Chrome, breaking a button in the browser that let you make Chrome the default browser with a single click. That button stopped working with the update. Enterprise users had it worse, with the update opening the Windows default browser settings panel every time you clicked a link in Chrome if Edge was not as the default browser! Separately, Microsoft's told Microsoft 365 admins that links in Outlook and Teams will open in Edge by default and can't be changed unless you're using Microsoft 365 Enterprise. Sad, pathetic behaviour from Microsoft.
Steven K. Roberts converted a fucking huge 48-foot trailer designed for transporting racing cars into a mobile digitisation lab. It's packed to the gills with gear to digitise photos (prints, negatives) and movies (film of all kinds, tapes, etc) as well as a living space. This guy goes where the stuff is to digitise, sets up camp, does his thing and moves on to the next pile of old stuff to preserve. It isn't Steven's first rodeo either, he's done similar things in smaller trailers and even on goddamn boats. This dude is a huge geek, and I mean that in a sincere, loving way, not an insult.
Published in Menlo Park, California from the early 70s onward, this is one of the first cultural forces that created the movement of people thinking about computers in a personal, individual and creative way. We invite you to explore the pages of the very first PCC issue below and check out our main site on the PCC. (Digibarn Computer Museum)
📻 Ann - Tropical Fuck Storm
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