Intel - losing the moral high ground

There has been some immature name calling in the tech industry over the years, but in the past few years Intel was very quiet about competitors, as there really weren't many... or none at all... Now Intel came out with some quite questionable slides:

In this slide Intel tries to point out that all new generation AMD processors are based on the same Zen architecture, in the form of 4-core and 8-core dies... and they are somehow inferior, as they are glued together to form 8-core, 16-core and 32-core processors.

Well, all these allegations are mostly/partially true, but Intel forgot to mention that these AMD products are in fact not far behind in performance and efficiency - in some sectors are ahead of Intel ... and the price ... AMD prices are at about half of Intels's'.

Some tech journalists (including myself) argue that AMD's new "glued together" chip design is the future, as it enables manufacturers to throw out less partially defective dies. Rumors are circulating about a 99% yield on AMD's new chips, so I can see how that's a bit worrisome for Intel.

This so-called "gluing together" is called the Infinity Fabric, which allows all cores to communicate with each other ... improving multi-threaded performance... and Intel's processors can't do that (yet).

Long story short, shame on Intel for such immoral propaganda. It's not like they don't have the money to spend on R&D and come out with far better products.

Creating a USB 2.0 extension cable

Just before USB 2.0 goes extinct, I thought I do a little video about making an extension cable for it, as they are usually not cheap, if you want to buy them in a store.

First I went to my e-waste bin (sort of) and picked out a defective USB HUB, which was fried in an incident involving bad grounding. It's almost a perfect port donor:

I tried de-soldering the port, but was unwilling to cooperate, so I asked him no so nicely.

Next I chopped off the plug of a printer cable, which I got for ~25cents from Kaufland:

The easiest way I found to connect the right wires to the right pins, is to connect the plugs and use a wire-tester to make sure that no two wires have shorted. If you watch the whole video you'll see that I (intentionally) screwed up two wires, as the solder bridged the gap between them, but I fixed it with a box cutter...

For testing USB ports I use an old Bluetooth adapter, which I bought for 2 USD 10 years ago, so basically it has no value.

I only showed the green light blinking, which means the device is recognized by the computer, otherwise it wouldn't light up, OR if it received 5V, but wasn't recognized, then the little light would be constantly on.

This procedure is appropriate for the USB 2.0 standard, but for USB 3.x you're better off buying a brand name extender or USB hub. To make a USB 3.x extension cable you'd need very good soldering skills, and you also need to connect the cable's shielding in an appropriate manner. 

Tesla Model 3 launch date

Since Tesla's first reveal of the Model 3 more than one year ago, we've all been speculating about the technologies, which will be included in the new electric car, what range will it have, when will it be shipped to customers...etc.

Today we have most of the answers to these question, directly from the CEO, Elon Musk.

(1) 30 Tesla Model 3 cars will be ceremoniously handed over to first 30 customers on July 28th. 100 cars should be produced/delivered in August, >1500 in September ... >20.000 in December. All reservation holders should receive their cars in 2H2018-1H2019.

(2) The range of the first Model 3 cars will be around 300 miles, as a test vehicle was photographed at a supercharger and showed 95 mile range, when charged to 36%. So this is for the bigger/expensive battery pack (70-75kWh), while the smaller/cheaper battery pack (55-60kWh) will offer about 250 miles of range at the 35.000 USD price point.

(3) The Tesla Model 3 has one 15" center touchscreen, where the big majority of controls are accessed.

(4) The interior will be black, minimalist, improvements to cup holders, phone holders and other storage spaces.

(5) Model 3 frunk + trunk storage space is roughly half of the Model S, 14 vs. 30 cubic feet.

(6) Level 5 autonomy capable hardware will be preinstalled in all Tesla Model 3s, while autopilot features will cost extra, when they'll be available.

(7) Rear wheel drive cars will have an acceleration comparable to the first generation Tesla Model S. Faster and dual motor AWD models will come later, probably in 1Q2018.

(8) Durability of ALL NEW TESLA POWERTRAINS are being improved to 1 million miles

These are the most important details in my opinion. Tesla is finally releasing an affordable and extremely durable mass market car. Model 3 will be perfect for travel, city driving, taxi services, company cars and even for some light towing/delivery jobs.