• Quad-Level-Cell (QLC) 3D flash memory sets the industry benchmark for performance, bit density, and power efficiency
• It is the first QLC 3D flash to reach a 4.8 GB/s interface, ensuring super-fast data transfer between storage and processor
• This is the breakthrough that could deliver 1 PB (petabyte) storage to data centers

SanDisk has unveiled the chip that could revolutionize data centers and push cloud storage and AI to the next level with its QLC 3D flash memory technology, developed with Kioxia. Employing the companies’ CMOS directly Bonded to Array (CBA) technology, the 10th generation Quad-Level-Cell 3D flash memory has set a new industry standard, representing the baseline for competing memory manufacturers.

The chip has a 60% increase in bit density compared to the 8th generation 3D flash memory, also setting the benchmark for performance and power efficiency.

What we know so far: AMD’s Ryzen 7000 CPUs were once notorious for self-destructing on AM5 motherboards with older BIOS versions, but Team Red rolled out a firmware update to fix the problem in 2023. While there’s no indication that the issue has returned, a Redditor is now reporting that their friend’s Ryzen 7 7800X3D swelled up and burned out while running with the default BIOS settings after only three months of use.

According to Redditor Magoth04, a three-month-old Ryzen 7 7800X3D was irreparably damaged while installed in a fully updated MSI PRO X870-P WIFI motherboard. The post claims that the system abruptly shut down while gaming a few days ago and then entered a boot loop before dying for good.

When the owner opened the case to troubleshoot the problem, both the CPU and motherboard reportedly had “visible burn marks,” and the chip also appeared to have swollen slightly. Both the processor and motherboard were reportedly rendered unusable following the incident.

The user claims that the CPU was not overclocked and that the voltage and current limits had not been manually tuned, either. However, AMD’s EXPO setting had been manually activated to allow the memory to run at its advertised speed. The poster added that the CPU was cooled by a 360mm AIO and that system temperatures appeared normal before the catastrophic failure.

When asked whether they had contacted AMD to request a refund or replacement, the Redditor said that the RMA process was already underway. However, it’s unclear whether AMD will honor the warranty, since the chip had already been delidded before the RMA was requested.

The report of yet another Ryzen 7000 failure is bound to send shockwaves through the AMD community, given that this is not the first time something like this has happened. Back in 2023, users began reporting that some Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPUs were burning up and damaging or destroying their X670-series motherboards.

AMD claimed to have fixed the problem with an AGESA update that capped the voltage at 1.30V across all AM5 motherboards. The update appeared to have resolved the issue for a while, but in late 2024 and into 2025, users once again started reporting swelling, boot-looping, and burnout issues, this time involving the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

AMD blamed motherboard manufacturers for allegedly ignoring its recommended voltage and current limits. Some motherboard makers, such as ASRock, even admitted that at least some of the failures could be attributed to aggressive PBO settings.

The root cause of the latest failure remains unclear, but it appears that the fixes rolled out by AMD and the precautions taken by motherboard manufacturers may not prevent every potential voltage spike during EXPO memory training, potentially leaving some systems vulnerable to permanent damage.

Image credit: Magoth04 / Reddit

When the iPhone X debuted in 2017 for a record-high price of $1,000, people were wondering: How long will this phone last? Now we have an answer. 

On Thursday, Apple classified the iPhone X as obsolete. To be clear, the device won’t suddenly stop working. “Obsolete” is a classification for devices that Apple stopped selling seven years ago, and the company will no longer offer hardware service. This is a step down from the “vintage” category, which refers to devices that Apple last sold five to seven years ago.

I never owned an iPhone X, but I admit I envied the people who did. It was the iPhone that made me start paying closer attention to smartphones. 

I remember seeing the iPhone X advertised on a billboard over San Francisco’s Union Square. Its curved corners and minimal bezels gave it a space-age vibe and made all other phones look dated by comparison. There was even something futuristic about that controversial front camera cutout, which everyone decided to call the “notch.” (Apple never used the term, at least not in the iPhone X’s press release.)

The iPhone X “is the beginning of the next ten years for iPhone,” said Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, Philip Schiller, in 2017.

Schiller’s prediction was spot-on. The all-screen form factor continued to show up in each generation of flagship iPhones, even as the notch evolved into the Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 Pro. Today, there’s only one iPhone model that still has a notch: the entry-level iPhone 17E.

Nine years after the iPhone X’s debut, another contender for the most expensive new iPhone may soon be appearing. Apple’s foldable iPhone is heavily rumored to launch next month with an expected price tag of at least $2,000. And with the ongoing RAM crisis driving prices higher, it seems almost quaint to imagine a $1,000 flagship phone today.

We’re also set to see Apple’s 20th anniversary iPhone next year. While I can’t imagine the “iPhone 20” will be as revolutionary as the iPhone X, maybe Apple will surprise us once again.

Jason Chun is a CNET writer covering a range of topics in tech, home, wellness, finance and streaming services. He is passionate about language and technology, and has been an avid writer/reader of science fiction for most of his life. He holds a BA from UC Santa Barbara and an MFA from The New School.

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The invisible SynthID will remain.

I have been following rumors about Google’s new HiLight feature long before the company even announced its name. A few weeks ago, reports spoke about the feature as Google’s AI interface, something that glows when users speak to Gemini. 

Now that the company has wrapped the Pixel 11 launch event, everything’s out in the open, and one of the only two things it does is light up when you speak to Gemini. So, after all the speculations and build-up, Google’s big reveal is… basically the same thing we thought it was, and I have some strong thoughts about that. 

I thought Google was onto something

My excitement (and disappointment) about HiLight comes from how the smartphone industry has treated LED notification lights. While an always-on display informs you about notifications, it also demands more attention, making it harder not to pick up the phone and respond. In comparison, I find LED indicators on the back, like those on Nothing and CMF phones, less intrusive.

While they tell us there’s a notification, they don’t compel us to pick up the phone immediately. They also let you rest your phone face-down on the table while you’re enjoying a dinner with your family or friends, playing an intense game of UNO, or enjoying a new release at the theater. 

That’s exactly what I, or someone who has seen the smartphone market evolve over the years, seeing all the phases of LED notification indicators, would expect HiLight on the Pixel 11 Pro phones to do. It sounded like the perfect idea on paper. Little did I know that the company planned to chain it to a hyper-restricted software experience. 

Here’s what HiLight can do at the moment

Exactly two things. First, it works as a Gemini conversation indicator, switching between different glow patterns for listening, thinking, and responding. Basically, it gives you visual confirmation that the assistant heard you without you having to pick up the phone. Fair enough. We’ve seen similar implementations on Amazon’s Echo speakers and Google’s own Home Speaker.

Second, it lights up in one of five colors when a favorite contact calls. This works with both the Phone app and WhatsApp (the only third-party app it supports, via 9To5Google). And while you might think you could choose the color you associate with a favorite contact, you can’t. Google picked five colors for you, and you simply assign them to people.

So, at launch, one of the most hyped Pixel 11 Pro features can essentially only do these two things, which feels like a frustratingly small use of what could have been a genuinely useful RGB light on the back of a phone. 

The fact that Google handed you give colors and called it a day, even though the RGB light ring can physically render so much more than that, isn’t even the worst part of it. 

The problem becomes obvious when you actually use it

The biggest caveat of Google’s stringent approach to an otherwise perfect idea is the lack of third-party app support. 

According to an Android Headlines report by Alexander Maxham, Google has no plans to unlock the restricted HiLight for other apps within its own ecosystem or open it to third-party apps. The closest thing to a roadmap Google offered was a mention of RCS messaging support arriving down the line, but that’s pretty much it. 

The entire point of having a rear-facing RGB light is to keep the user informed when the phone is sitting face-down. Among the few things Pixel 11 Pro owners are missing out on, despite having the physical hardware sitting right there on the device, are general notifications from apps you could be using daily, including Slack, Teams, social media apps like Instagram, or even Uber, for that matter.

Then comes charging or battery indication. I know it’s an RGB ring, and integrating progress levels that are otherwise shown through horizontal UI elements is tough. However, how difficult would it be to use the light to tell the user the battery is dying? Is blinking red twice or three times really that difficult? I’m not even talking about a live charging status.

If the hardware actually supports full-spectrum RGB LED capabilities, I don’t get why it’s locked to only five color options. Would a color-coded system in the app be too difficult for users to understand and customize? Pink for Instagram, purple for Teams, or yellow for Snapchat?

Perhaps a yellow or amber flickering light when someone captures a self-portrait from the rear-facing camera, supporting the timer beeps that the phone already makes? I’m just thinking about ways Google could have made the hardware addition more useful and more interesting. 

I’m not asking Google to cram every one of these functionalities into HiLight at once. In fact, I know for a fact that implementing all of them together would invite more chaos than it would solve problems. But Google can gather a team of engineers and designers to brainstorm intuitive ways to integrate the hardware deeper into the Pixel experience and make it sound or feel much less gimmicky than it currently does.

It’s not too late; Google can still turn this around

There’s no point in comparing Google’s HiLight RGB light with Nothing’s circular or horizontal LED modules. By nature of their shape and design, Nothing’s LEDs are better suited to simpler depictions of Live Updates on Android phones. However, that doesn’t mean Google can’t make HiLight highlight other things.

While HiLight is one of the most lethargic rear-facing LED implementations on a smartphone, it doesn’t have to stay that way forever. Fixing it doesn’t really require reinventing anything: open the API to developers, let people assign custom colors through a color wheel or similar setup, add a charging or power indicator, and ship the messaging feature that’s already been promised.

If Google genuinely wants people to put their phone face-down and be present in the moment, it also needs to trust those same people and grant them more control over what HiLight does for them. I’m rooting for an omnipresent HiLight interface that can cover far more than it does today, and I’ll remain optimistic that Google will eventually move in that direction.

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Aircraft, ships and vehicles now carry many radio systems in a small space, so designers must know how much energy leaks from one antenna into another before any hardware is built. This leakage is described by the mutual s-parameters between the antenna ports, and it decides whether two systems can operate at the same time on the same platform. Measuring it by trial and error at every candidate position is slow and costly. Predicting it by simulation is difficult for two reasons. First, the platform is electrically large, which means that its dimensions span several hundreds of wavelengths, so the model needs a large number of unknowns. Second, the coupling levels of interest are very low, in some cases down to -100 dB, which leaves little margin for numerical error. This White Paper addresses both problems with a full-wave solution based on the Method of Moments applied to the Surface Integral Equation, using higher-order basis functions to keep the number of unknowns low. Two examples are studied in detail: a metallic cube carrying two quarter-wavelength monopoles, and a realistic airliner carrying five monopoles at 1.06 GHz, where the fuselage is about 140 λ long. Three modelling techniques for obtaining accurate low-level results are compared in terms of accuracy and the number of unknowns each one requires, and the complete geometry of each model is documented so that every result can be checked independently.

The Smart Tank series is HP‘s answer to the refillable-ink trend we’ve tracked closely, and for the price, it’s worth checking out the HP Smart Tank 5101 all-in-one printer for $170 (was $260) at Amazon.

Based on our experience testing HP printers, this one’s an easy recommendation for home offices, as well as the back-to-school prep and dorm rooms. First, the bottled ink refills are much cheaper than traditional inkjet cartridges, saving you money – and it includes two years’ of ink in the box. Second, the model features a built-in scanner and copier for work and study.

Why we recommend it

Having tested all the best HP printers, the brand is one of our top-rated in the printing field (our hardware editor has been using his HP printer for almost ten years now).

Refillable ink tank printers have become the more sensible long-term option for anyone who prints regularly, since the upfront ink supply eliminates the recurring cartridge cost that makes budget inkjets expensive over time.

HP, including two years of ink in the box with the Smart Tank 5101, removes a lot of the math you’d otherwise have to do around break-even points.

It also covers the basics well: printing, scanning, and copying are all handled through the HP Smart app, and setup requires nothing beyond connecting to Wi-Fi.

For more top picks, we’ve tested the best ink tank printers and the best home printers, too.

Price Context & Historical Value

The Catch: What to know before you buy

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Troublesome electromagnetic catapults look set to be replaced with old-fashioned technology

President Trump has ordered the US Navy to draw up plans to replace electromagnetic aircraft catapults and weapons elevators with old-fashioned steam and hydraulic systems.

America’s commander-in-chief issued a presidential memorandum directing the secretary of defense, in consultation with the secretary of the Navy, to come up with a plan to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) on the future USS Doris Miller (CVN-81) with the older steam-powered system.

The same note stipulated the replacement of the electromagnetic Advanced Weapons Elevators with the hydraulic versions used in older carriers.

These directives were part of a broader memorandum aimed at shaking up shipbuilding for the US Navy, which is often seen as glacial and moribund.

EMALS was introduced on the USS Gerald R Ford (CVN-78), which was the first of an improved design of US aircraft carriers. It basically uses a linear induction motor to accelerate an aircraft along the flight deck, in place of the old-fashioned system that employs a steam piston.

The premise of EMALS is that it doesn’t require a head of steam, and as it is electromagnetic, it should be easy to adjust the power to match the size and weight of aircraft being launched.

However, the technology has had a few teething problems, as reported by The Register previously, and these have even led to the Gerald R Ford being unable to launch aircraft at all.

The Advanced Weapons Elevators, which also use linear motors, have likewise proven problematic.

Earlier this year, it was reported that there was a study underway to review the Ford-class carrier design and determine whether it should be altered for the next two in the class.

“We are looking at 82 and 83 to review the costs, the designs, the systems, to make sure that they make sense, and they have all the systems and requirements that we want going forward,” then-secretary of the Navy John Phelan is quoted as saying.

One of the concerns was said to be with the sortie generation rate of the Gerald R Ford – the number of takeoffs possible – which was promised to be higher with EMALS.

We asked the White House if this directive would apply to all subsequent US carriers, but a spokesperson simply referred us to the announcement, which mentions only CVN-81.

The rest of the president’s memorandum takes aim at naval shipbuilding in America. One directive is to establish a fifth naval shipyard to increase submarine and aircraft carrier repair capacity.

Trump is also sanctioning foreign involvement in building up to three ship classes of US Navy vessels.

His memorandum directs the secretary of defense to come up with “a new competitive acquisition approach” for surface combatants to perform anti‑submarine warfare, surface warfare, and convoy escort duties, plus Consolidated Cargo Replenishment at Sea (CONSOL) tankers and Roll-On, Roll-Off vessels – the latter typically used for transporting tanks and other military vehicles.

The president proposes using a similar approach to the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the US and Finland with regard to acquiring icebreaker ships last year.

This will allow foreign suppliers to take part in US Navy procurement, provided they agree to build a new shipyard in America or assume ownership or a majority stake in an existing one, and construct all ships after the first two in US shipyards.

Tellingly, the memorandum states that the US Navy “shall not impose iterative design changes upon the original mature parent designs within the above programs,” and that no changes from the original designs shall be made without the approval of the secretary of defense.

Last year, the Trump administration canned the Constellation-class frigate program, which had been based on an Italian design to reduce technical risk, after so many changes were made that the US design had just 15 percent commonality with the original and the program was years behind schedule. ®

• iVANKY FusionDock Ultra packs 26 ports into a desktop workstation dock
• Four external 6K displays can run natively on compatible Apple Silicon Macs
• Up to 120Gbps bandwidth supports demanding display-focused professional workflows simultaneously

The iVANKY FusionDock Ultra is a 26-port desktop dock designed specifically for Apple Silicon Macs and demanding professional workstations.

The company says its dock supports native quad 6K monitors, high-speed connectivity, and charging capabilities for professional users.