Latest news with #Tom'sHardware
Tom's Guide
4 days ago
- Tom's Guide
Nintendo's Switch 2 hasn't even been available for 2 weeks, and people are already getting banned for using this emulator's controversial cartridge
The Nintendo Switch 2 hasn't even been out for two weeks, and already, it appears some gamers are getting hit with the ban hammer by the gaming giant. According to various user claims (via Tom's Hardware), Nintendo is banning Switch 2 consoles that have been found to use the MIG Switch (or MIG Flash) flash cartridge. The ban disables Nintendo online access for affected gamers, although they can still play offline. Shortly after the Switch 2 launched, the team at MIG revealed that they were able to make the MIG Flash work with the Switch 2. The MIG online store says it's "compatible with the Switch 2." However, since that initial announcement around June 12, MIG has deleted its post and several videos showing how the MIG Flash works with the Switch 2, though the cartridge is still available to purchase. The MIG Flash is a reprogrammable cartridge that you can slot a microSD card into that is designed to mimic a Nintendo Switch card. Essentially, you can use it to store your own game ROMs or backups on the MIG Flash, giving you the ability to carry multiple games on one card. Most users we've seen reporting being banned are claiming that they had "perfectly legal dumps" of their own games on the MIG. However, Nintendo has robust anti-piracy policies in place and is known to be quite litigious, especially against leakers and pirates. It's unclear why the MIG was able to bypass the Switch, but it's being caught by the Switch 2. Potentially, Nintendo could use unique cartridge identifiers, meaning that multiple people playing the same game online would be flagged as piracy. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. MIG Flash software updates to get it to work with the Switch 2 could be what Nintendo is catching now. Since the original MIG worked with the first Switch, it's possible people could get reinstated. But I wouldn't hold out hope. Nintendo isn't exactly friendly to emulators or ROMs, and it updated the Nintendo Account Agreement before Switch 2 launch with much stiffer language against "unauthorized use" in what appears to be an attempt to prevent piracy and emulation. "You acknowledge that if you fail to comply with the foregoing restrictions Nintendo may render the Nintendo Account Services and/or the applicable Nintendo device permanently unusable in whole or in part," the agreement currently reads. Other than contacting Nintendo, if you use a MIG Flash cartridge, you may be out of luck and will need to get a new console or wait until the Switch 3 years from now.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
SMI CEO claims Nvidia wants SSDs with 100 million IOPS — up to 33X performance uplift could eliminate AI GPU bottlenecks
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Now that the AI industry has exceptionally high-performance GPUs with high-bandwidth memory (HBM), one of the bottlenecks that AI training and inference systems face is storage performance. To that end, Nvidia is working with partners to build SSDs that can hit random read performance of 100 million input/output operations per second (IOPS) in small-block workloads, according to Wallace C. Kuo, who spoke with Tom's Hardware in an exclusive interview. "Right now, they are aiming for 100 million IOPS — which is huge," Kuo told Tom's Hardware. Modern AI accelerators, such as Nvidia's B200, feature HBM3E memory bandwidth of around 8 TB/s, which significantly exceeds the capabilities of modern storage subsystems in both overall throughput and latency. Modern PCIe 5.0 x4 SSDs top at around 14.5 GB/s and deliver 2 – 3 million IOPS for both 4K and 512B random reads. Although 4K blocks are better suited for bandwidth, AI models typically perform small, random fetches, which makes 512B blocks a better fit for their latency-sensitive patterns. However, increasing the number of I/O operations per second by 33 times is hard, given the limitations of both SSD controllers and NAND memory. In fact, Kioxia is already working on an 'AI SSD' based on its XL-Flash memory designed to surpass 10 million 512K IOPS. The company currently plans to release this drive during the second half of next year, possibly to coincide with the rollout of Nvidia's Vera Rubin platform. To get to 100 million IOPS, one might use multiple 'AI SSDs.' However, the head of SMI believes that achieving 100 million IOPS on a single drive featuring conventional NAND with decent cost and power consumption will be extremely hard, so a new type of memory might be needed. "I believe they are looking for a media change," said Kuo. "Optane was supposed to be the ideal solution, but it is gone now. Kioxia is trying to bring XL-NAND and improve its performance. SanDisk is trying to introduce High Bandwidth Flash (HBF), but honestly, I don't really believe in it. Right now, everyone is promoting their own technology, but the industry really needs something fundamentally new. Otherwise, it will be very hard to achieve 100 million IOPS and still be cost-effective." Currently, many companies, including Micron and SanDisk, are developing new types of non-volatile memory. However, when these new types of memory will be commercially viable is something that even the head of Silicon Motion is not sure about. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Yahoo
How to turn off Google's AI Overviews in web searches
Google's AI Overviews do not save me time. For one, I work for a tech blog and am therefore professionally curious as to whether or not the generated answers are correct, so I spend a few ticks figuring that out. (Answer: Sometimes, but not always!) Then things get existential as I contemplate how long a self-cannibalizing system can sustain itself — if the AI gives answers pulled from websites that survive on visits from readers, what happens when no one visits those sites because AI cribbed the answer? Will I still get to write for websites if websites die from traffic starvation? It's a lot to think about when all I want is TSA's latest lithium-ion battery regulations. Curiously (and unhelpfully) the first result when you Google 'How to turn off AI Overviews in Chrome' doesn't actually answer the question. The entry, from Google Support, discusses turning the feature off back when AI Overviews were experimental and handled through Google Labs. Navigate a little further down that page and you'll see: Note: Turning off 'AI Overviews and more' in Search Labs will not disable all AI Overviews in Search. AI Overviews are part of Google Search like other features, such as knowledge panels, and can't be turned off. Thankfully, I work with intelligent people and one of them supplied me with a simple method of ensuring each search performed in a Chrome browser bypasses the AI Overview and uses results from the Web tab only. Here's how you too can avoid wasted time (and energy) so you can search like it's 2024. Click the three dots in the upper right corner of your Chrome browser Go to Settings > Search engine > Manage search engines and search Under Site search, click the Add button Enter Name: Google/Web Enter Shortcut: Enter URL: {google:baseURL}search?udm=14&q=%s Click Add Then, (hat tip to Tom's Hardware for helping me figure this bit out) set the search type to default by clicking the three dots next to the shortcut you just created and clicking Make default. Now, go Google 'the best laptop power banks' and click on the Engadget entry (usually one to four results down) and spend a few moments looking at the ads (and the picture of my desk) before you move on so I can still have a job in 2026. In that same Tom's Hardware article, Avram Piltch links to the extension he built, which is a super easy way to hide the AI Overviews from sight. It'll still generate the response, you just won't see it. I prefer the Web method above, to avoid any unnecessary machine processing on my behalf, but the extension is easier and keeps you on the familiar 'All' search results tab with knowledge panels, video results and the like. To turn off the AI Overview for Chrome on your phone, I'll direct you to the fine folks at tenbluelinks. Just open the link in your phone's browser and follow the steps for Android or iOS.
Engadget
13-06-2025
- Engadget
How to turn off Google's AI Overviews in web searches
Google's AI Overviews do not save me time. For one, I work for a tech blog and am therefore professionally curious as to whether or not the generated answers are correct, so I spend a few ticks figuring that out. (Answer: Sometimes, but not always!) Then things get existential as I contemplate how long a self-cannibalizing system can sustain itself — if the AI gives answers pulled from websites that survive on visits from readers, what happens when no one visits those sites because AI cribbed the answer? Will I still get to write for websites if websites die from traffic starvation? It's a lot to think about when all I want is TSA's latest lithium-ion battery regulations. Curiously (and unhelpfully) the first result when you Google 'How to turn off AI Overviews in Chrome' doesn't actually answer the question. The entry, from Google Support, discusses turning the feature off back when AI Overviews were experimental and handled through Google Labs. Navigate a little further down that page and you'll see: Note: Turning off 'AI Overviews and more' in Search Labs will not disable all AI Overviews in Search. AI Overviews are part of Google Search like other features, such as knowledge panels, and can't be turned off. Thankfully, I work with intelligent people and one of them supplied me with a simple method of ensuring each search performed in a Chrome browser bypasses the AI Overview and uses results from the Web tab only. Here's how you too can avoid wasted time (and energy) so you can search like it's 2024. Click the three dots in the upper right corner of your Chrome browser Go to Settings > Search engine > Manage search engines and search Under Site search, click the Add button Enter Name: Google/Web Enter Shortcut: Enter URL: {google:baseURL}search?udm=14&q=%s Click Add Then, (hat tip to Tom's Hardware for helping me figure this bit out) set the search type to default by clicking the three dots next to the shortcut you just created and clicking Make default. Now, go Google 'the best laptop power banks' and click on the Engadget entry (usually one to four results down) and spend a few moments looking at the ads (and the picture of my desk) before you move on so I can still have a job in 2026. In that same Tom's Hardware article, Avram Piltch links to the extension he built, which is a super easy way to hide the AI Overviews from sight. It'll still generate the response, you just won't see it. I prefer the Web method above, to avoid any unnecessary machine processing on my behalf, but the extension is easier and keeps you on the familiar 'All' search results tab with knowledge panels, video results and the like. To turn off the AI Overview for Chrome on your phone, I'll direct you to the fine folks at tenbluelinks. Just open the link in your phone's browser and follow the steps for Android or iOS.
WIRED
12-06-2025
- WIRED
Air Traffic Control in the US Still Runs on Windows 95 and Floppy Disks
Benj Edwards, Ars Technica The Federal Aviation Administration is seeking contractors to modernize its decades-old computer systems within four years. Photograph:On Wednesday, acting FAA administrator Chris Rocheleau told the House Appropriations Committee that the Federal Aviation Administration plans to replace its aging air traffic control systems, which still rely on floppy disks and Windows 95 computers, Tom's Hardware reports. The agency has issued a Request for Information to gather proposals from companies willing to tackle the massive infrastructure overhaul. 'The whole idea is to replace the system. No more floppy disks or paper strips,' Rocheleau said during the committee hearing. US transportation secretary Sean Duffy called the project 'the most important infrastructure project that we've had in this country for decades,' describing it as a bipartisan priority. Most air traffic control towers and facilities across the US currently operate with technology that seems frozen in the 20th century, although that isn't necessarily a bad thing—when it works. Some controllers currently use paper strips to track aircraft movements and transfer data between systems using floppy disks, while their computers run Microsoft's Windows 95 operating system, which launched in 1995. As Tom's Hardware notes, modernization of the system is broadly popular. Sheldon Jacobson, a University of Illinois professor who has studied risks in aviation, says that the system works remarkably well as is but that an upgrade is still critical, according to NPR. The aviation industry coalition Modern Skies has been pushing for ATC modernization and recently released an advertisement highlighting the outdated technology. While the vintage systems may have inadvertently protected air traffic control from widespread outages like the CrowdStrike incident that disrupted modern computer systems globally in 2024, agency officials say 51 of the FAA's 138 systems are unsustainable due to outdated functionality and a lack of spare parts. The FAA isn't alone in clinging to floppy disk technology. San Francisco's train control system still runs on DOS loaded from 5.25-inch floppy disks, with upgrades not expected until 2030 due to budget constraints. Japan has also struggled in recent years to modernize government record systems that use floppy disks. If It Ain't Broke? Modernizing the air traffic control system presents engineering challenges that extend far beyond simply installing newer computers. Unlike typical IT upgrades, ATC systems must maintain continuous 24/7 operation, because shutting down facilities for maintenance could compromise aviation safety. This uptime requirement eliminates the possibility of traditional system replacement approaches where old hardware gets swapped out during scheduled downtime. The replacement systems must also meet security requirements to resist cyberattacks. A successful breach of air traffic control infrastructure could paralyze national aviation networks, resulting in cascading effects that impact transportation, commerce, and emergency services. And yet not everyone is convinced the planned massive overhaul will achieve the desired effects. In an NPR report on the issue, aviation industry analyst Robert W. Mann Jr. expressed skepticism about whether new systems will actually materialize. 'This has been the same mantra for the past 30 years. Give them more money. They'll build the new system. It'll work better, work harder,' Mann told NPR. 'And we've been doing that for well over 30 years now, and we've gotten the same results.' Still, recent failures have confirmed some vulnerabilities in the aging system. A January 2023 outage in the FAA's Notice to Airmen system forced the grounding of every flight nationwide for more than two hours. Experts blamed the failure on aging infrastructure and damaged database files, with sources telling CNN at the time that budget constraints had repeatedly delayed needed tech refreshes. More recently, radar and communication outages led to hundreds of delays and cancellations at Newark Liberty International Airport, with a wiring failure being cited as one cause. The US Transportation Department has set a four-year timeline for completing the modernization project, though industry experts question whether this schedule is realistic given the scope and complexity involved. According to the NPR report, Jacobson thinks the administration's announced timeline is 'wildly optimistic,' especially given the absence of a price tag for the sweeping plan. The FAA has announced several 'Industry Days' where companies can present their technologies and proposals to department officials. The White House has not yet disclosed the expected cost of the modernization effort. Despite the financial uncertainty, Duffy emphasized the perceived urgency of the project: 'Everyone agrees—this is nonpartisan. Everyone knows we have to do it.' This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
