Hello and welcome to the Geeky Brummie Tech Round-Up!
Each week I’ll be deep diving into the world of technology. Bringing back some new pearls from Birmingham and beyond! If you want to send any local tech articles over, feel free to reach out to me at ryan@geekybrummie.com.
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution is a hit
AMD have released their competitor to Nvidia’s proprietary DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling). If you don’t know what DLSS is, it’s AI rendering technology that increases graphics performance using dedicated Tensor Core AI processors on NVidia’s GeForce graphics (RTX 20 series and later). Basically for a certain list of games, you can run them at lower resolution images, with little to no loss of fidelity and faster frame rates. Being Nvidia, they’ve decided no to share their toys with the others.
AMD however have gone on a different tack. Their Fidelity Super Resolution (FSR) is an open-source, cross-platform technology designed to boost framerates.
Unlike DLSS, FSR doesn’t use any AI / deep learning tech in the background. Rather, FSR relies on what they refer to as a “new cutting-edge spatial upscaling solution”. Apparently it works well as it delivers ‘free’ performance uplifts, with very near to native quality at its higher settings
In more good news, it’s cross platform, allowing owners of a newish AMD (RX 400 series or newer) or Nvidia (GTX 10 series or newer) GPU, can test it our by downloading their the latest graphics card drivers plus the free Riftbreaker demo from Steam.
More than 40 game developers announced support for FSR in their games and/or game engines, and today seven games are adding support for FSR – 22 Racing Series, Anno 1800, Evil Genius 2, Godfall, Kingshunt, Terminator: Resistance and The Riftbreaker – with more expected by the end of this year, including DOTA 2, Far Cry 6 and Resident Evil Village.
More info below:
https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/radeon-software-fidelityfx-super-resolution
https://bit-tech.net/news/tech/graphics/amd-fidelityfx-super-resolution-gets-warm-reception/1/
The Hunt for Western Digital MyBook Data
If you own a My Book Live storage device. The manufacturers, western Digital, have advised to remove it’s internet connection ASAP.
In a statement on their site:
“Western Digital has determined that some My Book Live devices are being compromised by malicious software. In some cases, this compromise has led to a factory reset that appears to erase all data on the device. The My Book Live device received its final firmware update in 2015. We understand that our customers’ data is very important. At this time, we recommend you disconnect your My Book Live from the Internet to protect your data on the device. We are actively investigating and we will provide updates to this thread when they are available.”
From the comments on the forums some users have lost years of data and there seems no way for them to recover the data for now. Hopefully there’ll be some fix for them soon
This isn’t the first time in recent history that Western Digital have been in trouble with their hard drives and the WD Red SMR scandal from last year is still fresh in many tech consumers minds.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/mass-data-wipe-in-my-book-devices-prompts-warning-from-western-digital/
https://community.wd.com/t/action-required-on-my-book-live-and-my-book-live-duo/268147
https://community.wd.com/t/help-all-data-in-mybook-live-gone-and-owner-password-unknown/268111/6
Mobile World Congress rumbles on
Despite the pandemic, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is on right now (June 28th – July 1st). There’s some notable absences (Google) But some larger names are still in attendance such as Samsung, Lenovo and Huawei.
Samsung are watching…
Talking of Samsung, they’ve revealed their new Samsung One UI Watch experience which will run on top of Google’s latest iteration of WearOS rather than Samsung’s previous Tizen OS. It’s designed to make the interface between Galaxy phones and watches feel like a more seamless experience, and will hopefully distract the internet from making thirsty comments about their Sam virtual assistant for 10 minutes.
Lenovo proves Android Tablets still exist
In a shock to some of you, yes there are tablets still being manufactured outside of Apple’s almighty ecosphere! Also being unveiled at MWC is Lenovo’s new range of tablets including the Yoga Tab 11, the Tab 13 and the P11 Plus:
There’s a whole new raft of *checks notes* Smart… Clocks… too, yes, really, and no, I don’t know why either.
Techradar has a good roundup looking at the event which you can follow here:
https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/mwc-2021-news
Samsung Wear UI:
https://www.engadget.com/samsung-one-ui-watch-wear-os-details-171505347.html
Lenovo Tablets:
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