Light Start: Z Flip ad was not a leak, Coronavirus impacting MWC, SA internet will be restored soon and pump up the cores with AMD
Marcé
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Samsung teased the Galaxy Z Flip in an Oscars ad this weekend
We were readying ourselves to report on another accidental leak, honestly. But it looks like Samsung purposefully aired an ad showing its upcoming folding phone in all its glory. In an ad placed in the Oscars show this weekend, we can see the Moto Razr-esque flip-phone do its thang. Although the ad didn’t specify device details or the name, we know that the company will definitely announce the device tomorrow at its Unpacked event. The event is scheduled to take place in San Francisco at 11 a.m. PST. That’s 9pm here in SOuthern Africa. This was also the first time we got a peek at the tiny front display — it looks like you’ll be able to see who is calling and answer/decline calls. That’s obviously the choice if you’re a peasant — because the correct way to answer a phone call on a flip phone is by dramatically flipping it open while flicking your hair to the side. It also looks like Samsung is bargaining on the fact that the phone can sit upright like a baby who’s back is finally strong enough. Yeah, we guess it’s a super practical way to video call someone and mount the phone — but we are questioning the real-world applications here. Honestly, we’ll have to get our hands on one to make a call.
Everyone’s pulling out of Mobile World Congress, because of the looming virus
If there’s one way to get people to stop travelling the world, it’s a virus we know almost nothing about. The Coronavirus is taking the world by storm, and not in a good way. Uncertainty around the virus has prompted many tech companies to rethink their stance on Mobile World Congress — an annual tech show hosted in Barcelona. This weekend, Nvidia announced that it won’t be attending the trade show this year — making them the first US company to pull out. Ericsson and LG also announced that they won’t make it to the show this year because of the virus. “Chinese phone and telecommunications giant ZTE announced that it was cancelling its press conference to avoid making people feel uncomfortable, although it will maintain its booth at the show and demo new 5G devices there,” Gizmodo reports. It’s not the only Chinese tech firm to take precautions. Apparently Huawei has taken steps to quarantine its executives, presenters and service staff from China outside of the country for at least 14 days. According to people more familiar with the virus, this is the incubation period. We expect to see even more tech companies pull out of the trade show in a bid to keep ‘emselves healthy.
South Africa’s internet is on track to be restored
Here’s a line you weren’t expecting today: The cable break on the West African Cable System (Wacs) was fixed by the crew on the Leon Thevenin ship before schedule. South Africa’s internet woes started early in January when two breaks were found in the undersea cables that connect SA to the European servers. What this means is that internet providers now have to redirect traffic through limited resources (because two of those are out of commission). And this had adverse effects on South Africans and heir internet reliability and speeds. The good news is, however, that one of those cables are finally restored, which should take some strain off the other undersea cables. “A working theory, according to SARen, is that the cable short-circuited due to intense pressure from being trapped under heavy sediment carried by the flow of turbulent waters from the Congo River into the submarine canyon where the cable runs,” Business Insider reports. The Leon Thevenin will now travel to the other break in the SAT3 cable, and get that one up and running again.
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AMD’s crazy powerful 64-Core processor is now on sale
When AMD announced the Threadripper 3990x at CES 2020, we couldn’t contain our excitement. It promised performance not really seen before on a CPU, but it looks like that comes at a price. The AMD Threadripper 3990x is now officially available to buy, and we’re gonna have to save up quite a bit for this one. Starting today, you can buy the monster processor at Newegg in the US — some brands are also offering it in prebuilt PCs from the likes of Origin PC and Maingear. And you can get your hands on the gigantic piece of monster tech for just $4,000 (which works out to R60,000). “The Threadripper 3990x has 64 cores, 128 threads, and a combined cache of 288MB. It has 88 total PCIe 4.0 lanes to accommodate large GPU and NVMe requirements. It also has quad-channel DDR4 with ECC support,” Windows Central reports. What would you do with all those cores? Obviously, with a price like that, even the best gaming PCs likely won’t be rocking a chip like this. Instead, AMD is specifically targeting 3D designers and film studios with the Threadripper 3990X.
