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17 May 2024

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Sony slams tech giants for unauthorised use of stars' songs
Sony Music suspects Google, Microsoft and OpenAI have used music from the likes of Adele and Beyonce.

Life360 partners with Hubble to launch global tracking network
Life360 partners with Hubble Network to debut Find with Life360, a groundbreaking global location-tracking network leveraging satellite Bluetooth technology.

Adata SE920 portable SSD review: Cheaper, faster USB 4 storage
At a glanceExpert's Rating ProsFastest external storage we’ve tested (at 40Gbps)Affordable for the ilkStylish enclosureAvailable up to 4TBAlso fast on the MacConsPricier than USB 3.2×2 (20Gbps)Our VerdictAdata’s handsome and unique USB 4 SSD is the fastest we’ve tested at 40Gbps, and is also relatively affordable. Recommended. Best Prices Today: Adata SE920 EX USB4 SSD Retailer Price Adata $139.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket The Adata SE920 is our second look at a 40Gbps USB 4 SSD and to be blunt, we like what we see. It’s handsome, stunningly fast, and has a clever enclosure featuring a micro-fan you can turn on and off according to need. Cool stuff. What are the Adata SE920’s features? I’ll get to the specs in a second, but the SE920 has one of the more unique features I’ve run across — half of the latched, spring-loaded outer shell slides out about half an inch to activate an internal fan. Said fan was very quiet, so I opted to leave the drive in the open position the majority of the time. You can see it in the open position in the photo up top and closed in the image below. Beyond that, the SE920 is a USB 4 (40Gbps) external SSD that weighs about 7 ounces and measures 4.13-inches long by 2.52-inches wide by 0.62-inches thick — closed. Sliding the case/switch open ups the length to 4.82-inches. Either way, it’s quite a bit thinner than the finned OWC 1M2 — another very fast USB 4 SSD. Further reading: See our roundup of the best external drives to learn about competing products. The Adata SE920 with its spring-loaded fan-switching outer shell closed. See the lead photo for it in the open state. The Adata SE920 with its spring-loaded fan-switching outer shell closed. See the lead photo for it in the open state. The Adata SE920 with its spring-loaded fan-switching outer shell closed. See the lead photo for it in the open state. Judging from the huge fins on the 1M2, and the micro-fan inside the SE920 — USB 4 generates almost as much heat as Thunderbolt. At least at the full 40Gbps. As you know, heat is unavoidable with electronics, but getting rid of it is essential to stability and longevity. Adata provides a five-year warranty for the SE920. It’s a limited warranty, which means it’s mitigated by the amount of data written to the drive as well as physical abuse. The amount of data written can’t exceed a reasonable amount, which is likely 600TBW per 1TB of NAND if Adata follows the industry standard. How much is the Adata SE920? According to Adata, the 1TB SE920 will cost $140, the 2TB model will run $200, and the high-capacity 4TB is $380. More than 20Gbps USB SSDs, but not significantly, and miles cheaper than the OWC 1M2 — the only other external USB 4 SSD we’re aware of. One thing I should point out is that being USB 4, rather than USB 3.2×2, you’ll get excellent performance on a Mac as well. Apple, for some unknown reason supports only 10Gbps with USB 3.2, meaning 3.2×2 20Gbps SSDS are constrained to half their potential. Nice one, Apple. Not to let the USB Forum off the hook — there’s actually a 20Gbps mode for USB 4 in addition to the one for USB 3.2×2, and apparently the twain shall never meet in Apple land. Sigh. How fast is the Adata SE920? It wasn’t a blow out, but the Adata SE920 took the title of “Fastest external drive we’ve tested” from the OWC 1M2. At least at 40Gbps in synthetic benchmarks. At 20Gbps (using USB 3.2×2), under the synthetics, the opposite proved true — by about an equal margin. As you buy USB 4 for the 40Gbps (or should), we weighted our judgement accordingly. Note that you can see the charts in larger format by right-clicking over them and selecting “View in new tab.” The Adata SE920 offers the most speed for your money in an external drive, plus a nifty built-in fan. The Adata SE920 was the fastest 40Gbps SSD we’ve tested, by a decent margin. At 20Gbps, not as much. Longer bars are better. The Adata SE920 was the fastest 40Gbps SSD we’ve tested, by a decent margin. At 20Gbps, not as much. Longer bars are better. The Adata SE920 was the fastest 40Gbps SSD we’ve tested, by a decent margin. At 20Gbps, not as much. Longer bars are better. In the end, however, the performance differences between the two USB 4 drives aren’t really worth worrying about. Subjectively, you’d never notice in a million years. This is demonstrated again below. The Adata SE920 was fast at 4K, but not as fast as the OWC 1M2. Longer bars are better. The Adata SE920 was fast at 4K, but not as fast as the OWC 1M2. Longer bars are better. The Adata SE920 was fast at 4K, but not as fast as the OWC 1M2. Longer bars are better. The SE920 again fell behind the 1M2 in the 48GB transfers at 40Gbps, but only just, and well within the margin of error for this particular test. The 1M2 again pulled away significantly at 20Gbps. The Adata SE920. finished a close second to the OWC 1M2 in the 48GB transfers. Shorter bars are better. The Adata SE920. finished a close second to the OWC 1M2 in the 48GB transfers. Shorter bars are better. The Adata SE920. finished a close second to the OWC 1M2 in the 48GB transfers. Shorter bars are better. Where the SE920 really came into its own was in the long 450GB write. Speed after secondary cache ran out was quite good as well — around 850MBps. It took writing another 900GB of data immediately following the 450GB to reveal this. Note that the 1M2 was a 1TB drive with less secondary cache, though it didn’t exhaust what it had in this test. The Adata SE920 set a new record for external drives in our 450GB write. Shorter bars are better. The Adata SE920 set a new record for external drives in our 450GB write. Shorter bars are better. The Adata SE920 set a new record for external drives in our 450GB write. Shorter bars are better. All in all, it’s a toss up between the 1M2 and the SE920 in terms of 40Gbps performance. And, if you’re wondering about the effectiveness of the fan… It helps — the SE920 didn’t run as hot during testing with the outer shell in the open position and said fan engaged. The Adata SE920 displaying its excellent performance on a Mac Studio. The Adata SE920 displaying its excellent performance on a Mac Studio. The Adata SE920 displaying its excellent performance on a Mac Studio. Note that I had to turn on Better performance (caching) under Drive Management for the SE920 or writes were about ten times slower. Yup, 300MBps. Should you buy the SE920? If you want an uber-fast external SSD, then the SE920 is likely what you want. The OWC 1M2 was faster in some tests and significantly so on the 20Gbps bus, but the SE920 is a whole lot cheaper and easier to carry around. Good job, Adata. How we test Drive tests currently utilize Windows 11, 64-bit running on an X790 (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of memory total). Both 20Gbps USB/Thunderbolt 4 are integrated to the back panel and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. The 48GB transfer tests utilize an ImDisk RAM disk taking up 58GB of the 64GB of total memory. The 450GB file is transferred from a 2TB Samsung 990 Pro which also runs the OS. Each test is performed on a newly NTFS-formatted and TRIM’d drive so the results are optimal. Note that in normal use, as a drive fills up, performance may decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, as well as other factors. This is less of a factor with the current crop of SSDs with their far faster NAND. Caveat: The performance numbers shown apply only to the drive we were shipped and to the capacity tested. SSD performance can and will vary by capacity due to more or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes across and the amount of NAND available for secondary caching. Vendors also occasionally swap components. If you ever notice a large discrepancy between the performance you experience and that which we report, by all means, let us know. Computer Storage Devices, Storage

Microsoft’s AI obsession is destroying the company’s climate goals
Technology giant Microsoft recently released its sustainability report for the 2023 financial year, and it didn’t exactly have positive numbers. Microsoft set a climate goal in 2020 to become carbon negative by 2030, sequestering more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it emits, but the company seems to be on the wrong track to achieve this goal. Microsoft’s greenhouse gas emissions increased by 30 percent in the 2023 financial year — and it’s all Copilot’s fault. The big culprit is the company’s huge AI investments. It takes huge amounts of energy to train and use AI models. The International Energy Agency expects energy consumption for data centers worldwide to increase from 460 TWh in 2022 to between 620 and 1,050 TWh by 2026, due to AI and cryptocurrency use. For context, Sweden’s total energy consumption in 2022 was approximately 508 TWh. Microsoft CEO Brad Smith confirmed in an interview with Bloomberg that the previous climate goals are now much harder to reach, precisely because of AI. “In 2020, we unveiled our ambitious carbon target. That was before the explosion in artificial intelligence. In many ways, we are now five times further away from reaching them than we were in 2020, if you just think about our own forecast for the expansion of AI and its electricity needs,” Smith said. Further reading: Copilot Pro: What can Microsoft 365’s premium AI do? Business, Robotics