The Hot Take: Trying to get the base back? Me thinks so.
With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4âs October release fast approaching, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has revealed that the gameâs upcoming betas will have an unexpected inclusion: single-player.
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: d0h!
Many cybersecurity exploits have been deemed The One Ring To Rule Them All, but that moniker is rarely as true as a literal bit that disables the memory mapping on some AMD CPUs, granting access to normally inaccessible areas. With just one instruction, you can access off-limits software like Platform Security Processor (PSP) where the fTPM runs, the System Management Mode (SMM), microcode patch RAM, and other various sundries â in other words, full hardware-level control.The exploit is called Skitter Creek Bath Salts (Skitter), and was developed by prolific hacker Christopher Domas, famous for finding CPU flaws like Sandsifter and God Mode Unlocked. Only AMD chips from the 15h and 16h families are affected, roughly 2011 to 2015 vintages. Family 15 is FX-series desktop chips and some Opterons, while 16h includes low-power Jaguar- and Puma-based SoCs like those in the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, plus a handful of Athlon, Sempron, and Opteron-X chips, among others. To pull off this exploit, you'll need kernel-level access, meaning the ability to run your own drivers. But once you do, the entirety of DRAM is your oyster. AMD published a security bulletin on the matter, saying these chips are out of security support, plus, as mentioned, the necessary access level means an attacker already controls the machine anyway.If you're confused as to how one instruction opens up a system, here's our attempt at a simplification. Say you have 16 GB of RAM. You'd think that Windows gets all 16 GB to play with, from address 0 to the end of memory â but as you may have noticed before, it's actually a bit less than that. The rest is reserved for system-level data.Some parts are visible to the OS so it can interact with devices, but others include Very Important Things like PSP, SMM, microcode patches, all in sections supposed to be completely untouchable. If they were accessible, the system as a whole wasn't secure by definition anymore â just think of a malicious driver being able to freely mess with how your processor handles data.For performance reasons, modern processors' RAM controllers don't use memory in a straight line, so to speak â they use bank interleaving, meaning that the actual bytes in the DRAM are jumbled, all while the OS sees a nice, tidy, flat surface. As it turns out, the CPU setting that controls this feature is accessible to the OS in the aforementioned chip families, and it's called BankSwizzleMode (Swizzle). It can be toggled on or off with the instruction "xor dword [0xf80c2094], 0x00400000", a simple bit twiddle. And as it turns out, this can be exploited.First, you run a loop to figure out how the mapping normally functions. You place a canary value in memory (say, 0xDEADBEEF, according to tradition), disable Swizzle, run through memory to see where it landed, and reenable Swizzle again. Do this enough times, and you know exactly how visible memory is mapped into physical DRAM, and vice-versa.With the map now in your possession, you can now disable Swizzle and force a read or write to normally inaccessible areas of the DRAM, since you now know where it will land. With this, you can access all the previously hidden code and data, netting you hardware-level access to do anything you want, including reading fTPM signing code and any other low-level shenanigans you can think of.Attentive readers might be wondering why the system doesn't crash during this process since you're effectively temporarily turning the RAM into a spaghetti mess. The answer is that every time you enable and disable Swizzle, you prepare the CPU by disabling interrupts, along with a number of other measures. Even still, the machine can crash during the map-collection step, but that only needs to be done once. After you have the map, the likelihood of a crash is fairly low since you'll be targeting specific locations.Another question might be why sending a bit to a memory location somehow messes with the CPU, and the answer is that part of OS-accessible memory is actually mapped to hardware according to the Memory-Mapped Configuration Space standard (MMCONFIG) â meaning that reads or writes to that space are directed to hardware configuration settings, not actual RAM.
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: Well now.
Researchers from Germanyâs Helmholtz Center for Information Security have found processors made by Chinaâs Loongson have leaky caches that attackers could use to seek specific data. Loongson has developed its own LoongArch instruction set architecture (ISA) that blends approaches used by MIPS and RISC-V. On a site called LoongLeakAttack.com, the researchers explain that they found the leaky cache using a fuzzer, then noticed that the LoongArch ISA manual mentions an instruction that leaves 32 bits of a memory register in an âuncertainâ state. âOur analysis reveals that under certain circumstances, the âuncertainâ data originates from the L1 data cache,â the four researchers wrote. âSince this cache is not isolated between applications, LoongLeak can leak data from other applications and the operating system. Even worse, an attacker can prime the CPUâs internal state to target the leakage to a specific cache set.â In a paper [PDF] explaining their research, authors Lorenz Hetterich, Tristan Hornetz, Fabian Thomas, and Michael Schwarz share case studies that âinclude recovering full-disk AES keys from the kernel, partial root password hashes from user-space, and bypassing traditional software defenses such as ASLR and stack canaries, all within seconds.â In case thatâs not scaring you enough, they also point out âLoongLeak can be exploited from unprivileged user space, containers, or virtual machines.â The flaw even means âLoongLeak can cross the virtual machine boundary and leak host data from inside a VM.â âAs the leakage is architectural, it requires neither high-resolution timers nor traditional sidechannel amplification, and it grants the attacker precise control over cache set and line offset,â they add. And the cherry on top is that software mitigations arenât possible. Users with chips that possess the flaw either need to replace them or make sure they donât allow any private data to enter or remain in the L1 cache. Making that happen can require turning off one thread per core, effectively disabling hyperthreading. The news isnât all bad, because Loongson fixed the flaw in an update to its model 3A6000 processor, and the mitigation of evicting cache data slows performance by just 1.4 percent in the worst case. The blast radius of this flaw is also likely to be limited, because Loongson chips are hardly used outside China. The company offers chips for PCs, servers, and appliances such as printers. Chinaâs government promotes use of Loongson chips as part of its plan to reduce dependence on imported tech. Lenovo makes laptops that use Loongson chips but only sells them in China. The Register has discussed the companyâs chips with other major PC-makers, who told us they would adopt Loongson product if users want them, or if doing so becomes necessary to participate in the Chinese hardware market. But weâve not seen a non-Chinese company adopt the processors. Chinaâs government, however, may be nervous about this research as it has instructed public sector buyers to buy local products. Perhaps some government agencies are running vulnerable devices? If thatâs the case, Beijing has its work cut out spotting any attacks, because the researchers could find âno specific tools or methods to detect if LoongLeak is being exploited.â ÂŽ
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: YES.
Intel is signaling a broader push into next-generation memory technologies, with CEO Lip-Bu Tan revealing that the company is exploring new memory architectures after hiring former SK Hynix CEO Lee Seok-Hee.
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: Firefox is my daily driver for sure.
Microsoft Edge will soon drop support for Manifest Version 2 (MV2), which means uBlock Origin will stop working in the browser. But Windows 11 users still have some browsing options that will support uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions.The Firefox account on X shared a simple message in response to an article about Edge ending support for certain extensions: "Firefox support for uBlock Origin is not going anywhere."Brave shared a longer message, which emphasized that "Brave will keep supporting uBlock Origin" and that Brave hosts uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions on its own servers. To enable MV2 extensions in Brave, you need to go to Settings > Extensions > Manifest v2 extensions.Brave also has a built-in ad blocker that's unaffected by the MV2 changes.Firefox runs on the Quantum browser engine, which is built specifically for that browser and is separate from Chromium. Brave is a Chromium browser. With both Chromium and non-Chromium options, people have a variety of ways to continue to use uBlock Origin.Why are some browsers stopping uBlock Origin from working?MV2 is an extension platform that developers can build upon. That older platform is being replaced by Manifest Version 3 (MV3), which is more secure and provides better performance than MV2.The transition from MV2 to MV3 brings improvements, but it also removes support for the WebRequest API, which lets ad blockers dynamically intercept and block requests before they load.The side effect of the transition is that uBlock Origin no longer works.Since uBlock Origin Lite is an MV3 extension, it does not dynamically intercept content before it loads.It's about more than blocking adsuBlock Origin no longer works on Google Chrome and will soon stop working on Microsoft Edge. (Image credit: Kevin Okemwa | Windows Central)In our recent poll about ad blockers, over 70% of respondents said they use uBlock Origin. Since that poll appeared in a piece about Edge ending support for uBlock Origin, the results are a bit self-selective, but still interesting. Even among those already interested in uBlock Origin news, 12% said they use uBlock Origin Lite.While uBlock Origin Lite blocks many ads, it does not process ads in the same way as uBlock Origin. The full version of uBlock Origin intercepts the ads entirely, which reduces bandwidth usage and improves browser performance.If you've ever loaded a web page and noticed that ads appear to be slowing things down, uBlock Origin would help in that situation but uBlock Origin Lite would not. Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: We need a memory manufacture that won't price fix.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan has revealed that new memory architectures â once thought a commodity business â are now strategically interesting and one of his pet projects, while speaking about the comeback of the American chip industry. He further noted that the memory industry is ripe for innovation, and also hinted at exploring ways to stack memory on top of a CPU. Go deeper with TH Premium: Memory(Image credit: SK Hynix)AI data centers are swallowing the world's memory and storage supplyThe future of DRAM: From DDR5 to future ICsHigh-bandwidth memory roadmapHere's why HBM is coming for your PC's RAMAfter years of being a commodity, memory became a strategic asset in recent quarters and will likely remain one for a while, so suddenly, leading makers of 3D NAND and DRAM became highly profitable companies, something the Intel CEO is keenly aware of: â"I used to be, 'do not invest in memory because it is a kind of commodity business,' but now it has become different," Tan said. [âŚ] "There is a lot of new technology coming out. So, we are kind of looking at one of my pet projects, some of the new memory architecture. I think you just saw the news: I hired my good friend, Seok-Hee Lee, who used to run SK Hynix. So, you kind of know something that I am thinking about. We are not ready to unfold it."Tan did not reveal anything about the pet project and did not even specify whether the project is one of his personally favored strategic initiatives at Intel, or an initiative in one of the companies that he has invested in. He did mention that stacking memory on top of a CPU could make a lot of sense, though did not elaborate. Tan's remarks also follow the revelation of an Intel XBM patent that does away with the silicon interposer of HBM."âI think CPU and memory, I think there are a lot of ways we can really do stacking together," Tan said. "And also try to find some new architecture for memory. I think in some way the memory, a lot of innovation are not there. So, there is some really good area."Not everyone in the industry remembers, but Intel started as a memory company in 1968 and was quite a successful memory maker until the eighties, when Japanese companies took the lead, and Intel had to exit the market completely after suffering severe losses. Since then, the company has attempted either to return to the memory market with NAND and Optane, or at least to capitalize on a new type of memory with RDRAM. In all three cases, the company abandoned its memory initiatives without incurring significant losses. Given the current profitability of 3D NAND and DRAM makers, producing memory is certainly a good business again and will remain profitable for some time. However, to re-enter it, companies like Intel would need capital to build at least one fab, R&D to develop competitive process technologies, and time. While licensing a technology â assuming that a company has capital â is an option, we strongly doubt that at this point Intel may be inclined to invest capital in memory and not in its core products and foundry businesses. Furthermore, it is unclear how investors react to such investments given the fact that the company struggles to become a strong competitor in the foundry market and has exited 3D NAND and 3DXPoint/Optane businesses after failing to achieve strategic targets.
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: We're entering the twilight zone.
Mini human brains are being grown in labs all over the world. Soon, they could outthink neural networks.
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: Filling capacity across the globe it appears. GOOD.
Intel is a hive of activity these days, so much so that it's now apparently rushing to fill its heretofore empty clean rooms while aggressively expanding capacity even in a location with relatively lower subsidies/tax credits and a much higher quantum of embedded geopolitical risk - Fab 38 in Israel. Hoffman Construction has updated its Fab 38 page to disclose 2026 as the wrap-up year of its contractual obligations, while a new Intel job vacancy for the Kiryat-Gat Site Master Planner has also opened up Back in July 2025, Intel had paused the work on its Fab 38 in Kiryat-Gat [âŚ]Read full article at https://wccftech.com/intel-rushes-to-fill-one-of-its-last-remaining-empty-clean-rooms-located-within-fab-38-in-israel-despite-geopolitical-risk-and-lower-subsidies/
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: Data... NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM...
Microsoft is backing down on OneDrive Photos, and youâll soon be able to remove it without also removing the OneDrive sync client. That means you wonât have to risk breaking synced files, folders, or shortcuts on Windows 11 if you donât want OneDrive Photos but still use the OneDrive sync client that you may have set up when you got your PC. On or around August 1, Microsoft quietly added OneDrive Photos to thousands of PCs running Windows 11. OneDrive Photos itself is harmless, but most users dislike the idea of apps getting installed when they never hit âDownload.â To make matters worse, OneDrive Photos already had access to all your pictures on the PC, including those outside the Pictures folder: OneDrive Photos has a âThis PCâ section that has all your pictures already fetched And it also has an AI-powered optional âPeopleâ feature that groups similar faces, which was a concern for those who do not want AI around their personal files or pictures: In our tests, Windows Latest originally found that the AI-powered OneDrive Photos app was also being installed on enterprise PCs, where it doesnât work because it requires a personal Microsoft account. That caused further backlash from IT admins, who were upset that an unusable app was suddenly present on thousands of PCs in their organizations. After the outrage, we reached out to Microsoft, and it told us that it never intended to roll out the app so broadly and promised to fix it. We havenât heard back from the company on exactly how OneDrive Photos ended up on unsupported PCs or why it was installed without your permission, but Microsoft insists that the broad rollout was accidental. âWe are incubating a new photos experience in OneDrive that went more broadly than it should have in Windows,â Microsoft told Windows Latest in a statement. âWeâre fixing that. Windows Photos will always give you the option of local and cloud photos and the choice to use OneDrive or not.â However, that still doesnât explain why Microsoft made OneDrive Photos so difficult to remove in the first place. If you want to remove OneDrive Photos today, you need to delete the OneDrive sync client, and that could potentially break shortcuts or make files appear missing if you donât first ensure everything is available locally. How was OneDrive Photos added to Windows 11 PCs? Our tests showed that OneDrive Photos is added through the OneDrive sync client, which comes pre-installed on most Windows 11 PCs. You may or may not actively use OneDrive, but the sync client is usually sitting in the background, and Microsoft used it to add OneDrive Photos to PCs. It is worth noting that you were not affected by the forced installation of OneDrive Photos if you disabled OneDrive when you installed Windows 11 or purchased a new PC. This can be verified easily if you go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive. The OneDrive Photos app is present at the following path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive\OneDrive.App.exe On the other hand, the OneDrive sync client, which is pre-installed, is at the following location: C:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive\OneDrive.exe OneDrive Photos canât currently be removed as a standalone app because itâs tied to OneDrive Sync. It doesnât ship as an MSIX. If you really donât want it, you can remove OneDrive entirely, and Photos will also go along with it. But thatâs not an ideal option if youâve ever used the sync client to back up folders such as Desktop, Documents, or Pictures. This is the OneDrive sync client, and itâs pre-installed on all PCs. Microsoft used it to force-install the OneDrive Photos app When you remove the OneDrive sync client from a PC where it has been active for months or years, and features like Known Folders or Files On-Demand are turned on, youâre creating a mess for yourself. Example of OneDrive already integrated into File Explorer via the pre-installed sync client For example, letâs assume OneDrive is backing up your Desktop folder. If OneDrive sync is turned on for known folders, your actual desktop files may sit inside: C:\Users\YourName\OneDrive\Desktop\ Now, if you suddenly remove OneDrive without first turning off folder backup, files can disappear from your desktop, and shortcuts may stop working. Microsoft does not delete your files when you remove the OneDrive client from your Windows PC. Theyâre still present in the cloud, but you may not realize that some of them were never fully stored locally in the first place. When Files On-Demand is turned on, a file can appear inside File Explorer even when it isnât actually stored locally on your PC. OneDrive downloads it when you open it or maintains a local cache. If you remove the OneDrive sync client because you hate OneDrive Photos and never make those files available offline first, you could suddenly notice that some files or photos are missing from your PC even though you assumed they were already stored locally. You only have the option to remove the primary OneDrive client, which can cause sync issues This is why users who understand the consequences, or simply like using the OneDrive sync client for its benefits, were upset that OneDrive Photos was being enforced on PCs without a separate uninstall option. Itâs also a bit strange that Microsoft did not understand the mess it was âaccidentallyâ creating for users, including enterprises. Thankfully, Microsoft has now confirmed thatâs changing. Microsoft says itâll let you remove OneDrive Photos without causing sync issues âWeâre adding controls to remove the OneDrive Photos experience separately from the OneDrive app,â Microsoft told Windows Latest in a statement. âOneDrive is giving people more control over their Windows experience by allowing them to uninstall the OneDrive Photos experience independently. Removing the Photos experience does not uninstall the OneDrive app, interrupt file sync, or delete photos and files. This provides a clear removal option for people who prefer to manage their photos with another app,â the company explained. Microsoft told Windows Latest that OneDrive Photosâ Uninstall button will roll out to everyone in September 2026. Right now, if you genuinely donât want the Photos app and youâre not actively using OneDrive sync, you can open Settings > Apps > Installed apps and remove âOneDrive.â This will remove all OneDrive-related features from the system. But I donât recommend taking this route if you are not 100% sure how your files are synced to OneDrive. You should wait until September, and itâs actually not a bad deal because OneDrive Photos does not run in the background. It runs only when you open it. Once the change rolls out, youâll be able to remove OneDrive Photos without touching the regular OneDrive sync client, interrupting file sync, or changing your existing OneDrive setup. OneDrive Photos is actually not a terrible product, but I donât see the point Here are some of the things you can do with the new OneDrive Photos app: You can browse photos stored on your OneDrive and local PC storage. You can also use filters and intelligent search to find photos using their content, but thatâs limited to items synced to OneDrive. On Copilot+ PCs, intelligent search works with photos stored locally as well. You can create favorites, albums, and edit your photos. You can also add local folders from another volume if they were not automatically detected by OneDrive. Since itâs OneDrive at the end of the day, you have OneDrive Moments, where Microsoft randomly shows collections of photos from your history. Microsoft also lists âSetting as desktop backgroundâ and âLocation in File Explorerâ as reasons to use the new OneDrive Photos app. This is a pretty good list of features, and it should be for an app thatâs trying to be your photo viewer, but you could already do all of it via the existing Microsoft Photos app. So unless Microsoft has plans to replace Microsoft Photos with OneDrive Photos, I fail to see the point of this app in the first place. Itâs also entirely web-based, so if you right-click any text field, youâll easily come across Microsoft Edge components: In our tests, OneDrive Photosâ memory usage is usually around 1GB, and itâs quite decent for a web wrapper: The problem isnât that OneDrive Photos is a terrible product. Microsoft has created bad press for it by forcing it on everyone. The company could have handled this fiasco much better, and I still donât understand how a trillion-dollar company is unable to roll out its features in a better way. The post Microsoft gives in to backlash, will let Windows 11 users remove OneDrive Photos AI app without breaking synced files appeared first on Windows Latest
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: Warranties going out the window because of greed?
Micron used to produce some of the best RAM available to mainstream users through its Crucial brand. Despite the company's exit from the consumer market through its now-defunct Crucial brand, Micron had pledged to continue honoring warranties on existing Crucial products. A recent case on Reddit, however, highlights ongoing challenges with Micron's warranty process, where it reportedly offered a customer a ludicrous payout for an RMA. Only after further communication did Micron provide an improved offer. Another user also chimed in with a similar story about an SSD return with Micron. Crucial/Micron is refusing lifetime warranties after closing consumer opsâoffering 17% of market value and keeping working hardware from r/pcmasterraceRedditor Key_Tailor6948, who shared the email exchange with Tom's Hardware, recently shared their RMA experience with Micron's warranty process after encountering a failing memory module from a 48GB (2x24GB) DDR5 memory kit. While the Redditor did not specify the exact model of the memory kit, Crucial used to sell two such kits in this capacity: the Crucial Pro DDR5-6000 C48 and the Crucial Pro DDR5-5600 C46. The last known pricing for the memory kits was $489.99 and $459.99, respectively, during the memory shortage.According to the Redditor, Micron allegedly said in an email that the company is no longer offering replacement products for warranty claims. Instead, Micron purportedly stated it would provide a refund based on the original purchase price, including taxes where applicable. However, the proposed refund amount was $241.86. The major issue at hand is that the reimbursement Micron offered was based on the cost of the 48GB memory kit purchased before the recent memory shortage and the resulting price hikes. Nowadays, the most affordable 48GB DDR5 memory kit available on the market, such as a DDR5-6400 C32 one, which is faster than Micronâs discontinued offerings, starts at a staggering $649.99. The refund Micron proposed amounts to just 37% of the current market value for a somewhat comparable product. The Redditor's math about being 17% of market value and estimating similar-capacity memory kits going for âroughly $1,400" is a bit off based on verifiable pricing, but the proposed payment was still well short of current market value.Beyond the disappointment over the low reimbursement, the Redditor expressed frustration that they had to send back the entire 48GB memory kit, even though only one of the two modules was faulty. This meant parting with a memory module that was still fully functional. Unfortunately, this is a common industry practice. Most manufacturers require the return of the full memory kit for warranty claims. It is exceedingly rare for companies to allow returns or replacements of only a single memory module from a multi-module kit, regardless of whether the other module is working perfectly.The Redditor was also not happy about covering the shipping costs to return the defective memory module. This is another policy that varies widely among brands: some manufacturers cover all shipping fees, others split the cost, so you cannot really single out Micron in that aspect.It would seem that Micron subsequently offered a more favorable resolution. The company agreed to send the user three Crucial Pro DDR5-6400 C32 16GB (CP16G64C32U5B) memory modules as a replacement. This solution matches the original capacity of 48GB and also delivers better performance than the user's original memory kit. The user accepted the offer.Meanwhile, Crucial SSD owners are seemingly experiencing similar RMA practices from Micron. A Reddit user named LeanaIsTheBest highlighted in the same thread that Micron is allegedly refusing to provide direct replacements for a failing 4TB SSD. Instead, the company ostensibly offered a gift card equivalent to the original purchase price of the 4TB SSD as compensation. However, the company provided an alternate option to receive the same amount in cash through PayPal or Venmo with the condition that the user pays the 6% transaction fee.Micron wound down its consumer business back in December 2025. It is reasonable to think the chipmaker has reshaped its manufacturing factories to cater to more profitable markets, such as data centers and the AI sector. Micron probably is not maintaining inventory or production lines for consumer products, so direct replacements are unlikely. For a company that reported revenue of $41.46 billion in its last earnings call, it isn't a great look for Micron to not reimburse the replacement cost for loyal customers who have purchased its Crucial products.
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