Today at Commercialising Quantum Global 2023, IonQ (NYSE: IONQ), an industry leader in quantum computing, announced the availability of IonQ Aria on Amazon Braket, AWS's quantum computing service. This expands upon IonQ's existing presence on Amazon Braket, following the debut of IonQ's Harmony system on the platform in 2020. With broader access to IonQ Aria, IonQ's flagship system with 25 algorithmic qubits (#AQ)—more than 65,000 times more powerful than IonQ Harmony—users can now explore, design, and run more complex quantum algorithms to tackle some of the most challenging problems of today.

"We are excited for IonQ Aria to become available on Amazon Braket, as we expand the ways users can access our leading quantum computer on the most broadly adopted cloud service provider," said Peter Chapman, CEO and President, IonQ. "Amazon Braket has been instrumental in commercializing quantum, and we look forward to seeing what new approaches will come from the brightest, most curious, minds in the space."

Amazon today introduced a new lineup of Echo products—the all-new Echo Pop, Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 5 Kids, and all-new Echo Buds—offering customers even more choice in how they access Alexa. In addition, Echo Auto is now available to customers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

"Customers around the world love Alexa as their trusted, personal AI—they've now purchased well over half a billion Alexa-enabled devices, and use of Alexa increased 35 percent last year," said Rohit Prasad, senior vice president and head scientist for Alexa. "These new devices give customers more options and more utility at incredible value. And as with every Echo device we've shipped, they will only continue to get better as we add even more generative AI powered experiences for Alexa throughout the year."

Amazon Games and Embracer Group, through its wholly owned subsidiary Middle-earth Enterprises, part of the operative group Freemode, today announced they have reached an agreement for Amazon Games to develop and publish a new massively multiplayer online (MMO) game based on The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The upcoming game will be an open-world MMO adventure in a persistent world set in Middle-earth, featuring the beloved stories of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings literary trilogy. The game is in early stages of production, with the Amazon Games Orange County studio—makers of the popular open-world MMO game New World—leading development. Amazon Games will publish the game globally for PC and consoles. Additional details, including launch timing, will be shared at a later date.

Telltale, the leading narrative game development studio and publisher, announced today that its upcoming episodic narrative adventure game, The Expanse: A Telltale Series, has been named an Official Selection for the 22nd Annual Tribeca Festival. Developed in conjunction with award-winning studio Deck Nine Games, The Expanse: A Telltale Series marks the first new Telltale title released since the company's resurrection.

Telltale and Deck Nine will premiere all-new gameplay during the New York City-based festival, which runs June 7-18, and during the adjacent Digital Tribeca Festival Game showcase on June 9th. The Tribeca Festival is also hosting an in-person panel with the game's development team on Saturday, June 10 at 4:30 PM ET. The Expanse: A Telltale Series will be available for hands-on play for ticket holders throughout the event and, as an Official Selection, the game is eligible for the 2023 Tribeca Festival Game Award.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 21, 2023 -- The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the launch of the TLA+ Foundation to promote the adoption and development of the TLA+ programming language and its community of TLA+ practitioners. Inaugural members include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Oracle and Microsoft. TLA+ is a high-level language for modeling programs and systems, especially concurrent and distributed ones. TLA+ has been successfully used by companies to verify complex software systems, reducing errors and improving reliability. The language helps detect design flaws early in the development process, saving time and resources.

TLA+ and its tools are useful for eliminating fundamental design errors, which are hard to find and expensive to correct in code. The language is based on the idea that the best way to describe things precisely is with simple mathematics. The language was invented decades ago by the pioneering computer scientist Leslie Lamport, now a distinguished scientist with Microsoft Research. After years of Lamport's stewardship and Microsoft's support, TLA+ has found a new home at the Linux Foundation.

AMD announced it has joined the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Accelerate Program, a co-sell program for AWS Partners - like AMD - who provide integrated solutions on AWS. The program helps AWS Partners drive new business by directly connecting participating ISVs with the AWS Sales organization.

Through the AWS ISV Accelerate Program, AMD will receive focused co-selling support from AWS, including, access to further sales enablement resources, reduced AWS Marketplace listing fees, and incentives for AWS Sales teams. The program will also allow participating ISVs access to millions of active AWS customers globally.

Syntech, an innovative manufacturer of quality and affordable electronic accessories and consumer technology products, has today announced the launch of its new 6-in-1 USB-C Docking Station for Steam Deck. Providing users with 6 different ports to meet most needs, and the ability to output to a 4K monitor or TV at 60Hz, it is a handy and ergonomically designed gadget to complement a Steam Deck gaming setup. The Syntech 6-in-1 Docking Station for Steam Deck is available for £39.99/$39.99 on Amazon UK and Amazon US.

Tenstorrent hosted their "Nerds Talking to Nerds About RISC-V" event this week in India where a dozen high profile industry experts hosted technical talks and panels about every facet of the RISC-V landscape and future. Among these are some familiar names to anyone who's been keeping up on the CPU industry; Raja Koduri of his own AI Generative Gaming startup company, Lars Bergstrom of Google, Naveed Sherwani of Rapid Silicon, and of course Jim Keller the CEO of Tenstorrent itself. On the first day of the event a mere 42 minutes into the YouTube live stream during his keynote talk, Jim Keller is providing an overview of Tenstorrent's latest silicon design goals. He presents a slide showing a wide comparison of various competitor's integer performance in SPEC CPU 2017 INT wherein a raw performance value for AMD's yet released "Zen 5" is listed, as well as the operating frequency and TDP of the supposed sample.

The slide shows all of AMD's recent architectures starting with the original "Zen" (Naples) and the improvements each successive generation has made. Also shown is one of Intel's latest "Sapphire Rapids" Xeons, a projected performance point of NVIDIA's in-house CPU architecture "Grace", Amazon's "Graviton" series with a projected result for "Graviton 3," and Tenstorrent's own 8-wide RISC-V architecture as it currently performs in their labs. While all of these are fascinating results in their own right, we're going to narrow in on the "Zen 4" (Genoa) and "Zen 5" results. We can see from the Frequency and TDP charts that "Zen 4" is clocked at 3.8 GHz as it's equal to the Xeon Platinum 8480+ (which itself boosts to 3.8 GHz in light threaded workloads such as this) so is therefore likely a variant of EPYC 9354 or 9454 with its TDP configured at the minimum 240 W. The unnamed "Zen 5" CPU is shown to be running at around 4.0 GHz with the same 240 W TDP, a tiny 5% bump in core clock, while delivering a substantial 30% jump in performance. The most interesting detail here is that nowhere is it listed—as with "Grace" and "Graviton 3"—that this is a projected result.

There is now an Amazon Basics CPU air cooler that works with Intel Socket LGA1700 and AMD Socket AM5. Called simply the CPU Air Cooler (model: RR-H410-20PC-AS), it features a conventional aluminium fin-stack tower-type design, and uses four copper heatpipes that make direct contact with the CPU at the base. A 92 mm fan ventilates the cooler. This fan is RGB illuminated and includes a controller. The fan turns at speeds ranging between 600 to 2,000 RPM, pushing up to 34.73 CFM of airflow, and features a conventional rifle bearing.

The cooler itself measures 102 mm x 83.4 mm x 136 mm (WxDxH), and Amazon Basics claims that it can handle thermal loads of up to 200 W. Amazon Basics usually brings otherwise obscure white-box brands into the market under its marquee so customers with confidence in the Amazon brand can buy them. In this case, the retail giant roped in no less than Cooler Master as the OEM for this cooler. The cooler itself appears to be a rebadged version of the Hyper H410R RGB, but with updated retention modules to support the latest CPU socket types. Amazon Basics is pricing this at $28.47. You can catch a review at the source link.

Amazon is today expanding its Luna cloud gaming service into three new territories - Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom. This is the first sign of the online retail giant's goal to broaden the service beyond the initial launch base in the USA. The company is clearly excited to offer their cloud games library to a larger customer base: "Gamers in the U.S. have been enjoying Luna for the past year and we're thrilled to expand the service, giving more customers the opportunity to play high-quality, immersive games without expensive gaming hardware or lengthy downloads."

These new territories have been granted access to Luna's full package which now consists of Ubisoft+, Jackbox Games, and Luna+ subscription services. The Luna app can be launched on 'select devices', which means a wide range of modern bits of kit can run it: Fire TV, Fire Tablets, Windows PCs, Chromebooks, Macs, iPhones, iPads, Android phones and tablets. Amazon confirmed that its Official Luna Wireless Controller is also being made available to customers in Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom - which is an exclusive item to the Amazon Store. It should be noted that you can run other compatible control devices via Bluetooth, including a wireless keyboard and mouse, as well as the Xbox One and PlayStation DualShock 4 gamepads.

Once upon a time, the data center market represented a duopoly of x86-64 makers AMD and Intel. However, in recent years companies started developing custom Arm-based processors to handle workloads as complex within smaller power envelopes and doing it more efficiently. According to Counterpoint Research firm, we have the latest data highlighting a significant new player called Ampere Computing in the data center world. With the latest data center revenue share report, we get to see Intel/AMD x86-64 and AWS/Ampere Arm CPU revenue. For the first time, we see that a 3rd party company, Ampere Computing, managed to capture as much as 1.54% market revenue share of the entire data center market in 2022. Thanks to having CPUs in off-the-shelf servers from OEMs, enterprises and cloud providers are able to easily integrate Ampere Altra processors.

Intel, still the most significant player, saw a 70.77% share of the overall revenue; however, that comes as a drop from 2021 data which stated an 80.71% revenue share in the data center market. This represents a 16% year-over-year decline. This reduction is not due to the low demand for server processors, as the global data center CPU market's revenue registered only a 4.4% YoY decline in 2022, but due to the high demand for AMD EPYC solutions, where team red managed to grab 19.84% of the revenue from 2022. This is a 62% YoY growth from last year's 11.74% revenue share. Slowly but surely, AMD is eating Intel's lunch. Another revenue source comes from Amazon Web Services (AWS), which the company filled with its Graviton CPU offerings based on Arm ISA. AWS Graviton CPUs accounted for 3.16% of the market revenue, up 74% from 1.82% in 2021.

AMD and Arm have been gaining up on Intel in the server CPU market in the past few years, and the margins of the share that AMD had won over were especially large in 2022 as datacenter operators and server brands began finding that solutions from the number-2 maker growing superior to those of the long-time leader, according to Frank Kung, DIGITIMES Research analyst focusing primarily on the server industry, who anticipates that AMD's share will well stand above 20% in 2023, while Arm will get 8%.

Prices are one of the three major drivers that resulted in datacenter operators and server brands switching to AMD. Comparing server CPUs from AMD and Intel with similar numbers of cores, clockspeed, and hardware specifications, the price tags of most of the former's products are at least 30% cheaper than the latter's, and the differences could go as high as over 40%, Kung said.

Marvell Technology, Inc., a leader in data infrastructure semiconductor solutions, announced today that it has selected Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) as its cloud provider for electronic design automation (EDA). A cloud-first approach helps Marvell to rapidly and securely scale its service on the world's leading cloud, rise to the challenges brought by increasingly complex chip design processes, and deliver continuous innovation for the expanding needs across the automotive, carrier, data center, and enterprise infrastructure markets it serves. The work extends the longstanding relationship between the two companies—Marvell is also a key semiconductor supplier for AWS, helping the company support the design and rapid delivery of cloud services that best meet customers' demanding requirements.

EDA refers to the specialized and compute-intensive processes used in chip making and is a critical piece of Marvell's R&D. Over the years, the number of transistors on an integrated chip has increased exponentially. Each advance in chip design calls for a calculated application of software modules overseeing logic design, debugging, component placement, wire routing, optimization of time and power consumption, and verification. Due to the computationally intensive nature of EDA workloads, it is no longer cost-effective or timely to run EDA on premises. By powering its EDA with AWS, Marvell leverages an unmatched portfolio of services including secure, elastic, high-performance compute capacity in the cloud to solve challenges around speed, latency, security of IP, and data transfer.

It looks like Gigabyte might be the first company to offer a PCIe 5.0 SSD for sale to major markets outside of Japan, since no other brand appears to have launched such a product at the time of this news post. The Aorus Gen5 10000 was launched around two weeks ago, but is currently listed as being on backorder at both Newegg and Amazon in the US. Currently only the 2 TB version is listed and it's coming in at about the same cost as two equivalent PCIe 4.0 drives.

We're not sure if the backorder price of US$339.99 on Newegg is the actual retail price, but considering a 2 TB version of WD's Black SN850X costs US$159.99, it doesn't seems like the very slight performance increase the Aorus Gen5 10000 will bring to the table is going to be worth the asking price. Then again, Gigabyte's SSDs are overpriced on Newegg compared to competing products and the Aorus Gen4 7000s Premium, which features the same heatsink as the Aorus Gen5 10000, retails for US$281.99 on Newegg. Amazon didn't list any pricing as yet.

Dynamic smart projector brand, Emotn, is thrilled to announce the launch of its first and latest Netflix officially licensed projector, the Emotn N1. Packed with native 1080P full HD clarity, 500 ANSI Lumens and a maximum projection size of 120 inches, the Emotn N1 instantly enters the extensive Netflix library after booting and presents its rich content in a crisp, clear and vibrant way. Combined with Dolby Audio and dual 5 W speakers, the Emotn N1's excellent picture and sound quality makes viewers feel as if they've stepped inside the movie. The Emotn N1 is now available at the price of $399.99 on Amazon US. To celebrate the launch, Emotn is offering a $50 discount coupon.

Officially licensed by Netflix, the Emotn N1 offers new ideas and viewing locations for easier and clearer enjoyable viewing of Netflix films, TV shows, award-winning originals and more. The Emotn N1 transports users to Netflix immediately upon power-on, exposing them to a world of their favorite content. Unlike watching Netflix on smartphones and tablets, the Emotn N1 gives users the freedom to choose from a large screen size of 60" to 120". Different to watching on a normal TV, the dedicated light, rich color and crystal sound of the Emotn N1 provide viewers with more immersion and a cozy vibe. The Emotn N1 comes with a remote control that features hotkeys for the three main video services - Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube - allowing consumers to access their go-to apps with a single press. From films to educational documentaries geared for kids, from anime to TV shows, there's something for everyone.

IonQ, Inc. (NYSE: IONQ), an industry leader in quantum computing, today announced plans to open the first known dedicated quantum computing manufacturing facility in the U.S., located in the suburbs of Seattle, Washington. The new facility will house IonQ's growing R&D and manufacturing teams, as they develop systems to meet continued customer demand. With public support from U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) - an early proponent of the CHIPS and Science Act - and Congresswoman Suzan DelBene, US representative from Washington's 1st congressional district,today's announcement is part of IonQ's broader intent to invest $1 billion through expansion in the Pacific Northwest over the next 10 years.

"IonQ making the decision to open the first ever quantum computing manufacturing facility in the country right here in Bothell is a very big deal—and it's great news for Washington state," said Senator Murray. "Opening this facility will absolutely help ensure Washington state continues to be a leader in innovation and cutting-edge technologies—but it also means jobs that will be an investment in our families and their futures. These are the kinds of investments that happen when we pass legislation like the CHIPS and Science Act to invest in American manufacturing and build the economy of the future right here at home."

Although we're almost two weeks away from the official launch of AMD's Radeon RX 7900-series, Sapphire's reference design cards have already made an early appearance on Amazon. Both of its cards are listed on the e-tailers website, but sadly without pricing. No new specs were provided either, but at least we did get some more detailed pictures of the two cards. The cards are simply named the Radeon RX 7900 XT Gaming (21323-01-20G) and the Radeon RX 7900 XTX Gaming (21322-01-20G).

It's very clear from the pictures that the Radeon RX 7900 XTX is a much chunkier card than the RX 7900 XT. This also confirms Sapphire as one of the partners that will sell reference cards, but it's unclear if Sapphire will have custom cards ready in time for the launch, or if the company will add those to its line-up at a later date. Note that the model number for the Radeon RX 7900 XTX lists it as having 20 GB of VRAM, although the packaging clearly lists it as having 24 GB. Searching for the model numbers provided by Amazon, it appears that the cards will be in stock in Sweden as well, as one of the local distributors is listing the cards. More pictures after the break.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud division is extensively developing custom Arm-based CPU solutions to suit its enterprise clients and is releasing new iterations of the Graviton series. Today, during the company re:Invent week, we are getting a new CPU custom-tailored to high-performance computing (HPC) workloads called Graviton3E. Given that HPC workloads require higher bandwidth, wider datapaths, and data types span in multiple dimensions, AWS redesigned the Graviton3 processor and enhanced it with new vector processing capabilities with a new name—Graviton3E. This CPU is promised to offer up to 35% higher performance in workloads that depend on heavy vector processing.

With the rising popularity of HPC in the cloud, AWS sees a significant market opportunity and is trying to capture it. Available in the AWS EC2 instance types, this chip will be available with up to 64 vCPU cores and 128 GiB of memory. The supported EC2 tiers that will offer this enhanced chip are C7gn and Hpc7g instances that provide 200 Gbps of dedicated network bandwidth that is optimized for traffic between instances in the same VPC. In addition, Intel-based R7iz instances are available for HPC users in the cloud, now powered by 4th generation Xeon Scalable processors codenamed Sapphire Rapids.

Amazon US has kindly revealed the pricing for a pair of upcoming Intel Z790 chipset based motherboards from ASUS. For those hoping for better motherboard pricing versus AMD's X670 based boards, we have to be the bringer of bad news, as the two fall in the same ballpark, although Intel seems to have a slight edge here. The cheaper of the two models is the ASUS Prime Z790-P WiFi, which is the Intel equivalent to the Prime X670-P board for AMD's AM5 socket. The Prime Z790-P offers slightly weaker connectivity around the back, but has more PCIe slots compared to its AMD sibling. Unfortunately, it seems like Amazon doesn't stock the Prime X670-P, so we had to look elsewhere for pricing and Newegg charges US$289.99 for it, whereas Amazon charges US$249.99 for the Prime Z790-P, making it a more attractive option. However, that's still US$30 more than its predecessor, the Prime Z690-P, making this a pretty steep jump in price considering the two are very similar in terms of what you get for your money.

The second board is the ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, which is a premium product, something that's reflected in the pricing as well. Features like Thunderbolt 4 and an ROG Hyper M.2 card for PCIe 5.0 SSDs are included here, as well as an extended bundle. There's no direct AMD equivalent here, as ASUS only has a model in the US$400 range and one in the US$1000 range on the AMD side. However, it appears that ASUS has decided to keep the same price point as the ROG Maximus Z690 Hero. This isn't entirely surprising, as the boards appear to be almost identical, bar some change to the layout to the rear I/O. At US$629.99, this isn't a cheap board, but it wasn't expected either, as ASUS does charge a premium price for its ROG products. Both boards are said to be shipping from the 20th of October.

The Connectivity Standards Alliance, the international community of more than 550 technology companies committed to open standards for the Internet of Things, announced today the release of the Matter 1.0 specification and the opening of the Matter certification program. Member companies who make up all facets of the IoT now have a complete program for bringing the next generation of interoperable products that work across brands and platforms to market with greater privacy, security, and simplicity for consumers.

As part of the Matter 1.0 release, authorized test labs are open for product certification, the test harnesses and tools are available, and the open-source reference design software development kit (SDK) is complete - all to bring new, innovative products to market. Further, Alliance members with devices already deployed and with plans to update their products to support Matter can now do so, once their products are certified.

Innovative audio-technology brand Edifier, have launched their new wireless bookshelf speaker - the S1000W. This is another fine addition to the brand's already impressive collection of premium and affordable audio technology models. Edifier's unrelenting vision of combining an unwavering passion for pristine audio quality and affordability is on show for all to see with the S1000W. Gorgeously designed and expertly crafted, the S1000W comes with an array of truly outstanding features that make it superb value for money. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled, Hi-Res audio support, multiple outputs and connectivity to services such as Apple AirPlay 2, Amazon Alexa, or Spotify, group this speaker into a multi-room music system. Enjoy synchronized music playback whilst wandering throughout your home. TIDAL Connect is also supported so you can enjoy the best quality listening of lossless music.

Place these speakers on a bookshelf, your desk or just about anywhere in your home. The front facing drivers are positioned for optimum performance. The S1000W can deliver 120 watts in a simplistic yet stylish output - giving you a sophisticated, high performing way for you to enjoy watching movies on your TV or music on your vinyl.

Amazon today announced upgrades to its industry-leading Fire TV family, including the next generation Fire TV Cube—Fire TV's most powerful streaming media player yet—and Alexa Voice Remote Pro, a premium remote with an all-new Remote Finder and customizable buttons.

"The all-new Fire TV Cube is a big step forward for Fire TV—it's the fastest, most powerful, and most versatile streaming media player we've ever made," said Daniel Rausch, vice president of Amazon Entertainment Devices and Services. "This Fire TV Cube's powerful processing and Wi-Fi 6E support deliver an incredibly smooth streaming experience, and HDMI input means you can instantly extend the simplicity of Fire TV and hands-free Alexa control to your home entertainment system. With Alexa Voice Remote Pro, we're making it easy to find a misplaced remote and get to the apps and content you love."

Amazon today introduced the next generation of Echo Dot and Echo Auto, giving you more ways to bring the convenience of Alexa to every room of your home and into your car. In addition, Amazon announced a new generation of Echo Dot Kids with new designs, significant audio improvements to Echo Studio, and a host of new features for Alexa—including a new Fire TV experience on Echo Show 15.

"A true ambient experience is there to simplify your day-to-day life when you need it and fades into the background when you don't. This generation of Echo devices are designed with this vision in mind," said Nedim Fresko, vice president of Amazon Alexa Devices. "With the upgraded audio and compact form factors, each of these new devices give customers more ways to make Alexa a seamless part of their day. And, with the new sensors and technology built in to Echo Dot and Echo Dot with Clock, customers can have Alexa do even more on their behalf."

Amazon today introduced Kindle Scribe—the next generation of Kindle that unites reading with writing. Kindle Scribe features the world's first 10.2-inch, 300 pixels per inch (ppi), Paperwhite display, and an included pen that never needs charging. The premium, front-lit, and glare-free display feels like reading and writing on paper, with crisp text and ample space for larger fonts, images, charts, and documents. Designed for reading and notetaking in millions of books, adding notes to documents, journaling, and more, Kindle Scribe is available for preorder today from just $339 and will ship later this year.

"Kindle Scribe is the best Kindle we've ever built, creating a reading and writing experience that feels like real paper," said Kevin Keith, vice president of Amazon Devices. "It's inspired by the Kindle customers who have added billions of notes and highlights to books over the years, and it's also ideal for reviewing and marking up documents, managing your to-do list, or doodling over a big idea. Plus, it offers all the Kindle benefits customers know and love—millions of books on demand, adjustable fonts, premium reading features, and weeks and weeks of battery life—with the benefit of a beautiful, large display."

eero, an Amazon company, today introduced a new range of solutions for professional installers and businesses. The eero PoE 6 and eero PoE Gateway are Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) devices that can be easily installed and use wired infrastructure to deliver fast, reliable wifi throughout homes and businesses. Additionally, eero for Pro Installers and eero for Business, two new services, simplify wifi installation, set up, and management for professional installers and small businesses.

"At eero, we started with a vision of bringing simple, reliable, and fast wifi to customers across the globe, and now our wifi solutions are in millions of homes around the world," said Nick Weaver, co-founder and CEO of eero. "As we look for ways to continue to solve challenges for new types of customers, we're thrilled to expand our offerings to professional installers and small businesses with these new PoE products and services."