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What’s the difference between Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital Plus?
Engadget explains the difference between two commonly confused Dolby surround sound formats found on TVs, streaming devices and home cinema equipment. Dolby Digital (also called AC-3) is the older standard, capable of carrying up to 5.1 channels of audio, while Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3) is a newer, more capable format that supports up to 7.1…
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‘A cognitive cacophony’: hands-on with the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 beta test
A Guardian hands-on preview of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 early access beta, held over the penultimate weekend of August, found the new title delivers the boots-on-the-ground military shooting the series is known for, but is defined by relentless sensory overload, with the game likened to “the TikTok of gaming” because combat begins…
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US datacenters tripled their water footprint in 10 years
US datacenters used around 17 billion gallons of water in 2023, three times the amount consumed in 2014, according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report published by the Library of Congress. The surge coincides with a boom in datacenter construction driven by the rise of generative AI since OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched in late 2022,…
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De-Googled GrapheneOS is coming to Motorola’s foldables next year
GrapheneOS, the security-focused, open source version of Android, has outlined plans to officially support Motorola smartphones from next year, marking the first time the privacy-hardened operating system will expand beyond Google’s Pixel range. Support will begin with a traditional flagship handset before extending to Motorola’s foldables, and potentially cheaper models further down the line, in…
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$1T investment giant Apollo breached after social engineering attack
Apollo Global Management, the $1 trillion investment firm, has disclosed that hackers gained unauthorised access to some of its cloud platforms between 6 and 10 July after a successful social engineering attack. The company reported the breach to California’s attorney general, confirming that intruders spent four days inside its systems and accessed personal data including…
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Taliban governor denies Afghan abuse survivor’s divorce request
A BBC documentary team gained rare access to senior Taliban figures in Afghanistan, capturing an exchange in which an 18-year-old woman, given the pseudonym Tuba, asked provincial governor Abdullah Sarhadi for permission to divorce her husband after months of alleged abuse and beatings. Sarhadi, a former Taliban military commander once held at Guantanamo Bay, urged…
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AI vendors are turning to custom hardware as Microsoft winds back the clock on Windows
A Register podcast episode discusses two parallel shifts: AI vendors increasingly moving beyond Nvidia’s GPUs towards alternative datacentre silicon, and Microsoft finally loosening long-standing restrictions in Windows 11. Register Systems Editor Tobias Mann explains why companies are turning to chipmakers such as Cerebras and Marvell to handle inference workloads, and why Waymo is developing custom…
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Thames Water creditors accused of ‘shuffling deckchairs’ with plan for new board
A consortium of Thames Water’s creditors has proposed installing a new board, including a former Yorkshire Water chief executive and a former Openreach boss, in an attempt to persuade the government against placing the struggling utility into temporary nationalisation. The move is designed to reassure ministers, particularly Andy Burnham, who has pushed for greater public…