How a researcher hacked his own computer and found 'worst' chip flaw Daniel Gruss didn't sleep much the night he hacked his own computer and exposed a flaw in most of the chips made in the past two decades by hardware giant Intel Corp (INTC.O). The 31-year-old information security researcher and post-doctoral fellow at Austria's Graz Technical University had just breached the inner sanctum of his computer's central processing unit (CPU) and stolen secrets from it. Reuters

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Why Sony's Trinitron tubes were the best If you're old enough to remember Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) Televisions, you probably remember that Sony sold the top products. Their Trinitron tubes always made the best TVs and Computer Monitors. [Alec Watson] dives into the history of the Sony Trinitron tube. Sony Color TVs didn't start with Trinitron --- for several years, Sony sold Chromatron tubes. Chromatron tubes used individually charged wires placed just behind the phosphor screen. Hackaday

400Gbps Ethernet specification arrives enabling insanely fast file transfers Even Goose and Maverick would have to be impressed with the newly approved IEEE 802.3bs standard. The specification lays out the requirements to enable blazing fast connectivity to the tune of 200Gbps and 400Gbps across various interconnects. PC Gamer

To serve man, with software I didn't choose to be a programmer. Somehow, it seemed, the computers chose me. For a long time, that was fine, that was enough; that was all I needed. But along the way I never felt that being a programmer was this unambiguously great-for-everyone career field with zero downsides. There are absolutely occupational hazards of being a programmer, and one of my favorite programming quotes is an allusion to one of them: Coding Horror

Midrange, high-end graphics card prices to rise Graphics card vendors are expected to raise their prices for mid-tier to high-end models by US$5-20 in the near future to reflect increasing product costs caused by the tight supply of memory devices and GPUs. Since demand for graphics cards from the cryptocurrency mining segment has not waned as quickly as expected, GPU supply remains tight in the first quarter of 2018. DigiTimes

China sees record tech funding in 2017 China's startups and tech giants pulled in a record US$58.8 billion from investors in 2017, according to the Tech in Asia database. That's up a few billion from 2016's tally. There was no sign of the giant bubble that some dreaded in 2016 after an explosion of local tech funds poured new - and very inexperienced - cash sources into the market. Tech In Asia

Linux Mint 19 codenamed "Tara" The first release in the upcoming Linux Mint 19.x series will be named "Tara". Tara is a popular name here in Ireland, and the name of someone we really like. The development cycle only just started so it's a bit early to give details about Linux Mint 19, but here's what we can say already: Linux Mint (also, Freespire 3.0 and Linspire 7.0 released and GNOME 3.28 removes option to put icons on the desktop)

VESA announces that work has begun on next display port standard; display bandwidth to double In an interesting turn of events this week, the VESA has announced that work has begun on the next generation DisplayPort standard. Citing the need for even greater amounts of display bandwidth, the standards association has stated that they're looking to double the bandwidth available versus the current HBR3 signaling standard. The goal is to publish the standards update in the next 18 months, which would put an announcement in a 2019 timeframe with hardware in 2020 or beyond. AnandTech

Chrome is turning into the new Internet Explorer 6 Chrome is now the most popular browser across all devices, thanks to Android's popularity and the rise of Chrome on Windows PCs and Mac computers. As Google continues to dominate our access to the web, information through its search engine, and services like Gmail or YouTube, Chrome is a powerful entry point in the company's vast toolbox. The Verge

Telenav launches connected in-car advertising platform for automotive OEMs Telenav, a leading provider of connected-car and location-based platform services, is launching an In-Car Advertising Platform that enables automotive OEMs to generate revenue by delivering ads to cars in a safe, user-friendly and contextually-relevant way. Telenav

Making solar cells We will admit that it is unlikely you have enough gear in your basement to make a solar cell using these steps. However, it is interesting to see how a bare silicon wafer becomes a solar cell. If you've seen ICs going through fabrication, you'll see a lot of similarities, but there are some differences. Hackaday