Quantum computers might seem to be a work of science fiction, but they do exist and are used by academic institutions and computing businesses around the world. Even though they're very limited in capability right now, it hasn't stopped multiple governments from secretly agreeing to limit the export of them to other countries, leaving computer scientists puzzled over the logic behind the decision.

That's according to New Scientist and it contacted the UK government for an explanation for export restriction, only to be told that the request was denied on the grounds of security. You might think that this is a very sensible decision because quantum computers are supposed to be able to crack any encryption in the blink of an eye.

However, while that's theoretically possible, quantum computers right now are too basic and error-prone to be able to do this. In fact, such machines are so far off achieving this kind of computing zenith that there's no logical reason to limit their export.

Of course, anything to do with computing, be it quantum, AI, or encryption, typically invokes a heavy-handed approach by authorities, especially those who worry about other states getting ground on them in the world of technology.

News that the UK had put export restrictions in place came to light last month, with quantum computers sporting more than 34 qubits and a specifically low enough error rate being the main ones blocked. What's particularly unusual about this latest news is that other countries have followed suit, creating export controls that match the UK's word-for-word, specification-for-specification.

Such countries include France, Spain, and the Netherlands, which might lead one to think that this is an EU thing. However, Canada has also done the same so it's clearly not limited to Europe. New Scientist contacted the French embassy, where a spokesperson claimed that the controls were set on the basis of "multilateral negotiations conducted over several years under the Wassenaar Arrangement."

That's an agreement to control the sales of arms and goods that have military applications, so it raises the question as to why some governments think quantum computers meet the criteria for the arrangement. Milan Godin, an adviser to the EU, told New Scientist that quantum computers are a type of technology that has the potential to crack encryption and the potential to improve military strategies, and this could be the reason behind the move.

The upshot of this is that if you can afford to buy a quantum computer, then it looks like you're only going to get your hands on an extremely rubbish one. For academic institutions that have set aside funds to continue research in quantum computing, this will probably mean such endeavours will have to be abandoned.

If you were hoping to see a quantum computer run a spaceship and make you a cup of Earl Grey tea (hot) in your lifetime, it looks like you're going to be disappointed.

The astonishing number was reported by Cybernews (via Sweclockers) after the updated dataset was posted on a forum used by hackers. Back in 2009, social media company RockYou suffered a data breach in which 32 million user accounts were compromised. Over a decade later, in 2023, a 100 GB text file titled RockYou2021 was posted on hacking forums.

It contained around 8.5 billion passwords, making it then the largest dataset of leaked login details since the 3.2 billion COMB collection in 2022. Now, RockYou2024 is larger still and holds just shy of 10 billion unique email addresses and passwords. Even if one accounts for the fact that every person who's online will have multiple login accounts, the figure is sufficiently large enough to be of major concern.

The biggest danger the compilation poses is that the information can be used to increase the success of credential stuffing, a type of brute force attack that runs through multiple login attempts to gain access to an account. Not only does this put individuals at risk of identity theft, but it also increases the chances of the business hosting the online account from suffering a comprehensive data breach.

This information is then fed back into the RockYou dataset, making it increasingly more potent. Any decent cloud or hosting service will have mechanisms to combat brute force attacks but if a login appears genuine (because it's using a valid email address and password), then there's little the service can do to prevent access.

If this news comes across as being very alarming, then that's a good thing. Because it means people are more likely to take action to prevent the situation from becoming worse.

If you're wondering what exactly you should do, then here's my advice. Never assume that any of your online accounts are safe and never use the same password for any of them—even variations of the same password are risky to use.

I strongly recommend that you change your passwords now, using a combination of three words that you can easily remember, making sure to include numbers and special characters. For any account that offers it, also make sure you enable two-factor or multi-factor authentication (2FA/MFA).

Cybernews offers a password checking service and you can use this to see if a specific password appears in the RockYou2024 dataset. It's safe to do this because you're not providing any other details, such as an email address, that would identify the password with a particular account. Even if one of your passwords isn't in the database, I still recommend that you add a layer of security to your online accounts. If it doesn't offer one, then it's even more important you change the password to a large and complex one right now.

Modern laptops are remarkably capable PCs but even the smallest and lightest of them aren't especially portable. It's not like you can stick one in a pocket, for example. One start-up in China, though, reckons it has the perfect solution by eschewing the display altogether and fitting a hinge in the keyboard, so the whole PC really can be stuffed down the back of your pants.

The new manufacturer, Ling Long, launched its seemingly unnamed new product on Bilibili (via Tom's Hardware) by doing what I've just mentioned above—taking the PC out of a back pocket and unfolding it to show a compact, if somewhat chunky, keyboard. There's no display and only has a tiny trackpad, so it's certainly not a proper laptop. It's not a handheld gaming PC, either, as there are no integrated thumbsticks or triggers. So what exactly is it?

Sporting 'designed by Ling Long', what you've got are two frames connected via a hinge, with a 60 Wh battery in the left piece and a small motherboard housing a Ryzen 7 8840U processor, soldered DDR5 RAM, an NVMe M.2 2230 socket, and a bunch of USB ports in the other piece. That AMD APU is pretty much the same chip that's in the Asus ROG Ally (a Ryzen Z1 Extreme), albeit one with a fancy NPU (neural processing unit).

With eight cores, 16 threads, a 5.1 GHz boost clock and a 30 W TDP, it's a perfectly capable little chip. Graphics duties are handled by its integrated Radeon 780M with 768 RDNA 3 shaders. If you've ever used a Steam Deck or ROG Ally, you'll know that this is good enough for 1080p gaming on low settings in many of today's games.

However, gaming doesn't seem to be Ling Long's primary target, rather it's for office workers who constantly move about and who don't want to carry around a laptop. It obviously relies on the location having a suitable monitor and mouse, though. The lack of a HDMI port means that a USB adaptor or cable will be required, too.

But those are the sacrifices needed to make something that's 15 x 10 cm (5.9 x 3.9 inches) in size when folded and only weighs 800 g (1.8 lbs). The makers are hoping to offer models with either 16 or 32 GB of DDR5 RAM, plus 512 GB or 1 TB of PCIe 4.0 storage. For an office laptop, those figures are more than enough, but the real figures of note are the suggested prices.

At CNY 2,999 (roughly $413) for the 16 GB/512 GB model and CNY 3,599 (£495) for the 32 GB / 1 TB version, that's quite a bit cheaper than an Asus ROG Ally. However, that does at least come with a display and attached controllers, though it just has one USB Type-C port for attaching any peripherals and you'd never want to use its seven-inch screen to do any office work.

Whether Ling Long plans to offer its portable PC outside of China is unknown at this stage but a few retailers may be willing to give it a go. I think the folding chassis design is a little unnecessary (it does make the whole thing look very chunky) but it's nice to see something a little different in the vast sea of identical laptops and handheld PCs.

I mean, duh, of course F1 cars have IP addresses. Right? We're talking about some of the most sophisticated automobiles on the planet, designed to chop sharp turns at well over 100 mph and quickly climb back up to 200+ mph, all without spattering person across the asphalt.

If everyday dawdler vehicles are now packed to the brim with electronics, including wireless tech (and they are), you can bet that F1 cars are, too. And we already know that F1 teams like Alpine painstakingly gather shedloads of car sensor data for analysis. What, did we expect F1 cars to pit-stop-and-USB? 

No, much is done wirelessly, apparently using the F1 car's IP address. Or, to be more precise, using one of its multiple IP addresses, because, as Dan explains in a reply, "there are several depending on what you want to do."

What you probably don't want to do is blow up the car's engine, though. And that, Dan implies, is something that might have actually happened. "The fear" about having an F1 car with an IP address, he explains, "isn't from external bad actors. It's internally, from the electronics team, who definitely wouldn't accidentally connect to the wrong car and flash the ECU of one running on the test bed instead of the sim, that's definitely never happened."

An ECU, for reference, is a car's Electronic Control Unit, which controls much of its engine's systems, such as the ignition. Now, thankfully, I've never actually had anything go wrong when flashing a motherboard BIOS, which is why I'm not too fussed about doing so. If my motherboard was connected to a combustion engine, though? I'm not so sure I'd pull the trigger. And I certainly wouldn't like the ability to accidentally connect to it remotely and do so.

When asked what happens when a running F1 car has its ECU flashed, Dan has a straightforward answer: "New engine," followed by an explosion emoji. Pretty simple, then: Check you're connected to the correct IP address when flashing an F1 car's circuitry. 

Let's just hope there's no flashing going on track-side (no, not like that, get your mind out of the gutter) because, apparently, track-side wireless management is a mess at F1 events: "I had the unfortunate job of trying to deploy WiFi trackside and the amount of noise and overlapping networks in the pitlane gave me an aneurysm."

I dunno, I'm still wrapping my head around the fact that I didn't realise F1 cars are zooming around out there with itty bitty IP addresses circulating the digital space. Information I now know, that I may never need to use, and that now you know, too.

It's a neat, compact, matte-black package, and comes in two flavours: the ROG NUC 760 (Core Ultra 7 155H, RTX 4060 mobile, 16 GB DDR5-5600, 512 GB M.2 drive) and the ROG NUC 970 (Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, RTX 4070 mobile, 32 GB DDR5-5600, 1 TB M.2 drive). Both specs are also available as barebones units called the NUC Extreme, and come without the RAM, M.2 storage or Windows 11 installation, in a plain black version of the chassis.

It's the fully pre-loaded 970 model we're looking at today and it's no slouch, packing Intel's flagship Core Ultra 9 185H coupled with Nvidia's RTX 4070 mobile GPU and a thoroughly ample 32 GB of SODIMM-shaped 5600MHz DDR5 (user-upgradeable to 64GB). It's a well-matched component-set, from which you'd rightly expect power enough for gaming at 1440P.

These innards, though, are built for mobile. Compared to their desktop counterparts, they offer higher efficiency, lower power consumption, enjoy fights in tight spaces, but are naturally less performant. The RTX 4070 Mobile for example, is a different beast from even the basic non-super, non-Ti desktop RTX 4070. With a 128-bit memory bus down from 192-bit, 8GB VRAM rather than the desktop card's 12GB and lower-clocked core and memory, you get roughly a third less performance, give or take.

Similarly, the Core Ultra 9 185H is geared towards high-end laptops unlike the out-and-out desktop powerhouses of the latest 14th Gen  Core i7 and i9 desktop chips, and that's reflected in its power consumption. The CPU in our test unit drank a peak 115 W to hit its max turbo speed of 5.1GHz at full load; compare that to the volcanic 253 W draw of an i7-14700K at full 5.6GHz tilt. In brief, both the CPU and GPU are excellent choices for a super-compact system, enabling the ROG NUC to occupy a mere 2.5 litres in volume.

You can upgrade the RAM and storage but the CPU and GPU are for life, not just for Christmas. So while the NUC 970 can comfortably deliver the solid framerates of a midrange desktop PC in today's games—provided you don't flog it past 1440P—it's also the material equivalent of a gaming laptop, complete with external power-brick. That goes for the cooling too; the small-diameter, high-speed fan-noise at load is equivalent to that of a gaming laptop. However, the ROG NUC can be set to silent mode in Asus' preinstalled Armory Crate app, which reduces the noise to a totally palatable level, and it barely touches the frame rate. 

Going from Turbo mode (noisy) to Silent mode (well, quieter mode), we noted a drop of just 2 fps in Cyberpunk, which is simply undetectable in practice. Our advice? Stick it on silent and fugeddaboudit.

It's not terribly future-proof but for this machine's target demographic, I suspect that's just fine. There's something attractive about a compact gaming PC that neither offers nor encourages invasive surgery and just cracks on with the job of being a PC, which the ROG NUC 970 does. There are few manufacturers offering such a seamless plug-and-play PC gaming experience that will do the desktop-level business at 1440p.

The ROG NUC 970 takes design cues from 2018's Intel Hades Canyon NUC, albeit larger in volume. It sports a similar corner-cut shape and RGB panel on the top-case, for which you can get your own acetate masks printed to mount internally and change the RGB shine-through image. It also adheres to the ROG brand style guide—angular shape-language, ‘challenging' font—so your mileage may vary on the style accents. It ships with an exceedingly robust steel stand to mount the unit vertically, which is a welcome, footprint-reducing addition. Overall, the ROG NUC 970 has an appealing sense of density. There's no question that the power-to-volume ratio this machine exudes is attractive.

Elsewhere on the spec sheet, things are similarly tidy. Intel Killer WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, a trio of M.2 2280 slots running on PCIe 4.0, and 2.5G Intel LAN. The I/O options are largely good. Round the back you get 2x USB 3.2 ports, 2x USB 2.0 slots, a 2.5G RJ45, 2x DisplayPort 1.4a ports, a single HDMI 2.1 port, and a lone Thunderbolt 4 port which also doubles up as DP 2.1 for the CPU's Intel Arc iGPU, which you will absolutely never have a reason to use over the RTX 4070.

Up front you get another two USB 3.2 slots, combined audio jack, and an SD card reader. Where the IO sorely lacks is in USBC ports, especially up front. A single type-C Thunderbolt 4 at the back doesn't really cut it on such a premium product. I don't know about you but the majority of cludge I plug into my PC these days (phone, headset dongle, mechanical keyboard, Xbox Elite gamepad dock) operates via USBC. If I'm buying this for its compact minimalism, I don't want to spoil it with an external USBC hub flapping about.

On to performance then, and the headline is straightforward enough: even with its mobile-focused parts, the ROG NUC 970 offers good-to-great frame rates at 1440p, and outstanding ones at 1080p. 

76 fps in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1440p at the Ray Tracing Ultra preset, DLSS set to auto and frame-gen on is as smooth and good-looking as you need. Total War: Warhammer 3 at Ultra settings just makes it to 60 fps. Forza Mortorsport clips along at 68 fps with Ultra settings, full-quality DLSS and Ray Tracing at 1440p. And if 1080p is your playground, you'll see frame rates thunder well beyond the 100 fps mark in pretty much everything you throw at it bar Homeworld 3, with its surprisingly punishing built-in benchmark

We also gave the ROG NUC 970 a run at several titles outside of our benchmark suite. We haven't added these findings to our official list of numbers as these games don't have built-in benchmarks tools, but we think getting a frame rate range and a general vibe for how it runs stuff at 1440p is still useful.

The Dead Space remake performs admirably at 1440p/Ultra/DLSS balanced, and in the final boss battle, we saw between 75 and 107 fps. Even with that variance in range, the action remained buttery-smooth. It's a similar story in Helldivers 2, where, regardless of the scene, the ROG NUC 970 knocks out an unflinching 70-73 fps at 1440p Ultra with textures set to high. A Plague Tale: Requiem's 'Hives' level saw 74-94 fps at 1440p ultra, with DLSS set to quality and Frame Gen on. In short, all three titles play silky smooth and stutter-free.

It's compact and it does the business at 1440, no question. So let's tackle the elephant in the room: the price tag. Because at $2,199 (£1,999) fully loaded with RAM and storage, the ROG NUC 970 is eye-wateringly expensive for what it does.

How much of that price is down to the R&D costs the ROG NUC 970's unique design implies, how much is down to ASUS adding its ROG-brand markup, and how much is down to the specific component choice is impossible to guess at, but the fact is, it's a very expensive way to game at 1440p. It certainly won't win over any seasoned system-builders; for the same outlay as the full-fat ROG NUC 970, you could build a machine around a desktop RTX 4080 Super and enjoy massively better frame rates at 1440p, or comfortably make the leap to 4K, though you'd be trading the ROG NUC's USP—compactness—for that performance.

But that's not who this machine is aimed at. It's for the PC gamer who wants faff-free fun at 1440p, in the most petite package possible, and doesn't care about a future upgrade path beyond memory and storage. If that's you, and you're willing to part with this kind of money, I don't think you'll be disappointed. Better still, If you're up for shopping around for DDR5, storage, and a Windows key, go for the Barebones version and install them yourself. You'll save yourself literally hundreds.

Nextorage NEM-PA | 2 TB | NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,300 MB/s read | 6,900 MB/s write | $249.99 $135.99 at Newegg (save $114)
We were very impressed with this Nextorage drive in our review. And given that great SSD deals can be hard to find right now, this drive stands out as a great performer for reasonable money—even if the brand name might not be as recognisable as others.

Price check: Amazon $159.99View Deal

We were on to a great thing for a while. Last year, cheap SSDs were everywhere, with stunning deals on very fast and very large Gen 4 drives. Now though, they're increasingly hard to find, but that doesn't mean we don't spot the odd bargain every now and then.

Like this 2 TB Nextorage NEM-PA, on sale at Newegg right now for $136. It might not have the brand recognition of WD or Lexar, but trust me when I say that this Nextorage drive actually has far more pedigree than you might expect.

Nextorage was originally created by Sony to manufacture SSDs for the PlayStation 5. However, Phison, an absolute heavyweight name in the SSD business, bought itself a controlling stake in the company. As a result, Nextorage started creating drives using the Phison E18 controller, as found here, making for SSDs with excellent performance from a name that's increasingly becoming familiar to those in the know.

The proof here lies in the performance. This Nextorage 2 TB drive delivers 7,300 MB/s reads and 6,900 MB/s writes, making for a fantastically fast performer as we found in our review. That's thanks to 2 TB of high-quality TLC NAND memory and 2 GB of DDR4 cache in combination with that legendary controller.

It's not quite the fastest of Gen 4 drives—particularly when it comes to 4K writes—but it still delivers performance that puts it up there with some seriously heavy competition. This model also comes with a substantial heatsink, which keeps it cool for sustained performance.

About that. While you can technically remove the heatsink to install the NEM-PA in a laptop, Nextorage will not guarantee the warranty after disassembly. I would suggest those of you looking to squeeze the drive into somewhere heatsink-inappropriate might want to consider the warranty implications before doing so. 

Still, what you get here is a sizeable drive with excellent Gen 4 performance, with a significant discount to boot. It's worth mentioning that Amazon Prime Day is right around the corner, technically starting on Tuesday July 16 and carrying on through Wednesday July 17, although we've already started collecting early Amazon Prime Day SSD deals.

This drive is one of them and while there's always a chance it might drop lower, if you need fast storage right now I reckon it's an excellent shout for $136.

The Alienware Pro Wireless gaming mouse is, on first appearances, just that—a wireless gaming mouse. Available in black or white finishes, it's got a left click, a right click, a scroll wheel (with, of course, a click), two side buttons, and a hidden one underneath opposite the power switch. That's your lot, for the low, low price of $150/£127.

Wait, that's not a low price for a gaming mouse, is it? You can pick up a Razer Deathadder V3 Pro for roughly the same money, and while it currently sits at the top of our list of best gaming mice, we did point out that it's still a lot of cash for a mouse with a limited number of buttons.

As you would expect, however, just like the Razer, what you're paying for here isn't customizability, or flashy aesthetics. Instead, what Alienware is offering are claims of refined, super-fast performance, courtesy of up to 4 kHz wireless and 8 kHz wired polling rates, which works out to 0.25 ms and 0.125 ms response times, respectively. With an optical sensor capable of 26,000 DPI movement resolution and some magnetic key plates for quick clicks without sticky buttons, everything about this mouse's spec sheet screams speed.

The first thing you'll notice, though, is the glide. Sitting on the underside are two sizable PTFE feet holding the Pro Wireless aloft, and they're as smooth as the proverbial silk when paired with a decent mouse mat. So much so, in fact, that it's quite a pleasing experience just sliding this mouse around for the sheer tactile nature of the effect.

Helping out that smooth movement is the weight, or in this case, the lack of it. I tend to prefer a heavier mouse, but the Alienware Pro comes in at a mere 59 grams, making it so light that —in combination with those gliding feet—the merest hint of finger movement sends it smoothly in the appropriate direction. Alienware may have created the first hover-mouse, or at least one that does a good approximation of it.

Customisation and settings are handled by the Alienware Command Center, which sounds like it prepares the little mouse for its first trip to space, and unfortunately, doesn't. Instead, the straightforward settings interface allows you to rebind the limited buttons, set macros, and adjust DPI profiles and polling rates, along with sleep mode settings, lift-off distance adjustments, and battery-saver settings.

It's actually remarkably clearly laid out, with a shades-of-gray aesthetic that's mercifully clean to read and easy to use. Again, simplicity. Simple can be good.

Battery life comes in at 32 hours for the 4 kHz setting, or 120 hours at 1 kHz polling. It's easy to switch between the two in the app, and as a result I've been keeping it at the lower setting for day-to-day usage and switching it to the faster polling rate for gaming duties.

Now then. Super-fast polling rates and ultra-speedy sensors. I've ranted before about my dislike for esports-focused gaming peripherals like this, making the argument that unless you have the reaction times of a gnat, you're paying for performance you really don't need. Has the little Alienware changed my mind?

No. Not really. That being said, the smooth glide in conjunction with the accurate feel of this mouse is undoubtedly pleasing to use in fast-paced shooters. There's a lot of things about this little squeaker that on paper, I don't particularly like, yet in usage come together to form a package that actually does feel pretty good—and extremely responsive— underneath your fingertips. 

The Mouse Tester graphs show a reasonable result, as the closeness of the dots indicates the consistency of the movement reporting from the sensor (although I'll admit, the smoothness of my motions could do with work). In practice the Alienware Pro feels plenty accurate in the games I've tested it in, even if the fleshy-meat-thing behind it isn't the most skilled.

It's light, quick, pleasingly tactile for the most part (the left and right mouse buttons have a particular clicky-bounce combo that does feel very satisfying once you've become accustomed to it), and well-behaved. Not once has it stuttered or lost connection, and the quick-charge capabilities in combination with the simple DPI switching means it's easy to keep on top of the battery.

What I don't like, however, comes in two parts. The first relates to the two side buttons. For a mouse that seems so refined in many aspects, the two side-clickers have a squidgy quality that feels a bit ick, along with a hollow feeling underneath the action that betrays a lot of weight saving efforts going on behind the mechanism.

I get it's supposed to be light, but I would gladly add another 5 grams or so for the sake of two (for my personal usage, fairly vital) buttons that don't feel quite so mushy when I press them. There aren't a lot of buttons on offer here, so two of them feeling a bit cheap and nasty is a no-no as far as I'm concerned.

The second is the price. Yep, it's time for me to tap that esports sign once more: $150 for a mouse that's all about super-speedy reaction times instead of useful added functionality still strikes as paying for speed you don't need. Yes, the Razer Deathadder V3 Pro is just as expensive, but it looks and feels a bit more like a premium object, what with its micro-texture coating, stylish, flared-out button design, and side buttons with more of a positive action.

It's got a higher-rated sensor too, 30,000 DPI, if ultimate speed and accuracy really is your thing. Horses for courses and all that. Or the Razer Viper V3 Pro for that matter, a mere $8 more but with a 35,000 DPI sensor. The Viper can handle 8 kHz wirelessly too, thanks to Razer's Hyperpolling system.

All that being said, however, the Alienware is so refined in most respects, it almost feels polite. Aside from the shiny silver alien head on the top, there's nothing here to tell you this is a high-performance gaming mouse. For some, that's a boon, and for others, perhaps, a bit of a disappointment.

Once you start sliding it around however, you will actually feel where some of that money went. If only a little more had gone into the side buttons, and perhaps the coating (it feels fine, but unremarkable), this would really feel like a more premium object. But putting that aside for a second, the Alienware Pro Wireless gaming mouse is simple, well-behaved, and for the most part, well thought out.

The thing I struggle with most is still that price tag. There's fierce competition in the super light and speedy mouse market, and it's not just Razer making tempting models. The Logitech Pro X Superlight 2 weighs a mere gram more, retails for roughly the same money, and yet, like the Deathadder V3 Pro and Viper V3 Pro, also has side buttons that feel substantial. That's three similarly priced mice, without that significant drawback.

I'd still have either of the Razers if I was going for something pricey, but ultra-fast. At least there, the whole package is as premium as the MSRP suggests.

A quick crash course on AMD history for those who have forgotten—or have perhaps blocked out—its tumultuous past. While some of the best gaming CPUs around today derive from AMD's Zen architecture, and while AMD's EPYC server CPU line-ups have been a massive success, between 2011-2017, there were the God-awful Bulldozer-based processors (Bulldozer, Piledriver, Steamroller, and Excavator line-ups). 

These years were certainly far from zen for the red team. Stock prices stuck to the floor as processor architectures missed the mark for various reasons, such as the bizarre decision to optimise for parallelism while somehow making Bulldozer's single-threaded performance worse than many previous-gen Phenom processors (I still look back fondly on my pre-Bulldozer Phenom II X4 955, by the way, partially for this reason). 

In fact, Bulldozer CPUs have such a sketchy history that AMD even agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit back in 2019 stemming from alleged false advertising over their core counts.

This, by the way, was after AMD had divested its own manufacturing arm, which became GlobalFoundries, a decision that was made to save itself from another possible moment of financial oblivion back in 2009. "On the brink" might not even cut it.

We might think, as is commonly stated, AMD's fate was saved by the glorious Dr. Lisa Su and her stabilising tenure as CEO. And there's certainly much truth to this. Without the circa 2017 Zen and Epyc line-ups, it's difficult to imagine AMD surviving, let alone thriving and creating a rising tide to raise all boats.

Under Dr. Su's leadership the company has consistently delivered, time and again, on the technological and architectural promises it has made. And it's this consistency which has propelled AMD onwards and seemingly ever upwards.

However, it was not ever thus.

Fragale's comment on his LinkedIn resume reminds us that AMD's business life was also previously saved prior to Zen, thanks to its semi custom unit, and the partnership with Sony in developing the Jaguar APU (featuring GCN graphics) that starred in the PS4. Another custom (higher-clocked) Jaguar APU was used in the Xbox One, but the PS4 far outsold the Xbox One, and Fragale's comments seem to point out that this kept AMD afloat until Su could really turn things around for the company post-Zen.

This tumultuous keep-things-afloat history, in which the PS4 partnership seems to have played a big part, is confirmed by AMD architect Phil Park who comments on Fragale's claims, saying, "I lived through this and this is, AFAIK, true," pointing out that the 2008 financial crisis led to AMD selling "multiple IPs like Adreno to raise cash." (Yes, that's the same Adreno now of Snapdragon X fame.)

See? Without consoles, where would we be? Probably sitting on a lot fewer CPU cores, that's for sure.

The patent's details (via Windows Report) are like all such publications, in that specific details on exactly how everything works aren't covered. Instead, a broad overview of the nature of the technology is given and what Microsoft has proposed is a system that takes documents you're working on and encrypts them in such a way that the contents are secure but the overall structure of the text remains the same.

That's even the case when you pull the document up for display on your PC's screen. But then the clever bit kicks in. Using a suitable webcam or another device that can track the movement of your eyes, the algorithm determines exactly where your focus is and uses the information to generate an alpha-blending mask—think of this as being like a 'hole' in the encrypted document that lets you see the original material underneath.

As your eyes move about, the 'hole' follows along to ensure that you don't suddenly hit a line of unintelligible text. Statistical methods can be used to predict where the eye's motion will lead, reducing the latency between the eye tracking and mask movement. Anyone else looking at the screen will just see gibberish.

Microsoft's algorithm takes into account that we use our peripheral vision quite a lot when we read, even though the text isn't directly in focus, and the edge of the mask isn't a hard line between normal and encrypted text. It also takes into account that eye motion isn't perfectly smooth (aka saccades).

Combined, these additions to the algorithm do make it seem a little better than AMD's Privacy View feature in its Adrenalin software, which just dims the regions of the screen you're not looking at.

However, like all such eye-tracking security features, it doesn't seem to prevent one particular issue. If the original document is visible and legible on any part of the screen, there's always the chance that someone can see it. None of these software-based privacy systems can stop someone from taking an image of your screen from a distance or out of the eye-tracking device's field of view.

Still, the Microsoft system is, in my humble opinion, considerably better than laptop privacy screens, which just disable some of the backlights to make it harder to read content from the side. Of course, one could just not work on sensitive documents in a public area, but if it has to be done, I'd prefer the content to be genuinely encrypted in some way and not just a bit dimmer.

Now, thanks to an emulator dock, the Game Boy Camera has been reborn as a functional PC webcam, providing 16,000 pixels of glorious black and white resolution.

The Epilogue GB Operator dock allows users to play Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy advance cartridges on Windows, macOS and Linux devices using a built in emulator (via Tom's Hardware). The dock itself has been available since 2021, but the team behind it has spent the past three years tweaking the device to deliver a live-feed from the Game Boy Camera.

All that hard work appears to have paid off, as the team have posted a video showing some incredibly low-res footage of two of its members beaming with joy at their progress. Epilogue says that while the live-feed is finally working, it still needs to "fine-tune some things and allow for configuration options."

While the GB Operator dock is compatible with PCs, the test window shown in the video is running on macOS. So it's unclear if any more tweaking will be needed to get a Windows device to use it as a terrible, no-good, yet charming alternative to a regular webcam. Still, Epilogue says it can't wait to see everyone having fun with the device, suggesting a release may be coming soon.

YouTube channel Retro Game Couch has also previously managed to get a Game Boy Camera working as a webcam, although in this case it took a combination of a Super Nintendo, Super Game Boy adapter cartridge, an HDMI upscaler and an HDMI capture device. 

The GB Operator dock is a much neater, smaller solution, so it looks a much more workable method to enable the world's worst camera to work with modern devices.

As to why you'd want to? Well, plenty of relatively modern laptops have pretty awful webcams. Who among us hasn't attended a meeting where a key speaker appears to be lost in a snow drift, or stutters like a malfunctioning animatronic? At least here, you'll have that sheen of retro cool to fall back on.

"You use a Logitech? How terribly boring. It's all about the Game Boy Camera for me."

4K resolution, forget about it. The real hip kids are going Game Boy, I reckon.