July 2020
- Stop Hate for Profit: The Facebook Ad Boycott Starts Today
The Stop Hate for Profit campaign kicks off July 1, with hundreds of advertisers pausing Facebook and Instagram spend over the platform's handling of hate speech.
- Ampere vs. Big Navi: The Next-Gen GPU Rumor War Heats Up
Fresh leaks on Nvidia's RTX 3000 series and AMD's Big Navi suggest the biggest GPU generational leap in years is coming this fall.
- Comet NEOWISE Just Survived Its Closest Brush With the Sun
Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) reached perihelion on July 3, made it through intact, and is shaping up to be the best naked-eye comet in over two decades.
- C++20 Is Nearly Done — What Developers Get This Summer
C++20 is heading toward finalization this summer with concepts, modules, coroutines, and the spaceship operator in tow.
- Rocket Lab's Electron Hits Its First Snag After 12 Straight Wins
An upper-stage electrical fault destroyed Electron's payload on July 4, ending Rocket Lab's 12-launch streak of successes.
- H.266/VVC Is Officially Finalized — Half the Bitrate, Same Quality
The Fraunhofer HHI-led consortium finalized the H.266/VVC video codec, targeting roughly half the bitrate of HEVC at equal quality.
- Budget Phones Are Carrying Android Through the Pandemic
Realme's C-series and Samsung's Galaxy M01 Core show how cheap Android hardware is keeping volumes up while flagship demand softens.
- How to Catch Comet NEOWISE Before It's Gone
A naked-eye comet is in our morning sky right now, and it won't be back for about 6,800 years — here's how to see it.
- GitHub Just Buried Open Source in a Mountain (Literally)
GitHub archived a 21TB snapshot of public code into an Arctic vault meant to survive 1,000 years.
- Qualcomm's Snapdragon 865 Plus Breaks the 3GHz Barrier
Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 865 Plus hits 3.1GHz on its Prime core and adds a faster GPU and Wi-Fi 6E support.
- Three Countries, One Launch Window: The Mars Traffic Jam of Summer 2020
The UAE, China, and NASA are all racing to launch Mars missions within about two weeks of each other this July.
- Streaming Just Overtook Cable in America, and It Only Took a Pandemic
New reports show more Americans now watch streaming TV than traditional cable, a milestone pulled forward by months of lockdown.
- Solar Orbiter closes in on the Sun for its first big reveal
ESA/NASA's Solar Orbiter made its first close pass in mid-June, and its first imagery is due for release later this month.
- DDR5 Is Official: JEDEC Locks In the Next Memory Standard
JEDEC published the DDR5 SDRAM standard today, setting up faster, lower-power memory for the next wave of CPUs and servers.
- Twitter Just Had Its Worst Security Day in Years
A phone-based social engineering attack let hackers hijack roughly 130 verified Twitter accounts to run a bitcoin scam.
- Solar Orbiter Spots Tiny 'Campfires' Dotting the Sun's Surface
ESA and NASA release Solar Orbiter's first images, revealing miniature flares called 'campfires' that may help explain the Sun's mysterious hot corona.
- Vivo's X50 Series Bets Big on a Gimbal in Your Pocket
Vivo's newly launched X50 Pro swaps standard OIS for a micro-gimbal stabilization system aimed at smoother handheld video.
- A First Look at What's Coming in Python 3.9
Python 3.9 hit feature-complete beta in May, and the changes are small but genuinely useful for everyday code.
- Hope Rises: The UAE Launches the Arab World's First Mars Mission
The UAE's Hope orbiter launched atop a Japanese H-IIA rocket, kicking off the Arab world's first interplanetary mission and this July's Mars launch trio.
- GPT-3 Dazzles Its First Private-Beta Testers
OpenAI's 175-billion-parameter model is quietly blowing minds in a private API beta, with testers posting viral demos of code, prose, and dialogue.
- OnePlus Nord Launches, Aiming Squarely at the Affordable-Flagship Crowd
OnePlus officially launched the Nord today, packing Snapdragon 765G, a 90Hz display, and quad cameras into a mid-range price.
- Developers Start Building on Top of GPT-3
Since OpenAI's private beta opened, devs are shipping chatbots, SQL generators, and code tools on GPT-3 — and arguing about what it actually means.
- China Sends Tianwen-1 to Mars, Betting on Orbiter, Lander, and Rover in One Shot
China launched its first fully domestic Mars mission today, packing an orbiter, lander, and rover into a single spacecraft.
- ASUS ROG Phone 3 Lands in India with a 144Hz Display
ASUS brings the gaming-focused ROG Phone 3 to India with a 144Hz AMOLED screen and Snapdragon 865 Plus.
- Comet NEOWISE Fades After Its Closest Pass by Earth
NEOWISE made its closest approach to Earth on July 23 and is now dimming — your last easy chance to see it is closing fast.
- The Medium Locks In as an Xbox Series X Launch Exclusive
Microsoft's showcase confirmed Bloober Team's dual-reality horror game The Medium as a launch-window Xbox Series X exclusive.
- Pressure to ban TikTok in the US keeps escalating
CFIUS scrutiny and talk of a forced ByteDance divestiture show the US moving closer to real action against TikTok.
- Get Ready: The Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks Next Month
The 2020 Perseids are ramping up toward a mid-August peak with dark skies and forecasts of 50-75 meteors an hour.
- Why ARM Laptops Suddenly Look Interesting
Apple's move to Apple Silicon has put ARM-based laptops back in the spotlight, and the promise of better battery life is hard to ignore.
- Perseverance Lifts Off: NASA's Next Mars Rover Is On Its Way
NASA's Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter launched to Mars today aboard a ULA Atlas V, bound for Jezero Crater.
- Samsung Sets August 5 for Its Biggest Unpacked Yet
Samsung's invites are out for an August 5 Unpacked event expected to reveal the Note 20, Z Fold 2, Watch 3, Buds Live, and Tab S7.