PC Pro January 2023

“You know what?” I said to Marcus, the man behind YouTube technology channel PC Centric. “I feel sorry for AMD.” We were chatting on our way to a launch event for Philips’ new gaming monitors, but it was also the day when the first benchmark results were released for Intel’s mighty 13th gen chips (see p52). Marcus, it’s fair to say, had less sympathy. “Why feel sorry for a huge company that hasn’t got its pricing right?” he retorted, genuinely surprised. And he had a point. I still think of AMD as the underdog, but in the past decade it’s frequently led the market for outright speed, consistently delivering on its chip fabrication promises where Intel has struggled. From a market cap of $1.5 billion a decade ago, AMD is now…

Paul Ockenden We normally consider hot hardware to be a good thing, but as Paul explains, heat output often directly ties to energy input. He shows how to spot the greediest devices from p111. David Ludlow The easiest way to breathe life into an old laptop is to insert an SSD, ideally an M.2 SSD. David has spent the past month testing all the major models for speed, and delivers his verdict from p78. Jon Honeyball After six years of loyal service, Jon decided it was time to replace his ageing Synology NAS server with a shiny new model, and even he’s surprised by all the features it has to offer. Find out why on p108. Dr Rois Ni Thuama What lessons can tech investors learn from the stories of Autonomy, Theranos and Wirecard? Corporate governance expert…

The future of video games was supposed to be in the cloud. Forget the bulky console beneath your television, Google told us way back in (checks notes) 2019, all you need is a controller and an internet connection, and it would stream games right to whatever device you happen to be playing on. The product was Google Stadia, and following the launch Google signed up a number of the world’s biggest publishers to offer their games on the platform, including Ubisoft, the company behind the Assassin’s Creed series, and EA, the company responsible for FIFA. “Our vision for Stadia is simple – one place for all the games we play,” said games industry veteran Phil Spencer, whom Google hired to oversee the launch. Now, just under three years later, Stadia is dead, and…

Since cryptocurrencies and blockchain first took off, true believers in the technology have faced a number of tough questions: is the currency stable? And how can we avoid scams? But arguably the most stinging attack has been over its energy consumption. The way cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Dogecoin verify transactions and generate new virtual coins is by having computer systems crunch through complex maths to solve the “hash” for a given transaction. Cryptographically, it’s very clever, and means that there isn’t any one person in control of a Bitcoin central bank. The downside is that it’s energy-intensive, and today there are entire server farms around the world, whirring away, “mining” crypto. In fact, according to one estimate from Cambridge University’s Centre for Alternative Finance, Bitcoin mining alone is currently consuming around…

The move to eSIMs could prove lucrative for mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) – companies that run their own networks by leasing capacity from one of the main networks. James Gray uses Tesco Mobile as an example of how an MVNO could benefit from not having to ship little pieces of plastic to consumers to simply join its mobile network. “You could advertise your mobile proposition on your own-brand pizza boxes, and I could scan it and join you,” he said. The eSIM transition could help MVNOs in another lucrative market, too: data roaming. “Previously, MVNOs didn’t really win in roaming,” said Gray. “It was pretty much all cost for them.” This is because MVNO customers would go abroad and roam, costing the MVNO in fees paid to the oversees network to connect…

Apple’s press events are arguably the biggest dates in the tech calendar each year. Over the course of an hour or two, the industry looks on as CEO Tim Cook reveals what’s new with the company’s latest hardware – and how the company is reshaping the industry for the year ahead. Because where Apple goes, the rest of the tech industry normally follows. The events themselves are not only about new products, either – with a flick of the Keynote slide, Apple will rewrite expectations and kill entire industries or product categories. This includes the iMac controversially dropping the floppy drive in 1998, the MacBook Air killing the optical disc drive in 2008, and most notoriously of all, 2016’s announcement that the iPhone 7 would be launching without a traditional 3.5mm…