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Samsung has announced the development of the industry’s first DDR5 memory module packing an insane 512 GB of capacity. The memory modules are targeted at AI/ML, exascale hyper-computing, analytics, networking, and other data-intensive workloads.

Samsung DDR5 Memory Modules Pack 512 GB Capacity – Based on HKMG Process Node & Offer Up To 7200 Mb/s Pin Speeds

Samsung states that the 512 GB DDR5 memory modules will expand its existing portfolio to offer the densest capacity ever produced. The memory modules will be featuring the HKMG or High-K Metal Gate process node which was also used by Samsung for the production of its GDDR6 VRAM modules. The process node allows the memory modules to use 13% lower power & also reduces power leakages.

DDR5-4800 MHz Memory Tested With Intel’s 8 Core Alder Lake Desktop CPU Platform, Up To 112% Faster Than DDR4

In terms of specifications, the Samsung 512 GB DDR5 memory offers twice the performance of the DDR4 memory with speeds of up to 7200 Mb/s. The memory features a total of 40 DRAM chips with each DRAM chip featuring eight layers of 16 Gb DRAM modules stacked together & connected with TSV’s (Through-Silicon-Via).

512GB capacity DDR5 module made possible by an 8-layer TSV structure
HKMG material reduces power by 13 percent while doubling the speed of DDR4

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has expanded its DDR5 DRAM memory portfolio with the industry’s first 512GB DDR5 module based on High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) process technology. Delivering more than twice the performance of DDR4 at up to 7,200 megabits per second (Mbps), the new DDR5 will be capable of orchestrating the most extreme compute-hungry, high-bandwidth workloads in supercomputing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), as well as data analytics applications.

“Samsung is the only semiconductor company with logic and memory capabilities and the expertise to incorporate HKMG cutting-edge logic technology into memory product development,” said Young-Soo Sohn, Vice President of the DRAM Memory Planning/Enabling Group at Samsung Electronics. “By bringing this type of process innovation to DRAM manufacturing, we are able to offer our customers high-performance, yet energy-efficient memory solutions to power the computers needed for medical research, financial markets, autonomous driving, smart cities and beyond.”

“As the amount of data to be moved, stored and processed increases exponentially, the transition to DDR5 comes at a critical inflection point for cloud datacenters, networks and edge deployments,” said Carolyn Duran, Vice President and GM of Memory and IO Technology at Intel. “Intel’s engineering teams closely partner with memory leaders like Samsung to deliver fast, power-efficient DDR5 memory that is performance-optimized and compatible with our upcoming Intel Xeon Scalable processors, code-named Sapphire Rapids.”

Samsung’s DDR5 will utilize highly advanced HKMG technology that has been traditionally used in logic semiconductors. With continued scaling down of DRAM structures, the insulation layer has thinned, leading to a higher leakage current. By replacing the insulator with HKMG material, Samsung’s DDR5 will be able to reduce the leakage and reach new heights in performance. This new memory will also use approximately 13% less power, making it especially suitable for datacenters where energy efficiency is becoming increasingly critical.

The HKMG process was adopted in Samsung’s GDDR6 memory in 2018 for the first time in the industry. By expanding its use in DDR5, Samsung is further solidifying its leadership in next-generation DRAM technology.

Leveraging through-silicon via (TSV) technology, Samsung’s DDR5 stacks eight layers of 16Gb DRAM chips to offer the largest capacity of 512GB. TSV was first utilized in DRAM in 2014 when Samsung introduced server modules with capacities up to 256GB.

Samsung is currently sampling different variations of its DDR5 memory product family to customers for verification and, ultimately, certification with their leading-edge products to accelerate AI/ML, exascale computing, analytics, networking, and other data-intensive workloads.

Samsung only states that they are currently sampling different variations of its DDR5 memory but doesn’t provide any launch date. We can expect a launch by the end of this year as DDR5 memory platforms from Intel and AMD start hitting shelves and we can also expect some really high prices for memory modules of this much capacity.

The Arizona State Senate was scheduled to vote an unprecedented and controversial bill on Wednesday that would have imposed far-reaching changes on how Apple and Google operate their respective mobile app stores, specifically by allowing alternative in-app payment systems. But the vote never happened, having been passed over on the schedule without explanation. The Verge watched every other bill on the schedule be debated and voted on over the senate’s live stream, but Arizona HB2005, listed first on the agenda, never came up.

One notable Apple critic is now accusing the iPhone maker of stepping in to stop the vote, saying the company hired a former chief of staff to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to broker a deal that prevented the bill from being heard in the Senate and ultimately voted on. This is after the legislation, an amendment to the existing HB2005 law, passed the Arizona House of Representatives earlier this month in a landmark 31-29 vote.

“The big show turned out to be a no show. The bill was killed in mid-air while on the agenda with a backroom deal. Apple has hired the governor’s former chief of staff, and word is that he brokered a deal to prevent this from even being heard,” David Heinemeier Hansson, a fierce Apple critic who submitted testimony in support of HB2005, tweeted this afternoon.

Apple declined to comment.

It was well-known prior to today’s scheduled vote that both Apple and Google had hired lobbyists to combat the bill, according to a report from Protocol, because it directly threatened the companies’ industry standard app store commission of 30 percent. If the Arizona bill passed the senate and was signed into law by Ducey, it would have made the state a haven for app makers looking to sidestep the App Store and the Google Play Store’s payment systems, which are the mechanisms the companies use to take their cuts of all app sales and in-app purchases of digital goods.

It could have also caused all sorts of additional headaches for both companies by forcing them to either institute a patchwork system of state-specific enforcement, or by potentially forcing them to stop doing business in Arizona altogether while opening the door to lawsuits against the state.

In testimony in front of the Arizona House earlier this month, Apple’s chief compliance officer, Kyle Andeer, argued that the App Store provides enough value to developers justify the 30 percent cut. “The commission has been described by some special interests as a ‘payment processing fee’—as if Apple is just swiping a credit card. That’s terribly misleading. Apple provides developers an enormous amount of value — both the store to distribute their apps around the world and the studio to create them. That is what the commission reflects,” Andeer said in written testimony.

“Yet this bill tells Apple that it cannot use its own check-out lane (and collect a commission) in the store we built,” he added. “This would allow billion-dollar developers to take all of the App Store’s value for free — even if they’re selling digital goods, even if they’re making millions or even billions of dollars doing it. The bill is a government mandate that Apple give away the App Store.”

It’s worth noting that the bill also faced considerable opposition in the Arizona House not by big business-loving Republicans, but instead by Democrats. A number of Democrats publicly objected to the bill and voted against it on the grounds it was potentially unconstitutional for interfering with interstate commerce and also that it interjected Arizona into a California legal fight between game developer Epic Games and both Apple and Google over the removal of Fortnite from the Android and iOS platforms.

The bill, which was primarily sponsored by Rep. Regina Cobb (R-5), is one of many that have popped up in state legislatures around the country challenging Apple’s and Google’s longstanding policies around the mobile app economy. These bills can be traced back to growing antitrust pressure against Big Tech mounting in both Europe and Washington, DC, and they represents a new local and state front in the ongoing fight over the tech industry’s outsize power and whatever methods lawmakers may employ to try and reign it in. Other arenas include California, where Epic launched its own fight, and the European Union. which launched antitrust investigations into the App Store and Apple Pay over anticompetitive claims.

Both Apple and Google operate the two most dominant app stores in the world, and while the Google Play Store allows alternative app stores and therefore alternative payments systems, Apple does not. That means all digital purchases on iOS are subject to Apple’s mandated 30 percent cut, or in some cases a reduced 15 percent cut, though Apple has been criticized for cutting secret deals, like those it has made with Amazon over Prime Video subscriptions and later in-app purchases, to exempt certain types of purchases when it’s strategically convenient.

Both companies in the last six months announced changes to the commission structure that allows for smaller developers, which represent the vast majority of app makers on both Android and iOS, to claim a reduced 15 percent cut, though that has done little assuage the app store critics.

These antitrust proposals, like HB2005, are largely the work of the Coalition for App Fairness (CAF). The CAF is an industry group formed last year consisting of Epic, Spotify, Tinder parent company Match Group, and dozens of other companies that have grown increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo of the mobile app economy and the app store owners’ ironclad developer agreements. Some of these companies, like Spotify, have for years complained of unfair treatment from Apple and have accused the company of prioritizing its own software over competitors through its use of App Store rules and iOS requirements.

The CAF began lobbying lawmakers earlier this year, first in North Dakota and now in multiple states including Arizona, to instigate the introduction of bills like HB2005. While the North Dakota bill failed, Arizona’s was seen as a more promising alternative because it focused solely on in-app payment systems, while the North Dakota one also mandated that operating system owners allow for alternative app stores, too.

But the bill’s fate is now in question, and it’s not immediately clear what happened. Rep. Cobb, the bill’s sponsor, did not respond to a request for comment. The Arizona governor’s office and the office of the Arizona State Senate Majority Leader Rick Gray (R-21) also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Amazon is coming out with a third generation of its Alexa Voice Remote, and it includes some unwelcome new buttons that will take you to the Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney Plus, and Hulu apps. If you’re one of the people who subscribes to and regularly uses all of those exact streaming services, this remote could be a nice upgrade. But for everyone else, the buttons will only add friction and annoyance to the Fire TV control experience.

We here at The Verge have talked about why we don’t like these buttons before. They turn your remote into a canvas for permanent advertising for services you may not even use, and they take up space that could be used for buttons that take you to services you do use. If you, say, don’t subscribe to Disney Plus or Hulu, then the buttons are, at best, useless to you and, at worst, waiting to be accidentally pressed, leaving you to back out of an app that’s begging you to subscribe.

The obvious alternative is to make the buttons mappable to the services you use and not put permanent branding on them. If the remote instead came with four buttons you could use to open your preferred streaming services, this would be a very different story. Alas, it is not. But hey, now the voice control button is an Alexa button for even more branding! (I will concede that this isn’t that bad, given that it was already called the Alexa Voice remote.)

Image: Amazon

I don’t want to make it sound like a few annoying buttons (that could actually be useful to some people) are the end of the world or that this new remote has no redeeming qualities. There’s actually one more new button that takes you to a “guide” showing you a cable-esque timeline of all the content available from the live providers you have, such as Sling, Hulu, or YouTube TV.

Unlike the branded ones, it’s small and not brightly colored, so it’s easy to ignore if you don’t need it (and it won’t be as prone to accidental presses). I just wish remote manufacturers would let us choose the functions we want on our remotes, especially since the streaming service landscape is ever-changing, and people have taken to subscribing to one service for a few months then switching to another.

Supreme, the streetwear brand notorious for slapping its name on everything from feature phones to a literal brick, is turning its attention to film photography. Tomorrow’s drop includes a reusable Yashica MF-1 35mm film camera, available in either black or red and subtly adorned with a Supreme logo. It’s made of plastic, which isn’t particularly flashy, but it’s also got a built-in flash, which is.

Like many of Supreme’s other branded accessories, there’s nothing particularly special about the camera this is based on. This specific model appears to have its origins as a 2019 Kickstarter, and reviews have generally been mixed. “Neither totally awful but not that great,” was one blog’s conclusion, while another more negative review called it “perhaps the objectively worst camera I’ve ever used,” adding that a disposable camera would deliver better results.

This isn’t Supreme’s first foray into film photography. Last year, it partnered with Fujifilm to release Supreme-branded instant film for its Instax cameras. This time around, however, it looks like aspiring hypebeasts will have to supply their own film for Supreme’s camera, rather than their own camera for Supreme’s film.

Still, if you’re interested in giving film photography a spin, then InputMag notes the camera should be available at around 11AM ET on March 25th from Supreme’s physical and online stores for a little over $60. If past experience is anything to go by, expect the cameras to sell out relatively quickly, only to appear on the second-hand market at much more questionable prices.

Monster Hunter Rise is obviously the focus this week, but we’ve also got a little bit of news to share about that other Monster Hunter title, Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin.

As spotted by My Nintendo News, Nintendo Australia’s official game page for this upcoming release appears to have revealed the file size, and the file size of the game is estimated to be 14.6GB. Assuming this is accurate, that’s more space than we expected it to take up.

Monster Hunter Rise, according to Nintendo’s website, is only 6.6GB in size. And the original Monster Hunter Stories on the 3DS, for the sake of comparison, required just 1.8GB of free space.

Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin will arrive on the Switch on 9th July. Alongside its release will be a deluxe edition and three amiibo – Ena, Razewing Ratha, and Tsukino.

Will you be checking out Monster Hunter Stroies 2 when it arrives on the Switch? Tell us below.

A large number of Android users over the past few hours have been encountering continuous Gmail and other app shutdowns, with some finding that uninstalling Android System WebView will stop the crashing.

Update 3/23: Just after 11 p.m. PT on Monday, Google issued a permanent fix for the app crashing issue. It involves updating both Android System WebView and Chrome to version 89.0.4389.105:

Google has since confirmed that the unexpected app crashes were the result of a bad update to the WebView system component, which was pulled yesterday evening and replaced by the new versions mentioned above.

The company also provided a fix for rare cases on Android 10 or 11 where a manual update of WebView or Chrome “may fail to complete.” Go to Settings > Apps & notifications > Google Play Store > Storage & cache > Clear Data. You can then proceed to follow the update steps, with Google noting how this workaround clears some of your Play Store settings, including parental controls and auto-update preferences.

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Original 3/22: This issue starts with Android throwing up prompts that warn how apps “keep closing.” Applications that are in the background and not currently open are also affected.

If this bug is impacting your device, all Android apps that use the WebView system component, which is responsible for showing web content and is updated alongside Chrome every few weeks, will keep crashing. This includes Gmail — which many users are seeing broken right now — and many other third-party applications. Google has acknowledged the email issue and is actively working on a fix. Users are advised to visit the web interface:

“We are aware of an issue with WebView causing some apps on Android to crash. We are currently working to fully validate the scope and a fix is in progress.” – Google spokesperson

The immediate solution to this problem involves finding the Play Store listing for Android System WebView either by visiting this link directly, or going to the “My apps & games” page, swiping left to the “Installed” tab, and scrolling down — it should be one of the first apps. After that, tap “Uninstall” and confirm on the prompt that appears.

If that does not work for whatever reason, another course of action is going to system Settings > Apps & notifications > See all apps > Android System WebView > tap the three-dot overflow menu in the top-right corner > Uninstall updates > OK. These instructions are for Android 11 on Pixel phones, but it should be a similar process on other OS versions and OEM devices.

Following those steps should stop the series of crashes, with Samsung support recommending the same course of action today. It’s not affecting all users, but it’s pretty widespread across Pixel and other devices.

Google looks to have rolled out a bad update to Android System WebView. While this particular release is buggy, it’s important to keep WebView on the latest version for security fixes once the problem has been resolved.

Updating…

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Valve has launched a standalone app for Steam Link on Apple’s macOS App Store, adding a new option for Mac users who want to play games on machines that are often labeled as poor choices for gaming.

Steam Link allows users to stream games from a gaming PC to a supported device on the same local network and to play those games with a MFI or Steam controller.

Valve already offered a full Steam app for macOS, but it takes up 1GB of space and has a reputation for being clunky. In contrast, the Steam Link app has a minimalist interface that appears to be designed with game controller peripherals in mind.

Valve has also previously offered a Steam Link app for iOS and iPadOS, but this is the first time the company has released software through Apple’s macOS App Store. (The full version of Steam is offered as a web download, not an App Store app.)

Game streaming has had a somewhat tumultuous history on Apple’s mobile platforms, but it’s been a little rosier on the macOS side. The same streaming features that Steam Link offers were already possible through the full Steam app for macOS, GeForce Now has a Mac client, and Mac users have long enjoyed the ability to stream PlayStation games with a barebones app.

In general, Mac gaming has had its ups and downs over the years, and lately, things have been trending down. Apple’s switch from OpenGL to Metal enabled much better performance for games whose developers put in the effort to support it, but we’ve also seen fewer Mac ports of triple-A games overall lately.

Many indies still support the Mac, though, and with the introduction of Macs running CPUs and GPUs that share an architecture with the chips found in iPhones and iPads, Apple has opened the door for iOS and iPadOS games to run natively on newer Macs.

However, our own tests of iOS and iPadOS games on the M1-equipped Macs that launched last year showed things were quite hit-or-miss, with interface problems and other limitations making for a subpar experience. As a result, macOS currently feels stuck between the two vast worlds of PC gaming and iPhone gaming, without yet leaning fully into becoming an optimal platform for either.

Steam Link lets users play high-end, modern games on a MacBook Air or the like, as long as they have a beefy Windows gaming PC on the same local network.