News Source Slashdot:Hardware

Amazon Is Ending Support For Older Kindles
Starting May 20th, Amazon will stop Kindle Store access for Kindle and Kindle Fire devices released in 2012 and earlier. After that date, those devices will "no longer be able to purchase, borrow, or download new content." Owners can still read content already on the device, but if an affected device is reset or deregistered after the cutoff, it can't be re-registered. The Verge reports: The complete list of affected devices goes all the way back to the original Kindle that launched in 2007 with a full keyboard and scroll wheel. [...] Amazon will be notifying affected users over email ahead of May 20th with an explanation of what their older devices can and cannot do. Pre-2012 Kindle Fire devices will be subjected to the same limitations as Kindle e-readers when it comes to books, but other apps and Amazon services on those devices won't be impacted. For longtime users wanting to take the opportunity to upgrade to newer Kindle hardware, Amazon will offer a 20 percent discount on new Kindle devices and a $20 ebook credit that will be added to their accounts after upgrading, valid until June 20th, 2026, at 11:59PM PT. Their older purchases will be available on new devices as long as they log in to the same account they've been using for the past 14 years or more.

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Apple and Lenovo Have the Least Repairable Laptops, Analysis Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apple earned the lowest grades in a report on laptop and smartphone repairability released today by the consumer advocacy group Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund. The report, which looks at how easy devices are to disassemble and how easy it is to find repairability information, gave Apple a C-minus in laptop repairability and a D-minus in cell phone repairability. For its "Failing the Fix (2026): Grading laptop and cell phone companies on the fixability of their products" report, PIRG analyzed the 10 newest laptops and phones that were available via manufacturers' French website in January. [...] Apple leads the list of laptop repairability losers, largely due to it having low disassembly scores. Apple, along with Dell and Samsung, also lost a full point for being members of TechNet and the CTA. Lenovo had the second-worst grade with a C-minus. Like Apple, Lenovo had low disassembly scores. It also lost 0.5 points for failing to properly post PDFs explaining the French repair scores for some of its newest laptops sold in the region, as required in France. This is especially noteworthy because Lenovo got an F in last year's report for missing this information on at least 12 laptops. At the time, Lenovo director of communications David Hamilton provided a statement to Ars saying that the missing information was "due to a backend web compatibility issue that temporarily prevented the display of repairability scores on our Lenovo France website" that was "widely resolved." However, it appears that over a year later, Lenovo still isn't providing sufficient information to meet France's requirements "While Lenovo has improved somewhat with their compliance with French consumer law by providing more repair score PDFs on their website, we urge the company to resolve this multi-year issue," this year's report says. PIRG's report concluded that "laptops are pretty stagnant in terms of repairability" across many of the eight most popular laptop brands in the US. However, Proctor noted to Ars that consumers' access to parts, tools, and information that vendors have has improved, but improvements around ease of disassembly "take longer to realize." He also praised vendors' efforts to release more repairable designs, such as Apple's MacBook Neo. For its repairability index, PIRG weighed physical ease of disassembly most heavily, while also considering the availability of repair documentation, spare parts, spare-parts affordability, and other product-specific criteria. It then adjusted company grades by deducting points for membership in trade groups that oppose right-to-repair laws and adding small bonuses for manufacturers that supported right-to-repair legislation. Acer stood out as the only laptop vendor that avoided the 0.5-point trade-group penalty, since it was not listed as a member of TechNet or the Consumer Technology Association.

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Apple Faces 'Massive Dilemma' With Success of the MacBook Neo
Apple may have a supply problem on its hands with the MacBook Neo... The laptop reportedly relies on "binned" A18 Pro chips with one GPU core disabled, and demand is so strong that the supply of those cheaper leftover chips could run out before the next model is ready. That leaves Apple choosing between lower margins, shifting production plans, or changing the lineup to keep its $599 hit product in stock. MacRumors reports: The all-new MacBook Neo has been such a hit that Apple is facing a "massive dilemma," according to Taiwan-based tech columnist and former Bloomberg reporter Tim Culpan. [...] In the latest edition of his Culpium newsletter today, Culpan said the MacBook Neo is selling so well that Apple's supply of the binned A18 Pro chips with a 5-core GPU will "run out" before the company is able to fully satisfy demand for the laptop. Apple's initial plan was to have suppliers build around five to six million MacBook Neo units before ceasing production of the model with the A18 Pro chip, he said, but it sounds like demand is so strong that Apple might run out of A18 Pro chips to put in the MacBook Neo before the second-generation MacBook Neo with an A19 Pro chip is ready next year. Apple is unlikely to mark the MacBook Neo as temporarily sold out, so it may be forced to take action, but profit margins might be affected. A18 Pro chips are manufactured with TSMC's second-generation 3nm process, known as N3E, and Culpan said TSMC's N3E production lines are currently operating at maximum capacity. As a result, he said that Apple may have to pay a premium to restart A18 Pro chip production for the MacBook Neo, which would lower its profit margins. Apple would have to disable a GPU core on these chips to ensure that they have only a 5-core GPU, like all other MacBook Neo units sold to date. Alternatively, Culpan said that Apple could reallocate some of its chip production that was originally planned for other devices, but he said the cost would still be higher than what it paid for its initial batch of A18 Pro chips. Culpan speculated that Apple could also opt to discontinue the $599 model with 256GB of storage, leaving the $699 model with 512GB of storage and a Touch ID button as the only configuration available. This is unlikely to happen any time soon, in our view, given how heavily Apple has been promoting the MacBook Neo's affordability. Apple might also be able to move up the release of a MacBook Neo with the iPhone 17 Pro's A19 Pro chip, but that too would be a costlier option, at least until the company achieves a sufficient stockpile of binned A19 Pro chips with a 5-core GPU. In any case, Apple could opt to keep the starting price of current and future MacBook Neo models at $599 and simply accept lower profit margins on the laptop, especially given that it attracts customers to the macOS and broader Apple ecosystem.

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Anthropic Reveals $30 Billion Run Rate, Plans To Use 3.5GW of New Google AI Chips
Anthropic says its annualized revenue run rate has surpassed $30 billion and disclosed plans to secure roughly 3.5 gigawatts of next-generation Google TPU compute starting in 2027. Broadcom will supply the key chips and networking gear for the effort, the company announced. The Register reports: News of the two deals emerged today in a Broadcom regulatory filing that opens with two items of news. One is a "Long Term Agreement for Broadcom to develop and supply custom Tensor Processing Units ("TPUs") for Google's future generations of TPUs." Google and Broadcom have collaborated to produce custom TPUs. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan recently shared his opinion that hyperscalers don't have the skill to create custom accelerators and predicted Broadcom's chip business will therefore win over $100 billion of revenue from AI chips in 2027 alone. Working on next-gen TPUs for Google will presumably help to make that prediction a reality. So will the second part of Broadcom's announcement: a "Supply Assurance Agreement for Broadcom to supply networking and other components to be used in Google's next-generation AI racks through up to 2031." Broadcom's filing also revealed one user of Google's next-gen TPU will be Anthropic, which starting in 2027, "will access through Broadcom approximately 3.5 gigawatts as part of the multiple gigawatts of next generation TPU-based AI compute capacity committed by Anthropic."

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Teardown of Unreleased LG Rollable Shows Why Rollable Phones Aren't a Thing
A teardown video of LG's never-released Rollable phone helps explain why rollable phones never became a real product category: they were likely too expensive, fragile, and complicated to manufacture at scale. "The complexity of the internals would have made the Rollable extremely expensive to manufacture, and it would have demanded a high price tag," reports Ars Technica. "Durability is also a big concern. There's just a lot going on inside this phone, with multiple motors, springy arms, tracks, and a screen that has to loop around the back. [...] It seems unlikely the LG Rollable could have survived daily use for multiple years." From the report: The LG Rollable is just one of several rollable concept phones that appeared throughout the early 2020s. Flexible OLED screens had finally become affordable, leading to foldable phones like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold. Although, "affordable" is relative here. Foldables were and still are very expensive devices. Based on what we can see of the complex inner workings of the LG Rollable, these devices may have commanded even higher prices. Noted YouTube phone destroyer JerryRigEverything managed to snag a working prototype LG Rollable. It may even be the unit LG demoed at CES 2021. The device looks like a regular phone at first glance, but a quick swipe activates the motor, which unfurls additional screen real estate from around the back. This makes the viewable area about 40 percent larger without the added thickness of a foldable. The device expands with the aid of two tiny motors, which are attached via straight teeth to an internal track. The screen assembly has zipper-like teeth that keep it locked into the frame as it moves. The motors make a surprising amount of noise when operating, so LG designed the phone to play a musical chime to hide the sound. While the motor does the heavy lifting, the phone also has a lattice of articulating spring-loaded arms inside that keep the OLED panel even as the frame slides side to side. The battery and motherboard sit in a tray that allows the back of the phone to expand as the OLED rolls into view. This is a prototype phone, featuring a chunky frame and visible screws. That helped Zack Nelson from JerryRigEverything successfully disassemble and reassemble the phone. So this little bit of mobile history was not destroyed, and the teardown gives us a good look at how LG was hoping to attract new customers before calling it quits.

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'AI' Is Coming For Your Online Gaming Servers Next
"Consumer PC parts aren't the only things being gobbled up by the 'AI' industry," writes PCWorld's Michael Crider. "A Starcraft-inspired strategy game is shutting down its multiplayer servers because the hosting company got bought out for 'AI.'" The game will still be playable offline for now, but the shutdown highlights the ripple effects of the AI boom on the gaming industry. Amid the ongoing hardware shortages, AI companies are basically gobbling up as much infrastructure as they can to repurpose it for AI workloads. From the report: The game in question is Stormgate, a crowdfunded revival of the real-time strategy genre that has languished in the last decade or so. The developer Frost Giant Studios told its players on Discord (spotted by PC Gamer) that it would be unable to continue multiplayer access past the end of this month. The "game server orchestration partner" was bought by an AI company -- the developer's words, not mine -- which means that the multiplayer aspects of the game will have a "planned outage." The devs say the game will be patched for offline play, presumably including its single-player campaign mode and co-op modes, but "online modes will not be available at that point." They're hoping to bring back online play in a later update, but that'll depend on "finding a partner to support ongoing operations." That sounds like old-fashioned player-hosted games with lobbies aren't in the cards, at least not yet. Frost Giant's server provider is Hathora, which was bought by a company called Fireworks AI last month. Fireworks describes its offerings as "open-source AI models at blazing speed, optimized for your use case, scaled globally with the Fireworks Inference Cloud." So, yeah, Hathora's infrastructure will likely be used for yet more generative "AI." And according to GamesBeat, it's planning to shut down the game service aspect of its company completely. That means Stormgate probably isn't going to be the last game affected. Hathora also provides online services for Splitgate 2, among others. I'm contacting Hathora for comment and will update this story if I receive a response.

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Half of Planned US Data Center Builds Have Been Delayed or Canceled
Despite hundreds of billions of dollars in investment, nearly half of planned U.S. data center projects are being delayed or canceled. "One major reason behind these setbacks is the availability of key electrical components -- such as transformers, switchgear, and batteries -- that are used both at data center sites and outside of them," reports Tom's Hardware. "Meanwhile, grid infrastructure is also stressed by electric vehicles and electrified heating systems." Tom's Hardware reports: Approximately 12 gigawatts (12 GW) of data center capacity is expected to come online in the U.S. in 2026, according to data by market intelligence firm Sightline Climate cited by Bloomberg. Yet only about one-third of that capacity is currently under active construction because of various constraints. Electrical infrastructure represents less than 10% of total data center cost, but it is as vital as compute hardware. A delay in any single element of the power chain can halt the entire project, which makes transformers, switchgear, and similar devices critical items despite their relatively small share of CapEx. Due to high demand, lead times for high-power transformers have expanded dramatically in the U.S.: delivery typically took 24 to 30 months before 2020, but waiting periods can stretch to as long as five years today, according to Sightline Climate cited by Bloomberg. For AI data centers, this is a catastrophe as their deployment cycles are under 18 months. To address shortages, companies are turning to global markets. As a result, Canada, Mexico, and South Korea became the biggest suppliers of high-power transformers for AI data centers to AI data centers. At the same time, imports of high-power transformers from China surged from fewer than 1,500 units in 2022 to more than 8,000 units in 2025 through October, according to Wood Mackenzie data cited by Bloomberg. The volatility of exports from China does not end with transformers, as the PRC accounts for over 40% of U.S. battery imports, while its share in certain transformer and switchgear categories remains near 30%, according to Bloomberg.

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Renewables Reached Nearly 50% of Global Electricity Capacity Last Year
Renewables made up nearly half of global installed electricity capacity by the end of 2025, "accounting for 85.6% of global capacity expansion," reports the Register, citing the International Renewable Energy Agency's (IRENA) 2026 Renewable Capacity Statistics report. "Per IRENA's data, that aforementioned 85.6 percent share of new power capacity additions was actually a decrease from 2024, when renewables were about 92 percent of global capacity additions. Yes, the share of total installed power capacity in 2025 rose again, but non-renewable capacity additions also rebounded sharply last year." From the report: Solar, in turn, was the dominant renewable technology, accounting for nearly three-quarters of last year's renewable capacity additions. Those additions totaled 692 GW in 2025, lifting installed renewable capacity by a record 15.5 percent year over year, IRENA noted. By the end of last year, renewables accounted for 49.4 percent of global installed electricity capacity, while variable renewable sources such as solar and wind represented roughly 35 percent of total capacity. For reference, it was only in 2023 that renewable energy sources crossed the threshold of generating 30 percent of the world's electricity.

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Raspberry Pi 4 3GB Launches, Raspberry Pi Prices Go Up Again Due To RAM
AmiMoJo shares a report from Phoronix: Raspberry Pi prices are going up yet again due to the continued memory squeeze on the industry. To help offset the memory prices for some use-cases, Raspberry Pi also announced the introduction of the Raspberry Pi 4 3GB model at $83 to help fill the void between the 2GB and 4GB options. The 3GB Raspberry Pi 4 was announced at $83.75 USD for those not needing quite 4GB of RAM and looking to save some memory given the ongoing price increases. The Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5 4GB models are seeing new $25 price increases, the 8GB models seeing $50 price increases, and the 16GB Raspberry Pi 5 is going up by $100. The Raspberry Pi 500+ is seeing a $150 price increase. The Raspberry Pi Compute Modules are also seeing increases from $11.25 to $100 USD.

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Sony Shuts Down Nearly Its Entire Memory Card Business Due To SSD Shortage
For the "foreseeable future," Sony says it has stopped accepting new orders for most of its CFexpress and SD memory card lines due to the an ongoing memory supply shortage. "Due to the global shortage of semiconductors (memory) and other factors, it is anticipated that supply will not be able to meet demand for CFexpress memory cards and SD memory cards for the foreseeable future," the company said in a notice. "Therefore, we have decided to temporarily suspend the acceptance of orders from our authorized dealers and from customers at the Sony Store from March 27, 2026 onwards. PetaPixel reports: The suspension includes all of Sony's memory card lines, including CFexpress Type A, CFexpress Type B, and SD cards. The 240GB, 480GB, 960GB, and 1920GB capacity Type A cards have been suspended, as have the 480GB and 240GB Type B cards. The full gamut of Sony's high-end SD cards has also been suspended, including the 256GB, 128GB, and 64GB TOUGH-branded cards and the lower-end 512GB, 256GB, 128GB, and 256GB plainly-branded Sony cards, which cap out at V60 speeds. Even Sony's lower-end, V30 128GB and 64GB SD cards have been suspended, showcasing that the SSD shortage affects all types of solid state, not just the high-end ones. It appears that only the 960GB CFexpress Type B card and the lowest-end SF-UZ series SD cards remain in production. However, those UHS-I SD cards are discontinued in the United States outside of a scant few retailers and resellers. "We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our customers," Sony concludes.

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World's Smallest QR Code - Smaller Than Bacteria - Could Store Data for Centuries
"Scientists have created a microscopic QR code so tiny it can only be seen with an electron microscope," reports Science Daily. It's "smaller than most bacteria and now officially a world record." "But this isn't just about size; it's about durability. By engraving data into ultra-stable ceramic materials, the team has opened the door to storing information that could last for centuries or even millennia without needing power or maintenance."Scientists at TU Wien, working with data storage company Cerabyte, produced a QR code measuring just 1.98 square micrometers... officially confirmed and recorded in the Guinness Book of Records... Each pixel measures just 49 nanometers, which is about ten times smaller than the wavelength of visible light. As a result, the pattern is completely invisible under normal conditions and cannot be resolved using visible light. However, when viewed with an electron microscope, the QR code can be clearly and reliably read. The storage capacity is also impressive. More than 2 terabytes of data could fit within the area of a single A4 sheet of paper using this approach... This work points toward a more sustainable future for data storage, where information can be preserved securely for the long term with minimal energy use. "We live in the information age, yet we store our knowledge in media that are astonishingly short-lived," says Alexander Kirnbaue (from the thin film materials science division at Vienna's Tu Wein research university). "With ceramic storage media, we are pursuing a similar approach to that of ancient cultures, whose inscriptions we can still read today..." "We now aim to use other materials, increase writing speeds, and develop scalable manufacturing processes so that ceramic data storage can be used not only in laboratories but also in industrial applications."

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This Friendly Robot Just Installed 100 MW of Solar Power
Utility-scale solar construction... by robots! It's "one of the largest real-world demonstrations," notes Electrek, with 100 MW of capacity installed by the "Maximo" robots from AES, one of the world's top power companies. Maximo uses AI "to automate the heavy lifting of solar panels and accelerate solar installation," according to their web page, which shows a video of Maximo at work installing a vast field of solar panels in Kern County, California. With assistance from Nvidia, the Maximo team could "develop, test and refine robotic capabilities through physics-based simulation and AI driven modeling before deploying updates in the field,"reports Electrek, and they're aiming for a full GW of solar generating capacity:After completing the first half of the Bellefield complex last summer, Maximo engineers went into a higher gear, with the latest version 3.0 robots consistently surpassing an installation rate of one module per minute, with construction crews installing as many as 24 solar panel modules per hour, per person. If that sounds fast, that's because it is. At full tilt, the latest Maximo robot-equipped crews have nearly doubled the output of traditional installation methods at similar solar locations throughout Southern California. "Reaching 100 MW is an important milestone for Maximo and for the role robotics can play in solar construction," explains Chris Shelton, president of Maximo. "It demonstrates that field robotics can move beyond experimentation and deliver consistent results at utility scale. As solar deployment continues to accelerate globally, technologies that improve installation speed, quality and reliability will become increasingly important...." Like just about every other business that demands a high degree of physical labor, the construction industry is facing huge labor shortages, making machines like Maximo that provide real efficiency gains welcome additions to the job site. "The combination of AI, vision, robotics and simulation driven engineering reduced development and validation timelines," the Maximo team said in a statement, "and increased confidence in field performance as the robotic fleet scaled."

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Sony is Raising PlayStation 5 Prices Again, Between $100 and $150
Memory and storage shortages and price hikes have "steadily rippled outward across all kinds of consumer tech," reports Ars Technica. "Today's bad news comes from Sony, which is raising prices for PlayStation 5 consoles in the US just eight months after their last price hike."The drive-less Digital Edition will increase from $500 to $600; the base PS5 with an optical drive will increase from $550 to $650; and the PS5 Pro is going up from $750 to a whopping $900. At the beginning of 2025, these consoles cost $450, $500, and $700, respectively... RAM and flash memory chips are in short supply primarily because of demand from AI data centers — memory manufacturers have shifted more production toward making the kind of memory found in AI accelerators like Nvidia's H200, leaving less for the consumer market. And the situation is unlikely to improve any time soon, barring a major shift in demand from the AI industry.

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NASA's First Nuclear-Powered Interplanetary Spacecraft Will Send Helicopters to Mars in 2028
After decades of studying, this week NASA announced "a major step forward in bringing nuclear power and propulsion from the lab to space."NASA will launch the Space Reactor-1 Freedom, the first nuclear powered interplanetary spacecraft, to Mars before the end of 2028, demonstrating advanced nuclear electric propulsion in deep space. Nuclear electric propulsion provides an extraordinary capability for efficient mass transport in deep space and enables high power missions beyond Jupiter where solar arrays are not effective. Steven Sinacore, NASA's program executive for Fission Surface Power who will also oversee the SR-1 Freedom mission, emphasized to CNN that "On the ground the reactor is off. There's no radiation coming from it. It doesn't actually turn on until you're up in space, and that's where the radiation comes from." NASA says they aim to develop the capabilities required "for sustained exploration beyond the Moon and eventual journeys to Mars and the outer solar system." And Space Reactor-1 Freedom will carry a fleet of tiny helicopters (much like Ingenuity) to explore Mars, reports Space.com: Whereas Ingenuity was a technology demonstrator, however, the Skyfall fleet will have concrete tasks. Chief among them is scout: If all goes to plan, the little choppers will help NASA assess the potential of their target area (wherever that happens to be) to support human exploration. The Skyfall helicopters will carry cameras and ground-penetrating radar to scout a future landing site, to understand the slopes and hazards for human-scale landers," Steve Sinacore, the program executive for NASA's Space Reactors Office, said during the briefing. "They will also map and characterize the subsurface water ice to find out where the water ice deposits are, along with the size, depth and other important characteristics," he added... And that might not be the end of the line for SR-1 Freedom; NASA may decide to keep flying the spacecraft out into the solar system after it deploys the Skyfall choppers, according to Sinacore. The mission architecture, like much of NASA's exploration portfolio, is not yet finalized.

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Apple Discontinues Mac Pro
Apple has discontinued the Mac Pro and says it has no plans for future models. "The 'buy' page on Apple's website for the Mac Pro now redirects to the Mac's homepage, where all references have been removed," reports 9to5Mac. From the report: The Mac Pro has lived many lives over the years. Apple released the current Mac Pro industrial design in 2019 alongside the Pro Display XDR (which was also discontinued earlier this month). That version of the Mac Pro was powered by Intel, and Apple refreshed it with the M2 Ultra chip in June 2023. It has gone without an update since then, languishing at its $6,999 price point even as Apple debuted the M3 Ultra chip in the Mac Studio last year.

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