Daily Tech News 2 January 2022

Top Story

• Microsoft has been working hard to deliver a New Year gift to sysadmins: A Y2.022K bug. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Microsoft codes their spam filter updates with a number made up of the date and time (hour and minute) the update was released. For example, 2112311200 for an update released on mid-day New Year's Eve.
  
  That's fine and perfectly workable except that they store it in a signed 32-bit integer. A 32-bit integer can only really store 9 digits and that's a 10 digit number. The maximum value is around 2147000000 which means that as soon as the first spam filter update of the new year was released, Exchange Server stopped delivering email.
  
  Didn't quite think this all the way through, eh guys?

Questions and Answers

• From Mrs Peel: Where can I get a SMALL android phone? I currently have a Sony Xperia Z2 compact.
  
  It's a good question. Android phones seem to have all settled on 6.5" as the optimal screen size; there's very little variation. The Asus Zenfone 8 at 5.9" is one of the smallest but it's not cheap. (Android Central)
  
  The other option is one of the new flip phones like the Motorola Razr or the Samsung Galazy Z Fold. These still have large screens but they fold in half. Of course that isn't cheap either.
  
  Microsoft's Surface Duo 2 has a 5.8" screen - two of them in fact - but it makes the other models I just mentioned look cheap.
  
  The iPhone 13 mini has a 5.4" screen but again, not at all cheap, and also not Android.
  
  Drop questions in the comments on Saturday and I'll attempt to answer them on Sunday.

• Intel is killing AVX-512 support on Alder Lake CPUs. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  AVX-512 makes some operations twice as fast by processing 512 bits at a time instead of 256. The name actually makes sense.
  
  So Intel is going to remove it because we can't have nice things.
  
  
  
• AMD is expected to announce 6nm Ryzen 6000 and Radeon 6000 laptop CPUs and GPUs at CES in a couple of days. (WCCFTech)
  
  And when I say "at CES" I mean "not at CES" because Bat Flu again.
  
  
  
• Asus has teased a new tablet - the Flow Z13 - based on the Ryzen 6000, making it the fastest tablet around by a substantial margin. (WCCFTech)
  
  It looks like a 3:2 display, which is good, and lacks the Four Essential Keys, which is not really a surprise in a tablet keyboard. You can at least carry a third-party Bluetooth keyboard instead.
  
  
  
• Speaking of tablet teasers, Lenovo is bringing out a new high-end 8.8" tablet, the Legion Y700. (TechRadar)
  
  Not much detail yet except for a 120Hz refresh rate, and possibly Qualcomm's latest chipset and 8GB of RAM. Don't expect this one to be cheap either, but given the paucity of small Android tablets at all, I'm prepared to at least consider it.
  
  
  
• In an unexpected attack of common sense the EU is considering certifying natural gas and nuclear power plants as "green". (Reuters)
  
  Natural gas does of course produce CO2, but the ratio of CO2 to energy produced is the lowest of any fossil fuel. The US met - exceeded - its greenhouse goals in large part by switching power production to natural gas. It's also much cleaner than coal by all other measures.
  
  
  
• Accidentally losing hundreds of millions of dollars: Not just for blockchain anymore. (CNBC)
  
  Santander Bank sent a total of $176 million to 75,000 accounts when they processed payments twice.
  
  Idempotency-Key headers, guys.
  
  
  
• Inside China's vast spying-and-lying network. (Washington Post / MSN)
  
  I honestly don't know why they bother. The MSM will do this for free.