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• MSI has announced a Mini-ITX compatible RTX 3000 series GPU

  MSI is set to launch a Mini-ITX compatible RTX 3060 TI, perfect for compact gaming PC builds.

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• 'Taking a break' from Instagram isn't as easy as Facebook says

  Instagram is set to start nudging teenagers to "take a break" from the social media platform, in a small acknowledgement of the psychological impact the Facebook-owned app can have on young people.

  The app is set to add a number of new features designed to assist negatively-affected users, which Facebook's VP of Global Affairs Nick Clegg said should make "a considerable difference" in an interview on CNN.

  Clegg clarified that Instagram would "nudge" users to look at different content if they were "looking at the same content over and over again, and it's content which may not be conducive to their well being" – as well as even asking younger users to step away from the platform temporarily where needed.

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  It's something of a turnaround for Facebook, which has now paused its plans for a child-focused version of Instagram, in the wake of whistleblower Frances Haugen – who blew the lid off internal Facebook research around Instagram's impact on teens' mental health, and which wasn't acted on until now.

  Leaked documents given to The Wall Street Journal cited presentation slides claiming that “Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse," and that "Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression. This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups."

  That's a sizeable number, and it being Facebook's own research makes it even more damning.

  Facebook's reckoning

  While Facebook's prospective nudges could have an impact, they also pale in comparison to the scale of the problem, or the built-in incentives towards 'doomscrolling' endlessly through news feeds – which were designed to use the same 'pull down' mechanic as Las Vegas slot machines.

  Even asking teens to take a break is limited in its usefulness. The problem is that social media apps are often construed as how we take a break – from our work monitors, our chatting peers, our arguing relatives, the boredom of waiting for a bus. It's a permanently-available distraction, and pushing for teens to 'take a break' now and again, while a necessary step, can't fully counteract this problem by itself.

  It's similar to advertisements to tell people to stop gambling 'when the fun stops': the addictive nature of something makes even leaving at the point of distress very difficult.

  Back in May 2021, Instagram introduced a way to hide like counts entirely – and we're going to need more instances like these of the service critically assessing its own mechanisms, and truly reckoning with its impact on the mental health of teens, rather than simply suggesting users close the app every once in a while.

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• One group of hackers is responsible for zero-day attacks across Windows, iOS and Android

  Researchers believe the group is responsible for at least 11 zero-day attacks in the last 12 months alone.

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• Intel CPUs are clawing back sales as AMD seemingly stalls

  Intel is making serious headway in the desktop CPU market, going by some fresh evidence from two separate sources.

  As VideoCardz highlights, these are stats pertaining to buyers of standalone desktop CPUs in Japan, and also the breakdown of processor share obtained from PassMark (the popular benchmarking software).

  Let’s start with PassMark, which compiles stats based on the systems using its benchmarking tools, and in the CPU category, has found that in recent times, Intel has been surging upwards.

  To be precise, in Q3 and Q4 of last year, Intel’s share of CPUs has increased from around 50% to almost 60%, a pretty big swing in Team Blue’s favor for the second half of 2021, as PassMark pointed out on Twitter.

  Note that those stats are for all desktop PCs, of course, whereas the second batch of figures is for DIY sales only (standalone CPUs, not prebuilt machines), and comes from Japan.

  Going by the analysis of the Japanese market as carried out by BCNR, Intel desktop processor sales have been on the rise since mid-2021 (again), with sales of Core i5 CPUs booming in particular, and also Core i7 models up fairly strongly, with a marked decline in AMD’s sales powerhouse which is Ryzen 5 chips.

  Earlier in 2020, Ryzen 5 sales in Japan crested over 40% market share (briefly), but have since sunk to just 12.6% of the market in January 2022, with Core i5 processors from Intel surging to 35.7% in the same month (and Core i7 hitting 25%).

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  Analysis: Is AMD set to stagnate further near-term, losing more share to Intel?

  Both these sets of figures show that from mid-2021 – or actually, slightly earlier than that in Japan – Intel has witnessed a marked increase in CPU market share. Of course, even two separate sources are hardly representative of the whole desktop processor market (remember, the Japan stats apply to standalone or DIY sales only), but we have seen Intel making progress elsewhere.

  For example, German retailer MindFactory showed Intel hitting a 30% CPU share in November 2021, the highest level seen all year (previously, Team Blue had only managed to secure a 25% share at best for CPU sales from this retail outlet). Alder Lake certainly made a difference in those figures, and is no doubt at least part of the reason for the gains seen in the two reports we talked about above – the new hybrid tech-toting processors have been well-received on the whole.

  AMD may also have been slipping due to its own issues with supply and production of processors, and the lack of any fresh Ryzen blood for a good long time now. All we’ve had is a reveal of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D as a stopgap chip, and rumor has it that even this single processor could be very thin on the ground when it launches (we’re not even sure when that’ll be, either).

  The danger for AMD is that it just stagnates and Intel carves even further into its desktop CPU territory. And to top all this off, there’s the threat of Intel getting next-gen Raptor Lake chips out in good time later this year – maybe in September, and potentially before AMD’s Zen 4 CPUs arrive, which would be even more damaging for Team Red’s sales. No wonder some other speculation holds that AMD is really trying to ramp up the launch schedule for Zen 4.

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