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What we learned this year about how to avoid a climate catastrophe

COP26 was not a fist-in-the-air moment, and not the victory against climate change that humanity had been banking on. Sadly, politics and commerce put a hard thumb on proceedings, limiting the action possible. Commitments to “phase down” coal, rather than a firm pledge to eliminate it outright, show how far we still have to go. But the event also served to highlight the extent of what needs to be done if humanity’s going to survive beyond the next century.

One “victory” out of the event was the belief that ensuring global warming held at 1.5 degrees was still possible. It’s worth saying, however, that 1.5 degrees isn’t a target to meet so much as an acceptance of impending disaster. In October, the IPCC explained that such a temperature increase will cause significant upticks in the frequency of extreme heat waves, monsoon-like rainfall and widespread droughts. Extreme weather events that may have taken place once every 50 years a few centuries ago could become a regular, and fatal, occurrence.

All the while, the facts of the matter are unchanged: Humanity needs to avoid adding new carbon emissions while also tackling those we’ve already emitted. That means an aggressive reduction of every man-made carbon-emitting process everywhere on Earth, the total reformation of agriculture and an unprecedented rollout of carbon capture and storage technology. And, ideally, that process should have begun the better part of two decades ago.

There are many dispiriting facts about the world, but one that always hurts is the fact that coal plants are still being greenlit. Global Energy Monitor’s data has plants currently being permitted or under construction in (deep breath) China, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Mongolia, Vietnam, Singapore, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico. As Reuters says, each plant will be expected to run for at least 40 years, severely damaging efforts to go Carbon Negative. Not only is it in everyone’s best interest that these plants don’t go online, but wealthier nations have a moral obligation to help provide the funding to help at least some of those names move toward clean energy.

Tunvarat Pruksachat via Getty Images

The problem is that electricity is going to be the most important resource of the 21st century, especially if we’re going to tackle climate change. Many key technologies, like transportation, will ditch fossil fuels in favor of electricity as their primary source of fuel. The world’s demand for energy is going to increase, and we’re going to need to generate that power cleanly. The US Center for Climate and Energy Solutions believes that, by 2050, the world’s power needs will jump by 24 percent. So where will we get all of this clean power from?

Fusion has, forever, been held up as a magic bullet that will totally eradicate our worries about energy generation. Unlike Nuclear Fission, it produces little waste, requires little raw fuel and can’t produce a runaway reaction. Unfortunately, Fusion remains as elusive as The Venus de Milo’s arms or a good new Duke Nukem game. ITER, the internationally-funded, French-built experimental reactor won’t be finished until 2025 at the earliest and is still just a testbed. If successful — and that’s a big if — we’re still a decade away from any serious progress being made, at which point mass decarbonization will already need to be well underway.

That means any power decarbonization will have to come from the renewable technology that’s available to us today. Nuclear, Wind, Solar, Geothermal and Tidal power all need to be ramped up to fill in the gap, but the scale of the task in the US alone is staggering. According to the EIA, the US generated just short of 2,500 billion kWh using fossil fuels in 2020. If you wanted to, for instance, replace all of that with nuclear power, you’d need to build anything in the region of 300 reactors, or increase the number of solar panels installed in the US by roughly a hundred percent — and that’s before we talk about intermittency.

James Trew / Engadget

One thing we can do, however, is to reduce our demand for energy to lessen the need for such a dramatic shift. That can be, for instance, as easy as better insulating your home (in cold climates) or improving the efficiency of AC systems (in warm climates). Another smart move is to ditch the car in favor of public transportation, walking, or getting on your bike. There is evidence that e-bike adoption is becoming a big deal, with Forbes saying that sales are tipped to grow from just under 4 million annually in 2020 to close to 17 million by 2030.

None of this, however, will matter much unless we can also find a way to pay off the debts humanity has racked up over the last century. The IPCC believes that we need to extract up to one trillion tonnes of atmospheric CO2 in the near future. This can be done with massive tree planting works, more of which needs to be done, but also this process may need a little help.

That’s why a number of startups have been working on industrial processes to extract CO2 from the atmosphere. Right now, such a process is very expensive, but it’s hoped that as the technology improves, the cost will start to tumble. There’s also a concern, of course, that running schemes like this will give polluting companies and nations a free license to avoid reform.

As much as we can hope that this technology matures quickly, the rate of progress needs to get a lot faster a, uh, lot faster. For instance, Climeworks’ Orca, its new flagship carbon capture plant in Iceland, will extract 4,000 tons of CO2 per year. If we’re going to reach the point where we can avert a climate catastrophe using extraction alone, we’ll need this capacity to increase by about a hundred million times.

The point of this is, broadly speaking, to outline how much more sharply our attitudes toward the climate need to shift. If we’re going to succeed at defeating climate change then we’re going to need to go onto the sort of war footing – where resources are devoted to nothing but solving the crisis – that few can ever imagine undertaking. But, as most of the resources point out, the only way that we’re going to stave off the damage after dragging our feet for so long is to go all-out in search of a solution.

'Star Trek: Discovery' finally embraces standalone storytelling in its fourth season

The following contains minor spoilers for season four, episode six of 'Star Trek: Discovery' (and vague discussion of episode seven).

There’s a bit of a trend or tradition among Star Trek shows, starting with The Next Generation. Somewhere around season three or four the show finds its way and actually becomes good, if not great. This isn’t a phenomenon limited to Trek, of course, but only Trek has a specific name for it: growing the beard. This is in reference to commanders William Riker and Benjamin Sisko, who both started their respective shows clean-shaven but grew beards around the time The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine got noticeably better. And Discovery might finally be ready to do its own metamorphosis, but instead of a beard it’s a change of format that has fans talking.

One of the complaints about Discovery’s first three seasons — besides the grimdark tone, the infallibility of Michael Burnham and all the crying — was that it largely embraced a more serial format, where each episode was another installment in one long ongoing storyline. Sure, there were occasional one-off adventures, but each episode was still firmly focused on the larger story.

CBS

Season four started off in the same manner, with the season premiere and second episode dedicated to setting up the new status quo of rebuilding the United Federation of Planets and introducing this season’s big threat: the Dark Matter Anomaly (DMA). However, unlike previous seasons where each episode would have been focused on one step toward finding a solution, the problem-solving has taken a back seat to a largely standalone A-plot.

The shift could be first seen in episode three, where Burnham and her crew are tasked with tracking down a rogue member of the Qowat Milat (as I described them to my editor: ninja nuns). The DMA is more of a C-plot in this episode, with the B-plot position occupied by the story of Gray Tal and his new android body. Episode four was Tilly trying to train and keep a group of Starfleet cadets alive (in a plot reminiscent of Voyager episodes ‘Learning Curve’ and ‘Good Shepherd’). Episode five saw the crew tasked with evacuating a planet threatened by the DMA. The anomaly may have been the instigating force in the episode, but it was in fact interchangeable with pretty much any other planetary threat since the episode was focused more on Michael’s struggle to free six prisoners on the surface.

CBS

This week’s episode finds Discovery traveling into a subspace rift created by the DMA and becoming stranded, with the ship’s newly sentient AI Zora unable to lead the crew to safety. However, while the anomaly is once again the cause of Discovery’s problems it’s also, once again, an interchangeable threat. The real drive of the episode is the problem-solving to get the crew out, and the personal struggles of characters like Zora and Cleveland Booker.

Next week will bring the Dark Matter Anomaly back to the forefront, but that’s only logical since the seventh episode marks the rough midpoint of the 13-episode season as well as the end of our calendar year. It’s not unusual for many television shows to use this time to “check in” on their major storylines and advance those plots to the next phase. But it is unusual for Discovery in that it doesn’t represent as clean a divide as in previous seasons: season one went from the Klingon War to the Mirror Universe, season two went from the mystery of the Red Angel to battling the evil AI Control. Next week’s episode represents a smoother transition than previously.

CBS

That smoothness is mostly due to the fact that the ongoing storyline hasn’t been given as much time to openly flourish, instead bubbling in the background while the show instead focuses on character-building single-shot adventures. Standalone episodes might feel outdated in an era of streaming and binging, where viewers can get their answers right away so there’s no need to make each individual chapter feel “complete.” There’s no chance to become unsatisfied by the content of an episode when the next one is merely seconds away. Even shows that premiere week by week have fallen into the trap, assuming that most viewers will binge the show later on anyway, with only the diehards watching each installment as it drops.

But for most of its existence at this point, Star Trek has been a franchise for the die-hards. The people who can’t wait for the next episode, the people who will read and write recaps on their favorite pop culture sites and those who share theories on social media. Paramount+ has put a lot of its chips on the strength of this die-hard base, stacking its production schedule with five different Star Trek shows that rarely overlap, meaning a fan who wants to see everything as soon as possible will need to maintain their Paramount+ subscription all-year-round.

CBS

While fan complaints may have played a big role in Discovery’s decision to switch to a more episodic format, it’s likely that the desire to keep fans on the hook for the show’s entire run played an even bigger part. When Discovery was the only Star Trek show, and one of the few Paramount+ offerings period, it was common for viewers to only sign up for a subscription when they wanted to binge something — sometimes even within the free week the service offers to new customers. Shows like Lower Decks, Prodigy and the upcoming Strange New Worlds already operate with a more episodic format, meaning Discovery could have created a “hole” in an ongoing subscription for viewers, a chance for them to take a break from Star Trek and from paying $6 a month.

With an episodic show it’s a lot harder to ignore it while it’s running; each episode represents a complete viewing experience, making the wait between episodes less excruciating. And when Discovery encounters new worlds and new adventures every week, it gives the fans something new to talk about, instead of rehashing the same old theories about the ongoing storyline again and again until the season ends. Star Trek was just made for episodic viewing, and embracing the format will make it easier for Discovery to hold fan interest over time.

Amazon iPad sales drop the prices of Apple's latest WiFi and cellular models

Amazon is giving you the chance to grab some of Apple's latest iPad models at a discount before the year ends. Both the WiFi version and the cellular version of the basic iPad released just this September are now being sold at the lowest prices we've seen for the devices on the website. You can get the 256GB WiFi model for $449, which is $30 lower than its original retail price of $479. If you want a tablet with mobile data, you can get the 2021 iPad with WiFi and cellular for $580 instead — that's $29 less than the device's original price of $609. 

Buy 2021 Apple 10.2-inch iPad (Wi-Fi, 256GB) at Amazon - $449Buy 2021 Apple 10.2-inch iPad (Wi-Fi + Cellular, 256GB) at Amazon - $580

The tablet's 64GB model is on sale, as well. You can grab the WiFi-only variant with smaller storage space for $320. While the device isn't exactly deeply discounted, that's still $9 off a tablet you may have been planning to get anyway. The 64GB 2021 iPad with WiFi and cellular connections will set you back $449 on Amazon right now, which is $10 less what it will cost you on the Apple Store itself.

Buy 2021 Apple 10.2-inch iPad (Wi-Fi + Cellular, 64GB) at Amazon - $449

We gave the basic 2021 iPad a score of 86 in our review, where we praised it for being affordable, now made even more so with these deals. While it doesn't come with a big redesign, it has double the storage space of its predecessors. We found its A13 Bionic powerful enough for multitasking standard use cases, like browsing the web, playing games or watching videos, without lagging or showing any kind of significant issue. The device has a new 12-megapixel front-facing camera that's identical to the one found on the more expensive iPad mini, as well.

Speaking of the iPad mini, its 64GB cellular model is also at an all-time low of $629. That's $20 less than the device's retail price, so it may be time to grab one if you've been considering a smaller tablet for your needs. We praised the 2021 iPad mini in our review for its significant redesign, including an all-screen front, TouchID-capable top button, second-generation Apple Pencil support and USB-C charging capability.

Buy 2021 Apple iPad Mini (Wi-Fi + Cellular, 64GB) at Amazon - $629

Amazon workers in New York make another attempt at forming a union

Former and current warehouse workers at JFK8, Amazon's fulfillment center in Staten Island, New York, have refiled an application to hold a vote on unionization. The workers originally filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board back in November, but they had to withdraw it after failing to gather enough signatures to be approved. This time, the organizers were reportedly able to gather over 2,500 worker signatures or half of the 5,000 people employed at the facility.

The workers are hoping to form the Amazon Labor Union, which will be an independent group that's not connected to any major national union. One of their lead organizers is Christian Smalls who led a walkout at JFK8 over the e-commerce giant's handling of COVID safety at the warehouse. Amazon fired Smalls after that, telling CNBC that he "received multiple warnings for violating social distancing guidelines." Even so, Smalls is still very much involved in the facility's renewed efforts to unionize. In an email to The Washington Post, he referenced what happened at Amazon's Bessemer warehouse, saying that "long drawn-out voting processes are controlled by the bosses who use that period to lie to, intimidate and threaten the workers into voting no for the union."

Majority of the workers at the company's Bessemer, Alabama facility voted against unionization back in April. However, the election was fraught with controversy, with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) — the union the workers were supposed to join — accusing Amazon of interfering with the elections. One of the main issues they pointed out was that the company installed the ballot box in front of the warehouse and in view of security cameras, making workers feel as if their votes were being monitored. After looking into the RWDSU's complaint, the NLRB ordered Amazon to hold another vote. 

Amazon has been adamantly opposed to its workers joining unions. When the people at JFK8 first filed a petition to unionize, the e-commerce giant told Engadget in a statement:

"As a company, we don’t think unions are the best answer for our employees. Every day we empower people to find ways to improve their jobs, and when they do that we want to make those changes — quickly. That type of continuous improvement is harder to do quickly and nimbly with unions in the middle. The benefits of direct relationships between managers and employees can’t be overstated — these relationships allow every employee’s voice to be heard, not just the voices of a select few. We’ve made great progress in recent years and months in important areas like pay and safety. There are plenty of things that we can keep doing better, and that's our focus — to keep getting better every day."

The NLRB has confirmed to The Post that it received the group's petition and would be reviewing signatures over the coming days.

The Morning After: A smartphone that feels like paper?

Realme, the sister brand of Oppo and OnePlus, has revealed its new flagship GT 2 Pro, and the most notable feature may not be a tech spec, but literally how it feels. The body of the phone uses an eco-friendly bio-polymer material on its back cover. It’s made from paper pulp, and it has obtained International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (or ISCC in short) as proof of its environmental bonafides.

Realme

Apparently, this adds a satisfying paper feel to the GT 2 Pro, which Realme is calling "Paper Tech Master Design,” tapping Muji and Infobar series designer Naoto Fukasawa for his input. For now, the phone launches in China on January 4th, 2022, with the device eventually going overseas later next year.

-Mat Smith

A ‘robot lawyer’ could help you get unbanned from social media

The service is meant to help people who were wrongly suspended from their accounts.

When users are wrongfully suspended from their social media accounts, it’s difficult to figure out how to regain access. Now, the “robot lawyer” company DoNotPay, which offers automated legal services, has a new feature: getting social media accounts unbanned.

It’s an alternative to emailing companies’ help center bots or appeals that may never get answered. Instead, DoNotPay asks users for information about what happened to them, and sends a letter to the relevant company’s legal department on their behalf.

Continue reading.

LG Display’s concept bike makes your Peloton look like a toy

It’s got several OLED concepts ready for CES 2022.

LG Display

This is the “Virtual Ride” stationary bike. It features three vertical 55-inch OLED displays that form one continuous screen in front and above the rider. The topmost panel has a 500R curvature radius. According to LG Display, that’s the most extreme curve in a large screen to date. No word on whether it has a pause button.

Continue reading.

FDA authorizes Pfizer's Covid antiviral pill for people 12 and older

The Paxlovid treatment could be available within a few days.

The FDA has issued emergency authorization for Pfizer's antiviral pill Paxlovid, making it the first oral method for treating mild to moderate cases of COVID-19. The treatment is meant for high-risk people 12 and older who could progress to a more serious COVID infection. Paxlovid will be available by prescription only, and is meant to be taken within five days of first noticing COVID symptoms.

According to Pfizer's tests, it can reduce hospitalization or death by 88 percent in high-risk patients. The treatment, which can be prescribed to both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, consists of 30 pills taken over five days. So far, the US has ordered enough pills to treat 10 million people.

Continue reading.

Square Enix sharpens up Final Fantasy 14's blocky grapes

The low-poly fruit became a meme.

Square Enix

Square Enix has rolled out the first Final Fantasy XIV patch after the ultra-popular Endwalker expansion arrived in November. Along with adding more quests, items and a raid dungeon, the update addressed various issues. One of those was a so-called bug fix that targeted some delightfully janky-looking grapes. Just don’t expect them to suddenly look photo-realistic.

Continue reading.

The OnePlus 10 Pro will be revealed in January

Rumors suggest the device will be the only model in the 10-series lineup.

OnePlus is gearing up to show off its next smartphone, and it seems we won't have to wait long to get our eyes on it. It will reveal the OnePlus 10 Pro next month, according to co-founder and CEO Pete Lau, who wrote “OnePlus 10 Pro, see you in January," on Weibo. Rumors suggest OnePlus will only reveal a single phone this time around, instead of the usual approach of having a base model and a pro device. Leakers have already offered a peek at what the phone may look like, with several unofficial renders. It seems OnePlus will again use Hasselblad cameras, while the OnePlus 10 Pro screen is slated to be a 6.7-inch QHD+ display with a 120Hz refresh rate.

Continue reading.

Tesla under investigation for 'Passenger Play' gaming feature

The NHTSA is looking into how games being played while the car's moving may distract drivers.

Tesla came under fire earlier this month following reports that certain games are playable on dashboard infotainment systems while an EV is in motion. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now investigating Tesla over the so-called "Passenger Play" function. While the feature prompts players to acknowledge they're a passenger before they start a game, the NHTSA said Passenger Play "may distract the driver and increase the risk of a crash." Before the summer, Passenger Play was only available when the EV was in park.

Continue reading. 

 

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What to watch over the 2021 holidays

Google disables 'Hold for Me' feature on the Pixel 6 following buggy update

Last year, Google introduced an exclusive feature for Pixel devices called "Hold for Me" that can alert you when a business finally picks up your call. However, that function has been temporarily disabled on the Pixel 6 due to a bug in the December update, XDA Developers has reported. Pixel 6 owners may also lose the Call Screening tool that stops robocallers from ringing your phone, Google said in a community post. 

"In light of a bug in the December Android update, we are disabling Hold For Me and Call Screening on Pixel 6 devices running on the Android S December QPR release," the company wrote. The issue only affects Pixel 6 phones with the latest December 2021 security update, and not any older devices. If you haven't yet received the update, you should continue to have access to those features. 

Hold for Me started as a US exclusive feature but was recently expanded to Canada, as XDA Developers noted. It uses Google's Duplex technology AI to detect when a real person comes on the line to take your call, sparing you the pain of listening to looped elevator music or pre-recorded messages. Google's Call Screening tech also uses Duplex AI tech, which launched with the promise of automatically making restaurant reservations for you. 

Apple Watch Series 7 falls to a new low of $339 at Amazon

With features like a bigger screen and faster charging, Apple's Watch Series 7 is a great gift idea — but the $399 price tag could be hard to swallow. However, you can now pick up the 41mm model (in green only) at a new all-time low of $339 at Amazon, for a savings of $60 or 15 percent off. 

Buy Apple Watch Series 7 at Amazon - $339

The Watch Series 7 brings a subtle new design with a larger screen that makes a big difference for readability and control. It's more sporty thanks to new IP6X dust-resistance and improved crack-resistance, and offers faster charging if you tend to use it a lot — even for sleep tracking. As with past models, you get a strong watchOS 8 app ecosystem and solid health features like sleep-tracking and ECG measurements. 

It can also monitor your respiration rate while you sleep, and it comes with exclusive watch faces, larger font sizes/buttons and a Qwerty keyboard. The main drawback is with the sleep tracking. Unlike devices from Fitbit and Samsung, the Watch Series 7 can't detect what sleep zone you're in, for one thing. And it won't detect when you've fallen asleep, so you'll need to make sure you have the Sleep Focus mode to log your slumber. 

Still, Apple's Watch is the best selling smartwatch by far for good reason, and as the latest model, the Series 7 is the benchmark. With $60 off the price, there's never been a better time to get one.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Samsung's 2022 TVs and monitors will support its new HDR10+ Gaming standard

Samsung's 2022 televisions and monitors will support its recently unveiled HDR10+ Gaming standard, the company announced. That means they'll deliver a variety of features for gamers like variable refresh rates (VRR) at up to 120Hz and automatic HDR color correction on a game-by-game basis. 

The standard will be used by Samsung's 2022 Neo QLED lineup with the Q70 TV series and above, along with gaming monitors, the company said. It didn't mention any models, but it showed a wide-screen gaming display (below) and what could be a 2022 Neo QLED TV with very slim bezels. 

Samsung

HDR10+ Gaming slipped under the radar when it was first announced, but it appears to be a move to counter Dolby Vision HDR for gaming found on Xbox Series X/S consoles. It provides a "consistent HDR gaming experience without the need for manual calibration across a variety of display technologies for various input sources, including consoles, PCs and more," Samsung said.

The idea with HDR10+ Gaming is that you won't need to use any manual settings, as the game engine itself automatically optimizes color calibration in real-time. It's designed to deliver details in dark shadows and highlights, while configuring the display to a "true reference mode" so colors are displayed as intended by the developer. It also supports VRR at up to 120Hz along with tone mapping that won't add any extra latency to the gaming signal.

As with HDR10+, however, the challenge for Samsung is getting developers to adopt the standard for games. Dolby Vision gaming is already available or is coming to over 100 games on Xbox Series X/S, so Samsung has some catching up to do. It did say that "several companies, including Saber Interactive, are expected to showcase their HDR10+ Gaming titles" at CES 2022 (if it takes place). 

Samsung could make some headway with PC gaming, however, as Dolby Vision is only available on a handful of PC titles. To help pave the way for HDR10+ PC games, Samsung said that NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series, RTX 20 Series and GTX 16 Series GPUs will support HDR10+ with drivers "scheduled for release in 2022." 

Apple closes more stores due to surge in COVID-19 cases

A bunch of Apple Stores across the US and Canada won't be able to cater to customers' last-minute holiday shopping. According to Bloomberg, the tech giant temporarily shut down eight locations due to a surge in COVID-19 cases both among the public and among its employees. Apple typically shutters a retail store if around 10 percent of its employees had tested positive for COVID-19, the news agency said. 

The following locations have been closed since Tuesday:

  • Dadeland in Miami

  • The Gardens Mall in Palm Beach

  • Lenox Square in Atlanta

  • Cumberland Mall in Atlanta

  • Highland Village in Houston

  • Summit Mall in Ohio

  • Pheasant Lane in New Hampshire

  • Sainte-Catherine in Montreal

The company also shut down stores in Hawaii, Maryland, Ohio, Ottawa (Canada) and Texas earlier this month, though it only lasted for a few days. One of its retail locations in Miami, however, remains shuttered. The company told Bloomberg in a statement: "We regularly monitor conditions, and we will adjust our health measures to support the well-being of customers and employees. We remain committed to a comprehensive approach for our teams that combines regular testing with daily health checks, employee and customer masking, deep cleaning and paid sick leave."

Perhaps in an effort to persuade people to shop online instead, Apple is offering customers "free two-hour courier delivery on eligible in-stock items." The offer doesn't apply to "customized Mac, engraved products and... certain order types including orders paid for with financing or by bank transfer." But so long as the product is eligible and available — it's the holidays and companies are still struggling from component shortages, so availability will most likely be limited — buyers can get their orders delivered for free if they order before 12PM on December 24th.

Apple had taken other steps earlier this month following the rise in cases and the emergence of the Omicron variant. It had chosen to delay its return-to-office plans, which were slated to begin in February, and reinstated mask requirements across all its stores in the US.

Samsung teases a PCI 5.0 SSD that can hit 13,000 MB/s read speeds

Samsung has teased a PCIe 5.0 SSD showing that storage products should keep doubling in speed every few years, even while Moore's Law is decelerating. Designed for enterprise servers, the PM1743 SSD can hit read speeds of up to 13,000 MB/s and handle 2,500K input/output operations per second (IOPS) — nearly double what the best PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives can do. 

PCIe 5.0 supports up to 32 gigatransfers per second (GT/s), double that of PCIe 4.0. To harness that bandwidth, Samsung developed a proprietary controller and worked with Intel to test it. "Together, we have jointly resolved complicated technical issues encountered with PCIe 5.0 during this initial evaluation period," said Intel's Technology Initiatives Director Jim Pappas.

The SSD delivers sequential write speeds of 6,600 MB/s and a random write speed of 250K IOPS, again nearly doubling current specs. It also offers improved power efficiency of up to 30 percent. "This is expected to lower server and data center operating costs significantly, while also helping to reduce their carbon footprint," Samsung wrote. 

While PCIe 5.0 is now inevitable, the next version isn't far behind, either. The PCI Special Interest Group has already unveiled a PCI Express 6.0 specification that could hit up to a blistering 256GB per second across 16 lanes — twice as fast as PCIe 5.0 and four times quicker than the 4.0 spec. However, that format will need to use a new trick called Pulse Amplitude Modulation technology that can carry twice as much data as existing methods without the need to use ridiculously high frequencies.

Samsung is now sampling the PM1743 PCIe 5.0 SSD for select customers and has plans to mass produce it in the first quarter of 2022, with capacities ranging from 1.92 terabytes (TB) to 15.36TB. It's also expected to be the first PCIe 5.0 SSD with dual-port support, guaranteeing server operation when a connection to one port fails. The first customers are likely to be data centers, but such technology usually trickles down to consumers a year or so later — so plan accordingly if you have any 16K video editing projects or whatever coming up.