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By Lin Chia-nan / Staff reporter

The Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute (TSRI) has partnered with Synopsys Taiwan to accelerate the development of next-generation semiconductors, with researchers being allowed to use the chip design companys simulation tools, the National Applied Research Laboratories said yesterday.

The institute is one of eight laboratories of the national research agency.

The institute has signed a contract with Synopsys that allows researchers to use its simulation software Sentaurus TCAD and Quantum ATK free of charge, the agency said in a news release.

The Synopsys Web site describes Sentaurus TCAD as an advanced 1D, 2D and 3D process simulator for developing and optimizing chip process technologies, and Quantum ATK as an atomic-scale modeling application that enables large-scale, highly realistic material simulations.

The tools allow developers to test a chip virtually before producing a prototype, which reduces the cost of research and development, minimizes the need for experimentation with prototypes and optimizes design and manufacturing processes, the agency said.

As chips are introduced to more product categories, semiconductor manufacturing has become increasingly complex, prompting researchers to search for new materials and component structures, the agency quoted institute director-general Yeh Wen-kuan () as saying.

Yeh was a professor in National Yang Ming Chiao Tung Universitys International College of Semiconductor Technology and worked in the research-and-development departments of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and United Microelectronics Co.

To reduce development costs, using computer-aided design tools has become a trend in semiconductor research, he said.

Through the project with Synopsys, the institute aims to help researchers improve semiconductor materials and component design by making precise models, Yeh said, adding that the project would hopefully contribute to the introduction of new techniques and help the Taiwanese chip sector become more competitive.

The company has a long history of cooperation with the institute, Synopsys president Robert Li () was quoted as saying.

The two entities last year launched an artificial intelligence system-on-chip design and verification platform, and in March hosted a seminar on Sentaurus TCAD techniques, he said.

Building on their existing cooperation, the company hopes that the use of its tools in the institute would also contribute to local talent cultivation, Li said.

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TSRI collaborating with Synopsys on chip design -

Local businesses are being offered free training and grants to enhance their cyber security.

Salford City Council says the move will support businesses which may have missed out on government funding during lockdowns.

It believes its the only local council in the country to use government business support grants in this way after recognising the increasing importance of digitalisation and online trading.

Councillor Bill Hinds, lead member for financial and support services, said: The trend towards buying goods and services online has accelerated because of the pandemic and we want Salford businesses to make the most of that.

Keeping customer details safe and taking payments online is a huge challenge for some small and independent businesses so we decided to use this funding in a unique way. As a leader in cyber security, were proud to share our skills and take an innovative approach to distributing business grants which also brings social value to the city.

Id urge any small to medium sized business, freelance worker or self-employed trader to get in touch to see if they qualify. Places are limited so they need to sign up as soon as possible. We want to make sure we help every business we can.

The money came from the councils bid for Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) Top Up funding to help businesses severely affected by COVID-19.

Funding is available to support 100 SMEs and 200 freelance and self-employed home-based businesses. The courses are being delivered by HOST Salford in partnership with Salford City Council.

The Cyber SME course is a free two-day cyber training course for established Salford small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) whose business involves online trading. It combines advanced awareness with hands-on, real-life technical scenarios. Participants will benefit from a 2,500 grant on successful completion of the course to enhance the cyber security in their business through buying new hardware, software, or licenses for security products.

The Cyber Workforce course is a free one-day course for established business owners, self-employed people and freelancers in Salford whose business currently involves, or plans to implement online trading. It provides everything they need to know about keeping their businesses safe online. Participants will benefit from a 1,000 grant on successful completion of the course to enhance the cyber security in their business through buying new hardware, software, or licenses for security products.

Both courses run until March 2022. Limited spaces available. To learn more please visit the HOST website.

This initiative forms part of Cyber Salford, an ambition to create the most cyber enabled city in the UK. It was recently launched at HOST (Home of Skills and Technology) Salford in collaboration with Salford City Council, Cyber Resilience Centre and Raytheon Technologies to provide individuals and businesses with education, training, tools and business space to boost cyber security awareness, innovation and careers.

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Salford leads the way in helping business fight cyber crime Salford City Council - Salford City Council

When we went to Magneti Marelli software it was a big step down for us and the bike became very difficult to ride. Not only the traction control but also engine character, so everything was less in balance. Over the next years the Yamaha engineers had a lot of problems working with the Magneti Marelli ECU and I think this is still a problem!

Yamaha also struggled to adapt the M1 to the spec Michelins. And this was a bigger problem for bigger riders like Rossi, especially when the French company introduced its latest rear slick for his last two seasons in MotoGP, when his average score per race dropped to five points in 2020 and 2.5 in 2021.

The tyres softer construction deflected (squished) more to provide a fatter contact patch and therefore more grip, for faster race times. But, like all tyres, this one worked better for some than for others.

Me and Valentino often talk about this, Danilo Petrucci revealed recently. We were both quite good until the end of 2019, fighting for the podium, then from 2020 the rear tyre changed and we were fighting for 16th

You cannot be really aggressive with the new rear tyre because you put yourself in more difficulty. Now your riding style must not be about braking and acceleration, it must be about corner speed and momentum you mustnt put too much load on the tyre, which is difficult if you are heavier, like me or Valentino.

Of course, if a soft construction tyre is worse for bigger riders, it will most likely be better for smaller riders. Like Dani Pedrosa.

Rossi on the grid in his pre-race into-the-zone mode at Red Bull Ring in August

Petronas SRT

Its difficult for people who arent really passionate about MotoGP or dont know how a bike works to understand this, continued Petrucci. But for example, Dani really struggled to heat the rear tyre in 2017 and 2018, so he was complaining a lot and finally he quit racing at the end of 2018. But now the situation is the opposite. When Dani started using the softer-construction rear tyre in testing [from 2020] he was incredibly fast when KTM went testing at Red Bull Ring he was faster than all of us!

There are always winners and losers in every change of tyre design, even before spec tyres. For example, when Rossi won his first MotoGP title with Yamaha the success wasnt all him and the bike. Michelins new-for-2004 rear slick worked perfectly with the M1, while it cursed Hondas RC211V with chatter.

My weight is quite not fantastic for the Michelin, but this is the game Valentino Rossi

So just as Michelins new-for-2020 rear slick helped Pedrosa and others it was a disaster for Petrucci and Rossi, whose gradual decline became a precipitous descent.

The tyres have made a big change in the last years, said Rossi on the eve of his final race at Valencia. Ive always needed a hard [construction] rear tyre which gives good support. For this reason I was very strong with the Bridgestone rear and I started to suffer more with the Michelin rear, because the tyre is a lot softer.

But especially the last two years [2020 and 2021] Michelin made another step softer. You gained more grip but the tyre is very soft, so we needed to change another time the bike settings and my riding style.

Also, me and Danilo are the tallest and, although Im quite thin, my weight is quite high compared to the median of the grid and this is not fantastic for the Michelin tyre. But this is the game

Rossi was very nearly as fast as ever in 2021 but the others were faster

Petronas SRT

Its also difficult because I arrived at a certain age where it wasnt easy to once again change my riding style and the way I use the gas, so it wasnt easy.

A certain age, indeed

Rossi may have been the Peter Pan of MotoGP but Father Time waits for no one, not even Peter. Thats why the average age of British fighter pilots during the Battle of Britain was 20, because our reaction times degrade with time itself. If 40-year-old pilots were better than 20-year-olds at flying and fighting at 200mph you can be sure they wouldve been doing it instead.

Biochemistry also plays an important part in this degradation, because we are all slaves to the chemicals inside our bodies. For example, theres the enzyme monoamine oxidase which increases its activity in the brain with age, reducing our willingness to undertake risky activities.

Thus the writing was always on the wall for Rossi. Its not for nothing that he had his strongest seasons in MotoGP in 2002, 2003 and 2005, when he was a young man.

During his last season his competitiveness dropped off a cliff.

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Ciao Vale! But why the downfall? - Motor Sport

I quit my job at the start of 2020. Two months later, the U.S. went into lockdown and everyone glued themselves to their screens. So, like many avid gamers, I started streaming on Twitch. After deciding what to stream and when, and acquiring a webcam, I had to pick my broadcasting software. When youre starting out as a streamer, your budget, or lack thereof, is going to be a major factor. And to this day, I havent felt the need to move to a paid broadcasting platform because so much can be accomplished with free options.

After a casual Google search, I initially settled on XSplit. The setup process was fairly straightforward, which took a lot of the guesswork and scouring the net for guides out of the equation. XSplit is probably best known for allowing users to stream content to multiple platforms, like Twitch, Facebook Gaming, and YouTube. It also boasts the ability to tweak video settings for resolution up to 4k and frames per second well above the standard 60fps.

That said, XSplit requires you to either create an account or sign in with an existing social media account. And unless you pay for an XSplit subscription, youll only be able to stream to a single platform, and quality levels will be capped at 720p and 30fps.

Its also important to note that the features differ on each platform. For example, Twitch does not support 4k resolution in streams while YouTube, on the other hand, does. Also, while XSplit allows for higher framerate settings, Twitch, Facebook Gaming, and YouTube all recommend streaming at no higher than 60fps.

When I first started, I got set up on Twitch, then decided to maximize my potential audience by creating a Facebook page and streaming to both sites simultaneously, though not with XSplit, as streaming to multiple sources is a premium feature. Then I qualified for the Twitch Affiliate program.

Without getting too off-topic, Im going to remind everyone of the importance of reading contracts. One of the stipulations that many streamers miss in the Twitch Affiliate contract is that Twitch owns the exclusive rights to every one of their streams for 24 hours, which means that everything, including clips, cannot be uploaded or streamed on another platform. I promptly stopped dual-streaming to Facebook.

I had a lot of success using XSplit. Its a solid piece of software and has received numerous updates since I first tried it. But, in my search for the best combination of options and features from free software, I decided to move on to a different program: Open Broadcaster Software.

Aptly named, OBS is open source, which means that power users can code their own plugins and casual users can download and use them. This also means that bugs are usually caught and fixed quickly, and its usually the first program to get new updates.

The setup process for OBS is both simpler and more complicated than the setup for XSplit while the initial download and run installer work in its favor, OBS requires much more tweaking to ensure the best stream quality for your audience. The manual setup can take some serious time and research.

On top of that, OBS lacks a chat overlay and customizable themes out of the box. These stream theme overlays must be separately downloaded and manually installed, which isnt terribly difficult but takes more effort than other options.

But it isnt all bad. OBS has plenty of advantages, too. Unlike XSplits free version, OBS allows for livestreaming at 1080p and 60fps, taking full advantage of the recommended limits. Its also less resource-intensive, saving your CPU for more important things like your game. OBS also supports multi-platform streaming.

OBS was good to me, but I never felt like it clicked. The options available for making my stream look and feel the way I wanted just werent available. Instead, my strongest recommendation for a free broadcasting software goes to Streamlabs platform.

Streamlabs is a company built for livestreamers. Because OBS is open source, users have been able to build out their own versions on top of it, enabling streamers to choose from all kinds of premade tools, like chat monitoring bots and overlays. But thats not all Streamlabs does. It also has tools for building your community and editing your clips.

Streamlabs setup process is the easiest by far, taking advantage of Open Broadcaster Softwares plug-and-play approach. The key difference, however, lies in the built-in optimizer. Rather than having to manually select the best settings for your stream machine, the optimizer takes care of everything for you.

Where Streamlabs really shines, though, is in its customization options. Both OBS and Streamlabs have adjustable user interfaces. Simply click and drag the various informational boxes around the window to suit your needs. But Streamlabs makes personalizing the layout and design that your audience sees and interacts with much more convenient.

Streamlabs also has a bunch of free overlays available on its site. Instead of hunting for a stream overlay that matches your style and vibe, then downloading and going through the trouble of integrating it into OBS, you can simply install it directly with the click of a button. Remember to keep your hardware limits in mind, though, as every additional tool running on top of Streamlabs will take more power from your CPU.

How you set up the streaming experience and manage the backend can greatly impact your audiences first impressions, as well as make watching the stream more enjoyable. Animated backgrounds, chat management bots, and sound alerts create a more engaging experience. And it will take time to curate the perfect blend of immersive and meta features that make your stream unique.

Youll also want to be comfortable working with the settings and tweaking your streams visuals and sound effects. While Streamlabs is the clear winner of the big three free options, some companies that offer sponsorship deals will be partnered with another companys platform, like StreamElements OBS.

(While I was writing this article, controversy rose surrounding Streamlabs new premium service. Despite feeling conflicted about recommending Streamlabs, I still believe that their free broadcasting software is the best choice for streamers. Id encourage you to look further into the situation and weigh the options for yourself.)

Whether you are starting to stream as a hobby or hoping to turn it into your next career move, livestreaming requires some serious legwork. The best thing you can do is be informed of the pros and cons of each option, and choose the best fit for your streaming needs.

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XSplit, OBS, or Streamlabs: Whats the best free streaming software - Polygon

Sometimes a Windows 10 system starts misbehaving to the point where repair is needed. This often takes the form of worsening performance or stability, and can originate from damage to, loss of, or corruption of Windows system files typically found in theC:Windowsfolder hierarchy. When that happens, users would be well advised to break out the following routine to help them set things back to rights.

I initially wrote this story in 2016, but as Windows 10 has evolved over time, some of the steps have changed a bit. Ive now updated it for the latest versions of Windows 10. That said, most of these approaches also work with Windows 7 and 8 (with slight variations), and the advice here applies almost identically to Windows 11, which Microsoft is gradually rolling out to Windows 10 users whose hardware can support the new OS via Windows Update from October 2021 into early 2022.

The idea is to first try the initial step in the sequence. If that doesnt fix whats broken, advance to the next step. Keep working through the steps in order until you reach the end, and you are bound to fix the vast majority of problems. (The only remaining step at that point would be to replace the system on which the software is running, and thats outside the scope of this story.)

The amount of time and effort required for each step goes up incrementally. Some steps involve additional work to restore the prior state of your PC more or less back to where it was prior to taking that step. Thus, the most important bit of advice I can dispense for those who must venture beyond Step 1 is this: Make a complete backup of your system to provide a source for files and information that might otherwise go missing. Ignore this advice at your own risk.

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How to repair Windows 10 (and 11) in 4 steps - Computerworld