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Minix ER939-AI Pro dual 10GbE networking hints at workloads beyond ordinary desktop computing

The Radeon 8060S removes the need for separate graphics hardware entirely

Four simultaneous 8K displays push this machine beyond typical mini PCs

Minix has released the ER939-AI, a mini PC running AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor with 16 cores, 32 threads, and a boost clock reaching up to 5.1 GHz.

A Pro variant with dual 10 Gigabit Ethernet and a leather-like carry handle on the chassis has also been announced, sitting above the base model in every measurable specification.

Both devices share the same core platform and are built around one specific use case — running AI workloads locally, without any dependence on cloud infrastructure.

A 126 TOPS Platform Squeezed Into 205mm of Chassis

The Ryzen AI Max+ 395 platform delivers 126 TOPS of combined AI compute across the CPU, GPU, and a dedicated NPU rated at 50 TOPS natively.

The Radeon 8060S integrated graphics handles GPU-accelerated workloads that would otherwise require a discrete card, keeping the 205 x 192 x 70 mm chassis free of any expansion slots entirely.

This mini PC supports Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, USB4 at 40 Gbps, and quad 8K@60Hz display output through HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4, and two USB4 ports.

A fingerprint reader built into the power button handles Windows Hello login, and a 240 W power adapter ships inside the retail box.

Its storage starts at 2 TB via PCIe 4.0 NVMe and expands to 8 TB, accommodating the model libraries and dataset archives that local AI work tends to accumulate.

The device also ships with 128 GB of LPDDR5-8000 memory across eight 16 GB modules — and that figure deserves a moment's pause.

Most laptops ship with 16 GB, while most desktops are considered powerful if they arrive with up to 64 GB of RAM.

This mini PC ships with 128 GB because running large language models locally means the entire model lives in RAM, and anything less simply means the model does not run at all.

The Pro Variant Adds a Handle

The Minix ER939-AI Pro builds on the same platform and memory configuration while adding dual 10G Ethernet ports and refined triple-fan cooling with a twin turbo intercooler.

It also arrives with a carry handle mounted on top of the chassis, which is the kind of design decision that either makes immediate sense or raises an eyebrow depending on who is buying.

The handle material resembles leather, though MINIX has not confirmed whether it is genuine or synthetic, leaving the "vegan leather" characterisation somewhere between reasonable inference and optimistic branding.

Windows Hello fingerprint login and TPM support handle security for enterprise deployments, while the Pro's three M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe slots push maximum storage capacity to 12 TB.

The base ER939-AI sells for $3,150.00 on the MINIX Official Store, with the Pro's price still unannounced — though given its specification sheet, expecting it to cost considerably more seems entirely reasonable.

Via AndroidTVBox / ElectronicsLab

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The gaming world is getting philosophical ahead of the end of PlayStation game discs , and you can count Hideo Kojima among those concerned about the world's move to ephemeral digital data. At least, he was quite concerned about it back in 2021, and given today's news his five-year-old comments have taken on a new life.

"Eventually, even digital data will no longer be owned by individuals on their own initiative," Kojima said in a tweet on August 5, 2021. "Whenever there is a major change or accident in the world, in a country, in a government, in an idea, in a trend, access to it may suddenly be cut off. We will not be able to freely access the movies, books, and music that we have loved. I would be a have-not. That's what I'm afraid of. This is not greed."

There's a, uh, lot to chew on in there that goes well beyond your ability to get GTA 6 on a disc, but I'm not about to start philosophizing on the spread and decay of information in the modern era. Suffice to say, many players have found Kojima's words fairly prophetic in light of the PlayStation news, even if he didn't mention games specifically here. The tweet got some engagement back in 2021, but now you'll find thousands more quotes, replies, and retweets made just today.

Kojima already has a reputation for being a pop culture prophet. The world of Death Stranding, released in 2019, felt scarily close to the one we all began living as part of the COVID-19 pandemic, and way back in 2001 Metal Gear Solid 2 was predicting a future where AI feeds us half-truths by processing massive piles of junk data across the internet for easy consumption. The gaming world's cultlike admiration of Kojima might be a little extreme, but the man certainly knows how to build sci-fi that feels distressingly real as time goes on.

And, of course, Kojima himself is responsible for one of the most bitter reminders of what happens when a publisher fully cuts support for a digital game. PT was intended to be something of a demo for Silent Hills, but in the wake of that project's cancellation and Kojima's messy breakup with Konami, PT was delisted from the PlayStation Store. Not only that, Konami even prohibited users who'd played it from redownloading the game.

PT is perhaps the most extreme example we have of what happens when publishers do not care what happens to their digital games, and its reputation has only grown stronger given how high it stands among the best horror games of all time. Wanting to hang onto games like this? I don't think that's greedy, either.

Hideo Kojima says his pitch for OD sounded "crazy" to every publisher except Xbox.

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Two brothers from the wealthy and powerful Medici family died of malaria and were not poisoned as a rumor had suggested, archaeologists have confirmed based on a DNA analysis of the brothers' skeletons. The analysis also revealed a unique, mutated strain of malaria that may hold the key to understanding the evolution of the disease in Europe.

The Medici family rose to power in the 15th century by creating the largest bank in Europe. The family used their extraordinary wealth to fund Renaissance artists and to start a political dynasty that eventually included numerous dukes, four popes and two queens of France.

In the 16th century, Cosimo I took over all of Tuscany as grand duke. But within a span of 25 years, at least five of his family members died from high fevers. This gave rise to a rumor that some of them had been poisoned with arsenic by another family member, although most people believed they died of malaria.

To get to the bottom of the 500-year-old Medici cold case, an international group of researchers tested the bones of two of Cosimo I's sons: Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici and Grand Duke Francesco I de' Medici, for the DNA of Plasmodium falciparum , the parasite that causes the deadliest form of malaria and that is transmitted by mosquitoes.

The researchers extracted ancient DNA from the bones of Cardinal Giovanni, who died in 1562 at age 19 in the same month as his mother and younger brother Garzia, and from Grand Duke Francesco I, who died at age 46 in 1587 along with his wife. The team's study was published online June 17 in the journal iScience .

Because of the almost simultaneous deaths of Grand Duke Francesco I and his wife, a rumor circulated that another brother had poisoned them over a long-standing feud. But the Medicis were known to have frequented their family villas in marshy and swampy areas of Tuscany, where malaria was prevalent well into the 20th century.

Researchers found evidence of P. falciparum in the bones of both Medici brothers, confirming reports from court physicians at the time that described the brothers as sick with "tertian fever," a type of high fever that returns every three days and is a hallmark of malaria. The medical reports also revealed the brothers were treated with bloodletting.

The name plate from the tomb of Grand Duke Francesco de' Medici, who died of malaria in 1587. (Image credit: Courtesy the University of Pisa) "Now we can say with scientific certainty that malaria, not poisoning, killed Grand Duke Francesco de Medici," study co-author Valentina Giuffra , a medical historian at the University of Pisa, said in a statement .

But the ancient-DNA study held two additional surprises.

The Grand Duke's bones were positive not only for P. falciparum but also for Plasmodium malariae , a different parasite species that also causes malaria in humans, suggesting that both species contributed to the severe illness that killed him and his wife.

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Cardinal Giovanni, on the other hand, had only P. falciparum , but the specific strain that infected him was previously unknown. The strain is similar to those found in ancient and early modern Europe, but with two mutations the researchers had never seen before, they wrote in the study.

"The study of ancient DNA offers us an opportunity not only to diagnose malaria in the remains of individuals from the past, but it also offers us a window for understanding the evolution of malaria species, Plasmodium falciparum in this case, which can help scientists better understand how the pathogen adapts over time," study first author Alexander Ochoa , an evolutionary biologist at Yale University, said in the statement.

Further analysis of the brothers' bones is needed to determine the evolutionary relationship between the strains of malaria they carried, the researchers wrote in the study.

What do you know about the bones in your body? Test your knowledge with our human skeleton quiz .

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Nissan sales climbed 10.2% in the second quarter to hit 230,443 units.

Infiniti sales were essentially flat as the luxury brand declined 0.2%.

Kicks had best June ever, while Pathfinder had its best-ever quarter.

Nissan has introduced a slew of new and updated models over the past few years, and the effort is paying off as the brand has experienced 16 consecutive months of year-over -year retail sales increases. Furthermore, in the first half of the year, overall group sales were up 9.6% to 242,741 units.

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Starting with Nissan itself, sales climbed 10.2% in the second quarter to 230,443 vehicles. The best-selling vehicle in the second quarter was the Rogue, which found 65,796 takers. That was a 38.6% increase from a year ago and Nissan expects even greater success when the redesigned model arrives later this year with an all-new e-Power system .

More: Nissan’s 2027 Rogue Is Gunning For The RAV4, And Its Hybrid Works Nothing Like Toyota’s

The recently redesigned Sentra also provided a big boost as sales soared 28.5% to 39,817 units. Unfortunately, those gains were largely offset by a 26.5% drop in Altima sales.

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Sticking with cars, Z sales plummeted 50.7% to 806 units. There’s no word on why, but it could be related to the facelifted 2027 model that was announced in March. It arrives at dealerships this summer with revised styling, updated equipment, and a handful of performance tweaks. The Nismo variant also gains a new six-speed manual transmission.

Nissan doesn’t release monthly sales data, but confirmed the Kicks had its best-ever June. Q2 sales were up 4.9% to 26,251 units and the crossover is up 10.7% year-to-date.

High gas prices didn’t help the redesigned Leaf as sales dropped 36.6% to a disappointing 1,016 units in the second quarter. The model is also down 57.1% for the year, which is a shame because it’s a pretty decent vehicle .

On the truck and SUV side, a number of models posted huge gains including the Frontier (34.6%), Pathfinder (32.1%), and Armada (27%). Even the Murano was up 6.4% in Q2.

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Infiniti QX65 Is Off To A Good Start

Switching over to Infiniti, second quarter sales were essentially flat as the brand posted a slight decline of 0.2%. That equates to a drop of 29 sales over the course of three months.

This is actually pretty surprising as the QX50 and QX55 have been phased out, and dealers only sold a handful of them in Q2. Their departure was largely offset by the new QX65 , which seeks to recapture the magic of the legendary FX.

As a refresher, the five-seater is based on the larger QX60 and starts at $53,990 before a $1,545 destination fee. Power comes from a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder developing 268 hp (200 kW / 272 PS) and 286 lb-ft (387 Nm) of torque. It’s connected to a nine-speed automatic transmission and a standard all-wheel drive system.

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That combination won over 1,256 buyers, but the QX60 still reigns supreme with 7,581 sales in Q2. More notably, the range-topping QX80 had its best second-quarter ever as sales were up 18.5% to 3,402. However, year-to-date sales of the full-size SUV are down 9.4%.

Q2 Infiniti US Sales

Q2 26 Q2 25 % Chg YTD 26 YTD 25 % Chg

Total 12,298 12,327 -0.2 25,048 25,492 -1.7

Q50 0 94 -100.0 1 500 -99.8

QX50 39 1,503 -97.4 342 3,569 -90.4

QX55 20 531 -96.2 106 1,381 -92.3

QX60 7,581 7,327 3.5 17,056 13,106 30.1

QX65 1,256 0 N.A. 1,256 0 N.A.

QX80 3,402 2,872 18.5 6,287 6,936 -9.4

SWIPE

Q2 Nissan US Sales

Q2 26 Q2 25 % Chg YTD 26 YTD 25 % Chg

Total 230,443 209,114 10.2 464,761 463,034 0.4

Versa 4,649 11,489 -59.5 14,857 30,619 -51.5

Sentra 39,817 30,987 28.5 75,549 85,523 -11.7

Altima 19,317 26,298 -26.5 42,288 62,107 -31.9

Maxima 0 2 -100.0 0 13 -100.0

Z 806 1,635 -50.7 1,705 3,789 -55.0

GT-R 0 5 -100.0 2 37 -94.6

Kicks 26,251 25,029 4.9 55,768 50,394 10.7

Leaf 1,016 1,602 -36.6 1,684 3,925 -57.1

Frontier 21,690 16,117 34.6 43,101 30,598 40.9

Titan 0 350 -100.0 10 1,906 -99.5

Pathfinder 35,517 26,880 32.1 64,071 46,541 37.7

Armada 5,412 4,262 27.0 10,005 8,172 22.4

Rogue 65,796 47,461 38.6 135,970 109,563 24.1

Ariya 34 7,471 -99.5 90 11,619 -99.2

Murano 10,138 9,526 6.4 19,661 18,228 7.9

SWIPE