Rebrands rarely get much love. That backlash can be especially strong if you’re giving a facelift to a decades-old piece of software beloved by nerds around the globe. So, it was no surprise that when Audacity revealed its new logo people on the internet got a little worked up. And look, there’s no two ways about it, the logo is pretty bad. The font it quite nice, but the bewildering take on its traditional headphone icon is rough.
Reactions around The Verge newsroom included “looks like someone stepped on the apple music icon,” and “trying to decide if their new logo looks like a sperm, and am mostly coming up with yes.” But if you can get past the branding, Audacity 4 actually looks like it’s going to be a much needed upgrade.
Martin Keary, VP of product at Muse, posted a nearly hour long video to YouTube detailing the challenges facing Audacity, the logic behind the design changes, and updates on the development of version 4 (slated for release in early 2026). One of the biggest improvements is in minimizing what Keary calls “Audacity says ‘no’”. These are things that Audacity simply won’t let you do, often with no explanation other than a simple pop up (if you’re lucky). He lists off a number of examples:
If you want to drag a clip past another clip, it hits it like a brick wall. No. If you copy a clip and try to paste it where there’s not enough blank runway, no. You don’t have enough room. If you wanted to select multiple clips… no.
Cleaning this up involved changing the behavior of the UI, like automatically trimming a clip if you paste something over it, and getting rid of a bunch of “modes” that limited how you could interact with audio. The team also added meters for individual tracks, made trimming and time stretching easier to find (just click and drag the edge of the clip), and added a split tool that makes cleaning up audio a bit easier.
Some users might be upset that the Sync Lock feature is going away but, as a long time user of Audacity, I can confirm it’s a confusing mess. Working with and keeping multiple audio tracks in sync is a difficult challenge to tackle, but the approached laid out in version 4 makes a lot more sense (to me at least). Add to this a more customizable, modern interface that’s much easier to read and Audacity 4 looks like it’s actually shaping up to be major step forward for the stalwart audio editor. Lets just hope they revisit the branding before the proper release in 2026.
Source link
#terrible #logo #Audacity #pretty #great
![IBM Crosses One of Computing’s Biggest Barriers With World’s First Sub-1 Nanometer Chip
In a major breakthrough, IBM revealed the world’s first semiconductor chip technology built on a sub-1 nanometer chipmaking process. For comparison, the process uses transistor features smaller than the width of a DNA strand, which measures about 2.5 nanometers across. The chip itself is about the size of a fingernail but holds almost 100 billion transistors, and the company expects it could enter markets as early as the next five years. In a statement released today, IBM said the new chip features nearly twice the density of its 2-nanometer chip, released in 2021. According to an accompanying technical report, the chip also demonstrated up to 70% greater energy efficiency than its predecessor. In designing the chip, researchers developed an “entirely new transistor architecture” called nanostack, which “vertically stacks and staggers transistors” to enable IBM’s 0.7-nanometer chip technology, IBM explained. A section of the chip seen with a transmission electron microscope. Credit: IBM “With our new nanostack architecture, we’re not just making smaller transistors,” Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research, said in the statement. “We’re reinventing how chips are built to deliver dramatically more power and energy efficiency.”
Smaller and smaller Semiconductor chips enable things like computers, home appliances, communications, and transportation devices. In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore surmised that transistor capacities evolved at a predictable and consistent rate. Specifically, all things considered, the number of transistors on a semiconductor chip would double about every two years. For a while, the so-called Moore’s Law held rather well—until, that is, things hit a literal wall.
“Moore’s Law was never meant to last forever,” according to a blog post by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. “Transistors can only get so small and, eventually, the more permanent laws of physics get in the way.” That is, as companies try to cram more transistors into smaller chips, new advances in transistor technology take longer than two years, so Moore’s Law has been over since at least 2016, Charles Leiserson, a computer scientist at MIT, said in the blog. Accordingly, the issue now is to consider how improvements in chip performance fit into a longer-term picture, Willy Shih, an economist at Harvard Business School, said in an explainer.
Reaching atomic levels In that sense, IBM’s latest chip represents an inventive approach for bypassing the limits of physical scaling. Specifically, two wafers with nanosheet-style transistors are glued together like a sandwich to vertically stack two layers of transistors, and related technical assessments suggested that the wafer stacking was flexible and scalable enough to support real computation, Huiming Bu, vice president of IBM’s silicon technology research team, said in a press briefing on the chip. Researcher holding IBM’s sub-1 nm node wafer. Credit: IBM That said, this chip isn’t quite ready for manufacturing just yet. The company’s goal is to enter production in the next five years, but there’s still work to be done. For instance, Bu pointed out that the team was still working on pathways to prevent thermal noise or integration into existing systems in the high-performance computing community. “From my perspective, I hope to see it be as successful as the 2-nanometer [chip] and become the industry platform,” Gambetta said during the briefing. “And as we see with AI and classical computing in general, we are only seeing more and more consumption.” #IBM #Crosses #Computings #Biggest #Barriers #Worlds #Sub1 #Nanometer #ChipIBM,Semiconductors,transistors](https://gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2026/06/nanostacking-ibm-sub-nm-chip-1280x720.jpg "IBM Crosses One of Computing’s Biggest Barriers With World’s First Sub-1 Nanometer Chip
In a major breakthrough, IBM revealed the world’s first semiconductor chip technology built on a sub-1 nanometer chipmaking process. For comparison, the process uses transistor features smaller than the width of a DNA strand, which measures about 2.5 nanometers across. The chip itself is about the size of a fingernail but holds almost 100 billion transistors, and the company expects it could enter markets as early as the next five years. In a statement released today, IBM said the new chip features nearly twice the density of its 2-nanometer chip, released in 2021. According to an accompanying technical report, the chip also demonstrated up to 70% greater energy efficiency than its predecessor. In designing the chip, researchers developed an “entirely new transistor architecture” called nanostack, which “vertically stacks and staggers transistors” to enable IBM’s 0.7-nanometer chip technology, IBM explained. A section of the chip seen with a transmission electron microscope. Credit: IBM “With our new nanostack architecture, we’re not just making smaller transistors,” Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research, said in the statement. “We’re reinventing how chips are built to deliver dramatically more power and energy efficiency.”
Smaller and smaller Semiconductor chips enable things like computers, home appliances, communications, and transportation devices. In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore surmised that transistor capacities evolved at a predictable and consistent rate. Specifically, all things considered, the number of transistors on a semiconductor chip would double about every two years. For a while, the so-called Moore’s Law held rather well—until, that is, things hit a literal wall.
“Moore’s Law was never meant to last forever,” according to a blog post by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. “Transistors can only get so small and, eventually, the more permanent laws of physics get in the way.” That is, as companies try to cram more transistors into smaller chips, new advances in transistor technology take longer than two years, so Moore’s Law has been over since at least 2016, Charles Leiserson, a computer scientist at MIT, said in the blog. Accordingly, the issue now is to consider how improvements in chip performance fit into a longer-term picture, Willy Shih, an economist at Harvard Business School, said in an explainer.
Reaching atomic levels In that sense, IBM’s latest chip represents an inventive approach for bypassing the limits of physical scaling. Specifically, two wafers with nanosheet-style transistors are glued together like a sandwich to vertically stack two layers of transistors, and related technical assessments suggested that the wafer stacking was flexible and scalable enough to support real computation, Huiming Bu, vice president of IBM’s silicon technology research team, said in a press briefing on the chip. Researcher holding IBM’s sub-1 nm node wafer. Credit: IBM That said, this chip isn’t quite ready for manufacturing just yet. The company’s goal is to enter production in the next five years, but there’s still work to be done. For instance, Bu pointed out that the team was still working on pathways to prevent thermal noise or integration into existing systems in the high-performance computing community. “From my perspective, I hope to see it be as successful as the 2-nanometer [chip] and become the industry platform,” Gambetta said during the briefing. “And as we see with AI and classical computing in general, we are only seeing more and more consumption.” #IBM #Crosses #Computings #Biggest #Barriers #Worlds #Sub1 #Nanometer #ChipIBM,Semiconductors,transistors")
![IBM Crosses One of Computing’s Biggest Barriers With World’s First Sub-1 Nanometer Chip
In a major breakthrough, IBM revealed the world’s first semiconductor chip technology built on a sub-1 nanometer chipmaking process. For comparison, the process uses transistor features smaller than the width of a DNA strand, which measures about 2.5 nanometers across. The chip itself is about the size of a fingernail but holds almost 100 billion transistors, and the company expects it could enter markets as early as the next five years. In a statement released today, IBM said the new chip features nearly twice the density of its 2-nanometer chip, released in 2021. According to an accompanying technical report, the chip also demonstrated up to 70% greater energy efficiency than its predecessor. In designing the chip, researchers developed an “entirely new transistor architecture” called nanostack, which “vertically stacks and staggers transistors” to enable IBM’s 0.7-nanometer chip technology, IBM explained. A section of the chip seen with a transmission electron microscope. Credit: IBM “With our new nanostack architecture, we’re not just making smaller transistors,” Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research, said in the statement. “We’re reinventing how chips are built to deliver dramatically more power and energy efficiency.”
Smaller and smaller Semiconductor chips enable things like computers, home appliances, communications, and transportation devices. In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore surmised that transistor capacities evolved at a predictable and consistent rate. Specifically, all things considered, the number of transistors on a semiconductor chip would double about every two years. For a while, the so-called Moore’s Law held rather well—until, that is, things hit a literal wall.
“Moore’s Law was never meant to last forever,” according to a blog post by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. “Transistors can only get so small and, eventually, the more permanent laws of physics get in the way.” That is, as companies try to cram more transistors into smaller chips, new advances in transistor technology take longer than two years, so Moore’s Law has been over since at least 2016, Charles Leiserson, a computer scientist at MIT, said in the blog. Accordingly, the issue now is to consider how improvements in chip performance fit into a longer-term picture, Willy Shih, an economist at Harvard Business School, said in an explainer.
Reaching atomic levels In that sense, IBM’s latest chip represents an inventive approach for bypassing the limits of physical scaling. Specifically, two wafers with nanosheet-style transistors are glued together like a sandwich to vertically stack two layers of transistors, and related technical assessments suggested that the wafer stacking was flexible and scalable enough to support real computation, Huiming Bu, vice president of IBM’s silicon technology research team, said in a press briefing on the chip. Researcher holding IBM’s sub-1 nm node wafer. Credit: IBM That said, this chip isn’t quite ready for manufacturing just yet. The company’s goal is to enter production in the next five years, but there’s still work to be done. For instance, Bu pointed out that the team was still working on pathways to prevent thermal noise or integration into existing systems in the high-performance computing community. “From my perspective, I hope to see it be as successful as the 2-nanometer [chip] and become the industry platform,” Gambetta said during the briefing. “And as we see with AI and classical computing in general, we are only seeing more and more consumption.” #IBM #Crosses #Computings #Biggest #Barriers #Worlds #Sub1 #Nanometer #ChipIBM,Semiconductors,transistors](https://i1.wp.com/gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2026/06/nanostacking-ibm-sub-nm-chip-1280x720.jpg?ssl=1 "IBM Crosses One of Computing’s Biggest Barriers With World’s First Sub-1 Nanometer Chip
In a major breakthrough, IBM revealed the world’s first semiconductor chip technology built on a sub-1 nanometer chipmaking process. For comparison, the process uses transistor features smaller than the width of a DNA strand, which measures about 2.5 nanometers across. The chip itself is about the size of a fingernail but holds almost 100 billion transistors, and the company expects it could enter markets as early as the next five years. In a statement released today, IBM said the new chip features nearly twice the density of its 2-nanometer chip, released in 2021. According to an accompanying technical report, the chip also demonstrated up to 70% greater energy efficiency than its predecessor. In designing the chip, researchers developed an “entirely new transistor architecture” called nanostack, which “vertically stacks and staggers transistors” to enable IBM’s 0.7-nanometer chip technology, IBM explained. A section of the chip seen with a transmission electron microscope. Credit: IBM “With our new nanostack architecture, we’re not just making smaller transistors,” Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research, said in the statement. “We’re reinventing how chips are built to deliver dramatically more power and energy efficiency.”
Smaller and smaller Semiconductor chips enable things like computers, home appliances, communications, and transportation devices. In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore surmised that transistor capacities evolved at a predictable and consistent rate. Specifically, all things considered, the number of transistors on a semiconductor chip would double about every two years. For a while, the so-called Moore’s Law held rather well—until, that is, things hit a literal wall.
“Moore’s Law was never meant to last forever,” according to a blog post by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. “Transistors can only get so small and, eventually, the more permanent laws of physics get in the way.” That is, as companies try to cram more transistors into smaller chips, new advances in transistor technology take longer than two years, so Moore’s Law has been over since at least 2016, Charles Leiserson, a computer scientist at MIT, said in the blog. Accordingly, the issue now is to consider how improvements in chip performance fit into a longer-term picture, Willy Shih, an economist at Harvard Business School, said in an explainer.
Reaching atomic levels In that sense, IBM’s latest chip represents an inventive approach for bypassing the limits of physical scaling. Specifically, two wafers with nanosheet-style transistors are glued together like a sandwich to vertically stack two layers of transistors, and related technical assessments suggested that the wafer stacking was flexible and scalable enough to support real computation, Huiming Bu, vice president of IBM’s silicon technology research team, said in a press briefing on the chip. Researcher holding IBM’s sub-1 nm node wafer. Credit: IBM That said, this chip isn’t quite ready for manufacturing just yet. The company’s goal is to enter production in the next five years, but there’s still work to be done. For instance, Bu pointed out that the team was still working on pathways to prevent thermal noise or integration into existing systems in the high-performance computing community. “From my perspective, I hope to see it be as successful as the 2-nanometer [chip] and become the industry platform,” Gambetta said during the briefing. “And as we see with AI and classical computing in general, we are only seeing more and more consumption.” #IBM #Crosses #Computings #Biggest #Barriers #Worlds #Sub1 #Nanometer #ChipIBM,Semiconductors,transistors")
Post Comment