Enlarge / The front of a 128GB Dell CAMM. (credit: Dell)

Move over, SO-DIMM. A new type of memory module has been made official, and backers like Dell are hoping that it eventually replaces SO-DIMM (small outline dual in-line memory module) entirely.

This month, JEDEC, a semiconductor engineering trade organization, announced that it had published the JESD318: Compression Attached Memory Module (CAMM2) standard, as spotted by Tom's Hardware .

CAMM2 was originally introduced as CAMM via Dell, which has been pushing for standardization since it announced the technology at CES 2022. Dell released the only laptops with CAMM in 2022, the Dell Precision 7670 and 7770 workstations.

Enlarge / Cue files used to be much better-known, back when we all used CD-Rs to make legal backup copies of material that we owned outright. (credit: Getty Images)

It has been a very long time since the average computer user thought about .cue files , or cue sheets, the metadata bits that describe the tracks of an optical disc, like a CD or DVD. But cue sheets are getting attention again, for all the wrong reasons. They're at the heart of a one-click exploit that could give an attacker code execution on Linux systems with GNOME desktops.

CVE-2023-43641 , disclosed by GitHub on October 9 , is a memory corruption (or out-of-bounds array writing) issue in the libcue library , which parses cue sheets. NIST has yet to provide a score for the issue, but GitHub's submission rates it an 8.8, or "High." While the vulnerability has been patched in the core library, Linux distributions will need to update their desktops to fix it.

GNOME desktops have, by default, a "tracker miner" that automatically updates whenever certain file locations in a user's home directory are changed. If a user was compelled to download a cue sheet that took advantage of libcue's vulnerability, GNOME's indexing tracker would read the cue sheet, and code in that sheet could be executed.

Enlarge / Dell's 2023 XPS desktop. (credit: Dell)

Dell has begun refreshing its popular XPS lineup of desktops and laptops with the latest mobile processors and GPUs. These updates mostly focus on chip upgrades, suggesting only mild improvements to the series that shouldn't make owners of last year's models very envious.

Dell's XPS 17 and 15 laptops will be available on March 2, a Dell rep confirmed to Ars Technica. Dell will offer each with up to an Intel Core i9-13900H but also support i5 and i7 options.

Intel's 13th Gen H-series mobile chips don't bring massive upgrades over their 12th Gen counterparts. The i9-13900H has six Performance cores, eight Efficient cores, 20 threads, and 24MB of cache. It supports clock speeds of 1.9-5.4 GHz. The i9-12900H we tested in last year's Dell XPS 15 has similar specs but clock speeds of 1.8-5 GHz.

Enlarge (credit: Getty )

HP is the latest tech company to announce extensive layoffs. Following a surge in demand for computing products amid pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions, the computer vendor is readjusting as consumer demand for laptops and desktops falls.

In its Q4 and fiscal 2022 results shared Tuesday, HP announced that it will eliminate 4,000 to 6,000 jobs by the end of fiscal 2025.

According to CNBC , HP had about 51,000 workers in October of last year, so this week's announcement is expected to affect around 7.8–11.8 percent of HP's workforce.

Enlarge (credit: ASRock )

Adding a secondary monitor to your setup is an easy office hack for boosting productivity. But not every desk or office has room for another display, even a small portable monitor . That's why we're intrigued by a new ASRock kit, as niche as it may be.

ASRock's 13.3-inch Side Panel Kit , spotted by Tom's Hardware on Tuesday, includes a 13.3-inch IPS display meant to attach to the inside of a desktop PC's side panel. This is a convenient design for people who are low on space but still keep their tower on a desk. The kit provides a 1920×1080 display with a 60 Hz refresh rate, 300 nits of brightness, and an 800:1 contrast ratio, making its specs comparable to dedicated portable monitors in the $200 range, such as Lenovo's ThinkVision M14 (although, when we tested the M14, we recorded a notably higher contrast ratio, 1,064:1, than ASRock's panel claims).

The installation kit comes with two long and two short brackets, plus double-sided tape strips and five cable clips. (credit: ASRock )

There are some major caveats, though.

Enlarge / One camera's on the user; the other's facing the desktop. (credit: HP)

Companies haven't paid all-in-one (AIO) PCs a lot of love lately. Exciting AIO releases in the US are few and far between, and ever since Apple discontinued the 27-inch iMac , there has been somewhat of a gap for users seeking the simplicity of an AIO, along with ultra-high resolution and strong components. HP has apparently noticed that gap because in September, it will release a 34-inch AIO with 5120×2160 resolution, current-generation Intel and Nvidia parts, and flashy features aimed at workers.

Magnetic webcam(s)

A webcam that can magnetically attach to anywhere on the display's bezel is one of the hallmark features of HP's 34-inch all-in-one Desktop PC announced today at HP's Amplify channel partner conference.

The cameras use temporal noise reduction when producing an image, and there's Windows Hello support for facial recognition logins. (credit: HP)

This is similar to a magnetic webcam concept Dell showed us in December, but the camera isn't wireless and can't attach directly to the display. The AIO also supports up to two of these magnetic cameras; they would use pixel binning for 4 MP per still or video image, according to HP.