New AMD Release Date; Amazon Gets EU Approval to Buy MGM; Now There’s A Robot Goat; Tesla- 2nd Price Raise in a Month

AMD’s latest desktop processor, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, has finally gotten a release date and price after being announced earlier this year at CES 2022. It’ll hit stores next month on April 20th for $449, ushering in what AMD proudly declares to be the “world’s fastest gaming processor. The new Ryzen 7 5800X3D is extremely similar to the original Ryzen 7 5800X model, with eight cores, 16 threads, and compatibility with AMD’s AM4 socket. But there’s one major difference: the Ryzen 7 5800X3D marks the debut of AMD’s 3D-stacking V-Cache technology, allowing AMD to up the L3 cache from 32MB to 96MB. The company says that the additional cache should translate to about a 15 percent boost in overall performance compared to the Ryzen 5900X .

European Union officials have unconditionally rubber stamped Amazon’s $845 million bid to buy famed movie and TV studio MGM. Engadget.com purports that the European Commission’s antitrust regulators determined there was limited overlap between the companies and said the merger wouldn’t severely reduce competition in the theatrical film and audio-visual content markets. Amazon still needs to get the sign off from the US Federal Trade Commission….that doesn’t look like a slam dunk, as a recent report had the FTC looking at an anti-trust lawsuit.

 Spot the Boston Dynamics robot dog regularly makes headlines —  but robot dogs and even humanoid ones are old news now that Kawasaki has created a robotic, rideable goat. According to CNET.com, the goat has been dubbed Bex, because it’s really supposed to be an ibex, which refers to certain species of wild goat. It has horns that light up, and delicate legs that can be lowered and then sprout wheels. And it’s strong enough that a full-sized human can mount it like a horse and ride it around. Bex can carry light cargo or crops, and it contains cameras that can help with industrial plant inspections. Its upper body can be adapted for different needs, depending on how it’s going to be used. It can carry up to 220 pounds.

Tesla has raised the prices of its electric vehicles for the second time within the month. After adding $1,000 to some long-range models last week, the automaker has now implemented a much larger price increase across its lineup. As Electrek  notes, its prices now start at $46,990 for the base Model 3. Meanwhile, Model Y’s prices now start at $62,990. For both Model S options, Tesla has added $5,000 on top of their previous prices, so you’ll have to spend at least $99,990 for one. One of the materials affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine is nickel, with its prices soaring and more than doubling since the war started. Russia is a key supplier of the metal, which is a critical component of lithium-ion batteries used by Tesla and other EV manufacturers.