Flipping through The Manual: Jaunts through Japan, surf watches, summer shades

By Digital Trends Staff May 16, 2015

Burned out on apps, keys and screens? Improve your analog life this weekend! Digital Trends’ brother site The Manual exists to give men straight-up advice, from unspoken suit rules you need to know, to the latest in fashion, food, drink, travel, grooming and culture. Here are a few of our favorite stories to appear on The Manual lately.

Surfing in style with Aulta Watches

Surfing in style with Aulta Watches — Image used with permission by copyright holder

We chatted with the guys at Aulta Watches about why a well-made timepiece shouldn’t break the bank, and how important it is to balance work and lifestyle.

Read the full story on The Manual

Finding Buddha: Why Japan’s epic Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage should be on your bucket list

Finding Buddha: Why Japan's epic Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage should be on your bucket list — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Japan’s Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage is one of only two hikes in the world with a spot on UNESCO’s exclusive list of World Heritage Sites.

Read the full story on The Manual

Trekking: The Half Hatchet lets you cut wood with class

Trekking: The Half Hatchet lets you cut wood with class — Image used with permission by copyright holder

A hatchet should be essential for any modern woodsman. Thankfully, Treeline Outdoors’ classic offering is both timeless and versatile, providing you with a means to chop wood and hammer nails without having to dip into your savings account.

Read the full story on The Manual

3 of our favorite sunglasses for summer 2015

3 of our favorite sunglasses for summer 2015 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

If you’re having trouble finding your old, scratched shades at the back of the junk drawer, consider investing in a new pair of slick sunglasses for summer 2015. Here are 3 of our favorites.

Read the full story on The Manual

Bourbon bliss: Russell’s Reserve 1998

Bourbon bliss: Russell's Reserve 1998 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

This October, Russell’s Reserve is releasing their limited edition Russell’s Reserve 1998 bourbon. Master Distiller Eddie Russell gives an inside look at the brain power behind the bourbon.

Read the full story on The Manual

Summer beard tips with Eric Bandholz

Summer beard tips with Eric Bandholz — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Beard Brand’s Eric Bandholz offers up some summer beard tips to keep your beard looking and feeling its best this summer.

Read the full story on The Manual

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Computing

How Intel and Microsoft are teaming up to take on Apple

An Intel Meteor Lake system-on-a-chip.

It seems like Apple might need to watch out, because Intel and Microsoft are coming for it after the latter two companies reportedly forged a close partnership during the development of Intel Lunar Lake chips. Lunar Lake refers to Intel's upcoming generation of mobile processors that are aimed specifically at the thin and light segment. While the specs are said to be fairly modest, some signs hint that Lunar Lake may have enough of an advantage to pose a threat to some of the best processors.

Today's round of Intel Lunar Lake leaks comes from Igor's Lab. The system-on-a-chip (SoC), pictured above, is Intel's low-power solution made for thin laptops that's said to be coming out later this year. Curiously, the chips weren't manufactured on Intel's own process, but on TSMC's N3B node. This is an interesting development because Intel typically sticks to its own fabs, and it even plans to sell its manufacturing services to rivals like AMD. This time, however, Intel opted for the N3B node for its compute tile.

Computing

How much does an AI supercomputer cost? Try $100 billion

A Microsoft datacenter.

It looks like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Sora, among other projects, are about to get a lot more juice. According to a new report shared by The Information, Microsoft and OpenAI are working on a new data center project, one part of which will be a massive AI supercomputer dubbed "Stargate." Microsoft is said to be footing the bill, and the cost is astronomical as the name of the supercomputer suggests -- the whole project might cost over $100 billion.

Spending over $100 billion on anything is mind-blowing, but when put into perspective, the price truly shows just how big a venture this might be: The Information claims that the new Microsoft and OpenAI joint project might cost a whopping 100 times more than some of the largest data centers currently in operation.

Computing

There’s an unexpected, new competitor in PC gaming

Snapdragon's X Elite PC SoC.

Windows gaming on ARM is becoming a legitimate possibility, and it's not just thanks to the recently unveiled emulation options, but it's chiefly due to the fact that Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite is shaping up to be pretty excellent. Spotted in a recent benchmark, the CPU was seen beating some of the best processors on the current market. Are we finally at a point where it's not always going to be a choice between just Intel and AMD?

The benchmarks were posted by user @techinmul on Twitter, and the results couldn't be more promising for the upcoming Qualcomm processor. The chip was tested in Geekbench 6, and although it's important not to take these results entirely at face value, it's an impressive show of performance that bodes well for upcoming thin and light laptops.