This adorable AirTag is one of the rarest Apple devices ever made
Apple always rings in the Japanese New Year with a bit of pomp and circumstance, but this year’s sale has a little extra bling.
Since the upcoming year will be the Year of the Tiger, Apple has created an adorable cartoon graphic that will be engraved on the back of the AirTag. Like last year’s Year of the Ox AirPods case (which was based on the cow emoji), the design takes its cues from the tiger face emoji but with a fun and very cute design.
While the Year of the Ox AirPods (below) were available to anyone who wanted to buy them, the Year of the Tiger AirTag is far more limited. You can’t even buy one outright. Instead, anyone purchasing an iPhone 12, 12 mini, or SE will receive a custom AirTag limited to just 20,000 units. That makes it an extremely rare Apple device. For comparison, Apple made 12,000 Twentieth Anniversary Macs, which cost $7,499 each.
From Macworld
OnePlus 10 Pro benchmarked with 12GB RAM
The OnePlus 10 Pro launch is just around the corner, and the phone is already seemingly getting benchmarked. A phone from the brand, model-numbered NE2210, was spotted on Geekbench, and tipsters claim it is indeed the Pro variant.
The device will have 12 GB RAM, Android 12 out of the gate, and a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset – none of these specs are surprising.
What surprised us is the actual score this OnePlus phone yielded – 976 for a single core and 3,469 for multiple cores. These results are nowhere near the 1,100+ and 3,600+ we got for the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro back in March when we tested them.
The most plausible reason for the uninspiring scores is OnePlus hasn’t yet optimized the 10 Pro to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, or at least the device, used for the benchmark, is not fully developed. There’s also the chance this is intentional by OnePlus – after all, we know the company tends to make its phones underperforming for the sake of battery life.
From Gsmarena
Realme GT 2 stops by Geekbench with Snapdragon 888
Realme GT 2 series is launching on January 4 and we’ve come to expect three devices based on leaks. One of those was just spotted on Geekbench and its the vanilla model bearing the RMX 3310 identifier. It packs a Snapdragon 888 chipset at the helm aided by 12GB RAM and managed scores of 1,125-points on the single-core test and a 3,278-points outing in the multi-core department. The listing also confirmed Android 12 which presumably comes with Realme UI 3 on top.
Realme GT 2 is rumored to arrive in India and was already certified by the country’s local BIS certification agency. The phone was also spotted on the NBTC and TENAA portals which revealed a 6.62-inch AMOLED display, 50MP main cam alongside 8MP and 2MP auxiliary modules. Realme GT 2’s listed dimensions come in at 162.9 x 75.8 x 8.6mm while its weight is just shy of 200 grams.
From Gsmarena
Oppo A16k India launch by mid-January — specifications and more
The Oppo A16K had launched in the Philippines early in November this year and we had speculated that it would appear in India in the sub-Rs.15,000 category. There is now information floating in that the smartphone would appear on Indian shores in the second week of January.
A report published by 91Mobiles quotes tipster Mukul Sharma claiming that the new handset would appear in the first or second week of January. The company brought the Oppo A16 as the successor to its Oppo A15 launched in October 2020, thus adding more devices to its series of budget phones under the A series in India.
The Oppo A16 came packed with the MediaTek Helio G35, a big 5,000mAh battery and a triple rear camera on the back. The company had also launched the Oppo A15s announced back in December with massive 5000mAh battery for Rs 11,490 and followed it up with a 128GB variant while retaining the same 4GB RAM.
From Techradar
Realme reveals GT 2 Pro camera setup details
Realme teased the GT 2 Pro earlier this month and confirmed its arrival date to be January 4. There are still five days until the launch, but the brand has already unveiled the camera setup of its new flagship on Weibo.
The primary camera will have a 50 MP Sony IMX766 sensor – the same seen in the Oppo Find X3 Pro and OnePlus 9 Pro, both phones from sister companies under the BBK Electronics umbrella.
The second shooter will be an ultra-wide-angle camera with a massive 150-degree field of view, and the third will be a microscope camera.
From Gsmarena
Honor Magic V to come with 50MP main camera and dual high-refresh displays
According to the post, the Honor Magic V will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and come pre-loaded with Android 12 out of the box. The but about the chipset corroborates an earlier presentation slide leak. Meanwhile, the battery will support 66W super flash charging and there’s a 50MP main camera.
The large internal display has a punch-hole cutout in the upper right corner while the external cover display will have a centered punch hole camera. Meanwhile, both displays will support high refresh rates, the external and internal screens will support 120Hz and 90Hz refresh rates, respectively.
The post on Weibo mentions that the specs listed are based on a prototype design and subject to change before the product is finalized.
From Gsmarena
Patent shows the Apple Watch Digital Crown might be replaced by optical sensors
As reported by Patently Apple, the US Patent & Trademark Office this week published a new patent from the Cupertino-based company that reveals how the Digital Crown on the Apple Watch can be replaced by optical sensors that are able to identify user gestures.
The patent is named “Watch with optical sensor for user input” and demonstrates how the company can use new sensors to let users scroll through the interface while reducing the number of moving parts in the Apple Watch with the removal of the Digital Crown. Optical sensors would detect the gestures made by users to turn them into system controls.
Apple notes in the patent that removing the Digital Crown can not only make the Apple Watch more durable, but can also free up space that can be used by other components such as new sensors or even a larger battery.
From 9to5Mac
Intel Arc Alchemist graphics cards may be delayed until March
Intel’s first line of discrete gaming graphics cards, dubbed Arc Alchemist, is right around the corner — but the launch may not be as close as initially thought.
While rumors first pointed to Intel releasing the new GPUs in January 2022, a new report suggests a launch in March. In addition, new information emerged about what Intel’s initial lineup may offer.
Intel may not have shared much about the specifications of the cards, but its marketing materials indicate that it’s planning to release two chips in the Arc Alchemist GPU line. However, leaked drivers show that Intel may have up to 32 different cards in the new lineup. How many of those will actually be released upon launch date remains to be seen, but a new report from IT home indicates that there may not be many to begin with.
From Digital Trends
Upcoming HDMI 2.1a spec to add source-based tone mapping for HDR content
HDMI Forum, the entity responsible for issuing and licensing HDMI standards, will be announcing HDMI 2.1a at CES 2022. This is the next version of the latest HDMI 2.1 standard that is currently available, and will bring with it source-based tone mapping or SBTM.
According to The Verge, SBTM enables tone mapping of HDR content on the source device rather than the display. This means, if you have a Blu-ray player plugged into a TV and playing HDR content, the tone mapping for the HDR content will be done on the Blu-ray player rather than the television.
From Gsmarena
India achieves 2030 target of 40% non-fossil based electricity goal
As part of its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) at COP 21, India had committed to achieving 40 percent of its installed electricity capacity from non-fossil energy sources by 2030. However, the country has achieved this target in November 2021 itself.
The country’s installed Renewable Energy (RE) capacity stands at 150.54 GW (solar: 48.55 GW, wind: 40.03 GW, small hydro power: 4.83, bio-power: 10.62, large hydro: 46.51 GW) as on 30 November 2021 while its nuclear energy based installed electricity capacity stands at 6.78 GW.
This brings the total non-fossil based installed energy capacity to 157.32 GW which is 40.1 percent of the total installed electricity capacity of 392.01 GW, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has said.
From Economic Times
