Quick Shots-13

Samsung goes past Intel, and is world’s largest semiconductor supplier in 2Q21

Pushed by the strong showing of its memory semiconductors (DRAM), Samsung Electronics has gone past its archrival Intel to take the No.1 spot in chip sales in the second quarter of the year.

The Korean tech major logged in $20.29 billion in chip sales in the April-June period, which is a 19% rise from a quarter earlier, according to the latest McClean Report released by market researcher IC Insights.

The break-up of Samsung’s sales is: $19.26 billion in integrated circuit (IC), and $1.03 billion in optoelectronic, sensor and discrete (OSD) sales.

Samsung has edged out Intel for the first time since the third quarter of 2018.

The report said semiconductor sales from the top 10 firms rose 10% quarter-on-quarter to $95.5 billion in the second quarter, beating the total industry average growth of 8%.

Read More at Techradar

Apple tested under-display Touch ID for iPhone 13, but don’t expect it to happen

Earlier this year we heard rumblings that Apple was working on an under-display fingerprint scanner, and the latest news suggests those rumblings were well founded – but that this feature might not ever make it onto an iPhone.

That’s according to Mark Gurman (a journalist with a good track record for Apple information). In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg, he claims that Apple had been testing under-display Touch ID for the iPhone 13 range, but that it won’t make the cut this year.

In fact, Gurman went so far as to say that “I believe Apple is all-in on Face ID for its higher-end iPhones and its long-term goal is to implement Face ID in the display itself.” So that suggests we probably won’t see under-display Touch ID on any iPhone if he’s right, but that Apple will instead offer under-display Face ID – which is something else we’ve heard rumored before.

Read More at Techradar

Huawei patent takes curved display design to new extreme

Curved displays have become a fixture on Huawei‘s premium flagships, but they’re more for aesthetics than a practical feature. However, a new patent suggests future Huawei phones could take this design to the extreme while adding utility.

Spotted by LetsGoDigital, the patent describes a display that occupies the phone’s front and sides. The sliver of the screen on each edge also packs touch controls, replacing physical volume, power, and trigger buttons. The display’s borders would be sensitive to various pressure levels.

Notably, Huawei added virtual buttons to the Mate 30 Pro, but the system was convoluted and unnecessary. Thankfully, it reverted to physical buttons a year later.

Read More at Techradar

Huawei’s MatePad Pro is a good tablet trapped in an OS war

Look around the next time you’re at a coffee shop or airport. Although it’s possible I haven’t been looking hard enough, I don’t think I’ve ever spotted an Android tablet out in the wild, much less a tablet that runs HarmonyOS, the operating system Huawei built to run on its devices in place of Google’s Android. 

That changed when I tested the slender new Huawei MatePad Pro 12.6 — the tablet Huawei is positioning as a competitor to Apple’s iPad Pro. The Huawei brand has been making inroads around the world, but because of its fraught, often litigious relationship with the US government, the electronics manufacturer hasn’t struck gold in American markets.

Read More at Cnet

Sony’s new PS5 model is lighter and doesn’t need a screwdriver

Sony has quietly launched a revised PS5 model in Australia. Press Start, an Australian-based gaming site, reports that the revised PS5 models include a new screw for the base stand that no longer requires a screwdriver. Sony reportedly swapped in a new screw with a grip around the top so it can be easily adjusted by hand.

Press Start also reports that these updated PS5 models are around 300 grams (0.6 pounds) lighter than the original, but it’s not clear what Sony has removed or changed to bring the weight down. The new PS5s ship with a CFI-1102A model number, instead of the CFI-1000 found on the original.

Read More at The Verge

Intel’s Arc GPU could defeat the Nvidia RTX 3070 and AMD RX 6700 XT

If you’re sick of what currently feels like a two-party system for graphics cards then Intel has some exciting news – its upcoming discreet GPU dubbed Intel Arc might give AMD’s RX 6700 XT and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 a run for their money.

Arc is the latest flagship GPU from Intel, previously codenamed ‘Alchemist’ (with future products planned including ‘Battlemage’, ‘Celestial’ and ‘Druid’) and as reported last week, is anticipated to launch in Q1 2022. The initial release will be based on Intel’s Xe-HPG microarchitecture, which helps the product more efficiently compute advanced graphical features like ray tracing, and should give Intel a firm leg up in the PC gaming space.

Read More at Techradar

The powerful new Galaxy A52s 5G is headed to India soon

Samsung already had a winner on its hands in the form of the Galaxy A52 5G. Last week, the company launched an even better mid-range smartphone, the Galaxy A52s 5G. Apart from Europe and South Korea, it looks like the company could also launch the new smartphone in the Indian market.

It has been revealed that Samsung India has been sending Galaxy A52s 5G posters and other marketing material to retailers across the country. A leaked image also shows the company mentioning India with the Galaxy A52s 5G. The phone could be available in India in three colors: Awesome Black, Awesome Mint, and Awesome White.

While the phone’s Indian pricing hasn’t been revealed yet, it would help Samsung if it launches the Galaxy A52s 5G with a price tag of INR 30,000 (around $404) or lower. The smartphone will compete with the Motorola Edge 20, Realme GT Master Edition, Realme X7 Max 5G, and the Xiaomi Mi 11X. They all have either the Snapdragon 778G or the Snapdragon 870 processor and are priced below INR 30,000.

Read More at Sammobile

Apple could release new, redesigned Mac mini this fall

The Mac mini was among the first Apple computers to come with Apple’s in-house M1 chip. Like other M1 machines, it was praised for being fast and quiet, but it was a little low on ports (it only had two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, and a headphone jack), and it couldn’t support more than 16GB of RAM. It also only let you connect two monitors, and even then you had to connect one via Thunderbolt and the other via HDMI. Hopefully these issues are resolved in the updated version this fall.

Read More at Mashable

Math, Optics, And CNC Combine To Hide Secret Images In Acrylic

Magic mirrors, with an LCD panel hidden behind a partially reflectively mirror, are popular for a reason — they’re a good-looking way to display useful information. A “Magic Window,” however, is an entirely different thing — and from the look of it, a far cooler one.

If you’ve never seen a Magic Window before, don’t worry — it’s partially because you’re not supposed to see it. A Magic Window appears to be a clear piece of glass or plastic, one with a bit of a wave in it that causes some distortion when looking through it. But as [Matt Ferraro] explains, the distortion encodes a hidden image, visible only when light passes through the window. It looks a bit like a lithophane, but it’s projected rather than reflected, and it relies on an optical phenomenon known as caustics. If you’ve ever seen the bright and dark patches cast on the bottom of a swimming pool when sunlight hits the surface, you’ve seen caustics.

Read More at Hackaday

India’s Zetwerk valued at $1.33 billion in new funding

An Indian startup that operates a business-to-business marketplace for manufacturing items is the latest to attain the coveted unicorn status in the South Asian market.

Bangalore-based Zetwerk said on Monday it has raised $150 million in a Series E financing round led by New York based D1 Capital Partners. New investors Avenir and IIFL also participated in the round, along with existing investors Greenoaks Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners.

The new investment values Zetwerk at $1.33 billion, twice of $600 million-$700 million it was valued at in its Series D round in February this year. The round also included several high-profile angel investors including Kunal Shah of CRED and Ritesh Aggarwal of OYO.

The four-year-old startup runs a business-to-business marketplace for manufacturing items that connects OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and EPC (engineering procurement construction) customers with manufacturing small-businesses and enterprises.

Read More at TechCrunch