MediaTek’s Dimensity 8100 leaks, promises Snapdragon 888-like performance
In a new Weibo post, Digital Chat Station revealed the key specs of MediaTek’s upcoming Dimensity 8100 chipset. A second post also revealed that the SoC will likely debut with an upcoming Redmi smartphone next month.
The Dimensity 8100 is rumored to employ four Cortex-A78 cores ticking at 2.85GHz and four Cortex-A55 cores running at 2.0GHz.
There’s some discrepancy with the GPU where the software detects it as G610 MC6 GPU but the fact sheet the leaker obtained points to G510 MC6 instead.
The chip is built on TSMC’s 5nm manufacturing process and comes with support for LDDR5 memory and UFS 3.1 storage.
The leakster says that the GFX Bench ES 3.0 Manhattan test results (probably the offscreen variant) are around 170 fps, which puts the GPU in the same category as the Adreno 660 on the Snapdragon 888/888+ from last year.
If the report is accurate, the Dimensity 8100 chip will likely do very well in the mid-range segment this year. And we have every reason to believe the leak given as it’s in line with the leaked Dimensity 8000 benchmarks from last week.
From Gsmarena
Samsung Galaxy A03 finally makes it to India
The Samsung Galaxy A03 that was initially announced back in November has been available already in some markets, but not India. Today the Korean company has made the first step in rectifying that, by officially launching it for the Indian market.
The device is already listed on Samsung’s India website, and it seems like there’s only one RAM/storage combination for India: 3/32GB. At least if we go by Samsung’s website. However, according to FoneArena, it should also be available from retail stores in a 4/64GB configuration.
Surely you are by now wondering about the price. The entry-level model goes for INR 10,499, while the upper one is priced at INR 11,999. These are incidentally the exact prices that leaked from a retailer’s internal system just a few days ago.
The Galaxy A03 comes with a 6.5-inch 720×1600 HD+ LCD display with V-shaped notch in the middle housing the 5 MP front camera, the Unisoc T606 chipset, a 48 MP rear camera with LED flash and 2 MP depth sensor, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a 5,000 mAh battery. It runs Android 11 with One UI Core 3.1 on top, and has dual-SIM support with a dedicated microSD card slot too.
From Gsmarena
Recent Apple patent imagines the Magic Keyboard with a Mac built-in
A new patent has been published by the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) that was filed by Apple back In August 2020. The patent is for an Apple keyboard device that is essentially a portable Mac computer.
The patent explains this is a “computer in an input device”, that’s essentially a Mac mini if it was crammed into a Magic Keyboard housing. “A strong demand for portable computing devices which also deliver high performance has driven miniaturization and reduction in size of the once bulky computing components used to power and drive the devices,” reads the patent.
The keyboard housing would contain all the components like “processors, batteries, memory, integrated circuits” so that the user would only need to hook it up to a monitor. In addition to mentions using heat-conductive materials to dissipate heat generated by such a device, the patent says that a portable computer in a keyboard could even be folded to make it even more compact. There may even be a Trackpad built-into the keyboard so that the user doesn’t even need to bring a pointing device.
The patent doesn’t really show one kind of device, but rather many possible hardware configurations and methods for a portable keyboard/computer to make sense. This patent doesn’t confirm that Apple will ever make such a product, but it’s fun to imagine what if.
From Gsmarena
Meta AR/VR OS rumours hint at few software changes for the Oculus Quest 3
While we wait for new virtual reality hardware from Meta – including the Oculus Quest 3 and the mysterious Project Cambria – there’s news of some internal shuffling around on the software side that could have an impact on these upcoming devices.
According to a report from The Information (via The Verge), the company formerly known as Facebook is disbanding the team working on an all-encompassing VR and AR operating system with the name XROS.
That team was made up of some 300 people apparently, so this is quite a significant restructuring by Meta. Those team members are reportedly splitting off to other projects inside the company, including work on augmented reality glasses.
From Techradar
Realme V25 passes through Geekbench ahead of launch
The Realme V25 set to launch in China on March 3 has passed through Geekbench, confirming key specs in the process.
The V25, sporting model code RMX3475, is powered by the Snapdragon 695 SoC, runs Android 12, and has 12GB RAM onboard. But thanks to TENAA, we know there will also be 6GB and 8GB RAM options.
Realme hasn’t divulged much about the V25 yet, but the company already revealed its design and said that the smartphone’s rear cover will feature a photochromic layer, which will change the panel’s color from blue to red when exposed to sunlight.
The V25’s images shared by Realme and the specs revealed by TENAA suggest the V25 will be a version of Realme 9 Pro, which comes with Snapdragon 695, 6.6″ 120Hz FullHD+ LCD, Android 12-based Realme UI 3.0, side-mounted fingerprint scanner, and a 5,000 mAh battery charged through USB-C at up to 33W.
The Realme 9 Pro has a 16MP shooter inside the screen’s punch hole and a 64MP primary camera on the rear, joined by 8MP ultrawide and 2MP macro units. But, the camera system on the V25 will consist of one 64MP and two 2MP cameras.
You can read our Realme 9 Pro review here or watch the video review attached below to learn more about it.
From Gsmarena
Here’s what a future Apple foldable might look like
Apple’s first foray into foldables may not come in the mobile space at all. Recent rumors point to Apple working on a foldable screen with a 20-inch display that would have a virtual keyboard in “laptop mode” or could be paired with an external keyboard and mouse to use when unfolded completely. This is not dissimilar to the ASUS Zenbook 17 we saw at CES this year. That laptop borrowed heavily from the ThinkPad X1 Fold from a few years ago.
The advantages here are obvious. A large screen that folds down into a smaller laptop-sized box is great. This kind of laptop would be an artist’s dream, and Apple has always appealed to the creator crowd. Obviously, a laptop that’s sold as a screen that could be used with an external mouse and keyboard lends itself to Apple-made accessories that it can sell. If there’s anything Apple has proven it loves to do, it’s selling accessories. If I had to come up with a random example totally off the top of my head, I might point to the $19 polishing cloth.
From Digital Trends
Apple Spring event: iPhone SE, iPad Air, and a mysterious Mac
Apple hasn’t sent out invites yet, so we don’t have an official date for the spring event. However, Apple events are usually held on Tuesdays, and the Spring events tend to land sometime in March. There are two primary dates that are in contention right now. Gurman is putting his money on March 8, while other sources have indicated that later in the month could be in the running.
March 8 seems to be the more likely option, and since invites are sent out a week in advance, we’ll find out for certain on Monday or Tuesday of next week.
The event will be entirely virtual and streamed online at Apple’s website, usually beginning at 10 a.m. PT.
From Digital Trends
Nvidia hit with potentially major cyberattack
Nvidia appears to have been hit with a potential cyber attack this week, which has reportedly “completely compromised” parts of its business, forcing the tech giant to take some services offline.
The report comes from The Telegraph and says that the cyberattack has taken parts of Nvidia’s business offline for at least two days, coinciding with the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine and its subsequent cyber warfare operations against Ukraine.
“We are investigating an incident,” An Nvidia spokesperson told TechRadar. “Our business and commercial activities continue uninterrupted. We are still working to evaluate the nature and scope of the event and don’t have any additional information to share at this time.”
The Telegraph report says that the company’s email systems and developer tools were suffering from outages in the last two days from what is believed to be a malicious intrusion into the company’s network, though no culprit has been identified or even if the problem is a cyberattack.
From Techradar
A rocket will crash into the moon. It’ll leave way more than a scar.
Bill Gray, who tracks objects in near-moon orbits for asteroid hunters in his spare time, recently noticed a four-ton rocket booster on a collision course with the far side of the moon. It’s expected to make landfall on March 4 and will be the first-known space junk to unintentionally crash into the moon.
Traveling at an estimated 3.3 miles per second, the hunk of metal, now believed to be left over from a 2014 Chinese lunar mission (Gray originally identified it as a SpaceX rocket booster), is expected to make a crater 65-feet long — about the size of a tractor-trailer, and smash into who-knows-how-many pieces. Though NASA and the European Space Agency weren’t monitoring the high-flying space junk — hardly anyone does — they have given credibility to the findings, confirming the crash forecast. The impact will happen at 7:26 a.m. EST.
China has denied ownership of the wayward rocket, saying the Chang’e-5 T1 debris burned up in Earth’s atmosphere.
It’s hard to not imagine the “moon man” wincing from the blow. Given that it won’t be the first time a rocket has slammed into his face — or that junk has scattered on the surface — perhaps he no longer flinches. But with humanity’s growing lunar ambitions, the question is how much moon destruction, contamination, and littering is acceptable to us.
From Mashable
US sanctions against Russia will limit its access to technology from overseas
The US government has imposed harsh export restrictions against Russia designed to drastically limit its access to both low- and high-tech goods from overseas. As first reported by Reuters, the Commerce Department has posted a list of expanded licensing policies and requirements implemented in response to Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine.
Under the expanded sanctions, US suppliers that want to ship to Russia will have to obtain licenses for goods that didn’t require one in the past. Those goods include microelectronics, telecommunications items, sensors, navigation equipment, avionics, marine equipment and aircraft components.
In addition, the US is adding companies designated as “military end users” due to their alleged ties to the Russian military to the entity list. Any company seeking to ship products made abroad to those military end users will have to obtain licenses from the United States if they’re using US-made tools, technology and software for their products. The government says these sanctions should “significantly impact Russia’s ability to acquire items it cannot produce itself.”
From Engadget
