Month: February 2022

Qualcomm introduced its Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 processor in December, promising an enormous 85% performance boost over the company’s previous-gen chip for Windows laptops and tablets.

So far no devices with the processor have officially launched. But leaked benchmarks for an unannounced Lenovo device suggested that the chip really might deliver on that promise, at least in synthetic tests. Now benchmarks for an unannounced Microsoft Surface device paint a similar picture. Unfortunately there’s no word on when you’ll actually be able to buy one, or if it will be competitively priced when compared to devices with latest Intel or AMD processors.

Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web.

Microsoft Surface device with Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 leaked by GeekBench [WinFuture]

Microsoft appears to be testing a Surface device with a Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 processor, with performance that could rival a Core i7-1165G7… at least in benchmarks. Real-world performance remains to be seen. This comes a few months after a Lenovo device with the same processor showed up in a GeekBench listing with similar performance scores. 

Introducing the Trust-Proven Program [Indiegogo]

Some crowdfunding campaigns succeed. Others fail. And a lot fall in between, failing to fully deliver on their promises. Indiegogo has a new Trust-Proven Program to put a badge on campaigns from those with proven history of delivering.

Precursor open mobile handheld production status update [Crowd Supply]

The Precursor is a crowdfunded open hardware mobile device with a physical keyboard and an FPGA that was expected to ship in December, but delayed due to supply chain issues. Production began in December though, and it’s almost ready to go.

Ubuntu Touch OTA-22 Call for Testing [UBPorts]

Ubuntu Touch OTA-22 is coming Feb 18 and UBports is looking for testers. Expected major Pixel 3a improvements, WebGL support on some devices, and other improvements.

Steam Deck teardowns reveal potential shortcoming for Valve’s handheld gaming console [NotebookCheck]

Steam Deck teardown videos show that it’ll be fairly easy to add or replace the SSD or repair parts like the thumb sticks, one critical piece of hardware is glued down: the battery clearly isn’t designed to be replaced.

Changes to NOOK Audiobooks [B&N]

B&N is killing its standalone NOOK Audiobooks app and merging it with the B&N NOOK app and website, putting the company’s eBook, periodical, and audiobooks under a single brand.

Keep up on the latest headlines by following Liliputing on Twitter and Facebook and follow @LinuxSmartphone on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news on open source mobile phones.

The post Lilbits: Surface with Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 leaked, Indiegogo tries to build confidence, and Precursor could ship soon appeared first on Liliputing.

Shenzen-based Lilygo has added a slick new devkit to its product range, the TTGO T-Block. It’s a modular unit that lets makers add functionality by snapping different covers onto its diminutive base unit.

The T-Block host measures roughly 1.5 inches square. Like a number of Lilygo’s dev boards, the T-Block utilizes an ESP32 low-power SoC.

It’s clocked at 240Mhz and has 520KB of SRAM. It also offers 8MB of PSRAM and 16MB of onboard flash storage. SD and micro SD slots allow for expansion.

The T-Block also supports WiFi 4 Bluetooth LE 4.2 and 5.X. Power and programming are done via a single USB-C port which is located next a pair of buttons. One turns the unit on and off while the other is user-configurable.What makes the T-Block most interesting is the 20-pin connector on its top. It allows different covers that add a wide range of functions to be connected.Above, you can see the e-Paper display cover. Lilygo also offers an 8×8 LED cover, a rapid prototyping cover, a button cover, and a gas sensor cover. There’s even a complete kit that turns the T-Block into a tiny turtle-like robot. It comes with collision sensors and a wheeled base that lets it scoot around.You can order a T-Block Host for just under $25 on ALiExpress, but you’ll need to purchase at least one cover. With the exception of the $16 e-Paper cover, they go for less than $3 a piece. The T-Block robot kit is listed at just under $40.via CNX Software

The post Lilygo TTGO T-Block devkit wears modular covers to handle different tasks appeared first on Liliputing.

Intel has been dividing its mainstream processors into two different pricing/performance tiers for years. There are mainstream and high-performance laptop, tablet, and desktop chips that are part of the company’s Core series (with the inclusion of some Celeron and Pentium Gold models at the cheaper end), and there are low-cost, low-power Celeron and Pentium Silver chips based on Intel Atom architecture.

Now details about Intel’s next-gen low-power Celeron and Pentium Silver chips, code-named Alder Lake-N have started to leak.

These are the sorts of chips that are often found in Chromebooks and budget Windows laptops or mini PCs, and the most recent processors in this line are Intel’s Jasper Lake chips with Intel Tremont CPU cores, including the Intel Celeron N4500, Celeron N5100, and Pentium Silver N6000 processors.

But this year’s lineup could look a little different, with new chips featuring more CPU cores and higher-performance graphics. And you may be able to thank Intel’s new hybrid chips for that.

Intel’s 12th-gen Core processors, code-named Alder Lake, incorporate two different types of CPU cores: high performance CPU cores based on the new Golden Cove Core architecture and energy efficient chips based on the new Atom-based Gracemont architecture. The idea is that most Alder Lake chips can use the efficient cores to save power when they’re all that’s needed, use the performance cores when you need the extra power, and use all cores together for an even bigger boost in multi-core performance.

The new Gracemont CPU cores bring a pretty significant performance boost over Jasper Lake chips, offering the kind of horsepower you would have expected from a Core processor a few years ago. And Intel’s Alder Lake lineup pairs up to 8 of those CPU cores with one or more Golden Cove cores.

According to information gleaned from a partial boot log of an unannounced device with an Alder Lake-N processor, it looks like Alder Lake-N chips will basically be what you get if you take a 12th-gen Core processor and leave out the Golden Cove cores altogether.

That means you get up to 8 Gracemont CPU cores, with no support for hyperthreading, so an 8-core chip supports 8 threads.

It also looks like we can expect Alder Lake-N chips to feature Intel Gen12 integrated graphics with 32 execution units and support for encoding and decoding AV1, H.264, and H.265 videos as well as 8K video at 60 frames per second.

That could make laptops, tablets, or mini PCs with Alder Lake-N chips a good fit for home media center or digital signage applications, but you’re probably going to want to look elsewhere for gaming or video editing applications.

Intel hasn’t announce when Alder Lake-N chips will be available, but with the first laptops powered by 45-watt Alder Lake-H laptop processors just starting to ship and 28-watt Alder Lake-U and 9-15 watt Alder Lake-P devices having yet to ship at all, it will likely be a little while.

via Tom’s Hardware and Phoronix

The post Intel’s Alder Lake-N details leaked (low-cost, low-power chips that will succeed Jasper Lake) appeared first on Liliputing.

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Enlarge / A US Bradley Fighting Vehicle drives during a joint military exercise between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the US-led international coalition against the Islamic State (IS) group, in the countryside of Deir Ezzor in northeastern Syria on December 7, 2021. The US Army is currently testing a version of the Bradley with a hybrid-electric drivetrain. (credit: DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP)

The US Army released its climate change strategy this week, and it’s a lengthy document that shows how the largest and oldest branch of the military will not only prepare for climate change but will also zero out emissions from most of its operations and activities.

“We have a unique opportunity to improve our defense capabilities and become a more efficient force, while securing a better future,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said in an introduction to the report. “The Army is on track to build on the progress we’ve achieved to date and reach every aspect of the Army enterprise.”

The Army says that the goal isn’t just to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions—though that’s a key outcome—but also to make the force more resilient by “adapting infrastructure and natural environments to climate change risks.”

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Hacking group Team-Xecuter has long been a thorn in the side of major gaming companies.

The group offered hardware and software solutions that allowed people to install and play games – including pirated copies – on various consoles such as the popular Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo had been trying to shut down the group for years but without much result. However, in 2020 the matter escalated when the US Government launched a criminal prosecution of three Team-Xecuter members, accusing them of facilitating copyright infringement.

Bowser Pleaded Guilty

Thus far only one of the three, a 52-year-old Canadian man named Gary Bowser, has appeared at a U.S. federal court. Bowser was arrested in the Dominican Republic, where he lived, and was later deported to the United States where he pleaded guilty.

According to the prosecution, Bowser was the “salesperson” of Team-Xecuter, where he dealt with resellers of the products. He was also known as “GaryOPA”, the operator of the website “MaxConsole”, which regularly reviewed Team-Xecuter hardware and other hacking tools.

As part of the guilty plea, Bowser accepted the possibility of a five-year prison sentence for conspiring to circumvent technological measures and trafficking in circumvention devices.

Last week, the U.S. Government stressed that a five-year prison term was indeed justified. Among other things, this would serve as a warning to others who are tempted to continue the work of Team-Xecuter.

Bowser’s attorneys disagreed and asked the court to limit the sentence to 19 months, of which 16 have already been served. They stressed that Bowser was not the mastermind behind the operation but was used by the people who earned the big bucks.

40 month Prison

Today, District Court Judge Robert S. Lasnik chose the middle ground and sentenced Bowser to 40 months in prison. This comes on top of the $4.5 million in restitution he previously agreed to pay Nintendo.

“These are serious criminal offenses with real victims and harm to the community,” Judge Lasnik said.

In a press release, the U.S. Department of Justice describes Bowser as a prominent leader of the criminal enterprise. U.S. Attorney Nick Brown notes that during its lifespan the group caused an estimated $65 million in losses to gaming companies.

Today’s sentencing is seen as a key victory in the fight against gaming piracy. However, it doesn’t close the books on the criminal prosecution just yet, as the other two defendants have yet to be brought to justice.

This includes Max Louarn, a 49-year-old French national. He was reportedly placed in custody when the investigation was launched, but we haven’t heard any updates since. The third defendant, a Chinese man named Yuanning Chen, 36, is presumably still at large.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)

Prior to the pandemic, the opposition to vaccines was apolitical. The true believers were a small population and confined to the fringes of both major parties, with no significant representation in the political mainstream. But over the past year, political opposition to vaccine mandates has solidified, with a steady stream of bills introduced attempting to block various ways of encouraging or requiring COVID vaccinations.

This naturally led vaccine proponents to ask why these same lawmakers weren't up in arms in the many decades that schools, the military, and other organizations required vaccines against things like the measles and polio. After all, pointing out logical inconsistencies like that makes for a powerful argument, right?

Be careful what you wish for. Vaccine mandate opponents have started trying to eliminate their logical inconsistency. Unfortunately, they're doing it by trying to get rid of all mandates.

Read 22 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Enlarge / This artist’s impression shows a close-up view of Proxima d, a planet candidate recently found orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. (credit: ESO/L. Calçada)

We've now cataloged thousands of planets that orbit distant stars. For most of them, our knowledge is limited to basic statistics: their size, mass, and orbital distance from their host star. And, due to the difficult-to-comprehend distances within our galaxy, it's likely that this will remain the sum of our knowledge about them for generations.

For the small number of planets closer to Earth, however, there's the chance to learn much more. Plans are already underway to study the atmospheres of planets within about 30 light years of Earth over the next few decades, and improvements in existing technologies have the potential to reveal even more. So the discovery of an Earth-sized planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, was exciting news. We now have the potential to learn much more about this rare planet.

And now, scientists have confirmed that this planet isn't alone; at least one more planet orbits Proxima Centauri. And it turns out to be an unusually light one, with only about double the mass of Mars.

Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Google has made a habit of dropping Android developer preview releases in February, and it turns out this year is no different. Even though Android 12L just arrived yesterday, seemingly out of the blue, the first preview of Android 13 was made available today.

Unless you’re a developer, you probably don’t want to dive right in and install this on any of your devices. Sit tight at least until the beta releases become available. That’s expected to happen in late March or early April.

The main purpose of this — or any developer preview — is to give app developers plenty of time to take figure out how to advantage of new features, adapt to any changes that might affect their apps and squash any bugs that pop up along the way.

So what’s new in Android 13?

One of the biggest visual changes to appear is themed icons. It’s part of the Material You push and started taking shape in the Pixel Launcher in Android 12. The Monet theming engine is rolling out to everyone in Android 13 and Google is urging developers to add icons so that users can choose whether to use icons that match their system theme or stick with defaults.

Google is also making it easier to customize quick settings via a new tile placement API. In Android 13, apps will be able to prompt you to see if you want to add a tile to your quick settings.

While those are some of the more visible changes, there’s quite a lot going on behind the scenes in the Android 13 developer preview.

One of the most significant is that Google has begun updating the Android core libraries to support Java 11. These will eventually find their way to your devices via Google Play updates.

On a related note, Google has also continued the work that was begun with Project Mainline in 2019. Additional modules will allow Google to update even more functionality (like Bluetooth support) via Google Play services in Android 13.

The photo picker is one such module. It now allows an app to select a single image or video for sharing without granting the app full permission to access a device’s storage. This particular update will also reportedly be shipped to older versions of Android, too.

Another permission-related change is a tweak to how Android 13 allows apps to see nearby WiFi devices. Apps like those used to set up robotic vacuums won’t need permission to access WiFi settings. Instead, the system will forward information to the app (presumably without handing over location data, as Ars Technica muses).

Android 13 also makes it easier for multilingual users to jump comfortably between their apps. Per-app language preferences have been added via a new API that allows developers to query or change settings independently of Android itself.

There are also improvements coming for tablets, Chromebooks and foldables — many of which popped up in the also-just-released Android 12L.

Want to take the Android 13 developer preview without flashing it to a device? You can still grab emulator images from Google and try it out in Android Studio.

via XDA Developers

The post Surprise! Google drops the first developer preview of Android 13 appeared first on Liliputing.