Apple is looking at building its own satellites to transmit data directly to users devices

Not content with the success of the iPhone, Apple could be looking at building a satellite network that can broadcast data straight to users devices. This could mean that Apple will completely bypass wireless networks with this technology. The company has recruited a number of engineers with backgrounds in aerospace, antenna design and satellite technology. The only drawback to this is that the project is in its early stages and could be abandoned or discontinued, so do take this news with a pinch of salt.  Apple CEO Tim Cook has indicated that this project was a company priority. 

First reported by Bloomberg, Apple is looking at more precise location tracking, along with an improved map system and a bunch of other new features that will be revealed later. We don’t exactly know if Apple is looking at manufacturing its own satellites or use their on ground technology to kickstart the project. If it does manage to manufacture its own satellites, they will be competing with other major players in the satellite manufacturing market such as Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co.  

Apple has been looking out for software and hardware experts for the project as well. The company has also bolstered their team with the addition of executives from the fields of aerospace and wireless data delivery systems. Led by Michael Trela and John Fenwick, the team hopes to take the project forward. The duo were responsible for Google’s satellite and spacecraft divisions but left the company in 2017. 

Who knows what this new technology will bring but it does look like Apple could go ahead with this ambitious project as it expands its business into untapped markets. 

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Nikon Z6 and Z7 receive firmware update, brings RAW video capture as a paid upgrade

Nikon launched the Z6 and Z7 fullframe mirrorless cameras back in 2018, and since then, the company has continued to focus on building a robust lens ecosystem. However, in the year since, Nikon has been slowly, but steadily pushing out firmware updates that continue to improve the performance of the cameras and the lenses. The latest update comes in two parts.

Firmware 2.20 for the Nikon Z6 and Z7 upgrade the XQD Card slot to be compatible with the new CFexpress memory card standard. The new CFexpress standard uses PCIe 3.0 lanes (up to 4 lanes) and enabled data transfer speeds of up to 1GB/s, per-lane. Firmware 2.20 enables the current XQD slot to now operate at the new, significantly faster speed, without needing any physical upgrade to the slot. The firmware can be downloaded from the Nikon Download Center.

The new CFexpress Type B cards use the same form-factor as an XQD card, making it a hassle-free experience for shooters. While the XQD card was originally developed by Sony, the Compact Flash Association had announced CFexpress as the successor to QXD in 2016. If you do update your Z6 or Z7 to the new firmware, do remember that you need to buy a card designated as CFexpress in order to take advantage of the new speeds.

The second firmware update offered by Nikon for the two full-frame mirrorless cameras is a paid one, which enables RAW Video capture. Users who want the ability to shoot RAW Video on their Nikon Z6 or Nikon Z7 will need to take their cameras in to a Nikon authorized service center and have them install the feature. Interestingly, Nikon is charging a Rs 15,000 upgrade fee for the feature. Additionally, if you do opt to get the upgrade, you will need an external recorder to actually shoot video in RAW. As of now, only the Atomos Ninja V is compatible with the Nikon Z6 and Nikon Z7 for RAW video capture. You can get both 4K UHD or 1080p 12-bit RAW video over HDMI to the external recorder.

While charging for a feature that the camera is capable of supporting is unfortunate, it makes sense. The cost factor acts as a deterrent for average users to experiment with the feature, which, if used improperly, could result in damage to the camera. This way, Nikon has ensured that only professionals who actually need to use the feature, would opt for it.

Do note that the RAW output over HDMI into the Atomos Ninja V is encoded in ProRes RAW, a format that has become a standard over the last few months. Unfortunately, at the moment, only FCPX supports the format. Both Adobe and Avid had announced earlier this year that they will be bringing support for the format natively to their editing suite of applications, but it hasn’t happened as of yet.

If you do opt to get the paid upgrade, do ensure that your workflow will support the new feature.

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AMD Ryzen 4000 APUs for laptops leaked, Ryzen 7 4700U listed on benchmark site

AMD has had a very successful year when it comes to their desktop chips, but for the last few months, consumers have been wondering as to when the company would replicate the same for its laptop chips. Well, we finally have our first leak of an upcoming Ryzen processor for laptops and it shows some very promising numbers. Listed on the 3DMark website we have the AMD Ryzen 7 4700U, an 8 core-8 thread processor, first caught by Redditt user _rogame.

The alleged AMD Ryzen 7 4700U was apparently benchmarked on PCMark 10 and earned the laptop a score of 4893. From the listing page, we learn that the Ryzen 7 4700U is an 8-core processor capable of 8 execution threads. The base clock speed of this processor is 2.0 GHz with a boost clock of 4.2GHz. There’s also Radeon graphics onboard, but the clock speeds reported by the benchmark could be incorrect, as pointed out in the original Redditt post.

The new AMD Ryzen 4000 APU lineup, codenamed Renoir, is expected to also be fabricated on the 7nm process, just like the third-gen Ryzen desktop CPUs. According to a separate Redditt post by the same user, we get a glimpse of the entire Ryzen 4000 series, with laptop chips coming in 15W and 45W flavours. Further, there are 7 mobility Ryzen chips and 7 Ryzen Pro APUs. The full list is below. What is interesting is that AMD will also be offering a Ryzen 9 on the mobile platform, finally releasing a counterpart to Intel’s high-end Intel Core i9 chip.

AMD Ryzen 4000 APU 15Watt SKUs

  Revision CU count SKU TDP Market From product master leak AMD Radeon(TM) Renoir Graphics C1 1636_REV_C1 12 or 13 CUs (B12) 15W Consumer RENOIR Ryzen 9 B12 15W FP6 AMD Radeon(TM) Renoir Graphics D1 1636_REV_D1 12 or 13 CUs (B12B) 15W Pro RENOIR NB RYZEN 9 PRO B12B 15W FP6 AMD Radeon(TM) Renoir Graphics C2 1636_REV_C2 10 or 11 CUs (B10) 15W Consumer   AMD Radeon(TM) Renoir Graphics D2 1636_REV_D2 10 or 11 CUs (B10B) 15W Pro RENOIR NB RYZEN 7 PRO B10B 15W FP6 AMD Radeon(TM) Renoir Graphics C3 1636_REV_C3 8 or 9 CUs (B8) 15W Consumer   AMD Radeon(TM) Renoir Graphics D3 1636_REV_D3 8 or 9 CUs (B8B) 15W Pro RENOIR NB RYZEN 5 PRO B8B 15W FP6 AMD Radeon(TM) Renoir Graphics C4 1636_REV_C4 6 CUs (B6) 15W Consumer   AMD Radeon(TM) Renoir Graphics D4 1636_REV_D4 6 CUs (B6B) 15W Pro RENOIR NB RYZEN 3 PRO B6B 15W FP6

 

AMD Ryzen 4000 APU 45Watt SKUs

Revision CU count SKU TDP Market From product master leak AMD Radeon(TM) Renoir Graphics C5 1636_REV_C5 12 or 13 CUs (B12) 45W Consumer RENOIR NB RYZEN 9 B12 45W FP6 AMD Radeon(TM) Renoir Graphics D5 1636_REV_D5 12 or 13 CUs (B12B) 45W Pro   AMD Radeon(TM) Renoir Graphics C6 1636_REV_C6 10 or 11 CUs (B10) 45W Consumer RENOIR NB Ryzen 7 B10 45W FP6 AMD Radeon(TM) Renoir Graphics D6 1636_REV_D6 10 or 11 CUs (B10B) 45W Pro   AMD Radeon(TM) Renoir Graphics C7 1636_REV_C7 8 or 9 CUs (B8) 45W Consumer RENOIR NB RYZEN 5 B8 45W FP6 AMD Radeon(TM) Renoir Graphics D7 1636_REV_D7 8 or 9 CUs (B8B) 45W Pro  

 

When it comes to the GPU, the leak reveals that AMD plans on packing up to a Radeon Vega 13 on its laptop APUs, going all the way down to Vega 3. We can expect these GPUs to have much higher clockspeeds than what’s seen on the current lineup, thanks to the improvements brough on by the 7nm manufacturing process.

It seems very clear that after rattling Intel on the desktop side of things, AMD is now gunning for Intel in the laptop space as well. The 45W SKUs of AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 4000 APUs seem to go right up against Intel’s Coffee Lake CPUs while the 15W variants will go up against the Ice Lake and Comet lake chips. AMD is yet to officially announce any of these processors, but we expect the company to take stage at CES 2020 to do so.

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Best Tech of 2019: Our Favourite Purchases, From Zomato Gold to Realme Earbuds

On our best-of-2019 list of favourite tech purchases, there’s everything from new phones to gaming consoles. The list features Zomato Gold, iPhone 11 Pro and XR, iPad Pro, Google Home Mini, Amazon Echo, Microsoft Surface Go, PS4 Pro, and realme Earbuds among other picks.

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Steam Winter Sale 2019 Is Here: Get Discounts on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Red Dead Redemption 2, and More

The Steam Winter Sale is back, and is offering discounts on a tonne of acclaimed games from franchises such as Far Cry, Monster Hunter, Mortal Kombat, and more.

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Pokemon Go's New Buddy Adventure Feature Rolled Out: All You Need to Know

The Buddy Adventure feature essentially lets you experience your choice of Pokemon in a more life-like manner. It lets the Pokemon walk around the map without worry, lets you feed berries, and basically be your AR buddy.

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Ten Most Influential Games of the Past Decade

Gaming is now humanity's favourite form of entertainment, and the medium's legacy was cemented this past decade.

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