PUBG Mobile to Get ‘Mysterious Jungle’ Mode on June 1, Teaser Reveals

PUBG Mobile is adding a new mode called the “Mysterious Jungle” on June 1. The team behind the highly popular battle royale game teased the arrival of the new mode through a tweet posted on Wednesday.

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Hero Electronix launches Qubo Smart Home Security Camera at Rs 4,290

Hero Electronix has expanded its range of Qubo smart home devices with the addition of the Qubo Smart Home Security Camera. The highlight of the product is the fact that it comes packed with a range of AI-based features that are aimed at making the device much more useable.

AI features

AI features of the Qubo Smart Home Security Camera include Person Detection and Baby Cry Alert. Person Detection utilises AI to analyze the video feed to determine if it has detected a human, only then will it send an alert to the user. General Motion Capture usually sends alerts the user whenever any motion is detected. As for the Baby Cry Alert, it does exactly what it says and alerts the user if it detects a baby crying. The feature allows the camera to be used as a baby monitor. 

The device is also compatible with Alexa and works with any Alexa-enabled device with a display. This can be used to get a live video feed from the camera via voice commands. In order to ensure privacy, the company claims that the feed is secured using the Q-Crypto framework, which is said to ensure all access to the device is only from authenticated and authorized users    

Hardware and price

Hardware-wise, the Qubo Smart Home Security Camera is capable of recording 1080p video with 10x digital zoom and a Night Vision mode. There is also a 2-way communication feature that allows users to have conversations. The camera can also be used outdoors and offers an IP65 rating. The device is priced at Rs 4,290 across leading offline outlets and online channels from next week onwards.

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iFFALCON offering discounts on select TVs as part of its 2-year anniversary

iFFALCON is celebrating its second anniversary in India and as part of the celebration, the company is offering discounts on the F2A LED Smart TV and the K31 UHD LED Smart TVs. The F2A LED Smart TV is available with 40-inch panel size and is priced at Rs 15,999. The K31 UHD LED Smart TV is available in 43-inch and 55-inch variants and is priced at Rs 20,999 and Rs 29,999, respectively. It should be noted that the offer is only valid until May 31, 2020.

An iFFALCON spokesperson stated, “We are glad to complete 2 years of service in India. The journey has been very inspiring and full of great learnings, which has helped us innovate at every step and become what we are today. The super deals at appealing prices are part of this celebration. We will continue to enhance our existing suite of products and services, and roll out more innovations in the times to come.”

iFFALCON F2A LED Smart TV

The iFFALCON F2A LED Smart TV comes with a Full HD panel and is powered by Android 9 Pie. As such, it comes with all other features that you have come to expect from an Android TV. This includes built-in Chromecast and Google Assistant. It also comes with features like micro dimming, which individually adjusts the brightness and contrast of the panel, thereby improving the viewing experience. Other features include a Dolby decoder, which is said to improve audio quality. Speaking of Audio, the TV comes with a smart volume feature that automatically adjusts the sound based on what is playing. 

iFFALCON K31 AI UHD LED Smart TV

The iFFALCON K31 AI UHD Smart TV is powered by Android 9 Pie and comes with features like built-in Chromecast and Google Assistant. Other notable features include AI Dynamic Picture Adjustment, which is said to leverage an AI algorithm to automatically adjust the display settings, without the need for the viewer to spend time manually adjusting it. It should also be noted that both the 40-inch version and the 55-inch version come with a 4K UHD resolution of 3840x2160p.

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Facebook launches CatchUp, an audio-only group chatting app

As the world comes to grips with the Coronavirus outbreak, we’ve seen the rise of video calling applications as the most preferred means of communication. But, it looks like Facebook is bucking that trend with the launch of CatchUp. The app is a strictly audio-only app that can set up group calls with up to 8 people. Users also do not need to possess an account on Facebook to access the service as it works with your phone’s contact list. It also lets you know when other users are available to talk. 

The reason behind Facebook ‘s decision to make CatchUp audio-only is a simple one. In a blog post, Nikki Shah, Product Lead on Facebook says, “Keeping in touch with friends and family is important, especially during this time of physical distancing. Messaging and video calling are great ways to send a quick update or connect with someone face-to-face, but speaking to someone over the phone offers a unique balance of both convenience and personal connection. Based on our studies, we found that one of the main reasons people don’t call friends and family more frequently is that they don’t know when they are available to talk or are worried they may reach them at an inconvenient time. CatchUp addresses this problem and even makes group calling as easy as one tap.”.

The app is currently being tested out in the US for a limited time on iOS and Android and there is no word on when it’ll come to other regions as of now. Facebook has also been making a few major strides in India as well as the company has reportedly invested $5.7 billion in Reliance Jio Platforms. The social media giant has bought Gif-making site GIPHY for $400 million and plans to integrate the app with Instagram. You can read more about it, here. 

 

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PUBG Mobiles new KillDeath ratio explained

PUBG Mobile’s Season 13 update introduced a number of notable new features. However, one of the most notable new additions that managed to fly under the radar was a new way the Kill vs Death ratio (K/D ratio) was implemented. The update changed the way K/D ratio is calculated for players.

Earlier, K/D ratio was calculated based on the total number of kills a player has by the total number of deaths. While this system seems to work on traditional multiplayer games, it was deemed unsuitable for PUG Mobile’s Battle Royale-style gameplay. The developers noted that players were boosting their K/D ratio by surviving till the end.

PUBG Mobile new Kill/Death Ratio

With Season 13, Tencent has introduced a new K/D system wherein the K/D ratio is calculated based on the number of kills a player gets in each game, regardless of whether the player survived till the end. This means that the new K/D ratio is calculated based on the total number of kills a player gets by the total games played by the player. 

This means that if a player has a K/D ratio of eight according to PUBG Mobile's new calculation system, he/she will have to maintain a record of eight kills or more in every game in order to maintain and improve that kill record. Getting less kills in a game would reduce that K/D ratio.

The new K/D ratio is just one of the many subtle changes introduced in Season 13. Other subtle changes include firearm balancing (especially to shotguns), death replay improvement, new results screen UI and more. Of course, some of the major changes in the game include the addition of an upgraded version of the Miramar Map, canted sights, and more. You can learn more about the update here. 

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ARM announced Mali G78 and Mali G68 GPUs with asynchronous clock speed control and support for 24 GPU cores

Like clockwork, ARM announced the roadmap for 2021 CPU and GPU designs for mobile devices that included the ARM Cortex-A78 and ARM Cortex-X1 CPU cores, promising 25 per cent and 30 per cent boost in performance respectively. On top of that, ARM also revealed new GPU designs, namely, the Mali G78 GPU and the Mali G68 GPUs, meant to take mobile gaming to its next frontier.

The new Mali GPUs take into account high-end gaming on high refresh rate displays, machine learning application and the likes. The Mali G78 is meant for premium smartphones while the Mali G68 is for mid-rangers.

ARM Mali G78: Up to 24 cores with asynchronous clock speed control

The Mali G78 is based on ARM’s Valhall microarchitecture that also powers the previous Mali G77 and Mali G57 GPUs, with some new improvements. For one, the Mali G78 now supports more cores, up from 16 to 24 cores this time, which might help the GPU close the gap in performance on Qualcomm’s Adreno GPUs which is preferred in most high-end smartphones.

ARM allows OEMs to keep the core count variable in the Mali GPUs and the exact performance metrics will depend on exact core configuration and clock speeds of the GPU. ARM did claim a 25 per cent boost in performance because of the new design and an anticipated move to 5nm manufacturing process.

ARM said the Mali G78 offers a 15 percent improvement over the previous Mali G77 in performance density, along with a 10 percent improvement in power savings and a 15 per cent boost in AI performance. ARM also promised a performance improvement between 6 percent to 17 percent in gaming, over the previous generation. The company said that packing up to 24 cores will yield 11 per cent improvement, but keep in mind mobile devices have tremendous space crunch for extra silicon to accommodate more cores. Expect smartphones to aim for a sweet spot of 10-12 cores in the GPU.

While the Mali G78 does gain a good boost thanks to more cores, the secret sauce in this year’s offering is what ARM is calling the Asynchronous Top Level. It basically means the GPU will have asynchronous clock speeds for the shader cores and the Top Level that includes the L2 cache, Tiler, MMU and the Control Fabric. ARM said the Top Level will run at 2x the speed of the shader cores for faster texture and geometry processing. This allows for higher bandwidth to keep the shader cores fed with more work to do, allowing OEMs to scale-up performance significantly with more cores. Having more cores that run at a lower frequency can also help save power. However, OEMs may not be willing to dedicate more silicon area for the extra cores.

ARM Mali G68: Smaller silicon, better performance

On top of the Mali G78, ARM also announced the Mali G68 GPU meant for mid-range devices, succeeding the Mali G57 GPU. The new offering shares a lot of features with the Mali G78 and covers lesser silicon area than the previous generation.

The Mali G68 also boasts of the Asynchronous Top Level present in the Mali G78, only this one can scale between one to six cores.

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ARM Cortex A78 and Cortex X1 cores are designed for big things

ARM has today made not one, but two huge announcements. The company has revealed their next processor cores, the Cortex A78 an expected upgrade to the current A77 and the Cortex X1, a brand-new core altogether. With the announcement of the Duo, ARM is taking serious swings at the likes of Apple’s A-series bionic processors.

Cortex-A78: All about power efficiency

The Cortex A78 cores move to a 5nm process node which help improve not only the efficiency numbers, but also those of performance and even the area taken up by the core within the processor die. The Cortex A78 promises a 20 percent boost in performance over the A77 within a 1-watt power budget. This is achieved thanks to higher clocks, the move to 5nm and the architecture changes. Instead of looking at the Cortex A78 in terms of its peak performance output, consider the fact that a Cortex A78 core running at 2.1 GHz consumes up to 50 percent less power than a Cortex A77 core running at 2.3GHz. Current SoC’s tend to use a cluster of A77 and A55 cores banded together, and ARM says that the Cortex A78 cores could replace the current A77 ones, leading to 20 percent increase in sustained performance while taking up 15 percent less area within the SoC die. The next generation of mobile SoCs, atleast the ones using Cortex A78 cores, seem to promise slightly improved performance, but significantly better power efficiency. The current Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chip uses a combination of the custom Cortex A77 and Cortex A55 cores.

Cortex-X1: All about performance

ARM’s processor cores have always had a hard time competing with Apple’s A-series chips. The Cortex A7x cores just could not match Apple’s engineering, and now, ARM’s answer to that is the Cortex-X1 core. The chip is a result of ARM’s Cortex-X Custom (CXC) program and wholly deviated from ARM’s philosophy of trying to balance performance, power and space occupied. ARM claims that the Cortex-X1 core should be able to deliver 30 percent performance gains over the Cortex A77 cores and a 23 percent boost of the just-announced Cortex A78 core. This is for all cores running at the same clock speed, making it an even bigger achievement. The X1 cores also come with double the L1, L2 and L3 caches in comparison to Cortex A78. It is important to note that ARM has not revealed any specific power efficiency numbers for the X1 core. Additionally, given its larger footprint on the die and higher power demands, its unlikely that an X1 core would make its way into a smartphone for now.

We’re going to make a wild assumption here and say that it is likely that the ARM Cortex-X1 core could lay the groundwork for the long rumoured ARM-based Apple laptops. While an X1 core may not be paired with a Cortex A55 core, creating an SoC with 4 Cortex-X1 and 4 (or more) Cortex A78 cores could be a potential laptop-powering combination. Amazon-created Graviton2 has already showed that it can give both Intel and AMD a run for its money in the server space when it comes to performance per dollar. The chip is using ARM's Neoverse N1 cores, so we know that ARM can definitely design powerful chips. ARM says that it will supply Cortex X1 cores only to those partners who have been a part of the CXC program from the beginning, and that they would all get the same configuration of the chip. The company did, however, mention that it might consider customised solutions for different partners at a later date. At the moment, ARM has not disclosed who is eligible to receive the X1 cores.

It is shaping up to be a promising year for System on Chip technologies, with the 5nm process becoming commercially available by the end of the year. We can definitely expect Qualcomm to further tweak the performance of the Cortex A78 cores, but it would be far more exciting to see products that make use of ARM’s Cortex-X1 core.

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