Hardware
Amazon has announced the launch of its second-generation wireless earbuds "Echo Buds", featuring a more comfortable design as well as improved active noise cancellation and better microphones.
“The all-new Echo Buds are better in so many ways—a smaller design, a more comfortable fit, Active Noise Cancellation technology, a new color and wireless charging option, and high-performance drivers for dynamic audio,” said Tom Taylor, Senior Vice President, Amazon Alexa.
According to the product description the product "is a verified fully operational original Apple-1 computer system in excellent condition in its original Byte Shop KOA wood case, with original power supply and Datanetics Version D keyboard. This Apple-1 is an unmodified NTI board in almost perfect condition on both front and back of the main board where you can see there have been no modifications or repairs. This system was verified as original byApple-1 expert Corey Cohen as recently as August 2019 at the Vintage Computer Festival West where it was one of two continually operated units during the show with over 6 hours each day of full operation."
In recent years, there have been repeated auctions of the historic computers, but so far the maximum proceeds have been $905,000 (€755,000).
The Taiwanese chipmaker Mediatek has overtaken Qualcomm at the top in the third quarter of 2020 to become the world's largest smartphone chipmaker, according to findings from Counterpoint.
As the market researchers from Counterpoint report, the US chip developer Qualcomm is now only number 2 when it comes to the quantities sold of SoCs (system-on-a-chip) for smartphones. After that, Mediatek from Taiwan, with a market share of 31 per cent, beat Qualcomm with 29 per cent in the past third quarter of the year.
As of January 2021, electronic devices will be marked with a repair index at the time of purchase and thus classified. The index is intended to inform buyers about the repair possibilities of the purchased item and is measured on a scale of 1 to 10 based on parameters such as ease of disassembly, as well as price and availability of spare parts.
Korea's ETNews reports that LG will supply Apple with Mini-LED displays for new iPad models set to launch in the first quarter of 2021.
Mini-LED backlighting provides many of the same benefits as OLED displays, including higher brightness, improved contrast ratio, and increased power efficiency.
Some reports had suggested this transition could occur in Q4 of 2020, but it now seems clear that the change has been delayed until early 2021 — perhaps due to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated supply chain disruptions.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced the Raspberry Pi 400, a compact keyboard with an ARM-based computer built-in. The new device specs include a quad-core 1.8GHz Broadcom processor, 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM, gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports and a USB 2.0 port (both USB-A) as well as two micro-HDMI ports for connecting a display (with support for outputting in 4K).
The Raspberry Pi 400 is available starting today as a standalone machine for $70 or in a bundle including a mouse, power supply, microSD card, HDMI cable, and beginner’s guide for $100.
More than a billion Android devices are at risk of data theft and of becoming spying tools because of more than 400 flaws discovered this week in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip.
If an user downloads content that’s rendered by the chip an attacker can exploit those vulnerabilities to install malicious apps without any permission and use them to monitor locations and listen to nearby audio in real time, withdraw photos and videos and even render the phone completely unresponsive.
During the WWDC today, Apple announced the switch from Intel to custom ARM-based processors for its Mac computers. The move means Macs will run on the same family of chips as the iPhones and iPads and will be able to run iOS applications natively.
"We expect to ship our first Mac with Apple silicon by the end of the year," said chief executive Tim Cook.