In September, Google Maps announced the ability to pay parking fees from its Android app. Payments were made through Google Pay and the whole process was done in cooperation with Passport Parking. In a new blog post, Google announced that Maps’ “Pay for Parking” feature is now available in more than 400 US cities, including Boston, Cincinnati, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC and coming soon to iOS users. In addition, Google Maps users will be able to pay freight rates at 80 other transport agencies around the world through GPay. Transit users in places like San Francisco will…
Author: Kevin Le
introduction The Xiaomi Mi 11 went official three days before the long-awaited end of 2020. And while the new year was not the harbinger of the change we wanted, the Mi 11 is the spearhead of flagship products. of the next generation, and we are researching before its release. Well, the world debut was a few weeks after the Chinese premiere, and the international version of the Xiaomi Mi 11 is here now. It’s the first smartphone (announced) with the latest Snapdragon 888 chip, but it’s much more. The Mi 11 brings many significant updates over the Mi 10. It…
OmniVision has unveiled its first camera sensor with 100% phase detection coverage. It uses Quad Phase Detection (QPD) technology where all pixels (in groups of 2 x 2) are used for focus detection. This is similar to Sony’s 2×2 lens-on-chip system and may prove superior to the Dual Pixel technology used by Samsung (this sensor clearly wants to take the ISOCELL GN1). QPD enables faster autofocus, especially in the dark. It also improves distance calculations (so bokeh and similar effects will be more accurate). The chip has on-board hardware to perform a recomposition of the QPD color filter array, which…
Samsung has temporarily suspended production of chips at its Austin, Texas facility due to power outages in the state following winter storm Uri. The storm is said to have left some 200,000 Texans without power. Samsung was asked to draw power from its semiconductor plant by the power company Austin Energy and, thanks to this notice, was able to take steps to avoid damaging the tens of thousands of silicone wafers that are made. in the factory. An unexpected power failure can result in millions of damages. Samsung is said to have manufactured 14nm processors at its Austin plant. Austin…
Microsoft has finally optimized its Office application for the iPad and the user interface of its tablet. Until now, iPads had an iPhone app that worked with a window, without using its enhanced multitasking features, such as split screen. Interestingly, Microsoft has the Office app, which wraps Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as stand-alone Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps for the iPad, which were already optimized for iPadOS. It’s unclear whether Apple will keep the apps separate or just merge them into the new Office app. Now iPad users will be able to create PDFs, sign documents, convert images…
A processing unit (CPU, GPU, or whatever) and RAM are usually separate pieces built on separate chips. But what if they were part of the same chip, all mixed together? This is exactly what Samsung did to create the world’s first high bandwidth memory (HBM) with built-in AI processing hardware called HBM-PIM (for in-memory processing). He took his HBM2 Aquabolt chips and added Programmable Computing Units (PCUs) between the memory banks. These are relatively straightforward and operate on 16-bit floating-point values with a limited instruction set – they can move data and perform multiplication and addition. PCU mixed with memory…
The ongoing Epic Games – Apple saga becomes international again as Epic lodged an antitrust complaint against Cupertino with the European Commission. Previously, publisher Fortnite had sued Apple for damages in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, although the new complaint focuses on fair access and competition for consumers and developers. Consumers have the right to install apps from any source they choose, and developers have the right to compete in a fair market. We won’t stand idly by and let Apple use its platform dominance to control what should be a fair digital playground. – Tim Sweeney…
Realme is working hard to integrate its Realme 2.0 user interface to as many devices as possible. Community members on nearly a dozen phones are working on beta versions of the interface, and now another device is joining the party – the Indian variant of Realme 7i. To participate in the Early Access development process, owners of Realme 7i smartphones should go to the Software Update submenu in the phone settings and then tap the gear icon in the top right corner. They will be invited to participate in a trial version, but not before providing information about them. Time…
The second beta of iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5 is now for developers and 9to5Mac and the r / iOSBeta subreddit compiled a changelog. The biggest upgrades are for shortcuts and music apps and there are a number of smaller changes as well. The Shortcuts app has gained three new actions – Take screenshot, Orientation lock (on / off), and Voice and data mode (5G, 5G Auto, 4G, 3G). The Music app has switched to context menus, which don’t obscure the entire user interface. A faster way to edit playlists has also been added – you can swipe your finger…
The IndieGoGo campaign for the F (x) Tec Pro1-X smartphone received over $ 1 million in funding and the first units were shipped to super early bird donors at the end of January. But now the team has run into supply issues. Specifically, the Snapdragon 835 at the heart of the phone has reached the end of life stage and is no longer available, which means no phone can be built anymore. This affects both the original Pro1 model (more info in a minute) as well as the Pro1-X, which was designed for XDA developers (both are quite similar and…