An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: The PC industry bounced back in the second quarter of 2020 after its weakest quarter in years mostly due to shelter-in-place orders prompted by the coronavirus pandemic. According to both Gartner and IDC, PC shipments grew year-over-year in the second quarter -- the former says shipments totaled 64.8 million units (a 2.8 percent increase from Q2 2019), while IDC says global shipments reached 72.3 million units, which is 11.2 percent higher compared to the same period last year.

Both organizations attribute the growth to PC production ramping up after supply chains were disrupted in the first quarter and to strong demand, now that more people need computers to work or study from home. "After the PC supply chain was severely disrupted in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the growth this quarter was due to distributors and retail channels restocking their supplies back to near-normal levels," Gartner research director Mikako Kitagawa said. The mobile PC or laptop segment did very well, in particular, due to people's remote learning and working needs. However, both organizations are skeptical that the demand would continue beyond 2020. Gartner and IDC also noted that traditional PC shipments exceeded expectations in the U.S. and in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. "HP and Lenovo topped the list of PC vendors worldwide, with Dell coming in third for both IDC and Gartner," adds Engadget.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Lithium-ion batteries play a central role in the world of technology, powering everything from smartphones to smart cars, and one of the people who helped commercialize them says he has a way to cut mass production costs by 90% and significantly improve their safety. Hideaki Horie, formerly of Nissan Motor Co., founded Tokyo-based APB Corp. in 2018 to make "all-polymer batteries" -- hence the company name. The making of a cell, every battery's basic unit, is a complicated process requiring cleanroom conditions -- with airlocks to control moisture, constant air filtering and exacting precision to prevent contamination of highly reactive materials. The setup can be so expensive that a handful of top players like South Korea's LG Chem Ltd., China's CATL and Japan's Panasonic Corp. spend billions of dollars to build a suitable factory.

Horie's innovation is to replace the battery's basic components -- metal-lined electrodes and liquid electrolytes -- with a resin construction. He says this approach dramatically simplifies and speeds up manufacturing, making it as easy as "buttering toast." It allows for 10-meter-long battery sheets that can be stacked on top of each other "like seat cushions" to increase capacity, he said. Importantly, the resin-based batteries are also resistant to catching fire when punctured. In March, APB raised $74 million, which is tiny by the wider industry's standards but will be enough to fully equip one factory for mass production slated to start next year. Horie estimates the funds will get his plant in central Japan to 1 gigawatt-hour capacity by 2023.

tlhIngan writes: For those worried that the transition Apple is doing to ARM-based Macs will drop Thunderbolt, Apple has stated that they will continue to support Thunderbolt. This was a worry since Thunderbolt is primarily an Intel design (formerly known as Light Peak) with Apple collaboration, and that none of Apple's ARM based devices support it (not even the ARM Developer Transition Kit).

Today, Qualcomm is announcing an update to its extremely successful Snapdragon 865 SoC: the new Snapdragon 865+. AnandTech reports: The new Snapdragon 865+ is a new binned variant of the [Snapdragon 865] with higher peak frequencies on the part of the "prime" CPU as well as the GPU, promising +10% performance on both aspects. Whilst in relative terms the new chipset's +10% clock improvement isn't all that earth-shattering, in absolute terms it finally allows the new Snapdragon 865+ to be the first mobile SoC to break past the 3GHz threshold, slightly exceeding that mark at a peak 3.1GHz frequency. Ever since the Cortex-A75 generation we've seen Arm make claims about their CPU microarchitectures achieving such high clock frequencies -- however in all those years actual silicon products by vendors never really managed to quite get that close in commercial mass-production designs.

We've had a chat with Qualcomm's SVP and GM of mobile business Alex Katouzian, about how Qualcomm achieved this, and fundamentally it's a combination of aggressive physical design of the product as well as improving manufacturing yields during the product's lifecycle. Katouzian explained that they would have been able to achieve these frequencies on the vanilla Snapdragon 865 -- but they would have had a lower quantity of products being able to meet this mark due to manufacturing variations. Yield improvements during the lifecycle of the Snapdragon 865 means that the company is able to offer this higher frequency variant now. [...] There will be a power increase to reach the higher frequencies, however this will only be linear with the increased clock speed, meaning energy efficiency of the new SoC will maintain the same excellent levels of that of the Snapdragon 865, so battery life will not be affected. [...] Amongst other new novelties of the Snapdragon 865+ platform is the ability for vendors to bundle with the new FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi chips from Qualcomm, the company's new Wi-Fi 6 chipsets with 6GHz band capability (Wi-Fi 6E).

Zoom is teaming up with four video conferencing hardware makers to launch Zoom Hardware as a Service, designed to make Zoom Rooms and Zoom Phone more available to enterprises. ZDNet reports: The hardware providers in the package are DTEN, Neat, Poly, and Yealink. The hardware and Zoom bundles give tech buyers a monthly fixed price that varies by system and support by Zoom. Neat and DTEN have already designed hardware systems revolving around Zoom, which has become a household name with growth to match following the remote work shift during the COVID-19 pandemic. Zoom's Hardware as a Service (HaaS) pricing varies depending on hardware. For instance, Zoom Phone hardware runs from $5.99 per device for the Poly VVX 250 to $50 a month for the Yealink CP960. Zoom Hardware as a Service doesn't include software license costs.

The Zoom Rooms Hardware as a Service plans are pricier than Zoom Phone options. Pricing for Zoom Rooms hardware range from the Neat.bar with Neat.Pad controller at $110 a month per device to Poly systems that range from $100 a month to $150 a month. Software licensing costs aren't included. Zoom HaaS like other as-a-service efforts provides low upfront costs and predictable budgeting as well as the ability to scale up or down and get managed support.

MojoKid writes: Last month, AMD made its Ryzen 3000XT series processors official, after weeks of leaks and speculation. Ryzen 3000XT series processors are tweaked versions of the original 3000X series products, but with higher clocks and the ability to maintain turbo frequencies longer. Launching today, AMD's new Ryzen 5 3600XT is a 6 core/12-thread processor, with a 3.8GHz base clock and a 4.5GHz max boost clock. That's a 100MHz increase over the 3600X. The Ryzen 7 3800XT is an 8-core/16-thread processor with a base clock of 3.9GHz and a max boost clock of 4.7GHz, which is 200MHz higher than the original 3800X. Finally, the Ryzen 9 3900XT is a 12-core/24-thread processor with a base clock of 3.8GHz with a max boost clock of 4.7GHz, which is a 100MHz increase over the original Ryzen 9 3900X.

AMD also notes these new processors can maintain boost frequencies for somewhat longer durations as well, which should offer an additional performance uplift, based on refinements made to the chip's 7nm manufacturing process. In testing, the new CPUs offer small performance gains over their "non-XT" namesakes, with 100MHz - 200MHz increases in boost clocks resulting in roughly 2% - 5% increases to both their single and multi-threaded performance in most workloads. Those frequency increases come at the expense of slightly higher peak power consumption as well of course. The best news may be that AMD's original Ryzen 5 3600X, Ryzen 7 3800X, and the Ryzen 9 3900X will remain in the line-up for the time being, but their prices will be slashed a bit, with the new Ryzen 5 3600XT, Ryzen 7 3800XT, and Ryzen 9 3900XT arriving with the same $249, $399, and $499 introductory prices as the originals.

Nokia has become the first major telecom equipment maker to commit to adding open interfaces in its products that will allow mobile operators to build networks that are not tied to a vendor. Reuters reports: The new technology, dubbed Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN), aims to reduce reliance on any one vendor by making every part of a telecom network interoperable and allowing operators to choose different suppliers for different components. Currently, Nokia along with Ericsson and Huawei supplies most of the equipment for building telecom networks and mobile operators can only pick one for each part of their network.

As part of the implementation plan, Nokia plans to deploy Open RAN interfaces in its baseband and radio units, a spokesman said. An initial set of Open RAN functionalities will become available this year, while the full suite of interfaces is expected to be available in 2021, the company said. Nokia, unlike other vendors, had been promising to participate in the development of open RAN technology and have joined several industry alliances.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A giant flywheel in north-east Scotland could soon help to prevent blackouts across Britain by mimicking the effect of a power station but without using fossil fuels. The trailblazing project near Keith in Moray, thought to cost about 25 million British pounds, will not generate electricity or produce carbon emissions -- but it could help keep the lights on by stabilizing the energy grid's electrical frequency. The Norwegian energy company Statkraft hopes that from next winter the new flywheel, designed by a division of General Electric, will be able to mimic the spinning turbines of a traditional power station, which have helped to balance the grid's frequency at about 50 hertz for decades.

Currently, the National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) is forced to shut down windfarms and run gas power stations even when there is more than enough renewable energy to meet Britain's electricity demand, in order to keep the grid's frequency steady. By simulating the spinning metal mass of a power station turbine without producing emissions, Statkraft should be able to help ESO rely less on fossil fuels and use renewable energy more. This is the first time a project of this kind will be used anywhere in the world and ESO believes it could be a "huge step forward" in running a zero-carbon electricity grid.

According to Nikkei Asian Review, much of the PlayStation's success can be attributed to an unassuming factory in Japan that is almost entirely operated by robots. From the report: On the outskirts of Kisarazu, a large, white building towers over an otherwise suburban landscape. Once inside, visitors are greeted by the whirring of motors as dozens of robots seamlessly churn out PlayStation 4 consoles. Just a few humans were present to deal with a handful of tasks -- two to feed bare motherboards to the line, and two to package the finished consoles. But the actual assembly is done entirely by articulated robots, supplied by Mitsubishi Electric. The 31.4-meter line, completed in 2018, has the ability to churn out a new console every 30 seconds.

The Kisarazu plant is operated by Sony Global Manufacturing & Operations, or SGMO, the group's manufacturing arm. The unit has worked with video game unit Sony Interactive Entertainment to bring cutting-edge technologies to the facility. One of the plant's crowning achievements is the use of robots to attach wires, tape and other flexible parts to the consoles. Twenty-six out of 32 robots at the Kisarazu plant are dedicated to the task, deftly handling materials most robots would find too finicky. "There's probably no other site that can manipulate robots in this manner," said an engineer. Every process -- all the way to final packaging -- is automated. The blend of robotic and human labor is painstakingly optimized with a priority on return on investment.

German lawmakers have finalized the country's long-awaited phase-out of coal as an energy source, backing a plan that environmental groups say isn't ambitious enough and free marketeers criticize as a waste of taxpayers' money. From a report: Bills approved by both houses of parliament Friday envision shutting down the last coal-fired power plant by 2038 and spending some $45 billion to help affected regions cope with the transition. The plan is part of Germany's 'energy transition' -- an effort to wean Europe's biggest economy off planet-warming fossil fuels and generate all of the country's considerable energy needs from renewable sources. Achieving that goal is made harder than in comparable countries such as France and Britain because of Germany's existing commitment to also phase out nuclear power by the end of 2022. "The days of coal are numbered in Germany," Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said. "Germany is the first industrialized country that leaves behind both nuclear energy and coal." Greenpeace and other environmental groups have staged vocal protests against the plan, including by dropping a banner down the front of the Reichstag building Friday. They argue that the government's road map won't reduce Germany's greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to meet the targets set out in the Paris climate accord.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: A new generation of reactors coming online in the next few years aims to make nuclear meltdowns a thing of the past. Not only will these reactors be smaller and more efficient than current nuclear power plants, but their designers claim they'll be virtually meltdown-proof. Their secret? Millions of submillimeter-size grains of uranium individually wrapped in protective shells. It's called triso fuel, and it's like a radioactive gobstopper. Triso -- short for "tristructural isotropic" -- fuel is made from a mixture of low enriched uranium and oxygen, and it is surrounded by three alternating layers of graphite and a ceramic called silicon carbide. Each particle is smaller than a poppy seed, but its layered shell can protect the uranium inside from melting under even the most extreme conditions that could occur in a reactor.

Paul Demkowicz is the director of the Advanced Gas Reactor Field Development and Qualification Program at Idaho National Laboratory, and a large part of his job is simulating worst-case scenarios for next-generation nuclear reactors. For the past few years, Demkowicz and his colleagues have been running qualification tests on triso fuel that involve putting them in a reactor and cranking the temperature. Most nuclear reactors today operate well below 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and even the next generation high-temperature reactors will top out at about 2,000 degrees. But during the INL tests, Demkowicz demonstrated that triso could withstand reactor temperatures over 3,200 degrees Fahrenheit. Out of 300,000 particles, not a single triso coating failed during the two-week long test. "In the new reactor designs, it's basically impossible to exceed these temperatures, because the reactor kind of shuts down as it reaches these high temperatures," says Demkowicz. "So if you take these reactor designs and combine them with a fuel that can handle the heat, you essentially have an accident-proof reactor."

One of the two leading manufacturers of tape cartridge storage, FujiFilm, claims that they have a technology roadmap through to 2030 which builds on the current magnetic tape paradigm to enable 400 TB per tape. AnandTech reports: As reported by Chris Mellor of Blocks and Files, Fujifilm points to using Strontium Ferrite grains in order to enable an areal data density on tape of 224 Gbit-per-square-inch, which would enable 400 TB drives. IBM and Sony have already demonstrated 201 Gbit-per-square-inch technology in 2017, with a potential release of the technology for high volume production in 2026. Current drives are over an order of magnitude smaller, at 8 Gbit-per-square-inch, however the delay between research and mass production is quite significant.

Strontium Ferrite would replace Barium Ferrite in current LTO cartridges. Strontium sits on a row above Barium in the periodic table, indicating a much smaller atom. This enables for much smaller particles to be placed into tracks, and thankfully according to Fujifilm, Strontium Ferrite exhibits properties along the same lines as Barium Ferrite, but moreso, enabling higher performance while simultaneously increasing particle density. [...] Fujifilm states that 400 TB is the limit of Strontium Ferrite, indicating that new materials would be needed to go beyond. That said, we are talking about only 224 Gbit-per-square-inch for storage, which compared to mechanical hard disks going beyhind 1000 Gbit-per-square-inch today, there would appear to be plenty of room at the top if the technologies could converge.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After years of repackaging the same basic smartwatch chip over and over again, Qualcomm has graced Wear OS with a modern smartwatch SoC. Meet the Snapdragon Wear 4100, a Qualcomm smartwatch chip that, for the first time ever, is faster than the previous chip. The Wear 4100 uses four 1.7GHz Cortex A53 CPUs built on a 12nm manufacturing process, a major upgrade from the 28nm Cortex A7s that every other Qualcomm smartwatch chip has been up until now. It's not the state-of-the-art 7nm process that Qualcomm's high-end chip uses, and the Cortex A53 is an old CPU design, but for Qualcomm, it's a major upgrade. Between the new CPU, the Adreno 504 GPU, and faster memory, Qualcomm is promising "85% faster performance" compared to the Wear 3100.

There are actually two versions of the 4100, the vanilla "4100" and the "4100+." The plus version is specifically for smartwatches with an always-on watch face, and like previous Wear SoCs, comes with an extra low-power SoC (based around a Cortex-M0) to keep the time updated and log sensor data (like step counts). Qualcomm is promising a better display image quality in this low-power mode, with more colors and a smoother display. There are also dual DSPs now, which Qualcomm says are for "optimal workload partitioning, support for dynamic clock and voltage scaling, Qualcomm Sensor Assisted Positioning PDR Wearables 2.0, low power location tracking support, and an enhanced Bluetooth 5.0 architecture." There are also dual ISPs with support for 16MP sensors (on a smartwatch?). As usual, connectivity options are plentiful, with onboard LTE, GPS, NFC, Wi-Fi 802.11n, and Bluetooth 5.

As expected, developers with early access to Apple silicon-based transition kits have leaked some early benchmarks scores. And it's bad news for Surface Pro X and Windows 10 on ARM fans. Thurrott reports: According to multiple Geekbench scores, the Apple Developer Transition Kit -- a Mac Mini-like device with an Apple A12Z system-on-a-chip (SoC), 16 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of SSD storage -- delivers an average single-core score of 811 and an average multi-core score of 2871. Those scores represent the performance of the device running emulated x86/64 code under macOS Big Sur's Rosetta 2 emulator.

Compared to modern PCs with native Intel-type chipsets, that's not all that impressive, but that's to be expected since it's emulated. But compared to Microsoft's Surface Pro X, which has the fastest available Qualcomm-based ARM chipset and can run Geekbench natively -- not emulated -- it's amazing: Surface Pro X only averages 764 on the single-core test and 2983 in multi-core. Right. The emulated performance of the Apple silicon is as good or better than the native performance of the SQ-1-based Surface Pro X. This suggests that the performance of native code on Apple silicon will be quite impressive, and will leave Surface Pro X and WOA in the dust.

According to a report from a South Korean publication, Samsung is working on Galaxy Fold Lite for as cheap as $900. Samsung will reportedly cut costs by downgrading the camera capabilities and internal specifications. Bleeping Computer reports: The Galaxy Fold Lite will reportedly launch in 2021, but remember that this is just a rumor out of South Korea and it has to be taken with a grain of salt. It appears that the foldable device was planned to be announced during the August 5 event, but Samsung has reportedly postponed its launch to 2021. Galaxy Fold Lite is certainly possible and it was recently tipped off by XDA-Developers' Max Weinbach on Twitter. Another leaker revealed that the Galaxy Fold e could be named Galaxy Gold Lite and priced below $1100.

Microsoft's second next-gen Xbox is rumored to be fully revealed in August. According to Eurogamer, the console will be named the Xbox Series S. From a report: Microsoft has been working on this second cheaper next-gen Xbox console for months. A Microsoft document, leaked last week, shed some further light on the company's plans. Microsoft's Xbox Series X devkit, codenamed "Dante," allows game developers to enable a special Lockhart mode that has a profile of the performance that Microsoft wants to hit with this second console. While we've been reporting this performance includes a slightly underclocked CPU, The Verge has seen additional documents that suggest Lockhart will actually have the same speed CPU as the Xbox Series X. The Lockhart console will also include 7.5GB of usable RAM, and around 4 teraflops of GPU performance. The Xbox Series X includes 13.5GB of usable RAM and targets 12 teraflops of GPU performance for comparison.

If the reports are accurate, Microsoft could choose August to unveil this second next-gen Xbox alongside pricing for the Xbox Series X. This second console is designed as a more affordable option, with 1080p and 1440p monitors in mind. Microsoft would have to detail some type of pricing alongside its Lockhart reveal, and it's reasonable to assume it will be heavily tied to the Xbox All Access subscription.

According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, iPhone 12 models will not include EarPods or a power adapter in the box. MacRumors reports: Kuo said that Apple will instead release a new 20W power adapter as an optional accessory for iPhones and end production of its existing 5W and 18W power adapters later this year. The form factor of the new 20W power adapter is said to be similar to the 18W version, with USB-C Power Delivery for fast charging, as seen in the leaked photo below. Kuo believes that iPhone 12 production costs will significantly increase due to 5G support, but he expects Apple to sell the new models at a comparable price to its iPhone 11 lineup, and removing the EarPods and power adapter from the box is one way to reduce costs. Apple would likely also tout the environmental benefits of such a move. Barclays still expects Apple to include a Lightning to USB-C cable in the box as the only accessory included with iPhone 12 models.

ZDNet reports: Car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz and chipmaker Nvidia have partnered to build a software-defined computing infrastructure and system that enables vehicles to receive over-the-air software updates to ensure they are equipped with the latest autonomous features. "Together, we're going to revolutionise the car ownership experience, making the vehicle software programmable and continuously upgradeable via over the air updates," Nvidia CEO and founder Jensen Huang said.

The pair will build the software-defined architecture based on Nvidia's Drive AGX Orin system-on-chip (SoC) platform, and it will be a standard feature in the next fleet of Mercedes-Benz vehicles from 2024... "Nvidia's AI computing architecture will help us streamline our journey towards autonomous driving," said Ola Källenius, chairman of the board of management of Daimler and Mercedes-Benz. "These new capabilities and upgrades will be downloaded from the cloud, improving safety, increasing value, and extending the joy of ownership for all Mercedes-Benz customers...."

The pair said the new system would enable level two and three driving autonomy, as well as automated parking functions of up to level four. This would mean, according to the two companies, vehicles would have the ability to "automate driving of regular routes from address to address".
Barron's reports: Nvidia and Mercedes are, in some respects, playing catch-up. Something the rest auto industry is used to these days regarding Tesla. Almost every other auto maker around the globe is pursuing an Electrical Vehicle (EV)-centric strategy nowadays, something unthinkable a few years ago. Tesla CEO Elon Musk deserves a lot of credit for the shift. Tesla led in EV development, and now it's leading in software too...
And Forbes adds this telling quote from NVIDIA's senior director of automotive. "Revenues can be realized at the point of sale, as well as any time during the life of the vehicle. New features may be free of charge, single charge, pay by use, or subscription-based. Customers have shown that when they see the value, they are more than willing to pay for new apps and services."

An anonymous reader quotes the International Business Times: Watchdog agencies last week detected an increase in radioactivity levels in the atmosphere over northern Europe, suggesting a potential damage at a nuclear plant. Authorities noted the possibility that the spike may be the result of accidental release of radioactive material from one of the nuclear plants in Russia, but a spokesman denied any problems with the Russian power plants.

Several Scandinavian watchdog agencies detected elevated levels of radionuclides cesium-134, cesium -137 and ruthenium-103 over parts of Finland, southern Scandinavia and the Arctic. Although the levels are not considered harmful to human health and the environment, radionuclides are artificial, unstable byproducts of nuclear fission, suggesting that the sudden increase in levels may have resulted from a damage in a nuclear power plant.

According to the Associated Press, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority noted Tuesday (June 24) that locating the origin of the radionuclides is "not possible" but by Friday, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands announced that calculations revealed that the radionuclides may actually have come from the direction of Western Russia...

In 1986, it was a similar detection in Sweden that contributed to the reveal that a disaster had occurred in Chernobyl.

Renewable energy made up almost half of Britain's electricity generation in the first three months of the year, with a surge in wind power helping to set a new record for clean energy. The Guardian reports: The government's official data has revealed that renewable energy made up 47% of the UK's electricity generation in the first three months of the year, smashing the previous quarterly record of 39% set last year. The government's renewable energy data includes electricity from the UK's windfarms, solar panels and hydro power plants as well as bioenergy generated by burning wood chips instead of coal. The "substantial increase" in the UK's total renewable energy output was chiefly driven by a growth in electricity generated by solar panels and windfarms which climbed by more than a third over the last year, according to the government's energy analysts.

The report added that the start up of new windfarms combined with the UK's unusually wet and windy weather at the start of the year -- particularly storms Ciara, Dennis and Jorge -- helped to generate record wind power generation. Offshore windfarms powered the largest increase in renewable energy in the first quarter of the year, climbing by 53% compared with the previous year, while onshore wind generation grew by a fifth. In total, wind power generated 30% of the UK's electricity in the first quarter, beating the previous record of 22.3% set in the final months of 2019.