Semiconductor market research company IC Insights has released its , which ranks the top 25 semiconductor companies based on projected year-on-year sales, and also includes some forecasts for the future. In its ranking of the top 25 companies based on expected sales, AMD is leading the way with an anticipated 65 percent year-on-year growth, thanks to its strong product lineup across both its GPU and CPUs, along with gains it’s made in the data center business with its Epyc CPUs. Bringing up the rear in 25th place is Sony, which is expected to show a small decline in business at -3 percent, with Intel right above it at -1 percent.
In most western nations, MediaTek plays second banana to Qualcomm. The best, and most powerful phones all run on Qualcomm ARM chips, but that might change soon. MediaTek has just , which it’s calling Dimensity 9000. It’s the world’s first 4nm chip from TSMC, and it has all the latest technology. Still, this isn’t MediaTek’s first attempt to get into the premium segment, and Qualcomm is entrenched, to say the least. Despite its reputation as an also-ran chipmaker, MediaTek has had a very successful few years. Its components power smart speakers, the new Kindle, and uncountable mid-range smartphones around the world.
Qualcomm has dipped its toe in the waters of desktop computing previously, but it was leaning on mobile-optimized parts. That will change going forward — Qualcomm believes that , and it wants to be ready with new, more powerful processors. The first notebook chips from appeared in 2017, but uptake has been slow. Only a handful of Windows machines have used the Snapdragon 7c and 8c platforms, and usage on the Chromebook side is only slightly better. It’s not hard to see why Qualcomm has been slow to gain market share, as most Windows apps aren’t built for ARM, and these CPU cores are based on mobile designs.
A modern smallpox vaccination kit. (Photo: CDC)The FBI is investigating a handful of newly-discovered frozen vials labeled “smallpox,” according to the Center for Disease Control. The vials were found in a vaccine research facility in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania when a lab worker was cleaning out a freezer. Of the 15 vials located, five were labeled as “smallpox” while the other ten were labeled “vaccinia.” Thankfully, sources don’t believe anyone has been exposed to the disease. “There is no indication that anyone has been exposed to the small number of frozen vials,” the CDC CNN. “The laboratory worker who discovered the vials was wearing gloves and a face mask.
A prototype haptic glove design by Meta (Photo: Meta)On Tuesday Facebook, er, Meta, published showing off the work it is doing on bringing the sense of touch to the worlds of virtual and augmented reality with haptic gloves. The post caught the attention of , which is a company that has been designing similar technology since 2012. In a , Haptx CEO Jake Rubin said Meta’s gloves “appear to be substantively identical to HaptX’s patented technology.” Meta says the gloves it is working on are the result of the work it’s done in four distinct areas of research: perceptual science, soft robotics, microfluidics, and hand tracking.
When I launched Edge this morning, I was surprised to see a message informing me that Sync was now enabled and my data was being uploaded to the cloud, to be shared with other PCs where I was also logged in. I don’t use synchronization services between browsers because I have no interest in sharing this information with Google, Firefox, Microsoft, or any other company. Google definitely tries to push end users to activate synchronization services when they first sign into the browser, but if you turn the feature off it stays off thereafter. Microsoft has taken a different tack.
Microsoft has started the , and you can go out and buy a new Windows 11 PC right now. While Windows 10 will continue getting updates as promised, it’s natural to expect Microsoft won’t want to spend quite as much time on yesteryear’s OS going forward. Therefore, Windows 10 will only get one annual feature update instead of two, reports . Before you get too up in arms, this is the same schedule as Windows 11. Early in the Windows 10 era, Microsoft began rolling out semiannual feature updates, previously called Creators Updates. There have been “service packs” in some previous releases of Windows, but these only came out every few years.
(Image: Apple)Earlier this year, Apple announced it would be rolling out an option that would allow iPhone users to store a digital version of their driver’s licenses on their devices. This week it became clear that Apple is expecting participating states to foot the bill for the costs associated with the service. Known unofficially as “digital ID,” the option will add virtual versions of users’ licenses, state identification, and other forms of ID to their Apple Wallet. While the main idea is to reduce physical clutter and allow users to always have a copy of their ID on them, the service may also help to reduce fraud; a physical ID card can be stolen, but Apple’s digital ID requires a successful Face ID or passcode entry in order for the card to be displayed.
Perseverance and Ingenuity landed on Mars almost exactly nine months ago. Over that time, both vehicles have already expanded our understanding of Mars, which will only increase over time as both vehicles will continue to conduct further experiments in the months and years to come. Perseverance is a rover based on Curiosity’s general design but with its own unique capabilities and some features Curiosity lacked. Ingenuity is the small helicopter that became the first human-built vehicle to fly on another world in the spring of 2021. Together, they fight crime do science. We’ve rounded up the major discoveries made by both the rover and its copter buddy, as well as the technologies deployed on each.
