Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon 845

Qualcomm’s newest chipset makes its appearance at the company’s second annual Snapdragon Technology Summit in Hawaii. Qualcomm’s Executive VP Cristiano Amon announced the Snapdragon 845 with Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun. Xiaomi’s boss was on hand to announce that the company’s next flagship, the Xiaomi Mi 7, will be one of the first smartphones to carry the new SoC. The Snapdragon 845 is built on the same 10nm processor technology of the Snapdragon 835 and it supports Gigabit LTE speeds with the X20 modem.

While detailed specs weren’t released just yet, the new chipset is expected to have a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) similar to what Apple and Huawei have done with their A11 Bionic and Kirin 970 processors. The NPU allows for native artificial intelligence acceleration. Some of the other rumours surrounding the chipset suggest there will be four Cortex A-75 cores and four more Cortex-A53 for better efficiency. Rumours suggest this will be accompanied by a new Adreno 630 GPU as well.

Source: GSMArena

Review: Kindle Oasis (2017)

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

2017 marks the 10th year anniversary of the Kindle eBook reader which is truly one of the revolutionary inventions of our time.

Amazon's Kindle ushered in the era of eReaders, which have made it possible to simulate the visual quality of paper on an electronic device capable of carrying thousands of books and documents but which is thin and surprisingly light.

The early Kindle was a beast by today's standards. It tried to do too much. It came with a QWERTY keyboard, a web browser and probably an e-mail client. This was at a time when smartphones were BlackBerry devices and not iPhones, so you get the idea.

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Steam will not accept bitcoins as a payment method for now

For those who make use of the cryptocurrency to buy games off of Steam, you don’t have that option available for you now. Steam just announced it’ll no longer accept bitcoin as a payment method. Valve made the announcement in a blog post saying the decision is a result of the cryptocurrency’s “high fees and volatility.” In the post, it talks about how bitcoin transactions have gone up to almost US$20 per transaction in the past week, which is huge compared to what Valve says was the $0.20 value it had when they initially enabled bitcoin.

The fees are being shouldered by the gamers who make the purchases, which means costs of the games could be higher if the bitcoin value dips. And if value does go up while the user completes a purchase, for example, Steam will have to refund the difference and then the user will have to pay the transaction fee again. As Valve says in the post, “This year, we’ve seen increasing number[s] of customers get into this state,” making it a pretty impractical way to pay for games. Steam says it might reconsider this decision in the future, if the currency becomes more stable.

Source: The Verge

Amazon Prime video app finally comes to Apple TV with 4K UHD content

Amazon today announced the Prime Video app is available on Apple TV 4K and previous generations of Apple TV in over 100 countries.

Prime Video customers now have even more ways to stream award-winning and critically-acclaimed titles including Amazon Original Movies, Prime Originals and Hollywood blockbusters and TV series on Apple TV 4K and Apple TV. Amazon’s library of 4K Ultra High Definition (UHD) High Dynamic Range (HDR) titles are available on Apple TV 4K.

“Amazon Prime Video is one of the most eagerly anticipated apps to come to Apple TV, so we’re excited to bring all of that great content to customers,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “The Sports tab in the Apple TV app makes it even easier for fans in the US to track the teams, games and moments that are important to them. With these exciting updates, plus our growing collection of 4K HDR movies on iTunes, we continue to deliver an unparalleled entertainment experience to Apple customers.”

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