Tech News Roundup for July 27, 2021
Here are a few of the tech news stories I’ve found most interesting over the last few days. Not includes are company earnings, which are starting to come out this week. The short version is every big tech company made a lot of money. Now; onto more interesting things.
Intel Details Future Plans, Including Building Chips for Other Vendors
Intel held a webcast it called “Intel Accelerated” this week in which it detailed some of its future plans. My big takeaway is the announcement that Intel will begin building chips for Qualcomm in its foundries. Intel had announced earlier this year that it was establishing a new subsidiary named Intel Foundry Services that would aim to secure 3rd party business in semiconductor manufacturing, and Qualcomm is the first customer announced for it. Intel making chips for 3rd parties could help alleviate the shortages the industry is experiencing, and I do expect more companies to contract Intel to build components going forward.
Intel also announced a high level roadmap for the next 5 years, where the company says it plans to return to its previous dominant position in computer processing after rival AMD had largely taken the performance crown over the past few years. There are also new marketing names for future Intel architectures, with Intel dropping the largely irrelevant process node size nomenclature.
https://www.thurrott.com/hardware/253747/intel-delivers-a-new-product-roadmap
https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22595002/intel-qualcomm-chips-foundry-services-amazon-aws-20a
Instagram Will Make Accounts of Users Under 16 Private by Default and Limiting Ad Targeting
I haven’t seen this in too many places, but I think this is important. Facebook has announced that going forward accounts created on Instagram by users under the age of 16 will be set to private by default, though the option to make accounts public will remain.
Facebook also says that it will be limiting ad targeting on users under the age of 18. Advertisers will now only be able to target ads based on Age, Gender, and Location for users under the age of 18.
These are all good changes, and the push for more privacy, especially for young people, is welcome.
Nothing Announces the Ear 1 Wireless Earbuds
Ok. Carl Pei, one of the founders of OnePlus, left the smartphone company he helped create last year to start a new company. He named that company “Nothing.” Yes, the company’s name is Nothing. It is very stupid. Let’s move on.
The company’s first product is a unique looking set of wireless earbuds. The earbuds feature a mostly translucent case, and a design that stands out in a sea of headphones that all look mostly the same. The earbuds are priced at $100 USD, feature active noise cancellation and have up to 5.7 hours of battery life, with 34 hours of battery life in the charging case, which is also translucent. The product name is the Ear-1.
The company name and the product name are stupid, but the actual headphones look very interesting.
Framework Laptop Aims to Offer a Truly Upgradable Laptop
One of the more interesting laptops to hit in a long while has been reviewed by Ars Technica. The Framework Laptop is designed to be fully upgradable, even the ports on the laptop can be changed out. Using specially built modules that connect via USB-C, the ports on the laptop can be customized, and even changed out. The laptop also features as many modular components as possible to make repairs as easy as possible. Almost every part except the screen, processor and motherboard can be replaced by a user.
This product does not come cheap, and I don’t expect it to be a huge mainstream success, but it is nice to see a company trying to make something that users can actually service themselves.
Lucasfilms Hires The Person Who Created Better CGI Than They Did
Spoilers ahead for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and The Mandalorian Season 2.
Disney has tried to fit some of its more recent Star Wars properties into the larger universe, and that has meant the company has tried to fit them into the Star Wars universe alongside movies shot long ago. Rogue One is set just before Star Wars Episode IV, and the end of Rogue One features a CGI’d face that was supposed to be Carrie Fisher playing Princess Leia circa 1977, and it looked… bad. Season 2 of the Mandalorian is set a few years after the end of Star Wars Episode VI, and features a similarly bad CGI face of Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker circa 1983.
There are several examples of people trying to improve on Disney’s efforts, and there are a number of people who have published clips showing what looks to be significantly better CGI of these characters in those scenes. Apparently Disney noticed, as it has hired one of those people. A YouTuber known as “Sharmrock” has produced what are arguably some of the best results of fan attempts to “fix” the CGI in those two examples, and now Shamrock works for Disney, as a “Senior Facial Capture Artist.”
Considering the default approach big companies usually take in this case is to use legal action to get this kind of content taken down, the fact that Disney recognized the talent, and went and hired this person is pretty incredible.
Samsung Confirms No Note 21 Smartphone Ahead of Galaxy Unpacked Event
I don’t usually report on rumours, so I’ve not said much about the upcoming Samsung event on August 11th. But Samsung itself has revealed some details. It has said that during its upcoming event it will be debuting its 3rd generation of Galaxy Z foldable phones, and that those phones will support stylus input via the s pen. And the company has confirmed what was widely speculated: there will be no Galaxy Note phone in 2021. Samsung is not ruling out producing another Galaxy Note device, but I’d be surprised If they did. The Galaxy Z phones are taking the Note’s place as the mid-year flagship phone, and there isn’t much reason for the note to exist anymore. I’m excited to see what Samsung has to offer on the 11th.
https://mobilesyrup.com/2021/07/27/samsung-confirms-no-galaxy-note-21/