Ahead of the Hot Chips conference this week, photonics chip startup Lightmatter revealed the first technical details about its upcoming test chip. Unlike conventional processors and graphics cards, the test chip uses light to send signals, promising orders of magnitude higher performance and efficiency.
The technology underpinning the test chip — photonic integrated circuits — stems from a…
Google today announced Chrome for Android’s context menu will show “Fast page” labels for webpages deemed to have good performance. The label will be determined using Google’s Web Vitals, an initiative the company announced in May to provide web developers and…
The Trump administration is further tightening restrictions on Chinese phone manufacturer Huawei, making it more difficult for the company to get chips for its devices. And a temporary general license that offered a reprieve for Huawei customers has now expired and won’t…
This article is part of a VB special issue. Read the full series: Automation and jobs in the new normal.
In early spring 2020, Smithfield, Tyson, and other industrial food suppliers warned that upwards of millions of pounds of meat could disappear from the U.S. supply chain as a result of the coronavirus. Although it now appears these fears were overblown or possibly a ploy to bolster exports…
ZTE is set to become first to market with a smartphone featuring an under-display camera. The Chinese company announced today that it’s launching the ZTE Axon 20 5G in its domestic market on September 1.
Smartphone makers have for several years dabbled with designs to…
Epic’s Fortnite standoff is putting Apple’s cash cow at risk
August 17, 2020
Apple and Epic Games have gone to war, with the two companies clashing over Apple’s App Store policies. Epic, in protest of Apple’s 30 percent fee for any digital transactions on its iOS platform, attempted to circumvent things with a direct payment option in Fortnite…
At the Hot Chips 2020 conference, which was held virtually this year, IBM announced the IBM Power10. It’s the successor to the Power9 and represents the next generation of the company’s processor family. IBM claims that the Power10 delivers up to three times greater efficiency than its predecessor while at the same time delivering higher workload capacity and container density.
The Power10 was…
Telegram launches one-on-one video calls on iOS and Android
August 16, 2020
Secure messaging app Telegram has launched an alpha version of one-on-one video calls on both its Android and iOS apps, the company announced, saying 2020 had “highlighted the need for face-to-face communication.”
In a blog post marking its seventh anniversary, Telegram…
Apple stumbled into a war with the gaming industry, and the future of iOS is at stake
August 15, 2020
Apple has always had a complicated relationship with the game industry, but this month that relationship slid into a bitter and very public legal and regulatory war that could shape the future of iPhone apps. The first escalation occurred when Apple laid out in clear terms…
Aside from staying alive and healthy, the biggest concern most people have during the pandemic is the future of their jobs. Unemployment in the U.S. has skyrocketed, from 5.8 million in February 2020 to 16.3 million in July 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it’s not only the lost jobs that are reshaping work in the wake of COVID-19; the of many of the remaining jobs has…
