Новости за 04.01.2022

Agricultural hardware giant and scourge of right-to-repair advocates everywhere John Deere is ready to show off its finished, fully-autonomous tractor. Here at CES, the company is saying that this unit is going to be put into large-scale production, and will be made available to farmers later this year. When in use, a farmer can set the hardware to work and then leave it running, allowing them to tend to vital work elsewhere. The idea, so the company says, is to help make farming more efficient... Читать дальше...

Qualcomm's involvement with Microsoft is extending past chips for PCs. The two are partnering on a string of initiatives to foster augmented reality and the metaverse, including the development of custom chips for AR glasses. The companies were shy on the nature of the chips or the end products, but they promised "lightweight," energy-efficient wearables. You might actually want to use this eyewear for extended periods, in other words.

Last July, Hideo Kojima's utterly bonkers animated philosophy movie and busywork simulator, Death Stranding, announced a director's cut edition with some additional goodies, which dropped for PlayStation 5 in September. PC gamers will now get to experience this version in the Spring of 2022, roughly two years after the base game was ported to Windows. 

After delivering an ambitious gaming convertible notebook last year, the svelte ROG Flow X13, ASUS is taking that concept even further with the Flow Z13 tablet. Think of it like a souped-up Surface Pro: the Z13 packs in Intel's new 12th-gen processors and up to NVIDIA's RTX 3050 Ti all in a sleek slate. Weighing in at 2.43 pounds, it's clearly not meant to replace smaller tablets like the iPad. Instead, ASUS sees it as a way to bring your PC games everywhere — say a cramped airplane tray table — without the bulk of a laptop. Читать дальше...

ASUS' gaming laptops have caught up to the work-from-home era. The PC maker has unveiled its ROG laptop line for early 2022, and the centerpiece for many is likely an updated Zephyrus G14 (shown above) that finally, finally includes a webcam — one with Windows Hello-friendly infrared, no less. ASUS told Engadget gamers didn't mind the absence of a camera in the past, but a combination of shrinking panels and smaller cameras made the inclusion possible. Whatever the reasoning, this will be welcome... Читать дальше...

Volvo will use Qualcomm's Snapdragon Cockpit Platforms to beef up the infotainment systems in some of its upcoming models. Both the Polestar 3 and an electric SUV will harness the chipsets.

Qualcomm believes it can widen the field for semi-autonomous driving features, and it's launching a new platform to make that happen. The company has unveiled a Snapdragon Ride Vision platform that combines a 4-nanometer system-on-chip with Arriver's computer vision software to give automakers an "open, scalable and modular" way to build Level 2 driver assists and Level 3 partial autonomy into their cars.

The James Webb Space Telescope has completed one of the most challenging tasks involved in its mission to probe the depths of our universe. This week, NASA successfully deployed JWST’s 70-foot sunshield. The system is essential to the telescope’s operation. It will ensure its instruments don’t get colder than minus 380 degrees Fahrenheit so that they’re cold enough to see the infrared light that Webb is designed to track.

Panasonic has trotted out all sorts of audio gear since reviving the iconic Technics brand in 2014. Recently, that list includes a smattering of true wireless earbuds and headphones, and at CES 2022, the company has yet another portable device ready to debut. With the EAH-A800, Technics has built a pair of hi-fi-ready wireless headphones with active noise cancellation (ANC) and claims of a whopping 50 hours of use on a charge. 

Intel is seriously planning to crank things up with its 12th-generation KS-series desktop CPUs. On stage at the company's CES press event today, Intel's Client Computing head Gregory Bryant revealed that the KS chips will reach a whopping 5.5GHz on a single core. Of course, that's while the chip is being stressed to reach a Max Turbo speed, so don't expect that to be sustained for long. 

Acer’s flagship line of Swift X notebooks is going to be one of the first to tote around Intel’s new Arc graphics. The 16-inch model, at least, will be Acer’s first with Intel’s attempt at toppling NVIDIA’s leadership position in the mobile graphics space. That comes with a handful of other quality-of-life improvements, including a 400-nit (up from 300 nits last year), 100 percent sRGB, 16:10 display. You can choose either a WQXGA (2,560 x 1,600) or WUXGA (1,920 x 1,200) resolution screen to cram inside, too. Читать дальше...

Often, the laptops that are announced at CES aren’t as exciting as the silicon that’ll be nestled inside them. Acer’s Nitro 5 is one such example, where less attention will be paid to the more refined design, since everyone will be talking about its new brains. Like the fact that it’ll be able to use both AMD’s Ryzen 6000 and Intel’s 12th-generation Core processors. That will be paired with anything up to NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, 32GB DDR4 3200 RAM and, depending on chip options, either a FHD 144Hz or QHD 165Hz panel. Читать дальше...

Acer is often quick to embrace the latest chips in its gaming laptops, and that's particularly true this year. The brand has updated its Predator Helios and Triton portables to use both Intel's 12th-generation Core processors and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30 Ti graphics. The Helios 300 (above) is the star of the show with synced RGB light bar on the deck, up to the latest Core i7 chip, as much as 32GB of DDR5 memory and ether RTX 3070 Ti or RTX 3080 graphics. You can also expect a "cleaner" chassis... Читать дальше...

At CES, HP unveiled its latest lineup of gaming systems, including a tower with a new kind of cooling system. The Omen 45L Desktop (which leaked a couple of months ago) has a Cryo Chamber that's positioned above the main case.

For the longest time, console gamers were second-class citizens when it came to gaming accessories. Keyboards and mice are, of course, mainly PC gaming peripherals, and the vast majority of customization software is made for desktop machines. Even most headsets were built with PC gaming in mind, though that’s changed in recent years. But for most folks a gamepad is the iconic console gaming accessory, and the options outside of first-party controllers have been lacking until recently. Now gamers... Читать дальше...

Intel hasn't forgotten about Evo, its premium branding for PCs that meet its array of performance benchmarks. Now in its third iteration (remember it was originally called Project Athena), the company says it's also adding a foldable specification for Evo PCs this year, along with new requirements around "intelligent collaboration" and support for faster H-series 12th-gen chips. So, in addition to guaranteeing long battery life and instant wake, new Evo PCs will also need to include WiFi 6E support... Читать дальше...

HP has unveiled its latest Envy desktop PC. Instead of an all-in-one like many of the company’s past Envy-branded workstations, it adopts a traditional form factor. The design and brushed aluminum exterior make the case reminiscent of boutique ITX enclosures like the Dan C4. On the top, you’ll find three USB-A ports, a USB-C connection, an SD card slot and a headphone jack. The Envy Desktop PC features a one-touch tool-less design HP says makes it easy to upgrade the internal components.

If you use a wireless headset for gaming, there’s a good chance you’ve had its battery die on you at the worst possible time. While its latest peripheral won’t stop that from happening altogether, HyperX does hope it will make it a much less frequent occurrence. At CES 2022, the company, which was recently acquired by HP, announced the Cloud Alpha Wireless.

How do you help your gaming monitor stand out when it's neither one of the largest nor a huge bargain? Cater to console gamers, apparently. HP has revealed the Omen 27u, a 27-inch monitor with full support for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. The 4K screen, HDMI 2.1 input, DisplayHDR 400 support and built-in speakers aren't novelties in themselves, but should be appreciated if you want to play some console games at 120Hz without buying a separate TV.

It’s CES, which means that HP is busting out a whole host of new laptops with upgraded internals to suit the new silicon coming from Intel. That includes a bunch of Elite-branded machines, including the Elite x360 1040 G9, EliteBook 1040 G9, EliteBook 800 G9 and EliteBook 600 series. All of them are getting 12th-generation Intel Core processors, a redesigned chassis, 16:10 display and optional 5G. Not to mention that HP is pledging that there is at least 30 percent post-consumer recycled plastic in the machine’s body. Читать дальше...

After debuting its hybrid 12th-gen CPUs for desktops in October, Intel is ready to bring them to notebooks. To recap, the company's new CPUs (previously codenamed Alder lake) combine performance cores (P-cores) and efficient cores (E-cores) on a single chip. The idea is that they'll be able to better handle the demands of real-world computing, like juggling gaming on the faster cores while the slower ones power your livestream. In addition to faster performance, that tag-team approach could also lead to better battery for laptops. Читать дальше...

We've practically run out of superlatives for Dell's XPS 13, the company's flagship ultraportable that sparked the slim bezel trend and has remained one of our favorite notebooks for years. So where does Dell go from here? Say hello to the XPS 13 Plus, a more powerful and ambitiously designed notebook with a lattice-less keyboard (read: no space between the keys) and a glass haptic touchpad that blends right into the palm rest. It's a laptop that looks so sleek, it practically begs to be touched. Читать дальше...

With the pandemic now almost in its third year, it’s fair to say video calling won’t become a smaller part of our lives anytime soon. So it’s surprising we haven’t seen more monitors like the new U3223QZ from Dell. It has a webcam built directly into its frame. And judging by the spec sheet the company shared, it’s a pretty good one too.

Dell launched the Alienware Graphics Amplifier way back in 2014 and only recently discontinued it, but now, the company has announced that it's giving eGPUs another shot. A new device called Concept Polaris is aimed at "performance-driven enthusiasts" and takes lessons learned from the original, though Dell has yet to decide if it will go beyond the concept stages. 

Alienware isn't going to let rivals' small gaming laptops go unanswered. The brand has revealed the X14, its (and Dell's) thinnest gaming laptop yet. The 14-inch design uses a trick dual-torque element hinge and cooling upgrades to keep the design to a 0.57-inch thickness while including high-performance components, including a 12th-generation, 14-core Intel Core i7 and up to GeForce RTX 3060 graphics. It's even billed as the first 14-inch laptop to support both NVIDIA's G-Sync and Advanced Optimus graphics switching. Читать дальше...