What is Intel Coffee Lake?

Intel’s 8th-generation “Coffee Lake” CPUs are now on the market. These chips come with a modest bump in CPU frequency, but the big news is that Intel is finally adding 6-core processors to its mainstream i7 and i5 lines. More cores means these chips will perform better at tasks that benefit from multithreading, such as content creation and data processing, and the increase in frequency and cores will give a boost to gaming frame rates. Intel used to release chips on a “tick-tock” cycle that saw every release alternate either a new design, or a new manufacturing process – called a “node.” A new process node, like moving from 45nm to 22nm, means smaller transistors and a faster or more power-efficient chip. But manufacturing challenges made tick-tock falter a few years ago, and now new releases are much harder to predict. “Coffee Lake” is the fourth chip Intel has released at 14nm, and the third based on the “Skylake” design from 2015. New designs and nodes are coming, but we’ll probably have to wait until they arrive in 2018 to see a big jump in performance.

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What is Intel Coffee Lake?

99.6% of new smartphones run iOS or Android; RIP Windows and Blackberry

Enlarge (credit: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images) Remember those crazy days in 2011 and 12 when we thought that the mobile market might become a three-horse race between Android, iOS, and Windows Mobile, with Blackberry bringing up the rear? Well, I have bad if unsurprising news: by the end of last year, 99.6 percent of all new smartphones ran either Android or iOS—a return to the status quo that Ars first wrote about way back in 2009 . According to the latest figures from Gartner , both Android and iOS expanded their share of the market in 2016, while sales of Windows and Blackberry continued their free fall to the base of the cliff. Gartner, a research company that derives its figures from a range of sources, says that just 1.1 million Windows smartphones were sold in Q4 2016, down from 4.4 million in Q4 2015. Similarly, Blackberry device sales fell from 906,000 to 208,000. The action at the top of the sales table, between Apple and Samsung, was a little more exciting. For the first time since Q4 2014 Apple has apparently retaken pole position from Samsung, with 77 million iPhones shifted last quarter versus 76.8 million units for the Korean chaebol. Samsung still shipped the most smartphones over the course of 2016, but its share of the market decreased from 22.5 percent to 20.5. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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99.6% of new smartphones run iOS or Android; RIP Windows and Blackberry

Motiv crammed a full fitness tracker into a ring

Fitness trackers are a dime a dozen at this point, with Fitbit dominating the market. But as long as wearable gadgets have been in vogue, the concept of a “smart ring” has made the rounds in various forms. Here at CES, it looks like Motiv is the closest yet to cracking the puzzle of building a ring that’s worth wearing. Motiv’s ring is basically a tiny Fitbit: it packs in a heart rate sensor and can track your steps, sleep and “active minutes” with a goal of getting its users to be active for at least 150 minutes per week. The ring itself is very light, fairly unobtrusive and comes in grey and rose gold. Motiv says its has an “ultralight titanium shell” that felt a little cheap to me — hopefully it’ll prove to be durable. The battery is charged with an included magnetic charging dock that plugs into any standard USB port; Motiv is actually including two so you can throw one on your keychain and forget about it. Naturally, the ring syncs to a smartphone app where you can get data on what it measures. The ring has heart rate tracking built-in; that’s how it knows when you’re working out hard enough to count minutes towards your daily activity goal. A Motiv spokesperson said that the ring uses active minutes because it’s a less abstract goal than 10, 000 steps or a certain amount of calories burned, and it does seem like something with the potential to encourage slightly more active exercise. But it also works as a pedometer if you’re used to tracking steps over other metrics. All this data is stored in the app, which uses a card interface to keep you updated on your goals, showing you high-level overviews of your day and week. If you want to dig down into the data, though, the app lets you scan minute by minute to see exactly what were you up to, whether you were awake or asleep. My big question about the Motiv is its manufacturing feasibility — we’ve been burned by smart rings before that just couldn’t figure out the battery tech necessary to work. Motiv’s spokesperson told me that the company designed its curved battery itself; he also said that the device is in production after a lengthy beta period. The model he was wearing appeared to be functional, so it seems like the ring should make it onto the market this spring as planned. If you’re interested and willing to take a bit of a gamble on an unproven company, pre-orders for the $199 Motiv started today. To get the sizing right, Motiv will send buyers a kit with fake rings in it so you can try them on and see what fits best. The Motiv may not do anything differently than the Fitbit, but if you’re interested in having an extremely low-profile device this may be worth a look. Of course, we’ll need to put one through a full review to really recommend it, but on the surface the Motiv is intriguing at the very least. Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2017.

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Motiv crammed a full fitness tracker into a ring

Bluetooth 5’s faster, longer-ranged wireless is here

Bluetooth is about to become a lot less hassle-prone. The wireless standard’s Special Interest Group has officially adopted the Bluetooth 5 spec, clearing the way for device makers to use the much-improved technology in everything from phones to wearables to smart home equipment. This doesn’t mean that you’ll see it right away, of course. The group expects Bluetooth 5-equipped products to hit the market in the next 2 to 6 months, or right around when the next wave of smartphones is likely to arrive. Again, the new spec is all about raw performance. You can expect up to four times the range, twice the speed and eight times the amount of data in broadcast messages. Those will be particularly helpful for smart appliances and the Internet of Things , where the existing Bluetooth 4.2 standard might not be powerful enough to connect an entire home. However, it should also make a difference anywhere that you notice Bluetooth’s existing limitations. Smartwatches could see a serious upgrade, for example — one of the biggest bottlenecks on wristwear is the slow connection to your phone. And regardless of the device you use, there are techniques to reduce interference with other wireless devices. Just don’t expect much of a boost to audio quality. While Bluetooth 5 could help with range, you won’t see improvements to audio compression, latency and power use until 2018. The newly adopted format is primarily about dragging Bluetooth’s range and speed into the modern era, and future efforts will build on top of that groundwork. Source: Bluetooth SIG

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Bluetooth 5’s faster, longer-ranged wireless is here

Sony and Panasonic partner to sell 8K TVs by 2020

NHK boldly declared it would broadcast the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in 8K (also called Super Hi-Vision), but that’s just four years away now and the grand total of 8K TVs on the market is … one. To get things jump-started, the Japanese broadcaster has teamed up with Sony and Panasonic to develop the tech necessary to get more sets on the market, according to Nikkei . 8K requires four times the bandwidth of 4K video, so the group must build new types of streaming and compression technology. Sony and Panasonic, which both have pro video divisions, will also help NHK develop cameras and other broadcast products. For consumers, the benefit will be ultra-realistic video with more resolution than even most theaters can deliver. However, there’s barely any content for 4K, let alone 8K, so jumping to a higher resolution will be a hard sell. NHK broadcast a small amount of 8K content from the Rio games in Japan. Since Sharp is the only company that sells an 8K set (an 85-inch, $130, 000 model ), the only way for fans to see it was on public viewing stations. However, Both Sony and Panasonic plan to roll out 8K sets in time for the 2020 Tokyo games. By forming an all-Japanese consortium, they hope to gain back some prestige and market share lost to Asian competitors like Samsung, LG, TCL and Vizio in the 4K market. Via: The Verge Source: Nikkei

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Sony and Panasonic partner to sell 8K TVs by 2020

Pick Up One of the Best Chromebooks on the Market for Just $117

With over 8 hours of battery life and a legitimate Haswell processor, the Acer C720 is one of the best bets in the Chromebook space, and you can get a refurb right now for an eminently reasonable $117 . Read more…

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Pick Up One of the Best Chromebooks on the Market for Just $117