Category: digital & hardware

CES 2024 officially opened, Sony Honda’s first car AFEELA EV prototype was officially unveiled, out of the way very peculiar, Sony Honda Mobility CEO Yasuhide Mizuno with a PS5 handle remote control to drive up.

Driving up with a PS5 handle: can’t hold up Sony’s dream of building a car!

It also seems to fulfill the fantasy of a Sony-built electric car that combines gaming and automobiles, opening up the car as a large gaming device.

However, throughout the launch Sony didn’t mention any details about price, battery, or configuration, and didn’t reiterate that it would be available in 2026.

Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe was invited on stage to talk about the partnership, but he didn’t even mention the word “electric” in his speech.

This information clearly did not satisfy the curiosity of the audience, and earlier, Sony Honda Mobility (Sony Honda Mobility) President Izumi Kawanishi bluntly said, “China’s electric cars have no technological surprises.”

In contrast, Sony electric car and how much waves can be stirred?

01, toothpaste launch

At this year’s CES, Sony still used an entire pavilion to show off its muscles, but as a giant in the global consumer electronics business, like CES 2023, Sony did not release a TV this year.

In contrast, this year marks the fifth consecutive year that Sony has shown its upcoming electric car at CES, which shows that Sony is quite serious about electric cars.

Driving with a PS5 controller: can’t hold up Sony’s dream of building a car!

At the just-opened 2024 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Yasuhide Mizuno, CEO of Sony Honda Mobility, drove Sony’s upcoming 2026 mass-produced electric car, the AFEELA, onto the stage by controlling the PS5’s Dualsense handle.

Controlling a car with a joystick may be a reality, but don’t get your hopes up, as Yasuhide Mizuno says it’s “for stage display only.”

This puts a big dent in practicality. As a comparison, the domestic just-launched Smart S7 and Extreme Krypton 007, with their outstanding self-driving and self-parking capabilities, don’t even need a handle to drive themselves onto the stage. Picture.

The official did not reveal how to use the Dualsense handle, to realize the control of the vehicle, and did not disclose more information about the car, which will only be mass-produced in two years, and then hastily ended the press conference.

But then Sony announced a partnership with Microsoft in artificial intelligence, and Microsoft representative Jessica Hawk took the stage to explain part of the content about in-car AI, saying that Sony is working with Microsoft to develop an AI assistant in the AFEELA car.

Driving a car with a PS5 controller: can’t hold up Sony’s dream of building a car!

From the news revealed at the scene, the cooperation between the two sides will focus on the AI in-car assistant, which also fits the trend of this year’s CES – the absolute home of AI.

CES site, Volkswagen also announced that ChatGPT will be introduced into the car assistant, its existing IDA voice assistant will be introduced into the ChatGPT artificial intelligence technology, and used in a series of new models.

In fact, the new energy car on the frame of the big model is not new, the car as a large mobile intelligent terminal, in the big model just rise has been explored, at present, including Xiaopeng, Ideal and other brands, including the models, have a big model on the car plans.

For example, after OTA 5.0, Ideal car has the support of multimodal cognitive big model Mind GPT, which not only can network to check current news and provide the latest information, but also can be transformed into an encyclopedia teacher and a painting master, and the application scenes are also diversified.

Combined with the current domestic landing of the big model, there is not much innovative space left for Sony and Microsoft to cooperate.

At a time when the country has crossed over to AI-defined cars, Sony still believes in the theory of software-defined cars. Sony said that under this concept, the car will be turned into a “digital playground” to provide a new in-car experience.

To this end, Sony Honda has developed an ADAS simulator that simulates external environmental conditions such as information about other vehicles, pedestrians, terrain and weather. By combining this technology with AR, users will enjoy an immersive experience while enhancing safety.

Driving with the PS5 controller: not holding up to Sony’s dream of building a car!

Sony also showed a demo video of a game that renders a car in a simulated world next to Godzilla-like escaping monsters that you can capture for points.

In addition Sony also said that it wants to create a creative community (i.e. co-creation) between users and creators to “realize unique ideas” by accessing vehicle data, which can actually be interpreted as a meta-universe.

Driving a car with a PS5 controller: not enough to support Sony’s dream of building a car!

Although Sony used a lot of “high” definition, but in essence, some of the technology of the domestic automotive industry is not new.

02, PS5 must also need a large color TV

Last October, Sony Honda Mobility (Sony Honda Mobility) President Kawanishi Izumi, had publicly blasted the Chinese trolley, said “China’s electric cars have no technical surprises”, although the development speed “strong”, but in the In terms of information technology, “it’s just like arranging the icons of a smartphone”.

Izumi Kawanishi believes that basic entertainment services such as listening to music and watching videos can already be perfectly realized by smartphones, and it is nothing new to continue applying these operations in cars.

Driving a car with a PS5 controller: can’t hold up Sony’s dream of building a car!

In other words, he sees nothing new in the in-car entertainment offered by Chinese car companies.

In 2022, Sony set up a company called Sony Mobility to formally enter the new energy vehicle market, and later joined hands with Honda to set up a joint venture Sony Honda Mobility (Sony Honda Mobility), with each side holding a 50 percent stake.

Last year’s CES, Sony Honda Mobility released a pure electric car “AFEELA” prototype, plans to start accepting bookings in the first half of 2025, the first in the spring of 2026 in the North American market to open delivery.

Driving with a PS5 controller: not enough to support Sony’s dream of building a car!

AFEELA has not yet publicized the complete technical parameters, according to previously publicized information, AFEELA’s design is very avant-garde, the entire body appearance is very smooth, not only canceled the traditional mirrors, the use of electronic exterior mirrors, but also canceled the door handle, the whole car almost can not see the extra corners.

It is reported that AFEELA is positioned as a long wheelbase electric coupe, body dimensions of 4895 * 1900 * 1460mm, wheelbase 3000mm. according to Sony Honda public sample car, AFEELA front there is a through the front of the car is similar to the light band Media Bar, can be used to display the car logo, but also show the charging progress and other information.

Driving with a PS5 controller: not holding up to Sony’s dream of building a car!

AFEELA’s original concept, claimed to be powered by dual-motor all-wheel drive with a maximum power of 400kW (536 hp), 100km acceleration in 4.8 seconds, and a top speed of 240 km/h.

In fact, judging from this parameter, both the just-released Xiaomi SU7, as well as the Extreme Kryptonite 007 and Galaxy E8, can shake off the AFEELA by several lengths.

In addition, AFEELA will use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon digital chassis, with a total of 45 cameras and sensors throughout the car, and possibly an ECU with a maximum arithmetic power of 800 TOPS, which can meet the L2 level of assisted driving in urban driving scenarios.

Driving with a PS5 controller: can’t hold up Sony’s dream of building a car!

In-car features are Sony’s biggest reliance, and Sony believes that they can provide a better infotainment experience.

It is reported that Sony will move its own film and television, music, games, the whole family bucket content ecology into the car, will also cooperate with Epic Games, built-in Epic Games games and entertainment platform, will provide technology such as Unreal Engine 5.

Unreal Engine 5 is the fifth generation game engine announced by EPIC in 2020, and now that the Unreal 5 engine has been officially launched, Epic has announced that it is being made public in the form of a sample project, so that anyone can download it, check out the program’s content-generation framework and Substrate, among other features.

Sony President Kenichiro Yoshida previously revealed that the PS5 will also be on board, which will undoubtedly be AFEELA’s biggest competitive advantage in the EV market.

Driving with PS5 handle: can’t hold up Sony’s dream of building a car!

Even so, it’s just a PS5 on top of a color TV refrigerator and a big sofa.

From the exposure of the interior of the car, the front and rear rows have a “big color TV”, the official hope that through continuous OTA updates, to bring more gaming experience in the car.

This year is already the fifth time that Sony has shown off their electric car at CES, and it is conservatively estimated that there will be at least two more before it is released in 2026.

Driving with a PS5 controller: can’t hold up Sony’s dream of building a car!

But both Sony and Honda have been slow to announce any details on pricing, batteries, etc., and have just flip-flopped on in-car entertainment. Frankly, apart from the possibility of PS5 getting on board, the innovation of this Sony Honda electric car called AFEELA is not attractive enough.

Now Sony is moving aggressively closer to AI with a partnership with Microsoft on artificial intelligence, but with the AFEELA still a year away from delivery, rivals are running faster.

Just now, NVIDIA’s official website released the RTX 4090D customized for the Chinese market – D is the legendary Dragon, corresponding to the upcoming Chinese Year of the Dragon.

The design and specifications of RTX 4090D are fully compliant with U.S. export control standards, and can be normally produced and sold in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Macau markets.

The Year of the Dragon Chinese customized RTX 4090D is officially released: the performance is only 5% different!

It sacrifices some of the specs and performance, but not much:

The core chip is still AD102 and the numbering has been changed to AD102-250.

The number of CUDA cores has been reduced from 16,384 to 14,592, and the core base frequency has instead been increased slightly from 2235MHz to 2280MHz, while the acceleration frequency has been maintained at 2520MHz, only that it is not open to overclocking.

There are claims that some of the Tensor tensor cores have been streamlined, which makes sense, but the details are unclear for now.

Memory remains unchanged at 384-bit 24GB GDDR6X at 21GHz equivalent.

The total power consumption setting for the card has been reduced from 450W to 425W, with 302W for regular gaming, 26W for video playback, and 19W for idle.

In terms of gaming performance, according to the charts on NVIDIA’s website, the RTX 4090D only loses about 5% compared to the RTX 4090, which is hardly noticeable.

Year of the Dragon China compliant version of RTX 4090D officially released: only 5% difference in performance!

The RTX 4090D will be available from January 2024 onwards, with an official suggested retail price starting at 12,999 RMB, exactly the same as when the RTX 4090 debuted, which is actually largely due to the exchange rate.

Note that the RTX 4090D has no public version of the card, and will be launched by the major AIC brand manufacturers with their own non-public versions. And so on.

In addition, NVIDIA also launched the RTX 40 SUPER series in January, RTX 4070 SUPER, RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, RTX 4080 SUEPR debuted successively, constituting a new generation of complete layout of the RTX 40 family in the year of the dragon.

The smartphone market monitoring report released by market research organization Omdia shows that in the third quarter of this year, Glory took the first place in China’s folding smartphone market shipments with a 28% market share.

The data show that the scale of folding screen phone shipments in China in the third quarter exceeded 1.7 million units, in which glory ranked first with 28% market share, compared with its folding screen phone shipments in the same period last year, an increase of 17 times.

Among them, Glory Magic V2 became the No. 1 single product in China’s folding screen phone market with 25% market share.

Omdia said that China’s folding phone market is still experiencing rapid growth, but as a new form of smartphone, the research and development and design of folding phones have high technical innovation requirements.

Overall, under the premise of ensuring the stability of the product, to achieve the ultimate product thin and light and low cost, for manufacturers is a considerable test.

The new folding product Magic V2 released by Glory in mid-July was highly recognized by the market with its extremely thin and light size parameters, which made it break through 800,000 units sold in just over four months.

Immediately following Glory was Huawei, which came in second with a 26 percent market share, and when simply added together, the two had a 54 percent market share, occupying half of the domestic folding screen market.

The organization also concluded that with the gradual upgrading of the product experience of Chinese brands and the expansion of the international market, the share of Chinese manufacturers in the global folding screen market will also increase rapidly in the future.

The news of October 10, India’s financial crimes agency, Tuesday arrested vivo arrested four industry executives, including a Chinese national industry executives, accused of suspected money laundering.

Vivo responded, said an employee was arrested, but did not specify the nationality of the arrestees.
It also said, “The recent arrests by the Indian Enforcement Directorate (IED) are of deep concern to us. We will use all available legal means.”
Enforcement Directorate is yet to respond to this.
Earlier, sources close to the matter told the media that four Vivo employees were arrested and during the court hearing lawyers said that only one Vivo employee was arrested by the name of Guanwen Kuang.

The Indian law enforcement agency, asked for 10 days of detention, but the judge granted only three days.
It is reported that this arrest of Vivo executives may be related to the 2022 case.
In 2022, the Indian Enforcement Directorate, raided Vivo’s India office and accused it of money laundering.
It also blocked 119 bank accounts related to Vivo’s India operations, but the court later quashed the move.
Vivo has repeatedly denied the allegations, stating that “Vivo firmly adheres to its ethical principles and is committed to legal compliance.”
The latest IDC data shows that Vivo is already the largest smartphone brand in India in Q2 2023 and has maintained its growth, capturing 16% of the market share.

It is ahead of Samsung, Apple, Mi. vivo Y series is the sales leader of vivo, vivo Y200 has already started its preview in India and is expected to be powered by Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 mobile processing platform, 6.67-inch FHD+ 120Hz screen and 64 MP OIS main camera.
A lot of Chinese companies, in the last 18 months, have stepped on potholes in India.
“The same end of the world” OPPO, millet, Lenovo, India naturally did not let go, anyway, glory has been running overnight.
Mi Group is by far the worst loss, was frozen nearly 700 million U.S. dollars in assets.
India, on the other hand, has claimed that OPPO, wrongly used the tariff exemption and is going to make OPPO pay Rs 43.9 billion in back taxes, which is about Rs 3.7 billion.
In July this year, BYD had also wanted to spend $1 billion, to invest in India, and cooperate with Indian companies to produce electric cars and batteries in India.
But in the end, India rejected BYD’s $1 billion investment plan to build a factory on the grounds of investment security. At the same time it also started an investigation into BYD, mainly due to suspicions that the company had failed to pay about 730 million rupees, or about 63.6 million yuan, in taxes.
The problem is that BYD has only sold about 1,960 cars in India over the past two years, and its revenue doesn’t even come close to paying the tax.
On September 27, several Indian media reported that due to the suspicion of tax evasion by Lenovo’s local company, in order to confirm the relevant information and collect evidence, Indian tax officials raided Lenovo’s local factories and offices.
Lenovo said, “We are working with the relevant authorities and will provide all possible support.”
In 2022-2023, Lenovo’s revenues in India amounted to $1.9 billion, or about Rs. 13.9 billion, or about 3 percent of its total revenues.
India gets what it wants and kicks out companies that have helped.
India is seeking to “Make in India”, to create a domestic science and technology industry, to reduce the dependence on imports of Chinese manufactured goods.

In 1999, Microsoft was interested in entering the gaming industry in order to execute its “living room strategy” and stop the invasion of Sony’s PS (PlayStation) console in the computer field, so it first proposed the idea of acquiring Nintendo to the then Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa (the son-in-law of the third-generation Nintendo president, Pu Yamauchi).

In 2000, then-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had the then-small Xbox team meet with Nintendo to see if they were interested in being acquired, as recalled by Kevin Bachus, Xbox’s director of third-party relations. “Nintendo just laughed their asses off. Like, imagine for an hour these people just laughing at you. That’s how that meeting went.” Bachus said.

At the time, Microsoft, which was trying to enter the game industry with money in hand, was described as “whimsical” in every way, and even requested that it stop developing its own consoles after acquiring Nintendo altogether, and instead develop games for the Xbox, which Pu Yamauchi described as “not understanding the game industry”.

However, many people did not expect that 20 years later, Microsoft would once again consider the “amazing feat” of acquiring Nintendo.

Those who are concerned about the game industry should know that Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been subjected to strict scrutiny by regulatory agencies in many countries, and in recent times Microsoft has been required to submit relevant confidential documents to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Just recently, Microsoft uploaded a large number of confidential documents into the public domain in a misstep, including new ideas for acquiring Nintendo and V (Valve, Steam’s parent company), plans for a new Xbox console, upcoming games, and a slew of internal emails.

Gamers are probably more shocked by the idea of Microsoft buying Nintendo and V than Activision Blizzard.

According to leaked documents, Microsoft Xbox head Phil Spencer expressed his interest in acquiring Nintendo in an email exchange with Takeshi Numoto, Microsoft’s executive vice president and chief commercial officer. Originally discussing the acquisition of TikTok’s U.S. business, Numoto volunteered why Microsoft wouldn’t go after a company like Nintendo.

PS: In 2020, when the U.S. government declared that it was considering “banning TikTok,” Microsoft released an official statement saying that after discussions between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and President Trump, Microsoft was prepared to continue negotiations to acquire TikTok in the U.S., with the goal of completing the negotiations by September 15th. (The latter ended without a hitch.)

Spencer actually endorsed Numoto’s idea and said he was committed to buying Nintendo. He believed that if he could push Microsoft to acquire Nintendo, it would be the pinnacle of his career. And in Spencer’s opinion, Microsoft’s acquisition of Nintendo would be a win-win move for both companies, and Nintendo’s future shouldn’t be limited to its own hardware platform.

Intriguingly, Spencer also emphasized that ValueAct, a former key member of Microsoft’s board of directors, has been acquiring a large amount of Nintendo’s stock, which could ‘create an opportunity’ for it, and that Microsoft’s board of directors would give its full support regarding the acquisition.

Spencer understands that Microsoft wants to buy Nintendo is not an easy task, how to convince the other side is one aspect, and considering that Nintendo is also sitting on a huge amount of cash, any hostile takeover is not a wise move, in the short term if there is no major opportunity to buy is unlikely to be a success.

Compared to the acquisition of Nintendo, Microsoft has not yet seen more specific ideas for the acquisition of V, but the Xbox business and Steam are likely to produce more direct and greater synergies. Steam’s influence on PC players around the world has been self-evident for a long time, as the largest digital distribution platform in the field of PC gaming, countless players have chosen to buy games on Steam, and Steam has accumulated a large number of developers and gamers. Steam has also accumulated a large amount of supporting software for developers and players.

But whether it’s the acquisition of Nintendo or V, it’s destined to cause a huge change in the landscape of the gaming industry, even more so than Activision Blizzard. In other words, Microsoft’s acquisition is bound to attract even more scrutiny from regulators, and considering that Activision Blizzard is having such a hard time moving forward with its acquisition, it will be even harder for Microsoft to acquire Nintendo and V.

Considering that the Xbox Series X/S releases in 2020, it’s not just Nintendo’s new console that’s actually a concern, but also gamers who have been concerned about when Microsoft’s half-generation upgrades and even next-gen consoles will arrive.

In this leaked document from Microsoft, a roadmap for Xbox consoles in April 2022 has been leaked, showing that Microsoft plans to launch half-generation upgraded consoles in 2024, and a whole new generation of “next-generation hybrid gaming platforms” in the 2028 fiscal year.

Two of the half-generation upgrades will be a high-end console codenamed Brooklin, replacing the current Xbox Series X, and an entry-level console codenamed Ellewood, replacing the current Xbox Series S. The new consoles will have the same core performance as the current Xbox Series S, but will have the same core performance as the current Xbox Series X.

The core performance of the two new consoles will remain the same, with upgrades focusing on better wireless capabilities; expanded internal storage; a refurbished exterior design, with the Xbox Series X featuring a cylindrical design; and a new gamepad with gyroscopic acceleration support, which is expected to be released by the end of this year.

By the way, neither of the two new consoles will come with an optical drive; Microsoft said in the document that the new consoles will go all-digital, just like the Sony PS5 Digital Edition, which doesn’t support the loading of game discs and can only be purchased and downloaded via subscription or in digital stores. And for now, the Xbox Series X is equipped with a Blu-ray drive.

Pricing remains unchanged, with the two new consoles maintaining the current $499 and $299.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is also planning a ‘next-generation hybrid gaming platform’ that will combine local and cloud computing to ‘enable performance beyond the capabilities of the hardware itself’.

In terms of chips, the CPU is not only considered AMD Zen6, but also ARM64; the GPU will be co-designed with AMD or designed on its own based on AMD licenses (Navi5 core). In addition, the new Xbox will support technologies such as forward-compatible and next-generation DirectX ray tracing, dynamic global illumination, machine-learning-based super-resolution and micro-polygon rendering optimization.

What’s more, according to Microsoft’s plan, the next-generation Xbox console will allow for the ‘complete convergence’ of cloud gaming platforms and physical hardware to provide ‘cloud hybrid gaming’, potentially becoming a transitional route before the arrival of cloud gaming, or even a completely new evolutionary route. Additionally, Microsoft has included a reference to ‘consumer-grade or handheld devices’ under $99, allowing gamers to use some sort of handheld device to play cloud-powered games.

As of now, the next-generation Xbox is still in the hardware design phase, but if Microsoft is still on track with last year’s plans, we should see the next-generation Xbox go on sale in Microsoft’s fiscal year 2028 (natural year June 2027-June 2028), with a focus on cloud-converged gaming.

In addition to the above, the leaked document actually mentions a number of games that are scheduled for release before the 2024 fiscal year: The Elder Scrolls 4 Annihilation remastered, Doom Year Zero and DLC, Fallout 3 remastered, Shame 3, and more.

This Microsoft leak is arguably one of the biggest leaks the gaming industry has ever seen, but it’s something that Microsoft will have to break its teeth on – and swallow back.

According to an order shared by the FTC, the responsible party for this leak was identified as Microsoft itself. The court had previously asked all parties involved to submit a link to a secure cloud containing the deleted information for public access. Microsoft voluntarily provided this link on September 14, but it contained a significant amount of non-public information.

By the time Microsoft responded back, notified the court and quickly deleted the files, they had already circulated on the Internet, causing irreparable damage.

Interestingly, the FTC’s order also mentions that this week Microsoft will resubmit the much-disputed evidence, this time with a written certification signed by all parties confirming that all content has been reviewed and contains only public information.

At last month’s Citi analyst conference, Intel CFO David Zinsner revealed news of next year’s Windows update, suggesting that consumers may upgrade their PCs in response to a new version of Windows.

“We think 2024 is going to be a pretty good year for the PC market, particularly driven by Windows updates,” it said at the conference. “Existing Windows PC hardware is relatively old and will probably be heavily updated next year.” According to outside analysis, Zinsner refers to the “Windows update” is most likely Windows 12.

Intel has announced its Meteor Lake mobile chip, which will be released in December. It’s Intel’s first processor to have a small chip in each component, and the first to use Intel’s 4 process, in addition to having a dedicated AI co-processor built in.

And as previously reported, hardware leaker @leaf_hobby had posted details about Intel’s Meteor Lake desktop platform. Although the tweet has been deleted, it can still be expected that this processor is meant for the next generation of Windows (most likely Windows 12).

While Microsoft hasn’t officially announced anything about Windows 12, it’s still not hard to deduce that Windows 12 will perhaps be integrated with AI features to spur user demand for updates. In an interview with The Verge website this year, Microsoft’s head of consumer marketing, Yusuf Mehdi, said, “When we start working on future versions of Windows, we’ll think about where AI should play a natural role in the experience.”

However, with the recent departure of Panos Panay, head of the Windows division, to Amazon, it’s not clear if that will have any impact on the development of Windows 12.

Canon could be releasing an EOS R5 successor in February 2024 Canon is understood to have put some of its EOS R5 Mark IIs in the hands of some photographers and content creators for testing. The new camera, whose parameters have been revealed, will feature a 62-megapixel full-frame stacked CMOS image sensor and DIGIC X2s image processor, with support for 8K60p and 4K120p recording, as well as support for the CFexpress Type B recording format. Canon’s current mainstay is the EOS R5, which was released in 2020 and is priced at $25,999.The EOS R5 is equipped with a new CMOS image sensor of about 45 effective megapixels and a DIGIC X digital image processor.

MacRumors recently revealed the latest news about the iPhone SE4, basically confirming several important hardware information:
6.1-inch OLED display
48-megapixel primary lens
USB port
Operator buttons
Compared with the previous three generations of SE models, the hardware configuration of the iPhone SE4 can be said to have some with the times, and even the iPhone 15 are not used in the operation buttons, Apple is very generous to let the SE first to follow. Of course, for fans of smaller phones or LCD screen lovers, the changes to the iPhone SE4 are still very unfortunate.

Nowadays, Apple has made quite a few ‘compromises’ to make the iPhone SE4 sell better. But there are still a lot of unanswered questions waiting to be explored as to whether or not such changes will bring the SE back to the top.

According to the timeline of the first three generations of iPhone SE and the fit of the body design, Phone SE4 was originally supposed to debut early next year, following the shape of the iPhone XR. Perhaps the change in sales of the iPhone 14 series hit Apple’s confidence, the iPhone SE4 project has been delayed, the design program has been changed again and again, until recently there was news of a restart, and determined the initial version of the program.

The design scheme of the iPhone SE4 is quite confusing, and it is not a direct ‘use’ of the mold of the previous generation of the base model iPhone like the previous generations. Sources say that the iPhone SE4 has a 6.1-inch OLED display on the front, a bangs screen shape, and the biometric solution is FaceID. the bezel is the same right-angled bezel as the iPhone 14/Plus, but the mute switch has been replaced with an action button.

Of course, subject to the EU Act, the iPhone SE4 also uses the USB-C interface, but the rate should still be USB 2.0.Image part, the iPhone SE4 continues the traditional single camera program, the sensor is the same iPhone 15 48-megapixel lens, providing computational photography twofold crop. Theoretically, the iPhone 15 supports up to 24-megapixel imaging mode, and the iPhone SE4 with the same sensor should also support it, but it’s hard to say whether Apple will reduce the configuration on this.

The core configuration is very controversial. At present, there are still questions about whether the iPhone SE4 will be equipped with an A16 Bionic chip or an A17 chip, after all, Apple has used state-of-the-art processors in building the first three generations of SE models. However, in fact, there shouldn’t be a huge difference in performance between the A16 Bionic and the A17, and whichever chip is used, it’s going to be quite a step up from its predecessor.

It’s worth noting that the overall iPhone SE4 will also be more expensive than its predecessor due to its overall upgrade. The latest news reveals that the starting price of the new iPhone SE may be set at $499, which is about Rs. 3,644. With no ‘soul’ home button, no more compact body, and even a slightly higher starting price, I wonder if iPhone SE loyal fans will still pay for this long-delayed fourth-generation model?

In 2016, Apple released the first-generation iPhone SE, a small-sized model with a 4-inch retina display but the same A9 processor as the iPhone 6S/Plus, which has become a god machine for many “fruit fans”. Market research organization IDC released smartphone sales statistics report shows that the cumulative sales of the first generation of iPhone SE reached 30 million units. It can be said that the first-generation iPhone SE can definitely be called a model with both good reputation and sales.

As for why the first-generation SE can be so successful? There’s really no other reason than one: value for money. The overall performance of this generation of iPhone SE does not lag behind the iPhone 7 series released in the same year, and its classic right-angle bezel styling is also deeply rooted in people’s hearts, and Apple even thoughtfully upgraded its camera to 12 megapixels to support 4K video recording. Comprehensive strength can play, the price is not high, become a generation of god machine is not wrong.

After four years, Apple launched the second generation of iPhone SE, which adopts the same design as iPhone 8, and the processor is equipped with the strongest A13 Bionic chip at the moment. However, since Apple has entered the era of the bangs screen and the entire iPhone 12 series released later in the same year was upgraded to the 5G network, the second-generation iPhone SE doesn’t have as many supporters as its predecessor.

The iPhone SE2 wasn’t exactly a failure, it was just released at the wrong time – one didn’t catch the big screen trend, and the other didn’t support 5G networks. But Apple seems to have learned only half of its lesson by launching the third-generation iPhone SE in 2022.

The third-generation iPhone SE still opts for the same styling as the iPhone 8, with an upgraded processor to the A15 Bionic, and 5G network support as well, thanks to an enhanced processor NPU performance, and a Portrait Mode on the single camera. Although the addition of 5G network support, but the ‘old-fashioned’ styling, or let the iPhone SE3 is not marketed. Data research organization Canalys public information, iPhone SE3 total sales of only 24 million units, compared with the previous two generations of SE models in the same period of sales decline situation is obvious.

Despite the decline in sales, it can also be seen that the iPhone SE series still has a group of loyal consumers, this group of people may not care about fashionable styling and design, and no higher requirements for the image. In addition, long battery life, FaceID, MagSafe, are not in their scope of consideration, for this group of people, small, portable, performance is still acceptable, the “soul” home button is still there, it is enough.

For mass consumers, iPhone SE is more like a product designed by Apple for ‘inventory clearance’, no need to redesign the mold, directly replace the chip with a new one, the manufacturing cost is extremely low. However, judging from some of the changes above the iPhone SE3, it seems that Apple is trying to make it a cost-effective iPhone for occupying the mid-range market, but the reality is not as good as it should be.

Finally entered the full-screen era of the iPhone SE4, is likely to lose some of the consumers who once favored the SE series models, but like the design, performance and image part of the improvement, and the price compared to the base model of the iPhone is cheaper, it looks like it will be a good mid-range phone. But that leaves the SE lineup with even more challenges.

From the perspective of Apple’s smartphone lineup, the iPhone SE is still primarily a model that comes to fill the empty space in the $3,000 segment of the market, but with the sales of the base model iPhone getting more and more sluggish, Apple has ‘no choice’ but to give the SE a major overhaul.
The iPhone SE4 is indeed a mid-range model that fits the market environment, with decent performance, the same A-series chip as the base iPhone, and more importantly, a low price tag. But whether it will be recognized by mass consumers is still a big question mark to be drawn.

First of all, the iPhone SE4 uses the same mold as the iPhone 14, but the positive generation of the iPhone has entered the era of the “Spirit Island”, and with the entire iPhone 15 series “on the island”, there will inevitably be more developers to do new features and controls around this new design. Combined with the price, release time and performance performance, even consumers with a low budget can fully choose the base model iPhone 15.

Secondly, the imaging system of the new iPhone SE is still weak and not at all comparable to mainstream solutions. Imagine a new phone on sale in 2025, still using a single camera, even if Apple’s computational photography is strong, it is difficult to create a ‘miracle’ in the case of insufficient hardware level.

Last but not least, Touch ID is a major feature of the iPhone SE, and once the iPhone SE chooses to use the bangs screen design, most consumers will still focus on the base model iPhone.

For market considerations, Apple is bound to stabilize the iPhone SE in the mid-range market, and making so many changes in the fourth generation SE is also a careful preparation for taking a broader market. As for whether the iPhone SE4 can be accepted by mass consumers, we still have to see how Apple’s final pricing.

Translated with DeepL

On September 24, the world’s first satellite-enabled 5G call was successfully dialed in Europe by AST SpaceMobile’s satellite, as well as telecom operator Vodafone (Vodafone) and others. In addition, the test achieved a data transfer rate of 14 Mbps.

The 5G call was realized using the BlueWalker 3 test satellite, built by Vodafone, AT&T, and Nokia, which used a chip designed by British company EnSilica.

The 5G call, made from Maui, Hawaii, to a Vodafone engineer in Madrid, Spain, used spectrum provided by AT&T via the BlueWalker 3 satellite, and was made from an original Samsung Galaxy S22. The test broke the previous record for data speeds in space-based cellular mobile networks, achieving a 14Mbps The download rate was 14 Mbps.

Abel Avellan, CEO of AST SpaceMobile, said, “This achievement represents another major technological advancement and signals a shift in the way information is accessed.” Since the launch of the BlueWalker 3 satellite, the company has successfully achieved compatibility with all major cell phone manufacturers and support for 2G, 4G LTE, and 5G networks.

Tommi Uitto, President of Nokia Mobile Networks, congratulated the company, stating that space-based cellular mobile networks can provide vital network connectivity around the world, and he is proud of the key role that Nokia’s AirScale portfolio is playing in this network.

In the European XFEL X-ray laser, researchers have created a more precise pulse generator based on the element scandium, with an accuracy of one second over 300 billion years, which is roughly a thousand times better than that of the current caesium-based standard atomic clock. The team presented its results on September 27 in the journal Nature.

Atomic clocks are currently the most accurate timepieces in the world. These clocks use electrons in the atomic layers of chemical elements such as caesium as pulse generators to define time. Using microwaves of known frequency these electrons can be boosted to higher energy levels. In the process, they absorb microwave radiation.

Atomic clocks emit microwaves to the cesium atoms and modulate the frequency of the radiation to maximize the absorption of the microwaves; experts call this resonance. The quartz oscillator that generates the microwaves can be stabilized with the help of the resonance, allowing the cesium clock to be accurate to within one second over 300 million years.

Crucial to the accuracy of atomic clocks is the width of the resonance used. Current cesium clocks already use a very narrow resonance; strontium clocks are even more accurate, to within a second of 15 billion years. Further improvements are practically impossible to achieve using this method of electronic excitation. Teams around the world have therefore been working for many years on the concept of a “nuclear” clock, which uses the leaps in the nucleus of an atom as a pulse generator, rather than the leaps in the atomic shell. Nuclear resonances are much more violent than the resonances of electrons in the shell layers of atoms, but they are also much harder to excite.

At XFEL Europe, the team can now excite promising transitions in the nucleus of the element scandium, which is readily available as a high-purity metal foil or the compound scandium dioxide. This resonance requires X-rays with an energy of 12.4 kiloelectronvolts (keV, about 10,000 times the energy of visible light) and a width of just 1.4 femto-electronvolts (feV). This is 1.4 trillionths of an electron volt, which is about one-tenth of the excitation energy (10-19). This makes an accuracy of 1:10,000,000,000,000,000 possible.

“This corresponds to an error of one second in 300 billion years for this clock,” says Ralf Röhlsberger, a researcher at DESY working at the Helmholtz Institute in Jena, a joint institution of the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research (HCIHI), the Helmholtz Zentrum für Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research (HZDR). Center.

There are many applications for atomic clocks that benefit from increased precision, such as precise positioning using satellite navigation. “The scientific potential of scandium resonance was discovered more than 30 years ago,” reports Yuri Shvyd’ko of the Argonne National Laboratory in the USA, the project leader of the experiment. “However, to date, no X-ray source has been able to emit light bright enough within the 1.4 feV narrow line of scandium,” says Anders Madsen, chief scientist at the European XFEL MID Experiment Station, where the experiment was carried out. Only X-ray lasers such as the European XFEL have changed this.”

In this pioneering experiment, the team irradiated a 0.025-millimeter-thick scandium foil with an X-ray laser and was able to detect a characteristic afterglow from the excited nucleus, which is clear evidence of scandium’s extremely narrow resonance line.

Equally important for the construction of atomic clocks is an accurate knowledge of the resonance energy, in other words the energy of the X-ray laser radiation at which the resonance occurs. Advanced extreme noise suppression and high-resolution crystal optics enabled the experimental scandium resonance energy value at 12.38959 keV to be determined to within five decimal places, a factor of 250 more accurate than before.

Jörg Evers, head of data analysis at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, emphasized: “The precise determination of the jump energy marks a major advance. An accurate knowledge of this energy is crucial for realizing a scandium-based atomic clock.”

The researchers are now exploring further steps towards the realization of such a nuclear clock. shvyd’ko explains, “The breakthrough in scandium resonance excitation and the precise measurement of its energy opens new avenues not only for nuclear clocks, but also for ultra-high-precision spectroscopy and the precise measurement of fundamental physical effects.