Tuesday, February 9th, 2021

Time	Event
12:10a	MIT Is Building a 'One-Stop Shop' For 3D-Printing Robots An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: MIT's CSAIL department this week showcased "LaserFactory," a new project that attempts to develop robotics, drones and other machines than can be fabricated as part of a "one-stop shop." The system is comprised of a software kit and hardware platform designed to create structures and assemble circuitry and sensors for the machine. A more fully realized version of the project will be showcased at an event in May, but the team is pulling back the curtain a bit to show what the concept looks like in practice. Here's a breakdown from CSAIL's page: "Let's say a user has aspirations to create their own drone. They'd first design their device by placing components on it from a parts library, and then draw on circuit traces, which are the copper or aluminum lines on a printed circuit board that allow electricity to flow between electronic components. They'd then finalize the drone's geometry in the 2D editor. In this case, they'd use propellers and batteries on the canvas, wire them up to make electrical connections, and draw the perimeter to define the quadcopter's shape." For more information, CSAIL has released an accompanying video showing the machine in action. A technical paper is available here. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
1:30a	Intel Benchmarks Say Apple's M1 Isn't Faster PCWorld reviews Intel's recently-released benchmarks claiming Apple's M1 isn't faster than their 11th gen Core i7-1185G7 processor, among other things. Here are the claims Intel makes (visit the article to read PCWorld's "take" on each claim): MacBook M1 is slower than Core i7: Intel says in the WebXPRT 3 test, using the same version of Chrome for both the Core i7 system as well as the Arm-native MacBook, Intel takes the lead. The Intel chip was largely ahead in WebXPRT 3, and the x86 chip was nearly three times faster in finishing the photo enhancement test. Intel doesn't just use WebXPRT 3, though. It also shows the Core i7 pummeling the M1 in a PowerPoint-to-PDF export, and in multiple Excel macros by a factor of 2.3x. And yes, Intel used the Arm-native versions of Office for its tests. Core i7 Crushes M1 in AI: For content creation tasks, Intel showed the Core i7 to be about 1.12x faster than the M1 in performing a 4K AVC-to-HEVC/H.265 file conversion. In this benchmark, they had the MacBook using the M1-native version of Handbrake. But the real destruction happens once you get to Topaz Lab's Gigapixel AI and Denoise AI, with the Intel Core chip crushing the M1 in AI-based noise removal and enlargement. Or maybe "crushing" is too nice a term, as it's more like the Core i7 outpaces the M1 by so much, the M1 wishes it had never been designed. M1 doesn't support all the features: Intel also gives itself the lead in Adobe Premiere Pro, using the beta M1 native version in Auto Reframe, exporting to H.264 and H.265. They're decent wins, but come on, the code is still in beta for the Mac. That said, Intel points out that important features like Content Aware Fill are outright disabled on the beta version, and that's a concern. If the native version of Photoshop comes out, and there are critical features missing from it, that's a huge problem for Apple (and Adobe). You can't be faster if you can't run it: For gaming, we see a bit of a back and forth between the Apple M1 and Core i7 in games that actually work on the MacBook. Intel doesn't let it end there, though, and decides to embarrass Apple further by showing the numerous games where the MacBook scores a 0 because game support just doesn't exist. Intel points out that "countless more" games "don't run on the M1," and then for good measure, it rushes Apple's bench with a list 10 more games you can't play on the M1 MacBook: Overwatch, Crysis Remastered, Halo MCC, Red Dead Redemption 2, PUBG, Monster, Hunter World, Doom Eternal, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, Apex Legends, and Rainbow Six Siege. MacBook wouldn't win Evo certification: You know that fancy Intel Evo program that tries to improve laptop performance in key areas that annoy consumers? Well, Intel pretty much says that if Apple submitted the M1 MacBook to the same program that Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, MSI, Acer and others go through, it would be rejected. The reason? Intel says the M1 MacBook is too slow in doing things that anger consumers, such as "switch to Calendar" in Outlook, "start video conference Zoom" and "select picture menu" in PowerPoint. Great battery life?: Perhaps the most shocking claim Intel showed deals with battery life. While performance tests can be cherry picked by those looking to prove an outcome, battery life usually can't be disputed. Apple's official claim gives the M1 MacBook up to 18 hours of battery life using Apple TV app to watch a 1080p video with the brightness set to "8 clicks from the bottom." Apple also claims up to 15 hours browsing 25 "popular" websites with the same "8 clicks" criteria. When Intel pitted a MacBook Air M1 against an Acer Swift 5 with a Core i7-1165G7, however, it found both basically dead even. The MacBook Air came in at 10 hours and 12 minutes, and the Acer Swift 5 lasted 10 hours and 6 minutes. The difference? Intel said it used Safari to watch a Netflix stream with tabs open with the screen set to a relatively bright 250 nits. On the Acer, Safari was subbed out for Chrome, but the brightness and Netflix remained the same. Intel did add that Apple's "8 clicks up" is about 125 nits of brightness on the MacBook Air which is pretty dim. All kinds of things just don't work on the M1: Intel didn't just get into the performance of the M1. It also said it found the MacBook Pro had serious shortcomings, such as an inability to use more than one display with a Thunderbolt dock. And while the PC can use gaming headsets, eGPUs, a third-party finger print reader, Wacom Drawing tablet and Xbox Controller, Intel said it found the MacBook Pro simply doesn't work with eGPUs, and had multiple issues with other devices. That's just hardware incompatibility. Intel's rap battle with Apple also highlights issues with plug-ins for Ableton, Bitwig Studio, Avid Pro Tools, FL Studio, Motu and many others. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
2:10a	German Institute Develops 'Powerpaste' That Stores Hydrogen Energy At 10x the Density of a Lithium Battery A German research organization has developed a magnesium-based "Powerpaste" with an energy density ten times more than current battery technology. Hackaday reports: We've been promised hydrogen-powered engines for some time now. One downside though is the need for hydrogen vehicles to have heavy high-pressure tanks. While a 700 bar tank and the accompanying fuel cell is acceptable for a city bus or a truck, it becomes problematic with smaller vehicles, especially ones such as scooters or even full-sized motorcycles. The Fraunhofer Institute wants to run smaller vehicles on magnesium hydride in a paste form that they call POWERPASTE. The idea is that the paste effectively stores hydrogen at normal temperature and pressure. At 250C, the paste decomposes and releases its hydrogen. While your motorcycle may seem hot when parked in the sun, it isn't getting quite to 250C. Interestingly, the paste only provides half the available hydrogen. The rest is from water added start a reaction to release the hydrogen. Fraunhofer claims the energy density available is greater than that of a 700 bar tank in a conventional hydrogen system and ten times more than current battery technology. One thing that's attractive is that the paste is easy to store and pump. A gas station, for example, could invest $20-30,000 and dispense the paste from a metal drum to meet low demand and then scale up as needed. A hydrogen pumping setup starts at about $1.2 million. Fraunhofer is building a pilot production plant that will produce about four tons of the material a year. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
3:30p	Aurora 7 Laptop With 7 Screens Unveiled Sometimes one screen isn't enough and you need two. Sometimes even two doesn't get the job done, and you need three. If your job requires seven screens, a UK firm now has you covered. Gizmodo reports: The Aurora 7 laptop seems lifted straight from the imagination of a Hollywood prop builder working on a bad hacker flick. But with seven foldout screens, there's little chance anyone could actually use this beast on their laps. It's a mobile transforming workstation for those who need more screen real estate than they have room for monitors. Created by a UK company called Expanscape, the Aurora 7 is very much just a prototype at this stage in the game (as is evident by the extensive use of 3D-printed parts), but it's designed to be true mobile workstation for everyone from developers to content creators to even well-funded gamers wanting a more immersive experience from a computer they don't have to leave at home. Powered by an Intel i9 9900K processor backed by 64GB of DDR4 RAM and an NVIDIA GTX 1060 series graphics card, the Aurora 7 also comes with 2TB of hard drive storage and an additional 2.5 TB of SSD storage, plus all the ports you could ever need to expand its capacity even further. But the star of the show is the complicated mosaic of screens which includes four 17.3-inch 4K (3840 x 2160) LCDs -- two in portrait mode and two in landscape -- as well as three smaller 7-inch screens all pushing 1920 x 1200 pixels, with one located in the laptop's wrist rest. The laptop has a battery life of one hour. No word on pricing or when it starts shipping. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
10:40p	The iPhone 12 Mini Was Apple's 2020 Sales Flop An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Bad news for lovers of smaller phones: the iPhone 12 mini has sold poorly compared to other phones in the iPhone 12 lineup -- poorly enough that analysts wonder whether Apple will remain committed to the smaller phone design moving forward. A data firm called Counterpoint Research found that the iPhone 12 mini accounted for just 5 percent of overall sales from the company's smartphone lineup in early January. And J.P. Morgan analyst William Yang told Reuters that screens under 6 inches now account for only 10 percent of smartphones sold industry-wide. The data from Counterpoint is not the first to tell this story. Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) broke down iPhone 12 lineup sales in detail last month. They found that the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max made up about 20 percent of sales from the larger iPhone 12 lineup during the launch window, while the non-Pro, 6.1-inch iPhone 12 accounted for 27 percent. But they also said the iPhone 12 mini "likely disappointed Apple" with only 6 percent of sales during the period measured -- pretty close to the number Counterpoint shared a couple of months later. While all this data shows that the iPhone 12 mini has underperformed, it doesn't tell us why. According to CIRP's data, the also-small iPhone SE performed a little better (likely due to its significantly lower price) but it still didn't make up a huge chunk of sales. So while it's possible that the iPhone 12 mini's slow sales are partially a result of cannibalization by the cheaper SE, small phones are clearly not doing well in general. There are a lot of reasons small phones are less popular now. For one thing, users are consuming more rich media content. Many people watch as much TV and film on their phones as they do on their TVs now, and some social media platforms like TikTok and Snapchat are focused on rich media that may be more enjoyable to some on a larger display. But if anything, these sales numbers make the future of one-handed smartphones look even dimmer than before. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)

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