Hardware

The term "asynchronous spacewarp" might sound like a meaningless jumble of techno-jargon, but it's a big deal if you're into virtual reality. It's the new technology from Oculus, which is officially launching today, that'll let you run the Rift VR headset on much lower-specced hardware than before. Typically, you'd need a beefy rig to run games at 90 frames per second, which is necessary for ensuring a smooth VR experience. Using frame interpolation techniques, aysnchronous spacewarp is able to deliver similarly smooth gameplay when you're running at just 45 frames per second.

Global IT market research firm TrendForce revealed its 2017 industry forecast Nov. 10, predicting rising prices in most component markets.

The Taipei-based researcher, which has a membership base of 410,000 subscribers, provides analysis and market forecasts of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM)manufacturers' capacity and output volumes and supply and demand reports. It also offers DRAM shipment information and price reports on products such as motherboards, servers, graphic cards, desktop PCs and notebook PCs.

Tiny laptops have always been devices that promise so much, yet fail somehow to deliver. From the Atari Portfolio palmtops through to the recent crop of netbooks they have been either eye-wateringly expensive if they are any good, or so compromised by their size constraints as to be next-to-useless. We’ve seen DOS, EPOC, Windows, WinCE, Palm OS, Linux distros and more in tiny form factors over the years, yet few have made a significant mark.

You can't fault longtime die-hard Mac users for being a little frustrated with Apple. In the space of just a decade, they've watched their favorite platform go from being the center of the company's attention to a minor line item. The iPhone gets refreshed promptly and consistently every September, while some Macs sit there for one or two or three years without even being mentioned. Macs aren't even regularly refreshed with new processors from Intel, Nvidia, and AMD as they're released anymore; we could rely on that as recently as three years ago.

[Kedar Nimbalkar] hyperbolically advertises the ultimate cell phone speaker dock. It costs a dollar. It doesn’t need you to pair with it via Bluetooth or WiFi. It pairs extremely fast, 0.000000000001, he clarifies. It may also look like a broken laptop speaker with a stomped wall wart soldered to it, but who can keep up with industrial design trends these days?

According to a post made on China’s microblogging site Weibo today, the Samsung Galaxy S8 will be the world’s first smartphone to feature an optical fingerprint sensor.

With the iPhone 7, Apple diversified its modem supply for the first time. The company chose Intel and Qualcomm to provide baseband chipsets for two variations on the iPhone.

The Intel version supports the GSM, WCDMA, and LTE networks, and Qualcomm's supports GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, TD-SCDMA, and LTE networks. Qualcomm's modem powers the Verizon, Sprint, and SIM-unlocked iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.

If you have one of those versions, congrats! Your iPhone is capable of much better cellular reception than the Intel model, according to extensive testing from Cellular Insights.

Late Wednesday, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk announced that the company would be adding its own hardware to new all new Tesla cars to allow up to Level 5 autonomy. In the automotive industry, Level 5 denotes a fully self-driving vehicle. Musk said that it would be some time before Tesla’s software would advance to meet capabilities of the new hardware available, which the company is calling “Hardware II.”

Still, the CEO stressed that all new cars would come with the new hardware suite, even if the software isn’t activated.

Philips Hue lights are cool, but are you using them to they’re fullest potential? Sure, you can control them from your smartphone and turn them on from anywhere, but there are so many other useful tricks you can take advantage of. Here are a handful of clever uses for your Philips Hue setup.

A person on the MacRumors forums drew attention to the feature after encountering trouble with their phone suddenly shutting down. Powering it back on, they were greeted with an unusual "The Home Button May Need Service" pop-up, plus the software button at the bottom of the screen.

Rebooting initially caused the error message to go away, but soon the phone's Taptic Engine was vibrating three or four times in a row for each button press. Rebooting again left the hardware button non-functional.