Category: Technology

The infamous notch is still a contested design decision on Apple’s part, and one of the many, many reasons to hate it was the disappearance of the status bar’s battery percentage indicator when the iPhone X arrived. But as Apple continues to slowly roll back some of the more questionable design choices it’s made in recent years, the battery percentage indicator is finally returning.

Although you’d think that ignorance would have helped those of us suffering from battery anxiety, many were devastated to see Apple remove the ability to see a (more or less) accurate depiction of our device’s remaining battery life on the homescreen, and in many apps, with the iPhone X. The feature was a victim of the X’s new screen notch, which facilitated the camera and IR projector needed for Face ID, but greatly reduced the amount of graphical real estate in the iPhone’s status bar.

How to display battery percentage in iOS 16 beta

It’s a feature iPhone users have been hoping would return for years, and according to 9to5Mac, it was finally included as part of today’s beta release of iOS 16. The feature can be re-activated in iOS’ battery settings and toggled off and on, and remains persistent even while charging or while the battery icon turns yellow when the iPhone is in low power mode. However, according to 9to5Mac, the feature isn’t available to all notched iPhones. The iPhone XR, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 mini, and iPhone 13 mini have all been left out of the party. It remains to be seen if they’ll have access to the feature in later betas or in the final version of iOS 16, or if those models simply don’t have enough screen real estate and resolution to accommodate the added numbers so they’re large enough to be legible.

Here’s a brief, non-exhaustive list of things that take less than four minutes and 55 seconds. Me devouring a plate of loaded nachos. I ate an entire bowl of pasta (maybe a carbonara?). I wrote a letter while preoccupied with lunch. And a speedrunner blitzing through Super Mario Bros., setting a new time to beat in Nintendo’s all-time-classic side-scroller.

Yes, the preeminent Mario speedrunner Niftski clocked a sub-five-minute run this weekend, shattering the existing world record by less than a second. The “any%” playthrough — that term means it’s totally cool to skip sections of the game — came in at an impressive 4:54.798.

Niftski, who streams on Twitch and YouTube, has picked up a following for completing all sorts of speedrunning feats in Super Mario Bros., and is also responsible for the game’s previous world record of 4:54.881, set last winter. (Here’s a video of that run.) This latest run shaves a grand total of five frames off Niftski’s previous run — that’s the level of precision we’re talking about here. It is truly bonkers. See for yourself:

Throughout the run, Niftski makes use of warp zones — hidden areas that allow you to skip ahead to the game’s later worlds — and is careful to land directly at the bottom of the flag at the end of each stage. (Every Super Mario Bros. level ends when you jump onto the flagpole at the end; Mario slides down the pole before moving onto the next stage, which eats up precious seconds.) You’ll note, too, that Niftski plays with a keyboard, not a gamepad.

“Emulation for this game is 100% accurate, which means that anything that can be done on an NES is possible on [an] emulator,” Niftski said in the description for the YouTube video. “[Using a] keyboard offers no advantage, and it is actually debatably worse for speedrunning this game. I use [a] keyboard over [a] controller for personal preference reasons.”

This run edges Super Mario Bros. speedrunning closer and closer to the precipice of a “perfect run,” or a sprint through the game that literally could not be improved upon at all. The tool-assisted SMB record is 4:54:265, which shows human players are still a little over half a second behind. If a perfect run is ever going to happen, my money’s on either Niftski or the Mario speedrunner Miniland, who held the world record before Niftski with 4:54.914.

“With this run being done, we are currently 0.533 seconds away from the TAS,” one commenter noted on YouTube. “All of these 0.1 second barriers will happen one day, and then, we will reach perfection.”

We’re counting down the days until Samsung’s August 2022 Unpacked. The event, which is scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 10, will likely feature upcoming models of the Galaxy Z Fold and the Z Flip. the rumored Galaxy ZFold 4 and Z-Flip 4 would be successors to the $1,800Z-Fold 3 and the $1,000 ZFlip 3and Samsung’s own promotional art for the event showingcasing a Z Flip phone seems to tease new foldable phones that are on the way.

In addition to folding phones, Samsung might also provide a look at the future of its Galaxy Watch line, as Samsung continues its collaboration with Google on the newest version of the Wear OS operating system. This version of Wear OS — which will eventually incorporate features from Google’s Fitbit — is currently on last year’s Galaxy Watch 4. Now that it’s been a year since that watch debuted, Samsung might have a new Galaxy Watch 5 ready for 2022 alongside new details about Wear OS. Some announcements revealed by Samsung could even end up in Google’s own Pixel Watch later this year.

Samsung Unpacked will take place as a livestream starting at 6 am PT (9 am ET, 2 pm BST) on Aug. 10, with the company planning to broadcast on Samsung’s YouTube channel, Samsung.com and Samsung’s Newsroom. As the event gets closer, we’ll embed the livestream into this post.

CNET will also hold live coverage including a pre- and post-show, spotlighting the latest reveals in Samsung’s Galaxy lineup. That live event will stream on CNET’s YouTube channel, and will be accompanied by reporting from CNET staff.

Samsung’s next Unpacked event comes as phones including the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip hit the market, including the OnePlus 10Tthe asus zenfone 9 and the Red Magic 7S Pro. It’s also arriving about a month before Apple is expected to reveal its 2022 iPhone lineup, expected to coincide with the iPhone 14 and the public release of iOS 16.

Lenovo Xiaoxin Pad Pro 2022 Design and Display Specifications

In addition to Lenovo Legion Y70’s formal flagship phone, Lenovo is also planning to release Lenovo Xiaoxin Pad Pro 2022 tablet PC, both expected to be pre-installed with ZUI 14.

Earlier, Lenovo Xiaoxin officially released 2022 models of the appearance of the new Pad Pro through a promotional video. Tablet has six colorways, corresponding to the two materials, increasing the face value.

The six colorways of the Xiaoxin Pad Pro 2022 model are Moon Pura, Amber, Frost and Snow, Green Plum, Smoky Haze, and Companion Autumn, with a body thickness of about 6.8mm and optional PMMA and vegan leather dual materials.

In terms of configuration, this Xiaoxin Pad Pro 2022 has two processor versions, Snapdragon and MediaTek Kompanio, which are expected to be Snapdragon 870 and Kompanio 1300T, with 8200mAh battery, and up to 68W fast charging support.

Lenovo official also announced the screen parameters of the Xiaoxin Pad Pro 2022, which is equipped with an 11.2-inch 2.5K OLED screen that supports 600nits excitation brightness, 120Hz refresh rate, 360Hz touch sampling rate, 1920Hz high-frequency PWM dimming, and TÜV Global Eye Protection Certification 2.0. Support Dolby Atmos, SmartPA.

In addition, the Xiaoxin Pad Pro 2022 Snapdragon Edition supports 10bit color depth and 1.07 billion colors while Kompanio Edition supports 8bit color depth and 16 million colors, as well as HDR and Dolby Vision.

Source 1, Source 2

ASRock is no longer an exclusive partner for AMD after the company announced its own custom Arc GPU. The ASRock Arc A380 Challenger is an entry-level card with a custom PCB design featuring a dual-slot and single-fan design.

ASRock posted a review of their new custom Arc A380 Challenger ITX graphics card on Weibo.

The custom GPU is a factory-overclocked model with a GPU clock of 2250 MHz. However, when tested, the clock measures higher than specified, reaching up to 2,300 MHz in Furmark and even 2,450 MHz in games.

This is the same speed as GUNNIR’s custom A380 Photon OC model. The A380 Challenger comes with a single 8-pin power connector; the TDP for the SKU has not been confirmed yet.

Under heavy usage, the CPU fan speed can go up to 1683 RPM, with the temperature touching 85°C. The board power in Furmark is 54.9W which is less than the reference specification for the A380(75W).

The card was also reviewed in synthetic tests. The 3DMark software does not list Intel’s Advanced Performance Optimizations as enabled. The core appears invalid as the test ended early.

Here’s the gaming performance for the A380 Challenger, tested at 1080p:

• League of Legends (High Quality): 166.9 FPS
• CS:GO (High Quality): 160.1 FPS
• DOTA2 (High Quality): 146.2 FPS
• apex legends (Medium Quality): 91.5 FPS
• PUBG (Low Quality): 83.1 FPS
• Gears of War 5 (High Quality): 63.1 FPS
• Eternal Calamity (Medium Quality): 62.3 FPS
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (High Quality): 56 FPS
• The Division 2 (High Quality): 53 FPS
• Watch Dogs: Legion (High Quality): 49 FPS
• Cyberpunk 2077 (Medium Quality): 47.51 FPS

The games tested included some popular AAA titles with support for DirectX12 API, modified for Arc graphics architecture.

MSI Revealed Its Premium X670 Motherboards Launching in Mid-September

About ASRock

ASRock Inc. is a Taiwanese manufacturer of motherboards, industrial PCs and home theater PCs. Led by Ted Hsu, it was founded in 2002 and is currently owned by Taiwanese electronics company Pegatron. ASRock was originally spun off from Asus in 2002 in order to compete with companies like Foxconn for the commodity OEM market. ^{In 2010 it became part of Pegatron. ASRock currently produces consumer, server, workstation and HTPC motherboards.}

LG is today announcing two new sets of wireless earbuds. First up are the Tone Free T90 buds, which now become the company’s flagship pair. They still have the signature bacteria-killing UVnano charging case. And like the previous Tone Free FP9, the case can also double as a Bluetooth transmitter, letting you run an aux cable to devices that might lack wireless connectivity — like a treadmill — and still use the earbuds like normal.

According to LG’s press release, the noise-canceling T90s have “a new internal structure with larger drivers that helps generate deeper, more satisfying bass.” But what’s more interesting is that they support Dolby Head Tracking “across your favorite content and devices.” Here’s how LG describes that experience:

Dolby Head Tracking recalibrates the sound as users move their heads for a more natural sound experience. Listeners will feel like they are in the center of the scene and experience a whole new level of audio immersion whether they are listening to music, watching movies, enjoying favorite streaming series or playing video games.

Image: LG

LG claims that “the T90s are the first wireless earbuds to feature an audio virtualizer designed by Dolby specifically for earbuds” that makes for better immersion and dimensionality to the sound. Apple’s AirPods and Beats earbuds support head tracking spatial audio, as do Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Pro, Buds 2, and Buds Live. Google is planning to add the same feature on its Pixel Buds Pro later this year. In all cases, the audio changes as you move your head around. The T90 earbuds promise up to 9 hours of battery life (with adaptive ANC turned off), plus another 18 hours from the charging case.

Image: LG

The company is also making a play for the fitness crowd with its new Tone Free Fit (TF8) earbuds. Like other workout-focused buds, these have soft, silicone fins to help ensure they remain in your ears securely even during vigorous exercise. They’re rated IPX7 for water resistance, a step up from the IPX4 in the T90s, and include hybrid ANC. Battery life is also slightly higher, at up to 10 hours of continuous playback.

LG unfortunately hasn’t announced pricing for either pair of earbuds, but they’re both set for release in September.

Like a screen protector for your entire car, a new protective coating developed by researchers at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology could actually go one step further than the plastic films you apply to your smartphone’s display. When exposed to the sun, it’s able to heal itself, making scratches completely disappear in as little as half an hour.

Unless you keep it parked in a garage all the time, getting a scratch on your vehicle is inevitable; be it from another vehicle in a parking lot, or a rock kicked up while driving down the road. Protective coatings exist that help protect a vehicle’s finish and minimize the risk of a scratch going deep enough to damage paint, expose the underlying metal panel, and increase the risk of rusting, but even a protective coating will show scratch marks that either need to be buffed out or remedied by a professional with the right tools.

For those wanting to keep their vehicle looking as pristine as it did the day it rolled off the dealership’s lot, but without putting any effort or money into its upkeep, self-healing protective coatings have been in development for a few years, but with some challenges that have been hard to overcome. Materials that exhibit malleable properties to facilitate the repair of scratch damage are also not very durable, so a vehicle would actually be more prone to scratches more frequently, while harder materials that are less prone to being damaged also exhibit less effective self-healing tendencies when a physical impact is strong enough to produce a visible scratch.

Researchers from the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology came up with a best of both worlds approach. They upgraded a highly durable protective resin coating with a reversible polymer network material based on acryl polyol, as well as introducing a photothermal dye. The dye absorbs infrared light from the sun and turns it into thermal energy, which increases the surface temperature of the protective coating. The chemical bonds of the coating’s polymer structure react to the increased heat by dissociating and then recombining again, slowly rebuilding the damaged polymer structure where a scratch occurred until it’s completely repaired and gone.

The healing process can be accelerated using a high-intensity light source like a laser or by going old school with a magnifying glass, but testing with a small model car treated with the coating found that simply leaving the vehicle with visible damage out in the bright midday sun for about 30 minutes generated enough heat to completely heal the scratches.

The effectiveness and speed of the healing process depends on several factors, including the intensity of the exposure to the sun, but the researchers are confident it could not only be used on full-sized cars, but also as a way to protect other vehicles like boats and plans while minimizing maintenance demands. And yes, it could even be applied to devices like smartphones, so the next time your device takes a tumble onto pavement and walks away with scars reminding you of your clumsiness, you could just leave it on a windowsill for a while and come back to a device that looks as good as new.

Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the US, but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.

Since last year, Netflix has offered its subscribers access to free video games. Now, data shows that less than one per cent of its users are actually playing any of these games. And while the streaming giant has announced more games coming to its service, very few of its over 200 million subscribers will likely care.

Back in November, Netflix began offering games as part of its subscription service, launching with five initial titles: Stranger Things: The Game, Stranger Things 3: The Game, Card Blast, Teeter Up, and Shooting Hoops. It’s since added more and now has over 25 mobile games that people can download through the Netflix app on either Android or iOS devices. Some of these games—like Into The Breach —are really good, too. And all of these games contain no ads or microtransactions.

As reported by CNBC, via data from app analytics company Apptopia, Netflix’s games have been downloaded just over 23 million times and have an average daily audience of 1.7 million. That might sound good on paper, but it’s basically nothing compared to Netflix’s 221 million subscribers. What this data seems to show is that about 200 million people who have access to Netflix’s library of games are currently not playing them or maybe don’t even know they exist.

Still, with a solid list of games that continues to grow, Netflix is ​​struggling to get anyone to care. Apptopia’s data shows that all of these games have a combined daily audience of 1.7 million. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of crappy mobile games that have twice that alone.

ReadMore: The 10 Absolute Best Anime On Netflix

Last year, Netflix COO Greg Peters told investors it plans to be “experimental” and will “try a bunch of things,” while explaining that the company is focused on “the long-term prize” of creating popular games that are “connected” to hit Netflix shows and movies.

And while Netflix says it will double its current game library by the end of the year, with only one per cent of subscribers playing these games, it’s hard not to wonder how long before the streamer decides its foray into gaming is too expensive and not worth Item?

Remember, Netflix is ​​currently facing a problem with keeping users. Since the beginning of this year, the streamer has lost 1.2 million subscribers. In response to downward trending numbers, Netflix has cut jobs, spending, and canceled shows. Building and supporting a library of games that can compete with Game Pass or Apple Arcade isn’t cheap.

For example, earlier this year, Netflix paid over $US70 ($97) million to buy up the studio behind a stranger things puzzle game. That ain’t nothing and in a time when the company is looking to cut costs and compete against other Foggers, it’s questionable how long it will continue to finance this gaming experiment.

The future is well and truly in 2022 as Australia’s first and only high-performance electric motorcycle revved its engine during its launch tour in Canberra last week.

Motorcycle pioneer and CEO and founder of Savic Motorcycles, Dennis Savic, is leading the Australian two-wheeled electric vehicle charge.

He designed, developed, and assembled the industry-leading motorcycle, and it’s set to roll off the assembly line later this year.

Hitting speeds of 100km in just three and a half seconds and reaching a range of 200km, the C-Series motorcycle’s riding ability is far from its only perk.

Features include on-board AI systems, customizable dash with on-board controllers continually collecting data and providing over-the-air software updates and remote diagnostics, and a versatile charging setup removing the need for special at-home equipment.

“Anywhere you can charge a phone, you can charge a Savic. Our motorcycles come with an adapter that plugs straight into a wall outlet, or you charge at a faster rate on a Level 2 charger, which are popping up in a lot of new residential apartments, shopping centers, hotels, and gyms,” Mr Savic said.

“We’ve also got our own app so you can connect to your bike through your phone and book services and see the status of it.”

This venture has been a long time coming for the almost 30-year-old. At 14, I decided he wanted to build an auto business in the future and while at university he “fell in love with motorcycles”.

Launched in 2015 as a humble start up, Savic Motorcycles is now emerging as a leading developer of high-performance electric vehicles, still within an affordable price range.

Based in Melbourne, Mr Slavic has built the bikes from the ground up, and says they’ve been passing some major engineering milestones lately.

“We like them for two reasons: one is freedom in terms of design, we really like that, and then, two, is the performance and the technology you can build into them. The whole team is very passionate about the product,” he said.

Mr Savic believes the whole motorcycle industry is transforming towards electric models.

“We do see this as the future of motorcycles… but we’re a bit biased,” he smiled.

“Our goal is to disrupt the world’s two-wheeled EV industry as a revolutionary brand and share our passion for carbon-free travel without ever compromising on performance.”

After receiving some funding to help his electric motorcycle venture along, he said they’re continuing to work with government to scale manufacturing in Australia, boosting the country’s renewable economy and resources.

“The environmental impact is a by-product. I’m more passionate about the design and performance, and the environmental thing is a bonus,” Mr Savic said.

“We’ve also made sure the structural parts of the motorcycle are made out of aluminum, which is able to be recycled in the second life battery recycling program.”

Get all the latest Canberra news, sport, entertainment, lifestyle, competitions and more delivered straight to your inbox with the Canberra Weekly DailyNewsletter. Sign up here.