Wednesday’s top tech news: Sony’s Afeela EV and Amazon is laying off 18,000 – The Verge

AMD’s new Ryzen 7000 mobile processors include a massive 16-core chip

2023-01-04T22:30:00-05:00

This is where the magic will happen. | Image: AMD

AMD has announced its new Ryzen 7000 mobile CPUs for laptops. The list is a real who's who of mobile processor architecture, including Zen 4, Zen 3 Plus, Zen 3, and Zen 2 chips.

The potential star of the show is the "Dragon Range" Zen 4 Ryzen 9 7945HX, which has 16 cores and 32 threads, frequencies of 2.2-5.4 Ghz, 80MB cache, and 55-75 watt TDP. I repeat - 16 cores in a laptop. These aren't Intel's little efficiency cores. These are 16 full Zen cores in a laptop's chassis.

This may seem like an underdog compared to Intel's top 13th-Gen chips, which have 24 cores - Intel has claimed that its Core i9-13980HX is the "world's fastest mobile pr …

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Asus announces new Xbox controller with a built-in OLED screen

2023-01-04T20:53:34-05:00

There’s a tiny OLED display right at the top. | Image: Asus

Asus is releasing a new Xbox PC controller later this year that has a built-in OLED display and a host of connectivity options for PC. The ROG Raikiri Pro has a tiny 1.3-inch OLED display above the Xbox button that will display custom animations, battery or microphone status, and more.

The OLED display (128 x 40 resolution) will largely be used for swapping profiles during games, or for checking charging or mic status, Bluetooth pairing, and running text or animated wallpapers. The custom animations remind me a lot of the OLED display that replaced the Xbox "jewel" on the revamped Duke controller in 2018, or the classic Sega Dreamcast contr …

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Sony and Honda just announced their new electric car brand, Afeela

2023-01-04T20:46:29-05:00

Sony and Honda's joint mobility venture unveiled a new EV prototype called Afeela during Sony's presentation at CES in Las Vegas Wednesday. The brand will appear on the joint venture's first production electric car, set to go on sale in North America in 2026.

Much is still unknown about the new brand, but Sony Honda Mobility CEO Yasuhide Mizuno said the car would leverage Sony's experience with AI, entertainment, virtual reality, and augmented reality to present a unique EV.

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"Afeela represents our concept of an interactive relationship where people feel the …

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Amazon confirms its massive layoffs will affect 18,000 employees

2023-01-04T20:25:40-05:00

That’s a higher number than expected. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon's ongoing layoffs will affect around 18,000 workers, according to a memo from CEO Andy Jassy, which says that the "majority" of the roles being eliminated will be in Amazon Stores and People, Experience, and Technology organizations.

That's significantly more than previously rumored - in November, The New York Times reported that the company was aiming to cut its workforce by around 10,000. In September 2022, the company said it had around 1.5 million employees in total.

Amazon will have laid off 18,000 people between the November cuts and the ones announced today

The news of the expanded layoffs was originally reported by The Wall S …

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Coming soon: smart homes where the electricity isn’t so dumb

2023-01-04T18:05:07-05:00

The Schneider Pulse smart electrical panel, one component of this system. | Image: Schneider Electric

I don't know if Schneider Electric will be the one to crack it, but I like what it's promising here at CES 2023 - a smart home where the electrical circuits themselves are smart enough to keep your house powered, save on your energy bill, manage solar, and charge electric vehicles, all through a single app.

Schneider Electric isn't a household name, but there's a good chance you've got one of its Square D circuit breakers in your home - the company says four in 10 US households already do. Today, it's announcing an ecosystem of gadgets that won't be hidden inside your walls, including:

an entire smart main electrical panel called the Schnei …

Read the full story at The Verge.

TCL has a screen ready for every version of reality

2023-01-04T16:01:00-05:00

TCL’s NXTWear V headset concept is just one way the company hopes to put screens on your face. | Image: TCL

TCL's displays are in TVs, smartphones, and maybe in the near future, the metaverse, too. At least, the company wants to make the screen that gets you there. At CES 2023, the company is announcing its latest experiments with wearable displays, including a VR headset and mixed reality glasses. Plus, its personal display glasses, which have only been available in limited markets, are now heading for the US. It's kind of a "cover-all-your-bases" strategy for whatever the future of display technology looks like.

The company's NXTWear S glasses are the latest version of its wearable display - kind of like a TV contained in a pair of (sort of) or …

Read the full story at The Verge.

TCL’s 2023 TVs have new branding and are gaming powerhouses

2023-01-04T16:00:00-05:00

TCL is overhauling its TV strategy for 2023 by ditching the company's long-running 6-Series, 5-Series, and 4-Series branding in favor of two new lines: higher-end sets will be part of the Q-Series, while more value-focused TVs will fall under the S-Series. Within the two segments are six different models in all.

Let's cover the best first, shall we? With its flagship QM8, TCL is promising double the peak brightness of its best Mini LED TVs from 2022 - and those were already fairly impressive in their own right. Set to come in screen sizes between 65 inches and 98 inches, the largest QM8 packs in more than 2,300 dimming zones. TCL claims tha …

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Asus debuts an impressive (glasses-free) 3D display on its new Vivobook Pro

2023-01-04T14:00:00-05:00

It’s on the fancier ProArt Studiobook, too. | Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge

For some companies that sell gaming and creator-oriented laptops, glasses-free 3D has become a bit of a dream. Acer first tried it back in 2021. Its SpatialLabs technology, which uses a combination of a stereo camera, optical lens, and real-time rendering technology to create decently realistic 3D images, has since made its way to a number of laptops, including the Predator Helios 300 gaming rig.

This year, it's Asus' turn. The company has announced Spatial Vision, a "glasses-free (autostereoscopic) 3D OLED technology." The screens are 3D, 3.2K, OLED, and 120Hz. In a similar manner to Acer's tech, machines that support Spatial Vision will u …

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MSI’s Stealth Studio takes aim at the Zephyrus G14

2023-01-04T12:00:00-05:00

Look how tiny. | Image: MSI

There are a number of 14-inch gaming laptops floating around, but the most notable one by far is Asus's ROG Zephyrus G14. It's a powerhouse and an easy recommendation to anyone seeking a portable device that can really game.

But this year, MSI has decided to throw its hat in the ring. It's just announced the new Stealth 14 Studio, which it's boldly claiming is "the most powerful 14-inch gaming laptop." That is a tough title to live up to, considering that the G14… exists (not to mention Razer's Blade 14, which is also a strong, and sometimes even stronger, performer).

The main reason I'm skeptical of this claim is that the Stealth 14 Studi …

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MSI’s new laptop is see-through but not see-through enough

2023-01-04T12:00:00-05:00

One of the coolest parts of the Cyborg 15 will remain out of sight while you use it — a shame. | Image: MSI

There's something wrong with the seemingly hundreds of laptops that have been birthed so far during CES 2023: almost none of them are translucent. Using a see-through design is proven [no citations found] to make more people want to buy a product because, for one, it looks cool, and two, the company must be pretty confident in its engineering handiwork to want to show it off like that.

The thing is, if a company uses translucent plastic on your gadget, it's got to go for it 100 percent or go home. And that's where MSI goes wrong.

At CES 2023, the company is announcing the Cyborg 15, a gaming laptop that uses see-through plastic to show off …

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