Light Start: Over-ear Airpods, Jupiter’s holes, a digital Comic-Con and a new Snapdragon
Marcé
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Apple’s over-ear headphones may be called Airpods Studio
Apparently, the one thing Apple needs in its accessory lineup is a pair of over-ear headphones. Because who doesn’t need a pair of overpriced headphones that only work well in one ecosystem, right? The headphones have been long-rumoured to be on its way, but it looks like we’ve finally got more concrete proof that the company is working on them. The headphones will reportedly be called AirPods Studio. Erm… Are they still pods though? Debatable, but we’ll give ‘em the benefit of the doubt this time and wait it out to see what the Airpods Studio bring to the audio table. The info was leaked by a tech analyst and well-known leaker called Jon Prosser. The man made a tweet this weekend, confirming the name of the upcoming headphones, as well as an expected price tag, and as we expected, they’ll be heavily overpriced (especially for South African headphone standards). According to Prosser, the headphones will likely retail for $350 (almost R6,500 at the time of writing). Digital Trends reports that Prosser apparently confirmed Apple’s release date for the upcoming hardware, saying that “… Prosser claimed that Apple was aiming to unveil the over-ear headphones at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, while already mentioning a possible price point of $350.” We’ll have to wait and see what Apple does later this year, but we’re hoping for a different name, at the least.
These stunning pictures of Jupiter will help us figure out the gas giant
New pictures were taken of our favourite big boi, Jupiter, in a bid to better study the gas giant. These new snapshots of Jupiter reveal its turbulent weather in infrared (you know, the spectrum of light just beyond visible wavelengths). A team of researchers from NASA and the University of California, Berkeley combined some imaging data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Juno probe that orbits Jupiter, and the Gemini Observatory on Earth. The images released by the researchers show extremely turbulent weather, using mapping of Jupiter’s lighting. The images reveal that the dark patches in the planet’s Great Red Spot are holes in its cloud cover, and not different types of cloud. All of the images were published alongside a research paper in The Astrophysical Journal last week. This may be the clearest picture of the gas giant ever, and “the infrared light emanating from the heat generated deep inside Jupiter can’t always escape,” Cnet reports. “Hubble and Juno’s imagers can’t “see” as far into the planet as Gemini, so the ground-based telescope was critical to understanding what lurks within the Great Red Spot.” So it looks like Jupiter isn’t just covered in different types of clouds, but that it is, in fact, holey. All hail the holey gas giant.
San-Diego Comic-Con called off for the first time in 50 years, and will now go digital
Probably one of the biggest losses due to COVID-19 is the cancellation of all types of nerdy get-togethers around the world. One of the most well-known, San Diego Comic-Con was called off for the first time in its 50-year history this year. But it has now announced a concept called Comic-Con at Home. Being the biggest annual festival for comics and pop culture, San Diego Comic Con would have been a major loss for the industry, but the organisers jumped ahead of the curve and are now developing a wholly-digital geek experience that attendees can visit from the comfort of home. “As many regular Comic-Con attendees were saddened by the cancellation, it appears that the organizers still have something up their sleeves,” Digital Trends reports. Comic-Con at Home, will be viewable online, and will apparently offer free badges that should allow everyone to watch and experience the event. If you were wondering, the online event will offer “free parking, comfy chairs, personalised snacks and no lines. Pets are also welcome, for the first time, mind you. We don’t know more about the practicalities that the Comic-Con crew will implement to make the whole thing work, but we’re expecting some cool content to keep us busy at home. You also won’t need to be in San Diego to attend, which is a massive plus for… everyone outside the States basically.
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Qualcomm’s new gaming chip will bring top performance and 5G to mid-rangers
We know, phones have just started launching with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 765G processor, but the company’s already got their eyes on the next-gen. The company announced the follow up for the 765G this week, and this time around it’s called the Snapdragon 768G. It addresses some of the upgrades everyone wants: more raw power and 5G capability. The 2.8GHz Kryo 475 CPU will apparently run about 15 percent faster than the 2.4GHz 765G. It also includes Adreno 620 graphics that’ll give users a similar performance boost and it’ll be able to push out a 120Hz refresh rate at 1080p. If this thing didn’t sound like a full-blown PC chip yet, it’ll even support upgradeable GPU drivers, which will allow users to fine-tune the visual performance. A first for a 700-series chip. If that isn’t impressive in its own right, the 768G will feature capacity on all global 5G frequencies. “It’ll feature an integrated Snapdragon X52 modem with support for both mmWave and sub-6GHz 5G as well as compatibility with both standalone and non-standalone 5G networks,” The Verge reports. It looks like the mid-range chips of today are even more powerful than flagship chips from about two years ago, and we’re not complaining.
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