Snapdragon in my pocket
If you aren’t punting AI at every turn, can you even call yourself a successful company in 2024? We’re being hyperbolic, but we’re also… not. Artificial intelligence is turning up everywhere and Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 SoC is living proof, with plans to infect the next wave of mid-rangers with 2023’s favourite buzzword.
Following the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 revealed last year, the SD 7+ Gen 3 focuses on enhanced photography abilities, improved gaming and a wider net for AI model support. With onboard AI processing, it allows for speedier and more sophisticated editing, voice recognition, and battery life optimisation.
The SoC, built on a 4nm TSMC process, brings the company’s improved Kryo CPU and Adreno GPU to the mid-range. Qualcomm reckons they offer 15% and 45% boosts in their respective categories compared to last-gen chips with a 5% efficiency improvement to top it off.
As for when and where you can expect these to hit phones you can actually buy, Qualcomm announced that OnePlus, Realme, and Sharp would be receiving the honour first. Those should be announced over the coming months.
The Meta Quest 3 might be getting a budget sequel
Rumours have been all of a flutter surrounding a budget follow-up to Meta’s Quest 3 headset; the Quest 3s. Anyone who’s had a go on the company’s fourth attempt knows that it’s one of the better models out there — and that a cheaper model would go down very well. That’s the plan at Meta HQ which is looking to replace the now four-year-old Quest 2.
If the stories are true, Meta is targeting a $200 (R3,800) launch price, knocking around $300 off the Quest 3’s launch price. There’s even talk of the processor getting a boost. So what exactly makes it budget?
A lack of controllers, apparently, which could make it the first headset from Meta to use hand tracking exclusively. Or at least it won’t ship with them in the box. It’s an interesting deviation — one that could prove difficult for Meta to usher in. Sure, there are plenty of games that don’t require a controller, but they’re few and far between on Meta’s app store.
We even got what looks like some leaked renders of the new device, taking on more of a boxier look, mimicking the Quest 2 rather than the most recent iteration. When it will turn up is still a mystery, however. Judging by last year’s unveiling, June might be a solid pick for Meta’s announcement — or it could be held back to feature in the company’s Connect event in October.
Into animation? Comic Con Cape Town has got you sorted
It’s nearly that time of the year again folks; time for Comic Con Cape Town to stroll back into South Africa’s capital at the end of April, bringing with it a ton of the usual geeky attractions and stores. But most importantly, it’s bringing back the coolest of the lot — the 2024 Cape Town International Animation Festival. It’s a two-day programme that puts like-minded individuals in the company of “animation professionals, students and serious enthusiasts.”
Kicking off on 27 April 2024, the Festival is “a deep dive into the tools of the trade presented by creators, designers and storytellers and a meeting point for the industry to connect and explore ideas.” If that doesn’t sound awesome, you might change your mind after getting a look at the guest list.
Toon Boom, Autodesk, and Chaos will show their faces as the Festival’s resident software creators, demonstrating their talents in storyboarding and 2D animation. Nathan Stanton, who you might know for his work at Pixar, will also be in attendance along with holding a storyboarding workshop. Free Lives, the South African game studio responsible for the exquisite Broforce is bringing their skills for demonstration, with sneak peeks for Stick it to the Stickman and Anger Foot on the cards.
A ticket will set you back R850, unlocking access to the full two-day event and Comic Con Cape Town, breakfasts, finger lunches and “Hi” teas. You can pick one up here.
Spotify wants you to learn, for some reason
Man, Spotify overseas really is something else. Not only do a bunch of countries already have access to an entire catalogue of audiobooks on top of their music and podcasts, but users in the UK are now getting hold of a new category: video-based skill-learning lessons. Those include the likes of SkillShare, Thinkific, and PlayVirtuoso. It’s currently limited to the UK only, with no word on whether a wider rollout is coming.
It might seem like an odd move for a company primarily focused on music, but according to product director Mohit Jitani, speaking with The Verge, it’s the company’s podcasts that orchestrated the change. Jitani reckons users were already heading to Spotify to learn from podcasts, so the logical next step was to incorporate learning into the platform.
“One of the most interesting things and trends that we started noticing was more and more people were starting to come to Spotify with some intent of learning,” Jitani says. “And we thought, how can we take this core insight and build something on top of it?”
At the time of writing, Spotify offers four categories of education: ‘make music’, ‘get creative’, ‘learn business’ and ‘healthy life’. It’s not doing this out of the kindness of its own heart, either. It’s going with a freemium model, offering at least two videos per category for free, before charging a premium to get into the full course. Whether it’ll ever reach South Africa or anywhere outside of the UK is still a mystery.
