Hasta La Gadget!

At its Computex 2016 media event, Qualcomm has officially introduced the Snapdragon Wear 1100 processor, a new SoC designed for IoT and wearable applications requiring both ultra-low power and the ability to be always connected.

Qualcomm already has a Snapdragon Wear 2100 to cater to the smartwatch market. Snapdragon Wear 1100 is designed for applications/devices that are more specific. For example, fitness trackers and other wearable devices do not have or require a graphics-intensive display. This chip is about 50% smaller in surface area when compared with previous Qualcomm products.

They do benefit from GPS positioning and communications, in addition to computing capabilities. Devices using the Snapdragon Wear 1100 would typically require less memory and storage as well. All of this contributes to making the surface area as small as possible. With an estimated 55 square millimeter area, it substantially small.

Snapdragon Wear 1100 has a built in location system that can use GPS, but also cellular triangulation to locate the user. It obviously has 3G/LTE communications as well, which allows it to communicate worldwide (certified in ~130 markets). Interestingly enough, it is LTE Cat1 which is used in this product, but it’s a trade-off that is commonly made in the IoT world because it works well enough, and requires less surface area.

This also signals that from now on, everything that LTE can get into every IoT product. Qualcomm says that this new chip is in production today, and there are already a few OEMs working on end-user products slated for arrival “later this year.”

Snapdragon Wear 1100 is the smallest and lowest-power chip with an integrated modem that Qualcomm ever made. Now, we’re curious to see what kind of products it will power.

Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 1100 Processor Released , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Earlier this month over at Germany, there was an announcement made concerning the One M9 Prime Camera Edition from the folks over at HTC, where this spanking new variant is certainly a curiosity. Also know as the HTC One M9+ Prime Camera Edition, this brand new handset is already listed over on HTC’s India eStore, so you know where to go if you are on the lookout for a spanking new device.

In terms of hardware specifications, the HTC One M9+ PCE happens to be powered by a MediaTek Helio X10 SoC, which will be accompanied by the likes of a 5.2-inch Full HD display, not to mention 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal memory, all running on a 2,840mAh battery. This is certainly far from being a high end model where its hardware is concerned, and certainly time has taken its toll on the HTC One M9 family of devices, but it is still a decent mid-range device.

Where its cameras are concerned, the back carries a 13MP shooter while there is an HTC UltraPixel shooter right in front. The entire device measures 15.09cm x 7.19cm x 0.96cm and tips the scales at 168 grams, running on Android 5.0 Lollipop (what the heck!) with Sense UI on top alongside a front fingerprint sensor.

HTC One M9 Prime Camera Edition Available In India Now , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

According to the rumors, Apple will be doing something not many OEMs have done with their smartphones, which is by removing the 3.5mm headphone jack which has been the standard on many audio devices for the past decade or so. Instead, Apple is said to rely on the Lightning port to connect headphones with.

How true are these rumors? Admittedly that’s hard to say, but in the meantime it looks like over in China, a local accessory maker has begun to advertise Lightning-to-headphone jack adapters which are aimed at iOS users and presumably those who are planning on buying the iPhone 7 later this year.

It should be noted that as of right now, there are several headphones in the market that do connect to iOS devices via Lightning, so that isn’t exactly new. However by Apple removing the option of a 3.5mm audio jack, we might be seeing an influx of Lightning headphones in the future. No word on the prices of the accessory yet.

In the meantime, there have been several rumors regarding the iPhone 7, like how Apple could either bundle an adapter with the iPhone or sell it separately. There are also some claims that there might be Apple Bluetooth headphones that could be sold separately and charged via Lightning similar to the Apple Pencil, but either way we’ll have to wait until the later part of the year for the details.

Chinese Company Advertises Lightning-To-Headphone Jack Adapters , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

When it comes to computers with liquid-cooling systems, you might be thinking about desktop PCs where there is enough space within the chassis to fit the pipes and water pumps necessary in order to get the liquid cooling system setup. However you might recall that last year, ASUS debuted a laptop that had its own liquid cooling system in the form of the GX700.

Now it looks like this year they are back with an upgraded system with the ASUS ROG GX800. Naturally the selling point here would be its liquid-cooling system that sits at the back of the laptop in the form of a massive attachment. However the main difference here is that the upgrade will now see the use of NVIDIA SLI GPUs, and the use of Intel’s K-series of CPUs.

Combine both of them and you’ll have a gaming laptop that will put many other gaming laptops to shame. There is even a mechanical keyboard installed within the laptop with multicolored LED keys. That being said, the laptop by itself doesn’t appear to be too thick compared to other similar systems.

However if you want to get the full potential out of the laptop, you will need the attachment, which in turn kind of tethers you to your location, so mobile gaming is definitely out of the question unless you don’t mind lugging around huge and heavy components.

ASUS Liquid-Cooled Gaming Laptop Gets An Upgrade , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Last week marked a milestone. Donald Trump passed the 1,237 threshold of committed delegates that gives him a lock on the Republican Party presidential nomination. Given his public comments on everything from immigration to terrorism, large segments of the population must be viewing his nomination with horror.

The rise of Trump has provoked a considerable outpouring of commentary from the pundits. Most of it centered on the chief complaint that the white working class is upset about losing its privileged position and see Trump as the ticket to setting things right.

There is considerable truth to this story. Trump’s strongest support comes from white men without college degrees, although he also does quite well among small business owners. But before we condemn these workers as hopeless Neanderthals, it is worth stepping back a bit to consider what led them to support Donald Trump’s candidacy in the first place.

The “privilege” that these working class whites are looking to defend is middle class factory jobs paying between $15 and $30 an hour. These jobs generally came with decent health care benefits and often a traditional defined benefit pension, although that has become increasingly rare over the last two decades.

This is certainly a privileged position compared to billions of people in the developing world who would be happy to make $15 a day. It is also privileged compared to women, whose pay still averages less than 80 percent of their male counterparts. And, it is privileged compared to the situation of African Americans, Hispanics, and other racial and ethnic minorities who have frequently been trapped in the least desirable and lowest paying jobs.

But these factory jobs and other blue collar occupations are hardly privileged when compared to the high flyers in the financial industry, the CEOs and other top level managers, or even professionals like doctors and dentists. These groups have all seen substantial increases in their pay and living standards over the last four decades.

If you want to see “privilege”, look to the CEO making $20 million a year as they turn in a mediocre performance managing a major corporation. Or talk to a cardiologist, an occupation with a median annual salary of more than $420,000 a year.

The pundits all know about these disparities in pay, but they want us to believe that they have nothing to do with privilege; rather they reflect the natural workings of the market. And they tend to act really stupid when shown evidence otherwise.

To start with the simplest case, the pundits, who are all free traders, get really blank faced when the topic of protectionism for doctors, dentists, lawyers and other highly paid professionals comes up. Just as there are hundreds of millions of people in the developing world who are prepared to do factory labor for a fraction of the pay of our manufacturing workers, there are tens of millions of really smart ambitious people in the developing world (and Europe) who would happily train to U.S. standards and work as professionals here for a fraction of the pay of our doctors and lawyers. The difference is that we have designed our trade deals to subject our manufacturing workers to competition, while we have maintained or increased the protection for our doctors and lawyers.

Then we have our financial sector where the bankers benefit from “too big to fail” insurance from the government. We also exempt trades of stocks, bonds, and derivatives from the same sort of sales tax that applies to clothes, cars, and most other products. Even an extremely small tax in the financial sector could raise over $100 billion a year, while putting many of the Wall Street high rollers out of business.

Our corporate governance structure has become a cesspool of corruption. Does anyone think corporate directors routinely ask if they could get as good a CEO for half the pay? Why not, this is their job. The governance structure has become an insiders’ game where the directors are happy to hand over the shareholders’ money to the CEOs and other top management.

This matters not only for CEOs, but it also affects pay structures for top management throughout the economy. The situation is so bad that elite-types now view it as a sacrifice to work for the $175,000 to $200,000 annual pay received by high level government officials.

And we continually make patent protection longer and stronger. Then our elite types genuflect over the fact that people who “own” technology are getting richer relative to people who don’t own the technology. (In case you missed it, longer and stronger patent protection is how they own technology.)
If you don’t think this is a big deal, consider the fact that we will spend over $430 billion this year on prescription drugs that would likely sell for one-tenth this price in a free market. The difference of $380 billion (2.1 percent of GDP) is close to five times what the government spends on food stamps. And this is just one area.

Finally, the Federal Reserve Board is prepared to slam on the brakes to slow the economy at the first evidence that workers are seeing substantial gains in real wages. The next interest rate hike may come as early as next month.

There is no excuse for supporting a racist, sexist, xenophobic buffoon like Donald Trump. But we should be clear; the workers who turn to him do have real grievances. The system has been rigged against them. And it is a bit hypocritical of those who have benefited from this rigging to be mocking the poor judgment of its victims.

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