Recent content by Shawn Knight

<h5><strong>In a nutshell:</strong> Apple has allowed the first PC emulator on the App Store just weeks after shooting it and a similar app down in a move that confused developers. UTM SE is a retro PC emulator capable of emulating x86, PPC, and RISC-V architectures (in 32-bit and 64-bit...

<h5><strong>In context:</strong> Preliminary data from IDC's mobile phone tracker shows that smartphone shipments reached 285.4 million units in the second quarter. That's an increase of 6.5 percent compared to the same period a year ago and marks the fourth consecutive quarter of growth...

<h5><strong>In brief:</strong> Arm has introduced a new upscaling technology designed specifically for mobile devices. Arm Accuracy Super Resolution, or Arm ASR for short, is based on AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2) upscaler. It is a temporal upscaler, meaning it combines information...

<h5><strong>Bottom line:</strong> <a href="https://www.techspot.com/products/pc-games/terraria.4146/">Terraria</a>, the 2011 action-adventure sandbox, now ranks among the top 10 best-selling video games of all time. The game is so popular, in fact, that it managed to edge out one of the most...

<h5><strong>Too Real:</strong> Microsoft has developed a new iteration of its neural codec language model, Vall-E, that surpasses previous efforts in terms of naturalness, speech robustness, and speaker similarity. It is the first of its kind to reach human parity in a pair of popular...

<h5><strong>In brief:</strong> The jack-of-all-trades OKPad from Bluegen is a convertible-style 2-in-1 sporting an 8.9-inch (800 x 1,280) IPS display in the usual position. A second screen – a 7.8-inch (1,404 x 1,872) e-ink panel – resides where you'd normally find the keyboard on an ordinary...

<h5><strong>Bottom line:</strong> Nothing's budget-minded sub-brand, CMF, has introduced its first mobile phone. The CMF Phone 1 is an entry-level handset that could finally take the concept of a modular smartphone mainstream. The price is right at $199, but will it make a splash in a cutthroat...

<h5><strong>In brief:</strong> Add Samsung to the small but growing list of storage makers that offer a 60 TB-class solid-state drive. The company's new BM1743 is a data center-grade SSD that utilizes Samsung's 7th-generation quad-level vertical NAND storage tech which nearly doubles the number...

<h5><strong>In brief:</strong> Microsoft company man Steve Ballmer's fortune has surpassed that of co-founder and onetime boss Bill Gates, making him the sixth richest person in the world with a net worth of $158 billion. Holding on to that Microsoft stock over the long term has paid off big for...

<h5><strong>Bottom line:</strong> Noctua has launched the follow-up to its legendary NH-D15 tower cooler, and it comes equipped with a pair of the company's cutting-edge 140mm round-frame fans. The original NH-D15 was considered by many to be the gold standard in CPU air cooling for years, and...

<h5><strong>What just happened?</strong> What's in a name, you ask? In the case of Nocs Design's latest wireless speaker, the answer is, "quite a bit." The Monolith Aluminum is a new portable speaker due out later this year from the Swedish audio specialist. The chassis is crafted from a single...

<h5><strong>Forward-looking:</strong> Researchers from MIT's Computer Science &amp; Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are developing a robotic grocery bagging system that could one day show up in your local supermarket. The creation, aptly named Grocery Packing Robot, is currently able...

<h5><strong>The big picture:</strong> Fujifilm has been around for over 90 years, but it was only after post-Covid TikTokers elevated its retro-themed X100 series that the company's modern camera division began to thrive. These days, the Japanese camera maker is struggling to meet demand for it...

<h5><strong>Wallet friendly:</strong> Valve's annual Steam Summer Sale has arrived and is ready to do battle with your wallet. Luckily, with plenty of steep discounts available, you might just survive with minimal financial casualties. </h5><p><img height="617"...

<h5><strong>Data destroyer:</strong> There are plenty of ways to go about securely disposing of files on storage drives, and some of them are more destructive than others. The <a href="https://www.techspot.com/news/102616-diskmantler-can-take-apart-hard-drive-little-8.html">DiskMantler</a>, for...