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The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced last week that it’s investigating the effects of Apple’s web browser and cloud gaming rules on the mobile market. The CMA also released a study in which it calls Apple and Google a duopoly in the mobile space (which points out the obvious, but I digress). The CMA found that 97 percent of all mobile web browsing in the UK in 2021 occurred on browsers running on either Apple’s WebKit engine or Google’s Chromium....

If a DigiTimes report is to be believed, Apple is currently ramping up Mini LED production and diversifying its supply chain to ensure it can meet demand for upcoming products. The Cupertino company is reportedly in the process of certifying the production lines of Chinese company Sanan Optoelectronics for Liquid Retina XDR display manufacturing, with the first shipments expected to starting in Q2 2022. Meanwhile, Apple is said to be working with Samsung on more advanced OLED panels for future iPad and Mac models....

Apple’s new M2 SoC has been integrated first into the refreshed MacBook Pro 13. Because this isn’t a laptop review, we aren’t going to evaluate the MacBook Pro 13’s credentials as a laptop – we’ve seen how Apple’s been copping some criticism for its outdated design, but we’re not concerned about that on this review. The M2, like all Apple Silicon products, uses the Arm architecture instead of x86 that we see deployed for the vast majority of Windows systems....

Apple is expected to introduce a few new Macs this year powered by a next-generation “M2” chipset, including a refreshed MacBook Air model, a new entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, a new Mac mini, and a 24-inch iMac. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the Cupertino giant is planning to hold a virtual event on Tuesday, March 8, revealing at least one of the new Macs alongside new iPad Air and iPhone SE models that will sport an A15 chipset and support for 5G connectivity....

Last year brought reports of some senior Apple engineers leaving the company to join a mysterious startup called Rivos, which was reportedly working on a high-performance RISC-V CPU design. But according to a lawsuit filed by Apple, at least two of the engineers that joined Rivos took gigabytes of confidential information with them, part of a “coordinated campaign” launched in June 2021 that has targeted Apple employees. The suit also alleges that other ex-Apple employees took confidential documents with them when they left to join Rivos, and that they tried to hide these actions by wiping their Apple-issued devices....

According to PCMark 7 the Asrock Beebox N3000 is sufficient for 1080p (30fps, 10Mbps) video playback, just as we expected. Not wanting to just take PCMark’s word for it, we conducted our own 720p and 1080p tests using MPlayer. Using the benchmark mode MPlayer allows the system to play the video as fast as it can without frame loss. With 720p content we hit a bottleneck of around 60fps pretty quickly and even the slowest CPUs delivered more than twice the necessary frame rate at 56....

Far Cry 2’s performance was more impressive as the CoreHT averaged 29.4fps at 1440x900 making it just a few frames slower than the Vision3D and reasonably playable. However, at the same resolution the A8-3850 was 57% faster at 46.1fps. We concluded our medium game benchmarks with Company of Heroes and the CoreHT averaged 20.8fps at 1440x900 – less than playable performance. The Vision3D delivered a respectable 34.5fps, but even that was blown out of the water by the A8-3850’s 59....

x2 2GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 Asrock A75 Pro4 (AMD A75) - AMD Radeon HD 6550D OCZ ZX Series (850 watt) Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA 3Gb/s) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (64-bit) - AMD Catalyst 11.6 AMD Phenom II X2 System Specs: Hardware - AMD Phenom II X2 560 x2 2GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 Asrock 890GX Extreme4 (AMD 890GX) - AMD Radeon HD 4290 (AMD 890GX) OCZ ZX Series (850 watt) Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA 3Gb/s) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (64-bit) - AMD Catalyst 11....

The first DeskMini – the DeskMini 110 – was released in 2016 and sported a tiny 1.92L case that housed an H110-based Micro-STX motherboard with support for 6th and then 7th generation Core processors. However, the DeskMini 110 was so small it couldn’t actually handle a discrete graphics card, so it was basically an office PC. That situation changed last year as the series was updated with the DeskMini GTX/RX which features support for an MXM discrete mobile GPU that can be installed thanks to a beefier B250 or Z270-based Micro-STX motherboard, which increased the case capacity to 2....

The system measures 195mm (W) x 186mm (L) x 70mm (H). It can be mounted either horizontally or vertically, although Asrock only supplies a grip pad for horizontal use. Having it based on the Mini-ITX form factor it has an internal volume of 2.5L, while weighing 1.7kg fully configured. The Ion 330HT-BD feels very polished on its whole. Asrock has paid attention to the little details while designing their Ion nettop....

VideoCardz obtained the list of Asrock flagship Z790 and mid-range H770 mobos. It includes both DDR4 and DDR5 variants of certain boards, much like the current 600-series chipset mobos used by Alder Lake. Alder Lake is Intel’s first consumer chip series to support DDR4 and DDR5, depending on which board you buy, but some feared that its Raptor Lake successor would use only the more expensive DDR5 variant. There have long been rumors that Intel intends to keep support for both memory types with Raptor Lake....

The immense gravitational pull of the black hole bends the light around the edges, creating the donut-like shape visible in the image. “We were stunned by how well the size of the ring agreed with predictions from Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity,” said EHT Project Scientist Geoffrey Bower from the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, Taipei. “These unprecedented observations have greatly improved our understanding of what happens at the very center of our galaxy and offer new insights on how these giant black holes interact with their surroundings....

The ROG Flow Z13 bears a striking resemblance to the Microsoft Surface Pro. However, the former’s powerful internals and aggressive design make it the more compelling option in terms of form and function. Arriving later this year, Asus will be offering this 13.4-inch gaming tablet in three flavors. The base model packs a 12C/16T Core i5-12000H and Iris Xe graphics, while the mid-tier variant comes with a 14C/20T Core i7-12700H / RTX 3050 GPU combo....

We also tested with Activision’s new Call of Duty: Black Ops and again found the GeForce GTX 580 to be 9% slower than the Radeon HD 5970. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s latest card was 15% faster than the GTX 480 and 34% faster than the Radeon HD 5870.

Before we take a closer look at that particular feature, it’s worth mentioning all of the Asus ZenBook Pro 14’s specs. The UX480 model we received for review measures 14 inches (there’s also a 15.6" version) packing a Whisky Lake-U quad-core i5 or i7 CPU. You can also choose from 8GB or 16GB of 2400MHz DDR4, and storage options include 128GB or 256GB SATA SSD, 128GB or 256GB PCIe 3....

Battlefield 2042 is powered by the Frostbite game engine, developer DICE is relying on the third iteration of the engine which was also used by Battlefield 5, Battlefield 1, Battlefield Hardline and Battlefield 4. If you’ve seen any gameplay of this latest title, you can expect a modified or upgraded version of Frostbite that supports new weather effects amongst other things. Visually, Battlefield 2042 is breathtaking and certainly one of the best-looking games we’ve experienced....

Over a month after its launch, EA said that fixing Battlefield 4 was a top priority and DICE quickly began patching the game while halting work on future products including Mirror’s Edge, Star Wars: Battlefront and BF4 DLCs. Over a year and five DLC packs later, EA is ready to take a step forward in the franchise with Battlefield Hardline, the first Battlefield title worked on by Dead Space developer Visceral Games....

Controller = Intel PC29AS218A Cache = ISSI IS42S16160D-7TLI (32MB) Memory = Intel 29F64G08CAMDI (34nm MLC) Read/Write = 170MB/s - 35MB/s (40GB model) Whereas the ADATA S596 Turbo 32GB drive costs $2.56 per gigabyte the Intel X25-V 40GB is fetching slightly less at around $2.50. So while the Intel drive does indeed cost a little more, in the end you are actually getting a slightly better deal in terms of the cost per gigabyte....

At 1920x1200, the FX-8150 matched the i7-2600K and narrowly defeated the i5-2500K. The FX-8120 was in line with the i7-975 EE, while the FX-6100 kept pace with the i7-920. Despite its 4.2GHz clock rate, the FX-4170 was the slowest processor tested. Besides the Phenom II X4 980, AMD again filled the bottom of our graph when measuring 1680x1050 performance. However, at 1920x1200 the FX-4170 was actually the fastest processor tested, delivering 88fps....