Xiaomi has revealed a new phone that may have come from its efforts to develop a foldable prototype. It’s called the Mi Mix Alpha, and it’s one-upping the first Mi Mix by having a "Surround Screen" that literally wraps around its body. The Beijing-based tech company says its screen-to-body ratio is 180.6 percent, and the parts not covered by a display — the top and the bottom of the phone, in other words — are made of aero-grade titanium that’s apparently lighter than stainless steel.
While the phone’s defining characteristic is its wrap-around screen, it has another standout feature: a 108-megapixel camera that can capture photos with a 12,032 x 9,024 pixel resolution. It also has a 20-megapixel ultra-wide camera with 1.5cm super macro photography capabilities, as well as a 12-megapixel telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom and dual PD focus. But it doesn’t have your standard front-facing camera, because it doesn’t need one — its rear camera is still in front of a screen, after all. The tradeoff is a black band where the camera is mounted that runs vertically across the device, making the backside’s screen a bit smaller than the front.
Since the phone is almost all-screen, it also doesn’t come with physical buttons (other than the power button at the top) and has pressure-sensitive sides instead. Its other components are hidden underneath the display, as well, including the fingerprint reader and an acoustic technology that replaces the typical earpiece and speaker. And like its predecessor, the Mi Mix, Alpha also uses ultrasound for proximity sensing.
Inside the device, you’ll find a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ chipset, 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. It already has 5G radio bands for all three major carriers in China and comes with a 4,050mAh battery with 40W fast charging capability. While Mi Mix Alpha may seem like a concept or a prototype at most, Xiaomi says it’s already in "small-scale production" and that it’s launching in December, though it’s unclear if it’ll be available outside China at the same time.
You may want to ready your wallet if you’re interested, because it has a rather hefty 19,999 yuan (or about $2,810) price tag, making it even more expensive than the Samsung Galaxy Fold. Aside from the components themselves, its pricing likely came from its complex assembly method. It requires the manufacturer to place each layer on top of the other one by one, starting with its internal assembly, then its laminating display, its touch panel and a tough protection layer.
Xiaomi has also announced the Mi 9 Pro 5G, which is the world’s first phone with 30W fast wireless charging capability. That apparently means you can wirelessly charge the device to 100 percent in just 69 minutes. Pretty cool, especially since it supports 10W wireless reverse charging, so you can use it to power up Qi-compatible devices like headphones and toothbrushes. Prices for the Mi 9 Pro range from 3,699 yuan or about $520 for 8GB RAM and 128GB storage to 4,299 yuan or about $605 for 12GB RAM and 512GB storage, making it one of the cheapest (if not the cheapest) 5G flagships.
Mathematically, it’s easy to demonstrate that a working general purpose quantum computer can easily outperform classical computers on some problems. Demonstrating it with an actual quantum computer, however, has been another issue entirely. Most of the quantum computers we’ve made don’t have enough qubits to handle the complex calculations where they’d clearly outperform a traditional computer. And scaling up the number of qubits has been complicated by issues of noise, crosstalk, and the tendency of qubits to lose their entanglement with their neighbors. All of which raised questions as to whether the theoretical supremacy of quantum computing can actually make a difference in the real world.
Over the weekend, the Financial Times claimed that Google researchers had demonstrated “quantum supremacy” in draft research paper that had briefly appeared on a NASA web server before being pulled. But the details of what Google had achieved were left vague. In the interim Ars has acquired copies of the draft paper, and we can confirm the Financial Times’ story. More importantly, we can now describe exactly what Google suggests it has achieved.
In essence, Google is sampling the behavior of a large group of entangled qubits—53 of them—to determine the statistics that describe a quantum system. This took roughly 30 seconds of qubit time, or about 10 minutes of time if you add in communications and control traffic. But determining those statistics—which one would do by solving the equations of quantum mechanics—simply isn’t possible on the world’s current fastest supercomputer.
A quantum problem
The problem tackled by Google involved sending a random pattern into the qubits and, at some later time, repeatedly measuring things. If you do this with a single qubit, the results of the measurements will produce a string of random digits. But, if you entangle two qubits, then a phenomenon called quantum interference starts influencing the string of bits generated using them. The result is that some specific arrangements of bits become more or less common. The same holds true as more bits are entangled.
For a small number of bits, it’s possible for a classical computer to calculate the interference pattern, and thus the probabilities of different outcomes from the system. But the problem gets ugly as the number of bits goes up. By running smaller problems on the current world’s most powerful supercomputer, the research team was able to estimate that calculations would fail at about 14 qubits simply because the computer would run out of memory. If run on Google cloud compute services, pushing the calculations up to 20 qubits would cost 50 trillion core-hours and consume a petawatt of electricity.
Based on that, it would seem a system with about 30 qubits would be sufficient to indicate superior quantum performance over a traditional non-quantum supercomputer. So, naturally, the researchers involved built one with 54 qubits, just to be sure. One of them turned out to be defective, leaving the computer with 53.
These were similar to the designs other companies have been working on. The qubits are superconducting loops of wire within which current can circulate in either of two directions. These were linked to microwave resonators that could be used to control the qubit by using light of the appropriate frequency. The qubits were laid out in a grid, with connections going from each internal qubit to four of its neighbors (those on the edge of the grid had fewer connections). These connections could be used to entangle two neighboring qubits, with sequential operations adding ever-growing numbers until the entire chip was entangled.
Unforced errors
Notably absent from this setup is error corrections. Over time, qubits tend to lose their state, and thus lose their entanglement. This process is somewhat stochastic, so it may happen early enough to destroy the results of any computations. With more qubits, obviously, this becomes a greater risk. But estimating the system’s overall error rate requires comparing its behavior to computed descriptions of its behavior—and we’ve already established that we can’t compute this system’s behavior.
To work around this, the research team started with observing the behavior of a single bit. Among other things, this revealed that different qubits on the chip had error rates that could vary by more than a factor of 10. They then went on to test combinations of two qubits, and saw that the error rates were largely a combination of the two error rates of the individual qubits. Not only did it make it easier to estimate the error rates of much larger combinations, but it showed that the hardware they used to connect qubits, and the process they used to entangle them, didn’t create significant sources of additional errors.
That said, the error rate is not particularly impressive. “We can model the fidelity of a quantum circuit as the product of the probabilities of error-free operation of all gates and measurements,” the researchers write. “Our largest random quantum circuits have 53 qubits, 1113 single-qubit gates, 430 two-qubit gates, and a measurement on each qubit, for which we predict a total fidelity of 0.2 percent.”
The Supremes
So clearly, this hardware is not the makings of a general-purpose quantum computer—or at least a general purpose quantum computer that you can trust. We needed error-corrected qubits before these results; we still need them after. And it’s possible to argue that this was less “performing a computation” than simply “repeatedly measuring a quantum system to get a probability distribution.”
But that seriously understates what’s going on here. Every calculation that’s done on a quantum computer will end up being a measurement of a quantum system. And in this case, there is simply no way to get that probability distribution using a classical computer. With this system, we can get it in under 10 minutes, and most of that time is spent in processing that doesn’t involve the qubits. As the researchers put it, “To our knowledge, this experiment marks the first computation that can only be performed on a quantum processor.”
Just as importantly, it shows that there’s no obvious barrier to scaling up quantum computations. The hard part is the work needed to set a certain number of qubits in a specific state, and then entangle them. There was no obvious slow down—no previously unrecognized physical issue that kept this from happening as the number of qubits went up. This should provide a bit of confidence that there’s nothing fundamental that will keep quantum computers from happening.
Recognizing the error rate, however, the researchers suggest that we’re not seeing the dawn of quantum computing, but rather what they call “Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum technologies.” And in that sense, they very well may be right, in that just last week IBM announced that in October, it would be making a 53-bit general purpose quantum computer available. This won’t have error correction either, so it’s also likely to be unreliable (though IBM’s qubits may have a different error rate than Google’s). But it raises the intriguing possibility that Google’s result could be confirmed using IBM’s machine.
In the mean time, this particular system’s only obvious use is to produce a validated random number generator, so there’s not much in the way of obvious follow-ups. Rumors indicate that the final version of this paper will be published in a major journal within the next month, which probably explains why it was pulled offline so quickly. When the formal publication takes place, we can expect that Google and some of its competitors will be more interested in talking about the implications of this work.
David Aguilar built his own working prosthetic arm – from LEGO bricks. The genius engineering student was born without a right forearm, but now makes his own prosthetics using the creative power of LEGO bricks. This is his amazing story.
Labs are churning out more and more synthetic DNA for scientists who want to use it to reprogram cells. Some say the technology has outpaced government safety guidelines put in place a decade ago.
(Image credit: Tim Llewellyn/Copperhound Pictures/Ginkgo Bioworks)
The Nintendo Switch family has grown with the release of the Switch Lite, a more compact and affordable version of Nintendo’s hybrid console. While there’s little reason to pick one up if you already own a standard Switch, if you’re anything like us, you may find it hard to resist the lure of a new piece of gaming hardware–particularly one as lovely as the Switch Lite–and plan to use it as a secondary console.
If you fall into that camp, you’ll undoubtedly want to know how to share your game data between your two Switch systems. The good news is that it’s a relatively straightforward process, but you’ll need to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to do so, and it won’t work with every game. Here’s a full breakdown of how to share your data between the Switch and Switch Lite. If you’re trading in your regular Switch for a Switch Lite and want to transfer all of your data to the new system, check out our Switch transfer guide.
The Nintendo Switch Lite launched alongside The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening’s remake on September 20. The system is available in three colors—turquoise, yellow, and gray—and retails for $200, which is $100 cheaper than a standard Switch. However, to cut costs and emphasize portability, the system is missing some of the Switch’s most distinctive features, such as detachable controllers and the ability to connect to a television.
In addition to the three launch colors, Nintendo is releasing a special Pokemon edition Switch Lite on November 8, a few days ahead of Pokemon Sword and Shield. This edition has blue and magenta face buttons, a light grey tone, and illustrations of the games’ Legendary Pokemon, Zacian and Zamazenta, on the back. You can read more about the console in our Nintendo Switch Lite FAQ, and if you’re interested in picking one up, be sure to check out our Nintendo Switch Lite pre-order guide.
Nintendo Switch Online
First things first: if you’re hoping to share your save data between your Switch and Switch Lite (or even another standard Switch), you’ll need to have an active Nintendo Switch Online subscription. Through the service, you’re able to back up most of your game saves to the cloud, allowing you to access them on another console. However, there are a handful of games that don’t support cloud saves, which we’ll discuss further below, so you’ll need to think carefully about which Switch you play certain titles on, as your save will be locked to that system (unless you go through the hassle of manually transferring that data between consoles).
Link Your Nintendo Account
With the prerequisite NSO subscription out of the way, the first thing you’ll need to do is link your Nintendo Account to your new Switch. Once you’ve set up the console, here’s what you’ll need to do:
Go into System Settings
Highlight Users
Choose the appropriate player profile (if there is more than one user on your console)
Select Link Nintendo Account
From there, log in to your account and follow the remaining prompts to complete the process. If you have trouble you can read more about linking your Nintendo Account to Switch on Nintendo’s support website.
Changing Your Primary Console
You can link your Nintendo Account to multiple Switch systems; however, the first Switch you’ve used to access the Eshop with that account will be designated your primary console. This means that any user on that system will be able to play the games you’ve downloaded. By contrast, only your user profile will be able to play your downloaded games on your non-primary console–something to keep in mind if you have multiple users on that system.
There’s an additional caveat: you’ll need to have a persistent internet connection in order to play your downloaded games on your non-primary console, even if it’s single-player, so if you’re planning on using your Switch Lite on the go (the system’s entire raison d’être), it is recommended you make that your primary system. Fortunately, designating a new primary console is easy to do. Here’s what you need to do:
Open the Eshop on your primary console
Click on your user icon in the upper righthand corner
Select the option to deactivate that Switch as your primary console
Once that’s done, access the Eshop on your second system with that same Nintendo Account and it will automatically become your new primary console.
Sharing Saves
With all that out of the way, you can begin filling out your new Switch Lite with any digital games you’ve previously purchased. To bring your save data over as well, highlight a game on the system dashboard, press the plus (+) button on your controller, then select Save Data Cloud Backup. After that, select Download Save Data and your cloud save will be downloaded to your system.
Note that this applies to physical games as well. Unusually, all Switch game save data is stored onto the system, not on the actual game cartridges, so if you’re picking up your progress in a physical game on your Switch Lite, you’ll need to first insert the game card into the system, then hit the plus button and follow the aforementioned steps to download your cloud save.
If you’ve enabled automatic backups, your data should be saved to the cloud automatically after you close your game or put your Switch to sleep, but if you’d like to ensure your save backups are up-to-date, you can also manually back them up. It is recommended you do this to make sure nothing goes wrong with the automatic backups, particularly if you’re planning on moving between both consoles frequently. You can enable auto backups on both systems, not just your primary one; however, an automatic backup will be canceled if data was already backed up from your other console.
To manually back up your save data to the cloud, select System Settings, then scroll down to Data Management on the left sidebar. From that menu, click on Save Data Cloud, select the appropriate user, and you’ll see a list of all your games that have cloud saves. If a title hasn’t been backed up recently, it will say "Not backed up" in red letters. If that’s the case, click on the game, and you’ll have the option to manually back up its save data to the cloud.
Super Dragon Ball Heroes World Mission – Launch Edition
Taimumari: Complete Edition
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Champions
Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution
If you’d like to carry any of these saves over to your new system, you’ll need to manually transfer them. To do this, first highlight the game on the dashboard, press the plus button, then select Manage Software. From that menu, you’ll see an option to Transfer Your Save Data to a nearby system–click that to move your save over to your new console. Once this is done, however, you won’t have access to that save data anymore on your original system unless you transfer it back.
Other Things To Be Aware Of
For the most part, the Switch Lite is compatible with most of the games released for the platform. However, due to the fact the system lacks some of the base Switch’s features, not all games will work with it. The Nintendo Labo line, for instance, is incompatible with the Switch Lite because it lacks detachable Joy-Cons and an IR camera, and some titles, such as Super Mario Party, are not playable in handheld mode. You can see all the games that have compatibility issues with the Switch Lite in our roundup.
“We are a game-changer and a provocateur,” Lamborghini’s CTO, Maurizio Reggiani told Engadget. The automaker has a long history of making waves with traffic-stopping designs and more recently, innovative tech. At last week’s Frankfurt Motor Show, the Italian company unveiled its Sian hybrid supercar. But it ditched the traditional battery pack in favor of a supercapacitor to power an electric motor, which is exactly what you would expect from the Italian company.
Typically a hybrid uses a lithium-ion battery pack to store energy. Then when needed, it transfers an electrical current to a motor (or motors) to either help the gas-powered engine or take over propulsion entirely. It’s a recipe that has successfully improved gas mileage and sold over six million examples of the Toyota Prius, not to mention countless other hybrids.
“It’s too easy to follow,” Reggiani said. “If you want to move for the first time in electrification you must guarantee that the implementation will not destroy the DNA of a car and brand.” With that in mind, the automaker went with a supercapacitor instead of a battery.
According to Reggiani, the supercapacitor offers up three times the power of a battery pack from the same weight and packaging. Plus, it stores and discharges energy much quicker. The spent power can be fully regenerated very quickly during normal braking.
Reggiani explained that this could be particularly useful while cornering. Going into a corner, the driver applies the brakes and replenishes any spent energy. Then, as the driver accelerates out of the corner, all the available power is there for acceleration. Then as the driver brakes for the next curve, the process starts all over again.
Plus, the supercapacitor doesn’t have to cool down like traditional battery, it’s just ready to go at all times — which is exactly what Lamborghini owners want.
The output of the 48-volt motor installed into the gearbox is 34 horsepower which brings the total power output of the V12 Sian to 819 horsepower. While 34 horsepower doesn’t seem like much, it means the vehicle can do zero to 62 miles per hour in under 2.8 seconds. That’s Tesla Model S Performance and Porsche Taycan levels of fast.
But there are other benefits. The electric motor reduces the torque hits of the gears shifting. You know those momentary losses — then explosions of power — you feel in the car as it speeds up, that’s the vehicle going through its gears. Lamborghini’s hybrid system reduces those so it’s a smooth transition up the driver’s desired speed.
That results is additional traction over a traditional gas engine since the tires are not tasked with handling torque hits while accelerating. That means the contact patches (the part of the tires touching the road) are under less stress and the rubber is less likely to break free from the asphalt.
Reggiani said that the traction increase is 10 percent between gear shifts while going from first to fifth gear and a 20 percent increase between sixth and seventh gear. The byproduct is better grip while accelerating out of those corners thanks to the supercapacitor.
Reggiani does note that the supercapacitor, while great for the Lamborghini in terms of speed, isn’t so hot for emissions or mileage. For that, he concedes that right now traditional battery packs are the way to go.
Plus, we shouldn’t expect to see a supercapacitor in the automaker’s Huracan model anytime soon. Supercapacitors and battery packs won’t make their way into the existing lineup, instead Lamborghini will release new electrified models in the future. To make this a reality the company has invested in two laboratories to research both supercapacitors and battery packs.
For now, the Sian hybrid is limited to 63 vehicles. So it’s a very exclusive coming-out party for Lamborghini’s electrification plans. Reggiani is ready to push the technological limits of cars while still staying true to the automaker’s brand.
“It’s important that from a technical point of view, we are able to prove that there are different possibilities. We can do something completely different where nobody investigated before. This is our way to be Lamborghini.”
Lamborghini’s nimbleness, willingness to experiment, and its dedicated (and very rich) fan base have given rise to a host of technologies that may or may not make its way into passenger vehicles the rest of us can afford. Other automakers need to create cars that’ll sell hundreds of thousands and that limits their ability to explore new technologies on the road with actual customers. Today’s supercar supercapacitor could find a home in tomorrow’s pickup truck, towing a horse trailer. The research has to start somewhere, even in the car that looks like the Batmobile.
that outlines it in English so we don’t have to resort to
Google Translate. Here’s word:
“In a judgement rendered on September 17th
by the Paris District Court… The Association for the Defence of Consumer Rights
managed to obtain the cancellation of a number of clauses that Valve imposed on
Steam,” the website says.
The biggest cancellation is that of Valve’s licensing of Steam games. Although
you pay full price for titles on Steam, you do not own games you buy on Steam.
This ruling changes that: by allowing you to sell your Steam games that you’ve
purchased, gamers now have some form of control over their titles. The ruling
doesn’t just apply to games. Games, movies, trading cards and more are all
included.
