Qualcomm Technologies has announced its latest smartphone processor, a higher performance follow-up to the Snapdragon 820 processor. The expectation is that the new Snapdragon 821 processor will have extra performance to support mobile virtual reality (VR) displays. The Snapdragon 821 is claimed to provide a 10% performance increase over the 820 with the Qualcomm Kryo quad-core …

Qualcomm powers new quad-core Snapdragon for VR

See how NI DAQ systems helped refine and advance the design of blade compressors

Advancing design of blade compressors

Here’s an interesting one, for the home automation series. It’s something called Matrix, and is described as a Smart Home App Ecosystem.

Home Networking #4: Matrix home app ecosystem

Wolfspeed has cut switch resistance to 3.6mΩ in its 1,200V all-silicon carbide half-bridge. Called CAS325M12HM2, it has seven 1.2kV 25mΩ mosfets and six 1.2kV 50A  Schottky diodes from Cree in each per switch position. A companion gate driver, CGD15HB62LP, is designed specifically to work with the module, including fitting within a 62mm mounting footprint. Power package inductance is 5nH, …

1.2kV SiC half-bridge has 3.6mΩ switches

Powerbox has announced PSU that generates 110Vdc from a train traction-voltage line (700-1,500Vdc) to start traction electronics when a rail vehicle’s own battery is below minimum operating voltage. The ‘Low battery voltage start’ (LBVS) is designed for high safety isolation, will come in different versions for different power requirements and will provide a stable voltage from …

PSU boot-straps rail traction electronics

US blood-testing start-up Theranos, which has become the poster-child for lack of investor rigour, has had its license to operate a lab in California revoked and its founder banned from the blood-test business for two years by the US Centres for Medicare and Medicaid. 13 year-old Theranos is seen as an example of how easily …

Pricks

Move over Arecibo, China has just completed the world’s largest single-aperture radio telescope, for probing into deep space.

Gadget in Extremis: China completes largest single-aperture telescope

We are pleased to announce that you can now add cost allocation tags to your AWS Directory Service directories. Tags make it easier for you to allocate costs and optimize spending by categorizing and grouping AWS resources. For example, you can use tags to group resources by administrator, application name, cost center, or a specific project. 

You can now use Docker Compose version 2 YAML files with the Amazon EC2 Container Service CLI (Amazon ECS CLI) to create an Amazon ECS service.