Posted on 12/11/2017 10:54:10 AM PST by Swordmaker
It’s almost hard to believe that in under a century, computers have advanced from occupying hundreds of square feet, to fitting into the palm of your hand. Even wilder is that the tiny machinery in a smartphone can process far more data, far more quickly than the behemoths of old. Don’t spend too much time marveling at the advances of the past, however, because the future is only going to get more wild. Among the most exciting things coming to smartphones soon is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845, a mighty chip that will enable the next generation of mobile devices to do miraculous things.
Qualcomm showed off the Snapdragon 845 — the successor to its already popular and powerful Snapdragon 835 — at its Snapdragon Technology Summit in December, and it boasts a suite of remarkable features. First, the technical details: The Snapdragon 845 sports a Kyro 385 central processing unit (CPU), with eight cores and a clock speed of up to 2.8GHz, and an Adreno 630 graphics processing unit (GPU).
A Snapdragon 845 device can take pictures with far more shades of color.
For virtual and augmented reality, the 845 supports room-scale tracking to render immersive environments, accurate hand tracking, and “Adreno foveation,” which detects the specific area you are looking at and renders it in more vivid detail (this last feature looks nice, and allocates resources more efficiently).
Shutterbugs (professional or otherwise) will probably love the incredible capturing capabilities of the 845. The chipset supports high dynamic range (HDR) playback, as well as HDR recording. This means you can take photos with far more data in them. For example, instead of capturing 256 shades of a primary color with 8 bits, the Snapdragon’s 10-bit color palette offers over a thousand. Instead of the Rec. 709 color standard, which contains 16 million colors, the Snapdragon 845 supports the Rec. 2020 standard, which encompasses more than one billion colors.
If you like shooting video, the Snapdragon 845 also supports filming 720p video at 480fps. The chip can also create cinemagraphs, still photographs in which certain portions are animated.
Of course, the chipset is largely about potential. It will be up to smartphone manufacturers to take advantage of the 845’s robust suite of features.
David Cogen — a regular contributor here at Digital Trends — runs TheUnlockr, a popular tech blog that focuses on tech news, tips and tricks, and the latest tech. You can also find him on Twitter discussing the latest tech trends.
Ping for Android Ping List and general interest.
What continues to amaze me is that my bare-bones flip phone can send and receive audio, send and receive texts, be used as a digital camera for both still and moving pictures, has volume control, has a number of screensavers available, can access the Internet, and send and receive email. It probably has other features I have not figured out yet, like separate ringtones for everyone on my contact list, and instant messaging, all for the low, low price of $35.00 a month.
Even the most basic of hearing-aids, which I need badly, cost 15x that amount, and does little more than amplification, volume control, and noise-cancellation if you’re lucky.
My medical insurance does not cover this, and there is no way I can afford it, so I continue being a nearly deaf musician.
At least I am in good company...Beethoven was deaf too!
They will use entanglement phenomenon.
I'm a lifetime chip-maker. I don't know how they can justify those outrageous prices. I don't know how they can maintain them either.
I do suspect something illegal.
I just ordered some new "domes" for my girlfriend's hearing aids (not a musician but went to too many rock concerts in her youth and was right up front near the huge amplifiers) and they included a flyer for the same type of hearing aids that cost her that 15X you are talking about, except theirs are only $249. . . made, of course, where the one's you and she pay 15X for are probably also made, in China. Specs seem to be the same. Look exactly alike and the "domes" are factory originals for the 15X ones. I suspect the hearing aids are factory originals too. She got her hearing aids at Costco on my membership. Work great. Digital, with Bluetooth connectivity (easy iPhone and Android settings and control) to cellular phones and other devices. Go figure.
Controlled market. The audiologists got themselves licensed by the states early on. . . where before they were unlicensed and anyone could sell hearing aids, trumpets, gimmicks, etc. Once they were licensed, they naturally prevented just anyone from selling their panoply of devices to aid hearing. . . and jacked up the prices, regardless of the wholesale pricing. . . and draconian fines and jail time awaiting anyone caught competing with them, enforced now by guys and gals with guns (all state enforcement agencies have guns now since 911) and that allows them to legally charge all that the market will bear.
Look in your local listings and see how few audiologists and hearing aid centers there are competing against each other in large metropolitan areas. . . not many for a large populace of hearing loss consumers. They have gatekeepers on who can enter the retail market for selling hearing aids. Even Costco doesn't discount much in this area.
$249 is even a stretch for me...but if they actually WORK, would be worth it.
So, you think I have made a valid point?
Yeah, but does your flip phone do “foveation”?
We must all need foveation. Whatever that is.
We must all need foveation. Whatever that is.
Covfefefoveation.
“foveation”?
Sounds somewhat prurient to me!
I'd say "I hear you" but I would be lying. The stupidity of youth:
I'm surprised I can hear anything. The constant tinnitus is a problem, though.
Absolutely. It's not a technology problem...those are simple electronics that can be made for almost nothing.
Government regulations, licensing or monopoly is the problem.
Sounds vaguely pornographic, if not scatological. . . or it will make you go blind or bald. . .
“hearing aids”
My friend needs some. I’ve tried looking overseas for good and cheap, but didn’t have luck.
I suspect a trip to China and a pair of broken ones would be fruitful.
Apparently we DO need "foveation" or we would not be able to read FreeRepublic pages because we could not focus on the words on the screen. It comes from the way the eye moves to concentrate the image on the area with the most cells that can pick up detail, the fovea.
"Foveated imaging is a digital image processing technique in which the image resolution, or amount of detail, varies across the image according to one or more "fixation points." A fixation point indicates the highest resolution region of the image and corresponds to the center of the eye's retina, the fovea."
Your hearing aid is a certified medical device, you would not believe the added work and administration needed to get something certified. This easily can take a $10 device in terms of parts and make it a $500 device..... You phone doesn’t have to jump these hurdles
Don’t fall for the scam.
My father went into one of those hearing aid places and they told him there was no risk because if he didn’t like it he could return it.
What they didn’t tell him about was the 15% restocking fee.
With all that power...
I read a thought that just about sums it up. Goes something like this...
If I told you fifty years ago that man could have a device he would carry around in his pocket that would give him access to all of the information in the world, yet he would use it to watch cat videos and argue with people he did not know, would you believe me?
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