PCWorld

the biggest pc news from computex 2021

One of the most important trade shows in the PC universe, Computex, unfortunately occurred during the wee hours of the Memorial Day holiday in the United States at the end of May. Fortunately, we kept tabs on the announcements from AMD, Intel, Nvidia and more that you need to know about, and we’ve summed them up below. If we had to pick an overall “winner,” well, AMD stole the show. A number of CPU, GPU, and even architectural announcements made for a jam-packed Computex presentation. But our email and internal chat channels were busy chewing over what Intel and Nvidia had to offer, too. In no particular order, here’s what we consider to be the most important stories that came out of Computex. AMD’S FIDELITYFX SUPER RESOLUTION FidelityFX Super Resolution is AMD’s answer…

google’s next way of working is ‘smart canvas’

Google’s next step in Google Workspace is…a Google workspace: Smart Canvas, an all-in-one digital document that’s designed for collaboration. “For over a decade, we’ve been pushing documents away from just being pieces of paper, and toward collaborative, linked content inspired by the web,” said Javier Soltero, vice president and general manager of Google Workspace, during a presentation at Google’s Google I/O developer conference in late June. Soltero didn’t call out Smart Canvas as a separate app, competing with existing Workspace apps like Docs or Sheets. Instead, he positioned Smart Canvas as more of a conceptual experience, guiding the evolution of working within the Google Workspace apps over time. Some users began comparing Smart Canvas to Notion, a subscription service for the Mac OS platform that uses the same sort of inclusive design…

android 12, google workspace, and five other big reveals at google i/o

Google may not be ready to hold an in-person developer conference quite yet, but Google I/O was full of new developments across Google’s products and services. One line of products was missing: hardware. If you were hoping for details on new Pixels, Chromecasts, Stadia consoles, or Nest smart home gear, you’ll have to wait. But Google did offer new details on the long-awaited Android 12; show off enhancements to its core Search, Photos, and Shopping experiences; and remind us over and over that, yes, it really cares about privacy. There was even a “one more thing” moment in Project Starline. Below is what you need to know about Google I/O 2021. ANDROID 12 One of the more hotly anticipated announcements of Google I/O 2021 was Android 12, the next iteration of Android for…

qualcomm targets low-cost pcs with the snapdragon 7c gen 2 cpu

Qualcomm’s lower-end Snapdragon 7c chips carved out a space for Chromebooks and other value devices that aimed for long battery life and consistent connectivity. Now Qualcomm is announcing an upgraded Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 chip aimed at powering the low-end $350 Chromebooks and PCs that flood Amazon’s “most popular” list. Comparing 2019’s Snapdragon 7c and the new Snapdragon 7c Gen 2, the main difference is in clock speed: The Snapdragon 7c used a Kryo 468 CPU running at up to 2.4 GHz, while the new chip uses an identical Kryo 468, yet running 6 percent faster at 2.55GHz. It appears that every other feature on the two different chips remains identical. The latest chip also uses the same X15 4G LTE modem as the 7c Gen 1. What else has changed is…

garmin’s 2021 dash cams add cloud storage and app connectivity

Garmin recently announced that it has upgraded one of PCWorld’s favorite lines of dash cams with phone and cloud connectivity. The new dash cams, which are available via garmin.com, include the 1080p Dash Cam Mini 2, the 1080p Dash Cam 47, the 1440p Dash Cam 57, and the 1440p, wide-field-of-view 67W. All except the appropriately named key-fob-size Mini 2 feature GPS and a two-inch color display. The Mini 2 is priced at $130, and the top-end 67W at $260. Due to the newfound connectivity, there’s now a parking mode (wake on disturbances to capture video), plus a live view on your phone courtesy of the Garmin Drive app. The app may also be used to offload and view captures, as well as configure settings. Videos are uploaded for safekeeping to Garmin’s Vault storage…

rip internet explorer: microsoft will discontinue support in 2022

Believe it or not, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is still alive and kicking—but not for long. If you’re one of the people who relies on Internet Explorer (hi, Dad!), Microsoft has some bad news: It will officially end support for the Internet Explorer desktop application on June 15, 2022. Before that, however, Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Office 365) will end support for IE on August 17 of this year. The replacement? Microsoft Edge, which already has an “Internet Explorer mode” built right in. Microsoft said in 2019 that it planned to add an IE Mode within Edge, and the virtualized browser lives on as a configurable mode within Microsoft Edge. That’s important, because the modern Edge browser is simply more secure than Internet Explorer ever was. And you can’t say Microsoft…