Year: 2024

The Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite is a simple but useful tablet for entertaining kids or giving you something to watch. It’s on sale now at Walmart.

Stress-testing your CPU can be an excellent way to gauge how powerful it really is. Here are a few tests we think you should check out to maximize performance.

The Biden administration just announced a preliminary agreement to award Samsung up to $6.4 billion in grants as part of CHIPS Act funding. This money will complement the $44 billion in private investment that the company has promised to spend in the state to build a “semiconductor ecosystem.”

This money will be spent to finish a “leading-edge” campus in Taylor, Texas that will focus on research and development of advanced logic technologies, manufacturing and, perhaps most importantly, packaging. When it comes to chips, packaging refers to providing power, inputs and outputs. It’s a highly specialized process that’s typically done overseas, which means that even chips built on US soil have to get shipped to another country and then mailed back. Samsung’s dedicated packaging facility should eliminate some of these headaches and strengthen the overall supply chain.

The money will also go toward an expansion of Samsung’s pre-existing facility in Austin. Taylor and Austin are only 40 minutes away from one another, leading the Biden administration to suggest that the combination of both facilities will turn “Samsung’s existing presence in Texas into a comprehensive ecosystem for the development and production of leading-edge chips in the United States.” The president also says it’ll lead to 21,500 jobs for Texans, with $40 million set aside for training.

The CHIPS and Science Act has given the federal government authority to award funding and offer loans to tech companies to encourage domestic spending. GlobalFoundries received a grant of $1.5 billion back in February to help with a major expansion, in addition to snapping up a $1.6 billion loan. The company plans on spending this money in Malta, New York to build a new fabrication facility that manufactures chips for the automotive, aerospace, defense and AI industries.

Intel recently received the largest CHIPS grant to date, grabbing up to $8.5 billion to continue various US-based ventures. Intel plans on using that money to build some new plants that manufacture semiconductor chips for the AI industry. It’s building two new fabrication facilities in Arizona and two more in Ohio. Intel will also use the financial windfall to modernize a pair of pre-existing plants in New Mexico and one in Oregon. The company says it’ll be investing $100 billion in US-based chip manufacturing, leading to an influx of around 30,000 jobs.

President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law back in 2022 to encourage domestic semiconductor research and manufacturing in order to lessen America’s reliance on Chinese suppliers. All told, it sets aside $52 billion in tax credits and funding for companies to expand stateside production.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-awarded-64-billion-chips-act-grant-to-build-semiconductor-ecosystem-in-texas-165414946.html?src=rss

Traditional hard drives typically contain useful components. But dismantling them manually would be too labor-intensive. As things stand, old hard drives tend to go through a shredder and it’s often down to luck whether there’s anything usable left after that process. A company called Garner Products claims to have a better solution with its DiskMantler.

This machine (spotted by Ars Technica) uses a mix of shock, harmonics and vibration to shake apart a hard drive. The process loosens screws and other fasteners — no matter what kind of oddly shaped screw heads are used — to free up parts like circuit boards, drive assemblies, actuators and rare-earth magnets. The process reportedly takes between eight and 90 seconds for most hard drives, and around two minutes for welded helium drives.

The DiskManter can seemingly disassemble as many as 500 hard drives a day and only a fifth or so of the planet’s e-waste is recycled. So at least for now, Garner’s recycling efforts may seem a bit like a drop in the ocean. However, if the company can help to retrieve valuable components such as rare-earth magnets without having to break them down into elements and starting the production process over, that surely has to be a net positive.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/watch-a-recycling-machine-shake-apart-old-hard-drives-to-recover-components-163442500.html?src=rss

Meta is shutting down Threads in Turkey on April 29 after an interim injunction from the Turkish Competition Authority (TCA) against automatic data-sharing with Instagram. The TCA ruled that linking Threads and Instagram without user opt-in “will lead to irreparable harms” and that Meta “abused its dominant position” in the industry with the practice. The TCA also suggested that the linking exists primarily to increase the company’s “market power.”

Rather than make any changes to how Instagram and Threads integrate in the region, Meta’s pulling the nascent social media app. The company says this is merely a temporary measure as it works to appeal the injunction, but there’s no timetable for that. In the meantime, Meta suggests that users in Turkey either deactivate their accounts or delete them entirely. Those who deactivate will have their posts and interactions restored “if Threads returns” to the country.

Turkish regulators aren’t the only people who think the automatic linking between Threads and Instagram is, at best, a bit creepy. It’s been a point of contention since the platform launched last year. The apps were so tied together that users couldn’t even delete a Threads account without nuking their Instagram account, though Meta patched this several months back.

Meta also began promoting Threads posts on Facebook and Instagram without user consent, eventually allowing people to opt out of the, uh, “feature.” This is the type of automatic data-sharing that bristled the TCA, leading to the recent injunction.

Also, this isn’t the first regulatory battle between Meta and Turkey. The country fined Meta $18.6 million back in 2022 for data-sharing across its apps, according to a report by TechCrunch. This is an alleged violation of the country’s competition laws. The country asked Meta to submit documents detailing its efforts to stop violation of these laws, but Turkish regulators said the explanations were lacking. As such, the country slapped Meta with additional fines, to the tune of $160,000 each day.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-is-shutting-down-threads-in-turkey-following-injunction-against-data-sharing-with-instagram-154725011.html?src=rss

Google is expected to launch a new Pixel 8a phone at its I/O conference next month, but if you’re willing to buy last year’s model, a new sale has dropped the Pixel 7a down to the lowest price we’ve tracked. The handset is now available for $349, which is $150 less than Google’s list price and $25 below the prior low we’ve seen in recent months. The only better deals we’ve found for an unlocked model have required you to trade in another device. This discount applies to the black, light blue and white colorways and is available at several retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, Target and Google’s online store. Google says the offer will run through May 4. 

The Pixel 7a is the top budget pick in our guide to the best Android phones, and Engadget’s Sam Rutherford gave it a score of 90 in our review last May. When it’s discounted to this extent, it remains a good value. Its cameras still outshine just about everything else in this price range, and it still provides a largely bloat-free version of Android. Its Tensor G2 can sometimes run hot but is still plenty quick for everyday tasks. Though it won’t be kept up to date for as long as the flagship Pixel 8, it’ll still receive OS updates through May 2026 and security updates through May 2028. 

The mostly plastic design and 6.1-inch OLED display are both a step down from more expensive devices, but they should be more than acceptable at this price. The latter can run at a 90Hz refresh rate, which again isn’t on the level of top-tier models but makes scrolling feel smoother than it’d be on many cheap Android phones. Along those lines, while the Pixel 7a’s wireless charging tops out at a relatively slow 7.5W, the fact that it supports wireless charging at all is welcome. Battery life is solid but not class-leading in general, though wired charging also isn’t the fastest at 18W.

If you don’t need a new phone right this second, it still makes sense to see if Google follows tradition and releases a new A-series phone in a few weeks. There’s been a spate of Pixel 8a leaks over the past several months, all of which suggest a device that’ll fall more closely in line with the current Pixel 8. Exactly how much the new phone will cost is unclear, however. If you want upgrade today and must stay on a tighter budget, we’d expect this deal to stay worthwhile after I/O has passed. It’s also worth noting that the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are on sale for $549 and $799, respectively, though neither of those are all-time lows.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-google-pixel-7a-is-on-sale-for-a-new-low-of-349-153517154.html?src=rss

Good news ChromeOS fans: Lenovo may be behind the rumored Chromebook tablet.

Sensitive data on almost three million Giant Tiger customers leaked – for free.

More of the groundwork is being laid for AMD’s next-gen Ryzen CPUs, suggesting a Q3 launch really could be in the cards.