☕ Good morning! It’s Memorial Day, plus a bank holiday in the UK, so we’ll keep things lighter and easier today — hope you’re relaxing.

Taiwan’s Computex 2021 is underway, and Intel, AMD and Nvidia have either been or will be in virtual attendance offering a glimpse at their latest wares.

Intel went early with Intel’s EVP Michelle Johnston Holthaus taking to the stage to present Intel’s ‘Innovation Unleashed’ keynote.

What we saw — new processors:

• Intel’s latest 11th Gen Tiger Lake U-series chips were the major announcement, bringing 5GHz clock speeds to lower-voltage CPUs.
• There are two new processors: the top of the line Core i7-1195G7 and the Core i5-1155G7, with integrated Iris Xe graphics.
• It’s one of those marketing-type situations, where the base clock speed of the i7 is 2.9GHz, but it ratchets up to a 5.0GHz maximum single core speed when required. Then again, that clock speed will probably be rare for most people.
• The new chips operate at between 12W and 28W, meaning they’re set for thinner and lighter laptops than the 45W Tiger Lake H-series chips which were announced earlier in May.
• AnandTech has a pretty good breakdown of it all here.

What it means:

• Intel is claiming up to 25% “better application performance” than its rivals (cough, AMD), while the integrated graphics offers a big boost, making half-decent gaming on an integrated graphics processor actually possible.
• Intel says it expects 60 plus new laptop designs using the new Tiger Lake-U processors, from usual suspects like Acer, Asus, and HP.
• There’s also support for Wi-Fi 6 and 6E here too.
• What will be interesting is what AMD announces, with Intel, of course, promising a lot. But the detail will be in the benchmarks, pricing, and overall value on offer.

5G laptops:

• Although Intel sold its 5G assets to Apple back in 2019, Intel is bringing 5G modems to its processors.
• That’s through a partnership with MediaTek, with an Intel-branded Intel 5G Solution 5000 M.2 chip, which has received global 5G certification.
• It supports 5G in mid-band, sub-6GHz frequencies and you’d expect it to be in laptops this year.
• Mind you, Qualcomm has its own 5G M.2 chip, and with mmWave tech too, not just sub-6. Generally comparisons between Qualcomm and MediaTek favor the former, so I don’t know how good this really is, or if Intel is doing it just to say it has the tech, too.
• SemiAccurate is scathing, and that might be putting it mildly.

Next: Expect Nvidia (presenting today) and AMD (tomorrow) to have their own big new developments.

🔜 OnePlus Nord CE specs leak, sales start from June 16 (Android Authority).

🔋 Xiaomi introduces new 200W HyperCharge tech: 0% to 100% in just 8 minutes. No word on heat generated and battery degradation (Android Authority).

🎧 Get a good look at the features of the Sony WF-1000XM4 in this leaked video (Android Authority).

📌 Court docs allege Google hid privacy settings on Android, urged OEMs to do the same, and even Googlers were weirded out (Android Authority).

📦 This one is heavy for a holiday, but “Amazon Prime is an economy-distorting lie,” writes Matt Sollar, detailing the antitrust case from DC that implies Prime inflates prices everywhere, because Amazon has a do-not-compete contract. It’s not too different from how retail has always worked, but it’s the Prime membership basis that has wider implications (Big).

📶 Also: Amazon Sidewalk beinds — Amazon devices will soon automatically share your Internet with neighbors, to try and make an Amazon-delivered wireless mesh network. Problem is, it’s opt-out, not opt-in, and most people won’t have any idea. US-only, for now (Ars Technica).

🍎 Apple’s M1 chip has a fascinating flaw — it’s complex, and it’s small, but it’s there (Wired).

🔴 Cloud on Mars: Curiosity rover offers a rare glimpse of cloudy days, and might even be dry ice clouds (NASA).

🌑 Japan will send a transforming robot ball to the Moon, with Sony, Doshisha University and toymaker Tomy involved (Engadget).

🤳 Vilnius, Lithuania built a super cool “portal” to another city to help keep people connected (The Verge).

🌶️ “Does food that’s got ‘heat’ but isn’t from the genus capsicum (ie chillies), such as pepper, wasabi, ginger, mustard, etc have capsaicin in it or some other chemical that gives it ‘heat’?” (r/askscience).

⚔ “If all statues on Earth came to life and became hostile, which one would be the deadliest/scariest and be the most difficult to destroy?” (r/askreddit).

🤔 “What is something that you actually remember being new technology, but is now obsolete?” (r/askreddit).

Friends reunion meme makes Matt LeBlanc everyone’s favorite Irish uncle, writes CNET, picking up on an Irish Twitter meme that had me chortling for some reason.

• Basically, the big teddy bear vibe given from the now 53-year-old Matt LeBlanc (Joey Tribbiani), at times, felt a bit like everyone’s favorite Irish uncle.
• That delightful observation spiralled:

Cheers,

Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor