Weekly recap

Weekly Tech Recap - № 241 - Mac Pro, Connected Home over IP, Ikea buttons, Xbox Series X and Typhoon Studios

By Laurent Gloaguen,

December 20, 2019.

Inside the Mac Pro

Mac Pro 2019 Teardown. iFixit, Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.

After a complete teardown, iFixit gave the new Mac Pro a 9 out of 10 for repairability, which is unheard-of from them for an Apple product. Apple’s latest phone got a mediocre 6 out of 10, while its last few laptops did even worse, including a paltry 1 out of 10 for the 16-inch MacBook Pro 2019. Despite many positive comments, the Mac Pro still has room to improve: iFixit points out that the modular SSD is bound to the T2 security chip, ruling out user replacements. As a side note, in a nod to the many jokes on the Mac Pro’s appearance, the iFixit team did try to grate cheese on the aluminium casing, coming to the unsurprising conclusion that the machine did not make a good cheese grater. Coming back to the machine’s insides, Youtuber Quinn Nelson (Snazzy Labs) produced a cool video of his complete teardown of the MacBrook Pro, showing all the ingenious and unusual ideas at work under the hood.

⇨ YouTube, “2019 Mac Pro Teardown - An Almost Perfect Machine 9 out of 10.”

⇨ YouTube, “What's Inside the 2019 Mac Pro? Complete Disassembly and Analysis.”

⇨ iFixit, “Mac Pro 2019 Teardown.”

⇨ Circuit Breaker, Jon Porter, “Apple’s new Mac Pro is its most repairable device in years.”

New standard for home automation

Apple, Google, Amazon and the Zigbee alliance have teamed up to create a working group whose mission is to develop a new standard for automating smart homes. The future standard, called “Connected Home over IP”, or CHIP for short, will make it simpler for builders to develop their products and ensure compatibility for consumers. Zigbee’s involvement in this project guarantees the participation of its many members, including Ikea, Legrand, Schneider Electric, Signify, Somfy, and others. This means that many different smart home appliances will be able to communicate with one another seamlessly. CHIP is a standard that is easy to adopt (open source, royalty-free) for many networked technologies, including Wi-Fi, Thread and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). It will guarantee end-to-end data security. The CHIP working group plans on releasing a draft specification at the end of 2020.

⇨ Google Developers, Ron Amadeo, “Project Connected Home over IP.”

⇨ Ars Technica, Ron Amadeo, “Apple, Google, and Amazon create “CHIP,” a new smart home standard.”

Ikea to enhance its smart home offering

Boutons Ikea. © Becca Farsace, The Verge.

If you’ve ever tried Ikea’s Trådfri line of products, you already know how frustrating this offering can be. Ikea told The Verge that the issues bedeviling the line will soon be a thing of the past, thanks to an overhaul of the underlying software platform. Indeed, the Swedish group plans on smartening up its smart home offering. Ikea also unveiled some truly smart shortcut buttons, priced at USD7, that trigger pre-programmed scenes involving several different devices. Which can be awfully practical if you don’t always carry your phone in your hand, or if you’re expecting guests. For example, you could set up a “Good-night” button next to your bed to turn off all the lights and the music in your home, without having to shout instructions or launch an application.

⇨ YouTube, “Inside Ikea’s big bet on smart home tech.”

⇨ The Verge, Thomas Ricker, “Ikea previews its improved 2020 smart home experience.”

Xbox Series X

Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox Series X will be unveiled ahead of the E3 Expo, which will take place in Los Angeles starting on June 9, 2020. Xbox Series X is the new, official name of the Xbox Scarlett. This powerful console will have a resolution of 4K at 60 fps, ramping up to 8K or 120 fps. Microsoft also indicated that the console will provide hardware-accelerated ray tracing and unmatched performance. Also, a new, patented technology, called VRS (Variable Rate Shading), will allow developers to optimize next-generation GPU and SSD use, which should end loading delays and allow players to enter their gaming universe faster than ever. According to one of its developers, the Series X should be at least eight times more powerful than the Xbox One. We can’t wait to see for ourselves!

⇨ Eurogamer, Richard Leadbetter, “Xbox Series X rewrites the rules of console design - and the power level should be extraordinary.”

Google acquires Typhoon Studio

Typhoon game development studio was founded in Montreal in early 2018 by Ubisoft’s former creative director for Far Cry 4 and two former employees of Warner Brothers Games Montreal who worked on Batman: Arkham. Recently, Typhoon was acquired by Stadia, Google’s cloud gaming division launched last November. For the past two years, Typhoon has been working on Journey to the Savage Planet, an exploration game set in a science-fiction universe, which should come out on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC by the end of January 2020. The cost of the transaction hasn’t been divulged. The studio will be led by Sebastien Puel, another Ubisoft veteran, who is general manager of the Stadia studio in Montreal. The goal of the acquisition is, of course, to increase this platform’s exclusive content. Jade Raymond, vice-president of Google and director of Stadia Games, said: “We’re super-excited to be able to be working with this crew because they’re a team that has done amazing work on amazing games. They worked on everything from Batman to Assassin’s Creed.” The acquisition also signals Google’s ambition of becoming a major player in Montreal’s gaming industry.

⇨ VentureBeat, Dean Takahashi, “Google buys triple-A game dev Typhoon Studio to beef up Stadia.”