OnePlus is reportedly preparing to launch the OnePlus Ace 5 and Ace 5 Pro in China by the end of this year or early next year. A new leak coming out of the company’s home country suggests that both phones and their succeeding OnePlus Ace 6 series smartphones will feature larger batteries than previous Ace series handsets. The rumoured OnePlus Ace 5 is likely to boast a 6,300mAh battery while the OnePlus Ace 5 Pro could carry a 6,500mAh battery.

Alleged Specifications of the OnePlus Ace 5, OnePlus Ace 6 Series Have Appeared Online

Tipster Digital Chat Station on Weibo has suggested the battery details of the unannounced OnePlus Ace 5 series and OnePlus Ace 6 series. As per the tipster, OnePlus’s mid-range smartphone will come with a 6,850mAh battery or a 7,000mAh single-cell battery. A mid-range handset with a lightweight design is said to pack a 5,640mAh or 5,750mAh battery. Three more devices with 100W wired fast charge support are said to feature 6,500mAh, 6,300mAh, and 6,150mAh batteries.

The tipster has not explicitly mentioned the names of upcoming OnePlus phones and their battery units. But citing the leak, a TheTechOutlook report speculates that the OnePlus Ace 5 and Ace 5 Pro will pack 6,300mAh and 6,500mAh cells, respectively. The OnePlus Ace 5V is rumoured to house a 6,150mAh battery.

Either the OnePlus Ace 6 or OnePlus Ace 6 Pro will get a 7,000mAh battery. OnePlus is likely to pack a 5,750mAh battery on the OnePlus Ace 6V.

OnePlus is not expected to launch the Ace 6 series until December 2025, therefore, it is recommended to take these details with a grain of salt.

The OnePlus Ace 5 series could go official by the end of this year or early next year. It is said to sport a BOE’s 6.78-inch X2 8T LTPO 2D display with 1.5K resolution and could run on Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset alongside up to 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and up to 512GB UFS 4.0 storage.

Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 may launch globally by the end of this year. The laptop, part of the South Korean technology conglomerate’s Galaxy Book 5 lineup, has reportedly been spotted on a certification database, confirming its existence ahead of the official reveal. Furthermore, it is also speculated to be powered by an Intel Lunar Lake CPU with an octa-core configuration and a decent amount of RAM under the hood, according to claims by a tipster.

Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 Specifications (Expected)

According to a 91Mobiles report, the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 was spotted on the Bluetooth SIG certification website, confirming its compatibility with other Bluetooth-enabled devices. As many as five variants of the laptop were discovered in the database: NT960QHA, NT960QHZ, NT9610HA, NP960QHA, and NP964QHA, with each of them featuring “Note PC” in the description. The aforementioned models may have varied configurations or could be intended for different markets.

The laptop’s configurations were leaked earlier on social media. In a March-dated post on X (formerly Twitter), tipster @momomo_us also shared several details about the purported laptop from a listing on SiSoftware – a benchmarking and diagnostic tool. It is tipped to be powered by an octa-core Intel Lunar Lake CPU with a peak clock speed of 2.8GHz and a base clock speed of 1.6GHz.

Notably, Lunar Lake chips are expected to be launched by Intel in the third quarter of 2024, succeeding the current generation Meteor Lake SoCs. These chipsets said to be equipped with new CPU cores and a new Intel Xe2 GPU architecture capable of over 60 tera operations per second (TOPS), and an enhanced NPU with support for over 45 TOPS.

The particular model, numbered NT940XGK, may also come with 16GB RAM, Intel Arc iGPU with 7GB VRAM and 1TB SSD storage.

Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 Launch Date (Expected)

Samsung launched its Galaxy Book 4 series in December 2023. If this trend continues, the tech giant could take the wraps off its latest laptop lineup in December 2024.

Google has revealed notable scientific breakthroughs made this year that were possible due to advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) technology. On Monday, Google DeepMind co-hosted the inaugural edition of the AI for Science Forum in London alongside the Royal Society. During the event, the Mountain View-based tech giant recapped achievements such as using an AI model to predict protein structures, expanding its flood forecasting system, and wildfire detection and tracking system. DeepMind was also able to build a system that is capable of controlling plasma with a nuclear fusion reactor.

Google Outlines Its Major Scientific Breakthroughs in 2024

The tech giant stated that AI has played a key role in the ongoing year in solving many confounding problems in science using its computational techniques. The company also emphasised that AI is not a replacement for scientists but can become a crucial assistant for them.

One of the biggest achievements of Google DeepMind was when the AI research wing of the tech giant used its AlphaFold 2 AI model to predict structures of 200 million proteins. The company highlighted that this discovery pushed the scientific community decades ahead as the determination of the 3D structure of a single protein can take up to a year. Notably, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, the individuals behind the project were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 for this discovery.

Google also partnered with Lichtman Lab at Harvard to map a piece of the human brain of an unprecedented level of detail. This project was released this year and revealed structures within the human brain that were previously unseen.

In 2024, AI also helped Google improve its prediction and tracking systems. The company’s riverine flood forecasting system was expanded at scale in 2024 and now covers 100 countries and 700 million people globally. The tech giant also partnered with the US Forest Service to develop the FireSat AI model that can detect and track wildfires as small as the size of a classroom within 20 minutes.

GraphCast, a machine learning research model developed by Google DeepMind, can now predict the tracks of cyclones. The company claims it can predict such weather-based disturbances faster and more accurately compared to traditional weather simulation systems.

Advances were also made in mathematical reasoning and quantum computing. DeepMind’s AlphaGeometry AI system, which was launched in 2024, solved complex geometry problems at a level similar to a human Olympiad gold medallist. Google researchers also worked with UC Berkeley and Columbia University to perform chemical simulations on a quantum computer to predict chemical reactivity and kinetics.

Looking towards sustainable energy, the tech giant announced the Graph Networks for Materials Exploration (GNoME) which discovered 3,80,000 materials that are stable at low temperatures, opening new avenues to make better solar cells, batteries, and potential superconductors.

The tech giant also made breakthroughs in nuclear fusion, which is considered the energy of the future. Collaborating with the Swiss Plasma Center at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Google DeepMind announced the development of an AI system that can control the plasma inside a nuclear fusion reactor without any manual assistance. This is still a work in progress, but the company said it is a critical step towards stable fusion and abundant clean energy.

Microsoft had announced in February that it would bring four of its exclusive Xbox titles to rival platforms from Sony and Nintendo. It seems the company is not stopping with its four first-party games coming to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. A new report claims that the Xbox parent intends to make a multi-platform push for more of its games. Under the plan, internally codenamed “Latitude,” more upcoming first-party Xbox titles are said to be in development for the PS5.

The Windows Central report didn’t name any Xbox titles planned for a PS5 release, but it claimed the titles were “potentially obvious games” that one would expect to release on rival platforms. “More upcoming Microsoft-owned games slated for PlayStation are already being developed,” the report said.

While announcing its plan to release some of its exclusive titles on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch in February, Microsoft had sought to draw a line, confirming that its biggest exclusive titles like Bethesda’s Starfield and the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would not release on PS5. The new report, however, said that Microsoft was ready to consider a more unrestricted approach towards launching its games on rival platforms. “… Microsoft is pushing for no “red line” for what games could come to PlayStation, and it all revolves around Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood’s mandate to increase every department’s margins,” the report claimed.

Even as the company is working on plans to bring more games to Sony and Nintendo consoles, “Latitude” isn’t without internal contention. The report said that the plan has sparked debate and unease at Microsoft, with looming questions over its merits.

As part of its announcement early this year, Microsoft has already released Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Grounded and Sea of Thieves on rival consoles, indicating a shift in its strategy towards exclusivity. Announcing more upcoming games for PS5 and Nintendo Switch would cement that shift towards finding new players for its games beyond its own Xbox ecosystem.

Microsoft’s gaming division added considerable muscle last year with the $69 billion acquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard, but Xbox has struggled to see the fruits of its expanding roster of studios. Last week, the company announced it was shutting down three of its studios and absorbing another one into an existing team as part of its plan to shift focus on to its “priority games.” Hi-Fi Rush maker Tango Gameworks, Redfall developer Arkane Austin and Alpha Dog Games, makers of the mobile game Mighty Doom, were closed, while Roundhouse Studios, which also contributed to Redfall development, was absorbed by ZeniMax Online Studios.

Following the shutdowns, a report from Bloomberg claimed that Microsoft was planning more cuts at Xbox and the company had begun offering voluntary severance agreements to producers, quality assurance testers and other staff at Bethesda parent ZeniMax.

Microsoft is yet to make an official statement on the studio closures and reported cuts, but the company is set to hold an Xbox Games Showcase event on June 9, where it will reveal its upcoming lineup of exclusive and third-party titles.

Google Weather app for Pixel devices has rolled out a new feature which makes checking the weather a more immersive experience, according to a report. Google released the Weather app with the Pixel 9 lineup in August at its annual Made by Google event. The new feature, called “Immersive weather vibrations”, is reportedly showing up for users as part of the app’s latest update. It is said to offer unique vibration patterns based on the weather conditions, in addition to more immersive aspects.

Immersive Weather Vibrations in Weather App

According to an Android Authority report, the new immersive weather vibrations feature was discovered in the Weather app version 1.0.20240910.678970266.release. It is said to be a server-side update and appears as an option in the right-aligned panel below the AI weather report feature.

Immersive weather vibrations on the Weather app will reportedly enable the Pixel smartphone to vibrate along with the weather animations, when available. It is speculated to be available for a wide range of weather conditions such as heavy rain, snow, thunderstorms, drizzle, and scattered showers. Along with animations, a sound effect will also be played, the report adds.

Gadgets 360 staff members were unable to verify its availability on the current Weather app. However, the feature is expected to be rolled out gradually to Pixel users, thus might take some time for it to be visible to all users.

Weather App to Older Pixel Phones

A recent report suggests that the Weather app, which is currently exclusive to the Pixel 9 series, will soon be available on older devices too. This includes all models in the Pixel 6, Pixel 7, and Pixel 8 series, as well as the Pixel A series phones including Pixel 6a, Pixel 7a, Pixel 8a, and Google Pixel Tablet.

Qualcomm held its Snapdragon India event last month, where it showcased its Snapdragon X series chipsets, which power the Copilot+ PCs across various manufacturers. The company also unveiled the Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 mobile platform aimed at providing 5G connectivity in budget smartphones. Both of these announcements were interesting as they highlighted the chipmaker’s ambition to capture newer markets. In the AI PC space, the company is a new entrant trying to disrupt the market with its focus on high performance and power optimisation.

Similarly, in the mobile platform space, the company announced its partnership with Xiaomi, which will launch new budget smartphones with the Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 chipset later this year.

While the upsides are noteworthy, there are concerns as well. For instance, Intel has already announced its Lunar Lake chipset, which is claimed to offer up to 67 trillion operations per second (TOPS). The chipset is expected to be launched in September and will outperform the Snapdragon X Elite SoC if the claims are to be believed. On the other hand, while the company has introduced a 5G chipset for the budget segment, the chipset does not offer significantly higher specifications compared to the 4 Gen 2 SoC.

However, looking at the crude numbers of the specifications does not tell us the full story. To delve deeper into the chipmaker’s new launches and understand the vision behind them, Gadgets 360 spoke with Mike Roberts, Vice President & Global Head, Product, Partner and Technology Marketing at Qualcomm. During the conversation, we discussed the company’s vision in the AI Space, the process of creating its first-ever PC chips, its strategy to stay ahead of rivals, as well as the decision to build a new 5G-enabled mobile platform for the budget smartphone segment.

Qualcomm’s Entry to the PC Space

Consumer tech space is quite difficult to break into. Every year, new brands arrive, but barely a few can leave a mark. In many scenarios, even an established brand struggles to diversify its portfolio. Microsoft struggled with getting consumer approval for Windows Phones, Google with Google Glass, and Apple is currently struggling with its Vision Pro headsets.

In such an environment, how does a company known for its mobile processors not only enter the PC processor segment but also offer significant performance boosts and power efficiency compared to what the existing players were offering?

“This does not happen overnight. It was years and years of planning,” explained Roberts. He added, “We started back at Snapdragon Summit last year in October when we really began talking about the Qualcomm Oryon CPU. It is a custom CPU from us, built from the ground up. And it was a very critical component for us because like it or not, the PC market is very CPU-based. We wanted to make a product that was exciting for Windows users so they would not look over at the Mac aisle and wish they had their performance or battery life.”

But the CPU was just one part of the entire chipset fabrication process. More important was the neural processing unit (NPU), a processing architecture which is relatively new in the consumer PC space.

“NPUs are not new to us, but taking that and applying it to the PC architecture and combining that with the new use cases that cater to the Gen AI. The entire process was very hard. In technology, you need to have a crystal ball. Sometimes, all the stars align. In this case, our technology stack and Microsoft leaning into the idea of on-device AI processing, aligned together to make this happen,” Roberts told Gadgets 360.

He also attributed the success to the original equipment manufacturers such as Dell, HP, and others. Notably, the Snapdragon X series chipset was launched with configuration and optimisation for seven different OEMs across 20 different SKUs, which could be tricky for a chipmaker developing its first-ever PC SoC. “This was a huge testament to what we were collectively able to do. It was an entire ecosystem effort,” said Roberts.

Intel’s Challenge to the Throne

While it is true that currently, only Qualcomm’s chips satisfy the criteria of a laptop to be called Copilot+ PC as it is the only processor to offer more than 40 TOPS, it might not be the case for long. Both Intel and AMD are already preparing the launch of their processor with dedicated NPUs, and if claims are to be believed, these chipsets might significantly outperform Qualcomm’s offerings.

Intel has claimed that the Lunar Lake chipset, which is expected to arrive in consumer laptops starting in September, will feature NPUs that can offer 67 TOPS, and collectively, the Lunar Lake chip will offer 120 TOPS. This could lead to machines being significantly more powerful than the Snapdragon X Elite-powered AI PCs. So, is Qualcomm concerned?

Defending the claims of 120 TOPS, Roberts explained, “In some ways, when you throw specs out there, it can work for you, or it can work against you. Intel came out and said it is over 100 TOPS, but that’s all of its platform. So I take the tops from CPU, GPU and NPU which equals over 100. I think any spec can be twisted to what you want it to be.” The Snapdragon X Elite chipset offers 45 TOPS on just the NPU.

Even so, Intel’s claims of offering 67 TOPS on the NPU is no small feat. However, Roberts has a different take on the matter. “I think our key advantage is performance per watt. Performance is great, but if my battery life stinks, nobody’s going to want to use it. And to me, that’s core to who we are being a mobile company. So, we have a sustainable advantage of ARM versus x86.”

The Challenges of Building for the PC Ecosystem

At a surface level, the fabrication process of a chipset is the same whether it is meant for a PC or a smartphone (especially since Qualcomm retained its ARM-based architecture). However, underneath that surface, the technicalities change vastly. The CPU has to perform heavier tasks, a dedicated GPU replaces the integrated GPU of smartphones, the thermal management is different, and so on.

Once this challenge is tackled, there still remains a bigger problem — the ecosystem. With multiple OEMs, optimising the chipset to their requirements is critical. Optimisation is also required at the operating system level, which increases the complication.

However, according to Roberts, cracking the PC space was not difficult at all. “The PC space is actually a bit simpler because of Microsoft. It is the only operating system. That’s it. In the phone space, it’s a bit more fragmented. Because even when it runs on Android, everyone has their skin. So it becomes a little bit more fragmented when working with each OEM to see what they are going for.”

The Logic Behind Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 Chipset

At the event, the company also took time to introduce a new 5G-enabled chipset for budget smartphones dubbed the Snapdragon 4s Gen 2, which is built on a 64-bit architecture featuring a Qualcomm Kryo CPU with eight cores: two performance and two efficiency. Fabricated on a 4nm process, it has a peak clock speed of 2.0 GHz.

However, the vision behind the chipset still raises some questions. The chipset is aimed at budget smartphones, yet it only works with standalone 5G towers. From India’s perspective, the majority of the telecom providers only offer 5G on non-standalone towers, which are essentially 4G towers repurposed to allow 5G connectivity. Reliance Jio is currently the only telecom company that has its own standalone 5G towers.

Addressing the decision to build support for only standalone 5G towers, Roberts said, “Standalone is more advanced than non-standalone because you don’t need the LTE network. Ultimately you have to shoot ahead of where the technology is going. And India is in a more advanced position compared to a lot of countries, since India launched 5G in 2021 and already has standalone towers. Jio is already commercial on standalone networks, and Airtel is going to join them soon. Eventually, if you wait till the entire ecosystem is there, you are going to be too late.”

While a budget mobile platform with 5G is great, all eyes are now awaiting Snapdragon’s October event, where the company is all set to introduce the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset, its next flagship-grade mobile platform.

On what can enthusiasts expect from the launch, Roberts said, “We’re going to launch the next generation of Snapdragon 8, which shouldn’t be a surprise to everyone. That’s what we do every single year. But we’re bringing what we’ve done on the CPU in the PC with Qualcomm Orion into the smartphone. You have to wait till October to see what we’re able to deliver.”

India has unveiled an ambitious plan to construct a moon-orbiting space station by 2040, aiming to establish a sustainable human presence beyond Earth’s orbit. The proposed station will facilitate crewed lunar missions and support scientific research, according to recent reports from Indian media. This initiative represents a significant milestone in the nation’s growing space exploration efforts.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has outlined a phased approach to achieve this goal. As per a report by India Today, in the first stage, robotic missions including the Chandrayaan-4 sample-return mission, are planned. This mission, scheduled for 2028, will attempt to retrieve approximately 3 kilograms of lunar samples from the moon’s south pole and bring them back to Earth. ISRO Chairman S. Somanath emphasised the focus on cost-effective methods for such missions.

Crewed Lunar Missions on the Horizon

The second phase of India’s lunar strategy involves sending astronauts to the moon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, following the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission in 2023, called for bold objectives, including a crewed moon flyby by 2035 and a human landing by 2040. To prepare for these missions, selected astronauts are undergoing extensive training at ISRO’s Bengaluru facility, having previously completed training in Russia.

Focus on Long-Term Lunar Presence

The final phase of this programme will culminate in the development of the moon-orbiting station, the reported added. Expected to be operational by 2040, the station will serve as a base for astronauts and a hub for scientific research. Plans also include constructing a permanent lunar base before 2050, the report further mentioned.

The initiative builds upon ISRO’s experience with the Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS), a low Earth orbit facility set to begin operations by 2035. S. Sivakumar, project director for ISRO’s next-generation launch vehicle, highlighted the challenges posed by this unprecedented undertaking, noting that many aspects of the project involve uncharted territory for the space agency.

India’s long-term lunar exploration goals reflect its determination to cement its position as a major player in global space exploration.