The Tech Weekender: Top news in the world of technology this week

Tesla’s Inaugural AI Day took place earlier this year with CEO Elon Musk’s ambitions to expand the automaker’s portfolio beyond electric vehicles. While the day was full of surprises, a few of them were quite noteworthy. The company revealed an in-house designed and manufactured Tesla computer chip to run its supercomputer Dojo. However, the humanoid robot was the biggest of the announcements. The robot is a prototype proposed for non-automotive use and is a testbed for the company's neural network and Dojo supercomputer.

India’s alternative to PUBG Mobile, Battlegrounds Mobile India was recently released for iOS users. BGMI recently showed up on the Apple App Store, nearly two months since its original launch. Additionally, Battlegrounds Mobile India surpassed 50 million downloads on the Google Play Store.

At Intel Architecture Day 2021, the semi-conductor manufacturer pulled the curtain back on its upcoming "Alder Lake" chips. Alder Lake will have both low-power and high-power x86 cores. Intel says that one of its efficiency cores has 40 percent more performance at the same power of a Skylake core (6th Gen), these double when put up against four of these running four threads with Skylake's two running four threads. Intel also announced its Arc GPU brand, which will encompass hardware and software powering Intel’s high-end discrete GPUs.

Activision and Sledgehammer Games officially announced the launch date for Call of Duty: Vanguard. The next game in the Call of Duty franchise will release on November 5. The Standard Edition of the game will be available for Rs 3,999 but is only for PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. If you own a PS5 or Xbox Series X | S you will need to buy the cross-gen bundle for Rs 4,999. The PC version of the game will sell for $60 (Rs Approx. Rs 4,460) for the standard edition or $100 (Approx. Rs 7,440).

Google launched the Pixel 5a under the radar this week. The Pixel 5A comes in a single 6GB + 128GB storage configuration. It is priced in the US at $449 (Roughly Rs 33,400) and comes in a single Mostly Black colour. The Pixel 5a features a Snapdragon 765G SoC, an FHD+ OLED display, a 4,680 mAh battery, a dual-camera setup, and an IP67 rating. While the Pixel 5a didn’t make its way to India, Google did launch the Pixel Buds A-series in India. The Pixel Buds A-series comes with a price tag of Rs 9,999.

Realme officially took the lid off the Realme GT and Realme GT Master Edition in India and across the globe. The Realme GT 5G features a starting price of Rs 37,999, while the Realme GT Master Edition starts from Rs 25,999. The Realme GT 5G is the company’s first Snapdragon 888 phone in India, while the Realme GT Master Edition opts for a Snapdragon 778G SoC. Realme also launched its first laptop in India in the form of the Realme Book (Slim), which brings a 2K display at a never-before-seen price.

Asus launched the ROG Phone 5s and ROG Phone 5s Pro this week. The Asus ROG Phone 5s and 5s Pro are powered by the Snapdragon 888+ SoC. Asus’ latest gaming phones also sport a 6.78-inch FHD+ E4 AMOLED panel. The screen has a 144Hz refresh rate and a 1ms response time. The native touch sampling rate has also been bumped up to 360Hz. The phones pack a 6,000 mAh battery with 65W fast-charging support.

The iQOO 8 series was officially revealed in China. The iQOO 8 is powered by the Snapdragon 888 SoC, while the iQOO 8 Pro uses the latest Snapdragon 888+ chipset. The iQOO 8 gets an FHD+ 120Hz AMOLED display, while the iQOO 8 Pro gets a 2K 120Hz AMOLED screen. The phones also support 120W fast-charging, while the Pro counterpart also gets 50W wireless charging. The iQOO 8 series also gets a triple-camera setup on the back. The iQOO 8 features a starting price of CNY 3,799 (Roughly Rs 43,600), while the iQOO 8 Pro starts from CNY 4,999 (Roughly Rs 57,300).

Motorola unveiled three phones in its Edge series this week. The Motorola Edge 20 and Edge 20 Fusion made their way to India, while the Motorola Edge 2021 was revealed in the US. The Motorola Edge 20 Fusion and Edge 2021 are more or less the same phones, but the latter uses a Snapdragon 778G SoC, while the former opts for a MediaTek Dimensity 800U SoC. All three devices have high-refresh-rate displays and get a 108 MP triple-camera setup on the back.