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Adobe Photoshop Elements 15 Comes To The Windows Store

Adobe Photoshop Elements 15 Comes To The Windows Store

The Windows Store is Microsoft’s big bet, combining software purchases, updates, and installs into a single place. Although it continues to grow, it still doesn’t offer anywhere near the number of big name apps as iOS or Android. Windows s…

Samsung Acquires Quantum Dot Tech Company QD Vision

Samsung Acquires Quantum Dot Tech Company QD Vision

Earlier this week Samsung confirmed that they have acquired QD Vision, the US-based provider of quantum dot technology for consumer displays. According to sources cited by SamMobile, the deal was confirmed ahead of its official announcement next week by Jung Chil-hee, the head of Samsung’s Advanced Institute of Technology.

No details about the price of the acquisition are available yet, but from an observer’s point of view it makes sense that Samsung would want to acquire companies working in the field of quantum dots. Samsung has been heavily pushing quantum dots in their newest televisions in order to increase their color gamut without having to make use of backlights with multi-color LEDs. With Ultra HD content being mastered in the DCI-P3 or Rec. 2020 color spaces, this has become a necessary feature in high end televisions and monitors for content creation.

QD Vision’s technology works in a different manner from the technology Samsung currently uses in their televisions. In order to support HDR, televisions need to use full array backlighting so regions can be dimmed locally, and employing quantum dots in this situation requires a film layer between the backlight and the LCD array, which can be quite costly for larger displays. QD Vision’s technology works with edge-lit displays and places tubes of quantum dots between the LEDs and the guide plate that distributes light across the display. I took a look at a monitor that uses QD Vision’s technology earlier this year. It’s not clear where Samsung plans to utilize QD Vision’s technology, but the technology could play a big role in bringing wide color gamuts to lower cost displays, and QD Vision’s technology and patents related to quantum dots would also have value to Samsung for further development of the technology in general.

Samsung Acquires Quantum Dot Tech Company QD Vision

Samsung Acquires Quantum Dot Tech Company QD Vision

Earlier this week Samsung confirmed that they have acquired QD Vision, the US-based provider of quantum dot technology for consumer displays. According to sources cited by SamMobile, the deal was confirmed ahead of its official announcement next week by Jung Chil-hee, the head of Samsung’s Advanced Institute of Technology.

No details about the price of the acquisition are available yet, but from an observer’s point of view it makes sense that Samsung would want to acquire companies working in the field of quantum dots. Samsung has been heavily pushing quantum dots in their newest televisions in order to increase their color gamut without having to make use of backlights with multi-color LEDs. With Ultra HD content being mastered in the DCI-P3 or Rec. 2020 color spaces, this has become a necessary feature in high end televisions and monitors for content creation.

QD Vision’s technology works in a different manner from the technology Samsung currently uses in their televisions. In order to support HDR, televisions need to use full array backlighting so regions can be dimmed locally, and employing quantum dots in this situation requires a film layer between the backlight and the LCD array, which can be quite costly for larger displays. QD Vision’s technology works with edge-lit displays and places tubes of quantum dots between the LEDs and the guide plate that distributes light across the display. I took a look at a monitor that uses QD Vision’s technology earlier this year. It’s not clear where Samsung plans to utilize QD Vision’s technology, but the technology could play a big role in bringing wide color gamuts to lower cost displays, and QD Vision’s technology and patents related to quantum dots would also have value to Samsung for further development of the technology in general.

MSI Adds Low-Profile GeForce GTX 1050 Ti to Lineup

MSI Adds Low-Profile GeForce GTX 1050 Ti to Lineup

MSI has quietly added a new low-profile graphics card into their lineup. The adapter is based on NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU featuring the latest Pascal architecture and carries 4 GB of GDDR5 memory. The card will replace those powered by NVIDIA’s first-generation Maxwell graphics processors in MSI’s lineup and will be among the most affordable gaming-grade graphics boards on the market. The card does not require auxiliary power and is compatible with a wide range of PCs. The drive is still dual slot width, however.

The MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GT LP is based on the GP107 GPU (768 stream processors, 48 texture units, 32 raster operations pipelines, 128-bit memory bus) clocked at 1.29/1.39 GHz (base/boost) and carries 4 GB of GDDR5 memory at 7 Gbps. The board has DL-DVI, HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 outputs with HDCP 2.2 support, which is required for Ultra HD Blu-ray playback. Tthe card comes with a dual-slot cooling system featuring two fans.

The low-profile GeForce GTX 1050 Ti consumes up to 75 W of power, and as a result it does not require any auxiliary power connectors –  something important when upgrading low-end PCs from large OEM brands that sometimes do not have any spare connectors left. The lack of power connectors will allow the video card to replace the GeForce GTX 750-series and the GeForce GTX 950 75W series adapters with similar power consumption.

Nowadays it is not easy to find a low-profile graphics card with reasonable performance and a good feature-set. NVIDIA’s GP107 GPU is based on the company’s latest Pascal architecture and thus supports DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs as well as has an advanced media playback engine that supports hardware-accelerated decoding and encoding of H.265 (HEVC) video. Therefore, MSI’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GT LP graphics card is an interesting product compatible with slim and outdated desktops and HTPCs. As an added bonus, MSI claims that it uses MIL-STD-810G certified components to ensure a long lifespan for the board.

MSI did not announce the price of the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GT LP, but it is unlikely that it is going to cost significantly higher than $139 recommended by NVIDIA.

Related Reading:

MSI Adds Low-Profile GeForce GTX 1050 Ti to Lineup

MSI Adds Low-Profile GeForce GTX 1050 Ti to Lineup

MSI has quietly added a new low-profile graphics card into their lineup. The adapter is based on NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU featuring the latest Pascal architecture and carries 4 GB of GDDR5 memory. The card will replace those powered by NVIDIA’s first-generation Maxwell graphics processors in MSI’s lineup and will be among the most affordable gaming-grade graphics boards on the market. The card does not require auxiliary power and is compatible with a wide range of PCs. The drive is still dual slot width, however.

The MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GT LP is based on the GP107 GPU (768 stream processors, 48 texture units, 32 raster operations pipelines, 128-bit memory bus) clocked at 1.29/1.39 GHz (base/boost) and carries 4 GB of GDDR5 memory at 7 Gbps. The board has DL-DVI, HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 outputs with HDCP 2.2 support, which is required for Ultra HD Blu-ray playback. Tthe card comes with a dual-slot cooling system featuring two fans.

The low-profile GeForce GTX 1050 Ti consumes up to 75 W of power, and as a result it does not require any auxiliary power connectors –  something important when upgrading low-end PCs from large OEM brands that sometimes do not have any spare connectors left. The lack of power connectors will allow the video card to replace the GeForce GTX 750-series and the GeForce GTX 950 75W series adapters with similar power consumption.

Nowadays it is not easy to find a low-profile graphics card with reasonable performance and a good feature-set. NVIDIA’s GP107 GPU is based on the company’s latest Pascal architecture and thus supports DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs as well as has an advanced media playback engine that supports hardware-accelerated decoding and encoding of H.265 (HEVC) video. Therefore, MSI’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GT LP graphics card is an interesting product compatible with slim and outdated desktops and HTPCs. As an added bonus, MSI claims that it uses MIL-STD-810G certified components to ensure a long lifespan for the board.

MSI did not announce the price of the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GT LP, but it is unlikely that it is going to cost significantly higher than $139 recommended by NVIDIA.

Related Reading: