Tag: apple

Apple may be including Near Field Communication (NFC) tech in its next gen iPhone.

According to a recent report from BrightWire, a New York-based global investment newsier, it is likely that Apple will be adding NFC technology into its next generation iPhone.

Apple has partnered with China UnionPay to incorporate the bankcard firm’s services into Passbook.

The BrightWire report, which obtained information from a “source close to the matter”, revealed the deal that was made between the two companies would enable iPhone users to download the bankcard company’s application to Passbook, giving users the power to make NFC payments on more than 3 million of the bankcard’s “QuickPass” POS machines in China.

The sole domestic bankcard organization and interbank network in China, China UnionPay’s network connects ATMs across the country’s fourteen major banking institutions among others. Presently, China UnionPay is creating a payments system that is consistent with its People’s Bank of China (PBOC) QuickPass standard and is compatible with the iOS platform.

UnionPay and Apple will also work together on developing a mobile payments service separate from the NFC payment. According to the source, the other mobile payment solution from the two companies will be designed for purchasing products in Apple stores.

Apple filed for an NFC technology patent earlier this year.

Media reports from earlier this year have said that in January 2014, the company filed for a patent covering NFC technology with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Some people may find it surprising if Apple incorporates Near Field Communication technology into their iPhone 6, considering back in 2012, Phil Schiller, the company’s head of marketing, stated that NFC was not the clear solution to any current problem at the time.

Last month, Ming-Chi Kuo, KGI Securities’ analyst predicted Apple would incorporate several features into its next gen iPhone, including NFC chips. There has also been news that Apple is looking into developing a mobile payment solution that involves the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, a feature that already exists on the iPhone 5s and is rumored to be included in the iPhone 6, as well. Another speculation that was born after the company filed for a patent in September 2013 is Apple may combine NFC technology and its current fingerprint scanner into the home button.

Imagination Technologies shows off new PowerVR chipsets.

The semiconductor company has recently previewed its new Wizard series of ray tracing graphics processing units (GPUs), which could eventually result in extremely realistic mobile gaming graphics.

A demonstration video showed what ray tracing technology can do when combined with traditional raster graphics.

The demo of Imagination’s PowerVR ray tracing technology revealed game graphics that had lifelike light reflections and refractions, shadows with high resolution, and glass and plastic materials with realistic translucency. Furthermore, this technology not only produces true-to-life graphics, but it does it at amazing speeds.

“These are the features that ray tracing can improve in terms of mobile gaming,” said Alexandru Voica, the PR specialist at Imagination Technologies. He went on to say that “We’ve taken the Unity 5 game engine and then we did all the work that was required to add ray tracing inside the game engine.”

According to Imagination, greater performance advancements are likely to result from real-world implementations because the GPUs can be incorporated right into SoC (system on a chip) designs. The company’s goal is to implement this technology into the GPUs of consumers, sooner rather than later.

The innovative graphics technology is suitable for mobile gaming.

Ray tracing is a technique used to create an image generated by the computer where the paths of single rays of light are calculated according to the materials that are encountered in the setting. Its effects are particularly clear when viewing a scene that is made up of intricate reflections. This is what allows the technology to produce lifelike graphics.

This method is not new and has been utilized in computer graphics for a long time. However, whereas traditional ray tracing needs substantial processing power, Imagination’s technology is much faster and is being used in real-time applications like video games.

The new Wizard GPUs that have been developed by Imagination Technologies reduce the memory and power needed for real-time ray tracing, which allows it to work for mobile games. The first of its Wizard series GPUs has 128 ALU (arithmetic logic unit) cores and 4 unified shading clusters that deliver as many as 300 million rays every second.

Apple has established a multi-year licensing deal with Imagination Technologies, which provides Apple access to the semiconductor firm’s extensive range of present and upcoming video IP cores and PowerVR graphics. This could prove very beneficial to Apple’s mobile gaming future.