HEIF - The New JPEG! No more Storage Problem.

HEIF-The new IPhone standard. No More Storage Problem!

JPEG is an old image file format that has been around since the 80s, more than a quarter of a century ago. That’s a very long time in the technology world. One of the reasons why it’s still widely used today is simply because there’s nothing better to replace it. Yet.

JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, and it’s a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality.

The format was created to utilize the processing power of the computer available back then. And even though it has evolved to keep up with the pace of technology growth, JPEG has shown its age and can’t fit the needs of today’s users and fully utilize the current technological advances available....

Introducing HEVC and HEIF  two new camera formats that are included in iOS 11. In using the new camera formats, Apple estimates users will be able to save up to 50% on storage needs, without any loss in image quality. This becomes the perfect solution for users on lower capacity devices, that still want to take advantage of the iPhone’s great camera..
For the past few years, camera videos on iOS have been using h.264 video compression and camera photos have been regulated to JPG. As the camera improves every year, and storage capacity needs increase, and Apple pushed towards a solution with compression and quality in mind.

It should be noted that neither of these new camera formats were originally built by Apple. HEIF is a relatively new system with technical specifications having been finalized in 2015, and HEVC being around for about as long. Apple is adopting HEVC and HEIF to tap into their strengths on their own systems.
By bringing in these new camera formats, Apple can continue to improve photo and video quality, while needing nearly half of the storage. That means savings not only in photos and videos taken in the camera app, but bandwidth from live streaming services too.


Basically, you’ll save 50% on storage when taking photos and videos using the iOS 11 camera app.

If you’re currently running iOS 11 beta 1, you can verify this by switching between the High Efficiency and Most Compatible formats under iOS Settings → Camera → Formats. Under the High Efficiency format, images will be saved as HEIC and movies as an HEVC .mov file. Under Most Compatible, images will be saved as JPGs and movies as an h.264 .mov file .

Water Cooling.???.... EXPLAINED......

Whether you're using a desktop or laptop computer, there's a good chance that if you stop what you're doing and listen carefully, you'll hear the whirring of a small fan. If your computer has a high-end video card and lots of processing power, you might even hear more than one.

In most computers, fans do a pretty good job of keeping electronic components cool. But for people who want to use high-end hardware or coax their PCs into running faster, a fan might not have enough power for the job. If a computer generates too much heat, liquid cooling, also known as water cooling, can be a better solution. It might seem a little counterintuitive to put liquids near delicate electronic equipment, but cooling with water is far more efficient than cooling with air.

So what is water cooling? How does it compare to air cooling? Is it even necessary?

The hotter your processor, the worse it performs--modern CPUs will clock themselves down and finally shut off before they damage themselves, but in the old days it was easy to fry your CPU by running too hot. You can increase the performance of your CPU (and your RAM, and your GPU) by overclocking and overvolting, but that requires more energy, and thus puts out more heat. Basically: the better you cool your components, the better they'll perform and the longer they'll last.

In a liquid cooler, liquid flows through channels carved directly into the top of the heat sink, and is pumped away from the CPU toward a radiator (which actually cools via convection). The radiator has a fan (or several fans) that constantly blow over its fins, heating the air and cooling the fins. The fins cool the radiator, which cools the water, which is constantly circulating through the loop and keeping the CPU cool. Whew.
Rather than having a two pound cube of metal fins hanging from your motherboard, you just have a small water block and some tubes leading elsewhere.

It involves a constantly circulating supply of liquid to keep the CPU cool, rather than just a hunk of metal, a closed-loop liquid cooling system is more complicated than an air cooler. A liquid cooling loop needs a water block,  a pump, a radiator, fans, a reservoir for additional liquid, and the tubes and fittings to connect all of these parts together.

ARM Cortex A75, Cortex A55, Mali G72 Explained

ARM has taken the wraps off the next generation of its mobile CPU and GPU design. This includes the flagship Cortex-A75 CPU, which will replace the A73 and the Cortex-A55, which will replace the A53. There will also be a new GPU, the Mali-G72.

Cortex-A75 and Cortex-A55 is the first processors launched on DynamIQ technology. Cortex-A75 delivers a substantial uplift for performance, with over 50% improvement in raw integer performance alone, and even greater gains for specialized workloads. The Cortex-A75 brings 22% additional performance over the A73 when compared at the same frequencies. It also has 33% higher FP and NEON performance and 16% higher memory throughput. In benchmarks, the A75 performs 48% better in Octane and 34% better in Geekbench. A75 is also more efficient than A73, which allows it to run at a higher clock speed while consuming the same amount of power. A75 has also been designed with notebooks in mind, such as Chromebooks and upcoming ARM based Windows machines, and can run at 2W power for even more performance...

A55 is the successor to the highly successful A53, which runs on 1.7 billion units worldwide. It is the highest performance mid-range CPU from ARM, with 2x more memory streaming performance and 14% higher Octane performance than A53. It has 18% higher single threaded performance than A53, 38% higher FP and NEON performance, and 20% higher Geekbench performance.Cortex-A55 provides the LITTLE to Cortex-A75’s big, with 2.5x the power efficiency of its predecessor, bringing performance to the edge across a variety of applications and performance points from IOT edge gateways to mainstream, everyday devices..

Both new CPU are the first from ARM to be based on the new DynamIQ technology. DynamIQ has been designed from the ground up for performing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tasks locally on the device instead of delegating them to the cloud.

ARM also announced the Mali-G72 GPU, which is the successor to the G71. G72 is built on the same Bifrost architecture as its predecessor and boasts of a 40% increase in performance over the G71. G72 also has 25% higher energy efficiency, 20% better performance density, and 17% better machine learning efficiency.

These new designs should start appearing in mobile devices by the end of this year.. 

Why Snapdragon 625 is Better option instead Of Snapdragon 650?

The Snapdragon 625 is an upgrade over from the deca-core MediaTek Helio X20 processor that is found in the Chinese variant.Intriguingly, Xiaomi also considers this to be an upgrade over the Snapdragon 650 which was found in the Redmi Note 3. However, many view this as a downgrade largely due to the fact that the Snapdragon 650 has twin ARM Cortex A72 cores which are faster than the A53 cores found on the 625.

Faster cores don’t always mean they are better... 

The Snapdragon 650 has a six-core setup which consists of two Cortex A72 cores clocked at 1.8GHz and four Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.4GHZ, effectively employing ARM's big.LITTLE technology to distribute performance efficiently.

Yet, since the Snapdragon 650 was built on a 28nm architecture without FinFET transistors, it resulted in using not only more space inside phones it powered, but also drained the battery faster especially when the powerful A72 cores were being used. This is because the 28nm process uses a 2D channel to channel power through the gates that results in leakage in power. This also results in the phone getting heated up faster.

The Snapdragon 625, on the other hand, uses two quad-core clusters of Cortex A53 with the power cluster clocking max speeds of 2.0GHz. Qualcomm achieves this by using Samsung/Global Foundry's 14nm FinFet assembly process leading to 35 per cent lesser power consumption over its previous generations. Also, the FinFet transistors uses 3D channel that protrudes out from the surface, with the gate wrapping around the channel from all three sides minimising the power leakage even when the cores are not in use. In that sense, the Snapdragon 625 is definitely the faster and cooler sibling of the two.

The 650 has indeed twin faster high performance cores, but due to the 28nm older manufacturing process and the lack of FinFet transistors, it will heat up faster and guzzle more battery. 

The 625 thanks to its 14nm FinFet architecture is more efficient. It can run at its top 2GHz clock speed for longer and without heating up. While doing so it will also not drain out the phone’s battery.

Even if we remove the conversation about peak performance, Snapdragon 625 has support for some newer technologies and features which weren’t in the 650 for various reasons.

For instance, the Snapdragon 650 uses Adreno 506 graphics cores clocked at 650MHz while the Snapdragon 650 uses Adreno 510 cores clocked at 550MHz. The 100MHz boost may not visible to the naked eye and it may not matter much. However, the Adreno 506 supports OpenGL ES 3.1 while the Adreno 510 on the Snapdragon 650 doesn’t support this. This shows up in raw graphics performance games like Dead Trigger 2, Modern Combat and the likes as the games are optimised of the for the OpenGL ES 3.1 API. The performance boost is significant with faster loading times and no drops in frame rates.

Moreover, the Snapdragon 625 comes with a faster block of LTE modem; the X9 as compared to X8 LTE modem found in the Snapdragon 650. There is a performance boost in uplink speed as a result, provided the network supports.
In addition, the Snapdragon 625 comes with dual ISP support to the tune of high-resolution 24-megapixels. This was first introduced in the Snapdragon 820 and was then ported over to the mid-range Snapdragon 625 as well as the Snapdragon 650. Although the Snapdragon 650 can only support sensors up to 21-megapixels. This allows mid-range phones to come with high-resolution dual-cameras. This is again something of a superiority that the 625 has over the 650. 


The only place where the Snapdragon 650 is superior is the support for quadHD screens as opposed to Snapdragon 625 which can only support fullHD panels..

The Snapdragon 650 also comes with Qualcomm's Voice Activation technology that enables users to call up voice-assistants when the screen is locked. Again, this is something that’s bit of unused feature as Xiaomi  don’t have a true voice assistant, they only have Google Now, that too not in its entirety as Mi UI 8 doesn’t support Google Now on Tap.

On the Snapdragon 625, this feature is absent, however, it comes with HD noise cancellation technology so the audio in general sounds much better. This feature makes more sense in the context of the Redmi Note 4 which will will result in clearer calls.

Otherwise, both processor comes with mostly similar feature sets with support for 4K Ultra HD video recording at 30fps and playback using HEVC and AVC codecs. Both have support for Qualcomm's Quick Charge 3.0 as well as its security support.