Hands on with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 reference device

It’s Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Technology Summit, and just as it does every year, the company announced its latest flagship mobile processor. It changed up its branding this year after maxing out with the Snapdragon 888 last year. Since 8 means premium, we’re getting the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. It follows in line with the branding we’ve already seen from Qualcomm’s laptop chips with the Snapdragon 8cx, 7c, and so on.

This year, the event is back to being held in person, and Qualcomm flew a bunch of journalists, analysts, and Snapdragon Insiders out to the Big Island of Hawaii. The format is a bit different this time though. In previous years, the day opened with a keynote and demos followed. This time around, we were invited to try out the demos before the keynote.

There were six different stations that were used to show off some of the chip’s power, ranging from minting NFTs to new camera features.

Disclaimer: Qualcomm sponsored my trip to Maui, Hawaii, to attend the Snapdragon Tech Summit. The company paid for my flight and hotel. However, they did not have any input regarding the content of this article.

Mint Trusted NFT

In this demo, an NFT was created by playing some notes on a keyboard, and then it was uploaded. With the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, you can get secure boot, so it can be validated that the NFT is unique. Without secure boot, you can still mint an NFT, but you can’t validate it as being a trusted NFT.

Cellular connection security

Next up is cellular connection security, and the idea is to make sure that you’re connected to a secure cellular network. Your phone is always looking for the best cell tower to use, so at any given moment, it could connect to something that’s infected with malware. This lets you know if you’re connected to a trusted network.

In the demo, they actually spoofed a text message from Bank of America, which included a link to a site that would try to get your credentials and also install a fake Bank of America APK. But it also showed that you can be alerted if you’re not on the trusted cellular network, and it can block those kinds of messages.

Panoramic view technology

This one is pretty cool. It’s not just a feature of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 ISP; Qualcomm actually put together the camera module for this. It’s a 140-degree panoramic lens, which is wider than the 120 degrees we see from the widest angle cameras. It lets you take panoramic photos in one shot, so there’s no more trying to stitch together separate images in sometimes-awkward places.

It saves as a 16MP image, but it records video too. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a feature in the demo unit, but it’s coming. I also asked about whether it could still use those wide-angle images to stitch together a really wide panorama photo, but there’s no verdict on that just yet.

This was one of my favorite demos, probably just because I like camera features. It’s also something that I could picture myself using in real life. A lot of the features that get demoed seem to improve the user experience in theory. They show features that can be applied to real-world applications, rather than actual real-world applications.

ArcSoft Video Bokeh

I don’t have to talk too much about video bokeh, because Qualcomm has been demoing it for a few years now. The bottom line is that it’s getting better. Using the AI Engine and depth information, it produces a more natural background blur effect. There are other big camera features coming with the new ISP, such as HDR support when capturing 8K video, but there was no demo of that. We’re going to be getting more camera demos though.

Hugging Face Question Answering

Hugging Face is a smaller company that specializes in Natural Language Processing (NLP), and this feature is pretty cool. However, it’s one of those things that’s more of a feature that can be used in the real world. Using AI, you can ask natural-language questions about text. You can see how much faster it is when using the AI Engine versus when it’s not.

Like all of these AI features, my first question was how I’d use this in real life. For example, if you have a big manual or a textbook that you want to search with a natural-language query, you can use it for that. If you have a manual for your car, you can ask how to change the breaks. If you’ve got hundreds of notifications, you can easily query those. Admittedly, this is one of those things that works in theory, and we’ll need to see if it’s actually implemented into something useful. For now, it’s just something that shows what the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 can do.

Real-time action recognition

The focus of this feature is once again AI. It’s basically adding frames to improve video or turn regular video into slow-motion video. For example, if you have a standard video at 30fps, you can’t really slow it down. Ideally, you want a minimum of 120fps for slow motion, but 240fps is way better. If you slow down 30fps video, it’s just choppy. With this feature, it adds the missing frames so that the slow-motion video is smooth.

Like I said earlier, most of these features were just shown as proof of concepts. After all, device manufacturers have to choose which features to include in their software and hardware, and even then, it’s up to them to figure out how these things can be practical. Other than some camera features, most demos end with, “Now imagine if…”

It’s all pretty cool though. Qualcomm is the leader in mobile processors for Android smartphones, and that doesn’t appear to be changing with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.

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Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is the flagship SoC of 2022 — Here’s what you need to know

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipsets are found in every segment of the Android world, powering millions of devices. This year marks a change in the naming strategy for the company, and not only is the Snapdragon brand now separate from “Qualcomm”, but the way the chipsets themselves are named has also changed. This year, the company has one chipset for smartphones that it’s debuting, and it’s not called the Snapdragon 895, nor is it called the Snapdragon 898. This is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.

Every year, Qualcomm loves to boast about its improvements in efficiency and performance, and this year is no different. With competition beginning to heat up between both Qualcomm and MediaTek (and a little bit on the side from Google and Samsung too), Qualcomm appears to be feeling the heat. This year’s chipset packs a ton of improvements over last year, with Qualcomm promising massive gains in artificial intelligence and in graphics rendering. Qualcomm says that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 shows changes “far in excess” of what the company has shown previously year-on-year.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Full Specifications

	Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (sm8450)
CPU	1x Kryo (ARM Cortex-X2-based) Prime core @ 2.995GHz 3x Kryo (ARM Cortex A710-based) Performance cores @ 2.5GHz 4x Kryo (ARM Cortex A510-based) Efficiency cores @ 1.79GHz ARM Cortex v9 20% faster performance 30% more power-efficient
GPU	New Adreno Vulkan 1.1 (60% faster Vulkan) Snapdragon Elite Gaming Adreno Frame Motion Engine Video playback: H.264 (AVC), H.265 (HEVC), VP8, VP9, 4K HDR10, HLG, HDR10+, Dolby Vision 30% faster graphics rendering 25% more power-efficient
Display	Maximum On-Device Display Support: 4K @ 60Hz/QHD+ @ 144Hz Maximum External Display Support: 4K @ 60Hz HDR support DisplayPort over USB Type-C support
AI	Hexagon DSP with Hexagon Vector eXtensions, Hexagon Tensor Accelerator, and Hexagon Scalar Accelerator 7th generation AI Engine 3rd generation Qualcomm Sensing Hub Always on Always secure Hugging Face Natural Language Processing Leica’s Leitz Look mode 400% faster AI performance 100% faster Tensor accelerator performance 70% more power-efficient
Memory	LPDDR5 @ 3200MHz, 16GB
ISP	Triple 18-bit Spectra 680 ISP Single camera: Up to 108MP with ZSL @ 30 FPS; Up to 200MP Dual camera: Up to 64+36MP with ZSL @ 30 FPS Triple camera: Up to 36 MP with ZSL @ 30 FPS Video capture: 8K HDR @ 30 fps; Slow motion up to 720p@960 fps; HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, Dolby Vision
Modem	Snapdragon X65 5G Modem Downlink: 10Gbps Modes: NSA, SA, TDD, FDD mmWave: 1000MHz bandwidth, 8 carriers, 2×2 MIMO sub-6 GHz: 300MHz bandwidth, 4×4 MIMO
Charging	Qualcomm Quick Charge 5
Connectivity	Location: Beidou, Galileo, GLONASS, GPS, QZSS, Dual Frequency GNSS support Wi-Fi: Qualcomm FastConnect 6900; Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 6; 2.4/5GHz/6GHz Bands; 20/40/80/160 MHz Channels; DBS (2×2 + 2×2), TWT, WPA3, 8×8 MU-MIMO Bluetooth: Version 5.2, aptX Voice, aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive, and LE audio
Manufacturing Process	4nm

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Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 CPU: New Kryo

ARM launched its ARMv9 architecture in March this year, which the company said is expected to be used in over 300 billion chips in the next decade. The last major revision to ARM’s ISA was v8, which was introduced in October of 2011 with the 64-bit AArch64 instruction set. However, ARM has extended ARMv8 over the years with new features such as Memory Tagging in ARMv8.5. With ARMv9, the company is continuing to use AArch64 as the baseline instruction set but has extended it with new features aimed to improve security and performance. According to ARM, these are the major new features of the ARMv9-A architecture:

• SVE2: extending the benefit of scalable vectors to many more use cases
• Realm Management Extension (RME): extending Confidential Compute on Arm platforms to all developers.
• BRBE: providing profiling information, such as Auto FDO
• Embedded Trace Extension (ETE) and Trace Buffer Extension (TRBE): enhanced trace capabilities for Armv9
• TME: hardware transactional memory support for the Arm architecture

Snapdragon’s new Kryo cores are based on the ARMv9 architecture. The first CPU designs to be announced using the new technology were the Cortex-X2, Cortex-A710, and Cortex-A510, and those are the exact CPU designs that form the basis for Qualcomm’s Kryo chips. Its configuration of a singular Cortex-X2 core, three Cortex-A710 cores, and four Cortex-A510 cores is similar to the Snapdragon 888’s layout, which also had a similar configuration. This time around, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is manufactured on a 4nm process (expected to be Samsung Foundry’s 4nm).

The Prime core is clocked at 2.995GHz, with the peak speed that Qualcomm has ever reached being 3.1GHz on the mid-cycle Snapdragon 865 Plus refresh. The mid-cycle Snapdragon 888 Plus refresh with its Cortex-X1 reached 2.995GHz, too. Apple’s A15 performance cores are clocked at 3.2GHz, for reference.

The three Kryo Performance cores use ARM’s Cortex-A710 design. The Cortex-A710 promises a 30% boost in efficiency and a 10% performance uplift over its predecessor, the A78. The Cortex-A710 cores are clocked at 2.5GHzs. As for the three Kryo Efficiency cores, they are based on the new Cortex-A510 design. A major criticism of last year’s Efficiency cores in the Snapdragon 888 surrounded the use of the aging Cortex-A55 cores, which should net a nice efficiency boost. The Cortex-A510 boasts a 35% increase in performance over the A55, with a 20% efficiency improvement, too. These cores are clocked at 1.79GHz.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 has some pretty major improvements over the Snapdragon 888, and it makes sense that the company is advertising some pretty major efficiency improvements. What remains to be seen is if those improvements are actually noticeable in the real world. Qualcomm says that overall, this year’s chipset is 20% more powerful while 30% more power-efficient than the Snapdragon 888.

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Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 GPU: New Adreno

Qualcomm leads the pack when it comes to Android GPU performance. The Google Pixel 6’s Mali GPU will give Qualcomm a run for its money, but the problem is that Google’s juggernaut couldn’t sustain that performance for very long. Even then, it seems that Qualcomm is feeling the heat a bit, as the company announced some pretty major improvements to its Adreno series of GPUs. To start with, this new Adreno boasts a 30% performance improvement over the Adreno 660 in the Snapdragon 888, and it’s also 25% more power-efficient.

However, Qualcomm has introduced a number of other improvements too that aren’t just number-crunching capabilities. Vulkan rendering is said to get a significant 60% speed boost, and there are a whole host of new Snapdragon Elite Gaming features.

Snapdragon Elite Gaming

Qualcomm says that mobile gamers want to play on Snapdragon.  The new Adreno GPU marks the introduction of the Adreno Frame Motion Engine, which allows games to run at double their frame rate while not using more power, or use half the power and keep the same frame rate. There are other improvements too, including Variable Rate Shading Pro which allows for more significant power and performance savings. All of this contributes to the next iteration of Snapdragon Elite Gaming, which has “desktop-level capabilities” in volumetric rendering according to Qualcomm. Volumetric rendering includes graphics such as fog and smoke.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 also introduces Audiokinetic technology for the first time for more immersive sound. Qualcomm also said that it is working with countless game industry partners in order to optimize games on Android specifically for Snapdragon chips.

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Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 connectivity: Integrated Snapdragon X65 modem-RF system and FastConnect 6900

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 has an integrated Qualcomm Snapdragon X65 modem, which was announced earlier this year as the successor to the X60. This particular modem can achieve 10 Gigabit speeds on both stand-alone and non-standalone 5G networks, the first-ever modem-RF system to reach these speeds, and last year’s X60 had a maximum of 7.5Gbps. The Snapdragon X65 is also the first modem to support 3GPP’s 5G NR release 16, the second set of specifications aimed at boosting the expansion and deployment of 5G NR worldwide.

The modem is built on a 4nm process and supports simultaneous carrier aggregation between all sub-6GHz and mmWave bands. The Snapdragon X65 also features an upgradable architecture, making it possible to deliver new features proposed in 3GPP’s Release 16 to be quickly rolled out via software updates. The smaller fabrication process should hopefully net power savings across the board, though that obviously remains to be seen.

Just like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus that it debuted in and the Snapdragon 888, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 features the Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 system for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It features Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, 4K QAM, 160MHz channels, and 4-stream DBS. Qualcomm says that you can even stream lossless CD audio over Bluetooth for the first time.

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Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 ISP: Spectra 680

Some of Qualcomm’s biggest advances in recent years have arguably been in the Spectra ISP. In the past, we saw the Spectra 280 ISP bring support for 10-bit color depth HDR video capture, then the Spectra 380 ISP in the Snapdragon 855 was the world’s first CV-ISP. After that, we saw the Spectra 480 ISP boast an impressive 2 gigapixels/second processing speed, and the Spectra 580 ISP also brought brings quite a few major leaps forward with a new triple-ISP architecture, 35% speed increase, support for staggered HDR sensors, and more. Now it gets even better, as the Spectra 680 kicks all of those new additions into overdrive.

For context, a triple ISP is a big deal. It allows up to three cameras to be active at any one time, which is great for switching between cameras in your camera app. The famous camera lag in Android smartphones that iPhones don’t suffer from is caused by the fact that each camera only runs individually, rather than altogether to be switched between seamlessly. That changed with the Snapdragon 888, and Qualcomm has doubled down on it here. Its memory bandwidth has been increased to 3.2 gigapixels/second, which allows for recording at 108MP at 30 frames per second. Alternatively, it can shoot in 8K HDR and take 64MP photos at the same time, or power three 36MP cameras at 30 FPS simultaneously. This is a powerful ISP.

The Spectra 680 is significantly faster than last year’s Spectra 580. Its higher bandwidth allows for a number of other uses too, including capturing 240 12MP photos in one second. The company allows uses its new Ultrawide Engine for preventing warping at the edges of photos, which includes chromatic aberration correction, which is also known as color fringing. This is where color is distorted around objects, and can sometimes be a problem with ultrawide cameras.

Qualcomm has also worked on a video super-resolution for extreme zoom, which it says provides “very good detail” and eliminates “the bad drawbacks of digital zoom”. Finally, thanks to the third-generation Qualcomm Sensing Hub as well, the ISP supports an always-on front-facing camera for quicker face unlock.

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Snapdragon 8 Gen 1: AI & Machine Learning

While Qualcomm has often been ahead of the game when it comes to single-core performance and GPU performance in the Android world, competitors have certainly caught up when it comes to AI performance. The Google Pixel 6 Pro needs no introduction when it comes to AI, and Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin chipsets offered up fantastic AI performance. However, Qualcomm has still offered great AI performance, and its always-on systems consume less than 1mA of power. There’s no dedicated Neural Processing Unit, or NPU, on Snapdragon chipsets. Instead, its “AI Engine” encompasses the CPU, GPU, and DSP. The Snapdragon 855 introduced a Tensor Accelerator, and the Snapdragon 865 brought real-time translations on-device. The Snapdragon 888 introduced the second generation of its Sensing Hub, along with massive increases in operations per second.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is said to have a four times improvement in its AI performance, thanks to the 7th generation of the company’s AI Engine. It has two times faster Tensor accelerator performance, two times larger shared memory, and 1.7 times more power-efficient than its predecessor. All of this adds up to an even better AI experience on the Snapdragon 888.

3rd generation Qualcomm Sensing Hub

The 3rd generation Qualcomm Sensing Hub features an all-new low-power AI system. It has additional features powered by Hugging Face, Sonde, and Leica while also offering the best performance-per-watt in the history of Snapdragon when it comes to its Tensor accelerator. The Leica Leitz Look mode can recreate Leica’s bokeh in AI, whereas the natural language processing powered by Hugging Face can help to intelligently group and prioritize notifications. Qualcomm says that it does this through sentiment analysis by processing your messages locally. Finally, Sonde Health can monitor your wellbeing by analyzing your vocals, which Qualcomm said could even be trained to potentially recognize COVID-19 symptoms.

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Initial conclusions

Qualcomm says that the first devices powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 will be coming soon, and Realme has already confirmed that its Realme GT 2 Pro will be one of the first to release with it. This is shaping up to be yet another year of improvements for Qualcomm, and we’ll be keeping an eye out on how the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 performs when compared to the likes of the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 and Apple’s A15 Bionic.

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Fall Guys for Xbox and Nintendo Switch delayed again

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout was a surprise hit last year on PC and PlayStation 4, quickly becoming one of the most popular games on Twitch and spawning endless memes. The multiplayer party game promised ports for Xbox and Nintendo Switch were in development, but they have unfortunately been delayed again.

Fall Guys developer Mediatonic wrote in a blog post (via Engadget), “we know everyone’s excited about Fall Guy coming to Nintendo Switch and Xbox, with good reason. There’s been a lot of speculation on social media connecting these new console releases to the Season 6 launch and we want to clarify that that’s not the case so no one’s left confused looking for the game on these platforms. Thank you for being patient with us, it’s one of our top priorities in active development and we can’t wait to share more details with you in 2022.”

Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S ports were first announced in February 2021, with an estimated release date of mid-2021. However, they were delayed indefinitely in April, as Mediatonic focused on improving the existing PC and PlayStation versions and implementing cross-play. The recent Season 6 update includes cross-platform progression between the PS4 and Steam versions, powered by Epic Games accounts (Mediatonic is owned by Epic Games). Now that more of the framework is in place for expanded platform support, Mediatonic should be closer to a quality port for the Switch and new Xbox consoles.

It’s disappointing that Fall Guys is taking a while longer to arrive on more platforms, but considering the Steam version has thousands of active players at any given moment, and there are over 20,000 people watching Twitch streams of Fall Guys as I write this article, there’s no doubt that interest is still high for the game.

Fall Guys is available on PC (through Steam) and the PlayStation 4. It also works on the PS5, thanks to the console’s backwards compatibility mode.

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Microsoft PowerToys 0.51 adds a mouse highlighter for presentations

Microsoft’s PowerToys suite is getting an update to version 0.51 today, adding a new tool called Mouse Highlighter. This is different from the Find My Mouse feature introduced in the last version, and it’s more so geared towards presentations.

When you enable Mouse Highlighter – which you can do by pressing Windows + Shift + N simultaneously – a yellow circle will show up around your mouse whenever you click the left or right buttons. If you’re trying to show someone how to follow specific steps on their computer, this feature can make it that much clearer when you’re clicking on an item. It can also serve for viewers to locate your mouse.

Meanwhile, the recently-launched Find My Mouse tool is getting some improvements with PowerToys0.51, too. If you noticed the feature wasn’t working when using different virtual desktops, that should be fixed now. Microsoft also added a few customization options, so now you can choose things like the spotlight and background color when locating your mouse, the size of the spotlight, and the duration of the animation.

There are actually a ton of improvements to different utilities that are part of PowerToys. FancyZones has a new window switching functionality so you can assign two apps to the same zone and switch between them with a keyboard shortcut, along with improvements to follow the system theme colors more faithfully. Meanwhile, the Image Resizer can now remove non-essenntial metadata from images when resizing, reducing the overall file size further. The full list of changes is below, but be aware that it’s a long one:

What's new in PowerToys 0.51

Things to note

• We shifted our localization internal service and are working on adding automated integrations back in.

PowerToys Awake

• System tray and settings use same language for turning things on.

Color Picker

• New formats added to copy colors as a float or decimal value.
• Adjust color window now accepts lower-case HEX codes.

FancyZones

• New window switching functionality! Now users can assign multiple windows to a zone and cycle between them using the Win + PgDn/PgUp commands by default. Thanks @FLOAT4!
• Added functionality for zones to adopt system accent color and theme. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Added visual preview of zone appearance in settings menu. Thanks @niels9001!
• Fixed bug where FancyZones crashes on launch.

Image Resizer

• Fixed bug where resizing images creates empty folders.
• Added option to remove non-essential metadata. Helps significantly reduce the size of files. Thanks @CleanCodeDeveloper!
• Fixed bug caused by Image Resizer receiving an unexpected property type or value. Thanks @CleanCodeDeveloper!

Mouse utilities

• Find My Mouse: Improved functionality to activate when user double click time configuration is set above 100ms.
• Find My Mouse: Fixed display on all virtual desktops as opposed to only the virtual desktop where it was created.
• Find My Mouse: New settings to enable a lot more customization based on your feedback.
• Minor UI tweaks for fluent icons, appearance, Ctrl usage, and utility descriptions. Thanks @niels9001!
• New Mouse Highlighter PowerToy! When enabled, activate mouse highlighting with Win + Shift + H by default to begin displaying visual cues on your display when either the left or right mouse buttons are clicked. There is a much more powerful tool called SysInternal ZoomIt that is very helpful as well.

PowerRename

• Improved rename performance! This is now at parity (or better) with the prior version based on multiple tests.
• Added keyboard accelerators with Enter and Ctrl + Enter to execute rename. Thanks @niels9001!
• UI tweaks to now add number of items selected, grid-lines for improved readability, reduced font sizes & margins, and improved window resizing.
• Fixed UI focus issues. Thanks @niels9001!
• Added default window width and height. Thanks @niels9001!
• Added PowerRename event logging for BugReportTool

PowerToys Run

• New entries added for settings plugin. Thanks @htcfreek!
• Added support for application URI handling like mailto: and ms-settings:. Thanks @franky920920!
• Added DevContainer workspaces to search results of the VSCode Workspaces Plugin. Thanks @JacobDeuchert!
• Fixes for crashing issues.

Shortcut Guide

• Added rounded corners to keys and tooltips, and system accent colors for desktop backdrop. Thanks @niels9001!

Settings

• Fixed default settings window size to prevent it from opening offscreen. Thanks @davidegiacometti!

Video Conference Mute

• Minor UI tweaks for icon, clear button, and overlay image selection #14248. Thanks @niels9001!

Prototype work

• Always on top prototype of being actively worked on. Right now you hit a key-combo and it enables it. We are investigating ways to highlight the window in some form as well.

Installer

• Investigated how to fully shift to WIX bootstrapper and remove custom boot strapper
• Investigated how to fully shift to HKCU vs HKLM.

Random helping out

• Spell check fix – Thanks @franky920920!
• Fix a URL – Thanks @JeffersonQin!

Development relevant

• Focusing on cleaning up backlog of issues and developing a method to aid in prioritizing. @Dend and @crutkas are partnering to see if we can develop one signal to see what we are calling ‘centers of gravity’.
• Our primary dev branch is now named Main.
• Adjusting plugin folder structure for PT Run #10796
• Working on shifting our release pipeline onto same system that Windows Terminal uses.
• Improvements to environment variable usage/update process in PT Run. Thanks @htcfreek!
• Update .NET to 3.1.20.
• Centralized process list in the BugReportTool.
• Registry handling improvement for MSI and File Explorer add-ons.

One tool that isn’t available with PowerToys 0.51 is called Always on Top, and it does exactly what you’d think. This will allow you to choose any window you want to always be on top of other windows, but the team says it’s still looking into how it would feel the best. Lead developer Clint  Rutkas noted that the feature should be available in the next release.

You can download PowerToys 0.51 from GitHub, or check for updates in your PowerToys app if you already have it.

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Windows 11 Paint update brings a more uniform design for Insiders

Microsoft has released an update for the Windows 11 Paint app for Insiders enrolled in the Dev channel of the program. The update goes further in modernizing the UI elements of the app to align with the rest of Windows 11.

When Microsoft first introduced the new Paint app, some dialogs, like the color picker and resize tool, were still using the old design. With this update, those dialogs are now in line with the rest of the app and the rest of Windows 11, making for a more consistent look overall. Not every dialog has been updated, though, with the Image properties button still showing you an older style of window.

Microsoft also made a few fixes in this update. For starters, you can now hold Shift and click on a color in the color swatch to change your secondary color more easily. The company also fixed some issues where text would move when writing using an IME and some text that wasn’t localized in certain languages like Hebrew. Additionally, this update improves support for screen readers.

One thing Microsoft doesn’t seem to have added is support for dark mode, something the company showcased when the Windows 11 Paint app first showed up. This would also go a long way in making Paint behave like other Windows 11 apps, but hopefully it’s not too far off.

This is one of two apps Microsoft is currently testing with Windows Insiders, the other being the new Media Player app for Windows 11. That app is a replacement for both Groove Music and Movies & TV, and it’s exactly that – a music and video player app. Of course, Paint is available to all Windows 11 users, it’s only this update that’s exclusive to Insiders, while Media Player is a whole new app. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait long for them to roll out to the general public. The same could be said for the Windows Subsystem for Android, which is still officially exclusive to Insiders in the Beta and Dev channels, though we have a guide on how to get Android working on any Windows 11 PC.

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Amazon Appstore is currently broken on Android 12

Amazon Appstore is one of the most popular app stores for Android, outside of Google’s own Play Store. Not only is it the default place to download apps and games on Amazon’s Fire tablets, but it’s also available on other Android devices, and it’s built into the new Windows Subsystem for Android. However, it seems like the Appstore isn’t fully working on the latest Android update.

PiunikaWeb reported on a series of complaints (via 9to5Google) from people using the Amazon Appstore on Android 12 devices, like the Pixel 6 series and Galaxy S21. In some cases, select apps are unavailable for purchase or download, while others are unable to load the Appstore at all. Applications and games installed from the Amazon Appstore also usually fail to open.

Comment from discussion burncityichiban’s comment from discussion "Error with the Pixel 5a & Android 12 using the Amazon App Store".

@amazonappstore @AmazonAppDev @amazon Android 12 users(like myself and all other Pixel 6 owners) can’t even access your app store and A12 has been out in beta for +6 months now, when’s the fix coming?https://t.co/6hTrvU2mqc

— Luke Shy (@CarloVonUlti) November 15, 2021

Comment from discussion Bohannen’s comment from discussion "Error with the Pixel 5a & Android 12 using the Amazon App Store".

Amazon confirmed the problem in a support forum thread, with one staff member saying, “our technical team is aware of the issue. I checked and they are still working on the resolution.” The Amazon Appstore on Android 12 has also been updated to display a message warning that some functionality is broken.

Amazon hasn’t confirmed the source of the problem, but Liliputing reports that Android 12 could be conflicting with Amazon Appstore DRM. At least one person was able to decompile an app from the Amazon Appstore, remove references to Amazon’s DRM, and recompile with a self-signed certificate to make it work again.

It’s not a great sign that Android 12 was in beta testing for months, and was finally released in October of this year, but Amazon is seemingly only fixing the issue now. Still, it looks like the Appstore could be restored to full functionality on Android 12 soon.

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Minecraft’s Caves & Cliffs Part 2 update is now available on all platforms

Minecraft is one of the most popular video games of all time, and Mojang has continued to release new updates for both the Bedrock Edition (mobile, Windows 10 Edition, consoles, etc.) and the original Java Edition. The massive ‘Caves & Cliffs’ update was first announced last year, but was later split into two updates. Part 1 was released on June 8, as Minecraft version 1.17, and now Part 2 is rolling out.

Caves & Cliffs Part 2, also known as Minecraft version 1.18, is now available on Minecraft Bedrock Edition and Java Edition (via Android Police). The Bedrock update increases the world height and depth, “adding 50% more vertical space to build and explore,” brand new cave generation, new cave and mountain biomes (such as “Lush Caves” and “Jagged Peaks”), revamped ore and biome generation, new music tracks, and many bug fixes. There’s a lot to be excited about, though you will need to create a new world to see some of those changes.

The Java Edition update has most of the same changes, including updated biome and ore generation, new music, taller worlds, and expanded build limits. Minecraft Java Edition now requires Java 17 or later, but as long as you’re opening the game from the official Minecraft Launcher with its own copy of Java, everything will be updated for you.

Bedrock Edition Changelog

Increased World Height and Depth

• Overworld height and depth for new and existing worlds has been extended to y320 and y-64, opening up more space to explore and build in

World Blending

• Players can now update existing worlds to include the new overworld height dimensions and world generation features. See our World Upgrading FAQ for more details
• The bedrock layer at y0 below saved chunks will be replaced with Deepslate and feature new cave generation underneath
• Biomes and terrain generating across new and existing chunk borders will blend seamlessly, creating natural-looking environmental transitions

New Terrain and Mountain Generation

• Terrain shape and elevation is no longer always determined by biome, resulting in new biome placements such as deserts on top of hills
• Mountains are taller than ever and can now generate up to a maximum height of 256 blocks

New Biomes, 3D Biome Generation, and Biome Distribution

• Added 3D biomes – cave biomes can now generate directly below surface biomes
• New cave and mountain biomes added, including Jagged Peaks, Meadows, Lush Caves and Dripstone Caves

New Cave Generation

• Added noise caves – the three primary types of noise caves are large, open Cheese Caves, wide, tunnelling Spaghetti Caves and the narrow, winding Noodle Caves
• Added aquifers – these create local level bodies of water such as flooded caves or underground lakes

Ore Distribution and Large Ore Veins

• Added large ore veins – these long formations stretch through cave systems and contain larger deposits of ore than the clusters usually found underground
• Ore distribution has been adjusted to compensate for the new world height

Mob Spawning

• Monsters will now only spawn in complete darkness. Players can spawn-proof dark areas such as caves using light sources

New Music

• Added new music by Lena Raine and Kumi Tanioka
• Added a new music disc from Lena Raine titled “otherside”. This can be found rarely in Stronghold corridor chests or much more rarely in Dungeon chests
• Mobile players: To hear the new music, you will need to download the updated Minecraft Original Music Pack, available FREE from Marketplace

New Achievements/Trophies

• Caves & Cliffs – Free fall from the top of the world (build limit) to the bottom of the world and survive
• Feels Like Home – Take a Strider for a loooong ride on a lava lake in the Overworld
• Sound of Music – Make the Meadows come alive with the sound of music from a jukebox
• Star trader – Trade with a villager at the build height limit

Check out the FAQ article for a deep dive on the new features in Caves & Cliffs: Part II!

Changes:

Vanilla Experiments

• Added new “Vanilla Experiments” experimental toggle containing some blocks and items from The Wild Update, coming in 2022
  • Goat Horn
  • Sculk
  • Sculk Vein
  • Sculk Catalyst
  • Sculk Shrieker
  • Sculk Sensor
• Be sure to backup your worlds before enabling experimental toggles and see our updated FAQ on how to enable Experiments

“Old” World Type

• Removed “Old” world type from the world creation screen
• Locked Old worlds to BaseGameVersion 1.17.40
• Existing Old worlds are still playable but will not be updated with 1.18 features
• For more information on Old world changes, please see the FAQ article

Menu Panorama

• Added a new main menu panorama showing the beautiful cliffs of the Overworld

Android External Storage

• Players with external storage will be migrated to new location at start up, due to storage changes required by Google. You can still play if migration fails by closing the results window
• With external storage being migrated to its new location in preparation for Google’s new API requirements, you will now lose your data if you uninstall Minecraft, unless you check the box indicating you want to keep your data. We recommend checking this box if you wish to keep your worlds in the event you choose to reinstall Minecraft
• For more information on storage changes, please see the FAQ article

Known Issues:

• New world generation in this release is currently incompatible with the ‘Creation of Custom Biomes’ experimental toggle. Expect worlds with custom biome generation to be potentially unstable and for custom biomes to only exist in currently saved out areas of the world.
• World generation for the Minecraft Overworld has changed entirely with this release. This means old seeds will no longer spawn players in the same positions when playing 1.18. If creators are version locked to an old version of the game, their seeds will generate worlds as they were prior to 1.18.

Fixes:

Performance / Stability

• Fixed several crashes that could occur during gameplay
• Fixed a crash that could occur when loading certain world chunks (MCPE-138139)
• Fixed a crash that could occur when going through portals with tamed pets (MCPE-129738)
• Optimized the time it takes to place Vines in the Overworld during world generation

General

• Replaced the missing “Always Day” option in world settings (MCPE-137790)
• Players with higher than recommended render distance settings are now prompted to change it to the recommended value
• Render distance default and max settings have been updated for better performance, including improvements to the slider in video settings
• A prompt now warns players that they will be taken back to the main menu if they sign-in while in-game
• Increased Realm upload and download timeouts to 15 minutes

Gameplay

• Corrected Portal locations when the Portal was moved but the location was not updated (MCPE-28765)
• Hero of the Village effect now applies to all players who helped kill a raider once a raid is defeated, and the effect remains on the players, even if they travel outside the village (MCPE-53384)
• Fixed an issue where terrain could be seen through
• Fixed player hitbox not resetting after gliding with Elytra (MCPE-109925)
• Fixed player flight with Elytra being cancelled when hitting a wall and taking damage (MCPE-54031)

Mobs

• Mobs can now path over Trapdoors
• Fixed issues with mobs and entities disappearing from chunks (MCPE-144208)
• Mobs no longer walk through Campfires (MCPE-142054)
• Axolotls now animate correctly when airborne (MCPE-131322)
• Sweet Berry Bushes now damage mobs, with the exception of Foxes (MCPE-56142, MCPE-140012)
• Mobs no longer try to path through Sweet Berry Bushes
• The riding position of Llamas no longer shifts after being tamed (MCPE-143006)
• Raid mobs now despawn after a raid ends, if the player moves too far away
• Vindicators no longer naturally spawn in Illager Patrols
• Lightning bolts no longer have shadows (MCPE-140689)
• Fish now attempt to avoid Axolotls
• Magma Cubes are now correctly aggressive towards Iron Golems and Slimes are no longer aggressive towards Snow Golems (MCPE-51162)
• Phantoms should now be able to free themselves after getting stuck when trying to pathfind into mountains (MCPE-119773)
• Villagers will keep following their schedules in worlds that have been ticking for a very long time, and when game time is negative (MCPE-98361)
• Education Edition: NPCs no longer have idle sounds (MCPE-141856)

Blocks

• Breaking a block below fire no longer creates an invisible fire block when the ‘doFireTick’ gamerule is disabled (MCPE-101371)
• Players can once again continuously place water, lava, and Powder Snow by holding down the ‘Place’ button (MCPE-139671)
• Light blocks no longer support blocks that need support, e.g. Beds and Paintings (MCPE-144311)
• Light blocks will now survive a TNT or Creeper explosion (MCM-1417)
• All ground vegetation can now be placed on Mycelium (MCPE-125928)
• Fixed shallow water turning brighter when aimed at while holding a Small Drip Leaf (MCPE-123373)
• Tall flowers will now drop only one item when broken by water placed in the upper half of the flower (MCPE-142799)
• Campfires no longer drop only one Charcoal when broken by a Piston or an explosion, instead dropping two units as expected (MCPE-139467)
• In the Stonecutter, a Block of Copper can now be crafted into four Cut Copper (MCPE-144067)
• Copper Ore now drops 2-5 (from 2-3) Raw Copper items (MCPE-144071)
• Nether Sprouts can once again generate when using Bone Meal on Warped Nylium (MCPE-139672)
• Snow Grass Block and all types of Snow blocks now use similar colors (MCPE-57022)
• Fixed Leaf Blocks not remaining transparent when surrounded by partial blocks such as Buttons or Slabs (MCPE-139213, MCPE-53731)
• Fixed face culling of blocks placed below Leaf blocks, fixing an x-ray effect

Items

• Adjusted the smoothness of movement for Primed TNT, Lingering Potions, Splash Potions, and Bottle o’ Enchanting when far from players (MCPE-101102)
• Fire Charges are no longer consumed when used on lit Candles, Candle Cakes, Campfires, activated Nether Portals, or on other blocks that are already on fire
• Multiple Education Edition items no longer show the “craftingScreen.tab.none” tooltip (MCPE-102444)
• Ender Pearls can no longer generate as Glow Sticks in Woodland Mansion chests (MCPE-137440)

Accessibility

• Added missing screen reader on the “Controller lost connection” prompt

Graphical

• The Carved Pumpkin enchantment glint now only covers the item instead of the entire slot
• Fixed a bug that could occur on older worlds where looking up in a Minecart would display the inside of the Minecart, blocking the player’s view
• Updated item rendering so enchanted are no longer be invisible in the Nether (MCPE-116880)
• Fixed a visual glitch where taking a plant from a Flower Pot would result in the plant still being rendered (MCPE-143661)
• Water drips now trigger splash effects
• Shield blocking animation now plays smoothly (MCPE-125951)

User Interface

• Fixed Java Edition parity while lying in bed in multiplayer game. A message will now show how many players are lying in bed while waiting for all players to fall asleep
• Updated the “out of storage” message with additional clarity when a device is out of storage for saving new worlds
• The raid boss bar color has changed from purple to red, matching Java Edition (MCPE-46047)
• Raid boss bars now decrease whenever a raider takes damage
• Structure Blocks can now be saved and loaded properly within current dimension height limits (MCPE-122643)
• All setting changes made to a new world are carried over when creating it on a new Realm
• Renamed some occurrences of “level” in the user interface to the more accurate “world”
• The store update prompt no longer appears for no internet connection or session start failure
• Improved the error messaging in the Play screen when Microsoft Account permissions are set to block multiplayer
• Fixed an issue where searching for non-existent content brought up the incorrect “1 result” message
• Fixed overlapping text on Marketplace offerings occurring on 4:3 resolution screens
• Fixed the rendering of the icons in text, making the colors not appear distorted

Technical Updates:

Updated Add-On Template Packs

• Updated Add-On templates for 1.18.0 with new resources, behaviors, and documentation, are available to download at aka.ms/MCAddOnPacks

Fixes

• Players are disconnected if server and client have different Runtime Block IDs
• Fixed a rendering error that could occur when attempting to render a Vanilla mob in a base game version prior to the version that mob was introduced through JSON files
• Most content errors and warnings will now only display once per world (MCPE-135153)
• Improved performance in ‘RangedAttackGoal’ for mobs that do not move
• Fixed mobs’ default summonability when not specified in JSON (MCM-1390)
• Fixed a versioning error with animation controllers that was causing the wrong schema to be utilized on Marketplace worlds with an animation controller version 1.8.0
• Order of function calls triggered by ‘/execute’ inside a function are now consistent (MCPE-111849)

Commands

• The ‘/clone’ command has been updated to properly check for overlapping source and destinations areas no longer allowing for a 1 block depth overlap on each axis. This can continue to be overridden via the force clone option
• Added the ‘/loot’ command with spawn loot overload

GameTest Framework

• New Item API updates: ItemStack
  • Exposed interfaces for accessing script-enabled ItemComponents on ItemStack. Note that these item components only work in conjunction with custom items defined via the Holiday Creator Features experiment
  • hasComponent(componentId: string) – returns true if the ItemStack has the component [componentId] attached to it
  • getComponent(componentId: string) – returns a handle to the component attached to this ItemStack. Returns an undefined handle if the component does not exist or if the component is yet to be exposed to script
  • getComponents() – returns an array of all attached script-enabled components on this ItemStack
• Script Enabled Item Components
  • minecraft:food
    • Read-only property nutrition – number that describes how much nutrition this food item gives the player when eaten
    • Read-only property saturationModifier – number that is the saturation modifier used to apply the saturation buff when eaten
    • Read-only property canAlwaysEat – if true the player can always eat this item (even when not hungry)
    • Read-only property usingConvertsTo – string name of the Item this will be converted to when eaten. If empty, the item will not convert to anything else
  • minecraft:durability
    • Read-only property maxDurability – the number amount of damage this item can take before breaking
    • Read-only property damageRange – a NumberRange describing the chance of the item losing durability
    • Property damage – gets or sets the current damage on the ItemStack
  • getDamageChance(unbreaking: number = 0) – gets the maximum chance that this item would be damaged using the damageRange property if given an unbreaking level. Incoming unbreaking parameter must be greater than 0
• Added deltaTime read only property to TickEvent which represents the time between the last Level tick in seconds

Molang

• Fixed content error when Molang expression has no tokens to only fire when ‘min_engine_version’ is 1.17.40 or higher

You can purchase Minecraft on all platforms from the official Minecraft website, and the Android version is linked below.

Minecraft ($7.49⁺, Google Play) →

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