Audio-Technica U.S. Incorporated, recently announced the formation of a new logistical operations company, Technica Logistics Inc. The announcement was made by Mr. Manabu Aoki, Audio-Technica Director and CEO/President of Audio-Technica U.S. Inc., and underscores A-T's long-term strategic business plan for ongoing growth and expansion in the coming years. "This new company is formed to supply enhanced service to our customers and consumers," stated Aoki. "This change will take advantage of Audio-Technica's past experience and success in warehouse and distribution operations, as well as its unprecedented dedication to customer support and service."

Technica Logistics Inc. will begin operation on April 1, 2024, and Mr. Michael Fuller, who has been with Audio-Technica for over 15 years, has been named as the Managing Director. The company plans to have approximately 40 employees throughout the U.S. and will have its headquarters at the Audio-Technica campus in Stow, Ohio, and the mailing address at 4701 Hudson Drive, Stow, OH.

Qualcomm claimed that most Windows games will run (via emulation) on its upcoming series of ARM-based Snapdragon X Elite processors—during a "Windows on Snapdragon, a Platform Ready for your PC Games" presentation at the recently concluded GDC 2024 event. Issam Khalil (principal engineer) did not mention specific titles, but divulged that the Snapdragon Studios division has spent time working through "top games" on Steam. Qualcomm laptop-oriented Adreno GPU design is being hyped up as demonstrating an "80% performance uplift versus AMD's Radeon 780M iGPU," but the overall Snapdragon X Elite package is often compared to Apple's M3 chipsets (also ARM-based).

Reference laptops—running early Snapdragon X Elite silicon—have been distributed to favored partners. A semi-public showcase—recorded by Devin Arthur—revealed some promising gaming performance credentials on one of these devices. The self-proclaimed "Snapdragon Insider" was invited to the company's San Diego, California headquarters—Arthur happily reported that a red "23 W Snapdragon X Elite model" was demoing: "Baldur's Gate 3 running at 1080p hovering around 30 FPS, which is perfectly playable!" Specific visual settings were not listed in Arthur's substack article, or showcased during his brief video recording—but Qualcomm's claims about the Adreno GPU beating Team Red's best iGPU could be valid. Windows Central reckons that Control and Redout 2 have been demoed on Snapdragon X Elite devices.

An online tipster, posting on the Chinese blog site Weibo, has let slip that Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile chipset is touted to pack some hefty graphical capabilities. The suggested Adreno "750" smartphone and tablet GPU is touted to offer a 50% increase over the present generation Adreno 740 - as featured on the recently released and cutting-edge Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. The current generation top-of-the-range Snapdragon is no slouch when it comes to graphics benchmarks, where it outperforms Apple's prime contender - the Bionic A16 SoC.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC is expected to launch in the last quarter of 2023, but details of the flagship devices that it will power are non-existent at the time of writing. The tipster suggests that Qualcomm has decided to remain on TSMC's 4 nm process for its next generation mobile chipset - perhaps an all too safe decision when you consider that Apple has upped the stakes with the approach of its Bionic A17 SoC. It has been reported that the Cupertino, California-based company has chosen to fabricate via TSMC's 3 nm process, although the Taiwanese foundry is said to be struggling with its N3 production line. The engineers at Qualcomm's San Diego headquarters are alleged to be experimenting with increased clock speeds running on the next gen Adreno GPU - as high as 1.0 GHz - in order to eke out as much performance as possible, in anticipation of besting the Bionic A17 in graphics benchmarks. The tipster theorizes that Qualcomm will still have a hard time matching Apple in terms of pure CPU throughput, so the consolation prize will lie with a superior GPU getting rigged onto the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.