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The Tech Thread

I figured this would expand into other areas...but Apple announced iPhone 8 and their new flagship iPhone X today:

https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/12/iphone-x/

Apple’s iPhone X, like the new iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, comes with a brand new design, ditching bezels and opting for a glass front and back. Apple says there is a deeper strengthening layer in the glass that makes it the “most durable in a smartphone.”

Thanks to this new design, the iPhone X is sealed for water and dust resistance.

It’s made from surgical-grade, stainless steel and comes in two finishes: space grey and silver.

Following the current trend in smartphones, Apple has done away with the bezels on the iPhone X, offering an edge-to-edge 5.8-inch display. In fact, Apple is upgrading quite a bit in that department, offering an OLED display for the very first time, calling it the Super Retina Display. This brings with it all the standard benefits of OLED, including more accurate colors, better image uniformity across the screen, etc.

The iPhone X Super Retina display supports 2046×1125 resolution, with 455 PPI, and HDR in both Dolby Vision and HDR.

The company is reportedly paying around $125 per panel, which is part of the reason for the reports of a more expensive iPhone.

This is also the first iPhone that will not have a home button, with the new screen reaching across the entire front of the device. Users can wake up their device by picking it up or swiping across any part of the screen. To close an app, simply swipe up on the screen and throw it away. Users can also reach Siri by simply saying “Hey Siri” or by pressing the side button.

Given that the home button has historically been central to the iPhone’s security, the replacement comes in the form of a depth-sensing front camera which will unlock the phone by detecting the user’s face. Apple is calling it FaceID.

This means that the iPhone will know what your face looks like from all angles and can unlock the phone while it’s, say, lying on a table. It also means that the feature shouldn’t be susceptible to trickery, such as unlocking for a two-dimensional photo of you instead of the real thing. Apple says the chances that someone can trick FaceID and break into your phone are 1 in a million.

“You’re wearing glasses, or wear a hat, or do it up any way you want to do it…” FaceID still works, day or night, according to Phil Schiller.

FaceID is enabled by a True Depth camera system, equipped with an infrared camera, flood illuminator, dot projector and more all packed into the top of your iPhone.

The feature is used for Apple Pay now, as well as a new feature called Animojis for messaging. Animoji’s use FaceID to lay your facial expressions into emojis, giving them your own unique take. You can pick from a dozen different animated emojis.

As far as cameras are concerned, the iPhone X is about as locked and loaded as one can get. The rear camera features a 12-megapixel sensor, with dual-lenses at f1.8 and f2.8 apertures (which is brighter than the 7 Plus telephoto). It comes with dual-image OIS quad-LED TrueTone flash.

Because of the combination of the new A11 Bionic and the enhanced camera, Apple is introducing a new Portrait Lighting, letting users select their lighting effects. These aren’t filters, but rather a real-time analysis of the light hitting the subject’s face, and these lighting effects can be added before and after the photo is taken.

Video is vastly improved as well. Combined with that A11 processor, video can be captured at 60FPS in low-light mode, with faster frame rate support and 4K capture. Slo-mo videos shot in 1080p will have 240 FPS.

The front-facing camera is powered by that True Depth camera system that supports FaceID. But the big news here is that Portrait mode and Portrait lighting is now available on the front-camera.

The iPhone X, as well as the other new iPhones announced today, comes with wireless charging capabilities, thanks to that new glass back. Wireless charging is supported by Qi, which is considered as the standard in the wireless charging industry.

Plus, battery life is two hours longer than the iPhone 7, with most of the improvement coming by way of software enhancements. But because Apple likes to take things to the next level, the wireless charging on the new iPhones is coming with a new accessory called AirPower. It’s a larger mat that lets users charge their iPhones, Apple Watch and AirPods all at the same time.

The iPhone X is packed with the new A11 Bionic processor: 64-bit design, six cores, two high performance processors that are 25 percent faster than the A10 and 4-high efficiency cores (two more than the A10) that are 70 percent faster. The GPU is 30 percent faster.

Part of the bigger news here is improved photographs. As Panzarino noted in the live blog, “The Apple ISP is one of its secret weapons in photography. If you’ve loved an iPhone picture you’ve ever taken then thank the image processor inside the phone for that result.”

The iPhone X starts at $999 for the 64GB model, with a larger 256GB option.

Pre-orders begin on October 27 and regular sales begin November 3, just in time for the Holidays.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Got invitation to Starlink satellite internet. $629 upfront, $129 a month :o

 

3 hours ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Got invitation to Starlink satellite internet. $629 upfront, $129 a month :o

 

That is super cheap all things considered.  People up North or in remote areas will be absolutely thrilled at those prices.

9 hours ago, Brandon said:

That is super cheap all things considered.  People up North or in remote areas will be absolutely thrilled at those prices.

Considering the speeds and supposed reliability, the initial upfront cost seems worth it. $129 a month is pretty reasonable but keep in mind that pricing will likely change as more and more users get on StarLink over time.

This is huge for rural/remote populations across the country where access to reliable and fast internet remains mostly impossible with current land-based technology.

When I was living in Saskatchewan in the early-mid 80's. Sasktel embarked on a massive expansion of fiber optical cables to serve almost every community of any size. There was a lot of wailing from the PCs about how unnecessary and expensive this was. In hindsight, it was a very smart move.

I own a business out of town. Xplornet and MTS are available but they both suck. They have download speeds of 1-10 mbps even though I pay for 50.
I think I pay about 100/month or so.

When Starlink gets its kinks figured out I will certainly get it. It'll make all my staffs lives way easier. They just want to watch Netflix and not wait 15 minutes for it to buffer. It shouldn't be that difficult in 2021

Edited by Dr Zaius

1 hour ago, Dr Zaius said:

I own a business out of town. Xplornet and MTS are available but they both suck. They have download speeds of 1-10 mbps even though I pay for 50.
I think I pay about 100/month or so.

When Starlink gets its kinks figured out I will certainly get it. It'll make all my staffs lives way easier. They just want to watch Netflix and not wait 15 minutes for it to buffer. It shouldn't be that difficult in 2021

Friends live in St. Andrews, just north of the airport there. They were paying for high-speed service but it was barely better than dialup. They complained repeatedly but eventually Bell/MTS told them that it was just too expensive to provide real highspeed service to them, and if they did not stop complaining, they would be cut off. They went to a dish service.

3 hours ago, blue_gold_84 said:

Considering the speeds and supposed reliability, the initial upfront cost seems worth it. $129 a month is pretty reasonable but keep in mind that pricing will likely change as more and more users get on StarLink over time.

Gonna have a world monopoly on out of the way internet. No one can compete.  They've put up 800 and they still are sending up another 42000!

It may have been political hot air, but during the last election, the Liberals promised to begin the process of providing high-speed internet to remote communities. No doubt that the horrendous expenses associated with the pandemic has kiboshed that.

Do I want to share with everyone the costs of using satellite internet....  add several more zeroes at the end of Starlinks price.....

1 hour ago, Tracker said:

It may have been political hot air, but during the last election, the Liberals promised to begin the process of providing high-speed internet to remote communities. No doubt that the horrendous expenses associated with the pandemic has kiboshed that.

Connect To Innovate is the program name and it's still up and running, AFAIK. 

The Connect to Innovate program is investing $585 million by 2023 and will bring high-speed Internet to 975 rural and remote communities in Canada, including 190 Indigenous communities. Challenging geography and smaller populations present barriers to private sector investment in building, operating and maintaining infrastructure in these communities.

This program supports new "backbone" infrastructure to connect institutions like schools and hospitals with a portion of funding for upgrades and "last-mile" infrastructure to households and businesses. Canadians will have the opportunity to innovate and participate in our economy, democracy and way of life using new digital tools and cutting-edge services like tele-health and tele-learning.

https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/119.nsf/eng/home

  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I was in BestBuy on the weekend and saw those multi-function remotes on sale.  I picked one up and thought to myself, "This changes everything!"
"

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Intriguing, anyhow....curious to see if that takes off. 

Hey, tech related thing......... what all are you guys doing for smart watches these days? I'm an Android-only guy, and want to get a new smart watch for the usual stuff...sleep tracking, fitness monitoring, and I like the idea of being able to receive texts and stuff on it. I think @17to85you've got a Samsung, right?  What's everyone else doing? Are they all in around that $250 mark -ish? 

6 hours ago, Noeller said:

Intriguing, anyhow....curious to see if that takes off. 

Hey, tech related thing......... what all are you guys doing for smart watches these days? I'm an Android-only guy, and want to get a new smart watch for the usual stuff...sleep tracking, fitness monitoring, and I like the idea of being able to receive texts and stuff on it. I think @17to85you've got a Samsung, right?  What's everyone else doing? Are they all in around that $250 mark -ish? 

I have a 5x, but it's not around $250. Also not the current best for Garmin, but was when I bought it.

Is really more than I need, but it does a whole lot of stuff.

10 minutes ago, tacklewasher said:

I have a 5x, but it's not around $250. Also not the current best for Garmin, but was when I bought it.

Is really more than I need, but it does a whole lot of stuff.

I'll look into that...thanks!

6 hours ago, Noeller said:

Intriguing, anyhow....curious to see if that takes off. 

Hey, tech related thing......... what all are you guys doing for smart watches these days? I'm an Android-only guy, and want to get a new smart watch for the usual stuff...sleep tracking, fitness monitoring, and I like the idea of being able to receive texts and stuff on it. I think @17to85you've got a Samsung, right?  What's everyone else doing? Are they all in around that $250 mark -ish? 

Yeah I have the active 2. I quite like it, especially since I have a galaxy phone so pairing is quite smooth. Even the times I have answered a phone call on the watch it is pretty good quality. It was reasonably priced I think, but it's also old tech so if you want the latest and greatest who knows what they cost.

7 hours ago, Noeller said:

Intriguing, anyhow....curious to see if that takes off. 

Hey, tech related thing......... what all are you guys doing for smart watches these days? I'm an Android-only guy, and want to get a new smart watch for the usual stuff...sleep tracking, fitness monitoring, and I like the idea of being able to receive texts and stuff on it. I think @17to85you've got a Samsung, right?  What's everyone else doing? Are they all in around that $250 mark -ish? 

I got the active 2. it. I got a used one of kijiji for like 125 i think? 

it's a hidden feature, but I actually enabled it to measure blood pressure. There's youtube videos on how to do it. In korea it's approved but in NA the blood pressure monitor is not FDA approved so it doesn't come pre-installed. 

waterproof, tracking workouts, walks, bpm all work well. phone functions well

worth every penny

Edited by Dr Zaius

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