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.

2 minutes ago, Noeller said:

Just signed up... They've got work to do yet, but it felt great to completely shut down my Twitter account. Fully de activated....

So over / under 60 days before you sign up again on Twitter?  

I remember the last time people were outraged at Elon and signed up for Hive and Mastodon....  that lasted two weeks before everyone came back. 

 

Twitter Threatens Legal Action Over Meta's Popular New Threads App

Twitter parent company X Corp. is threatening to sue Meta over its new Threads app as the platform began racking up millions of users upon its Wednesday debut.

A Silicon Valley legal firm representing X Corp. claimed in a letter first reported by Semafor that Meta had “engaged in systematic, willful and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property” by poaching its employees.
Threads is a text-based competitor to Twitter that was launched as a companion to Meta’s Instagram platform this week. Given all the chaos that has come with billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter late last year, some observers consider Threads to be a potential “Twitter killer.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/twitter-meta-threads-app-lawsuit-threat_n_64a70b0be4b0e5efaada7455

Zuckerberg Twists the Knife in Twitter as Millions Flock to Threads

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday claimed that more than 10 million users joined Threads, his Twitter rival app, within seven hours of its launch, with the Facebook founder publicly dragging Elon Musk’s platform.

The new social media app, which had been slated for release on Thursday, was made available to download in 100 countries on Wednesday evening. Zuckerberg spent his first few hours on the platform saying he wanted to make Threads a “friendly” place that eventually has more than a billion users—an opportunity, he said, which Musk has blown for Twitter.

Twitter failed to ban hate speech for blue-check users according to a new report.
A post on Threads from UFC fighter Mike Davis asked if users thought the app “can become bigger than Twitter!?” “It’ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it,” Zuckerberg replied. “Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.”

In another reply to billionaire Mark Cuban, who asked if Zuckerberg was sure the app was open to everyone as it’s “pretty nice right now,” the Meta boss took another swipe at Musk. “The goal is to keep it friendly as it expands,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I think it’s possible and will ultimately be the key to its success. That’s one reason why Twitter never succeeded as much as I think it should have, and we want to do it differently.”

The comment apparently speaks to a strategy of attracting Twitter users disaffected by the changes Musk has made to the site since his $44 billion takeover last year involving new paywalls, daily post restrictions, and content moderation updates that have spooked former advertisers amid a surge in online hate.

Harvard astrophysics professor claims he found ET tech inside a meteor: report

Harvard University Professor of Astrophysics Avi Loeb claimed to CBS News on Friday that he discovered pieces of extraterrestrial technology inside a meteor that crashed near Papua New Guinea in 2014.

"That is where the fireball took place, and the government detected it from the Department of Defense. It's a very big area the size of Boston, so we wanted to pin it down," Loeb recalled to the outlet. "We figured the distance of the fireball based off the time delay between the arrival of blast wave, the boom of explosion, and the light that arrived quickly."
CBS reported that United State Space Command confirmed "with almost near certainty, 99.999%, that it came from another solar system." But a rock from deep space was not the only enticing discovery that Loeb believes that he and his team made.

"We found ten spherules. These are almost perfect spheres, or metallic marbles. When you look at them through a microscope, they look very distinct from the background," Loeb explained to CBS. "They have colors of gold, blue, brown and some of them resemble a miniature of the Earth."

The object, Loeb continued, "has material strength that is tougher than all space rock that were seen before, and cataloged by" the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

"We calculated its speed outside the solar system," Loeb added of the fallen cosmic debris. "It was 60 km per second, which is faster than 95% of all stars in the vicinity of the sun. The fact that it was made of materials tougher than even iron meteorites, and moving faster than 95% of all stars in the vicinity of the sun, suggested potentially it could be a spacecraft from another civilization, or some technological gadget."

Loeb also compared the artifact to the Voyager probes, which he noted "will exit the solar system in 10,000 years. Just imagine them colliding with another planet far away a billion years from now. They would appear as a meteor of a composition moving faster than usual."

On 2023-07-06 at 9:12 AM, Brandon said:

So over / under 60 days before you sign up again on Twitter?  

I remember the last time people were outraged at Elon and signed up for Hive and Mastodon....  that lasted two weeks before everyone came back. 

Telegram - the app that was supposed to rival/replace Whats App - is now infested with bots.

https://www.engadget.com/elon-musk-says-twitters-ad-revenue-has-dropped-by-50-percent-202600398.html

On 2023-07-09 at 7:59 AM, Mark H. said:

Telegram - the app that was supposed to rival/replace Whats App - is now infested with bots.

Telegram is infested with crazy people.

 

 

                                                    

AI brain implant helps Sask. woman speak for the 1st time in 18 years

 

                                               

In case why youre wondering why Apple stock has tanked.

https://9to5mac.com/2023/09/06/chinese-bans-government-officials-from-using-iphones-at-work/

Edited September 7, 20232 yr by FrostyWinnipeg

Unfortunately only works on desktop for now (not the mobile app) but it's handy dandy if you do use a desktop to browse the old blue bird....

 

Insert shocked but not that shocked gif

New Starlink page launched to promote cellular service coming in 2024 https://trib.al/vxPZWCN

23 minutes ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Insert shocked but not that shocked gif

New Starlink page launched to promote cellular service coming in 2024 https://trib.al/vxPZWCN

so this is kind of interesting for me as an outdoors person. One of the handiest devices right now is the Garmin InReach, which allows you satellite connectivity for your phone (sort of) in case you're way in the middle of the bush, back country camping, fishing, hunting, etc..... and this StarLink feature would negate the need for Garmin's product. Intriguing anyhow. I know the Star Link internet service has been WILDLY popular in Cottage Country, as the other available services are trash...

1 hour ago, Noeller said:

so this is kind of interesting for me as an outdoors person. One of the handiest devices right now is the Garmin InReach, which allows you satellite connectivity for your phone (sort of) in case you're way in the middle of the bush, back country camping, fishing, hunting, etc..... and this StarLink feature would negate the need for Garmin's product. Intriguing anyhow. I know the Star Link internet service has been WILDLY popular in Cottage Country, as the other available services are trash...

I've been using a SPOT Gen3 just for piece of mind that people can find us or reach out for help in the most extreme of cases when we are on multi day hiking / canoeing trips in the backwoods.    But I only need it a few month out of the year, so I only pay monthly, but they charge reconnection fees every time.

Will be really interesting to see what the price point for this is and how much traffic they can handle.  Will this potentially be a replacement for cell phones outside of large metropolitan areas where the infra costs for telecom providers are high compared to subscribers.

5 hours ago, Rich said:

I've been using a SPOT Gen3 just for piece of mind that people can find us or reach out for help in the most extreme of cases when we are on multi day hiking / canoeing trips in the backwoods.    But I only need it a few month out of the year, so I only pay monthly, but they charge reconnection fees every time.

Will be really interesting to see what the price point for this is and how much traffic they can handle.  Will this potentially be a replacement for cell phones outside of large metropolitan areas where the infra costs for telecom providers are high compared to subscribers.

Not sure how much I like the idea of everywhere being phone-accessible. It is already annoying how attached we are and it has been nice to go to backwoods areas without any signal.

Having something like you seem to have for emergencies seems good, but not being always connected everywhere.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/13/23915567/best-buy-discontinue-physical-media-dvd-blu-ray

Curious if anyone else is in my situation with Smart Watches.

I used to not be able to leave my house without strapping a wristwatch on. Had a nice little collection going. But as Smart Phones became ubiquitous, I broke myself of the habit since timepieces were made redundant by them and found that I enjoyed not wearing one. Especially not having to worry about damaging it in my workplace.

But now with pretty much all of my friends and colleagues wearing their Apple Watches, FitBits, Pixel Watches, etc and selling me on the virtues of them, I'm starting to wonder if it's worth my time and expense to get one and learn its use?

On 2023-10-12 at 6:41 PM, WildPath said:

Not sure how much I like the idea of everywhere being phone-accessible. It is already annoying how attached we are and it has been nice to go to backwoods areas without any signal.

Having something like you seem to have for emergencies seems good, but not being always connected everywhere.

If people get lost in the bush or are in emergency life threatening situations then I have no problem with this. Besides, if you really don't want to be connected then leave your devices at home.

Back in the mid 60's, I remember as a kid my Dad, Uncle & I were fishing on the Winnipeg River about 30 miles past Pointe Du Bois. We hit a rock that sheared the bottom of our outboard motor off. We got to shore & then waited & waited until finally a boat came by, saw us waving frantically & towed us back to the dock. We were onshore for hours waiting. It wouldn't have been pleasant spending the night on shore as we weren't prepared for it. I'm not very familiar with this technology so I don't know much about it. Sounds like we could have called out for help today. Is that right? 

When smart watches count me reaching into the bag of Munchies as fitness...then ill get one.

11 minutes ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

When smart watches count me reaching into the bag of Munchies as fitness...then ill get one.

I hear ya. My business partner wears his to jog with so his earbuds can link to it and he doesn't have to carry his phone on a run.

Not a problem for me. Not running anywhere. My knees and back survived decades of sports without an injury, there's no chance I'll be doing anything now to risk them as I enter my 50s (in two weeks).

6 hours ago, bluto said:

But now with pretty much all of my friends and colleagues wearing their Apple Watches, FitBits, Pixel Watches, etc and selling me on the virtues of them...

14 hours ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Not so much a desire for conformity, but it's been a recurring theme for me that I've been a late-adopter of new technology and then when I finally take the plunge and become familiar with it, I have a "Why didn't I do this a long time ago?" moment.

All I see with most people wearing smart watches is that they are constantly checking to see if they have reached their "steps" for the day or whatever notification that happens to be coming in.  I'm sure there are some conveniences that come with that, but I like to be able to put my phone down somewhere and walk away from it for a bit to get away from the barrage of information and notifications.

I don't need that extra stress in my life, so I don't think I will ever get a smart watch myself.

On 2023-10-17 at 9:20 AM, bluto said:

Curious if anyone else is in my situation with Smart Watches.

I used to not be able to leave my house without strapping a wristwatch on. Had a nice little collection going. But as Smart Phones became ubiquitous, I broke myself of the habit since timepieces were made redundant by them and found that I enjoyed not wearing one. Especially not having to worry about damaging it in my workplace.

But now with pretty much all of my friends and colleagues wearing their Apple Watches, FitBits, Pixel Watches, etc and selling me on the virtues of them, I'm starting to wonder if it's worth my time and expense to get one and learn its use?

5 years ago I was where you are now, I currently wear an Apple Watch from when I get up until I go to bed with few exceptions. Yes, I use it to monitor daily activity and it’s a pretty good “coach” to make sure you close your rings everyday, especially as I head in to my mid 50’s I need to be ever vigilant about my health. I also appreciate not needing to always pull my phone out and see who is calling, looking at my wrist to see “likely fraud” and reject the call is very easy (though, now that the election is over these calls are less frequent. More than anything for me it’s almost more a remote control for my phone than anything else. 

Apple Maps (and Google) in Israel and Gaza drop live traffic data at request of military - https://9to5mac.com/2023/10/24/apple-maps-israel-and-gaza/