Things to Expect at Apple’s WWDC ’13

On May 15, 2013, In Apple, By Mike

WWDC Logo

 

This week Apple sent out invites for its annual developer convention, where budding app developers can discuss their ideas with Apple’s very own software engineers.

The press, and those who are lucky enough to purchase a ticket (which sold out in record time this year), are invited to a keynote presentation, typically headed by the CEO Tim Cook and aptly supported by the chief officers of the software division(s) to show off and discuss what’s new in the latest versions of the operating systems for their iPhones, iPads and Macs.

This year could be even more exciting for all Apple fans, however, as it appears that the unveiling of the next version of the operating system for the majority of iPhones, iPods and iPads - iOS 7 - is going to be the first update where head designer and acclaimed British award winner, Jonny Ive, is directly involved. Considering that Ive is responsible for the design and look of the hardware, big things are expected in the industry to see how he can improve the look and use-ability of the operating system to keep the company’s mobile devices current, fresh and - most importantly - sought after.

Digging a little deeper, it’s also possible to glean a little information from the invite itself. Famously, Apple is a very secretive company and doesn’t provide much advance information, or respond to rumours on unreleased or announced products, but they do have a history of teasing a little snippet in their keynote presentation invitations.

This year, although not obvious, I believe Apple has subtly offered up a tiny glimpse into iOS 7. Looking at the event invite, it’s clear this is not in the company’s normal colours, or font used in company design and user interfaces, and it’s possible that Apple is flagging up how the new folder icon – with smoother, simpler lines fonts – are going to look like in the new update.

We wait in anticipation, then, for June 10-14 at the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco, where all will be revealed.

Source: hereisthecity.com

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iPhone 6: Release date, rumours, features and news from T3

On March 25, 2013, In News, By Mike

 

The Apple iPhone 6 is probably the most hotly anticipated upcoming gadget on the planet – and if it isn’t probably one of its larger screened siblings the iPad 5 or iPad Mini 2 is.

The tech world is always looking for the next big thing, and so is particularly well primed for the flurry of rumour and speculation that precedes big product launches.

And Apple’s policy of zero information prior to actually launching the product, rather than starving the rumour camp fire of oxygen, the mystery seems to act as petroleum.

As such, tips, speculation and murmurings as to what the iPhone 6 will be started to appear almost as soon as the iPhone 5 was launched. Some industry punts are so specific as to raise serious eyebrows – once predicts not only that a cheaper iPhone will be launched, but that we’ll see it in May, and that by the end of the year it will sell 53 million units.

While the analyst in question will certainly be on for a big win at the bookies if that particular bet comes in, we bring you a round up of some of the other seemingly logical rumours.

Apple iPhone budget device

Alongside a full fat iPhone 6, there are rumblings that Apple will launch a budget iPhone – possibly called the iPhone 5s - which will revert back to the plastic chassis found on the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS.

While this would go against the somewhat ‘premium’ pricing model of Apple products, a DigiTimes reports that sources within the upstream supply chain have confirmed that Apple is in the process of sourcing the plastic parts needed for a budget iPhone including a chassis.

In a recent earnings call CEO Tim Cook made the fair point that taking any particular bit of data relating to a supply chain of a big firm like Apple won’t necessarily tell you much about the bigger picture.  However he then also blurted out, when asked about the possibility of cheaper iPhones – “We’ve had a great track record on iPod of offering different products at different price points.” – which many have taken to mean confirmation they’re working on one.

Apple iPhone 6 screen

Many saw the increased 4-inch screen size on the iPhone 5 as a move on Apple’s part to keep up with the screen sizes of the larger Android powered phones. However now 5-inches is more like the premium screen size right now – so you might see Apple making a move in that direction

Some reports suggest that Apple may launch phones with different sized screens, which would come in a range of colours – which would be another departure from what we’ve seen before. The prediction comes courtesy of analyst Brian White at Topeka Capital.

If Apple were to release two sized phones – which are being called the iPhone 5S and iPhone 6 – Apple may shift to a larger screen size for the latter.

Another analyst told MacRumours that Apple could be looking to implement a 4.8-inch Retina+ IGZO screen made by Sharp, which will make the iPhone display thinner, brighter and much clearer – boasting better than HD resolutions.

According to those inside the manufacturing industry Sharp is working on making its super HD display iPhone-ready – however because the technology is so new it might not even appear on the next generation of tech.

Apple iPhone 6 features

They’ll certainly hardware upgrades to Apple’s next phone, though it’s worth pointing out Apple isn’t usually at the top of the pile when it comes to lining up components alone.

A polycarbonaite body is one of the more frequent mutterings heard flapping through the wind of internet rumours.

Elsewhere, a new top of the range iPhone model would presumably need some sort of decent camera upgrade – as this is an area that’s been particularly busy in smartphones since the last iphone wa launched. The HTC One and Nokia 920 in particular boast interesting new camera features, other than simply megapixel escalation.

A new feature that could well appear on the 6th generation iPhone is the use of sonar as a replacement to the current infared sensors which use sound as a proximity sensor – according to this report in Apple Insider – letting the phone detect where it is, either as a way of alerting the user about an incoming object, or as a way of detecting whether the phone is being held to the users ear.

Apple iPhone 6 release date

One of many analysts claiming to be in the know claims it won’t be ready until 2014. Jefferies analyst Peter Mise said “Apple’s iPhone uses a technology called ‘in-cell,’ which essentially meshes the touch screen with the glass screen into one thin display. Its partners can’t get good enough yields making those displays bigger to launch the iPhone 6 this year,” the report said. “He thinks the next iPhone will run on a 20 nm processor, allowing it to add more cores, possibly four or eight. To take advantage of the new processing speed, iOS will have to be upgraded. The new iOS architecture might not be ready until 2014.”

Whilst others point to a 2013 release. While there’s always a certain internal logic to these things, realistically there’s no way to be sure until Apple send out an invite.

Image credit: Yanko Design

Source: T3.com

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QuadCopter GoPro Action!

On March 21, 2013, In News, By Mike

On a snowy evening the LA Media team ventured out to test out a Gyro Stabilised GoPro equipped Quadcopter. The GoPro in use is the Hero 2 (we will be attaching our Hero 3 Black Edition when we can!).

Great piece of kit that will be even better when the new servo driven gyro arrives!

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GoPro Hero 3!

On February 5, 2013, In News, By Mike

The GoPro Hero 3 Black has finally arrived at LA Media! Time to start testing… 240 FPS Mmmmm…

Check out this brilliant video from GoPro:

 

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Million-core calculation sets new supercomputer record

On January 31, 2013, In News, By Mike

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Sure the popular open source platform Hadoop can crunch Big Data. But we’re talking Really Big Data. At Stanford University in Northern California, USA, researchers just tapped into the world’s largest supercomputer and ran an application that crunched information across more than one million processor cores.

Joseph Nichols and his team are the first to run live code on the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories’ Sequoia IBM Bluegene/Q supercomputer, a machine that spans over 1.5 million cores in total. The team used just over one million of those cores to simulate the amount of noise produced by an experimental jet engine, apparently setting a supercomputer record in the process.

Nichols and crew had never run the code on a machine with over 200,000 cores before, and they spent the past few weeks working closely with the Lawrence Livermore researchers to optimise the software for Sequoia. “I had no idea if it was going to work or not,” Nichols says.

The experiment shows that despite the rise of open source distributing computing tools such as Hadoop — which uses dirt-cheap, commodity hardware — old school supercomputers still provide much larger data crunching platforms. The largest Hadoop cluster likely spans around 8,800 cores.

Supercomputers work by breaking down very large problems into smaller problems and distributing them across many machines and many processor cores. Typically, adding more cores makes the calculations faster, but it also adds complexity. At a certain point, calculations can actually become slower due to bottlenecks introduced by the communications between processors.

But Sequoia’s processors are organised and networked in a new way — using a “5D Torus” interconnect. Each processor is directly connected to ten other processors, and can connect, with lower latency, to processors further away. But some of those processors also have an 11th connection, which taps into a central input/output channel for the entire system. These special processors collect signals from the processors and write the results to disk. This allowed most of the necessary communications to occur between the processors without a need to hit the disk.

The team hopes the results will help create quieter jet engines. Under the direction of Professors Parviz Moin and Sanjiva Lele, the Stanford team has been working with the NASA Glenn Research Center in Ohio and the NAVAIR branch of the US Navy to predict how loud an experimental engine will be without having to actually construct a prototype. That’s harder than it sounds. Nichols explains that the acoustic energy of an engine is less than one percent of its total energy. Calculations have to be extremely precise in order to accurately model the noise an engine will generate.

But thanks to the Sequoia, Nichols thinks their research could go beyond just modelling into prescriptive design — in other words, figuring out what the optimum design would be.

There are many other possibilities. Nichols says that the code they’re working with — originally developed by former Stanford senior research associate Frank Ham — enables other researchers at Stanford to simulate the full flow of an entire aircraft wing and to model hypersonic scramjets, propulsion systems for flight at several times the speed of sound.

“It gave pause to a lot of people,” Nichols says. “We were like: ‘Whoa we can actually do that.’”

This story originally appeared on Wired.com

Image: Lawrence Livermore National Lab

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Project Glass – lovely Googleness…

On January 18, 2013, In Gadgets, News, By Mike

Google Glass

Price: $1,500

 

Glass is, simply put, a computer built into the frame of a pair of glasses, and it’s the device that will make augmented reality part of our daily lives. With the half-inch (1.3 cm) display, which comes into focus when you look up and to the right, users will be able to take and share photos, video-chat, check appointments and access maps and the Web. Consumers should be able to buy Google Glass by 2014.

Check out the video below:

Lovelyness..

 

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EE shops closing months after rebrand!

On January 18, 2013, In News, By Mike
There’s more trouble on the high street. As Blockbuster and HMV spiral into oblivion, 4G phone network EE is axeing 78 shops — less than three months after millions were spent on rebranding them.The former Orange and T-Mobile shops chosen for the chop have been decided based on factors such as how many customers each store has, whether a lease is coming to an end, or how close the next EE store is. Which, as in the case of the photo above — taken by Flickr userLazygamer in Leeds — is very close indeed.EE is the network formed from the merger of Orange and T-Mobile. Upon merging, the new uber-network overhauled the 700 Orange and T-Mobile shops with new signs, interiors and branding bearing EE’s logo and new information, not to mention retraining staff.

This despite the glaringly obvious fact that some shops would go, simply because of all the duplicate branches on high streets. So why did EE waste your phone bill money on rebranding clearly doomed stores?

I put that question to EE, which said it has gone ahead with rebranding and running stores since the merger to avoid a “knee-jerk reaction”. The network says stores have been under review since the rebrand in October, and the timing of the announcement — in the same week as Blockbuster and HMV enter administration — is purely coincidental.

The good news is that EE says it will retain all shop staff, moving employees to the nearest shops. Managers will also be redeployed where possible, but may be at risk.

EE assured me that it’s not looking to make job cuts and is in fact opening four new branches in new locations. I’m pleased EE isn’t talking job losses, but also suspicious: at the time of the merger EE vowed not to cut shops, only to quietly do just that a couple of months later.

Source: CNET|UK

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Google Nexus Q Review

On January 16, 2013, In Gadgets, Reviews, By Mike

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The Google Nexus Q is a device most of us can ignore for the time being.

It does generate a lot of curiosity, which is deserved, as it’s a gorgeous product that demonstrates Google is getting more serious about two things: selling digital content, and making Android devices without touchscreens.

The Q is an austere, matte black sphere that streams music and videos from the cloud. The entire top hemisphere is an endlessly rotating volume knob that’s also touch-sensitive. (Tap it to mute the audio.) Around the equator is a ring of bright, colorful LEDs that dance to the music. The lower hemisphere is a die-cast zinc base with a number of ports — micro HDMI, micro USB, optical audio, Ethernet, and analog speaker connections — machined into the back. Inside are the guts of an Android smartphone and a 25-watt amp for powering a pair of speakers. It represents a huge milestone for Google, as it’s the company’s first consumer product developed and manufactured entirely in-house.

It’s a visual and tactile joy, and a marvel of engineering. But beauty is only skin-deep, and the Nexus Q’s functionality is so severely limited out of the box, it’s difficult for all but the most hardcore audio gadget fanatics to justify the price tag (currently $300 (£190) in the US, with a UK release as yet unconfirmed).

But the eyebrow raising doesn’t stop there. It’s only capable of streaming content from Google Play and YouTube. Confoundingly, you can’t use it to play any of the MP3s on your local network, nor can you stream music from Spotify or other services. It requires an Android phone or tablet running a special app to control it. There’s no support for iOS or Windows Phone. It forgoes regular analog speaker posts in favor of banana plug sockets.

So, it’s an enticing device – if you’re fully committed to buying and renting stuff from Google’s music and movie store, if you’ve bothered to upload all of your music to Google’s cloud service, if you have an Android phone or tablet, and ifyou have a pair of speakers sitting around that happen to be able to accept banana plugs. That’s a lot of ifs.

The price tag seems shocking, but when you think about it, that’s actually not too bad. I see a lot of audiophile devices, and for something that feels, looks and sounds this nice, is made in the United States, and has a high-quality 25-watt amp and a fully capable Android circuit board inside — complete with a dual-core OMAP 4460 chip, 16GB of storage and 1GB of RAM — that price is reasonable.

Source: Wired.com

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Apple’s 2013 Product Roadmap Predictions: Multiple iPhones, Retina iPad Mini, All-Retina MacBook Pros

On January 16, 2013, In News, By Mike

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a very good track record in predicting Apple’s product plans, has issued a new research report outlining his expectations for Apple’s 2013 product launches. Kuo believes that Apple will focus its launches on the third quarter of this year, with a number of updates throughout the company’s various product families.

- iPhone: Kuo expects that Apple will introduce both an iPhone 5S and a revamped iPhone 5 around June or July of this year, with the iPhone 5S appearing very similar to the current iPhone 5 but carrying a number of upgrades including an A7 system-on-a-chip for better performance, a fingerprint sensor, and camera improvements such as an f2.0 aperture and a smart LED flash. He also believes that the lower-cost iPhone will in many ways simply be an iPhone 5 repackaged into a slightly thicker (8.2 mm vs. the current 7.6 mm) plastic enclosure available in six colors.

- iPad and iPad mini: Kuo forecasts that Apple will update both lines during the third quarter of the year, with the iPad mini gaining a Retina display as the most notable change. He also predicts that the full-size iPad will become considerably slimmer and lighter and adopt the thinner side bezels seen on the iPad mini.

- MacBook Pro: In line with his predictions from last year, Kuo believes that Apple will do away with the non-Retina MacBook Pro line in 2013, moving to an all-Retina lineup at cheaper price points than the current Retina models. Kuo also believes that Apple will tweak the design of these thinner Retina MacBook Pros, despite having just introduced the current form factor last year.

- MacBook Air: Retina displays remain a challenge for the MacBook Air given their relative thickness, and Kuo predicts that they will not be appearing in the 2013 MacBook Air lineup. Kuo believes that a move to Intel’s forthcoming Haswell platform will be the main upgrade for the machines, with the update coming perhaps as soon as late in the second quarter.

- Desktops: Kuo notes that the iMac redesign has been well-received, but it appears that he does not see Retina displays coming to the lineup in 2013. He simply predicts a shift to the Haswell platform for the iMac and Mac mini in the fourth quarter of the year. Kuo’s report does not address a new Mac Pro, even though Apple CEO Tim Cook had personally shared that a significant update for the line was due in 2013.

- iPod touch: Apple will reportedly discontinue the fourth-generation iPod touch, which is currently being sold alongside the new fifth-generation models. In order to fill the gap, Kuo believes that Apple will introduce a scaled-back fifth-generation model with 8 GB of storage and no rear camera at $199.

- Apple TV: Kuo predicts a minor update to the existing Apple TV product as soon as late this quarter, but he offers no details on what the update would entail. He also notes that Apple’s more substantial television effort is unlikely to appear in 2013, with content issues and a lack of experience in the television set industry pushing things back until 2014.

Source: MacRumors

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CES 2013: Best in show – engadget

On January 16, 2013, In News, Technology, By Mike

CES 2013 Best in show

Selecting the best in show is no easy task, because CES covers such a crazy range of devices: refrigerators, tablets, smartphones and even technologically advanced cutlery. This year was no different. We’ve combed our CES 2013 coverage and narrowed it down to the biggest announcements that had us chattering at this year’s show. Join us after the break for CES 2013′s very best.

BEST IN HDTVS: SONY’S 56-INCH ULTRA HD OLED

CES 2013 Best in show

One of the narratives going into (and coming out of) CES 2013 was whether OLED or 4K TVs represented the best of the high-priced displays filling manufacturer’s high-end product slots this year. We saw many great displays and connected products at CES 2013 but our pick for best in show is the one that made the fewest compromises: Sony’s 56-inch Ultra HD OLED. It does have the drawback of being without a release date or possible price — hey, what happened to that Crystal LEDfrom last year? — but putting out an image in which we found no flaws pushed this one to the top. Other contenders included Panasonic’s new top-of-the-line ZT plasmas, Samsung’s 85-inch UHDTV and LG’s soon-to-ship 55-inch OLED, but when we’re thinking about what the best thing we saw this year was, there’s no question that this is it.

BEST IN GAMING: RAZER EDGE

CES 2013 Best in show

Razer’s Edge was the most exciting gaming news out of CES 2013. Not just because it’s a powerful gaming computer (it is), but also because of its modularity. That it can be used as a standalone tablet, as well as a portable game console, as well as a home game console is extremely appealing. The Edge takes an open platform and combines it with the comfort of gaming consoles — two great tastes that taste great together. Except this is actually more like four or five tastes that taste great together.

BEST IN TABLETS: PANASONIC 4K 20-INCH TABLET

CES 2013 Best in show

We hadn’t even heard whispers about this prototype 20-inch 4K tablet before CES, but it quickly became the thing showgoers were gushing over. Sure, it’s really heavy and the battery life is likely quite poor, but who cares? The display quality, impressive brushed-metal back and bezel and — to quote our own Jon Fingas — the “audacity of Panasonic to build something like this” was mighty compelling. The booth display had the tablets set up demoing architectural applications and remote photo shooting work. We’d take either thank you very much.

BEST IN SMARTPHONES: SONY XPERIA Z

CES 2013 Best of show roundup

What’s a modern trade show without at least a couple handset launches? Unfortunately, Mobile World Congress trumps CES for cell launches, but that doesn’t mean this show was without some magic. The Sony Xperia Z’s 5-inch 1080p display and the new Exmor RS sensor for HDR video capture plus the fact that it is waterproof helped it shine in our opinion. The overall look and feel of the device is head and shoulders above anything else we’ve seen from Sony; they’ve stepped from wobbly plastics to a premium feel. Carrier specifics and exact launch date are still being hashed out but look for the Sony Xperia Z this year sometime in Q1.

BEST IN LAPTOPS: LENOVO YOGA 11S

CES 2013 Best in show

Given that Intel’s battery-saving Haswell chips won’t be shipping for a few months yet, it’s pretty clear the best laptop of 2013 is yet to come. For the time being, though, our favorite notebook of CES and the new year would have to be Lenovo’sYoga 11S. It offers the same comfy keyboard and versatile form factor we admired on the Yoga 13, except it’s been cut down to a more compact size (one that’s easier to use in tablet mode, we’d wager). At the same time, unlike the similarly named Yoga 11, it runs full Windows 8, not RT, and is powered by a more robust laptop-grade processor. Lenovo’s shape-shifting ThinkPad Helix was also a serious contender, what with its reversible display, but we have a feeling ThinkPad diehards are going to loathe that new buttonless trackpad.

BEST IN AUTOMOTIVE: FORD APPLINK DEVELOPER PROGRAM

CES 2013 Best in show

The story leading up to CES on the automotive front was self-driving cars, but that ended up being a bit of a bust. Toyota’s automated entry proved to be nothing more than a research vehicle, and Audi’s demonstration was limited to say the least. The biggest story, then, was instead one of software, with both GM and Ford announcing developer programs. It is Ford’s developer program that shows the most potential, however, enabling developers to easily upgrade their existing smartphone apps to interact with the company’s SYNC AppLink. Most important: it’s totally free.

BEST IN WEARABLES: PEBBLE SMART WATCH

CES 2013 Best of show roundup

CES has seen its fair share of smart watches in the past, as just about every manufacturer has offered at least one design in an attempt to make the genre popular. However, the Pebble might be the first such device to make consumers stand up and take notice — heck our own Myriam Joire pegged the Pebble as hands down her favorite gadget at the show. The sealed polycarbonate face and bezel, plain English time and stellar build quality are part of what makes it really compelling. Other standouts include the MagSafe-like adapter and waterproofing up to some five atmospheres of pressure (that’s about 160 feet.) The Pebble appeared on Kickstarter early last year and quickly raised $10 million dollars; it’s now set to ship January 23rd, after multiple delays.

BEST IN UTENSILS: HAPILABS HAPIFORK (AND SPOON)

CES 2013 Best of show roundup

At first glance the HAPILABS HAPIfork seems more novelty than tech — and may well prove to be — but it definitely stepped away from the norm and garnered a pile of attention. The idea is you use the fork as you normally would, but it keeps track of how long you eat, how quickly and how many bites you take. It then shares these metrics with a Runtastic-like site. Eat too quickly and the fork or spoon — the end is detachable — will vibrate to let you know to slow down a touch. The $99 HAPIfork ships in Q2 this year.

BEST OF THE REST: TACTUS MORPHING TOUCHSCREEN

CES 2013 Best of show roundup

Tactus’ morphing touchscreen was quite likely our all-around favorite device at the show. It combines a great idea with interesting potential and that full-on science fiction wow when you first see the “keyboard” inflate. Tactus hopes to see products shipping with its tactile touchscreen this year in devices ranging from phones to devices for the visually impaired. We wish them well and look forward to checking out what may eventually come of this technology.

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