At a lightning-fast press event yesterday (March 21), Apple announced a spate of product updates. A year ago, it unveiled the new MacBook laptop and told us when the Apple Watch—its first entirely new product in five years—would be available. At yesterday’s event, Apple’s big reveal was a smaller iPhone and iPad.
Apple’s phones have long been criticized for being difficult to repair or customize. They’re apparently so difficult that Apple is now using a robot to disassemble old iPhones to scrap. At a press conference at its Cupertino, California, headquarters yesterday (Mar. 21), Apple unveiled Liam, a robot that it’s using to recover valuable materials from old iPhones.
One of the biggest gripes about Apple’s newer phones is that they’re so big that they’re difficult for many people to use with one hand. That has, at least in part, kept a significant number of people from upgrading. In January, CEO Tim Cook revealed on Apple’s earnings call that 60% of iPhone owners hadn’t updated to larger phones since the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Today, iPhone owners with normal-sized hands can rejoice: Apple announced an updated version of its smaller iPhone 5S model at an event today at its headquarters in Cupertino, California.
Two days ago, Sony announced that its virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4 would cost $400, and would be available later this year. But today (Mar. 18), it’s decided to tell us that most people will likely have to pay $100 more than it originally said to actually play VR on the PlayStation 4.
Videogame consoles are big-ticket items, especially for kids. They save up their allowance all year for the chance to pick up the latest games system. If they’ve got generous parents, they may get one for Christmas in a moment of pure ecstatic bliss.
Boston Dynamics, the Massachusetts-based robotics company purchased by Alphabet in 2013, is apparently on the chopping block, according to a report from Bloomberg, over concerns that it won’t be able to sell any actual products in the next few years.
“Did you get the memo?”
“Did you confirm the meeting with Janet and Amy?”
2016 is shaping up to be the year of virtual reality. Facebook’s Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive are already set to make their way into consumers’ hands in the next month, and now one of the most popular videogame console manufacturers of the last few decades has lifted the lid on its first VR system. At the Game Developers Conference in San Fransisco yesterday (Mar. 15), Sony unveiled PlayStation VR—a $400 virtual-reality system that connects to a PlayStation 4 and will be released in October.
In a dusty field on the edge of New York, I stood across from a dangerous, shifty thing that would cut me up if it hit me. Like the toreadors in a Hemingway novel, I met my fate with dignity as the pointy beast charged at me. But thankfully, my reflexes were never put to the test, and I was spared. That’s because I wasn’t facing up against a raging bull, but DJI’s latest drone, the all-seeing Phantom 4.
Last week, Apple’s top brass put to rest a widely held misconception. The common practice of closing all the apps on your iPhone really doesn’t do anything to improve the phone’s battery life.
Luke Bannister, a 15-year-old drone racing pilot from the UK, won the inaugural World Drone Prix in Dubai on Sunday. The race, held in the United Arab Emirates, had a $1 million total prize purse, and Bannister took home first place, earning himself $250,000 of that prize money.
Although Google’s AI algorithm, AlphaGo, has already won the best-of-five series against human player Lee Sedol at the game of Go, both parties decided not to enact a mercy rule and kept playing. In the fourth game in the closely-watched series being held in South Korea, Lee finally struck a blow for humanity and beat AlphaGo.
I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but we have entered the beginning of the end for the human race as we know it.
There are a lot of little quirks and tricks out there that will make your iPhone’s battery last a little bit longer. You can get rid of the Facebook app, and make sure your phone’s not using data without your knowledge. But one trick that just about everyone with an iPhone does to save battery life in fact does absolutely nothing.
General Motors announced today (Mar. 11) that it’s buying Cruise, a startup that develops self-driving technologies for cars. GM said in a release Cruise will help the automaker “accelerate autonomous vehicle development,” as it looks to catch up with Silicon Valley and other car companies that have already invested heavily in self-driving cars.
That headline might sound like an internet ad that you don’t want to click on, but hear me out. If you feel your iPhone is acting a little sluggish, there’s a new trick surfaced by 9to5Mac that will make every action feel a little snappier.
The regulations governing flying drones, especially in the US, are not always perfectly clear. That being said, it’s generally not advised—and often times illegal—to fly drones anywhere near airports, or anywhere that planes tend to fly. Regardless, one hobbyist thought it would be fun to hack into their drone and try to fly it as high as they possibly could.
Yesterday, AlphaGo, an artificially intelligent algorithm developed by Google subsidy DeepMind, beat arguably the best player in the world at the ancient game of Go. It’s a game that AI researchers have been trying to crack for years, with one prominent researcher saying in December the game wouldn’t be solved for another decade. AlphaGo promptly beat the reigning European champion in January.
The Associated Press has obtained footage from the bus that crashed with Google’s self-driving car last month, and it seems to have a been a very undramatic incident. The fender-bender happened when the self-driving car, as well as the human in the driver’s seat monitoring the car, assumed a bus would yield to it (given that the Google car had the right of way) while it turned. Instead, the bus carried on forward and the robo-car hit the side of the bus.
This post has been updated.
Ray Tomlinson, an early internet pioneer credited with creating the first email system, passed away on Saturday (Mar. 5). Computer scientist Tomlinson was perhaps best known for creating the earliest email messaging system, and for choosing the “@” symbol as the character in email addresses.
Every few years, we replace the electronic devices in our lives, because they start to feel slow, or won’t work with the latest programs. But we don’t often throw out the old ones, either out of inertia or because they’re not the sort of thing you can just toss into the garbage can. But there’s a new solution, first highlighted by Joanna Stern at the Wall Street Journal (paywall), that might break the endless cycle of replacement and help restore your old laptop to some of its former glory.
Nancy Reagan, the former first lady and wife of the late US president Ronald Reagan, has died at 94 years old, according to her spokesperson. She died of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles, the report said.
