‘Next-Generation’ Apple Store Opens in Memphis

Apple officially opened one of its first Jony Ive-inspired “next-generation” retail stores in the U.S. over the weekend.

The new-look store is located at the Shops of Saddle Creek South in Germantown, a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee, and shows off some of the new design elements, as shown in photos provided to AppleInsider.

The store is described as having a high-flung ceiling lined with light panels and spotlights, which illuminate product display tables that have been arranged to maximize floorspace and achieve a sense of openness.

The wooden tables have been redesigned by Ive and now contain motion sensors that operate a flip-up panel concealing power outlets and ports.

New wooden accessory display installations adorn the walls, and feature a headphone tryout area along with shelves for speakers, docks and other products.

Undoubtedly the biggest new addition though is a gigantic 37-foot display screen opposite the store’s all-glass frontage. The high-resolution array is encased in a black housing and fills almost the entire wall with its edge-to-edge display.

Plans for the next-generation Memphis store were revealed in an August 2015 building permit application.

In February 2015, The New Yorker ran a profile of Jony Ive which included details of the collaboration between Ive and retail chief Angela Ahrendts in coming up with the redesign, which is slowly being introduced in the company’s latest stores.

In December, 60 Minutes viewers got a peek at Apple’s next-generation design when correspondent Charlie Rose spoke to Ahrendts in a mock store located in an unmarked warehouse off Apple’s Cupertino headquarters.

Related Roundup: Apple Stores
Tag: appleinsider.com
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Panasonic Lumix ZS100 (TZ100, TZ110) review – CNET

The Good The Panasonic’s ZS100’s 10x zoom lens is thus far the longest we’ve seen in a compact camera with a 1-inch sensor, and it offers a broad set of features including 4K video.

The Bad It lacks a flip-up display and its autofocus speed is just middling.

The Bottom Line The Pansonic ZS100 offers great blend of quality, size and features for people who want better photos and are willing to trade off a little quality for a lot of lens.

Occupying an interesting middle ground between the company’s LX100 enthusiast compact and FZ1000 megazoom, the Panasonic Lumix ZS100 offers a general-purpose compromise among image quality, zoom and size that adds up to a highly recommendable camera for families, travelers and even hobbyists who get frustrated with the short lenses in most enthusiast compacts.

Part of Panasonic’s “travel zoom” series of compacts — hence its alternate names TZ100 in the UK and TZ110 in Australia — the ZS100 goes head-to-head with the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 IV. That’s a pretty good deal for its price, as well: $700, £550 and AU$1,000.

The ZS100 incorporates the same 1-inch sensor as the excellent FZ1000, but the lens is a shorter and slower 10x lens — 25-250mm f2.8-5.9 — compared to the FZ1000’s big 16x f2.8 lens. That allows Panasonic to keep it small, making it the longest-zoom compact in the 1-inch class. There are some trade-offs to get that zoom, however; its lens isn’t that great, and because it has a greater area to focus over it does more slowly than competitors.

Photo and video quality

Though it’s not quite up to the standard of the best cameras with 1-inch sensors, I think most people will be perfectly happy with the photo and video of the ZS100, which ranges from very good to excellent. In auto mode the photos tend to come out darker than in manual or priority modes which results in very dense shadows, but for the most part it delivers.

Panasonic Lumix ZS100 full-resolution photo…
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A lot depends upon how far you’re zoomed in and what aperture is set in addition to the typical factor of the ISO sensitivity setting. The lens doesn’t seem to be particularly sharp in general, with more than usual distortion around the edges. And at the longer zoom and narrow apertures — essentially from f4 to f8 — photos get a lot softer. You reach those apertures very fast; it reaches f4.1 by the time you hit 50mm. And that’s the tradeoff for the benefits of a 10x zoom. As long as you’re not scrutinizing the photos at full size, though, I think you’ll find it worth the slight sharpness sacrifice.

There’s a Diffraction Compensation setting which theoretically counteracts the softening effects of the narrowed aperture, but since the only choices are auto or off, it’s impossible to tell whether it’s actually doing anything.

In bright light JPEGs look very good; as the light dims, they start to look very smeary. Keep in mind that in low light (i.e., at high ISO sensitivities) for any camera, out-of-focus areas start to degrade a lot faster than those in focus. So the ZS100’s naturally soft photos start to show artifacts in low light faster than ones shot with a better lens. Color and exposure look pleasing, though.

You can get better results in low light by shooting raw — in some cases, without even doing anything to the file other than opening it and saving as a JPEG. That’s because raw avoids Panasonic’s aggressive processing.

Its 4K video is excellent for point-and-shoot purposes, though you do see visual noise in low light and slight movements of the camera produce wobble, which is pretty typical.

Analysis samples

JPEGs look clean through ISO 200; by ISO 400 you can start to see just a little detail loss.

Lori Grunin/CNET

By ISO 800 the JPEGs are noticeably soft, but they’re still pretty usable. At ISO 1600 and above they start to lose a lot of detail, but they look okay at small sizes.

Lori Grunin/CNET

While the ZS100 didn’t show great white balance under our test LED lights, in normal daylight and even under cloudy skies it’s very good. Colors are bright, saturated and very pleasing.

Lori Grunin/CNET

Sky to show Formula 1 in 4K UHD from 2017

Sky has officially confirmed that it will show the Formula 1 race season in 4K Ultra High Definition from next year.

The 4K race coverage will be delivered via the latest Sky Q service from Sky. This is available now but won’t get used for 4K UHD viewing until this summer, around the time of the Premier League football season kick-off.

At the moment the only broadcast of 4K content is from BT Sport, which roughly offers an event each weekend to its customers.

Sky says that “Sky Sports will be the home of Formula 1 in the UK and Ireland from 2019 to 2024”.

Sky currently offers a dedicated Sky Sports F1 HD channel which will presumably make the switch-over to 4K, or have another higher quality channel to compliment it.

Sky has not given specifics on 4K availability but presumably only Sky Q subscribers will have access to the events. 

A new Now TV box is due for a summer release but weather or not that will stream 4K is still unclear. If it can, that will potentially offer the option of the bundled Sky Sports Pass for a day at £7 or the week at £12. This would likely be more costly if it also offered UHD.

READ: What is Sky Q, how much does it cost and how can I get it?

Japan’s most powerful X-ray satellite went incommunicado

Japan’s space agency launched its latest X-ray satellite Hitomi in February, expecting it to keep an eye on the universe for at least three years. Sadly, its future is now uncertain. JAXA lost contact with the observatory (previously called Astro-H) this weekend, and it’s still trying to find out what happened to its $270 million mission. Astronomers realized something was wrong when Hitomi failed to phone home for a routine check on Sunday, March 27th, 3:40AM Eastern time. The US Joint Space Operations Center reported afterward that it spotted five pieces of debris in Hitomi’s location before JAXA was supposed to hear from the satellite.

Worst case scenario is that the satellite disintegrated. But the agency might have also just spotted small pieces of the observatory that came off due to an unfortunate event, such an an explosion or a gas leak. As Chandra astronomer Jonathan McDowell tweeted, “‘Debris’ doesn’t mean Hitomi’s in little pieces. It means little pieces have come off it.” The satellite could still be intact. After all, JAXA received short signals from Hitomi after the JSpOC spotted those pieces of debris. The agency set up an emergency headquarters headed by JAXA President Naoki Okumura himself to investigate and get to the bottom of the situation.

The Japanese space agency developed Hitomi to be its most powerful X-ray satellite. It’s still in the middle of prepping its scientific instruments — a phase that’s supposed to last for three months since it blasted off in February — and hasn’t even started its mission yet. Those instruments include spectrometers so sensitive, they can detect X-ray sources 10 times fainter that what Hitomi’s predecessor could spot. If the observatory’s still intact (and we’re sure JAXA is hoping it is), it will scour the universe for black holes, galaxy clusters and other high-energy phenomena.

We are still trying to recover communication with “Hitomi”, and trying to find out the status and causes of this communication failure.

— JAXA Web (@JAXA_en) March 28, 2016

Although JSpOC reported that Hitomi separated into multiple pieces at May 26 0820UT, we received short signals from Hitomi after that time.

— JAXA Web (@JAXA_en) March 28, 2016

Via: Gizmodo

Source: JAXA

Edit all you want, because Google Photos will keep your originals

If you’re prone to overfiltering, cropping and general meddling with your photos, you just keep right at it — if you’re using Google Photos on Android. The app has been updated to ensure it keeps the original shot irrespective of how many times you resize, shape and brighten it. Now, users can can save their edits or save a new copy of the photo, but irrespective of which, the original will also stay filed away inside the Photos app. The new feature is inside version 1.17 — and I’m telling you that now so that no-one goes crazy with the cropping before they’re sure they’ve got the right update.

Source: Google Play

Samsung Pay officially launches in China

Samsung has collaborated with China UnionPay to launch Samsung Pay in China. Customers in the country will be able to use the contactless payment service on the Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+ and Galaxy Note 5, with Samsung stating that mid-range models will be able to take advantage of the service in the future.

Samsung Pay currently supports credit and debit cards from nine banks in the country, including China CITIC Bank, China Construction Bank, China Everbright Bank, China Guangfa Bank, China Minsheng Banking Corp. Ltd, China Merchants Bank, Hua Xia Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Ping An Bank. Support for six additional banks — Bank of China, Bank of Beijing, Bank of Communications, China Bohai Bank, Industrial Bank and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank — is in the works.

Samsung Pay is different from other contactless payment services in that it includes MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission), making the service compatible with older POS machines that feature a magnetic card swiper.

Samsung Pay is now available in China with China Union Pay

Samsung Electronics and China UnionPay (CUP) announced the launch of Samsung Pay in China. A simple, safe and easy-to-use mobile payment service, Samsung Pay works virtually anywhere you can swipe or tap your card in China. Samsung Pay will enable users to safely manage and use their debit and credit cards on eligible Samsung mobile phones with CUP.

“We are pleased to be partnering with CUP to bring Samsung Pay to China,” said Injong Rhee, EVP and Head of R&D, Software and Services of Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics. “The reception of Samsung Pay since its launch has been extremely positive and the service has already seen tremendous success in terms of availability and adoption by consumers. In compliance with national laws and regulations, thanks to cooperating with CUP and many banks, we ultimately want to make Samsung Pay available to as many consumers as possible in china, so that everyone can have the opportunity to enjoy the simplicity, safety and convenience of this mobile payment solution.”

“China UnionPay attaches great importance to the security and innovation of payment. In order to follow the tendency of mobile payment in both China and abroad, CUP cooperates with industry to bring safe and convenient mobile payment experience for millions card holders. With the joint efforts of banks and Samsung, based on the safety testing and certification by relevant national testing agency, CUP QuickPass starting Samsung Pay service will bring users safer and more convenient mobile payment choice.” said Hu Ying, Assistant President of UnionPay.

Samsung Pay is currently available on the Samsung Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+ and Galaxy Note5 in China with the opportunity to support additional mid-range models in the future.*

Samsung Pay currently supports select credit and debit cards from nine banks including China CITIC Bank, China Construction Bank, China Everbright Bank, China Guangfa Bank, China Minsheng Banking Corp. Ltd, China Merchants Bank, Hua Xia Bank , Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Ping An Bank**

Samsung Pay will eventually include future support for select credit and debit cards from six additional banks including Bank of China, Bank of Beijing, Bank of Communications, China Bohai Bank, Industrial Bank and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. Samsung Pay continues to strategically expand its partnership ecosystem to provide greater flexibility, access, and choice for customers.

To make a payment with Samsung Pay, consumers simply swipe up from Home bottom whether the phone screen is locked, going black or in home screen, scan their fingerprint and pay, which is quite easy and convenient. In term of safety, Samsung Pay has three layers protection, which are fingerprint authentication, tokenization and KNOX. Because of innovative technology, Samsung Pay can be used on both QuickPass POS terminal with NFC and more POS terminals without NFC technology, which is more accepted than other similar applications with only NFC technology.

Samsung unveils Galaxy J7 2016 and Galaxy J5 2016 in China

Samsung has refreshed the Galaxy J7 and Galaxy J5 for 2016. The phones retain the camera configuration from last year, offering 5MP cameras with LED flash at the front and 13MP cameras at the back.

The Galaxy J7 is the more powerful variant of the two, featuring a 5.5-inch Full HD Super AMOLED display, octa-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz, 3GB of RAM, 16GB internal storage, microSD slot, LTE connectivity, NFC, and a 3300mAh battery.

The official listing of the Galaxy J5 reveals a 5.2-inch 720p display, quad-core processor clocked at 1.2 GHz, 2GB of RAM, 16GB storage, microSD slot,

In terms of specs, both phones are similar to what’s on offer with the Galaxy A7 and A5, but as they’re being offered at the budget segment, they eschew the premium metal-and-glass design of the Galaxy A series. Samsung’s instead going with a metal frame and plastic back with the Galaxy J series, which looks far better when compared to last year’s monotonous designs.

There’s no mention of when we’ll see the phones making their way outside of China, but with the Galaxy J series turning out to be a huge hit in India, Samsung is expected to make the devices available shortly. With the Galaxy J3 2016 also available in the U.S., it remains to be seen if Samsung launches the Galaxy J5 and J7 in the country.

Watch Oculus VR’s founder deliver the first Rift to a developer in Alaska

One lucky developer got to receive the first consumer version of Oculus Rift from Luckey himself. 

Brendan Iribe, the CEO of Oculus VR, tweeted a photo of a boxed Rift bundle last week to notify the world the “first Oculus Rift has shipped” and that deliveries would begin 28 March, but now we’ve learned the package didn’t actually get shipped out via a standard delivery service. Instead, Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR and inventor of the Rift, hand-delivered the first Rift.

He travelled to Alaska – dressed ever so casually in a Hawaiian shirt – and handed the Rift to a developer named Ross Martin. Martin was one of a few hundred customers to pre-order the Rift at the same moment, but he beat everyone out by milliseconds and became the first person to buy the virtual-reality headset that costs $599 in the US, £499 in the UK, and €699 in Europe.

Although developer versions of the Rift have been around for years, this is the first retail version. There are also bundles that went up for pre-order in February. They include not only the headset but also the certified PC required to run it. They start at $1,499 but can cost upwards of $3,000. Oculus VR partnered with PC makers Alienware, Dell, and Asus on the bundles.

Luckey told Polygon that he wanted to deliver the first Rift himself because he had been working on it since 2009: “I’ll be damned if some random delivery guy is going to get the satisfaction of delivering the first Rift,” he explained. “That’s mine.” He even live-streamed the delivery on Facebook, the social network that bought the virtual-reality startup in 2014 for $2 billion.

In the video, available below, you can see Luckey help Martin unbox the Rift and just generally look super excited about the whole event. If you didn’t place a pre-order for the headset last month and decide to place an order after watching this ridiculously cute stream, you’ll  have to wait until July for deliveries. And don’t expect Luckey to hand-deliver it, unfortunately. 

Personally delivering the first Rift to Alaska!

Posted by Palmer Freeman Luckey on Saturday, March 26, 2016

Ocean waves and temperatures can predict extreme summer heat

Predicting the weather typically caps out around 10 days in advance for certain factors, but a new study could extend that up to almost two months. By measuring the surface temperature of oceans from 1982 to 2015, specifically in 2012, The New York Times writes that a team of researchers (PDF) noticed correlations between a pair of precursors leading to hotter days in parts of North America: precipitation deficits and “anomalous atmospheric wave trains.” The former is pretty easy to understand. The latter, standard parts of atmospheric flow caused by wind, are abnormal patterns of crests and troughs leading to shore.

The idea behind this research is that eventually we’d be able to better predict heat waves, something current long-lead forecasting does not. The scientists write that ultimately the seven-week advance notice could help us better prepare for extreme heat, which may even save lives — especially important considering that a heat wave in 1995 claimed the lives of some 700 sick and elderly Chicagoans.

Via: The New York Times

Source: Nature

Samsung Pay joins China’s trillion dollar mobile wallet market

With Apple already expecting China to be its biggest mobile payment market, it’s no surprise that its biggest direct competitor, Samsung, also wants a slice of this piping hot pie. After a one-month public beta, today the Korean giant is officially launching its Samsung Pay service in China in partnership with UnionPay — inevitably the same bankcard company that helped launch Apple Pay locally. In other words, only UnionPay credit and debit cards — up to 10 of them per device — can be associated with local Samsung phones for the time being.

The first wave of participating institutions include China’s largest bank, ICBC, along with China Construction Bank, China Merchants Bank and several more; other major ones such as Bank Of China and Bank Of Communications will follow later. As for devices, only the Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge, Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Galaxy Note5 are supported for now, but Samsung hinted at the possibility of adding more phones with fingerprint readers later, which will hopefully include the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, A5, A7 and A9 that were also tested in the public beta. It goes without saying that rooted devices won’t support Samsung Pay.

Samsung’s attempt to break into the well-established mobile wallet market in China will sure be a challenge. Local services such as Alipay and WeChat already cover online shopping, taxi services and even features as ridiculous as giving each other virtual “red pockets” (especially during Chinese New Year). More recently, these can be used at brick-and-mortar stores as well.

According to the latest local payment ecosystem report from the Chinese government, in Q3 2015 alone the nation made 4.54 billion mobile payment transactions, which involved a staggering total of 18.17 trillion yuan or about $2.8 trillion — a 253.69 percent growth year on year. It’s no wonder that Apple and Samsung want in on this so badly (Android Pay probably won’t even have a chance given China’s general hostility towards Google services), but it’ll be interesting to see whether they can change the habit of local users at all.

Via: Engadget Chinese