iPhone SE Orders Now Shipping Ahead of March 31 Launch

iPhone SE online orders, which commenced March 24, are now shipping to select customers in the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, and elsewhere, ahead of the new 4-inch smartphone’s official March 31 launch tomorrow in twelve countries and territories.

Multiple users tracking their iPhone SE shipments in the MacRumors discussion forums have received delivery estimates of between March 31 and April 4. As usual, it appears that UPS is Apple’s primary courier for orders placed in North America, while DPD is handling deliveries in the United Kingdom.

iPhone SE Order Tracking

→ United States
→ United Kingdom
→ Canada
→ General Discussion

iPhone SE should also be available tomorrow at Apple retail stores, and through AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and select other carriers. Authorized resellers like Best Buy may also have limited stock, generally on a first-come, first-served basis. Some retailers may accept reservations for in-store pickup.

Apple’s first wave launch countries for iPhone SE include the United States, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. Orders started March 29 in an additional 20 countries, with more to follow in early April.

Related Roundup: iPhone SE
Tag: Apple retail
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Huawei Mate S2 reported to feature cutting-edge curved display

The affordable yet advanced smartphone manufacturer Huawei may be about to start gunning for Samsung with its first curved display smartphone in the Mate S2.

According to reliable supply chain sources, analyst Sun Changxu claims, Huawei is working on the curved screen right now. But, unlike the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, this won’t curve at the sides. How it will curve has not been made clear.

This could mean we will see a smartphone with curved top and bottom edges – something useful when glancing at notifications from a pocket.

For context, the Mate S smartphone was announced as the world’s first pressure-sensitive display – ahead of Apple. So if this curved screen is to appear on its successor the Mate S2, as is suggested by the source, it will also likely be a high-end, cutting-edge offering. That’s why it’s unlikely to feature an entire screen curve like the LG or Samsung efforts of the past did, which didn’t do so well – unlike the more recent S6 and S7 edge phones which are very popular.

This would also suggest the Mate S2 will target the more expensive end of the market like the Mate S did with its price at around $800.

Rumours suggest we will hear more in September, which is when the first Mate S was announced in 2015.

READ: Huawei Mate S review: Yes mate!

Sky Kids app ‘Buddies’ bring TV and on demand fun to the little ones

Sky has announced its new Sky Kids app which aims to keep your children entertained. It will be available from 31 March, arriving just in time to help keep them busy over the Easter holiday.

The Sky Kids app, available for iPad and some Android tablets, will feature cartoon characters called Sky Buddies that guide the child through the experience. They will help find the thousands of live and on demand kids shows available which are all suitable for under nine year olds.

Thanks to personal account logins the app will be tailored to suit the user. Lucy Murphy, Sky’s head of kids content says: “It’s an intensively personal experience. Whether you’re a 3-year-old girl or an 8-year-old boy, when you open up the Sky Kids app, it will feel like yours.”

Sky has said it is committed to improving the app, already. It plans to offer the ability to download shows onto the device to watch later. It will also add new Buddies animations including yawning to show when it’s time for bed – something a parent can set so content shuts off at a certain time.

The Sky Kids app will be available from 31 April in both iOS and Android app stores and is free to Sky customers with a Variety bundle or higher.

READ: EE TV Recordings To Go enables mobile viewing, takes fight to Sky Q

Japan is trying to rescue its tumbling X-ray satellite

Japan’s JAXA space agency is struggling to figure out what happened to its Astro-H “Hitomi” satellite after it lost contact on Saturday. Radar data from the US Strategic Command’s Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) initially showed that several parts may have broken off and JAXA’s radar has spied at least one separated piece. Yesterday, scientists received intermittent signals from the craft, showing that it might be at least partially functional. However, amateur video now appears to show the $360 million X-ray telescope-equipped craft tumbling through space.

A video shot by amateur astronomer Paul Maley (below) shows the satellite flickering as it streaks across the field of view. That likely indicates that the satellite is spinning as sunlight flickers off of its solar panels and other reflective surfaces. “The fact that it is rotating with extreme variations in brightness indicates that it is not controlled and that some event caused it to begin its rotation,” Maley tells National Geographic.

Speculation about the cause of the problem has ranged from a battery explosion to a gas leak to a collision with debris or a small meteorite. The news is obviously bad for JAXA and its partners, including NASA and the ESA, particularly since Japan lost its previous two Astro X-ray satellites. At this point, JAXA can’t even diagnose the craft’s state of health from the brief signals it received. However, the pieces that broke off may be insulation or other non-essential parts and JAXA says it’s doing “its best to recover communications with Hitomi,” and possibly rescue the craft.

Via: Space.com

Source: JAXA

EE TV lets you download recordings to phones and tablets

EE TV is a combination of free-to-view TV channels, DVR-style recording and on-demand apps like BBC iPlayer and Now TV. Today, it’s being updated with “Recordings to Go,” a new feature that lets customers watch their saved programmes on the move. You can set and manage TV recordings through the EE TV app, which are then handled by the EE box in your living room. Once they’ve been recorded, you can download them to your phone or tablet over your home’s WiFi network, making them accessible anywhere and, perhaps more importantly, offline.

Recording and playback should work for all of EE’s roughly 70 free-to-view TV channels. Better yet, there are no time restrictions — so unlike BBC iPlayer, you can record The Night Manager and watch it indefinitely. EE has also updated its mobile app today so the guide experience is the same across your set-top box, phone and tablet. It’s a small change, but one that should make the entire experience feel just a little more cohesive.

EE TV is still a niche proposition. That’s because it’s exclusive to EE’s broadband customers, ruling out anyone with a BT, Sky or Virgin Media connection. It’s a nice EE extra that could tempt people to switch — especially those who are disinterested in expensive satellite TV packages. But there are other ways to get free-to-view TV and DVR functionality in your living room, which is why today’s mobile access is so important for EE. Recordings to Go is a pretty unique selling point, and one the company should market heavily in order to boost its slim subscriber base.

Source: EE (Press Release)

Drones deliver sterile insects to tackle disease in Ethiopia

To combat disease-ridden tsetse flies in Africa, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is enlisting heavy-duty drones. An autonomous system has been developed by Embention, which can fly for up two hours at a cruise speed of 20 meters per second. Under each wing is a stack of temperature controlled pods, each containing a swarm of sterile male insects. These little creatures have been pummelled with gamma radiation, courtesy of the IAEA, while they were bred in captivity. Once they’re in the wild, they mate ferociously with the native population, producing no offspring and consequentially lowering the tsetse fly population.

“The wild population will decline progressively,” Argiles-Herrero, an IAEA scientist working on the drone project said. “The survivors are overwhelmed with more sterile males every week, at a ration of 10:1, so in the end the population cannot recover and can eventually be eradicated.”

The approach could be replicated with manned aircraft, but there are benefits to using the drones. First of all, they’re cheaper to use, given their size and autonomous flight capabilities. They’re also more effective because they can fly lower than their manned equivalent. Embention’s system is convenient too, as it can be programmed to drop the insects at different rates depending on the area. So if the region has a particularly high tsetse fly population, the drone can up its dosage accordingly. Otherwise, it will simply drop the boxes at predefined coordinates.

The drones are being tested in Ethiopia, where tsetse flies affect at least 200,000 square kilometers of fertile land. Embention and the IAEA are working with the Ethiopian Ministry of Livestock and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation to fine-tune the system. If it’s successful, the autonomous planes could be rolled out further, tackling the problem in wider areas. That would slow the spread of trypanosomosis, commonly known as sleeping sickness, and ultimately save human lives.

Via: Popular Science, Motherboard

Source: Drones Against Tsetse

Amazon Bans Sale of Potentially Dangerous USB-C Cables

Amazon has tightened restrictions on the sale of USB-C cables and adapters on its online store in an effort to protect customers from risky substandard products (via The Verge).

The online retailer added non-compliant USB-C cables to its list of prohibited items, following a flood of potentially damaging third-party cables onto the market. The new note on Amazon’s page of undesirables prohibits “any USB-C™ (or USB Type-C™) cable or adapter product that is not compliant with standard specifications issued by ‘USB Implementers Forum Inc.’”

The update was spotted by Google engineer Benson Leung, who has been testing USB-C cables sold by Amazon in an effort to highlight the risks of non-compliant products. Leung was spurred into action after a USB-C charging cable he bought destroyed a Chromebook Pixel he was working on in compatibility tests.

Apple introduced the USB-C standard to its Mac range with the release of the 12-inch Retina MacBook. The new standard allows charging, data transfer, and video over a single connector. As a result, USB-C cables are capable of carrying a lot more power than traditional USB connectors, making faulty units a risk to computers and power supplies, and potentially a fire hazard.

Apple states in a support document that the 12-inch MacBook will charge from USB-C power adapters not manufactured by Apple if they adhere to the USB Power Delivery specification. Based on Leung’s extensive testing, 30 percent of third-party USB-C cables currently available do not meet USB-IF standards. Apple’s USB-C ports are designed to shut down if a larger-than-expected amount of power is detected flowing through cables, however Amazon’s ban should mean cables that can damage or shut down a device will no longer be offered through the site.

Apple suffered its own USB-C problems when a “design issue” in charging cables shipped with certain Retina MacBooks failed to supply sufficient charge when connected to a power adapter. Apple is providing new, redesigned USB-C charge cables to MacBook owners with faulty cables at no cost.

Related Roundup: Retina MacBook
Tags: amazon.com, USB-C
Buyer’s Guide: MacBook (Don’t Buy)
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Get paid £10,000 to build Minecraft worlds as ‘virtual estate builder’

If you fancy yourself a pro-level Minecraft constructor, you could get paid for your handiwork – £10,000 to be exact.

The folk over at Elysian Estates’, a luxury accommodation website, are looking to hire a Minecraft world builder to recreate ten of their real-world properties in the virtual universe.

The job is listed as “virtual estate builder” and will pay £10,000, meaning a grand per property built. So how do you sign-up to make money for something that you probably do for fun anyway?

To get the job you’ll need to show you’ve got what it takes. The company is asking any potential Minecraft builders to construct its Aldourie Castle in the virtual world. Anyone can apply as long as they’re over the age of sixteen.

First up, download the Aldourie Castle photo pack here. Then build the virtual model and send photos or screenshots, along with a CV, to jobs@elysian-estates.co.uk by the 18 April. Then you wait for that big fat check and start Minecraft building full-time.

The listing also states: “Property specialists at Elysian Estates are looking specifically for intricate detail, imagination and creativity. All entries will be judged by the property specialists, who will select and inform the successful ‘virtual estate builder’ a week later on 25 April via email.”

Good luck.

READ: Sony PlayStation 4K: What is PS4.5, when is it coming and how will it affect me?

Inrix Traffic app uses AI to learn your driving habits

It’s been awhile since we’ve heard from Inrix, the company that uses OpenStreetMap and its own traffic analysis to guide you via GPS. It also supplies connected car tech to Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and other automakers. The company just completely redesigned its iOS and Android Traffic apps, adding machine learning features, calendar integration and more. While there are tons of such apps to choose from, Inrix’s app is geared toward frequent drivers who do routine trips where they often battle traffic.

The most interesting new feature for version 6.0 is a cloud-based AI system called Autotelligent that learns your driving habits to figure out preferred routes and anticipate trips. The app analyzes your driving patterns and checks calendar information to add events to your itinerary. Once it figures out when and where you need to go, it can analyze the traffic based on data from 275 million users. From that, it can suggest the ideal departure hour, adjust arrival times and give you options if you need to make a detour or pick up food, gas or electricity.

The app is proactive, letting users report accidents, police activity and road hazards. You can also send map feedback about closed routes and other traffic problems directly from the app. While a premium version of the app used to cost $25, it’s now available for free on iOS or Android.

J&J’s anesthesia-bot loses against its human counterparts

Just because robots can be more efficient than humans and can make certain processes cheaper doesn’t mean they’ll always come out on top. Case in point: Johnson & Johnson is pulling its anesthesia robot called Sedasys from the market over poor sales, according to Outpatient Surgery and Anesthesiology News. It was once a promising alternative to anesthesiologists, since it can bring down the cost of administering sedation from $2,000 per procedure to $150 to $200. It eliminates the need for an anesthesia professional, after all, as it allows any nurse or doctor to put a patient under in the operating room.

One of the reasons why it experienced such slow adoption rates is because the American Society of Anesthesiologists campaigned against it. The group eventually backed down after the machine was limited for use in routine procedures like colonoscopy, but by then, they’ve already done their job. Unfortunately, J&J now plans to lay off 3,000 employees from its medical devices division due to its products’ (Sedasys included) poor sales, so it’s not a total victory for humans after all.

Via: PopSci, The Washington Post

Source: Outpatient Surgery, Anesthesiology News