The 2017 iPhone Could Cost Upwards of $1,000

Apple’s 2017 iPhone, which is expected to feature premium parts and radical design changes, could cost “north of $1,000,” reports Fast Company, citing a source with “knowledge of Apple’s plans.”

Rumors suggest the upcoming iPhone, which may be called the iPhone 8, will feature an OLED display that’s more expensive than traditional LED displays. Other improvements, such as an increase in memory and wireless charging functionality may also drive up the price. It’s not hard to imagine the iPhone hitting that price point when the 256GB iPhone 7 Plus is already at $969 in the United States, and previous rumors have also suggested it will be a “premium” device.

Fast Company’s source also confirms some iPhone 8 design rumors, describing the device as “something like a smooth black monolith, with few visual interruptions to its sleek design.” That jibes with rumors indicating Apple design chief Jony Ive has been aiming for an iPhone that looks like a single sheet of glass with the Home button and Touch ID fingerprint sensor located under the display.

iPhone 8 concept image via Thadeu Brandão
The Home button technology is still “evolving” according to Fast Company’s source, but Apple’s goal is to get it done in time for inclusion in the iPhone 8. Physical buttons, such as the volume button, power button, and mute switch could also be eliminated, a rumor we haven’t heard before, and the iPhone 8 is said to include a “far bigger battery.”

The source also claims Apple is working with Lumentum to develop 3D sensing technology that will be used in the device, but did not provide details on how the feature will be used.

It remains unclear how the technology will be applied, however. It could be used to recognize the user’s face for authentication. It could also be used in the camera to provide better image resolution. It could even be used in some form of augmented reality application, according to our source.

The iPhone 8 is expected to include a glass body with a stainless steel frame for durability, and while Fast Company suggests the display will measure in at 5.8 inches, rumors disagree on this point. We’ve heard everything from 5 inches to 5.8-inches and don’t yet have a clear picture on sizing.

With Apple likely planning to position the new OLED iPhone as a high-end premium device with a premium price tag, the company is also rumored to be planning to introduce two more affordable devices with LCD displays that are closer in design to the existing iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, measuring in at 4.7 and 5.5-inches.

These two devices may feature similar design changes, such as a glass body, but will have pared down features like an LCD display to keep the price down.

With such major changes expected for the 2017 iPhone, which marks the 10th anniversary of the device, rumors have been running rampant for months, making it hard to suss out some of the exact specifications of the device, including display design, screen size, and wireless charging functionality.

As we creep closer to September and start to see the first part leaks, we can expect to have a much clearer picture of what to expect from the first significant iPhone redesign since 2014.

Related Roundup: iPhone 8 (2017)
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Tim Cook Chats With Students After Receiving Honorary Degree From University of Glasgow

Apple CEO Tim Cook received an honorary degree from the University of Glasgow in Scotland today as planned. Cook then sat down for a Q&A session with the audience of students, reflecting on topics ranging from his personal beliefs and influences to U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent immigration ban.

One student asked if he could work at Apple as a tongue-in-cheek question, and Cook noted the company is hiring worldwide and pointed him towards its jobs website. Cook later said “coding should be required in schools,” as “kids will never know any other environment other than the digital one.”

Cook, responding to a question about Apple’s future activism plans, said he does not view Apple or himself as an “activist.” Instead, he said Apple simply stands up for things it is deeply knowledgeable or has a strong point of view about.

.@tim_cook is officially an honorary grad! Does this mean we all need to switch to @Apple? 😋 pic.twitter.com/v89lJydDCH

— Uni of Glasgow (@UofGlasgow) February 8, 2017

Cook reiterated that he does not support Trump’s recent immigration ban, echoing a memo he sent to employees a few weeks ago. Apple was one of several tech companies that sent a letter to Trump opposing the executive order, noting “we are a nation made stronger by immigrants.”

Apple was also one of nearly 100 companies, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Snap, Uber, Twitter, and Intel, to jointly file a legal brief backing the original lawsuit brought by Washington state’s attorney general that brought a temporary halt to the immigration ban on Friday.

Cook finished by noting that late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had the biggest influence on his own life by far.

“He took a risk with me when I was 36 years old, and it was sort of that instance, and many instances thereafter, that I recognized that I had been on the wrong path—and that I was sort of rudderless in a way. I met a CEO for the first time that was totally focused on basically one thing: making great products. He had a focus that was unlike any other. His thinking was so pure. He wasn’t trying to maximize his wealth or anything else. He really understood the sort of things we work on, and the results that come from those things, and he separated those two.”

Cook said Jobs had a clear order in his life that was necessary in order to remain focused: family, Apple, Pixar, and very little else.

Cook remained in Bute Hall following the chat to take photos with students. Earlier in the day, he was spotted at a local Apple Store.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

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Apple Releases Second macOS Sierra 10.12.4 Public Beta for Public Beta Testers

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming macOS Sierra 10.12.4 update to public beta testers for testing purposes, two weeks after seeding the first public beta and one day after releasing the second 10.12.4 beta to developers.

Beta testers who have signed up for Apple’s beta testing program will receive the second 10.12.4 macOS Sierra beta through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store.

Those who want to be a part of Apple’s beta testing program can sign up to participate through the beta testing website, which gives users access to both iOS and macOS Sierra betas. Betas should not be installed on a primary machine due to the potential for instability.

macOS Sierra 10.12.4 brings iOS’s popular Night Shift mode to the Mac, allowing users to cut down on blue light exposure in the evening. Believed to affect sleep by upsetting the body’s circadian rhythm, blue light is thought to be more harmful than yellow light.

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With Night Shift, the Mac’s display automatically shifts from cool to warm at sunset and then shifts back at sunrise. Users can also set custom times for the display’s colors to shift, or toggle the effect on manually. A Toggle to turn Night Shift on is available in the Notification Center, and Siri can also be used to activate the feature.

macOS Sierra 10.12.4 also includes Shanghainese dictation support, cricket scores for Siri, improved PDFKit APIs, and iCloud Analytics options.

Related Roundup: macOS Sierra
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Roblox is waaayy more than a game (Review)

Intro

Normally in this space you can count on me bringing you a review of a new or unique game or app experience. I say ‘normally’ as this experience is regarding a single game or app, capable of a single portal into a world, a sport, and utility. One; single.

And I thought I was going to have this normal assignment when downloading Roblox, a ‘game’ available for download in the Play Store. I use the quotes as Roblox isn’t just a single game; it’s actually an entire gaming universe, consisting of dozens of titles….a lot of them user-generated. It’s intended, built, and maintained for children; though everyone age 8 to 18 is welcome to play, the majority of their user base is age 8-12.

Setup

Roblox is free to download from the Play Store. Upon download, you sign up and create an account. After that you create your avatar, and off you go- you’re provided a small piece of real estate in the Roblox universe and a tool box in which to hold the items you acquire.
And once you’re in, you’re offered all kinds of options. And that’s exactly the point of Roblox. It’s built to be a comprehensive and safe place for children to congregate, play, and communicate with each other.

While the app is free, there are subscription offerings (dubbed the “Builders Club”) to upgrade your experience. This includes premium avatar upgrades, managing multiple locations, and removing on-screen ads. There is also an in-app currency called “Robux”, that are mainly acquired through U.S. currency. Robux allow you to further customize avatars, acquire assorted building materials & tools, and attain special abilities throughout the games.

Gameplay

The basis of Roblox is focused on creativity and building, while encouraging community among its players. Inside the app are lots (and I mean lots) of game/world/environment options to enter.

Security

A natural worry about an app that openly solicits to children would be security of said children with in the app. Roblox offers a a couple of levels of security: for all players, Roblox actively monitors all chats for inappropriate content or behavior. For players under the age of 13, there are further restrictions on who can communicate with them.

They also offer a web page to parents to help answer any questions that may remain, as well as a fairly open contact policy for parents who still may have concerns
(https://corp.roblox.com/parents/).

Visuals and Audio

For as expansive as the game options are, and for how pretty the screenshots are in the first half of this article, the fact that the individual games are community-generated can be evident a lot of times. Overall, most games come off as looking amateur-ish, with washed-out colors and blocky visuals. It needs to be said that this seems to be by intent, as you can easily tell a Roblox game with just a glance.

The audio on the game is also hit-or-miss, again due to leaving the game development to its users. Similar to the visual quality, while there are some true gems within this universe, for the most part the games can and do sound the same. That’s not to say they sound bad, but for the most part these definitely aren’t big-studio productions your playing here.

Overall

As an adult being asked to review Roblox, and even given expansive game selection within the app, I have to admit I was a little underwhelmed. While you can be just about anything you want in the app (and build it yourself if it isn’t available), a lost of the games come of as a bit watered-down versions of similar high-end genres and individual titles.

But, again, I’m an adult. After downloading and playing for a bit, I handed the tablet to my 10-year-old (and an admitted Minecraft addict), and said, “Try this and tell me what you think”.

Three hours later I found him on his bed, eyes welded to the 8″ screen. My natural question was, “Are you back on Minecraft?”. The response I got was “No, still on Roblox. This game is awesome!”. And investigating further, I found that he was still on the first game he jumped into (a Minecraft emulator, but whatever). He was completely locked in, and kept going on about how cool the world was, and what he could do with his avatar, materials, tools, and weapons. I did not know what would ever wean him from the Minecraft choke-hold…..I may have found it.

Download Roblox from the Play Store here.

Public relations nightmare: Samsung battery factory in China catches fire

Why it matters to you

A Samsung factory responsible for manufacturing batteries caught fire, suggesting the company’s explosive phone woes may not be behind it.

Samsung may have tried to put its explosive Note 7 debacle to bed with a thorough investigation, press conference, and implementation of new safety procedures earlier this month, but it appears the South Korean firm’s battery woes aren’t behind it. This morning, a factory that is a part of Samsung SDI, the company’s division responsible for designing and manufacturing power packs for the company’s mobile devices, caught fire in dramatic fashion.

Photos on Chinese social media site Weibo showed plumes of black smoke emerging from the roof of the northern Tianjin waste deposit factory. But it apparently looks worse than it was: A Samsung spokesperson told local media that it experienced only “minor damage,” and that battery production wouldn’t be affected.

More: Samsung factory catches fire, could affect Galaxy S5 production

Factory fires aren’t an uncommon occurrence in East Asia. In 2014, a fire broke out at a printed circuit board manufacturer in Anseong, South Korea; in 2011, a faulty ventilation system caused a large explosion at Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn’s iPad 2 production hub in Chengdu, China; and in January 2016, a multi-floor blaze broke out at Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn’s main iPhone assembly plant in Zhengzhou, China.

Still, it’s another black mark for a company that’s been the subject of a months-long controversy. In early September 2016, reports of exploding Note 7 devices emerged online. Samsung issued a worldwide recall in the weeks following, blaming the problem on a “battery cell issue” and pledging to conduct a “thorough inspection with […] suppliers to identify possible affected batteries on the market.”

The company subsequently began replacing customers’ units with newer, “safer” devices, but several of those caught fire, too.

More: South Korea may require smartphone makers to report phone fires “immediately”

The controversy reached a fever pitch in late 2016, when the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) banned Note 7 devices from public transit and commercial flights in the U.S. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) followed suit, issuing a mandatory recall of all Note 7 devices.

In response, the South Korean government implemented a new series of regulations that required smartphone makers to notify regulators immediately when they receive receive reports of handsets exploding or bursting into flames.

DJ Koh, president of Samsung’s mobile communications business, told reporters that the company would institute preventative measures going forward. These will include an eight-point visual inspection process, added staff dedicated to overseeing each battery’s safe installation, and the publication of its intellectual property around battery safety standards.

Facebook’s Community Help is a forum for survivors to mount rescue efforts

Why it matters to you

Facebook’s new Community Help feature will make it easier for disaster survivors to find and offer relief.

Facebook’s Safety Check tool makes it easy to check up on loved ones after a terrorist attack, earthquake, hurricane, or other disaster, but there isn’t much more to it. Survivors can notify friends that they’re alive and well, but aren’t pointed in the direction of resources that might be able to help in an emergency. That’s about to change, though. On Wednesday, Facebook added a new component to Safety Check, Community Help, that provides a semi-public message board for survivors.

It’s a lot like an internet forum. Community Help, which Facebook previewed during its Community Help expansion during its Social Good Forum in November, lets users to post by location. It provides categories for food, water, shelter, transportation, baby supplies, and equipment, and a dedicated messaging function through which users can exchange information.

More: Fake news stories lead to Facebook Safety Check alert for an incident that never occurred

“It becomes really easy to get in touch with people in your community who you may not be friends with,” Preethi Cheetan, Safety Check’s product designer, told CNET.

Facbebook says Community Help was inspired by how users banded to help one another in times of need, but it’s also aimed at addressing “missed connections.”

Facebook cited last year’s Alberta wildfire as an example: Users affected by the fire made their own support groups with posts offering shelter, including one — “Help Together, Fort McMurray Fire” — in which a man offered four bedrooms in his home for everyone displaced. But posts and groups tended to be disorganized, Chetan said, and members found it difficult to coordinate rescue efforts across multiple pages. And users had trouble contacting those in need because of their privacy settings.

More: Now you can take control of Facebook’s Safety Check during a disaster

Facebook described Community Check as the next logical step for Safety Check. Since Safety Check’s introduction in 2014, it’s been activated 335 times, notably during the devastating 2015 earthquake in Nepal, the November 2015 Paris attacks, and the 2016 Berlin attack. But Facebook’s been criticized for its decisions on when to use the feature. In response last year, it announced that it would begin relying on user activity — namely keywords indicating danger like “shooting” or “explosion,” and spikes in posts — to trigger alerts automatically.

Community Check will launch in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Saudi Arabia before rolling out to Facebook’s wider 1.8 billion-member audience.

More: Alert! You may soon be able to activate Facebook’s ‘Safety Check’ feature yourself

Facebook’s not the only company doing more to connect friends and family in the aftermath of a disaster. Google’s Person finder, which the company deployed in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, is a message board and registry for survivors, family, and loved ones affected by a natural disaster to post and search for information about each other’s status and whereabouts. And in December 2016, Google launched Trusted Contacts, an app that alerts select groups of people about users’ status and exact location.

Flipboard’s redesign makes it easier to keep up with your favorite topics

Why it matters to you

One of the world’s most popular news apps just got a whole lot easier to navigate and better at bringing you content you care about.

Flipboard is rolling out a major redesign today for version 4.0 of its popular news aggregation app, and at the center of it is a new feature that promises a more personalized, curated experience for its tens of millions of active users across iOS and Android.

It’s called “Smart Magazines,” and Flipboard is saying it fundamentally reorganizes and streamlines the experience so people can keep up with whatever it is they are passionate about more quickly. Think of Smart Magazines as collections of articles with unique layouts, tailored not just to your favorite categories, but to more specific tastes as well.

Flipboard always allowed users to choose topics and filter them out individually, but the default view was a mishmash of every category, and every user who tuned in to the same topics would receive the same content. Now, the app encourages readers to dig deeper after they’ve selected a basic area of interest.

For example, selecting the “Photography” topic brings up a list of selectable tags, like “Leica” and “Nature Photography,” that provide more granular control over the kind of photography content you’ll see.

More: Look out, Amazon Kindle Unlimited! Scribd adds magazines to ebook service

As a result, each person’s Flipboard — even if they subscribe to the same general topics — is now guaranteed to be unique. And separating those topics out into individual magazines should make the daily swarm of content much less overwhelming to digest. By default, Flipboard’s home screen will house up to nine smart magazines, which can be navigated by swiping from left to right. More can be created, but they’re stored away in a menu.

For longtime users, the option still exists to subscribe to specific people, news sources, and hashtags, as well as magazines created by other users. Groups can even make their own custom magazines to share stories back and forth.

Rather than just listing new content in a chronologically flowing feed, Flipboard says stories that are liked, added, and shared have a greater chance of surfacing for other readers. What’s more, the app’s algorithms learn from use, and Flipboard reportedly gets better at predicting the content you want to see as you continue to use it.

Many news aggregation services, like Apple News, Google Play Newsstand, and Feedly, operate in a uniform fashion — a general feed of top stories, followed by the highlights of each category, and then an alternate view for topics and sources. Flipboard also features a top stories tab, but places content neatly filtered by topic immediately within reach, and aims to feed users more of what they like based on a deeper understanding of their passions.

In practice, the experience really does resemble that of a curated magazine, rather than a wire of information — that is, if a magazine could show video, and be instantly shared with your friends. The update releases today for iPhones and Android smartphones, with a tablet version to come at a later date.

T-Mobile is gaining on Verizon when it comes to 4G availability, study finds

Why it matters to you

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate among the Big Four wireless operators, especially now that T-Mobile and Verizon and closer than ever in their offerings.

The war between T-Mobile and Verizon for fastest network rages on, and the latest battle has ended in a draw. According to a new report from Open Signal, the two are now neck and neck when it comes to 4G speed rankings, with the two competitors tied for first place in both 4G and overall speed metrics. Open Signal’s survey, which aggregates billions of customer experiences, noted that T-Mobile either won or tied for first in all speed rankings, including overall download speed, 3G speed, and 4G speed, and won 3G latency,

Of course, we should note that while T-Mobile edged ahead of Verizon in 4G speed rankings just six months ago, it looks as though Big Red has since made up that ground. All the same, T-Mobile doesn’t seem to have gotten any worse, a point that chief technology officer Neville Ray drove home in a statement.

“Just like T-Mobile’s Un-carrier moves have pushed the industry to change, our consistent, relentless, and proven LTE speed leadership has pushed the industry to try to catch up,” he said. “When you combine T-Mobile’s value with great speeds and a coverage map that’s virtually indistinguishable from the big guys, well, let’s just say ‘It’s on.’”

More: Best T-Mobile phones

While Verizon won first place when it came to 4G availability, T-Mobile is certainly gaining on its rival. While Open Signal testers found a Verizon LTE signal just over 88 percent of the time, they also noted that “T-Mobile has been systematically closing the gap. In the fourth quarter its 4G availability was less than two percentage points below Verizon’s, the closest we’ve seen that difference.”

And as the Un-carrier pointed out, this fact highlights the breadth of their own LTE network, which now boasts coverage of 313 million people — 99 percent as many people as Verizon.

Happily, regardless of which cellphone service provider you’re using, it looks as though all four of the big guys (T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint) extended their LTE reach. So all in all, it looks like things are looking up for smartphone users in the United States.

Hot idea: NASA is close to making a computer that can survive on Venus

Why it matters to you

We’ll never explore the universe if our computers can’t handle what’s out there. NASA is close to making computers that can.

One day, mankind will jump into spaceships and explore the solar system, and eventually the galaxy and beyond. All that stands in our way so far is a deficit in technology. Until that’s licked, however, we’ll be sending machines in our place. And most of the places we want to explore are rather hard on the computers that enable those machines to function.

High temperatures, caustic environments, and extreme pressures tend to cause problems for computers, and that’s something that NASA is close to solving for one of our solar system’s harshest environments, Venus.

More: NASA already described its plan for reaching Mars. Now it showed us the hardware

As researchers at NASA’s John H. Glenn Research Center point out in a new paper, Venus has made it impossible for computers to survive for long on its surface due to temperatures exceeding 460 degrees C and pressures exceeding 9.4 MPa. Such an environment is particularly hard on integrated circuits (ICs), limiting the time that a Venus lander can function on the surface to only a few hours even with relatively massive cooling and pressure solutions.

In order to make a trip to Venus valuable, however, landers need to be able to survive for a prolonged period. Long-term atmospheric and seismic activity data is what’s needed on such a trip, to answer a variety of questions about how Earth and other planets in the solar system were formed, and that kind of data takes weeks and months, not hours, to gather.

And it’s not just pressure and high temperatures that are the problem. There’s also the sulfuric acid in the clouds and on the surface that are of concern. Simply put, today’s interconnections between chips simply can’t handle the environment, and of course today’s computers are multi-chip affairs.

NASA Glenn

In response, the NASA Glenn researchers have created ICs with ceramic packaging that have lasted for more than 40 days at 500 degrees C. After further tests intended to simulate the Venus environment were conducted, it was confirmed that the new designs and materials were able to survive for far longer than previous versions — indicating that it’s possible to make computers that can last for multiple days and weeks even in such a harsh environment.

The paper is full of the kinds of technical details only a rocket scientist would appreciate, and if that’s you then by all means delve into its fascinating facts and figures. For the rest of us, it’s enough to know that NASA is succeeding in creating computers that can survive on Venus, making a long-term mission on that planet a less remote possibility.

For a limited time you can grab the Fire Tablet for just $39

Right now you can pick up Amazon’s Fire Tablet for just $39, a savings of $10 from its regular price. Even at $49 this thing is an incredible value, so being able to save an additional $10 on it makes it an even easier purchase. The tablet features a 7-inch IPS display, a 1.3GHz processor and now works with Amazon’s Alexa cloud-based voice service. There are tons of great apps, games and more that are completely free through Amazon Underground, so you won’t have any shortage of content here.

Storage in these tends to fill up fast, so you may want to check out some of the best microSD cards to add so you don’t find yourself running low. This pricing won’t last long, so be sure to pick one up before it is too late!

See at Amazon

For more great deals on tech, gadgets, home goods and more be sure to check out our friends at Thrifter now!