‘Tech Hunters’ uncovers the retro gadgets that defined their time

The first mobile phones weighed roughly the same as a small child. Early black-and-white TVs had a tuning knob that you turned to change channel. Looking back on them now, it’s almost laughable how low-tech they were when compared to the flagship smartphones and 4K OLED TVs that appear on this site every week. But we owe these devices respect, not just for the technological achievement they represented back then, but for enabling the high-tech world we live in today. Without the PlayStation, you couldn’t have the PlayStation 4. Without the indestructible old Nokia 3310, you couldn’t have… the new Nokia 3310. To explore that legacy, we’re embarking on a journey into the world of retro gadgets.

Hosted by TV and radio presenter Julia Hardy, Tech Hunters will uncover the devices we were once obsessed with, looking at how they disrupted the tech industry, and what they’re worth today. From the pocket pet obsession with the original Tamagotchi, to mix-tapes and Sony Walkman, Tech Hunters will explore the audio, visual, interactive and transport innovations that have shaped today’s culture.

The first episode of the 10-part series, produced by Engadget UK and aired weekly, will debut on Wednesday May 24th. We hope you’ll join us.

Bullish Analyst Says Apple Has Potential to Become Trillion Dollar Company Within 18 Months

Apple has the potential to become a trillion dollar company by 2019, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani.

In a research note on Monday, Daryanani said Apple could reach or exceed a trillion dollar market cap within the next 12 to 18 months.

An excerpt from Daryanani’s research note, edited slightly for clarity:

In aggregate, we see a scenario where in the 2019 fiscal year, Apple sustains $12+ earnings per share and, assuming the valuation frameworks remains stable/improves, it should get AAPL stock toward $192–$195, which would equate to a market cap above $1 trillion.

Daryanani believes the so-called “iPhone 8” and the upgrade supercycle it’s expected to drive will be a major catalyst towards Apple’s path to a trillion dollar valuation. Looking further ahead, he thinks there is potential for Apple to continue growing its Services category revenue by double digits year over year.

Longer-term, we think there is potential for Apple to continue growing Services revenue by double digit year-over-year given the company’s expanding installed base [of devices], increasing App Store sales within the current installed base, demand for cloud storage/compute services, and further adoption of Apple Pay.

Apple’s Services category brought in $7.17 billion last quarter, from $6 billion in the year-ago quarter, representing 18 percent year-over-year growth. Apple CEO Tim Cook said the Services category is already the size of a Fortune 100 company, with hopes to double the category’s revenue by 2020.

Earlier this month, Apple’s market cap surpassed the $800 billion mark for the first time ever as the company’s shares traded above $153. RBC has raised its Apple stock price target to $168, up from $157, given the upside it anticipates from the iPhone 8 and increasing services-related revenue.

Wall Street analyst Brian White also raised his 12-month price target for Apple’s stock to $202, up from $185, earlier this month. White believes Apple “remains among the most underappreciated stocks in the world,” and his bullish price target suggests the company could be valued at a trillion dollars within the next year.

Tags: RBC Capital Markets, Amit Daryanani, AAPL
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Vine: Bug may have exposed users’ email addresses and phone numbers, Twitter warns

Why it matters to you

If you signed up to Vine during its lifetime, Twitter is advising you to take extra care dealing with emails from unknown senders.

An unknown number of Vine users may have had their email addresses and phone numbers exposed for up to a day, it’s been revealed.

Twitter, which owns the video-looping site, has been contacting users to inform them of the breach.

Vine fans will recall all too well how Twitter ended users’ ability to upload content to the app at the start of 2017, replacing it with the Vine Camera app that lets users create videos for Twitter or simply save them to a phone. The Vine website now acts as an archive for the millions of videos created by its users over the service’s three-year lifespan, and it’s this site which appears to have been at the center of the breach.

In a message sent directly to Vine account holders, the social media company said it’d recently discovered that users’ email addresses and phone numbers had been exposed. No passwords or other personal data are thought to have been involved.

It reassured users that the information “can’t directly be used to access your account, and we have no information indicating that it has been misused,” adding that it fixed the bug within 24 hours of its discovery.

As a result of the incident, Twitter urged Vine account holders to be “cautious if you receive emails or text messages from unknown senders. Please keep in mind that Vine will only send you communications from @twitter.com, and we will never send emails with attachments or request your password by email.”

Twitter later posted a public message on Medium containing essentially the same information it sent to users.

It’s not clear how or where the data may have been viewed, and it’s quite possible nothing will come of it, but Twitter deemed the incident serious enough to inform users and warn them to be wary of suspicious-looking emails.

Bitcoin is worth more than ever, but it’s losing clout

To say that Bitcoin has had a roller coaster ride would be an understatement. Between regulatory hurdles, heists and its all-too-common use in online crime, it’s sometimes a surprise the cryptocurrency has survived. However, it’s faring well — so well, in fact, that the value of a coin just topped $2,000 US for the first time. While it’s mostly a symbolic milestone, it reflects confidence stemming from regulation (particularly in big Bitcoin markets like China and Japan) and a rapid rise that saw its value soar hundreds of dollars in a matter of weeks.

With that said, you might not want to get too comfy if you’ve amassed a fortune. As our TechCrunch pals observe, Bitcoin’s share of the cryptocurrency market has plunged sharply in the past few months. Where it regularly dominated the market with about an 80 percent share, it’s down to just 47 percent in a matter of months. Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and others have all seen surges that have whittled away Bitcoin’s control.

It’s not certain just why that is. There is a concern that Bitcoin’s scaling is causing problems by slowing down transactions — people may just want to explore alternatives that won’t bog down so easily. The rapid rise in Bitcoin’s value casts doubt on that, though, as you’d expect its worth to tank. If scaling is a problem at all, it hasn’t spooked users yet. It may just be a matter of the market growing up, or of speculators hedging their bets by pouring money into more than one digital currency. You wouldn’t want to panic if you’ve already committed to Bitcoin, but nor should you assume that it’ll always be the format of choice.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: CoinDesk

Switzerland votes for an end to nuclear power

Countries like the UK might still embrace nuclear power, but Switzerland is headed in the opposite direction. The country has voted in favor of an energy plan that will eventually eliminate any use of nuclear power, shifting its efforts toward renewable sources like solar and wind. While there’s no timetable for the nuclear shutdown, which was chosen through a binding referendum. However, efforts should get underway in January 2018 — you may hear more details by then.

Those opposing the plan argued that it would raise costs while reducing access to reliable power. They were also concerned that the large areas needed for solar panels and wind farms would tarnish the pristine Swiss landscape.

This isn’t going to have a tremendous impact on the environment or local safety… certainly not in the near term, given that decommissioning a nuclear reactor can take decades. Nonetheless, it does reflect a change in attitudes. The Swiss government first proposed the idea in 2011 as a response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, but the ensuing years have also seen a change in attitude toward renewable energy. Where it used to be a relatively expensive and rare, it’s now affordable enough that it’s quickly becoming the primary choice. Switzerland not only has a reason to ditch nuclear power, it can do so knowing that eco-friendly replacements for its reactors are entirely realistic.

Source: BBC

Final Cut Pro X vs. Adobe Premiere Pro: Which video editor should you be using?

There are many polarizing debates in the world of technology and video editing, and software is no exception. Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere Pro are some of the most popular tools for the job and therefore both have their diehard fans. But if you want to make an objective decision about which to use yourself, what are some factors you should consider?

Render time is often something that people will bring up when it comes to video editing features – after all, it’s often the biggest time sink when it comes to making online video. However, while optimizations make Final Cut Pro X the likely choice for those who want the least amount of downtime, it’s not the only feature worth considering.

Final Cut Pro X

Adobe Premiere Pro is a much more open piece of software. It runs on a variety of hardware and is available for those running Windows and Mac machines. Because of that, collaboration is far easier, as you can send files to others to edit without checking if they’re running Apple hardware first. It also has Team Project files, which make the entire process of co-developing a video far simpler.

While Final Cut Pro X doesn’t have quite such a team-focus to its editing suite, its user interface is arguably easier to use, reducing multiple-click commands to fewer or even single clicks. It’s cleaner, more aesthetically pleasing to the eye and, thanks to its optimizations for Apple hardware, it’s a little kinder on battery life, too.

In terms of its usability, you’re going to find people who like it, and those who really don’t. Final Cut Pro X uses a magnetic, single-track timeline. When combined with some of the software’s additional features, like auditions, it’s pretty neat, but a lot of people prefer the classic, multi-track timeline.

That’s something Adobe Premiere Pro has, and it makes it feel more familiar to anyone who’s used other video editing tools, and arguably gives it deeper functionality through a more overt layering system. You can have various video clips on their own tracks, with sound effects and music in their own sections. It’s more organized, and gives you plenty of visual cues, so that you know where everything is at all times.

Adobe Premiere

Premiere’s wider compatibility may mean that it loses out in the rendering race, but it also leads to it supporting more formats. It works with all sorts of different audio and video filetypes and a variety of codecs. It can export to a number of different formats too, which makes it a little more versatile than its Apple-produced counterpart.

That compatibility extends to other software, letting editors easily pull clips into other Adobe software – such as After Effects – to add something to the video that just isn’t possible within the editing software. Better yet, if you update the clips that you’re using within another program that’s also part of Adobe’s suite, it will automatically update that in your video’s timeline.

Final Cut Pro X does a pretty good job of letting you tweak things like color from within the software through plugins, but it’s hard to beat the options offered by Premiere in that respect. It has a number of color grading choices built right into the base software.

Conclusion

Even in the world of video editing tools, there is a lot to consider when it comes to which one will be right for you. But that’s perhaps the most important takeaway here: pick the one that’s best for the job you want it to do.

It’s unlikely that there will ever be a definitive editing tool that is the best option for everyone, as there is no way the developers can account for every nuanced difference between users. However, it seems safe to say that while Final Cut Pro X does have a better UI and faster rendering times, it loses out on some of the compatibility and support offered by Premiere.

The long and short of it is that working in large, collaborative groups on any hardware will likely steer you towards Adobe’s software suite, while solo projects for those with existing Apple hardware, may be better on Final Cut Pro X.

Israeli court says emojis can signal your intent

The emojis you send are always open to interpretation, and when the person reading them is a judge, there could be tangible consequences. A court in Israel, for instance, has ordered a couple to pay $2,200 for using emojis that “convey great optimism” in a text they sent to landlord Yaniv Dahan. The couple contacted Dahan regarding a classified ad he posted online promoting his property. They used a bunch of festive icons that the landlord said led him to believe they wanted to rent his home.

[Image credit: Room 404]

The text translates to:

“Good morning 😊 Interested in the house 💃🏻👯‍✌️☄️… Just need to discuss the details… When’s a good time for you?”

Dahan removed his post after he received the text and proceeded to negotiate with the couple. After a few back and forths, though, the couple stopped responding. The last text they sent promised to send him the changes they wanted to his apartment contract. While the landlord eventually found another renter, he took them to small claims court for misleading him with their emoji use. Part of the judge’s ruling reads:

“The [emoji laden] text message sent by Defendant 2 on June 5, 2016, was accompanied by quite a few symbols, as mentioned. These included a “smiley,” a bottle of champagne, dancing figures and more. These icons convey great optimism. Although this message did not constitute a binding contract between the parties, this message naturally led to the Plaintiff’s great reliance on the defendants’ desire to rent his apartment.

As a result, the Plaintiff removed his online ad about renting his apartment. Even towards the end of the negotiations, in the same text messages sent at the end of July, Defendant 2 used “smiley” symbols. These symbols, which convey to the other side that everything is in order, were misleading, since at that time the defendants already had great doubts as to their desire to rent the apartment.”

Remember this case next time you decide to use💃🏻 in your texts.

Via: TheNextWeb

Source: Room404

Sorry, you can’t plant enough trees to offset fossil fuels

Ever planted a tree to feel better about your environmental footprint? It’s a good idea, but it might not have as much of an effect as you’d hope. A simulation-based study has determined that it would be utterly unrealistic to plant enough trees to offset humanity’s CO2 emissions as they are — the plantations would need to be so big that they’d “eliminate most natural ecosystems” or cut into food production. Even under the reductions from the Paris Climate Agreement, you’d still have to replace natural ecosystems on an area more than a third the size of the world’s forests. The most viable option involving trees would require both “ambitious” emissions reductions and improvements to both nurturing the plants as well as capturing their CO2.

This doesn’t mean humanity is doomed, provided the predictive model is reasonably accurate in the first place. However, it does reinforce the idea that lowering emissions involves more than a single solution like planting greenery. Any real answer to human-made climate change is going to involve a complex set of answers.

For the researchers, this involves both reducing fossil fuel consumption and implementing multiple techniques for removing CO2. You could make more efficient use of available land by eliminating food waste, as an example. Reforestation is still wise, to be clear, but it’s just one piece in a larger puzzle that can include everything from smarter farming to solar power.

Via: Reddit

Source: Potsdam Institute, AGU Publications

The world’s largest wind turbines are now spinning in Liverpool, England

Why it matters to you

As we head towards a greener future, wind energy could play a crucial role, especially with giant wind turbines taller than a skyscraper.

New turbines off the coast of Liverpool are seriously putting the “power” in wind power. Now that Danish company Dong Energy has put the finishing touches on 32 turbines in Liverpool Bay, the biggest and most powerful wind turbines in the world have started spinning, generating more and more clean energy.

Each of the enormous turbines are skyscraper-sized, measuring over 640 feet, with 262-foot-long blades capable of generating 8 megawatts of power. That means that with a single revolution of these turbines’ blades, enough electricity is produced to power a house for 29 hours. Indeed, this is the first time that 8MW turbines have been applied for commercial purposes, but with efficiency like this, it seems like it may not be the last.

The new turbines are actually an extension of a previously built wind farm that first came into existence more than a decade ago. But apparently, these 32 turbines have more than twice the capacity of their predecessors. Dong Energy hopes that these latest offerings will herald a new future for offshore wind power, one that the Guardian describes as “bigger, better and, most importantly, cheaper.”

The U.K. has become an ideal environment for wind farms given the government’s subsidies, amiable regulations, and history at sea. As it stands, wind turbines in the U.K. have a total capacity of 5.3GW, which represents enough energy to power 4.3 million homes. Already, eight more projects are underway, which promise to add another 50 percent to that capacity again.

“This and other projects have been crucial for driving costs down for the whole industry,” said Benjamin Sykes, the country manager for Dong Energy UK, of the latest project.

Indeed, the company thinks this is just the beginning for wind energy, with turbines as powerful as 13MW or 15MW possible in the near future (for reference, most turbines in the U.K. right now are somewhere between just 3 and 3.6MW).

LeEco CEO steps down but stays in charge

To put it mildly, LeEco has had its fair share of trouble lately. It ran low on cash due to aggressive growth, backed out of its Vizio takeover and threw its weight behind Faraday Future’s electric cars despite some overly ambitious plans. Clearly, the company is stretching itself too thin — and CEO Jia Yueting knows it. He’s stepping down from the CEO role at his publicly listed company (Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp) in the name of focus. He’ll devote his attention to aspects like “core product innovation,” “strategic planning” and his chairman role at Leshi. In other words, he won’t split his attention like he did before.

Former Lenovo exec Liang Jun is taking over the CEO position. Not that Jia is complaining, mind you — publicly, at least, he’s happy. He claims that this gives the public company will be “vastly improved” by getting its first truly full-time CEO, and that it opens the door to a “stronger team” that can better manage the books.

It’s important to note that LeEco and its associated brands are still Jia’s baby. He remains the chairman at Leshi, and he’s still CEO of the privately listed company that serves as Leshi’s parent. There’s also the question of how voluntary this is. However much pressure he’s facing from within his own ranks, it also looks like this is in response to inroads by one of the company’s largest shareholders (Sunac China Holdings). Jia may be ceding some control in order to get funding.

No matter the reasons, this could bode well for LeEco and its many, many products. Extra cash will keep the company humming along, of course, but it’s also Jia’s acknowledgment that he can’t do everything. Instead of distracting himself with every facet of day-to-day business, he can spend more time planning device strategy. This won’t guarantee that you’ll like LeEco’s future phones or TVs, but you at least can’t blame it on a CEO whose mind is elsewhere.

Richard Lai contributed to this report.

Via: Reuters

Source: Shenzhen Stock Exchange (PDF)