Apple and Tim Cook Honor the Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Apple today has honored the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a full-page tribute on its website. A photo of Dr. King is accompanied by a famous quote of his: “The time is always right to do what is right.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook also shared a quote from Dr. King on Twitter and added “let’s find the light and the love, together.”
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Let’s find the light and the love, together. #MLK
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) January 15, 2018
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States, a federal holiday in commemoration of his birthday. The iconic leader of the African-American civil rights movement would have turned 89 years old on Monday.
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.
Tags: Tim Cook, Martin Luther King Jr
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Corning’s glass is half full and rising
The name Corning is synonymous with glass and with good reason.
It was Corning that developed the bulb-shaped glass for Edison’s incandescent lamp; Corning’s heat-resistant glass made safer railroad lanterns, technology which evolved into car headlights; CorningWare and Pyrex provided temperature resistance in kitchens and labs, and its glass ceramics were even employed in the nose cones of space ships.
Today we associate the name with Gorilla Glass, which is widely used in the mobile industry, but Corning is also a big manufacturer of display glass for TVs, optical fiber for communications, and the glass in catalytic converters for cars. The company recently unveiled Valor Glass, a new glass packaging product for use in the pharmaceutical industry, and it’s making further inroads in the automotive sector with car exteriors and interiors.
“We are really driven by this belief that we can continue to make life-changing innovations,” Chief Strategy Officer Jeff Evenson told Digital Trends. “We see a material with almost unlimited potential. We can make it strong, we can adjust its optics, we can adjust its chemical properties, we can adjust its thermal expansion behavior or lack thereof, we can adjust its electronic properties, and obviously we can adjust its color and other aesthetic properties.”
166 years of expertise
Now in its 166th year, Corning has 107 facilities and employs more than 45,000 people. Its global headquarters and research and development center is, naturally, based in Corning, in upstate New York, but it has facilities and employees all over the world. Most recently the company acquired an empty, million-square foot plant in Eugene, Oregon, which was previously the Hynix computer-chip plant. Corning has yet to reveal what it plans to make there.
Corning Incorporated
Corning Incorporated
Corning Incorporated
Corning Incorporated
While Corning is a household name, much of the work it does is behind the scenes, producing glass that goes into other manufacturer’s products. Most of its $9.4 billion sales in 2016 were generated by producing glass layers for TVs, and optical fiber strands for telecommunication networks.
“The display industry is our largest business in terms of sales and earnings,” Evenson said. “We account for a little bit more than 50 percent of the glass that goes into all televisions around the world.”
“We see a material with almost unlimited potential.”
Its Gen 10.5 glass technology allows it to make a piece of glass that’s as thin as a business card, has the area of roughly two king size beds, and is flat to within 200 atoms all over without polishing. It’s not something that can be practically shipped, so Corning builds its factories contiguously with the panel maker’s enormous plants.
“The main TV in someone’s living room continues to grow larger and that’s the biggest trend and driver of volume for us,” Evenson said. “These large pieces of glass allow manufacturers to make large TVs much more cost effectively.”
The same manufacturing techniques are employed for the increasingly tough Gorilla Glass that covers many of our smartphones, and the display glass inside them, though the formulation is different.
“Our second largest business is optical communications,” Evenson explains. “Worth in excess of $3 billion in sales, we sell not only optical fiber, but a lot of the connectors and cables that go around it.”
Corning advanced the development of optical fiber in 1970 after winning a competition issued by the British Post Office Telecommunications department, which would later become British Telecom, to create a light pipe that could keep at least 1 percent of the light over a kilometer. Corning scientists used a technique called vapor deposition, originally developed to produce high quality glass for telescope lenses to create strands of glass with very high purity.
“They were really focused on low thermal expansion, and what they observed was that the irregular expansion you’d get in normal glass that you’d have in a window was caused by impurities,” Evenson said. “They realized that you’d have to start with gasses instead of sand to control the purity. So, they learned to turn the gasses into a solid and then eventually remelt the solid and make it into a glass and that’s how optical fiber is made.”
Last September, Corning passed its billionth kilometer of optical fiber sold. It has been investing heavily in fiber plants in North Carolina and elsewhere to support higher levels of production ahead of the shift to 5G. Verizon has already agreed to a $1.05 billion three-year minimum purchase agreement for Corning to provide fiber optic cable and associated hardware to help it improve coverage and speed the roll out of 5G capabilities.
Venturing further into pharmaceuticals and the auto industry
“Our next big business is environmental technology, built on the invention in the 1970s of extruded ceramics that can put the area of a soccer pitch into the volume of a soda can,” he said. “That has dramatically reduced emissions from cars, not only cars with internal combustion engines but also hybrid electric vehicles.”
This long-standing relationship with auto manufacturers has led Corning to think about where else glass might improve cars. We went to see Corning’s glass concept car at CES last year. Externally, the company is using Gorilla Glass to make lighter windows, which can provide better fuel economy or longer range in electric cars, and higher performance because lighter cars with a lower center of gravity can accelerate and brake more rapidly.
Corning Incorporated
Corning Incorporated
Gorilla Glass can be used to make clearer and more durable windshields, better able to deflect rock strikes without damage. Corning can also put an electronically controlled opacity film between the layers of glass to enable tinting of your car windows at the push of a button.
“For the interior of cars, it gives you a highly durable surface and allows car manufacturers to make an interface with the same responsiveness as a smartphone,” Evenson said.
This could enable new curved interior designs and even entire dashboards that can function as touchscreens. Corning is currently working with “25 auto platforms globally.”
“There are questions we’ve been asking at Corning that we’re getting closer to providing definitive answers to.”
The latest Corning product to hit headlines is its new Valor Glass, developed for the pharmaceutical industry. Back in 2011 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a paper that highlighted problems with glass vials. Interactions with the liquid inside can cause flaking, particles that shouldn’t be there can get in during manufacturing, and breakages cause frequent recalls.
Corning worked with Merck and Pfizer to develop damage resistant glass that’s more efficient to manufacture and far less prone to contamination. It’s investing heavily to build facilities that will make this new aluminosilicate glass packaging and expects it to grow into a big business fast.
Seeking glass innovations
This new direction came about because Corning CEO Wendell P. Weeks also had a seat on the board at Merck and saw the problem. Because the applications for glass are so varied, Corning is constantly looking for new possibilities and partnerships.
“Sometimes you have an event like the British Post Office Telecommunications competition explaining to the world exactly what they need,” Evenson said. “Sometimes you have somebody like Steve Jobs realizing that to make the original iPhone, a plastic cover was insufficient, and he needed something that offered more scratch resistance.”
Corning Incorporated
Jobs was annoyed that plastic scratches too easily, but he felt glass was too prone to cracking. He got wind of Gorilla Glass, but Corning wasn’t ready for mass production. In typical Jobs style, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography, he put in an order and gave Corning six months to produce enough cover glass for the original iPhone. Now in its fifth generation, Gorilla Glass has been used in more than 5 billion devices to date.
“Our relationships with companies have now evolved to the point that we share roadmaps with each other and that informs our research direction, Evenson said. “One area we don’t talk about much, but where I think glass could become incredibly valuable, is in the semiconductor industry to build high performance servers, switches, and routers.”
As people try to pack more transistors into a smaller volume by stacking chips, they need something in between that allows for electronic insulation needed while preserving the thermal properties of the silicon. Evenson thinks glass could be ideal and Corning is already working on glass interposers, though he admits it’s very early days for this kind of technology.
“We have lab reports going back 100 years. There were things 80 years ago that had no scientific limit, but there were practical limits at the time, and now we’re seeing advances that allow you to do those things,” Evenson excitedly said. “There are questions we’ve been asking at Corning that we’re getting closer to providing definitive answers to.”
One thing is for sure: Corning will continue to try and develop new glass innovations everywhere it sees a potential opportunity.
Editors’ Recommendations
- Will we ever have unbreakable smartphone glass? We asked an expert
- SilverBorn uses silver and corn fibers to keep your sheets clean and comfy
- Like your whisky straight, no color? Graphene turns aged spirit transparent
- Huawei Mate 10 Pro review
- Apple shopping spree continues with $390M investment in Finisar
Corning’s glass is half full and rising
The name Corning is synonymous with glass and with good reason.
It was Corning that developed the bulb-shaped glass for Edison’s incandescent lamp; Corning’s heat-resistant glass made safer railroad lanterns, technology which evolved into car headlights; CorningWare and Pyrex provided temperature resistance in kitchens and labs, and its glass ceramics were even employed in the nose cones of space ships.
Today we associate the name with Gorilla Glass, which is widely used in the mobile industry, but Corning is also a big manufacturer of display glass for TVs, optical fiber for communications, and the glass in catalytic converters for cars. The company recently unveiled Valor Glass, a new glass packaging product for use in the pharmaceutical industry, and it’s making further inroads in the automotive sector with car exteriors and interiors.
“We are really driven by this belief that we can continue to make life-changing innovations,” Chief Strategy Officer Jeff Evenson told Digital Trends. “We see a material with almost unlimited potential. We can make it strong, we can adjust its optics, we can adjust its chemical properties, we can adjust its thermal expansion behavior or lack thereof, we can adjust its electronic properties, and obviously we can adjust its color and other aesthetic properties.”
166 years of expertise
Now in its 166th year, Corning has 107 facilities and employs more than 45,000 people. Its global headquarters and research and development center is, naturally, based in Corning, in upstate New York, but it has facilities and employees all over the world. Most recently the company acquired an empty, million-square foot plant in Eugene, Oregon, which was previously the Hynix computer-chip plant. Corning has yet to reveal what it plans to make there.
Corning Incorporated
Corning Incorporated
Corning Incorporated
Corning Incorporated
While Corning is a household name, much of the work it does is behind the scenes, producing glass that goes into other manufacturer’s products. Most of its $9.4 billion sales in 2016 were generated by producing glass layers for TVs, and optical fiber strands for telecommunication networks.
“The display industry is our largest business in terms of sales and earnings,” Evenson said. “We account for a little bit more than 50 percent of the glass that goes into all televisions around the world.”
“We see a material with almost unlimited potential.”
Its Gen 10.5 glass technology allows it to make a piece of glass that’s as thin as a business card, has the area of roughly two king size beds, and is flat to within 200 atoms all over without polishing. It’s not something that can be practically shipped, so Corning builds its factories contiguously with the panel maker’s enormous plants.
“The main TV in someone’s living room continues to grow larger and that’s the biggest trend and driver of volume for us,” Evenson said. “These large pieces of glass allow manufacturers to make large TVs much more cost effectively.”
The same manufacturing techniques are employed for the increasingly tough Gorilla Glass that covers many of our smartphones, and the display glass inside them, though the formulation is different.
“Our second largest business is optical communications,” Evenson explains. “Worth in excess of $3 billion in sales, we sell not only optical fiber, but a lot of the connectors and cables that go around it.”
Corning advanced the development of optical fiber in 1970 after winning a competition issued by the British Post Office Telecommunications department, which would later become British Telecom, to create a light pipe that could keep at least 1 percent of the light over a kilometer. Corning scientists used a technique called vapor deposition, originally developed to produce high quality glass for telescope lenses to create strands of glass with very high purity.
“They were really focused on low thermal expansion, and what they observed was that the irregular expansion you’d get in normal glass that you’d have in a window was caused by impurities,” Evenson said. “They realized that you’d have to start with gasses instead of sand to control the purity. So, they learned to turn the gasses into a solid and then eventually remelt the solid and make it into a glass and that’s how optical fiber is made.”
Last September, Corning passed its billionth kilometer of optical fiber sold. It has been investing heavily in fiber plants in North Carolina and elsewhere to support higher levels of production ahead of the shift to 5G. Verizon has already agreed to a $1.05 billion three-year minimum purchase agreement for Corning to provide fiber optic cable and associated hardware to help it improve coverage and speed the roll out of 5G capabilities.
Venturing further into pharmaceuticals and the auto industry
“Our next big business is environmental technology, built on the invention in the 1970s of extruded ceramics that can put the area of a soccer pitch into the volume of a soda can,” he said. “That has dramatically reduced emissions from cars, not only cars with internal combustion engines but also hybrid electric vehicles.”
This long-standing relationship with auto manufacturers has led Corning to think about where else glass might improve cars. We went to see Corning’s glass concept car at CES last year. Externally, the company is using Gorilla Glass to make lighter windows, which can provide better fuel economy or longer range in electric cars, and higher performance because lighter cars with a lower center of gravity can accelerate and brake more rapidly.
Corning Incorporated
Corning Incorporated
Gorilla Glass can be used to make clearer and more durable windshields, better able to deflect rock strikes without damage. Corning can also put an electronically controlled opacity film between the layers of glass to enable tinting of your car windows at the push of a button.
“For the interior of cars, it gives you a highly durable surface and allows car manufacturers to make an interface with the same responsiveness as a smartphone,” Evenson said.
This could enable new curved interior designs and even entire dashboards that can function as touchscreens. Corning is currently working with “25 auto platforms globally.”
“There are questions we’ve been asking at Corning that we’re getting closer to providing definitive answers to.”
The latest Corning product to hit headlines is its new Valor Glass, developed for the pharmaceutical industry. Back in 2011 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a paper that highlighted problems with glass vials. Interactions with the liquid inside can cause flaking, particles that shouldn’t be there can get in during manufacturing, and breakages cause frequent recalls.
Corning worked with Merck and Pfizer to develop damage resistant glass that’s more efficient to manufacture and far less prone to contamination. It’s investing heavily to build facilities that will make this new aluminosilicate glass packaging and expects it to grow into a big business fast.
Seeking glass innovations
This new direction came about because Corning CEO Wendell P. Weeks also had a seat on the board at Merck and saw the problem. Because the applications for glass are so varied, Corning is constantly looking for new possibilities and partnerships.
“Sometimes you have an event like the British Post Office Telecommunications competition explaining to the world exactly what they need,” Evenson said. “Sometimes you have somebody like Steve Jobs realizing that to make the original iPhone, a plastic cover was insufficient, and he needed something that offered more scratch resistance.”
Corning Incorporated
Jobs was annoyed that plastic scratches too easily, but he felt glass was too prone to cracking. He got wind of Gorilla Glass, but Corning wasn’t ready for mass production. In typical Jobs style, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography, he put in an order and gave Corning six months to produce enough cover glass for the original iPhone. Now in its fifth generation, Gorilla Glass has been used in more than 5 billion devices to date.
“Our relationships with companies have now evolved to the point that we share roadmaps with each other and that informs our research direction, Evenson said. “One area we don’t talk about much, but where I think glass could become incredibly valuable, is in the semiconductor industry to build high performance servers, switches, and routers.”
As people try to pack more transistors into a smaller volume by stacking chips, they need something in between that allows for electronic insulation needed while preserving the thermal properties of the silicon. Evenson thinks glass could be ideal and Corning is already working on glass interposers, though he admits it’s very early days for this kind of technology.
“We have lab reports going back 100 years. There were things 80 years ago that had no scientific limit, but there were practical limits at the time, and now we’re seeing advances that allow you to do those things,” Evenson excitedly said. “There are questions we’ve been asking at Corning that we’re getting closer to providing definitive answers to.”
One thing is for sure: Corning will continue to try and develop new glass innovations everywhere it sees a potential opportunity.
Editors’ Recommendations
- Will we ever have unbreakable smartphone glass? We asked an expert
- SilverBorn uses silver and corn fibers to keep your sheets clean and comfy
- Like your whisky straight, no color? Graphene turns aged spirit transparent
- Huawei Mate 10 Pro review
- Apple shopping spree continues with $390M investment in Finisar
HTC U11 EYEs unveiled with 18:9 display, dual front cameras, and 3930mAh battery
The U11 EYEs features the largest battery on an HTC smartphone yet.
Renders of the HTC U11 EYEs leaked late last week, and the phone is now official. The highlight of the phone is a dual 5MP camera setup at the front with f/2.2 lenses, HDR, 80-degree field of view, and portrait mode. The U11 EYEs also has a 3930mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0, which is the largest battery on an HTC smartphone yet.
Other specs include a 6.0-inch 18:9 display with a resolution of 2160 x 1080, Snapdragon 652, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage, microSD slot, 12MP UltraPixel 3 rear camera with OIS, PDAF, dual-LED flash, and 4K video recording, Ip67 dust and water resistance, and USB-C connectivity. The U11 EYEs retains the Edge Sense feature introduced in the U11, giving you the ability to squeeze the sides of the frame to perform actions like launching the Google Assistant or opening the camera.
On the software front, the device is running Oreo out of the box, unlike earlier rumors that hinted at Nougat. However, like recent HTC phones, there’s no 3.5mm jack, so you’ll have to switch to wireless audio or use a dongle to hook up your wired audio gear.
The U11 EYES will go on sale later this month in China for the equivalent of $465 (¥2,999), and will hit Taiwan on February for NT$14,900 ($505). There’s no information regarding availability outside of Asia, but we’ll let you know once that changes. In the meantime, what are your thoughts on HTC’s latest phone? Let us know in the comments below.
Actually, the Pixel 2 is the best Android for Windows phone converts
The Pixel 2 (not the OnePlus 5T) is the best Android option for former Windows phone users for a couple of important reasons.
Recently Windows Central Senior Editor Zac Bowden proclaimed the new OnePlus 5T as the best Android phone for Windows folks who were finally moving on to another phone and another platform. I don’t deny the OnePlus 5T is a great phone (I haven’t used one for more than 60 seconds, but still) and that company is doing some great work.
But I disagree that it is the best. And this isn’t just because I prefer a different phone. I’ve been using Android in some form since 2010. I’ve seen a lot of phones come, and that OS is even responsible for my employment at Mobile Nations. Until November, I was using an HP Elite x3 every day, until the curtain dropped on Windows 10 Mobile and I decided I should probably buy a new phone.
There are many good reasons to buy phones from Samsung, LG, and OnePlus, but there’s always been one great reason to buy a phone with Google’s badge on it. And now, with the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, there are two really great reasons to buy a phone with Google’s badge on it.
See at Google
Software updates don’t get any better
Windows phone users are used to not only (mostly) getting updates quickly but also enjoying support on devices for a long time. Software updates aren’t just critical for cool new features, they’re important for security.
Google has a monthly security patch for Android which is there no matter who made your phone, but with a Google phone, you know you’re going to get them on time. I have a Razer Phone and a Galaxy S7 both still on the October patch. And we’re now in January. That’s not acceptable, and it’s one of the many frustrations with the Android ecosystem. The Pixel 2, by contrast, has the January patch available and will get the February and March patch as soon as they’re ready.
The same applies to OS updates. The Pixel 2 is on Android 8.1 right now; virtually all other Android phones are not. The OnePlus 5T has a beta of Oreo out based on Android 8.0, but that’s still a point version behind. Samsung hasn’t updated its big 2017 phones yet, either.
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Besides being first, Google also promises three-years of software updates for the Pixel 2. That’s a long time to have a single phone, and based on previous track records it’s longer than you’ll likely get from the other big players.
Google also makes it simple to update your phone yourself. OTA updates still take some time to roll out, but you don’t have to wait to get them that way. Google posts both factory images and OTA update images for the Pixel 2 every time a new release is out. If you’re mildly comfortable with some command line and willing to use the necessary Android SDK tools it’s not that difficult. Not as easy as the Windows Phone Recovery Tool or the Insider program, but it is also not terribly hard.
How to get the latest version of Android on your Pixel 2
The best phone camera there is
At some point in 2018, a phone will come out with a camera better than the Pixel 2. We’d expect a Pixel 3 for one thing. But the Pixel 2 is widely accepted as the best all-around smartphone camera right now. Yes, it only has one lens, but what Google has done in software is mindblowing.
It’s fast, it takes amazing looking pictures in good and low-light, and the portrait mode is both accurate and effective. It’s all done in software, and it’s frankly astonishing. The camera app isn’t the most feature-packed, but it covers all the bases. I’d love a physical shutter button, but at least a double-press of the power button will quick-launch the camera, and volume up will take a picture.
For folks who clung to their high-end Lumias because of camera capabilities, the Pixel 2 camera is probably the one you’ll want. It takes hardware-related problems and solves them with software. And you get unlimited storage for a couple of years in Google Photos to automatically back up your snaps.
The bottom line on Pixel 2
I’m not reviewing the Pixel 2. We’ve already done that. But these two features, in particular, are ones I think are important to the Windows converts. Sure, there are all the apps you ever want in the Play Store, and it has pretty good battery life, USB-C, and a decent screen, but when you’re used to having the latest software and the best cameras, the Pixel 2 will not disappoint.
I’ll admit, it’s pretty boring to look at, but if you’re tired of giant phones or don’t want an 18:9 screen, you’ve got the smaller Pixel 2. If you want something bigger, the same phone can be had with that bigger screen and all the same benefits. But for me, the smaller version ($649) easily won out. And it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than an iPhone X.
Go Pixel 2, Microsoft it up, and have a great time. The Pixel 2 lets you do that more effectively than the OnePlus 5T. (Sorry, Zac.)
If you made the jump to the Pixel 2, be sure to drop into the comments and share what you think.
See at Google
Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL
- Pixel 2 FAQ: Everything you need to know!
- Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL review: The new standard
- Google Pixel 2 specs
- Google Pixel 2 vs. Pixel 2 XL: What’s the difference?
- Join our Pixel 2 forums
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The Morning After: Monday, January 15th 2018
Hey, good morning!
Post-CES, it’s back to business as usual at Engadget, but not before delivering some of our final reports and interviews from a very busy show. Oh, and even a new wearable — if nothing from Vegas caught your eye.
Praise be.
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ ventures outside Gilead in second season
The Handmaid’s Tale has been a huge success for Hulu, earning the streaming platform quite a few Emmys and two Golden Globes. The first season was based on Margaret Atwood’s novel by the same name, but many have wondered what’s in store for the upcoming second season. Showrunner Bruce Miller says he and Margaret Atwood began talking about the direction of the second season before the first was even finished.
Smarter, sharper and bigger than ever.
The TVs that mattered at CES
As usual, CES 2018 provided a bonanza of big screens, loaded up with every piece of tech you can create a buzzword for. But figuring out which TVs will matter to you next year is about a little more than just pixels and apps.
And ever so slightly cheaper at $1200.
Tag Heuer made a smaller modular smartwatch
Those of us with smaller wrists may have noticed that most of the connected smartwatches out there are, well, kind of huge. Tag Heuer’s Connected Modular 45, for example, was a lovely device with a 45mm case diameter, perfect for larger wrists but lousy for everyone else. The company has now decided to support the smaller among us with a new Connected Modular 41, with — you guessed it — a watch with a 41mm diameter for those with more diminutive extremities. The new model is set to retail starting at $1,200 so might be best to start saving.
But wait, there’s more…
- Ford’s 2019 Ranger unveiled with automatic emergency brakes
- LA man charged with involuntary manslaughter over ‘CoD’ swatting
- Amazon’s flop of a phone made newer, better hardware possible
- Bitcoin was briefly legal tender at KFC Canada
The Morning After is a new daily newsletter from Engadget designed to help you fight off FOMO. Who knows what you’ll miss if you don’t Subscribe.
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Google’s museum app finds your fine art doppelgänger
If you’ve ever wondered if there’s a museum portrait somewhere that looks like you and you’re ready to have your ego crushed, there’s now an app for that. Google Arts & Culture’s latest update now lets you take a selfie, and using image recognition, finds someone in its vast art collection that most resembles you. It will then present you and your fine art twin side-by-side, along with a percentage match, and let you share the results on social media, if you dare.
My Google Arts & Culture match is with a guy literally named Bourgeois
A post shared by Steve Dent (@stevetdent) on Jan 15, 2018 at 1:43am PST
The app is like an automated version of an article that circulated recently showing folks standing in front of portraits at museums. In many cases, the old-timey people in the paintings resemble them uncannily, but, other than in rare cases, that’s not the case at all with Google’s app.
Google matched me with someone who doesn’t look like me in the slightest, a certain Sir Peter Francois Bourgeois, based on a painting hanging in Dulwich Picture Gallery. Taking a buzz around the internet, other folks were satisfied with their matches, some took them as a personal insult, and many were just plain baffled, in that order, as presented below. From all that, it’s pretty clear that deep learning systems like those from Google are great at matching individual details, but painfully miss the big picture.
The left is from “Children Begging,” from the second half of the 17th century. Anonymous painter, Italy. I can kind of see it #googleartsandculture
A post shared by Avren Keating (@mxavren) on Jan 12, 2018 at 7:59am PST
Nothing like a little self esteem boost from google arts and culture on a Saturday night pic.twitter.com/hYYtdNN308
— Amy Stone (@amyhannumstone) January 14, 2018
Cool 🙂 #googleartsandculture
A post shared by BoyWonder (@boywonderrocks) on Jan 14, 2018 at 5:12am PST
Via: GQ
Source: Google Arts & Culture (Play Store)
MacBook Pro Reportedly Won’t See Any Major Upgrades in 2018
Apple currently has no plans to make any major upgrades to its MacBook Pro lineup in 2018, according to DigiTimes. Of course, if accurate, the report doesn’t rule out a MacBook Pro refresh or update of any kind this year.
An excerpt from the report, citing sources within Apple’s supply chain:
The sources revealed that Foxconn had been aggressively working to land more MacBook orders from Apple during the past few years by offering attractive quotes. Since Apple has not had a major upgrade to its MacBook product line since the releases of its new MacBook Pro devices at the end of 2016 and has no plan for one in 2018, the US-based vendor is planning to shift orders for models that are already in mass production to Foxconn to save costs and reduce risks.
Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn could land a large number of additional MacBook orders this year, the report adds. The increase could come at the expense of Quanta Computer, which has been Apple’s major MacBook supplier in recent years.
Taiwan-based Foxconn has reportedly been working to boost its chances of notebook orders from Apple by offering attractive quotes. Apple will therefore switch MacBook orders to Foxconn for models that are already in mass production as a way to save costs and reduce risks, according to the sources cited.
Foxconn is expected to begin mass shipments to fulfill the new orders in the second quarter of 2018, said the sources. Foxconn and Quanta both declined to comment on their clients or orders. The sources pointed out that Apple started outsourcing the assembly for some of MacBooks’ components to Foxconn’s plants in Shenzhen, China in the second half of 2017.
Despite the news, Quanta is expected to remain Apple’s biggest supplier going into 2018. According to DigiTimes’ research, out of 15 million MacBooks shipped to Apple a year, the shipment ratio between Quanta and Foxconn has been at around 8:2 for the past five years. Last year alone, Quanta had a 79.5 percent share and Foxconn took 20.5 percent.
Quanta is said to be looking to other brand vendors to offset the impact of the loss of orders, as it aims for similar growth to the market average in 2018. The Taiwan-based firm shipped 38.7 million notebooks last year, up five percent on year, and is currently the largest notebook supplier for HP, Apple, Acer, and Asus.
Quanta also maintains orders for the Apple Watch, and is said to be teaming up with Israeli-based augmented reality company Lumus to manufacture lenses for smart glasses. It’s not clear if Quanta and Lumus are working with Apple on a future AR headset or smart glasses, but it is a possibility as rumors suggest Apple has a wearable augmented reality product in the works.
Related Roundups: MacBook Pro, Apple VR ProjectTags: Foxconn, QuantaBuyer’s Guide: MacBook Pro (Caution)
Discuss this article in our forums
Toyota to Offer CarPlay in Select 2019 Vehicles in United States, Including All-New Avalon [Updated]
Toyota today is introducing its all-new 2019 Avalon at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, and MacRumors has learned it is the automaker’s first vehicle with support for Apple’s CarPlay.
In addition to the Avalon, Toyota plans to expand CarPlay compatibility to its other 2019 model year vehicles and beyond with its Entune 3.0 multimedia system, according to Toyota spokesperson Brian Lyons. Toyota said CarPlay will initially be available in vehicles sold in the United States only.
Entune 3.0 is already included with the 2018 Camry and 2018 Sienna, so CarPlay should be available in 2019 models of those vehicles at the very least. Toyota plans to provide us with more availability details soon. We’ve also inquired about CarPlay compatibility with Lexus, its luxury vehicle division.
Entune 3.0 will also be compatible with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant in the United States, as Toyota announced at CES 2018 last week, but it’s unclear if Google’s Android Auto platform will be supported.
Toyota often competes for the title of world’s largest automaker, and it was by far the most notable brand to not support CarPlay until now, lagging months or years behind competitors like Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, and Volkswagen.
A recent survey indicated that an increasing number of customers consider CarPlay a must-have feature, so Toyota’s support for Apple’s software platform should benefit both new vehicle buyers and its bottom line.
Below is a list of some of the other new vehicles with CarPlay support debuting at the auto show this week:
– 2019 Audi A7
– 2018 BMW X2
– 2019 BMW i8 Coupe
– 2019 Ford Ranger
– 2019 Ford Edge
– 2019 Genesis G70
– 2019 Honda Insight Prototype
– 2019 Lamborghini Urus
– 2019 Mercedes-Benz G-Class
– 2019 MINI Hardtop
– 2019 MINI Convertible
– 2019 RAM 1500
– 2019 Volkswagen Jetta
– 2018 Volkswagen Passat GT
– 2019 Chevrolet Silverado
– 2019 Jeep Cherokee
Apple periodically updates a list of over 200 vehicle makes and models available with CarPlay on its website.
Update: Toyota has now shared a press release that reveals the 2019 Avalon has a new nine-inch capacitive touchscreen. CarPlay is a standard feature on all trim levels of the vehicle, which goes on sale in late spring 2018.
Related Roundup: CarPlayTag: Toyota
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HTC U11 Eyes’ dual cameras bring bokeh to your selfies
Well, that was quick: HTC’s promised return to a dual-camera smartphone is already here. Meet the U11 Eyes which, as the name implies, is a selfie-centric smartphone featuring a pair of cameras on the front. These deliver live bokeh effect which supports re-focus after capture — just like the good old days with previous dual-camera HTC phones.
And yes, the U11 Eyes reuses the same shiny “Liquid Design” as the flagship U11+, but swapping out a few flagship-level features for a more affordable price. You’ll find an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 chipset, a 2,160 x 1,080 LCD, just three microphones instead of four and no BoomSound speakers (so no stereo nor “Hi-Fi” output).
That said, you’ll still find a handful of familiar goodies, including the excellent 12-megapixel f/1.7 main camera (with O.I.S. and 4K video recording), Hi-Res audio capture, USonic self-tuning earphones, Edge Sense squeeze input, a generous 3,930mAh battery and the U11’s IP67 water plus dust resistance (the U11+ has IP68). The easiest way to tell a U11 Eyes and a U11+ apart is by looking at the ring around the main camera: the former has a thinner and shinier ring, which is the most apparent on the Solar Red version — the gold ring combined with the glossy red body would definitely get a seal of approval from Iron Man.
Both the U11 Eyes’ front cameras come in at 5 megapixels with f/2.2 aperture plus a wide 80-degree view — a somewhat disappointing choice compared to the original 8-megapixel f/2.0 imager with 85-degree capture, but perhaps HTC couldn’t source larger sensors due to its design choice. Still, they benefit from the same HDR Boost function as the UltraPixel 3 main camera, and the single camera — the one by the earpiece — responsible for video recording can record up to 1080p. In addition to live bokeh, the camera’s selfie mode also supports live beautification — you can either use auto mode or go manual with options for skin smoothing, skin brightening, face slimming and eye enlargement.
But what really got me hooked were the AR stickers for selfies. Taking a page out of Snapchat and Facebook’s books, HTC is offering a set of cartoon animations — be it a hat, facial hair, sunglasses, foods, bunny ears and more — that automatically map to everyone’s faces within the canvas, so long as the faces are large enough to be recognized. At one point, we crammed eight people into a group selfie and the camera still managed to turn us into a bunch of teenagers make us all look cuter. However, there are apparently still some kinks to be ironed out, so AR stickers won’t land on the U11 Eyes until some time before mid-February — it’ll arrive as an update via Google Play. While this feature only requires a single camera, HTC says it currently has no plans to add it to its other U11 devices.
Joining the likes of OnePlus and a few other Chinese smartphone makers, HTC is also jumping on the face unlock hype train with the U11 Eyes. Again, using just a single camera, the camera looks out for 128 feature vectors on a face, and it can somehow distinguish between a real human face and attempts with still photos or video clips. It’s also able to recognize its owner if when he or she puts on a hat, sunglasses (to a certain extent of darkness) or even a breathing mask — an item popular amongst scooter riders in Taiwan. As a bonus, this method can be paired with Edge Sense unlock: simply squeeze the dormant phone while looking at the front camera, and you’re good to go.
It should be noted that this face unlock is more for the sake of convenience, which is why this face unlock option isn’t available for authorizing mobile payments — you’ll still have to tap the rear fingerprint reader or type in your password for that. Interestingly, this is one feature that HTC is considering to roll out to other U11 devices, so stay tuned.
It’s unclear as to when the U11 Eyes will be available in markets beyond Greater China, but for those who happen to reside in that region, the 64GB model with 4GB of RAM be available for HK$3,898 or about US$500 in Hong Kong as of this Wednesday, and you’ll get three familiar color options: “Solar Red,” “Amazing Silver” (which is more of a shiny blue) and “Ceramic Black.” That said, according to our local sources, the price may actually hit HK$3,200 or about US$410 on launch day. Either way, it won’t mean much without a serious marketing push locally.
Via: Engadget Chinese
Source: HTC
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