Sony Music chairman leaves to form Apple partnership

Apple’s music exec connections may extend beyond the likes of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. Variety sources have claimed that Sony Music chairman Doug Morris is leaving the publisher at the end of March to help run a new label, 12 Tone, that will have a “partnership” with Apple. What this involves isn’t clear, but former Def Jam chief Steve Bartels would join the team.

We’ve asked Apple if it can comment.

As Variety noted, this would represent a reunion of sorts for Morris and Iovine. They technically worked together (if not closely) at Universal Music Group, where Morris was chairman and Iovine ran the Interscope label. That probably wasn’t an influencing factor, but the two execs will certainly be familiar with each other.

There is a chance this could involve exclusive music — Apple is fond of exclusives, after all. Whatever it entails, Morris’ involvement could represent a major victory. Morris is one of the music industry’s biggest business legends, having led all three major music publishers (Sony, Universal and Warner) at various points in his life. He’s been particularly important to Sony. It was floundering when he joined in 2011, but it has since had both stability and major hits from the likes of Adele and Daft Punk. Whatever 12 Tone does with Apple, it’ll know its way around the corporate world.

Source: Variety

KGI: Apple Developing High-End Over-Ear Headphones, Launching Late 2018 at the Earliest

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has issued a new research note outlining his expectations for Apple’s “acoustic accessories” pipeline, claiming the company is working on both updated AirPods and “own-brand, high-end over-ear headphones” with an “all-new design.” The new over-ear headphones are said to debut in the fourth quarter of this year at the earliest.

Apple to have own-brand, high-end over-ear headphones with all-new design; to be as convenient as AirPods with better sound quality; shipments to begin 4Q18F at earliest; Primax & SZS will be the key suppliers & will benefit from high ASPs. We believe that after AirPods and HomePod, Apple’s next addition will be high-end over-ear headphones, making its acoustic accessory lineup more complete. Existing suppliers Primax and SZS will be Apple’s partners on this new product. Primax will receive assembly orders on its familiarity with the acoustic business, and SZS is likely to use MIM technology advantages as leverage to become the exclusive or main MIM part supplier. The new headphones will be priced higher than AirPods and should help boost the business momentum of Primax as the assembly provider.

Beats Studio3 Wireless and current AirPods
Kuo’s prediction on upgraded AirPods follows a similar report just a few days ago from Bloomberg. Kuo says the new AirPods should launch in the second half of this year.

We think the main difference of the upgraded AirPods, which won’t look much different from current AirPods, will be the wireless charging case and the adoption of an upgraded W1 chip. We believe that the charging case will adopt different processes for the external appearance and to meet thermal requirements from wireless charging, the hinge price will rise 60-80%.

Beyond this year’s update for the AirPods, Bloomberg claimed this week that Apple is working on a subsequent AirPods update that would bring water resistance to the earphones, but that model wouldn’t arrive until 2019 at the earliest.

Tags: Ming-Chi Kuo, AirPods
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LG adopts the OnePlus’ “T” strategy for device releases

At MWC 2018, LG announced the first of the new V30 variants it recently teased: the LG V30S ThinQ. Far from the all-new V30 it sounds like, the V30S ThinQ is just a regular V30 with more RAM, larger internal storage and a couple new color options: New Moroccan Blue and New Platinum Gray. There’s some new AI and camera software features too, but these will be back-ported to existing V30 handsets.

We don’t know yet how much more it will cost, although ETNews recently claimed it would be priced at over a million won (~$918). The V30S ThinQ should be out in South Korea in March sometime with other markets to follow.

It’s basically what OnePlus has been doing for a couple years

If you can get past the slightly misleading nomenclature, having a slightly upgraded version of the V30 available is not a bad thing. Unless, of course, you recently bought a regular V30.

The approach probably seems familiar: a while after the flagship release, in this case six months, put out a new variant with some timely hardware upgrades, a fresh lick of paint and some new software features. It’s basically what OnePlus has been doing for a couple years with the OnePlus 3T and OnePlus 5T.

LG is going about it a little differently, at least this go-around. For starters, there isn’t anything on the hardware front as significant as a bigger battery, new chipset or new display, as OnePlus has done in the past. LG did note that the particular upgrade recipe we’re seeing this time could make way for more significant changes in future, depending on what was deemed to be “lacking” in the flagship release.

The other big additions are on the software front: AI, voice assistant and camera enhancements have been added which will also be made available on the original V30. LG said the new software features should all be made available, but would ultimately be market dependent. At least the LG V30S ThinQ runs Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box.

Besides some Google Assistant-powered voice commands and the ability to control LG home appliances, there are three main additions that are specific to the camera. They start with QLens, which can do visual searches on Amazon or in Pinterest, kind of like Bixby Vision (and equally slow and inaccurate) or scan QR codes.

Most interesting of all is Bright Mode: four pixel binning which makes images 2x brighter

Then there’s AI Cam, which suggests camera settings based on image recognition, much like Huawei’s AI-powered Mate 10 Pro scene selection (although much more slowly and with fewer recognizable scenes).

Most interesting of all is Bright Mode, which LG says makes images 2x brighter. It certainly does that, with significantly brighter images. But to achieve the results you see below, it groups pixels into fours, pixel binning a dark 16 MP photo to turn it into a bright 4 MP shot. That’ll either be a total waste of time or a great compromise given the circumstances, depending on how large you need your pics.

LG V30S ThinQ Bright Mode flower
LG V30S ThinQ flower

LG V30S ThinQ Bright Mode mouse
LG V30S ThinQ mouse

In some ways, it’s an enticing idea: miss out on picking up the flagship and still be able to get a slightly improved flagship whenever you’re ready to upgrade. But the knife cuts both ways, because no matter when you buy, your device is essentially going to be outdated a half year later. This hasn’t hampered OnePlus’ ability to turn the T variant into its “true” flagship, and in some ways, it lets them sell the same phone twice. Whether or not the same recipe will prove successful for LG, we just don’t know. But LG was happy to admit the one flagship per year strategy wasn’t working either.

What do you think of LG’s new strategy? Is LG onto a good thing or focusing on the wrong things?

Tesla uses Powerwalls and solar panels to bring AC to Hawaii schools

In order to provide Hawaiian schools with air conditioning, the Hawaiian State Department of Education has commissioned Tesla to help address the island’s energy needs.

Hawaii may be beautiful and rich in culture, but the island’s isolation distance from the mainland means that it often has trouble producing the energy it needs. Nearly 94 percent of the island’s power is produced by non-renewable resources such as coal. In addition to the harmful environmental effects, this can make power extremely expensive.

Unfortunately, Hawaiian schools, like many others around the country, are on a tight budget and often have trouble providing their classrooms with AC. The island chain’s high humidity, compounded with average temperature of 85 degrees, can make it difficult for students to focus on their lessons.

In order to address this issue, CNET has reported that the state’s governor ordered the Hawaiian State Department of Education to come up with a solution to this problem and find a way to cool 1,000 classrooms. The catch is that they must do this without increasing their electricity consumption. This is where Tesla stepped in to provide a solution.

Using a combination of 3oo Powerwall batteries and a number of solar panels, Elon Musk’s company was able to provide 1,000 Hawaiian classrooms with affordable AC, making it easier for students and teachers to focus more on their lessons and less on contemplating a trip to Gnome, Alaska.

While Tesla is best known for its electric cars, the company has made some major strides in the areas of renewable energy and has often partnered with governments and charitable organizations to provide low-cost energy to those in need. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Musk spoke with the government of Puerto Rico about using his company’s Powerwall technology to help rebuild the island’s power grid. He has also donated solar panels to low-income Americans, and works with GRID Alternatives to help people find work in the growing solar industry.

In terms of the company’s government partnerships, Tesla recently entered into an agreement with the Canadian government and Nova Scotia Power to test the effectiveness of the company’s home power batteries on reducing customer’s dependency on traditional power grids.

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• Hawaii’s missile alert agency stored its passwords on Post-it Notes
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The iconic Arecibo radio telescope has been saved from possible demolition

If you’ve ever seen the movie GoldenEye (or played the classic N64 game), you’re undoubtedly familiar with Arecibo. The massive structure opened in 1963, and the observatory’s 1,000-foot radio telescope was the world’s largest for more than 50 years.

Built in a giant sinkhole in the Puerto Rican jungle, the 900-ton platform suspended 450 feet over a spherical reflector can detect radio waves from distant galaxies and also monitor nearby asteroids zooming past Earth.

Originally designed to study the ionosphere, the telescope has had a variety of roles in its decades-long career. The military hoped to use it to track Soviet ICBMs during the Cold War, and in 1974 it sent out a “postcard” to a star cluster 21,000 light years away as one of the first SETI endeavors. A study of binary pulsars using the telescope proved the existence of gravitational waves and earned physicists Russel Hulse and Joseph Taylor a Nobel Prize in 1993.

In recent years, however, the future of Arecibo has been uncertain. The National Science Foundation (NSF), which funds the majority of Arecibo’s annual $12 million budget, began looking at ways to decommission the structure due to budgetary constraints.

Former director of the observatory Robert Kerr told National Geographic that environmental impact studies could signal the beginning of the end. “It appears that NSF is following the formal process established, in part, by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, for decommissioning of a federal facility,” he said. “The good folks at Arecibo are scared to death.”

However, the University of Central Florida has come to the rescue, announcing that it will be taking over operation and management of the facility along with two international partners. “UCF’s oversight of this crucial resource further solidifies our university as a leader in space-related research,” said UCF President John C. Hitt. “This agreement, made possible through partnerships, also ensures that the observatory will continue to make significant contributions to space science and mankind.”

The five-year $20 million agreement is expected to take effect on April 1. The NSF contribution will decrease over time, from approximately $8 million per year to approximately $2 million per year by 2022.

“The Arecibo Observatory is a very special place. It is currently the leading research facility in the areas of radio astronomy, planetary sciences, and space atmospheric science in the world,” said director Francisco Córdova, who will continue to fill that position under the new management. “We are very excited about this new collaboration. I believe together we can do great things.”

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OnePlus 5 & 5T updated for HD streaming playback, but you have to mail in your phone to get it

Users can mail in their OnePlus 5 or 5T to enable HD playback from Netflix and other providers.

Late last year, it was discovered that the OnePlus 5 and 5T can’t stream HD videos from Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services. The problem is the phones don’t ship with the WidevIne Level 1 DRM that these services require for HD playback, so videos are only played at standard definition (480p). There’s a fix available, but users will have to jump through hoops to get it.

A OnePlus staff member states the DRM software has to be installed from a trusted computer at the factory, so users will need to mail their devices back to OnePlus. The company is covering shipping costs, but users will still need a spare smartphone to use for a few days. It’s unfortunate that this fix can’t be delivered over the air, but this isn’t the first time a DRM system has inconvenienced consumers. There also hasn’t been any word if new OnePlus 5T’s will have the DRM system preloaded.

Are you going to send in your OnePlus device? Let us know down below!

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• Join the discussion in the forums

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Chrome’s pull-to-refresh starts making its way to Chromebooks

Chrome on Chromebooks and Windows-2-in-1 devices is on its way to becoming more like its sibling on mobile. As lucasban has posted on Reddit, the pull-to-refresh gesture is now available on the browser’s developer channel for those platforms. While the feature might not make that much of a difference as it does on mobile — Chrome for those devices has a pretty accessible refresh button — the iOS/Android version’s touch control will still make a great addition for the touchscreen laptop-tablet hybrids.

As we mentioned, though, the feature has only made its way as far as the developer channel. If you do have access to it for Chrome OS and Windows, you’ll still have to activate the gesture via the hidden flag chrome://flags/#pull-to-refresh. Based on previous reports, Google’s Chrome team has been working on bringing the gesture to Chromebooks since at least mid-2017. Hopefully, it won’t take them too long to release the feature to the public.

Pull-to-Refresh Flag Working in Chrome OS Dev Channel from r/chromeos

Via: Android Police, XDA Developers

Source: lucasban (Reddit)

Claimed ‘iPhone X Plus’ Displays and Digitizers Shown in Leaked Photos

New photos claimed to be of the rumored 6.5-inch “iPhone X Plus” screen and digitizer have been shared on the MacX forums [Google Translate], with the poster claiming the parts come from a “trial run of production equipment” at LG’s facilities in Vietnam.

The first photo shows a single digitizer held in a person’s hand, and the overall size certainly appears larger than an iPhone X part, while the relative size of the notch to the digitizer’s width is slightly different than on the iPhone X. At least one rumor has, however, claimed the second-generation iPhone X could have a smaller notch, so we shouldn’t necessarily expect the notch-to-display proportions to be the same between iPhone X generations.

The digitizer includes a flex cable at the bottom of the part for connecting to the iPhone’s logic board, and the part number printed on the cable is similar to the format typically used by Apple.

An apparent date code also shown on the flex cable points to a production date in the 46th week of 2017, which would correspond to mid-November, so this isn’t a particularly recent part although there could be substantial lag between digitizer production and the part’s incorporation into a full display assembly.

The second photo shows a tray containing a set of four assembled display/digitizer components. Again, the size appears larger than the corresponding iPhone X part based on the relative size of the small earpiece slot visible on one of the parts. The rear design of the part is also very similar but not identical to the iPhone X display assembly.

Samsung is the exclusive supplier of OLED displays for the iPhone X, but previous rumors have indicated LG could become the supplier for the so-called iPhone X Plus this year, so the purported location of these photos at LG’s plant in Vietnam fits with those rumors. Apple has reportedly invested billions of dollars to help LG get its OLED display production up and running to increase overall supplies and give Apple more flexibility in not needing to rely solely on Samsung.

Apple is rumored to be launching three new iPhones around the usual September timeframe this year: a second-generation iPhone X with the same 5.8-inch OLED display size, a larger “iPhone X Plus” with a 6.5-inch OLED display, and a new LCD-based model with a similar full-face display to the iPhone X design but measuring about 6.1 inches.

(Thanks, Siting!)

Related Roundup: 2018 iPhones
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Nearly half of 2017’s cryptocurrencies have already failed

The surging price of bitcoin (among others) in 2017 led more than a few companies to hop on the cryptocurrency bandwagon with hopes of striking it rich almost overnight. Many of their initial coin offerings seemed dodgy from the outset… and it turns out they were. Bitcoin.com has conducted a study of ICOs tracked by Tokendata, and a whopping 46 percent of the 902 crowdsale-based virtual currencies have already failed. Of these, 142 never got enough funding; another 276 have either slowly faded away or were out and out scams.

The number of casualties might be higher in practice. Another 113 ICOs have either stopped talking on social networks (a good sign interest has died) or have so few adopters that success is very unlikely. And the survivors aren’t necessarily doing much better. Only a “handful” raised over $10 million, which left an uphill battle for the rest.

It doesn’t take much divination to understand why many of these virtual coins fell flat. Excluding the scams, a large chunk of them were targeted at niches like dentistry, freight trucking or real estate — they were never going to attract broad audiences. Others, meanwhile, were me-too efforts that had no real advantage over pouring money into an established format, where prices were more likely to climb.

ICOs are still popular options in 2018, but it doesn’t look like the new wave will fare much better. We’ve already seen Kodak and other companies start cryptocurrencies for little more than a momentary stock boost. Pair that with falling prices and many ICOs face daunting prospects.

Source: Bitcoin.com, Tokendata

iTunes Store Won’t Work on Original Apple TV and Windows XP/Vista PCs as of May 25

Apple yesterday published a new support document noting that security changes being implemented on May 25 will prevent the first-generation Apple TV and PCs running Windows XP or Vista from using the iTunes Store. Apple has also begun emailing users with active first-generation Apple TVs to warn them of the upcoming change.

Beginning on 2018-05-25, Apple will introduce security changes that prevent Apple TV (1st generation) from using the iTunes Store. This device is an obsolete Apple product and will not be updated to support these security changes.

Apple notes that second-generation and later Apple TV models will continue to work with the iTunes Store.

The first-generation Apple TV based on a traditional hard drive was introduced back in 2007 and was supplanted by the much smaller flash-based second-generation model in late 2010. The first-generation model was officially declared obsolete by Apple in late 2015.

As for PC users, Apple notes that machines running Windows XP or Vista are no longer supported by Microsoft and are unable to use the latest versions of iTunes, as iTunes 12 requires Windows 7 or later. With the upcoming changes, users running these older versions of Windows and iTunes won’t be able to make new purchases or redownload previous purchases from the iTunes Store.

(Thanks, Greg!)

Related Roundup: Apple TVTag: iTunes StoreBuyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Buy Now)
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