This is the safe Galaxy Note 7’s new green battery icon
This is what your new Note 7 will look like after the update.
Here it is, folks. As promised, after receiving a new Galaxy Note 7 yesterday — with a battery from a different supplier — Samsung is rolling out an update to all Note 7s, pre- and post-recall, separating the haves from the have-nots.
Specifically, my Note 7, the one with the new, safer battery, has a green battery indicator in place of the traditional white, which Google has forced on all manufacturers since Android 4.4 KitKat. Ironically, before then, all Samsung phones shipped with green battery icons.
Samsung received special dispensation for the change from Google itself due to extraordinary circumstances.
Not only is the battery indicator now green, but the Note 7 has a handy green battery gauge in the Restart menu, which is accessed by holding down the power button at any time. This is another, more explicit way of Samsung notifying its users, and the public, that this new batch of Note 7s is different from the recalled one, with a battery certified from a different supplier.
If you are running any Note 7, new or old, your phone should be getting the update starting today in both the U.S. and Canada (we verified this on Verizon and Rogers units). The update blurb succinctly sums things up for us:
For new devices, the battery icon is green after the update. If the battery icon is white after the update, information on the safety recall will be provided.
The update is about 50MB, and shouldn’t take too long to install. It doesn’t affect the security patch level, nor does it add anything else to the operating system; this is strictly to make recalled phones less operable, and new phones more apparent.
More: Everything you need to know about the Galaxy Note 7 recall
When compared to the Galaxy S7 edge, you can see the difference in the battery icon is very subtle, though purists accustomed to the uniform aesthetic of all Android notification shades will balk at the change.
And while it’s unlikely future Galaxy devices will have a green battery icon, it may be a good idea to keep the larger gauge in the Restart menu, since it’s a pretty useful addition on its own.
So what happens if you are holding on to a recalled Note 7 and receive this forced upgrade? You’ll be warned whenever you start up or power down the device to turn it off, put it in a box, and bring it in for exchange.
There is no reason, especially now that there is ample stock of replacement Note 7s in the U.S. and Canada, to hold onto that device.
Samsung Galaxy Note 7
- Galaxy Note 7 recall: Everything you need to know
- Samsung Galaxy Note 7 review
- The latest Galaxy Note 7 news!
- Here are all four Note 7 colors
- Complete Galaxy Note 7 specs
- Join the Note 7 discussion in the forums!
Verizon
AT&T
T-Mobile
Sprint
MacOS Sierra tips and tricks: Maximise your MacBook
Apple has finally pushed out the MacOS Sierra update we’ve been waiting for since WWDC back in June and, with it, some useful new features. They can speed up how you work and find things, as well as helping you save space on your precious hard drive.
Perhaps the biggest new feature is Siri, which is just as useful as it is on iPhone, and the new Messages app has been revamped to make it more compatible with the all-new iOS 10 Messages app.
Read and watch on to discover some of the new features we’ve found most useful and convenient.
MacOS Sierra tips: Siri
Siri on Mac can be used for pretty much anything you can use it for on iPhone, except you can use it to find documents with specific names, or created at certain times and dates and much more.
How to activate Siri: Just like any other app you can launch it by clicking on the icon on your home screen dock, or hit CMD+Space and search for it in Spotlight like any other app. There’s also a small round purple Siri icon in the toolbar at the top of your home screen which you can click to activate the service. How to use Siri to find specific files: Siri is actually a very powerful tool on Mac. You can ask Siri questions like “Find me documents with expenses in the title” and it’ll list any files which match the search.
You can also try “find me any documents I’ve worked on this week/this month/over the last two days”. In fact you can even make it more detailed by asking it specifically for Numbers, Keynote or Pages documents edited in any specified measure of time.
How to use Siri to find specific emails: As with the files, Siri is able to find your emails based on what is in them and who sent them. For instance “find any emails from Chris Hall” would give you a list of any emails sent to you by Chris Hall.
How to pin Siri results to the Today view: Whether you search for weather, sports schedules, or anything else, you can pin your Siri results to your Today view in the Notification Centre tab by clicking on the little “+” button in the corner.
How to drag and drop images from Siri: Give Siri a command like “search the web for images of the original iPhone” then you can simply drag and drop any of the individual pictures that appear in to an email body.
It’s worth noting, the wording the command needs to include “search the web” otherwise, it’ll try looking in your Photos app, or just perform a regular web search.
Pocket-lint
MacOS Sierra tips: Messages
Messages in MacOS Sierra didn’t get as big an update as its iOS counterpart, but it did get a refresh to make it compatible with some of the new iOS app’s features.
- iOS 10 Messages explained: What’s new and how to use it
- Apple iOS 10 tips and tricks: See what your iPhone and iPad can do now
How to react to messages in MacOS Sierra: If you click and hold on an individual message you’ll see a number of talkback/reaction options appear in a separate bubble above the message. Choose the one you want, and it’ll appear next to the message in both the Messages app on your Mac, and on your contact’s screen.
How to interact with effects in Messages on Mac: Effects like Invisible Ink still pop up on your Messages app screen in MacOS Sierra, even if you can’t actually send messages with effects. With Invisible Ink, for example, you can swipe away the glittery layer just by swiping your cursor across the concealed message.
Pocket-lint
MacOS Sierra tips: Optimised storage
One of the new features in MacOS Sierra is optimised storage, which frees you from having to worry about how space you have left on your hard drive, by automatically clearing out the dead wood or keeping it in the cloud instead.
Head to “About this Mac” which you can access by clicking the Apple logo in the top left corner of your toolbar on the home screen. Then click the “Storage” tab, then click “Manage”.
Delete old files and documents: In the screen you’ve just accessed there’s a list of documents, apps and folders in the sidebar to the left. You can also get to it by clicking the “Review files” button at the bottom of the main menu.
Click on a category, then select any that are taking up large amounts of space then delete any files you don’t need by clicking the little “x” symbol. This can include iMovie, Photos and Garageband libraries as well as documents and apps.
Store photos and videos in the cloud: In the main storage management screen there’s a “Store in iCloud” option. Click “optimise” and it’ll automatically save your photos and videos to iCloud and optimise any photos left to take up less local space.
Get rid of old movies and Mail attachments: The “Optimise storage” option in the main menu deletes any old Mail attachments from your system, and can remove any iTunes Movies and TV shows you’ve already watched.
You can easily download them all again whenever you need access.
Empty trash automatically: To remove the risk of over-filling your Mac with trash, you can set the Mac to automatically remove any files from your trash that you haven’t accessed in 30 days. Just hit the “turn on” button.
Pocket-lint
MacOS Sierra tips: Window in window video
One of the cool new features in Safari and iTunes is that you can pop out video so that it appears in its own little window on your screen. You can switch between home screens, and even go to full screen apps and the video stays there, playing in the corner where you put it.
Activating it is simple, just look for the little pop-out icon within the video playing in Safari or on iTunes. You’ll find this on the control bar alongside the usual play/pause/skip/full-screen buttons. It looks like one small rectangle over-lapping another bigger one.
Sadly, this feature doesn’t work on every video on every website. YouTube being the most obvious absence. YouTube still only shows the usual Theater Mode and full screen options.
MacOS Sierra tips: Continuity
MacOS Sierra features a couple of new Continuity features which help when you have iOS or WatchOS devices switched on, signed in to the same iCloud account and nearby.
Copy and paste between devices: If you have an iPhone, it’s possible to copy text or an image on your phone, then switch to your Mac and hit “paste” or CMD+V. Then whatever was copied on your phone will paste on to your Mac.
When it works, it’s magic. It works the other way around too, so you can copy from the Mac and paste to your iPhone or iPad. As long as both are signed in to the same iCloud account it works, you don’t have to do anything else.
Sadly, sometimes there’s a bit of a delay in pasting, especially when it’s a larger file.
Unlock your MacBook with Apple Watch: If you have your Apple Watch on you and unlocked, all you have to do to unlock your MacBook is open it. No passwords.
Get your desktop files on your iPhone: iCloud Drive now has a desktop and documents option. On your Mac, go to System Preferences>iCloud then click on “options” next to iCloud Drive.
The top option is “Desktop & Documents Folders”. With this selected, when you access iCloud Drive on your iPad or iPhone, you’ll get folders with all the files currently present on your Mac Desktop and Documents folders.
ICYMI: Another thing likely to survive with the cockroaches
Today on In Case You Missed It: Scientists just mapped the DNA of a microscopic organism that can survive both oxygenless places and the Antarctic. Researchers believe they might help humans survive too much radiation, which is a thing we’ll probably need soon enough so get hyped, people.
Meanwhile a Danish car company is showing off its prototype of a tiny carpooling electric vehicle that will one day be modified for autonomous rides. In case you’re interested, you can see the Japanese Pokemon Go video here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
This giant clock was made by driving 14 trucks in circles
When you’re in the business of selling long-distance trucks, it makes a lot of sense to show off how far your vehicles can drive and demonstrate how reliable they can be. Instead of relying on real-world road tests and throwing a bunch of metrics in a specification sheet, Swedish automotive company Scania decided build a 750,000 square foot clock entirely made by 14 of its trucks. The end result is pretty impressive.
Scania took over an empty airport and had 90 pilots driving 24 hours straight to create the huge real-time clock. Great for marketing, I guess, but not the environment. Now, Scania is one of many vehicle makers developing self-driving trucks — this stunt was just begging for a fleet of autonomous big rigs capable of handling that circular formation on their own.
Via: Gizmodo
Source: Scania
Facebook Messenger calls look like regular calls on iOS 10
It won’t be long before mobile networks become just another dumb pipe through which services are handed down from internet companies. Don’t believe us? Then receive a call via the updated Facebook Messenger on iOS 10 and notice that they behave exactly the same as one made over the cellular network. The only difference between the two is that the VoIP call will be labeled as such in tiny text below the caller’s name.
As reported by 9to5Mac, the app now harnesses a new feature that Apple included in iOS 10: Callkit. The offering enables third-parties to make their communications behave like standard phone behaviors. We’ve already seen this available to Android users, back in the days when Google merged Hangouts and SMS on Android.
Should other providers take advantage of Callkit, it’s likely that people will gradually get used to VoIP calls behaving the same as their cellular equivalents. That, at least, will make it much easier for firms like Apple, Google and Facebook to gently elbow-out mobile networks’ own products.
Source: 9to5Mac
Watch some truly ludicrous kills from ‘Dishonored 2’
The original Dishonored was all about choice. Corvo had a mission, but how he completed it was up to you. Battle the guards head on? Slow down time and quietly sneak past them? Or lurk in the shadows and summon a swarm of bloodthirsty rats? Dishonored 2, which comes out on November 11th, looks to offer a similar, if not greater level of freedom through its twin protagonists Corvo and Emily. To showcase the game’s impressive flexibility, Bethesda has put together a “Creative Kills” video which teases some new powers and how they can be combined to devastating effect.
In one playthrough, Emily is seen chaining enemies together and then pulling them through an electrified gate as a group. In another, she summons a doppelganger on the ledge of a building and then links it to some troops down below. Seconds later, she throws her decoy with telekinesis, launching the enemies like a makeshift catapult. Corvo, meanwhile, has access to “Springrazor” mines which throw out shrapnel upon impact. We see him stopping time to flank an attacker and plant a mine on their back. As soon as time resumes, he kicks the soldier with “Blink Assault,” throwing them like a grenade into a larger pack of thugs.
If you’re a diehard Dishonored fan, you might be interested in the achievement/trophy list for Dishonored 2. Bethesda has been kind enough to publish the lot online, but warns that taking a peek could spoil a few of the game’s surprises. If, however, you don’t care for Corvo and Emily’s story, it’s a chance to start plottin some truly ludicrous assassinations.
Source: Bethesda (YouTube)
iPhone 7 Plus Seeing its Widest Availability Yet Across United States
Just one week after Apple said there would be no iPhone 7 Plus stock on launch day for walk-in customers, in-store availability of the dual-camera smartphone has reached its widest level yet across the United States. iPhone Upgrade Program members can use Apple’s online reservation system to secure their model for in-store pickup, or visit an Apple location as a walk-in customer.
iPhone 7 Plus stock at Apple Stores in the U.S. on Thursday
iStockNow, a website that uses Google Maps to visualize the real-time status of iPhone availability at Apple Stores, currently shows iPhone 7 Plus models in select colors and storage capacities available in dozens of states, such as California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, the Carolinas, and Texas. Jet Black models, however, remain out of stock at stores across the country.
iPhone 7 Plus stock at Apple Stores in the U.S. on Tuesday
iPhone 7 Plus models in select storage capacities and colors, sans Jet Black, are also available in Canada at Eaton Centre in Toronto, Markville Shopping Centre in Markham, Upper Canada Mall in Newmarket, Masonville Place in London, Rideau Centre and Bayshore Shopping Centre in Ottawa, and Place Sainte-Foy in Québec City. Availability in western provinces should be updated around 8:00 a.m. local time.
Reserve and Pick Up in Canada is not tied to the iPhone Upgrade Program, and simply allows customers to reserve and pay for an iPhone at a local Apple Store, with a 30-minute check-in window. Activation is available for carriers like Bell, Rogers, and Telus, or customers can buy an iPhone outright and use their own SIM card. Make sure to have a piece of government-issued ID with you upon pickup.
iPhone 7 Plus availability could change at any time. iPhone 7 models remain more widely available in both the U.S. and Canada.
Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tags: Reserve and Pickup, Canada, Apple retail
Discuss this article in our forums
Intel’s Mobile Processor Roadmap May Force Graphics Changes for Apple’s 15-Inch MacBook Pro in 2017
While many Mac notebook users have been long awaiting refreshes for the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lineups based on Intel’s 6th-generation Core “Skylake” processors, a recently leaked April roadmap for Intel’s processors beyond Skylake posted to the AnandTech forums raises questions about future updates for the 15-inch MacBook Pro in particular.
The update bottleneck for future Mac notebooks is primarily related to the performance of Intel’s integrated graphics, and it appears that an emphasis on processing cores over graphics by Intel may force Apple to make some changes to its graphics strategy down the road.
The MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro run exclusively on integrated graphics bundled with Intel’s chips, while since late 2013 the 15-inch MacBook Pro has come in two versions, a lower-end configuration with only integrated graphics and a higher-end configuration that adds a dedicated graphics chip for higher performance. 15-inch MacBook Pro models equipped with both types of graphics can automatically switch between the two depending on whether better performance or better battery life is required.
Given the importance of integrated graphics for Apple’s notebooks, Apple has typically used chips including Intel’s “GT3” or “GT3e” tier for graphics performance, with the “e” suffix on GT3e denoting embedded DRAM on the chip for improved performance compared to the GT3 tier. These tiers are powerful enough to provide reasonably strong graphics performance for a notebook.
Looking at Intel’s roadmap for chips beyond Skylake, the 15-inch MacBook Pro runs into a problem as Intel appears to have no plans for any quad-core chips with integrated graphics higher than the “GT2” tier, which typically has about half the raw power of the GT3 tier, to be launched in the next-generation “Kaby Lake” processor family.
As a result, the currently available Skylake “H-series” chips appropriate for the 15-inch MacBook Pro that we’re expecting to see in an update as soon as next month may remain Intel’s lead offerings for these types of high-performance mobile chips until the introduction of new “Coffee Lake” chips in the second quarter of 2018. Even then, initial Coffee Lake chips will include only GT2-level graphics that may not be powerful enough for Apple’s needs.
The situation is a bit better for the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air, which use 28-watt and 15-watt versions of the “U-series” processors respectively. The leaked roadmap indicates that Kaby Lake versions of these chips with GT3e graphics are scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2017, making them available for updated notebooks perhaps in the middle of next year following Skylake updates within the next month or two.
Rounding out the Mac notebook lineup is the MacBook, which was updated in April with Skylake processors. Kaby Lake versions of those “Y-series” chips have already been launched, so they are ready to be used in next-generation MacBooks whenever Apple decides to release them. Those Kaby Lake Y-series chips will be part of Intel’s lineup until late 2017 when new Cannon Lake chips based on a smaller 10 nm process are scheduled to debut.
So what exactly is this Coffee Lake family coming in early 2018? As outlined by The Motley Fool, it appears to be based on the Cannon Lake architecture that has been under development for some time, but manufactured on the current 14 nm process rather than the next-generation 10 nm process of Cannon Lake.
What Intel seems to be doing here with respect to Cannon Lake and Coffee Lake (aka 14-nanometer Cannon Lake) appears to be the result of good planning and an honest internal assessment of the health of the company’s upcoming 10-nanometer manufacturing technology.
As I have written before, I believe that the reason that Intel is keeping its high performance notebook and desktop processors on its 14-nanometer technology is cost. By late 2017/early 2018 (when Coffee Lake is expected to launch), Intel’s 14-nanometer technology should be quite mature, while the company’s 10-nanometer technology will have barely just begun production.
As a result, Coffee Lake would be Intel’s fourth processor family to come from its 14 nm process, following Broadwell, Skylake, and Kaby Lake.
It’s not entirely clear how Apple will deal with the apparent high-end integrated graphics stagnation at Intel when it comes to future MacBook Pro updates, but there are a few possibilities including a return to dedicated graphics chips across the 15-inch MacBook Pro lineup or perhaps significant enough improvements in Intel’s GT2 tier to make it a viable primary option for low-end configurations. It’s possible Intel will also be able to release some additional “refresh” Skylake chips with faster CPU speeds to extend the lifecycle of that family, but there’s only so much that can be squeezed out of the current design.
With the MacBook Pro set to receive a redesign at its next update as soon as next month, Apple could also be planning larger changes to the machine’s internals than the largely drop-in chip upgrades we’ve seen in recent years, a shakeup that could make predicting Apple’s plans from Intel’s roadmaps a bit more difficult.
Related Roundups: MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Retina MacBook
Buyer’s Guide: MacBook Air (Don’t Buy), Retina MacBook Pro (Don’t Buy), MacBook (Neutral)
Discuss this article in our forums
Pax returns with its most versatile vaporizer yet
Since the introduction of its original Pax vaporizer in 2012, Pax Labs (formerly Ploom) has been making a name for itself as one of the most intuitive and user-friendly vaporizers on the market. Less than a year after the introduction of it’s superior sequel, and Pax Labs is back with $46.7 million in funding, a smartphone app and two fresh new devices that promise to improve the vaporizer experience even further.
The newly redesigned Pax 3 has roughly the same form factor and features as the Pax 2, but with a more customizable experience to fine-tune your sessions and choose between loose leaf or concentrate materials. While you’ll still find the built-in accelerometer and smart gesture controls, the heating system now warms up in a mere 15 seconds and offers double the heating power with three, easily swapped ovens: one full-size, one half-pack for shorter sessions and one attachment compatible with the new Pax Era concentrate pods. A haptic feedback system also gives you a physical indicator so you can tell when you vapor is ready or the device has gone into standby mode.
Completely new is the “years in development” Pax Era, which borrows some looks from its nicotine-dispensing Juul cousins and claims to be the first temperature-controlled portable oil vaporizer. The Era foregoes the standard threaded cartridge system of other vape pens, but Pax claims its Era Pods offer a better flavor and more consistent vapor quality along with a more customizable experience. The Era also offers a few features that you won’t find in other systems, like a “puff counter” on the LED display that helps you keep track of your sessions and integration with the new Pax Vapor app (more on that in a second). For now, however, you’ll have to wait until the device goes on sale later this month to see if the proprietary pods catch on among retailers and concentrate producers. If Pax’s distribution deals are any indicator, this hopefully won’t be a problem.
Building on that customizable experience, both the Pax 3 and the Era feature a Bluetooth connection to talk to your Android or iOS device running the Pax Vapor app. From the app, users can dial their vaporizer to a precise temperature, change the LED color themes, lock the device or even download firmware updates as they become available.
The Era goes on sale for $59.99 via Paxvapor.com and select retailers in California and Colorado on September 29th. The Pax 3 will retail for $274.99 starting in mid-October and comes in Black, Gold, Silver and a limited-edition Rose Gold finish.
NOAA’s solar storm forecasts now show the most affected areas
Solar storms are no joke — they can knock out power grids and leave entire towns in the dark. Unfortunately, the forecast model the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) uses only shows the current geomagnetic activity for the entire planet. It can give us a pretty good idea of when a solar storm will happen, but it can’t tell us where it will hit the hardest. That’s why NOAA has developed a better forecast model that can pinpoint which locations in the world will be affected the most. For instance, it can show if a storm’s bound to have a bigger impact on a European country than on the US, so power companies there can take the necessary precautions.
According to NOAA’s lead forecaster Bob Rutledge, “This is the first time we will get short-term forecasts of what the changes at the surface of the Earth will be. We can tell a power-grid customer not only that it will be a bad day, but give them some heads-up on what exactly they will be facing.”
To design this new model, NOAA had to combine three older models scientists developed in the past. The most important among the three focuses on the Earth’s inner magnetosphere and describes how charged particles from the sun flow as they approach our planet’s poles. The agency plans to continue refining this model further with the help of future studies. One of its goals is to determine whether the geology of the sites where power grids are built affects solar storms’ intensity. While it took twenty years for NOAA to conjure up this model, we have access to newer technology these days, including the Solar Dynamics Observatory. If everything goes well, we might not have to wait that long for an even better one.
[Image credit: NOAA/Nature]
Source: Nature
