Monday, September 27, 2021

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The Morning After: Already hyping the iPhone 14

Posted: 27 Sep 2021 04:15 AM PDT

Is this a record? No sooner has the iPhone 13 hit store shelves than the rumor mill is already up and churning about the next one. Rumors from the weekend suggest the iPhone 14 will be a "complete redesign," but the details are thin gruel at this point. Hold not these rumors close to your chest in hope, my friends, lest they disappear into a puff of whimsy.

This complete redesign will reportedly see the 14 look a lot more like the iPhone 4, with a band running around the outside of the device. That makes sense given how beloved the 4's design was, and how those square edges have recently returned to Apple's design language. The hints also suggest that, with a marginally thicker body, the camera lenses will be flush with the back.

Another rumor says the 14 may ditch the notch in favor of a hole-punch front camera, or maybe only for the Pro models. Plus, there are the usual rumor hits, including the launch of in-display TouchID and the end of the iPhone Mini. Just remember, we're a year away from any of this being confirmed, so let's focus instead on all the delights of the 13 we have yet to discover.

— Dan Cooper

Hubble telescope helps find six 'dead' galaxies from the early universe

The galaxies stopped growing despite a galactic baby boom.

Pullout and close-up views of two 'dead' early galaxies captured by both the Hubble Space Telescope and ALMA.
Image processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Astronomers using the Hubble telescope and Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) have found six "dead" galaxies. These are galaxies that have run out of the cold hydrogen necessary for star formation, despite being formed during the stellar equivalent of a baby boom. The discovery of these galaxies is testament both to the enduring power of the Hubble and the ingenuity of the astronomers to pull these images from the heavens. But the question of what happened to those galaxies is one that will dog scientists from now until we've developed some pretty impressive faster-than-light travel.

Continue Reading.

New iPad mini owners report 'jelly scrolling' problems

Not a good look for the brand new slate.

Image of the iPad Mini on a stand.
Valentina Palladino

If your brand new iPad Mini is operating a little weird, don't worry, you are not the only person in this particular predicament. There are multiple reports of users talking about jelly scrolling, where one side of the screen moves at a different rate to the other. Apple hasn't responded yet to the claims, but it's probably already scrambling to work out the cause as we speak. At the same time, Apple has reportedly revealed that TV+ has fewer than 20 million subscribers in the US and Canada. The reason for the potentially embarrassing admission? The smaller size apparently means it can pay its film and TV crews lower rates compared to Netflix.

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NASA's AR graphic novel is meant to recruit a new wave of astronauts

'First Woman' tells the tale of Callie Rodriguez as she walks on the moon.

Image from NASA graphic novel 'First Woman'
NASA

To celebrate National Comic Book Day, NASA has published a graphic novel, First Woman, to tell the story of the first woman to walk on the moon. The (currently fictional) tale is designed to spark the public's interest in the Artemis missions and encourage more people to sign up as astronauts. Download the app for Android or iOS, and you can also explore the Orion spacecraft and tour the lunar surface in AR.

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Samsung hopes to 'copy and paste' the brain to 3D chip networks

It wants to borrow the structure of a brain to build a brain-like chip.

Researchers at Harvard and engineers at Samsung believe they can create better artificial intelligences if the chips used to make them mirror the structures of our own brains. The teams are proposing a method to copy the way our neurons are wired on to a 3D neuromorphic chip. Don't worry if that sounds like a lot because it's not likely to happen in the real world for a while at the very least. The human brain has more than 100 billion neurons and a thousand times more synapses, so it's not as if anyone could just build one of these in their garage.

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The biggest news stories you might have missed

Amazon says James Bond movies will still be released in theaters

Nintendo is releasing a six-button Genesis controller for Switch, but only in Japan

Tesla drivers can now request Full Self Driving beta tests

Galaxy S22 Ultra leak suggests Samsung will include the Note's S-Pen slot

August's Smart Lock Pro is $99 for today only

Posted: 27 Sep 2021 03:39 AM PDT

With features like WiFi support, Bluetooth, HomeKit and a closed-door sensor, August's 3rd-gen Smart Lock Pro is feature-rich but quite expensive at $230. Fortunately, if you've been coveting that model, you can now pick one up today only for much less — just $99 at Amazon (57 percent off) as its deal of the day. 

Buy August Smart Lock Pro at Amazon - $99

August has several Smart Lock versions, with the basic model lacking features like Apple HomeKit and Z-Wave Plus compatibility, along with several features (WiFi, Alexa and Google Assistant support and remote access) requiring the $80 August Connect WiFi bridge. That's all included with Smart Lock Pro since it comes with the Connect Hub. At 86mm compared to 72mm, it's larger than the basic version and requires four AA batteries, rather than two CR123 cells in the lower-end model. 

Other features include remote/guest access, August app support, auto-lock and unlock, DoorSense to confirm your door is properly closed and arguably a more attractive design. It also fits over your current lock and dispenses with the thumb turn, as you just turn the outside of the lock to open your door. 

If the size and configuration isn't an issue, then the Smart Lock Pro is clearly the one you want, so the $99 price tag makes it essentially a no brainer. At that price, it's cheaper than the basic model that's currently priced at around $130, or $154 with Connect. It's also a lot less than August's latest model, the 4th-generation Smart Lock WiFi (which doesn't require the Connect Hub), currently selling for $230.  

Solid-state silicon batteries could last longer and charge faster

Posted: 27 Sep 2021 02:11 AM PDT

Researchers from UC San Diego, supported by LG Energy, have made a promising discovery that involves two popular types of battery tech. They created a solid-state battery with an all-silicon anode that could potentially deliver long life, high energy density and fast charging — potentially making EVs cheaper and more practical. 

Silicon is a highly desirable anode material as it has over ten times the energy density of current graphite anodes. The problem is that silicon anodes tend to expand and degrade quickly as a battery charges and discharges, particularly with the liquid electrolytes currently used in lithium-ion cells. That issue has helped keep them out of commercial batteries. 

Meanwhile, the challenge with solid-state batteries (with solid instead of liquid electrolytes) is that they use metallic lithium anodes that must be kept at elevated temperatures (140 degrees F) during charging. That makes them less practical in cold weather, requiring heaters that consume valuable energy.

The solution to both these problems is a special type of silicon anode in a solid-state battery, according to the US San Diego team. They eliminated the carbon and binders typically used in silicon anodes and replaced the liquid electrolyte with a sulfide-based solid electrolyte. 

With those changes, they demonstrated that the all-silicon anodes were much more stable in the solid electrolyte, retaining 80 percent capacity after 500 charge and discharge cycles done at room temperature. It also allowed for faster charging rates than previous silicon anode batteries, the team said. 

The team has already licensed the tech to a company called Unigrid battery, and LG Energy Storage plans to expand the research. The work is particularly promising for grid storage, according to lead author Darren H.S. Tan. However, it's still in the experimental stages and "there is more work to do," the team acknowledged. And of course, a lot of batteries that work great in labs have failed to do so in the real world. The paper was published in the Science journal and also appeared earlier on Arxiv. 

 

YouTube TV may drop 14 NBC Universal channels over a contract dispute

Posted: 27 Sep 2021 01:06 AM PDT

NBC Universal has warned YouTube TV subscribers that 14 of its channels may be removed if the two parties can't resolve a dispute, 9to5Google has reported. YouTube has acknowledged the situation on its official blog, saying that it will drop its monthly price by $10 if the situation isn't resolved and the content goes offline. If you're a YouTube TV subscriber, you stand to lose NBC, USA Network, Golf Channel, Bravo, CNBC, Telemundo and eight other channels. 

According to YouTube, the dispute revolves around how much money its paying NBC Universal (NBCU) for its content. "For the duration of our agreement, YouTube TV seeks the same rates that services of a similar size get from NBCU so we can continue offering YouTube TV to members at a competitive and fair price," the Google-owned service said. NBC said in a statement that it's seeking "fair rates" from Google, adding that YouTube TV is "just days away from letting their contract expire."

NBC Universal is trying to put some pressure on YouTube TV, asking users to tweet at or chat with YouTube TV, or even switch providers. However, YouTube is saying that it will only renew "if NBCU offers us equitable terms" and said it would drop monthly prices by $10 from $64.99 to $54.99 while the channels are off the platform. It even encouraged users to sign up for NBC's Peacock streaming service for $4.99 per month in order to retain NBCU content. 

Hubble telescope helps find six 'dead' galaxies from the early universe

Posted: 26 Sep 2021 02:04 PM PDT

You'd think large galaxies in the early universe would have had plenty of 'fuel' left for new stars, but a recent discovery suggests that wasn't always the case. Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) have found six early galaxies (about 3 billion years after the Big Bang) that were unusually "dead" — that is, they'd run out of the cold hydrogen necessary for star formation. This was the peak period for star births, according to lead researcher Kate Whitaker, so the disappearance of that hydrogen is a mystery.

The team found the galaxies thanks to strong gravitational lensing, using galaxy clusters to bend and magnify light from the early universe. Hubble identified where stars had formed in the past, while ALMA detected cold dust (a stand-in for the hydrogen) to show where stars would have formed if the necessary ingredients had been present.

The galaxies are believed to have expanded since, but not through star creation. Rather, they grew through mergers with other small galaxies and gas. Any formation after that would have been limited at most.

The findings are a testament to the combined power of Hubble and ALMA, not to mention Hubble's capabilities decades after its launch. At the same time, it underscores the limitations of both the technology and human understanding by raising a number of questions. Whitaker noted that scientists don't know why the galaxies died so quickly, or what happened to cut off the fuel. Was the gas heated, expelled or just rapidly consumed? It might take a while to provide answers, if answers are even possible.

New iPad mini owners report 'jelly scrolling' problems

Posted: 26 Sep 2021 01:06 PM PDT

Some new iPad mini customers aren't enjoying the tiny tablet's new screen as much as they'd like. 9to5Macreports that users (includingThe Verge's Dieter Bohn) have noticed a "jelly scrolling" effect where one side of the screen scrolls at a different rate than the other, producing a wobble occasionally noticeable in portrait view. The effect is harder to spot if you tilt the iPad to a landscape orientation, but that's not much consolation if you like to read websites and social feeds 

We've asked Apple if it can comment on the jelly effect. It's unclear if the quirk is linked to hardware (such as the screen itself or a display controller) or can be addressed through software. We'll let you know if we have a chance to replicate the issue.

This won't necessarily hurt functionality, especially if you tend to use the iPad mini in landscape mode or view content that doesn't produce the effect. It's also uncertain just how widespread the issue really is. With that said, you probably won't be thrilled if you notice this wiggle on Apple's small-but-premium slate.

Samsung hopes to 'copy and paste' the brain to 3D chip networks

Posted: 26 Sep 2021 11:53 AM PDT

Samsung thinks it has a better way to develop brain-like chips: borrow existing brain structures. The tech firm has proposed a method that would "copy and paste" a brain's neuron wiring map to 3D neuromorphic chips. The approach would rely on a nanoelectrode array that enters a large volumes of neurons to record both where the neurons connect and the strength of those connections. You could copy that data and 'paste' it to a 3D network of solid-state memory, whether it's off-the-shelf flash storage or cutting-edge memory like resistive RAM.

Each memory unit would have a conductance that reflects the strength of each neuron connection in the map. The result would be an effective return to "reverse engineering the brain" like scientists originally wanted, Samsung said.

The move could serve as a 'shortcut' to artificial intelligence systems that behave like real brains, including the flexibility to learn new concepts and adapt to changing conditions. You might even see fully autonomous machines with true cognition, according to the researchers.

There's a glaring problem with complexity, however. As a human brain has roughly 100 billion neurons with a thousand times more synaptic links, an ideal neuromorphic chip would need about 100 trillion memory units. That's clearly a difficult challenge for any company, and that doesn't include the code needed to make this virtual brain work. Samsung may have opened a door to human-like AI, but it could take a long time before anyone reaches that goal.

Apple will fix bug preventing iPhone 13 owners from unlocking with Apple Watch

Posted: 26 Sep 2021 10:45 AM PDT

Are you unable to unlock your brand new iPhone 13 with your Apple Watch? Don't despair just yet. According to MacRumors, Apple has promised to fix a bug that prevents the unlock through an "upcoming software update." You can turn off the feature in Settings and rely on passcodes until that solution is in place, Apple said, although it didn't offer a timeframe for the patch.

The flaw typically tells users the iPhone is "unable to communicate" with the Apple Watch. Others can't setup the unlock feature in the first place. As you might imagine, that's a significant hassle if you're wearing a face mask and can't use Face ID to sign in.

You might not have to wait too long. While Apple only recently started testing an iOS 15.1 beta, the company has a long history of delivering small-but-quick updates that fix glaring bugs and security holes. While this certainly isn't how Apple wanted the iPhone 13 launch to go, the issue isn't likely to last.

Tesla drivers can now request Full Self Driving beta tests

Posted: 26 Sep 2021 10:06 AM PDT

It took a long while, but Tesla is finally giving you some control over when (and if) you get Full Self Driving beta releases. The Washington Postnoted that Tesla has begun rolling out an FSD beta request button that lets you try the autonomous (really, semi-autonomous) technology before its wider release. The automaker won't just hand test code to anyone, though. Elon Musk noted that Tesla will "assess driving behavior" (like hard braking, aggressive turns or tailgating) for a week to reduce the chances of collisions.

The move could boost uptake for Full Self Driving betas and help Tesla refine the system for wider releases. The just-launched FSD 10.1 beta (mainly a bug fix) arrived too soon for that, but future software could be more polished or reach a general audience sooner.

Not everyone is thrilled with Tesla's rapid Full Self Driving expansion, however. The National Transportation Safety Board's new leader, Jennifer Homendy, recently joined other critics in accusing Tesla of "irresponsible" marketing for FSD technology that could lead to dangerous misuse. She also claimed Tesla was unresponsive to official recommendations for improvements. Beta requests may help Tesla achieve its goals sooner than before, but they won't address broader concerns about FSD's safety and whether or not customers should be testing semi-autonomous features on public roads.

iPhone 14 is reportedly a 'complete redesign'

Posted: 26 Sep 2021 08:24 AM PDT

The iPhone 13 series is barely in stores, but that isn't stopping a growing chorus of leaks surrounding next year's model. As 9to5Macnotes, Bloomberg's historically accurate Mark Gurman claimed the iPhone 14 will represent a "complete redesign" — the first since the iPhone X arrived in 2017. The relatively modest iPhone 13 update was a hint that bigger things were coming, he said. Gurman was shy on details of what that new hardware would entail, but earlier rumors might offer a clue as to what to expect.

Most notably, frequently accurate analyst Ming-Chi Kuo recently claimed Apple would begin dropping the display notch entirely in 2022, starting with an iPhone 14 Pro that would use a hole-punch front camera like many Android phones. YouTuber Jon Prosser also claimed to have renders based on real-world photos of the new iPhone. The new model would supposedly resemble a supersized iPhone 4 with a band-like titanium outer ring, flush rear cameras and a thicker chassis.

Other rumors suggest Apple might drop a mini iPhone from the lineup, replacing it with a larger 'regular' model as well as the usual Pro offerings. There have been murmurs of under-display Touch ID, but it's not certain if this would be ready for 2022, if at all.

We'd take the reports with some caution. No matter how accurate the reports might be, the next iPhone is roughly a year away. There's still a chance Apple could make substantial changes before it locks in the design for production. Whatever the end result, the common theme of the leaks suggests the iPhone 14 could be an important revamp.

Apple's 2021 iPad drops to $299 at Amazon

Posted: 26 Sep 2021 06:50 AM PDT

Don't worry if you missed out on an earlier deal for Apple's 2021 iPad. Amazon is selling the 64GB entry-level iPad for $299, or $30 off the usual price. The 256GB variant has dropped by a similar amount to $449. That matches a previous discount at Walmart, and is currently the lowest price we've seen for Apple's latest 10.2-inch slate. Just don't fret over color choices or shipping times — only Space Gray models appear to be in stock, and you'll have to wait one to three weeks.

Buy iPad (64GB WiFi) at Amazon - $299Buy iPad (256GB WiFi) at Amazon - $449

The basic design of the iPad hasn't changed much in recent years, but the under-the-hood upgrades are particularly notable this year. The tablet now uses an A13 Bionic chip that's reportedly 20 percent faster than in the previous iPad, making it a better fit for gaming or creative tasks. This may also be a good pick for an era of remote work and virtual friend visits, as an ultra-wide 12MP front camera offers Center Stage to keep you in view as you move around.

Just don't expect a revamp on par with the new iPad mini or 2020's iPad Air. You won't find an all-screen design, USB-C, second-generation Pencil support or an improved rear camera. This is for anyone who wants a no-frills tablet that should still last a long while — if that's all you're looking for, you'll probably be happy.

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