Huawei Tri-Fold Phone-Eye-Popping Price; Google Loses EU Shopping Antitrust Decision; Apple Loses EU Tax Dispute; Tesla Reveals Wireless Home EV Charging Patents

Posted: September 10, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

We just reported about Huawei’s launch of the world’s first trifold phone, just an hour and a half after Apple’s big show yesterday. The verge.com reports that we now know that this new trifold phone will cost a wallet destroying $2809…that’s $300 bucks more than a 16 inch MacBook Pro. The Mate XT Ultimate Design comes with 16 Gigs of RAM, and you can get up to a terabyte of RAM…for $3370…almost the price of Apple’s nosebleed priced Vision Pro headset. The double hinge folds in a Z shape, allowing a number off formats…and fully open, you do get a 10.2 inch screen…or you can use it partially open and have a 7.9 inch screen. It does come with a 5600 mAh battery, a 50 MP main cam, and 12MP ultra wide and 12MP periscope cam. Thinking about a screen the size of my iPad with two creases, I think I will stick to multiple devices…like a phone, tablet, and laptop…but if you want to be the first kid on your block…now you know what it will set you back. 

Google has again lost in its attempt to overturn an antitrust decision by the European Commission dating from 2017. According to techcrunch.com, Alphabet, parent company of Google, will have to cough up about $2.7 billion dollars as a penalty, and will have to make changes to how it operates its service. The Court of Justice of the EU wrote in a press release about their opinion “[I]n light of the characteristics of the market and the specific circumstances of the case, Google’s conduct was discriminatory and did not fall within the scope of competition on the merits.” EU Competition Chief Margrethe Vestager said  “It was one of the first significant antitrust cases brought by a competition agency against a major digital company and I think this case marked a pivotal shift in how digital companies were regulated and also perceived.” Google put out a statement saying it was disappointed with the ruling. This is the highest EU court, so probably the end of the line for Google…they will have to comply with EU rules on competition.

A day after Apple’s big gear fest, when they rolled out the new iPhones, Watches, and the rest, the EU’s Court of Justice affirmed the EU Commission decision of 2016 which found that Ireland gave illegal tax benefits to Apple worth 13 billion Euros between 1991 and 2014. Macrumors.com says Ireland will now be required to recover those funds…which Apple had to deposit in an escrow account 6 years ago. The Commission’s decision had been reversed in 2020 by the EU General Court, but the Court of Justice has now set that aside, so Ireland will collect. Ireland actually had sided with Apple, but said it would respect the Court of Justice decision. Apple made a filing today with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, saying that the company would take a one-time income tax charge in their 4th fiscal quarter…which ends September 30th. The amount in dollars is up to $10 billion. Not too bad a hit for a company worth trillions. 

Several patent applications indicate that Tesla is working on wireless home charging for its cars. This is not a first…BMW has had it for a while now, but with Tesla’s large customer base, it would be quite a move to have wireless charging more widely available. Electrek.co notes that this is pretty well a first world problem..after all, you can have plug in charging wired into your garage if you have a garage…and if you don’t, wireless won’t help anyway. Still, it would automate the task. You’d just park in the garage over the charging pad at night, and you’re ready to go in the morning. The Cybertruck is being built with inductive charging connectors, and it appears like they are something that could be retrofitted to a Tesla sedan or SUV….for a princely price, of course!

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘technified’ for now. 

Apple Hardware Event ’24 Recap

Posted: September 9, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

More time was spent on the Watches than usual…rivaling the amount spent on the iPhones. 

The new Apple Watch 10’s get a larger screen with 30% more screen area. The corners are more rounded corners and the Watch is slimmer. Apple says it is 40% brighter at an angle. It now updates every second instead of every minute, but is more power efficient. They showed a new Jet Black aluminum finish. A new Rose Gold also joins the silver aluminum color.

The Watch is 10% thinner than the Watch 9 and 10% lighter. It has 50 meter water resistance. Now, there’s a larger and more efficient charging coil. Expect 30 minutes to 80% charge and 18 hour battery life. Recycled aerospace titanium is the other case material. It comes in natural, gold, and slate grey. The sizes are 42mm and 46mm..not as large as predicted. Watch 10 Starts at $399, available to preorder today, out on Sept. 20th.

Watch Ultra 2 has dual GPS, auto track detection. auto stroke detection and lap count for swimmers. It supports off line maps. There is a new finish….satin black. all are 95% recycled grade 5 titanium. The Ultra 2 starts at $799. Again…preorder today, available Sept. 20th.

The new Air Pods 4 run the H2 chip…Apple claims richer bass and crystal clear highs. They also tout ‘Personalized’ spatial audio. Now, you can nod yes or shake head no to accept or ignore calls. Apple says the 4 has better noise suppression than before. the charging case is smaller and has USB-C. You get 30 hours of charge including case. 

An active noise cancellation version is now available for the Air Pods 4 and what they call transparency mode. They will switch from regular to quiet mode automatically. The sound also drops in level when they sense you are talking to someone, which will be handy. The case has a speaker to help use Find My.

AirPods 4 start at $129, the Active Noise Cancellation ones are $179. Preorder today, available the 20th, as with the Watches. 

AirPods Max get new color, personalized spatial audio, and USB-C charging. Same price as before. Basically, they are unchanged. 

AirPods Pro 2 gets new features to help protect hearing. Hearing protection is on as a default. They are introducing a 5 min hearing test that will run on iPhone and is developed from their 100,000 person hearing study. AirPods Pro will have over the counter hearing aid feature, which you can use after running the haring test. Easy to use pro grade hearing aid. 

The new iPhone 16s are designed for Apple Intelligence from the ground up. Teal and Pink join other colors. The sizes are 6.1 inches for the 16, 6.7 inches for 16 Plus. They get the New Camera Control button. You can press or slide finger to adjust the cam parameters. 

The 16s run the new A18 chip, optimized to run generative models. The phone is 30% faster than last year but more energy efficient…it uses 30% less power. The new 5 core GPU is 40% faster than last year, at 35% less power. 

Apple Intelligence—Apple says it will key to you but stay on the phone to protect your privacy. As touted last summer, some features will access the Private Cloud Compute off-phone. Your data only runs on the secure servers…they are allowing outside experts to check them on this. 

Apple is integrating writing tools into all the apps that you write with, to help you write better. You can also make your own emoji by writing descriptions. 

For Photos, if you type in a description to find one you can’t, AI will go look for it and find it for you. It can also stitch related pics into a little movie like sequence. 

In Mail, you can get a little summary of the message, not just the subject line. They claim Siri will be more natural, more personally relevant, and maybe it will actually work well…that would be a first. You can type to Siri instead of dictate for more privacy. Messages can use satellite now where WiFi isn’t available…on 4 continents.

Price same as last year on  the iPhone16’s. $799 and $899.

As for the iPhone Pros, the screen sizes grow to 6.3” on Pro and 6.9” for Pro Max. Smaller bezels help keep the actual device size from growing quite as much to accommodate the new screens. Colors are black, white, natural, and Desert gold titanium. Without specifying…as usual…Apple says the Pros have larger batteries and advanced power management…they claim best battery life ever. 

The Pros get a new A18 Pro chip. More neural engine cores Intelligence features will run 17% faster than on last year’s phone with A17 Pro. New CPU is 15% faster than last year with 20% less power. They claim fastest CPU in any smartphone. 

New cam features include a new 48MP fusion cam that can read data 2 times faster, and there’s a new 48MP ultra wide. The 5X telephoto cam is same as before on the Max, but the smaller Pro gets the good 5x telephoto that was exclusive to the Pro Max last year.

There is a new MagSafe charger that is faster and comes in 2 cord lengths, and Qi2 is supported for wireless charging if you don’t want to pay Apple prices for a magnetic charger. Prices stay the same…$999 for Pro and $1199 for Pro Max. Both are 

available for preorder this Friday and on sale September 20.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘technified’ for now.

Huawei May Bow Trifold Phone; US Goes After Russian Election Disinfo; KIA Breaks Sales Record with 3 Row EV-SUV; X Hiring Security and Safety Staff-After 2 Years of Layoffs

Posted: September 5, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

In a surprise move that may steal some of Apple’s thunder next week, Huawei may roll out a trifold phone just hours after Apple’s big iPhone event. As cnet.com notes, up to now, there have only been bi-fold phones…either the book type, or flip phone handsets. Trifold phones have been spotted in concept materials at Samsung, and Apple has been thought to be experimenting with a trifold iPhone, but this model from Huawei would be a first by far. Huawei released its first folding phone in 2019. The Huawei event will happen just about an hour and a half after Apple’s big rollout! The trifold phone is expected to be called the Mate XT.

The FBI has seized some 32 web domains operated by the Doppelgänger Russian-linked influence operation network. According to bleepingcomputer.com, papers filed say Doppelgänger is believed to be linked to Russian companies controlled by the Russian government, which have been used to spread Russian government propaganda designed to promote pro-Russian policies and interests….including reducing international support for Ukraine, and more importantly, influencing voters in U.S. and foreign elections in Germany, Mexico, and Israel, among others. Two individuals were indicted as well…Russian nationals that worked for government controlled Russia Today who had poured $10 million into a company in Tennessee that uploaded some 2,000 videos to YouTube designed to expose Russian disinformation to US audiences. They got some 16 million views, too! The Department of Justice indicates it isn’t finished going after Russian interests trying to influence US elections at this point. More to come.

Automaker KIA has set another American sales record for August, selling the most cars in the company’s history. Demand for its 3 row EV SUV, the EV9 is still growing…and is now up 27% over last year. Electrek.co says KIA sold 75,200 vehicles in August. They have sold nearly 14,000 EV9 electric SUVs so far this year. The 3 row SUV is hot enough that Tesla has announced a 3 row Model Y is going to be produced. The KIA EV6 has a 310 mile range, and the Korean carmaker plans a freshened version by the end of the year. Hyundai, which owns KIA, just unveiled its updated IONIQ 5 this week. 

After positively gutting staffing at Twitter a couple years ago, Elon Musk’s now-X platform is trying to hire new people for moderating content and securing the platform. I’m sure this has nothing to do with it being banned in Brazil and being on the cusp of that in other countries. Techcrunch.com reports that the platform has posted around a dozen openings across its safety and cybersecurity teams. Considering that Musk chopped the headcount at the platform by around 6,000 workers the first 6 months he had it, to a skeleton crew of about 1500, it’s a drop in the bucket. X ended up cutting 80% of its trust and safety staff after Elon took over. It may be far too late to turn this ship around, but if Musk really wants to, he will need to hire thousands, not a dozen.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

OpenAI Former Chief Scientist Launches Safe Superintellegence; Pixel Fold 9 Battery Life Easily Bests Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6; Starlink Will Block X in Brazil to Be Able to Keep Operating There; Draft Kings Whacked with Fine for Online Slots That Never Paid 

Posted: September 4, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A new AI startup has been co-founded by the former Chief Scientist of Open AI, Ilya Sutskever. It’s called Safe Superintelligence, and in 90 days, they have raised a billion dollars in funding. Arstechnica.com reports that the company will focus on developing what it calls “safe” AI systems that surpass human capabilities. The fundraising effort shows that even amid growing skepticism around massive investments in AI tech that so far have failed to be profitable, some backers are still willing to place large bets on high-profile talent in foundational AI research. Venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, DST Global, and SV Angel participated in the SSI funding round. Right now the company only has 10 employees, and will use a portion of the funding round to hire a larger team. Right now they are operating in Palo Alto, CA and Tel Aviv. 

Google’s new Pixel 9 Pro fold has battery life bragging rights. According to mashable.com, the 2nd gen Google foldable outlasts the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 by 3 hours and 22 minutes. A couple of knocks on foldable at this point is the fragility and crease in the screen, and the lower quality cameras than flagship phones, in addition to less battery life. Well, Mashable tested the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and go 16 hours and change on a charge. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 was only able to make it a shade under 13 hours. No one expects days of battery life, but it really is important for phones to last through the day and evening so you can charge them at night while you sleep, so they’re ready to go again the next day. 

After protests from Elon Musk, Starlink has caved and said it will block Musk’s social media platform X in Brazil in order to continue satellite operations there. NBC notes that Brazil had threatened to pull Starlink’s business licenses if they didn’t block X. Brazil’s Supreme Court blocked X after the platform openly defied the court’s orders and failed to pay fines. The court had asked X to suspend accounts posting content that the court alleged harmed democratic institutions in Brazil, which is preparing for municipal elections in October. 

Draft Kings and White Hat Gaming have to cough up $22,500 in fines to Connecticut due to their online slot machine not ever paying a winner for an entire week. Engadget.com reports That Draft Kings paid out $19,000 and White Hat $3500. The glitch was caused by a faulty file which the companies failed to report. The State said that White Hat ‘responded swiftly’ to the investigation, but Draft Kings’ response ‘was not satisfactory,’ and so they were levied the higher fine.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Apple-New M4 Macs in November; Judge-Social Nets Can’t Filter Content for Kids; Google-More Election Safeguards; Amazon Launching AI Alexa Using Claude

Posted: September 3, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Apple rolled out an upgraded iPad with the new M4 chip this spring. Since then, it’s only been a matter of time before the new chips started to appear in other devices like the Mac. Now, 9to5mac.com reports that we should see the first M4 Macs shipping in November. Last year, Apple both announced and shipped upgraded Macs in October, but having them come out in November isn’t unusual for them. The biggest redesign comes to the Mac Mini, as we previously reported. It’s the buttes upgrade in 14 years for the diminutive Mac. It will have 5 USB-C ports, and drops support for the old USB-A. A bigger piece of news for a lot of Mac users…it looks like Apple will jump from 8 to 16 Gigs of RAM as the standard…including the base 14 inch MacBook Pro. This is mainly to facilitate the laptops’ support of upcoming Apple Intelligence AI. 

A federal Judge has blocked part of a Texas law that required some large web services to identify minors and filter what they see online. According to theverge.com, the law was to go into effect September 1st. The court held that the ‘monitoring and filtering’ requirements in the bill were a significant threat to online speech. Other aspects of the bill were intended to apply special rules to users under 18 like  limiting data collection, banning targeted advertising, and not allowing financial transactions without parental consent. Tech industry groups sued to prevent the law from going into effect, claiming it unconstitutionally restricted freedom of expression. Only the portions of the bill regarding monitoring and filtering have been blocked, while the case winds its way through the court system. 

Google is pushing out safeguards to get potential voters reliable information. Engadget.com says Google has announced that it is adding election-related guardrails to YouTube, Search, Google Play, and AI products. For example, YouTube will add information panels above the search results for at least some federal election candidates. The modules, likely similar to those you see when searching the web for prominent figures, will include the candidates’ basic details like their political party and a link to Google Search for more info. The company says the panels may also include a link to the person’s official website (or other channel). As Election Day (November 5) approaches, YouTube’s homepage will also show reminders on where and how to vote. Google Search will include aggregated voter registration resources from state election offices for all users. Google is sourcing that data through a partnership with Democracy Works, a nonpartisan nonprofit that works with various companies and organizations “to help voters whenever and wherever they need it.” It’s probably a foregone conclusion that false info will still stream through all of Google’s platforms as well as everywhere else, but it’s a good thing that they are at least putting in these new guardrails. 

In what could be mocked as an identity crisis, Amazon is getting ready to release an AI powered version or Alexa in October…powered by Anthropic’s Claude large language model. So will you be able to query it and ask it to reply in a male voice as Claude? Ok, that’s just being a bit silly, but on a serious note, macrumors.com reports that early versions of the AI had trouble responding quickly…sometimes taking 6-7 seconds to reply to prompts. The so-called ‘Remarkable’ Alexa is supposedly going to have more advanced capabilities than the present version. This means more complex, content-aware conversations with the assistant. Not surprisingly, this will include providing shopping advice for specific scenarios like vacation clothing recommendations, aggregating news stories, executing multi-step tasks from a single prompt such as ordering food or drafting emails, and enhanced home automation with improved ability to remember and apply user preferences. ‘Remarkable’ Alexa will be a paid service…best guesses is Amazon will charge $5-$10 a month. Regular Alexa, which may be branded ‘Classic’ Alexa will still be available as a free service. It should be noted that Amazon has invested $4 billion in Anthropic, which makes Claude. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Newer Entries →