Apple Mac & iPad Rollout & More

Posted: October 30, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

New MacBook Air— Now gets Retina display….finally.
It has no bezel….13.3 inch display. 4x resolution compared to old Air. They have added Touch ID with the keyboard. There’s a T2 chip and secure enclave. The keyboard is improved, and there’s a Force Touch trackpad.

Stereo speakers are 25% louder and have better bass. 3 mics improve use of Siri. 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports ( yep…only 2..you’d better buy a bag full of dongles!!)

Even though it has a 13.3” screen the new Air is 17% smaller than the old air and only weighs 2.75 lbs, dropping a quarter lb. Every new Air is made of 100% recycled aluminum.

1.6GHz i5 processor, 128GB storage, 8GB Ram Starts at $1199 and available next week.
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Updated Mac Mini— All get 4 cores, with 6 cores available. They aren’t mobile chips, but regular cpu’s. The new Mini is 5X faster. The new Mini is able to support 64 Gigs of memory on SO-DIMMs. They are available with up to 2TB of SSD memory. 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports, HDMI, 2 USB A ports.

Mini starts at 799 with a base config of 8GB, 3.6GHz quad-core processor. Order today and available next week.

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New iPad Mini, iPad, and Pro. The new iPads have Face ID, no home button, a thinner bezel, and a magnetically attached Apple Pencil.

The Pro has the ‘liquid retina’ display. With no bezel, it 12.9” screen, but in a smaller package. The iPads Face ID works like it does in the iPhone X, Xs, etc.

The new iPads are running the new A12X Bionic chip. There’s an 8 core CPU…7 core GPU. It’s 90% faster, and is faster than 92% of PCs sold in the last year. The new Pro will be available with 1TB of storage, and will get USB-C. You will be able to charge your iPhone from your iPad Pro, too!

The new Pencil attaches magnetically, automatically pairs, and charges wirelessly. New magnetically attachable smart keyboard folio (that also protects the iPad.)

They demoed a basketball game (NBA 2K Mobile) that looks nearly like video of an actual game. Apple claims this kind of resolution has never been done on a mobile device.

Adobe demoed actual Photoshop on the iPad Pro. Adobe also showed off their new augmented reality product, which will be out next year.

11″ starts at $799, 12.9″ starts at $999. Orders start today, arrive November 7. Current 10.5-inch remains at $649. LTE versions available.

iOS 12.1 will be available today, with Group FaceTime, eSIM support for iPhone Xs and Xs Max, 70 new emoji, and more.

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Other things are happening besides with Apple. Twitter is rumored to be considering killing the ‘Like’ button, in order to force more debate between users. CEO Jack Dorsey said so at a private Twitter event last week, according to vox.com. Also of note…increasing the character count from 140 to 280 didn’t really produce an avalanche of longer Tweets.

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The era of electric aviation is nearly upon us. easyJet says they will launch a 9 passenger electric plane next year. They are also working on a battery powered 150 seat plane for short haul trips of under 300 miles. Electrek.co reports that 30% of flights are in that range, and that Boeing and Airbus sold nearly 1000 jets for those routes last year at around $90 million a pop, so an electric model would really shake up the market.

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Fresh Apple Rumors; Microsoft Kills Russian Phishing Domains; Facebook Gives Us Reputation Score; Aston Martin Building 25 ‘Goldfinger’ DB5 Replicas

Posted: August 21, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Several Apple tidbits seeped out yesterday. Businessinsider says Apple will release a new Mac Mini this fall aimed at pro users. The $500 Mini has no screen or keyboard, but you can hook them up and make it into an inexpensive computer. Often, however, they are used in computer rooms as remote computers and storage options for businesses. Also in the wings is a new laptop which will be like a MacBook Air. It’s unclear if it will BE an Air or just called MacBook, but will come with a 13 inch ‘Retina’ display…allegedly with a higher resolution than Apple uses on other products. It will also have thinner bezels around the screen.

In addition, Apple will be dropping new Watch models….they have registered 6 numbers with the EU. The Watch is supposed to get a bigger screen, better health sensors, and longer battery life. The Watch could bow with new iPhones..no date, but thought to be on September 12th if Apple follows previous years.

Finally, from Cupertino, the iPhones may be getting faster wireless charging. Presently, they can be charged at a maximum of 7.5 watts with a software update, but it looks like Apple will jump that up to 15 watts, matching what Samsung phones can do for wireless fast charging.

Microsoft has pulled 6 phishing domains that belong to Russian government hackers. They had been registered to the GRU military intelligence agency….the ones alleged to have stolen and leaked the hacked Clinton emails in 2016. Theverge.com says the domains were aimed at spoofing government targets like ‘senate.group’ and ‘adfs-senate-email.’ Others were aimed at the International Republican Institute and the Hudson Institute…two conservative think tanks which have been critical of President Trump. It appear that these domains had yet to be used, to Microsoft may have prevented more Russian interference into the 2018 election.

In an effort to fight gaming of their systems that has allowed malicious users to post fake news, and false reporting of true items as untrue, Facebook has started assigning users a reputation score ranging from zero to one. According to bloomberg.com, it’s not intended to be an absolute indicator of a person’s credibility, but it’s one of numerous behavioral clues the company is using to try to fight fake news and people who tag items as false just because they disagree with them. Academics are already complaining that Facebook isn’t being transparent about this, but OTOH, if they were, people would be able to more easily game this safeguard.

You may get a chance to buy a copy of one of the most legendary movie cars ever made. Aston Martin is going to build 25 new DB5 cars like the one featured in James Bond’s ‘Goldfinger.’ Arstechnica.com says the cars won’t have an ejection seats, and even though they won’t be street legal, probably won’t have machine guns, oil slick dispensers, or tire flatteners, but will have a rotating license plate. No word on the pop up bulletproof shield. Dust off your checkbook…they will go for $3.51 million bucks EACH!