General

General

Apple Still Has A Lot To Cover

By on Monday, October 21, 2013

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Tomorrow is Apple’s much anticipated October 22 event. They said they still have a lot to cover. So what am I expecting tomorrow?

First, new MacBook Pros will be unveiled along with OS X Mavericks. It’s probably just going to be a Haswell update. Then probably an availability date for the previously-announced Mac Pro. Nothing much to see here. So let’s move on.

Second, new new iPad and iPad mini will be unveiled. We’re looking at unifying the look-and-feel of the tablets, not just in the casing but also in the Retina display. Some are saying since leaked new iPad mini casings are thinner it means there won’t be a Retina display. To support this theory, they go back to when the iPad Retina display was launched which needed a thicker casing. But technology has moved on and I think there should be no need to having a thicker casing this time around. I’m also hoping for Touch ID in both devices.

Finally, some are saying there could be a huge Apple TV announcement. And I think that’s quite possible.

A while back, I told telling my friend Leslie about how Sony flubbed its chance at a whole entertainment ecosystem. It had Smart TVs, Smartphones, tablets, the PlayStation system, and of course music and movies from Sony Music and Sony Pictures. But they don’t co-exist or even work together that well. Maybe they can still catch up. The latest crop of Xperia phones and the launch of the PS Vita and the PS Vita TV are steps in the right direction.

But Apple potentially can do what Sony wasn’t able to do. They have the best-selling (and best IMO) smartphones, best-selling tablets, and a closed and well-protected iTunes content source. What’s still lacking is in the living room. Yes, the Apple TV has done something but it could do a lot more. Currently, it can consume music and movies from iTunes. If it can consume apps and games, it can potentially be a lightweight home computer and game console (and iOS 7 supports game controllers!).

That’s a lot to cover. Is that what we’re going to see tomorrow? Just a day to go to find out!

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General

The Apple A7 Chip is a Marketing Gimmick

By on Thursday, October 3, 2013

So says Qualcomm. They (and others) are always highlighting the memory addressability when talking about the A7. A 32-bit processor would be able to address 2^32 or 4 gigabytes of memory. A 64-bit processor would be able to address 2^64 or 4 exbibytes. At this point, exbibytes is not really relevant smartphone or not. The more important things are the datapaths and register sizes. A 64-bit datapath can carry twice the data a 32-bit datapath can. A 64-bit register can process twice the data a 32-bin register can. Of course software needs to take advantage of it. But iOS 7 is 64-bit and Apple has provided the tools to rebuild to 64-bit. And then they go on and admit that they’re also working on a 64-bit processor. Now who is pulling a marketing gimmick?

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General

Vertu

By on Thursday, October 3, 2013

Personally, I don’t comprehend the appeal of Vertu phones. There’s definitely something in finely crafted objects. Mechanical watches and supercars immediately come to mind. However, phones, especially smartphones, are definitely don’t. At the rate electronics are going, a top-of-the-line smartphone is no longer top in a year and is practically obsolete in 2-3 years. Certainly not comparable to mechanical watches. When that happens, the only thing of value is the casing. Vertu should just turn to crafting the world’s finest crafted phone cases out of titanium, leather, or other luxury materials.

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General

Europa Report

By on Tuesday, October 1, 2013

I believe that for a science fiction movie to be good, it has to pay careful attention to the science part (duh). Europa Report does that. Water has been discovered in Europa (one of Jupiter’s moons, if you’ve already forgotten high school astronomy) and where there’s water, there’s a high possibility, even probability of life. So a mission has been sent to investigate further. Halfway through, the mission lost all contact with Earth and only recently have the video, audio, and other mission data been received. Yes, this is a “found footage” film. But that is incidental and, anyway, is quite plausible. It gives the movie a documentary feel which suits it just fine. There was definite attention to the detail to the mission, the environment, even in the dynamics of the individuals on how they would behave on a long and dangerous space journey. On a final note, I was going to applaud the movie for using non-traditional life forms but I was a bit disappointed by the final scene :P

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