One of the concerns people expressed way back when the first iPhone launched was, “Aren’t glass phones going to break?” Well, yeah they are. In fact, has been making a surprising amount of cash repairing broken iPhone screens over the years. It hasn’t exactly made it easy for third-party repair centers to replace the screens themselves, but that’s about to change. Apple is set to deploy its proprietary iPhone-fixing “Horizon” machine in more than 400 third-party repair centers across the world. Apple reportedly took in $1-2 billion fixing broken iPhone screens last year. If Apple fixes your screen, the warranty remains intact.
After years of seeing promising augmented reality (AR) demos, I feel a bit like the boy who cried wolf each time I come back impressed and convinced the technology is about to go mainstream. The good news is that it’s getting closer. In particular, I saw impressive, consumer-focused demos from two companies with radically different histories and strategies at this year’s Augmented World Expo. I got extensive hands-on time with Meta’s new Virtual Workspace environment, as well as ODG’s R8 and R9 untethered, cinema-grade AR wearables. Here’s what I found. Two contrasting approaches to wearable AR Phone-based AR is getting a lot of attention recently, based on the , , and the success of Pokémon Go.
Elon Musk by 2024, a proposition that seemed quite optimistic when it was announced last year. New research from the University of Nevada Las Vegas makes Musk’s goal that much less attainable. A new predictive model of radiation effects indicates we could be . That means a trip to Mars could include a doubling of cancer risk compared with previous estimates. Most human spaceflight has taken place in low-Earth orbit, where the planet’s magnetic field offers some protection. Even the Apollo astronauts only spent a few days at greater distances. Deep space exploration comes with greater risks thanks to high-energy radiation known as .
Late last month, we reported on how new fossil finds had changed what were thought to be settled questions about the between chimpanzees and humans. Now, we’ve got news of another major upset to the known human timeline and our own appearance on planet Earth. Previously, the earliest fossil remains of anatomically modern humans (AMH) were found in Ethiopia and dated to ~200,000 years ago. Many other AMH fossils have been found in the same areas of Africa, and the scientific consensus has been that these finds represented the first appearance of modern humans. This single origin hypothesis isn’t the only theory for how humanity first emerged and then spread across the continent and planet, but it’s been the most common argument for a number of years.
For the past few years, companies like Alienware and Razer have worked to push the idea of external GPU boxes as upgrades for PC laptops. Alienware has had their own solution, customized for their own systems, while companies like Intel, AMD, and Razer to create the XConnect platform last year. We’re finally seeing more OEMs opting for this approach, and HP’s new Omen Accelerator extends it from graphics into other performance areas as well. Unlike other GPU accelerators we’ve seen, the new will include a 2.5-inch dock for an SSD and gigabit Ethernet support, with an integrated 500W PSU to support the entire affair.
Back in 2015, Verizon was sued by the Communications Workers of America for its general failure to maintain copper infrastructure in Pennsylvania. We covered the issue when CWA officials testified that Verizon was willing to fire employees for maintaining copper infrastructure, while simultaneously failing to deploy replacement wireline service over fiber. Employees were instructed to migrate customers to Verizon’s VoiceLink wireless service if any opportunity to do so existed, even if that service was an imperfect or unsuitable replacement for the copper service they previously had. Now, Verizon has signed an agreement with the CWA requiring it to repair and replace bad cables, defective equipment, and faulty back-up batteries, while simultaneously dismantling at least 15,000 double telephone poles.
Millions of people have benefited from pacemakers since the first one was implanted in 1958, but the basics facets of the design have remained unchanged. These devices are still battery-operated, with leads running from the device itself to the heart. Now, researchers from Rice University have developed a that can be implanted directly in heart. If the design is adopted, it could eliminate many of the common complications associated with pacemaker implantation. The battery-free pacemaker was designed in the lab of electrical and computer engineering professor Aydin Babakhani. Just like other pacemakers, this one uses electrical signals to regulate the patient’s heartbeat.
Today, Dell is offering up a 12% discount on its 15.6-inch XPS 15 laptop. With high-end internals and killer battery life, this sleek modern machine is absolutely worth the premium asking price. • (List price: $1449.99 — Coupon code: XPS150) Spec-wise, this laptop features a seventh generation quad-core 2.8GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU, a discrete Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card, 8GB of DDR4 RAM (2400MHz), a 256GB solid-state drive, Bluetooth 4.1, and 802.11b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi support. This 15.6-inch display benefits from a full HD resolution of 1920×1080, and the Infinity Edge design makes for a nearly bezel-free screen.
Roughly 16 months ago, news began to surface of a problem affecting iPhones that had recently been upgraded to the then-new iOS 9. Devices that had previously been repaired by third-party shops or centers suddenly began throwing “” messages and refusing to function normally. It was caused by repairs that replaced either the Home button or the associated cable. But because this wasn’t known to be a problem at the time, devices that had been repaired and worked flawlessly under previous iOS versions suddenly began failing when upgraded to the latest version of Apple’s operating system. Apple to argue that bricking its customers’ devices was for their own good, and done to keep Apple Pay and Touch ID secure, before relenting and publishing a version of iOS (9.2.1) that un-bricked devices previously wrecked by Error 53.
