Apple’s much anticipated 10th anniversary smartphones, possible the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 10, iPhone X or some combination of these, are expected to arrive in the fall of 2017. Creative minds are sharing videos of their design concepts, and who knows, maybe Apple will be inspired? Take a look...Now you see it
This iPhone 8 design with a transparent screen, ultrasonic fingerprint sensor and piezoelectric speaker comes from designer Georgy Pashkov.
Apple of your Eye
Iskander Utebayev and Ran Avi's "Just iPhone 8" conceives the camera lens being sort of in the middle of the smartphone, in the Apple logo. Now that's a fresh twist.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google has begun populating its 2017 graveyard, with its Spaces app for group discussion and messaging grabbing an early plot.Google Space won't even last one year: It was introduced in May of 2016 and will be shut down on April 17, 2017, according to a Google support page. Google
Google
MORE: What Google killed in 2016To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google has begun populating its 2017 graveyard, with its Spaces app for group discussion and messaging grabbing an early plot.
Google Space won't even last one year: It was introduced in May of 2016 and will be shut down on April 17, 2017, according to a Google support page. Google
Google
MORE: What Google killed in 2016To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
iPhone 8 rumormongers don't get to have all the fun: Speculation has started to swirl about the Apple Watch Series 3, expected to arrive around the same time as the 10th anniversary Apple smartphone in the fall.The next Apple smart watch, which competes with products from LG, Samsung and others, is expected to boast performance and battery life improvements. The Series 2 watch came with improved performance, a brighter display, better water resistance, a built-in GPS and more. (Apple Watches start in under-$300 range and rise in price into the thousands, depending on model, and are available from Apple as well as retail partners like Best Buy and Walmart.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sure, you might be a bit unsatisfied with your current job as a technology professional, but consider that if you head out into the wild you could get nailed with interview questions such as:*How do you explain a vending machine to someone who hasn’t seen or used one before? (Bloomberg L.P. for global data analyst job)*How many fire hydrants are there in Los Angeles County? (Disney Interactive Studios, for software engineer)*Prove that hoop stress is twice the longitudinal stress in a cylindrical pressure vessel?OK, that last one comes from Elon Musk’s rocket-building SpaceX, and the average person isn’t going to be qualified to work there as a test operations engineer, but plenty of other tough interview questions for more mainstream tech jobs can be found among the list put forth this week by online jobs marketplace Glassdoor.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In case you're wondering why Amazon is suddenly offering to clip $8.62 from most purchases of $50 or more this Wednesday, Feb. 22, here's the deal...The company is patting itself on the back for ranking #1 in an annual Harris Corporate Reputation Poll (just ahead of Wegmans, Publix, Johnson & Johnson and Apple). Amazon scored an 86.27, so is discounting purchases by the similar looking $8.62.MORE: The clumsy & shocking truth about computer-related injuriesTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple this week announced that its new 175-acre campus in Cupertino will be called Apple Park and is set to open in April. It will take six months to migrate 12,000 employees to the spaceship-like building, which Apple boasts runs entirely on renewable energy.Whereas Apple is generally cryptic about the locations of its facilities (the black hole that is Apple public relations, for example, recently failed to reply to our inquiry about its R&D spaces), the company is touting its new centerpiece for all things Mac and iOS. The facility, said to cost as much as $5 billion to construct, has previously been glimpsed mainly via drone fly-bys.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
iPhone 8 rumors can become a snooze when they focus too much on the inside of Apple’s anticipated next flagship smartphones, but this week most of the scuttlebutt is thankfully centered around the shiny new display.Rumor fans also seemed excited to have a new source of information rather than the usual suspects (we’ll get to them later…) A TrendForce of Nature
Market watcher TrendForce created a stir on Tuesday by releasing a report in which it says, based on information from the supply chain, Apple won’t have a curved AMOLED display after all in its next flagship iPhone (so that’s one area where Apple might not match or surpass what Samsung is doing with its phones, like the Galaxy S7 Edge). The expected 5.8-inch iPhone will still have an energy-efficient and bright AMOLED screen, but production issues have forced Apple to hold off on the curved design, according to the report. “Thus, the next high-end iPhone is expected to have the same 2.5D glass for display cover as the current models,” TrendForce says. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Give Orlando Magic forward Aaron Gordon and Intel credit for creativity: The NBA player employed an AscTec Neo drone as part of his NBA Slam Dunk Contest repertoire. Intel
Orlando Magic forward Aaron Gordon practices with Intel’s AscTec Neo drone ahead of the Slam Dunk Contest, as part of NBA All-Star 2017 festivities.
Unfortunately, it took the athletic player 4 attempts to grab a pass from the roughly 11-pound hexicopter and complete the dunk, and he wound up getting knocked out of the competition early.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Fuze, the Cambridge, Mass., unified communications-as-a-service company that recently scored an additional $104 million in funding, has named 25-year-plus tech industry veteran Colin Doherty as its CEO.Most recently Doherty oversaw internet performance management and DNS service provider Dyn during exciting times: He joined in October, later that month the company got hit with a massive DDoS attack and then Oracle bought the vendor in November. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The AARP, a nonprofit organization that advocates for Americans over 50 years of age, has launched its search for nominees for its Innovation Champion Awards to recognize providers of technology-powered products and services that focus on caregivers.Submissions will be accepted in six categories: daily essential activities; caregiver quality of life; health and safety awareness; care coordination; social well-being; and transition support. AARP judges will select five finalists in each category, then invite the public to select winners. MORE: Cisco names winners of Innovate Everywhere ChallengeTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Network World increasingly has been writing about companies transforming their businesses via the Internet of Things rather than just tracking the latest IoT vendor announcements. But after taking a spin through our ongoing and interactive startup funding timeline, we figured it was a good time to round up some of the latest startups to rein in venture capital for their IoT-related businesses. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Network World increasingly has been writing about companies transforming their businesses via the Internet of Things rather than just tracking the latest IoT vendor announcements. But after taking a spin through our ongoing and interactive startup funding timeline, we figured it was a good time to round up some of the latest startups to rein in venture capital for their IoT-related businesses. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple joining the Wireless Power Consortium in advance of the group's conference this week in London, combined with new research out of MIT designed to safeguard wireless charging, has to be encouraging news for iPhone and iPad users tired of being tethered.Apple showing up on the Wireless Power Consortium's member list took place without any fanfare from the vendor itself, but the revelation did add strength to analyst claims that wireless charging could be coming to the iPhone 8 (or iPhone X) and other new Apple smartphones this year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This Sunday, Feb. 12 will be a huge night for horror on TV: AMC's The Walking Dead returns at 9PM EST after its mid-season hiatus and the 59th Grammy Awards program in all its self-congratulatory glory kicks off at 8PM EST from Los Angeles. (Though I suppose last Sunday was an even bigger night of horror for those rooting against the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl...)Adele, Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Drake and Sturgill Simpson are all looking to win Record of the Year, while Chuck D, Jack White and Kelly Clarkson will be among performers during the Grammy show. Ample attention will no doubt be given as well to honoring the many famous musicians, such as Prince and David Bowie, who died last year. Late night talk show host and carpool karaoke crooner James Corden emcees the program.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Tickets for the Microsoft Build 2017, this year's edition of the annual developers' confab, will go on sale at noon EST/9am PST on Valentine's Day, Feb. 14.If you're interested in going, you should register for a shot at tickets at this Microsoft website. Tickets sold out in about a minute last year. It's not clear how much tickets will cost, but at last year's event in San Francisco, the face value was over $2,000.In a blog post about Build 2017, Microsoft EVP of the Cloud and Enterprise Group Scott Guthrie says this year's gathering in Seattle from May 10-12 is expected to attract more than 5,000 developers, plus millions more via live stream. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The iPhone 8, and whatever other new smartphones Apple debuts in 2017, are all expected to come with wireless charging capabilities, according to a prominent Apple watcher.MacRumors cites KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo's claims that three expected phones from Apple this year will all feature wireless charging. "Kuo said wireless charging increases the internal temperature of smartphones, so he expects the rumored iPhone 8 with an OLED display and glass casing to have a new 3D Touch module with 'additional graphite sheet lamination' in order to prevent the device from malfunctioning due to overheating," MacRumors states.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The iPhone could really go back to becoming a status symbol if the latest iPhone 8 rumors prove true.
Grabbing attention this week is a Fast Company article, headlined "Here's why Apple's 10th anniversary iPhone will likely cost more than $1,000," in which a source says the 5.8-inch iPhone 8 is going to be packed with new features. Those include a wraparound OLED display, more memory and possibly 3D sensing technology for security.
(This concern about pricing has been a hot topic of late: See iPhone 8 Rumor Rollup -- Paying the Price for Cool.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
5G wireless is already being hyped by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon as their next-gen tech trials get underway, even though the term is often taken more lightly by industry observers (including us), who tone it down as just a marketing term. The 3GPP (3rd generation partnership project), which oversees cellular communications standards, has now taken a step to further rein in 5G marketing before it really gets out of hand by establishing an official logo for it that comes with some rules.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Activity on the tech labs front is happening faster than we can get to it these days, so here are a few "in case you missed it" items...$45M for Transportation Research Center
The state of Ohio, JobsOhio and the Ohio State University are putting $45 million into an expansion of the Transportation Research Center's (TRC) 540-acre Smart Mobility Advanced Research and Test (SMART) Center in the Columbus area. Research will focus both on connected and driverless vehicles within this section of the 4,500-acre TRC expanse.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bob Brown