Tech Roundup: Black Holes, Anticipatory Shipping & More
[A recurring feature on the latest in Science & Technology.]
Apple working on two iPhones with bigger displays, reports WSJ:
We are still months away from the launch of the next iPhone, but rumors refuse to die down no matter what. Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Apple is working on two smartphones with bigger screens set for launch in 2014. The development, if true, could finally put the iPhone on leagues with its competition (read: Android) which has been toying with this idea for several years now. According to "people familiar with the situation", the models are said to sport a display of more than 4.5 and 5 inches diagonally.
The original iPhone, which launched with a 3.5 inch screen, got a 0.5 inch bump with the iPhone 5, and if these persistent speculations are anything to go by, a bigger iPhone might soon become a reality. The smaller of the two models is already set for mass production, with "Apple expected to scrap the plastic exterior used in the iPhone 5c", the report goes on to add. Furthermore, the tech giant is also expected to unveil its own mobile payment system to compete with PayPal and the likes. Finally the fingerprint scanner can be put to some solid use. What say?
South Korean govt. rules pre-installed bloatware must be deletable:
Although pre-installed apps on Android smartphones have become a norm these days, what's unfortunate is the fact that you can't uninstall them altogether from your device (unless you happen to root it). While Google added the disable feature to tackle this problem, the latest move by South Korean government is a very welcome precedent. The new guidelines, which go into effect commencing this April, gives smartphone users in S. Korea the option to remove pre-installed apps. The ruling adds that with the exception of a handful of apps related to user settings, Wi-Fi, NFC or an app store, the rest should be made deletable and that the carriers need to offer detailed information to users on the storage space the pre-installed apps take up. Google hasn't been left out either. Here's hoping others follow suit!
Planning to buy stuff online? Amazon has got you covered:
Online retail giant Amazon knows you so well that it now plans to ship your packages even before you place an order! In a new patent gained by the company, this anticipatory shipping is based on consumer demographics such as previous orders, search history, wish lists, shopping cart contents and even the duration a user's mouse hovers over an item online. So if you unexpectedly see an Amazon wrapped package at your doorstep, you know whom to blame!
China takes on iOS and Android with China Operating System:
China is clearly the next target of smartphone manufacturers. Apple recently made inroads in the increasingly competitive market dominated by Samsung and other cheaper local offerings by striking a deal with China Mobile, and with Android already capturing almost 90% of the smartphone share, the country has unveiled a new operating system that runs on smartphones and personal computers. Called the China Operating System, or COS in short, the operating system runs Java applications, supports HTML 5 and is compatible with more than 100,000 apps.
Surely you're joking, Mr. Hawking!
Professor Stephen Hawking is undoubtedly one the best scientific minds since Einstein. So when he happens to propose anything new, the world is bound to sit up and take notice! In a new short but revolutionary paper, Prof. Hawking says there is no such thing called a black hole, at least from the perspective of quantum mechanics.
Classical Theory holds that nothing can escape a black hole, but principles of Quantum physics suggest it is in fact possible for energy and information to pass through. Hawking's new paper is an attempt to solve this Black-hole Firewall Paradox, and he conveys the idea that there is no event horizon - a mathematical surface around a black hole that marks the point of no return, a boundary beyond which even light cannot escape the gravitational pull of the black hole's dense core. Instead he proposes an "apparent horizon", which only temporarily holds matter and energy prisoner before eventually releasing them, albeit in a more garbled form. So if light can indeed escape, it can no longer be called a black hole, the paper concludes.
Tiktaalik roseae closes another link in evolution?
Any basic course in evolution will tell you that tetrapods evolved from a finned organism that lived in the water. And that the transition from water to land happened about 375 million years ago during the Devonian period. The prevailing theory has been that these transitional animals gradually began to develop rear legs post their move to land. But new studies, based on the fossils of Tiktaalik roseae (considered as one of the first such transitional animals) discovered in Canada in 2004, reveal that the foundation for this development happened right when they were in water itself. In other words, this ancestor of ours may have even been able to walk underwater.
In other news:
Apple working on two iPhones with bigger displays, reports WSJ:
We are still months away from the launch of the next iPhone, but rumors refuse to die down no matter what. Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Apple is working on two smartphones with bigger screens set for launch in 2014. The development, if true, could finally put the iPhone on leagues with its competition (read: Android) which has been toying with this idea for several years now. According to "people familiar with the situation", the models are said to sport a display of more than 4.5 and 5 inches diagonally.
The original iPhone, which launched with a 3.5 inch screen, got a 0.5 inch bump with the iPhone 5, and if these persistent speculations are anything to go by, a bigger iPhone might soon become a reality. The smaller of the two models is already set for mass production, with "Apple expected to scrap the plastic exterior used in the iPhone 5c", the report goes on to add. Furthermore, the tech giant is also expected to unveil its own mobile payment system to compete with PayPal and the likes. Finally the fingerprint scanner can be put to some solid use. What say?
South Korean govt. rules pre-installed bloatware must be deletable:
Although pre-installed apps on Android smartphones have become a norm these days, what's unfortunate is the fact that you can't uninstall them altogether from your device (unless you happen to root it). While Google added the disable feature to tackle this problem, the latest move by South Korean government is a very welcome precedent. The new guidelines, which go into effect commencing this April, gives smartphone users in S. Korea the option to remove pre-installed apps. The ruling adds that with the exception of a handful of apps related to user settings, Wi-Fi, NFC or an app store, the rest should be made deletable and that the carriers need to offer detailed information to users on the storage space the pre-installed apps take up. Google hasn't been left out either. Here's hoping others follow suit!
Planning to buy stuff online? Amazon has got you covered:
Online retail giant Amazon knows you so well that it now plans to ship your packages even before you place an order! In a new patent gained by the company, this anticipatory shipping is based on consumer demographics such as previous orders, search history, wish lists, shopping cart contents and even the duration a user's mouse hovers over an item online. So if you unexpectedly see an Amazon wrapped package at your doorstep, you know whom to blame!
China takes on iOS and Android with China Operating System:
China is clearly the next target of smartphone manufacturers. Apple recently made inroads in the increasingly competitive market dominated by Samsung and other cheaper local offerings by striking a deal with China Mobile, and with Android already capturing almost 90% of the smartphone share, the country has unveiled a new operating system that runs on smartphones and personal computers. Called the China Operating System, or COS in short, the operating system runs Java applications, supports HTML 5 and is compatible with more than 100,000 apps.
Surely you're joking, Mr. Hawking!
Professor Stephen Hawking is undoubtedly one the best scientific minds since Einstein. So when he happens to propose anything new, the world is bound to sit up and take notice! In a new short but revolutionary paper, Prof. Hawking says there is no such thing called a black hole, at least from the perspective of quantum mechanics.
Classical Theory holds that nothing can escape a black hole, but principles of Quantum physics suggest it is in fact possible for energy and information to pass through. Hawking's new paper is an attempt to solve this Black-hole Firewall Paradox, and he conveys the idea that there is no event horizon - a mathematical surface around a black hole that marks the point of no return, a boundary beyond which even light cannot escape the gravitational pull of the black hole's dense core. Instead he proposes an "apparent horizon", which only temporarily holds matter and energy prisoner before eventually releasing them, albeit in a more garbled form. So if light can indeed escape, it can no longer be called a black hole, the paper concludes.
Tiktaalik roseae closes another link in evolution?
Any basic course in evolution will tell you that tetrapods evolved from a finned organism that lived in the water. And that the transition from water to land happened about 375 million years ago during the Devonian period. The prevailing theory has been that these transitional animals gradually began to develop rear legs post their move to land. But new studies, based on the fossils of Tiktaalik roseae (considered as one of the first such transitional animals) discovered in Canada in 2004, reveal that the foundation for this development happened right when they were in water itself. In other words, this ancestor of ours may have even been able to walk underwater.
In other news:
- 2013 becomes Australia's hottest year on record, with mean temperatures 1.2 degrees above the 1961-90 average.
- India set to be declared polio free by World Health Organization after no new cases are reported since January 2011.
- "123456" unseats "password" to become the worst password of 2013 followed by "12345678", "qwerty" and "abc123".
- Apple relaunches outdated iPhone 4 8GB variant in India for Rs. 22,900 (Are you outta your mind, Apple?).
- Samsung's net profit declines after nine quarters of growth; one-time employee bonus and a stronger Won to blame.
- Yahoo! acquires Android intelligent homescreen replacement app Aviate.
- Apple reports over $10 billion in revenues from App Store sales in 2013.
- Dell joins the Chromebook bandwagon by launching Chromebook 11 PC.
- Google announces Moto G Google Play Edition.
- Social network Facebook reportedly working on Flipboard-like news reader called Paper, reports Re/code.
- HTC confirms One X and One X+ handsets will not receive any further Android updates.
- Google's predictive search assistant Google Now comes to Chrome desktop browser.
- South Korea to launch blazing fast 5G network in 2020 with speeds of 1GB per second.
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