Hardware

Amazon builds “slow motion” vest to allow workers inside a robot’s space

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TechCrunch:

The Amazon Robotics-designed product was created to keep workers safe when they need to enter a space in order to fix a robotic system or retrieve fallen items. Built-in sensors alert Amazon’s robotic systems to the wearer’s presence, and they slow down to avoid collision.

This seems both fascinating and inevitable.

Imagine a fast moving robot, rapidly shelving or retrieving product, or packing products into a shipping container. The robots move fast enough, their appendages flying from task to task, that a human coming near risks real injury. The slow motion vest triggers a sensor and the robot goes into a much slower, more predictable speed so the human can grab a dropped item or access a control on the robot itself. Fascinating.

As to inevitable, this seems like an idea that will spread to any space where humans and robots coexist. At least until detecting humans becomes second nature, and flawless, for robots.

USB-C could soon offer protection against nefarious devices

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Rachel England, Engadget, on the newly announced USB Type-C Authentication Program:

The program defines the optimal cryptographic-based authentication for USB-C devices and chargers. Any host system using this protocol will be able to confirm the authenticity of a device or charger, including descriptors and capabilities, right at the moment a connection is made. So say, for example, you’re concerned about charging your phone at a public terminal. Your phone could implement a policy only allowing a charge from certified chargers. A company, meanwhile, could set a policy for its PCs, giving them access only to verified USB storage devices.

The concept would allow a setting in iOS, say, that required a cryptographic handshake before your connected device was allowed to communicated with a charger, for example.

Here’s a link to the official USB.org press release.

Apple confirms some iPad Pros ship slightly bent, but says it’s normal

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Chris Welch, The Verge:

Apple has confirmed to The Verge that some of its 2018 iPad Pros are shipping with a very slight bend in the aluminum chassis. But according to the company, this is a side effect of the device’s manufacturing process and shouldn’t worsen over time or negatively affect the flagship iPad’s performance in any practical way. Apple does not consider it to be a defect.

The bend is the result of a cooling process involving the iPad Pro’s metal and plastic components during manufacturing, according to Apple.

And:

My 11-inch iPad Pro showed a bit of a curve after two weeks. Apple asked if I would send it their way so the engineering team could take a look. But the replacement 11-inch iPad Pro I received at Apple’s Downtown Brooklyn store exhibited a very slight bend in the aluminum as soon as I took off the wrapper.

And:

Those who are annoyed by the bend shouldn’t have any trouble exchanging or returning their iPad Pro at the Apple Store or other retailers within the 14-day return window. But it’s not clear if swaps will be permitted outside that policy.

Tricky. Is this really normal? Look at the image in the linked article. Certainly seems like a manufacturing defect to me.

Past as prologue, can’t help but imagine a lawsuit brewing somewhere.

Glitter bomb vs package thief

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[VIDEO] Mark Rober is one smart cookie. He’s the human who built last year’s automatic dartboard.

Here’s Mark on Twitter, describing this year’s project:

Someone stole a package from me. Police wouldn’t do anything about it so I spent the last 6 months engineering up some vigilante justice. Revenge is a dish best served fabulously.

This is some fantastic engineering. Here’s hoping he open sources the design. Video embedded in main Loop post.

A great Bose feature AirPods should steal

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From Reddit:

  • Daisy chaining: I can connect two Bose headphones to one device. I’d love to do this with AirPods, so my SO and I can watch the same movie on an iPad, or listen to the same podcast on a walk. (This is called “Music Share” in the Bose Connect app, but works with any audio coming from the device.)

  • Multiple Active Devices: My Bose headphones can connect to two devices at once. I’d love to be able to have an active connection to 2-3 devices on my AirPods, so I can use my phone / tv / laptop all at once.

  • A connection management tool. I thought I’d hate this. But I love it. I can easily select from a list of past devices which ones I’d like my headphones to be connected to, and it does it nearly instantly.

That first one is my favorite. I would love to be able to share audio with someone when playing it out loud is not practical, or allowed. For example, watching a movie together on a long plane or train ride. Or watching TV, late at night when the baby is asleep.

Used to be, you’d plug in a splitter and then plug in your wired headphones. Two headphones Bluetooth’ed into your iOS device or Mac would be a terrific idea.

This a Bluetooth 5 thing? I believe the W1 chip in the AirPods is based on Bluetooth 4.2. The W3 chip in the Apple Watch Series 4 supports Bluetooth 5. So might this feature be possible in the next generation of AirPods?

Apple has destroyed the potential of the Smart Connector on the new iPad Pro

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Andrew O’Hara, Apple Insider:

There are two primary issues with the port on the new iPad Pro — one that can be at least partially overlooked, and the other is going to be a show-stopper.

And:

The biggest criticism of the case was the requirement of having a full back cover that added unnecessary bulk and weight on an otherwise slim device. I’d have preferred a two-piece design that allows for a removable keyboard with an optional back cover.

As it stands, you are stuck with both a keyboard and a back cover, or neither. If you wanted to remove the keyboard but keep the back, sorry, that’s too bad.

And:

Second is the poor adoption we’ve seen from outside companies, which the shift will not help. Apple touted at launch that third-parties could make use of the port, and they even reiterated strong support with products in the pipeline just last year. Now that the port has completely moved, anything in the works based on the previous port location is dead-on-arrival.

Tough investment for a peripheral company to deal with a complete redesign of a hardware interface. Not just moving a port/connector, but completely changing the way it works.

And I’d add to this issue the problem of putting any sort of case over the Apple Pencil magnet/charger. You have to find a way to convey that functionality with your case, no easy task. And, given the likelihood that Apple is not done innovating here, it may be some time before the functionality of these ports stabilize.

Wholesale change is tough business for a peripheral maker.

More on third-party USB-C to Lightning cables

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John Gruber unpacks a lot of detail on USB-C to Lightning cables, the MFi program, and his take on the likelihood of USB-C making the move to iPhone.

This is a terrific, put your feet up, grab a hot beverage, chock-full-of details read.

Why aren’t there third party USB-C to Lightning cables?

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John Gruber:

Here’s a thread on Reddit asking why there aren’t any USB-C to Lightning cables from reliable, certified companies like Anker, Monoprice, and Amazon. It’s a year-old thread and the situation is unchanged. This stinks now that all MacBooks and the new iPad Pros have gone to USB-C, along with chargers that output by USB-C.

Here’s a link to the Reddit thread.

This goes to the heart of my complaints about the USB-C standard. There are plenty of cables out there with Lightning at one end and USB-C at the other. But they are far from all the same. The Apple cable seems to be the only one that does all the things you’d want, including reliable, consistent support for fast charging and data transfer.

I’d love the ability to plug in a cable and get a report on exactly what the cable supports. As I understand it, the USB-C standard requires supported ports and connectors to self-report. At the very least, I wish the USB-C standard had some sort of code (like the ROYGBIV standard for labeling resistors) that told you what a cable was capable of.

Apple Pencil (2nd Generation) review

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[VIDEO] Speaking of the new Apple Pencil, here’s Rene Ritchie (video embedded in main Loop post) digging in deep, with just a hint of Serenity Caldwell.

This is just great. An Apple Pencil review done using the Apple Pencil. Wonderful.

Apple Pencil teardown

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OK, technically, this is an iPad Pro 11″ teardown. But I am much more interested in the Apple Pencil innards. And how someone can get inside the Apple Pencil.

Looks like a job for the ultrasonic cutter. Whee!

2018 Mac mini teardown

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Pop the bottom cover, 6 Torx screws to remove the antenna plate, and you’re in. Very similar to the old Mac mini in approach.

I love the way this comes apart. Gives me the chance to repair and replace parts myself.

What can you connect to the new iPad Pro with USB-C?

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Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:

The new 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro features a USB-C port instead of a Lightning port. However, just because a device features a new port, it does not mean anything with a USB-C connector will suddenly work with the iPad Pro. There are still some limitations but USB-C makes it even easier to connect to external displays, cameras, and other accessories.

Here’s what you can do with your new iPad Pro and its shiny new port.

First things first, nice job by Benjamin Mayo laying all this out. Terrific read.

But I have to say, while I applaud USB-C’s reversibility (like a Lightning plug, there’s no upside down, no wrong way to plug it in) and ubiquity (a wave of adoption, making their way onto devices in the same way as USB-A), I struggle with the wildly different functionality offered by identical looking cables and ports.

Ben covers a few examples, but here’s another one:

https://twitter.com/viticci/status/1060321637076271105

There’s no way to tell from just looking at a cable what functionality it supports. And while you might just try all the cables in your cable drawer until you find one that works, there might be trouble down that road as well. From this Gizmodo post, courtesy of Stefan Arentz:

All cables are not created equal: some will charge most efficiently, others might just fry your battery. Google Chromebook engineer and Caped Cable Crusader Benson Leung has been testing USB-C cables off Amazon, and it’s not just the no-brand products that have been failing.

I’ve had some personal experience with this, especially where USB-C dongles are concerned. Though all those USB-C ports look identical on the outside, some pass through power, others not as much, and some not at all. Yeesh.

Apple says battery can be replaced individually in New MacBook Air with Retina display

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More good news as far as Apple products and repairability:

Big news for repairability and environmental responsibility: the battery can be individually replaced in the new MacBook Air, according to Apple’s internal Service Readiness Guide for the notebook, obtained by MacRumors.

And:

In all other MacBook and MacBook Pro models with a Retina display released since 2012, when a customer has required a battery replacement, Apple has replaced the entire top case enclosure, including the keyboard and trackpad. This is because the battery is glued into the top case in Mac notebooks with Retina displays.

The battery in the new MacBook Air is still glued into the top case, the aluminum enclosure that houses the keyboard and trackpad, but Apple will be providing Genius Bars and Apple Authorized Service Providers with tools to remove the battery and reinstall a new one with no top case replacement required.

Glue is the bane of repairability. I wish Apple would develop a version of the 3M Command strips, the ones that stick to walls, strong enough to hold up a framed picture, but come off by stretching them. They’re even reusable.

Would love to be able to remove a battery by pulling on the adhesive tab to loosen it, replace the battery with the same adhesive strip, all without that gooey mess of melted glue.

UPDATE: Apparently, Apple does use something akin to these Command adhesive strips in some iPhone models, though they are not reusable. More of this! And H/T Gabriel Jordan.

Here’s how to replace the memory on the new Mac mini

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This is a relatively easy thing to do. It’s all screws, no glue or other messy bits to deal with.

If you are considering a Mac mini purchase, check the replacement RAM costs before you order.

UPDATE: As the linked post says, the images are from the 2014 Mac mini, thought the steps are the same. Thanks to Patrick McCarron, here’s a link to another post that accomplishes the same thing, but on the actual 2018 Mac mini.

The new iPad Pro and Laptop Magazine’s video transcode test. Wow.

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Lots and lots of numbers in this review, packed with easy to read comparison charts. This iPad Pro comes out on top all the way through.

There’s a battery life comparison (based on continuous web surfing), with the iPad Pro lasting more than 13 hours, compared with the Surface Pro 6 at a bit over 9 hours. Same with GeekBench 4 numbers, with the iPad Pro multi-core at 17995 and the Surface Pro 6 at 13,025.

But scroll down to that video transcoding chart. Whoa. The Surface Pro 6 took 31 minutes to transcode a 12-minute 4K video clip. The MacBook Pro fared a bit better, just under 26 minutes. But the new iPad Pro? 7 minutes, 47 seconds.

That is one blazingly fast machine.

The elephant in the room at last week’s Apple event was Intel

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Though we did include this review in yesterday’s list of the new MacBook Air reviews, I wanted to link to John Gruber’s review separately, for his take on Intel.

The elephant in the room at last week’s Apple event was Intel.

Apple introduced two products based on Intel chips — the new MacBook Air and new Mac Mini — but barely mentioned the company’s name. The word “Intel” appeared on a single slide during VP of hardware engineering Laura Legros’s presentation of the new MacBook Air. She also spoke the word once, saying the new Airs have “the latest Intel integrated graphics”. In the presentation of the new Mac Mini, “Intel” never appeared in a slide and wasn’t mentioned.

And:

Apple is not going to throw Intel under the bus — they’re taking an “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” approach, as they should.

Push is slowly coming to shove here. As John points out, the new iPad Pro simply crushes the Intel-powered MacBook Air in GeekBench score, especially that MultiCore score (18,051 to 7,847).

As products, the Mac and the iPad are still on different tracks, not plug replaceable. But it does seem highly likely (a “when”, not an “if”) that Apple will eventually ship a Mac powered by their own bionic chip.

The T2 chip physically disconnects the mic when your Mac lid is closed

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Interesting snippet from this TechCrunch post:

Buried in Apple’s latest range of MacBooks — including the MacBook Pro out earlier this year and the just-announced MacBook Air — is the new T2 security chip, which helps protect the device’s encryption keys, storage, fingerprint data and secure boot features.

Little was known about the chip until today. According to its newest published security guide, the chip comes with a hardware microphone disconnect feature that physically cuts the device’s microphone from the rest of the hardware whenever the lid is closed.

And from the T2 Security Chip Overview itself:

All Mac portables with the Apple T2 Security Chip feature a hardware disconnect that ensures that the microphone is disabled whenever the lid 
 is closed. This disconnect is implemented in hardware alone, and therefore prevents any software, even with root or kernel privileges in macOS, and even the software on the T2 chip, from engaging the microphone when the lid is closed. (The camera is not disconnected in hardware because its field of view 
 is completely obstructed with the lid closed.)

Good to know.

It’s not your imagination: Phone battery life is getting worse

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Geoffrey A Fowler, Washington Post:

If you recently bought a new flagship phone, chances are its battery life is actually worse than an older model.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been performing the same battery test over and over again on 13 phones. With a few notable exceptions, this year’s top models underperformed last year’s. The new iPhone XS died 21 minutes earlier than last year’s iPhone X. Google’s Pixel 3 lasted nearly an hour and a half less than its Pixel 2.

Phone makers tout all sorts of tricks to boost battery life, including more-efficient processors, low-power modes and artificial intelligence to manage app drain. Yet my results, and tests by other reviewers I spoke with, reveal an open secret in the industry: the lithium-ion batteries in smartphones are hitting an inflection point where they simply can’t keep up.

In a nutshell, the case being made here is that battery efficiency is growing very slowly, while screen technology (and other) power draw is growing somewhat faster than that.

iPhones are allergic to helium

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Kyle Wiens, iFixit:

This is the kind of tale that you don’t hear every day. Erik Wooldridge is a Systems Specialist at Morris Hospital near Chicago. During the installation of a new GE Healthcare MRI machine, he started getting calls that cell phones weren’t working. Then, some Apple Watches started glitching.

This is just an incredible read. Don’t want to give anything away, just dig in. Great story, well told.

Apple is working on an iPhone that works better in the rain

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Malcolm Owen, AppleInsider:

Most smartphone users will have experienced issues when using their devices with wet hands or in the rain, with residual water on fingers sometimes causing the display to incorrectly detect or fail to sense touches or swipes.

And:

According to two patent applications published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday, both titled “Finger tracking in wet environment,” Apple suggests the use of filtering to determine whether a detected touch is intended by the user or not. This occurs before the device performs “computationally-intensive touch processing,” with the aim of reducing processing time and power usage, as well as the byproduct of improved usage in wet weather.

As Apple increases the power of their processors, devices gain more of an ability to analyze all parts of the user experience. Computational photography and machine learning are starting points, but real time “touch processing” is another. Can’t wait to see what other features lurk in the iPhone’s future.

Apple just killed the ‘GrayKey’ iPhone passcode hack

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Thomas Brewster, Forbes:

Multiple sources familiar with the GrayKey tech tell Forbes the device can no longer break the passcodes of any iPhone running iOS 12 or above. On those devices, GrayKey can only do what’s called a “partial extraction,” sources from the forensic community said. That means police using the tool can only draw out unencrypted files and some metadata, such as file sizes and folder structures.

Previously, GrayKey used “brute forcing” techniques to guess passcodes and had found a way to get around Apple’s protections preventing such repeat guesses. But no more. And if it’s impossible for GrayKey, which counts an ex-Apple security engineer among its founders, it’s a safe assumption few can break iPhone passcodes.

This does sound promising, but I’ll take it with a grain of salt. Like jailbreaking a phone, this sort of thing is hard to quash completely. And certainly incredibly difficult to prove, one way or the other.

Cops told ‘Don’t look’ at new iPhones to avoid Face ID lock-out

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Motherboard:

But Face ID can of course also work against law enforcement—too many failed attempts with the ‘wrong’ face can force the iPhone to request a potentially harder to obtain passcode instead. Taking advantage of legal differences in how passcodes are protected, US law enforcement have forced people to unlock their devices with not just their face but their fingerprints too. But still, in a set of presentation slides obtained by Motherboard this week, one company specialising in mobile forensics is telling investigators not to even look at phones with Face ID, because they might accidentally trigger this mechanism.

We had passcodes, then fingerprints, then faces, the evolution of biometric mechanisms used to unlock you phone. Will this evolution continue? Or is Face ID the final stop?

No matter, this is a knotty problem on all sides. Protect privacy, but make it effortless to unlock a phone.

Why does Google need hardware?

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Shira Ovide, Bloomberg:

In 2017 and the first half of this year, Google shipped about 5 million Pixel smartphones worldwide, according to the research firm IDC. Apple Inc. sells as many iPhones in about eight days as Google did in 18 months — and even Apple has a relatively small minority market share in smartphones.

And:

Small numbers aren’t confined to Google, either. Journalists like me can’t stop talking about the “runaway success” of the Echo devices, Amazon.com Inc.’s rapidly expanding lineup of voice-activated home doodads. Amazon sold about 3.6 million of the two most popular Echo models from April to June, Strategy Analytics estimated. Fitbit, a company that journalists like me stopped talking about long ago, sold 2.7 million motion-tracking gadgets in the same period.

And:

For most software or internet tech empires, hardware is a niche hobby, and it will remain so for the foreseeable future.

It take a lot of R&D dollars, fragmentation of company focus, to design, test, build, and ship a hardware product. Why does Google do it? Interesting question.

The raw power of the Apple Watch Series 4

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Watch the video embedded in this tweet. As the wheel turns, keep your eye on the little balls:

https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1047188165369495552

That’s not a simulator. That’s an app running on an Apple Watch Series 4. I wish the video was a bit longer, just to make it easier to appreciate the physics of the turning wheel and the gravity-obeying balls. There’s a lot of math going on and it’s all being rendered in real time.

Wow!

Robotic, self-solving Rubik’s cube

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[VIDEO] This is astonishing to me. Scramble up the Rubik’s Cube, set it down (or hold it still), and the brain and motors inside will twist and turn until the puzzle is back to its perfectly solved self. The video is embedded in the main Loop post.

Follow the headline link for lots of images and detail on the construction (that looks to be C++ code driving the whole thing).

This felt like a glimpse into the future, where objects are self aware and know the way they are supposed to exist, using their motors and sensors, and self-awareness, to return back to normal when disturbed.

Enjoy. [H/T Mr. E]

iPhone XS Max OLED display simply crushes in DisplayMate analysis

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DisplayMate really knows their stuff. They are the go-to site for a detailed take on any display technology. As they do with every new major smartphone release, DisplayMate ran their tests on the iPhone XS Max OLED display.

In a nutshell, the iPhone XS Max display just crushed it.

Here are a few comments from the analysis:

The Absolute Color Accuracy of the iPhone XS Max is Truly Impressive as shown in these Figures. It has an Absolute Color Accuracy of 0.8 JNCD (Just Noticeable Color Difference) for the sRGB / Red.709 Color Gamut that is used for most current consumer content, and 0.8 JNCD for the Wider DCI-P3 Color Gamut that is used for 4K UHD TVs and Digital Cinema, which are both Visually Indistinguishable From Perfect, and very likely considerably better than any mobile display, monitor, TV or UHD TV that you have.

The figures are in the Automatic Color Management section of the report. I do love the phrase “Visually Indistinguishable From Perfect”.

Mobile displays are often used under relatively bright ambient lighting, which washes out the image color saturation and contrast, reducing picture quality and making it harder to view or read the screen. To be usable in high ambient light a display needs a dual combination of high Screen Brightness and low Screen Reflectance – the iPhone XS Max has both. This is extremely important for screen readability, picture quality, and color accuracy in ambient light.

And:

The iPhone XS Max has a Record high calibrated 100% APL Full Screen Brightness for OLED Smartphones

And:

The measured iPhone XS Max Screen Reflectance is 4.7 percent, close to the lowest that we have ever measured for a Smartphone.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. This is one impressive display.

iFixit: Apple Watch Series 4 teardown

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I actually found this teardown even more interesting than the iPhone XS teardown I posted earlier this morning. Mostly, I think, because I have seen so many iPhone teardowns, and relatively few for the Apple Watch.

From the conclusion:

  • Watch band replacements remain fast and simple, and are even backward-compatible with previous models.
  • Screen replacements are difficult but do-able—it’s the first thing to come off, and detaches via simple ZIF connectors.
  • Battery replacements are pretty straightforward, once you’re inside.
  • While not proprietary, incredibly tiny tri-point screws are a repair hinderance. And they are all over the place.
  • Several component flex cables are mounted directly to the S4 package, requiring skilled microsoldering to replace.
  • The resin-encased S4 system makes most board-level repairs impossible.

That third pic in Step 4 is the money shot. Click or tap the image, than click it again or pinch to zoom to really drink in all that detail. Gorgeous.