Bug of the Century

Readers of a certain age might recall the buildup to Jan. 1, 2000, as an exercise in high drama. The object of concern was the so-called Y2K bug, the fear that hardware and software systems would stop functioning if they interpreted Jan. 1, 2000, as the first day of the year 1900. The issue was a legacy of computer programs from the 1960s, when engineers used a two-digit code for the year, omitting “19” to save data storage space. 2000 was comfortably far away then. But as that year approached, the concern grew among experts that the faulty interpretation of “00” would wreak havoc on everything from national defense systems and energy grid infrastructure to home mortgage calculations and factory operations. Corporations and governments formed task forces, planned and tested for years leading up to 2000. Large businesses in the U.S. spent an estimated $100 billion creating Y2K compliant programs. Boeing conducted a series of test flights with systems simulating a 2000 rollover to safeguard its 10,500 jets in service worldwide. AT&T spent $650 million to bolster its phone system. There was a fair amount of worry, too; IBM attributed its 9% fourth-quarter earnings drop in 1999 to large corporate customers delaying computer purchases. Smooth start to the millennium On Jan. 1, 2000, everything held together with only minor glitches attributed to Y2K. The U.S. Federal Housing Administration listed incorrect dates on a few reports. A Berlin opera company’s system made people born in 1995 appear to be 95 years old, rendering their parents ineligible for government-mandated subsidies. A video store in New York state foisted a $91,250 charge on a customer who, according to their computers, returned a rented movie 100 years late. There were some airline flight delays and a few other snafus...

A Sixth Sense

Did you know that Cat® sells phones and smartphones? A new version of smartphone was introduced at the  Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month. The Cat S60 is the company’s new flagship product, the world’s first smartphone with integrated thermal camera, once a very expensive tool used only by law enforcement and the military. Initially, the FLIR ONE thermal camera begun life as a cumbersome case for the iPhone 5, then turned into a dongle that connected to the microUSB or Apple Lightning port. In the new smartphone though, the Lepton sensor that enable FLIR cameras to see in darkness has been integrated into the device itself, next to its standard rear camera. “To stand out from the crowd in today’s smartphone market requires true innovation and we are proud to partner with FLIR to announce what is truly a world’s first,” said Peter Stephens, CEO Bullitt Group, global mobile device licensee for Caterpillar. “The Cat S60 represents a milestone for smartphones. We are excited for thermal technology to be in the hands of Cat phones customers and to discover the myriad of daily time and efficiency use cases it will present for them.” A sixth sense “We are delighted to work on the latest Cat phone with Bullitt Group, to integrate our thermal camera into their proven, industrialized smartphone to create a truly innovative and groundbreaking mobile product,” said Andy Teich, President and CEO of FLIR. “The CAT S60 presents mobile users around the world with new capabilities – a ‘sixth sense’ experience that only thermal imaging can offer.” Cat S60 is also waterproof to depths of up to 5 meters for one hour, during which time it can be used as an underwater camera, pushing the boundaries of mobile technology. The...

Remix OS

The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona had many attractions this year. Among them, Remix OS in beta, now available for download. The alpha version of product was introduced earlier this year at CES. It’s an Android fork with desktop features that can run on pretty much any x86 computer. Work on the Androidx86 Open Source Project started in 2009 with the initiative of computer engineer Chih-Wei Huang. Over time, the project lead to an official partnership with Jide Technology. The foundation of Remix OS for PC is a custom engineered version of Android Lollipop – Remix OS 2.0. The Google Play Store in not pre-loaded onto the OS, as the Jide is still waiting for Google’s approval to directly integrate Google Play Services and the Play Store. These items have been side-loaded at the moment (not optional) and it is a bit of a hassle to test it. However, the company says they are in constant discussion with Google about this and they’re confident they’ll receive full approval later this year. Jide Technology announced the beta version, a more stable build with support for 32-bit hardware and dual-boot support through the new hard drive installer. Moreover, it brings in OTA update options. In other words, users won’t have to worry about losing data (theoretically) when performing an update. Remix takes basic Android and adds all those elements present in any Mac or PC—support for mice and keyboards, a windowed interface, a file manager, system bar and a dock at the bottom of the screen for the apps. Other changes from Alpha to Beta include over 50 major bugs fixed, UEFI support added, and 32-bit support added alongside 64-bit. Remix OS allows users to run Android apps and games such as Clash of Clans, Microsoft...

Samsung Unpacked

Samsung decided it was wise to move the Unpacked event up earlier than usual. In previous years, the unveiling of new devices took place a week before Apple’s fall iPhone launch. So last week, New York City hosted the Galaxy Note 5 launch extravaganza a few weeks sooner than previous years, introducing a pair of 5.7-inch devices: the flat, S-pen-equipped Galaxy Note 5 and the curved-screen, no-pen Galaxy S6 Edge Plus. At a first glance, it’s not wrong to say that in many ways, the Galaxy Note 5 is the larger version of the Galaxy S6, just as S6 Edge Plus is the larger version of the S6 Edge. The Galaxy Note 5 seems like a combination of the Galaxy S6 we’ve seen earlier this year with the Note 4 from last year, showing a familiar shape and size. However, even though Samsung recycled a lot of what we saw in the Galaxy S6, it is working hard at replacing the cheap plastic feel its previous devices had, with a glass back and front, held together by a metal chassis. Specs-wise, the Note 5 sports the same octa-core Samsung Exynos processor as the S6, with the difference that this time it’s paired with 4GB or RAM. The device comes with 32 or 64GB of storage, not offering the larger 128GB. What’s even worse is that the microSD card support is gone, and this might upset many of its fans. Further, the 3,000mAh battery is smaller than the one in last year’s Note 4, and the removable battery is also gone. As compensation, the company integrated wireless charging and quick charging. Note 5 has the same 16MP camera with OIS like the S6, and the 5.7-inch Super AMOULED display has the same quad HD resolution....

OnePlus 2

Remember last year’s $300 smartphone? If you liked it, soon is your chance to upgrade to the next generation of good, cheap smartphones built by the Chinese manufacturer OnePlus. Following OnePlus One – the little Android that could –  OnePlus 2 has already requested by over 2.6 million people, even though the device has just been unveiled, with the official launch scheduled for later this month. The new OnePlus phone shows significant improvements to the specifications while keeping the price relatively low – $329 (£239) for 16GB, $389 (£289) for 64GB. Sandwiched in the middle of this meaty smartphone are high quality ingredients paired tastefully for a satisfying experience. OnePlus 2 is fueled by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor that’s been tweaked to correct the notorious overheating issue experienced in other phones. The octa-core runs at 1.8GHz with 4GB or RAM if you opt for the model with 64GB of internal storage; only 3GB of RAM are allocated for the 16GB version of the phone. Both have Adreno 430 GPU running graphics duty. The device is powered by a 3300mAh non-removable battery, ample enough to get you through the day without recharging. One of the downsides of the device is the missing micro-SD card slot and of the NFC chip (present on last year’s model). Yet, OnePlus 2 features dual nano SIM support with 4GT LTE capability. An interesting addition is the new USB Type C port and charger made popular by the new MacBook, making OnePlus 2 one of the few smartphones out there that’s laying the bricks for the adoption of the USB-C. Furthermore, the company claims that the OnePlus charging cable uses patented technology that makes the Type-A side reversible as well. The smartphone comes equipped with a fingerprint scanner too,...

Project Tango Tablet

Google likes to play, and the company’s innovative ATAP group has been toying with a 3D-mapping project  that would enable hardware to approximate with the same visual acuity of the human eye. The feature was already available in autonomous robots and military research labs, but Google’s Advanced Technologies and Projects division wants to make it available to everyone. Project lead Johnny Lee and his team intend to break the boundaries of mobile devices, currently limited to their own screens, and extend to them the human-scale understanding of space and motion. The mission is to build mobile devices capable of using depth sensors and high-spec cameras to craft three-dimensional maps more cheaply and easily than existing efforts. In collaboration with universities, research labs, and industrial partners, the team has built prototypes and shared them with developers who can imagine a wide range of possibilities and work on bringing those ideas into reality. So far ATAP released two pieces of hardware: a prototype smartphone equipped with Kinect-like 3D sensors and other components and a more powerful seven-inch tablet. The tablet has a 1080p display that runs on Android 4.4 KitKat powered by NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra K1 chip next to 4GB of RAM and 128GB internal storage, without microSD slot. Additionally it features USB 3.0, micro-HDMI, Bluetooth LE and LTE. The Tango tablet was built with a depth sensor on the back and two cameras: one has a 4MP sensor capable of offering high light sensitivity and fast speeds, and the other tracks motion more broadly with a 170-degree wide-angle fisheye lens. Designed with developers in mind, the tablet doesn’t focus on aesthetics, but doesn’t disregard it completely. The cameras are mounted at a 13-degree angle to give the needed view for gathering accurate data without having...

Apple Springs Forward

Clocks sprung forward announcing spring and so did Apple one week ago in San Francisco, where the latest devices and services were announced. Some of them were expected, having been announced in late 2014, some of them were surprises which kicked up international conversation. A brief review of the company’s numbers reminded the audience why Apple is one of the top companies of the world – 453 retail stores worldwide were visited by 120 million people during the last quarter alone. 700 million iPhones have been sold so far, making the iPhone the top selling device in the world. Apple TV, shy until now, seems to have found a way to outgrow the 25 million units sold so far. HBO Now will launch in early April at $14.99 per month with Apple as exclusive partner. For the event, Apple has lowered the price of its device from $99 to $69. Apple Pay has seen a positive trajectory, too. From the initial six banks that originally supported the initiative, it now has reached over 2,500 banks and won’t be stopping there. Tim Cook announced that soon vending machines will work with Apple Pay. CarPlay is also working its way up; over 40 models of cars will offer it by the end of this year. Perhaps even more interesting is the announcement that every “major” auto manufacturer has committed to using it. CarPlay’s mission is to increase safety while driving by making major phone features easier and safer to use, such as text-to-speech and voice recognition. Apple decided to step up and help health innovation with the new iOS software framework ResearchKit. It was built after close collaboration with 12 research institutions, among which are the University of Oxford and Stanford. This new app lets people volunteer to join medical research studies and also take tests to detect walking in line, vocal variations, or tapping in rhythm to test for Parkinson’s disease. Users decide how to share their data, and can decline to share it with Apple if they wish. ResearchKit will be open source, available next month, but with the first five tests built with it are already available. These help people participate in tests for Parkinson’s, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma, and breast cancer. A new MacBook entered the scene; it completely stole the spotlight, thought to be reserved this spring for the Apple Watch. For many years now, Apple hasn’t made any changes in MacBook Air’s core design, the top of the line thin-and-light laptop. One port to connect them all The new 12-inch MacBook device is the result of a complete revamp that dumps virtually every conventional port – Thunderbolt, SD card slot, power connector – in favor of a pair: a single USB Type-C connection and an audio jack. The USB-C connector supports power, DisplayPort, VGA, data, and HDMI. Apple focused on wireless connectivity using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth; the company will sell VGA and HDMI adapters separately, meaning that only DisplayPort, charging, and USB 3.1 connectivity is supported natively through the single port. This advance helped turn the 12-inch MacBook into the slimmest, lightest MacBook ever; and a very silent one, too. The new MacBook doesn’t make a sound as it flaunts a fanless design, a feature that required a complete makeover. Under the hood it sports a new energy-efficient Core M Intel processor that sits in a logic board 67 percent smaller than Apple’s previous best. It runs at 1.1GHz that can Turbo Boost to 2.9GHz, consuming a mere 5 watts of power. Intel HD Graphics 5300, 8GB memory and 256GB SSD complete the logic board. The keyboard lies from edge-to-edge with closer together keys than its counterparts. The real novelty is in the engineering effort to create a new keyboard switch that replaces the scissor switches that power most laptop keyboards: the “Butterfly mechanism.” The new mechanism uses a single assembly with a stainless steel...