Monday, December 31, 2018

Happy New Year

Happy Solar New Year everyone!

No. we’re not back yet, but we will be soon!

Friday, December 21, 2018

Mele Kalikimaka


Merry Christmas to all. Our offices will be closed until

after Christmas.

Thursday, December 20, 2018

AT&T 5G Network

Squeaking in just under the wire for its promised “end
of 2018” 5G network launch, AT&T said this morning that
its network is now live in parts of 12 cities across the
United States, with the first mobile 5G device arriving on
Friday, December 21.

According to an AT&T spokesperson, the company’s 5G
network is already up and running in parts of the previously
promised dozen cities: Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston,
Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Louisville, Oklahoma City, New
Orleans, Raleigh, San Antonio, and Waco. However, the
first consumer device that will be able to access that network,

available just ahead of the Christmas holiday.

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

New Lenovo Phone

While Lenovo continues to push the Motorola brand in
the West, it's also been busy doing its own thing back in
China. Just last month, the company brought us the Z5
Pro all-screen slider phone which, to our surprise, packed
mid-tier specs to woo the budget-conscious consumers.
That's all well and good, but surely such a special form
factor deserves the best specs available, right? This is
where the new Z5 Pro GT comes in.

Announced at the Beijing event today, this new Android
phone comes loaded with up to 12GB of RAM -- a new
record for smartphones -- along with up to 512GB of storage.
It's also the second smartphone confirmed to feature
Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 855 chipset, though unlike

won't be packing 5G radio.

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Lay's Advent Calendar

Advent calendar season isn't over yet—while most brands
drop theirs in October or November (looking at you,
Reese's and Bonne Maman) Lay's just entered the game
with a 12-day, potato chip-filled version of their own. Called
the "12 Days of Flavors" Countdown Calendar, it makes you
work for those snacks. Kind of.

There's a different bag of chips hiding behind each door, but
you can only unlock them by answering a series of riddles.
(Or you can just, you know, open the doors—they're cardboard.
But we're playing along here.) Some riddles are fairly obvious
("This 'mesquite-o' doesn't leave a bite..."), while others are a
bit more head-scratching ("A flavor that'll keep you warm
during the holidays" points to something spicy, for sure, but it
could be anything from Kettle-Cooked Jalepeno to Flamin'
Hot). There are even a few riddles written exclusively in emojis.

The limited-edition calendars aren't available in stores, but
Lay's is giving them away on Instagram (@lays) for free,
starting today. Just look out for the entry call on the Lay’s
InstaStory, submit a comment, and you have a shot. In other
Lay's news, the company is currently gauging public opinion
Instagram (so far, reactions are...mixed).

If sweet-filled advent calendars are more your thing, there are
still some options available. Bonne Maman's super popular
jam version is currently going for $59 on Amazon (up quite a
bit from its original $30 price tag) while Reese's has a month-
long calendar for $14 (getting caught up by eating two weeks'
worth of peanut butter cups is half the fun). Or, if you're a
coffee lover, you could pick up The Yawn Coffee Advent
Calendar from Yawn Coffee Co.—it comes packed with 24
different craft coffee sachets, each one containing exactly the
right amount of either ground or whole beans for one perfect

cup.

Monday, December 17, 2018

Apple to Get Around China Ban

Apple Inc, facing a court ban in China on some of its
iPhone models over alleged infringement of Qualcomm
Inc patents, said on Friday it will push software updates
to users in a bid to resolve potential issues.

Apple will carry out the software updates at the start of
next week “to address any possible concern about our
compliance with the order”, the firm said in a statement
sent to Reuters.

Earlier this week, Qualcomm said a Chinese court had
ordered a ban on sales of some older iPhone models for
violating two of its patents, though intellectual property
lawyers said the ban would likely take time to enforce.

“Based on the iPhone models we offer today in China,
we believe we are in compliance,” Apple said.

“Early next week we will deliver a software update for
iPhone users in China addressing the minor functionality
of the two patents at issue in the case.”

In a statement, Qualcomm’s general counsel Don
Rosenberg said “Apple continues to disregard and violate
the Fuzhou court’s orders” despite the planned software
Changes.

“They are legally obligated to immediately cease sales,
offers for sale and importation of the devices identified in
the orders and to prove compliance in court,” he said in

the statement.

Friday, December 14, 2018

Smart Speaker Prices

Signs that Apple’s HomePod smart speaker has been
less than a blockbuster are increasing–and the market
for lower-priced smart speakers is expanding.

It’s gotten pretty easy to buy a HomePod for well under
the official $349 retail price. B&H Photo is selling it for
$250, a hundred-buck discount. So is Target, although
its website says the device is currently out of stock.
Best Buy has HomePods for $280.

It’s not just third-party retailers. Apple itself has been
sending promo codes out to Apple Music subscribers in

the U.K., offering a roughly 20% discount on a HomePod.

Thursday, December 13, 2018

Google Apps

Google has recently removed 22 Android apps from the
Play Store. The apps were removed for abusing Android
devices to load and click on ads behind the users' backs.

The Google Play Store has been plagued by an adware
epidemic these past few months, as ZDNet detailed in a

What made this particular Android adware campaign stand
out wasn't the fact that the infected apps clicked ads behind
users' backs, but the fact that the apps disguised the
Android device as an iPhone in the eyes of online
Advertisers.

The reason for this highly unusual behavior is that ad
networks value traffic from Apple devices more than
Android, Linux, or Windows. This particular adware
gang appears to have noticed this small detail and

reacted accordingly.

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

MSFT: We're Number Two

Microsoft has once again asserted that 1.5 billion PCs
around the world run on Windows.

It posts the figure in its newly updated Microsoft by the
Numbers website, which also shows off that Cortana has
been asked 18 billion questions, facts about the company's
artificial-intelligence activities, donations, and its carbon
Footprint.

The number is consistent with figures that Microsoft has
previously set out about Windows adoption. Apple has
about 1.3 billion active iOS devices, while Google reports
about two billion active Android devices.

Microsoft in July said just under 700 million PCs are running
Windows 10, up from 500 million in May. Last week, the
the enterprise are running Windows 10.

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Alexa Update

In a big Alexa update today, Amazon doles out a ton of
new smarts for its voice assistant, including location-
based routines, reminders and discovery; Wait Actions
and more controls over timers; app notifications; and the
ability to read and summarize your email vocally with
voice-to-text replies.

For instance, you can now set up routines and reminders
that trigger when you enter or leave an area. When you're
out of reach of your smart speaker, it will send a notification
via the Alexa app. It can also use your location to find and
call nearby businesses.

Time-based capabilities in routines introduce Wait Actions --
for example, a Night routine of  "Alexa, turn off the lights 30
minutes after entering Do Not Disturb" -- oh, and there's now
a Do Not Disturb available within routines, too. You can set a
music sleep timer, and control all timers via voice (including

adding and subtracting time for an existing timer).

Monday, December 10, 2018

Samsung Driverless Technology

Samsung is collaborating with the Korea Transportation
Safety Authority (KOTSA) to develop mobile network
infrastructure for autonomous vehicles at the recently
opened K-City test facility.

K-City, for the uninitiated, is one of a number of “fake cities”
that have emerged as test beds for the latest smart city
technologies. Google parent company Alphabet last year
offered a glimpse into Castle, a key test hub for its driverless
car subsidiary, Waymo. Incidentally, Waymo launched its first
commercial self-driving car service in Phoenix just yesterday.
And Russia opened a tech-focused “town” called Innopolis
back in 2012, where Yandex recently kickstarted tests for its
autonomous taxis.

Friday, December 7, 2018

5G Not Ready For Prime time

This week has seen the hype for 5G, the creatively titled
successor to 4G mobile internet connectivity, go from a
simmer to a boil as Qualcomm, AT&T, Verizon, and
Samsung rattled off a series of launch plans for early
next year, while Apple was reported to be sitting out
the technology until at least 2020. As much as I love the
excitement surrounding the introduction of the new cellular
networking standard, I’m inclined to think that Apple has it
right: none of us should be factoring 5G into our phone
purchases in the coming year.

It’s not that 5G isn’t hugely promising. Samsung today
issued a press release saying it’s achieved a throughput
of 1.7Gbps with a combination of Verizon’s spectrum and
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 5G modem. That’s the best-
case scenario, but even Qualcomm’s real-world modeling
suggests a still-impressive jump to speeds of around 490
Mbps, an order of magnitude improvement from the 4G
LTE networks we have today that typically offer connections
of around 20Mbps to 50Mbps.

But pay attention to the circumstances here: both Samsung
and Qualcomm are telling us about their lab results. No
carrier or manufacturer is walking around cities with actual 5G
devices yet and giving us truly real-world measurements. At
Qualcomm’s big 5G get-together in Hawaii yesterday, my
colleague Sean Hollister was only shown one Samsung 5G
phone, which he wasn’t allowed to touch, a 5G Moto Mod,
and a couple of chunky 5G mobile hot spots, and none of

those devices exhibited speeds higher than 140Mbps.