Monthly Archive:: October 2016

I was really disappointed with today's Apple event. It seems like Apple has either lost its way, that it has lost touch with what (some of) its customers want, or that it simply doesn't care about those customers. Developers are a captive audience, and creative professionals can switch to Windows, I guess. Apple no longer considers them core.

There's nothing particularly wrong with what Apple announced. I like Thunderbolt 3. The display looks good. I'm not crazy about Touch Bar, but it does seem potentially useful. The problem is that the MacBook Pro is not a true Pro notebook.

It has seemed clear for a while that the CEO doesn't really understand the Mac, or simply doesn't like it that much, and that's a problem for those of us who do.

Although I can't switch wholesale just yet, I see no real reason why I can't use Elementary for around 80% of the stuff I do - probably even more with a few adjustments on my part.

And that, in and by itself, should tell you how much Apple has dropped the ball here.

In a series of tweets sent out last night, and now in an interview with The Verge, developer Steven Troughton-Smith has detailed the inner workings of the MacBook Pro's new retina Touch Bar, describing its T1 chip as "a variant of the system-on-a-chip used in the Apple Watch." This means that the Touch Bar is essentially running watchOS on the T1 chip, which macOS then communicates with through an interconnected USB bridge that "relays multitouch events back to macOS."

The developer described this software setup as advantageous for the MacBook Pro's security, since the T1 chip also acts as a layer of protection and "gates access" to the laptop's FaceTime camera and Touch ID sensor. In the series of Tweets he sent out last night, Troughton-Smith also theorized that watchOS could power the Touch Bar alone without relying on macOS to be running on the MacBook Pro, which Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi has now confirmed.

With the final major capability for BPF tracing (timed sampling) merging in Linux 4.9-rc1, the Linux kernel now has raw capabilities similar to those provided by DTrace, the advanced tracer from Solaris. As a long time DTrace user and expert, this is an exciting milestone! On Linux, you can now analyze the performance of applications and the kernel using production-safe low-overhead custom tracing, with latency histograms, frequency counts, and more.

When I first saw the device months ago in that secret room at MS, they asked me what I thought. I said, "Well I have no idea if anyone else will want it, but you have made my dream computer." I recognize that not everyone needs or wants a computer they can draw on. Some people do though and I will tell you that the Surface Studio is without a doubt the best digital drawing experience I have ever tried. I was trying to help Tycho understand why the Studio was so exciting. I spend 6 to 10 hours a day drawing digitally and I have for more than a decade. The Cintiq and the Surface, these are like my tools or my instruments. I am intimately familiar with how it feels to create things on these sorts of devices and the Studio honestly feels like a generational leap forward. If you are a digital artist and you are currently working on a Cintiq you have to go to a MS store and look at the Studio. I've always given you my honest take on this stuff and this time is no different even though I can't think of anything bad to say. If you draw on computers the Surface Studio is something very special.

Hyperion Entertainment is pleased to announce the first official Workbench 3.1 and Kickstart 3.1 updates in over twenty years for Classic Amiga systems. The new versions, which have have been re-built from the original source code, include a number of enhancements and bug fixes and are fully compatible with both real Amiga hardware and Classic Amiga emulation software.

The worldwide smartwatch market experienced a round of growing pains in the third quarter of 2016 (3Q16), resulting in a year-over-year decline in shipment volumes. According to data from the International Data Corporation, (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker, total smartwatch volumes reached 2.7 million units shipped in 3Q16, a decrease of 51.6% from the 5.6 million units shipped in 3Q15. Although the decline is significant, it is worth noting that 3Q15 was the first time Apple's Watch had widespread retail availability after a limited online launch. Meanwhile, the second generation Apple Watch was only available in the last two weeks of 3Q16.

I show that there's yet another impossible coin in the game, located in the huge version of Tiny-Huge Island. Specifically, there's a coin spawner there that's intended to spawn 5 coins in a horizontal line on the ground. However, this coin spawner's located under the ground, causing the most uphill coin to not load properly. In particular, this coin spawns about 49 units below the ground, triggering a failsafe that causes the coin to immediately unload. Currently, there's no known way to collect this coin.

As both a console and a portable device, the Nintendo Switch will use cartridges known as Game Cards. The portability is one of the system's most important features; Nintendo's trailer showed people using the Switch in handheld mode on a plane, in a car and on a city rooftop. Nintendo said that people can bring multiple Switch units into the same place for "local multiplayer face-to-face competition."

So, everyone who'd been criticizing Apple and iPhone design immediately called Google out for aping it?

Not so much.

Surely they drew the line at Google's 2016 flagship missing optical image stabilization - not just in the regular-size, but in the Plus XL model as well - stereo speakers, and water resistance - things that were pointed to last year as indicators Apple was falling behind?

Turns out, not deal-breakers either.

It's almost like the Pixel is being graded on a curve.

When it was revealed last week that police used a social media monitoring program to track protestors, it inspired outrage, and major tech companies immediately cut off API access for the tool. But at least one of those companies had prior opportunity to know what the tool, Geofeedia, was capable of. According to three former Geofeedia employees who spoke with The Verge, Facebook itself used the tool for corporate security. Facebook, according to two of the sources, even used Geofeedia to catch an intruder in Mark Zuckerberg's office.

Microsoft is now hard at work developing the next major update for Windows 10. Codenamed 'Redstone 2', this next update is rumored to launch in the Spring of 2017 and will focus on productivity improvements for the desktop, and will bring much-needed features and enhancements to Windows 10 Mobile users.

This is Google's first phone, and for a first effort it is remarkably good. By almost every metric I can think of - speed, power, camera, smart assistant, you name it - it matches or exceeds the best phones available on the market today. And though the design is far from groundbreaking, it's certainly approachable. The whole package is pretty incredible, and if you're not put off by the premium price, you'll be very happy with this premium phone. I prefer the XL, which isn't huge and seems to get notably better battery life

If you're an Android fan, willing to buy a premium phone, the Pixel is your answer. To repeat: it’s simply the best Android phone I've tested. If you're an iPhone user thinking of switching, the Pixel will seem physically familiar, but you'll have to overcome the sticky links you've developed with fellow iPhone users, things like iMessage (which Google can't match yet) and iCloud Photo Sharing (which Google is trying to copy). You'll also have to do without the comfort of your neighborhood Genius Bar.

But my main message, dear readers, is this: Google has come out of the gate with a top-flight phone and suddenly, there’s no longer an Apple-Samsung duopoly in premium handsets.

Android people, please step forward. Good news! Your next phone-buying decision just got a heck of a lot easier. The Google Pixel is now the best Android smartphone you can buy. The other leading contender was disqualified due to spontaneous combustion.

iPhone people, it's your turn. Ask yourself: Why do I have an iPhone? Is it because of its software, services and privacy policies? Or is it because it's a very good phone for things like Google Maps, Gmail, Spotify and Facebook Messenger? If you've answered yes to the latter, the Pixel may be for you, too.

The Google Pixel XL is my new daily driver. As for the smaller Pixel, I know it's going to take a lot to tear Daniel Bader away from this compact Android powerhouse. Both are excellent smartphones which we can wholeheartedly recommend, even with their sky-high price tags. The question of whether a smartphone can be worth $700 to $1,000 in 2016 is a debate altogether. But if any phone is worth that amount of cash, the Pixels are. Just as that same argument can be made for the iPhone 7 or Galaxy S7.

The KDE Restoration Project was a personal pet project which was born around last QtCon, and I took as a letter of love for the project that basically formed my professional life.

What you're seeing here is the last KDE 1 release running on a modern system from 2016!