About ghost letters without a sender and addressee, a dual camera in the new iPhone, drone races, modular smartphones and more …
Letters from the past and emails
Before starting the main release, a few words about the sensational bug iPhone, which unexpectedly received a funny continuation. Let me remind you that we are talking about a bug with a change of date, in which users who changed the system time to midnight on January 1, 1970, faced a cyclical restart of their smartphone. You can read about the reasons for such a sad behavior of the device, as well as about some other famous bugs (many of which cost humanity dearly), in a separate article.
Offtopic: bugs and their consequences
As far as iPhone is concerned, as far as I know, the date issue was quickly resolved in one of the subsequent updates. Although I strongly advise against testing it on my own skin. It would seem that this story can be safely forgotten, but the mail client iPhone decided differently. Some time after the restoration of the device's performance, some unlucky experimenters began to receive empty letters without a subject, text and sender. There is only a date – January 1, 1970.
Why have I just got an email from 1970 .. pic.twitter.com/B2Tv93cPlL
– ponyflo (@Flo_Cox) March 4, 2016
@Jordan_Fearnley Came from the NSA I guess. They've been storing all our stuff for decades.
– Charlotte Jones (@ firedup99) March 8, 2016
What's going on? I'm being emailed from the 1970s. pic.twitter.com/qWEq61t0Zy
– Matthew Howett (@howett) March 6, 2016
You cannot delete such messages in the usual way; you have to experiment with changing time zones or simply reset the smartphone settings.
Link to news
In fact, the behavior of the system is absolutely logical, and the absence of a sender should not surprise us at all. The fact is that the familiar e-mail with mail servers and addresses like [email protected] appeared only in 1971. It was invented by Ray Tomlinson, an engineer at BBN Technologies (at that time – Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc), and he also suggested using the symbol '@' According to his memoirs, the text of the very first letter that was transmitted over the ARPANET network from one computer on the network on the other, it was something like 'QWERTYUIOP'.
Although the first prototype of e-mail dates back to 1965, when Noel Morris and Tom Van Vleck wrote the Mail program for the CTSS operating system. Only at that time, messages were sent there within the same mainframe and had the address format 'computer! User'. And later, when it became possible to exchange messages between different computers through some third node, the address format became: 'gateway! Computer! User'. That is, the user had to manually prescribe the entire route along which the letter should go. Which is more like the delivery of a letter by a feeble-minded courier who needs to explain the entire route from point to point step by step, rather than the mail itself.
Unfortunately, not all news is positive. One of the sad news of the past week was the news of the death of Ray Tomlinson, who passed away on March 5 at the age of 74.
Modular smartphone: things to come and reality
There is a chasm between a more or less working prototype and a commercial device. And sometimes quite irresistible. A device that looks great on paper and does not give rise to any complaints on a lab bench may not stand up to a collision with reality.
Take the modular Google Project Ara smartphone. It would seem that the start of sales is already at hand – the presentation of the first smartphone of this line was held by Google a year ago, and even the technical characteristics of the device were named and the geography of sales was indicated.
Offtopic: Google Project Ara as an example of a modular smartphone
But Google engineers did not take into account an ode to a small detail – the magnetic mounts of the modules were not designed for the conditions of real use, and at the first fall the device shattered into a bunch of small pieces. In August last year, the postponement of commercial production was officially announced, and a few days ago a new patent appeared on the network.
True, it is difficult to understand something from it, because such 'trifles' as a detailed description of the design or information about the materials of the case are not given in it.
Link to news
While the Mountain View company is busy developing the most modular smartphone ever invented, LG rightly decided that a bird in hand is better than pie in the sky. I think that if the company simply presented some kind of niche smartphone with a couple of replaceable modules, no one would be particularly surprised, because there are already enough unusual gizmos in the world. But to use this idea in the flagship device is indeed a very bold and interesting move.
If for some reason you missed Artyom's article about LG G5, then I highly recommend reading it. In my opinion, this particular smartphone has become the most striking example of what MWC has really succeeded in this year.
MWC 2016. LG G5
It is curious that at least some of the modules are independent devices that can be connected to any smartphone via a USB Type-C cable. In any case, the Bang & Olufsen Hi-Fi Plus audio module LG was connected to the Google Nexus 6P.
So, even if after a couple of years you decide to change the new product LG to a more classic device, the purchased modules will not become completely useless.
Link to news
I am incredibly glad that in our time of thoughtless copying of other people's ideas and caution bordering on cowardice, there are still companies in the world that are not afraid to go their own way. And not that I really needed a plug-in with an 'advanced' audio head on its own. I am such a connoisseur of sound that I may not even notice much difference. But the fact that the mobile technology market lives and develops, that, as if in the good old days, bright and unique devices are born, is really worth a lot.
There is only one problem – there are very, very few chances that the idea LG will 'take off' and really interest buyers. And the point here is not at all in the idea itself, which many consider necessary only to the 'geeks'. A couple of years ago they said exactly the same thing about the same fingerprint scanner or about voice assistants, since many companies have tried these ideas a long time ago and sent them to the landfill. But all this did not stop them from becoming at first curious 'chips' by which millions of buyers went crazy, and then a kind of standard, which most manufacturers are now equal to.
The problem is solely in the quality of performance. Any idea can become extremely attractive if presented correctly. You just need a little bit of the magic that someone calls the 'spirit of innovation' or 'high fashion', someone calls 'magic Apple', and some even do 'zombie advertising', and users will rush for anything. They will start calculating ppi in Retina displays, be interested in the coolness of the processor in 'pipes', dream of 'shovels' of absolutely inconceivable size, or shout with rapture 'Siri, what's your name ?!' But until there is a feeling that LG they submitted the idea with a modular body correctly. And everything seems to be fine – the device is there, the modules are there, the mounts are convenient.
Only when you look at the photos LG of the G5, you do not get the feeling that the same Nokia devices caused. Which, frankly, were often much weirder and crazier.
Maybe in life everything will be different, and once having taken a smartphone in hand, you simply won't want to part with it, but it's hard to believe in it. And, most likely, all these modules will achieve approximately the same as the Motorla Atrix docking station achieved in due time. That is, absolutely nothing. An interesting and very promising idea, which in a sense was even ahead of its time, but in its current performance it turned out to be of no use to anyone. And even more so for a tidy sum.
Not fair? Maybe. But this is life.
Apple and dual cameras
We have already talked about dual cameras, which are becoming more and more in smartphones every day, in the last issue of the digest. But since then, a couple of news stories have appeared on the network on the same topic.
News digest №87. Steal an idea
So, the Israeli company Corephotonics recently announced a 'double' Hawkeye photomodule with a proprietary bent lens system. It is reported that all this will allow you to zoom the image without losing quality.
The module uses two 13 MP sensors (the final photo is 21 MP). But if we talk about the quality of the digital zoom, then, according to the developers, it will surpass the capabilities of the modules by as much as 130 MP. In addition, the Hawkeye camera will allow you to take good pictures in low light conditions and perform other miracles, but we can already hear this on any presentation of any smartphone.
Link to news
It is even more curious that a new one iPhone can also get a 'dual' camera. Similar rumors have been circulating on the network for a long time, but the closer to the announcement, the more details emerge. Maybe people who are tired of the same type of smartphones are simply trying to invent a sensation out of nothing, or maybe there is really no smoke without fire. But, at least, Apple definitely have such patents, this is a fact.
Based on the information currently available, MacRumors even recorded an entire video detailing the capabilities of such a camera.
Link to news
Drones: game boundaries
There are more and more drones every day, people are gradually getting a taste. Recently I wrote about the announcement of the world's first official 3D drone racing.
Now another similar tournament has appeared on the network. It was named World Drone Prix and will be held in Dubai, the prize fund is $ 1 million.
I can only repeat that the line between game and reality, sports and e-sports is getting thinner. In the video above, the organizers of the tournament compared the work of a drone pilot with the work of a Formula 1 pilot, but I would also add video from the races in some cool computer simulator here.
Now pilots train in special computer simulators, and this does not surprise anyone. But one day, everything can be exactly the opposite and the practice of real flying or driving will become necessary for drone pilots or e-sportsmen.
Link to news
Unfortunately, this phenomenon has another aspect. Sitting behind a monitor or tablet screen, drone owners begin to perceive everything that happens as a fun game. And they have a lot of opportunities to 'play', and spying on neighbors or flying near other people's windows is far from the most unpleasant moment.
So it's no surprise that anti-drone tools are gaining popularity as well, with many of the devices looking equally fantastic. For example, I will give a SkyWall 100 net thrower.
This 'toy' has a lot of possibilities – intelligent targeting (automatic calculation of the force of the shot based on the speed of the drone), target acquisition system, fast reloading and much more.
Link to news
Photos HTC One M10
At the end of the issue – another portion of leaked renders and photos HTC One M10. Although the name is conditional, the smartphone may go on sale under a different name. The main providers of leaks are @evleaks and @onleaks
