It’s Monday 15th of February 2016, let’s do the latest tech stories, first up VR headsets have up until now required the support of either a smartphone or a PC.
They either allow you to slot in your phone into the headset or your computer does all the graphical heavy lifting. Well now Google is said to be working on a new headset that would dispense with any external device and be completely standalone. It wouldn’t even require a games console. It is apparently going to feature two outward facing cameras and powerful CPUs and GPUs developed by startup Movidius.
I can’t imagine this thing will be super cheap as it would effectively be like having a console strapped to your face. Nevertheless, it’s another example of how this new emerging technology of virtual reality will likely have multiple different interpretations before it becomes standardised.
Moving on, a very serious bug has been discovered in Apple’s iOS operating system, which permanently bricks iOS devices. So be aware and never try this one at home. Some recent iPads and iPhones can be bricked if the user manually sets the date of their device back to January 1st 1970. This famous date is known in the computing world as Epoch Time, also known as Unix time. This is a system for describing instants in time, defined as the number of seconds that have elapsed since Thursday 1st of January 1970 not counting leap seconds.
Users who do this to their devices report them becoming unresponsive when they are restarted. Some people say it goes away after 5 hours, others say it can only be resolved by a visit to the Apple store. Affected models include iOS devices with 64-Bit processors of the A7, A8, A8X, A9 and A9X variety. Apple is likely working on a software fix for this issue, until then, do not try this at home, not that you’d have any reason to.
Next up, on the subject of iPhones and iPads, the iPad Air 3 and new 4-inch iPhone are rumoured to go on sale on Friday March 18th. This new 4-inch iPhone is set to replace the iPhone c series, so you shouldn’t confuse it with the upcoming 4.7 and 5.5-inch iPhone 7 series. The new 4-inch iPhone is rumoured to have support for NFC for Apple Pay as well as a metal back and curved edge design. In other words, it should look a lot like the current iPhone 6 and 6s.
Space news next, The LIGO Laboratory in Louisiana has revealed that they have discovered Einstein’s hypothesised gravitational waves. The Laser Interferometer Graviational-Wave Observatory said that the waves they found are as a result of two blackholes colliding at half the speed of light over 1.3 billion years ago. The finding is said to be one of the biggest breakthroughs in modern scientific history.
Finally guys the war on ad blockers continues and the war against ad blocker blockers continues also. A new extension has emerged on numerous web browsers that helps users circumnavigate software that disables ad blockers. So those websites like Wired that try to disable ad blockers will have to come up with another way to get their ads in front of people. It’s getting to an almost laughable stage where there’s a kind of ad blocking warfare going on.
A website that produces content needs to be able to support itself through its ads, it’s just that simple. So they introduce software that prevents the use of an ad blocker. Then a user installs an anti-ad blocker blocker to counteract this. What’s next, Anti-adblock blocker blockers? Then adblocking blocker blocker blockers? This is an insane tug of war and something that needs to be addressed.
It seems those using ad blockers want everything for free. The thing they fail to realise is that if it were not for the ads, they wouldn’t be able to get the content because it wouldn’t exist. I think those who use ad blockers are simply thinking to themselves, “let someone else pay for the content by looking at ads, it’s not like me seeing ads is really going to make any difference”. The trouble is if everyone thinks that way then there will be no ads being viewed and no money being made to support websites, writers, bloggers and YouTubers. I hate ads too but they are the only way this system of free content can work, otherwise everything will be put behind a pay wall and that won’t end well.
And finally guys I will leave you with today’s tech question: How many computers and or mobile devices are connected to your home network? For me it’s only 3 in total, 1 iMac, 1 MacBook Pro and 1 iPad.
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