Posts tagged apple

New superyacht is controlled by an iPad.

The Adastra is a £15-million superyacht which can be controlled by an iPad. The 42m yacht has a maximun speed of 22.5 knots, and can go from the UK to New York without refueling.

It also looks heaps like the UFO from the 80s movie Flight of the Navigator!

New technique allows for cheaper high resolution displays.

A new manufacturing technique being adopted by electronics manufacturers will allow very high resolution displays (similar to Apple’s ‘Retina Display’) to be produced at cheaper costs. The technique was previously only possible for research and development projects, but will now be able to be implemented on a  wider scale across tablets, phones and even televisions.

Applied Materials’s new machines perform plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), a process that deposits thin films of material onto surfaces. The machinery makes it possible to produce displays that use a different material for the display’s backplane—the layer of transistors that sits behind the display and controls its pixels. That material, known as indium gallium zinc oxide, or IGZO, makes it easier and cheaper to build displays with extra-dense pixels, like the one Apple installed in the latest iPad. Making displays with this kind of resolution larger than seven inches diagonally would be impossible without using IGZO, Applied Materials claims.

“I would expect to see products this year,” says Doug Hayden, senior director of global product management at Applied Materials’s displays division, AKT. “It will probably be tablets followed by TVs, but it will be close.” In TVs, the new material will mean both higher resolution and faster refresh rates.

Apple’s ‘other’ founder on why he left the company after only 12 days.

Although most people know Apple was founded by ‘the two Steves’, there was in fact a third person - Ron Wayne.

According to Wikipedia: 

Apple was established on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. Apple was incorporated January 3, 1977 without Wayne, who sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800.

Yup, only $800. Even accounting for inflation, he still lost out on millions by deciding to quit. Now in a new book and on a Facebook post, he explains that even if he knew how successful Apple would become, he still would have left.

If I had known it would make 300 people millionaires in only four years, I would have stayed those four years. And then I still would have walked away. Steve and Steve had their project. They wanted to change the world in their way. I wanted to change the world in my own.

Check out the full post, here.

Apple set to become the world’s first ‘trillion dollar company’.

According to this analysis, Apple could be worth over one trillion dollars within the next three years.

Apple is expected to be trading at $1,200 a share 3 years in the future. Assuming 950 million shares outstanding, the company is projected to have a market capitalization of $1.14 trillion making it the first trillion dollar company on the planet. At current levels, although hard to believe, Apple is grossly mispriced by the market and is a bargain.

iPad 3 infographic sure has a lot of info.

Hit this link for the original version if it’s not big enough to read - the original also has heaps more info.

The iPad 3 is widely rumoured to be announced on 7 March.

Eyes-free texting app developed.

Georgia Tech researchers have developed an app which allows people to text without looking at the screen. BrailleTouch uses the Braille writing system which would make it familiar for blind people to use, but the researchers hope it could be developed into a system for sighted people looking for an alternative text-entry method.

Early studies with visually impaired participants proficient in Braille typing have demonstrated that users can input at least six times the number of words per minute when compared to other research prototypes for eyes-free texting on a touch screen. Users reach up to 32 words per minute with 92 percent accuracy with the prototype app for the iPhone.

iPhone sales outpace births.

Apple sold 37 million iPhones in the December quarter, at an average rate of 4.6 per second. The current global birth rate is 4.2 per second.

While the United Nations predicts the birth rate will soon climb to five births a second - as the global population surpasses 7 billion - the rate of smartphones sales is likely to grow even faster.

I’d love to know the international death rate vs the rate of broken iPhones. Or how many babies are responsible for broken phones, I know my kid likes to throw technology in the toilet - RIP Nintendo DS :(

A report earlier this week also shows that the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the number of people on earth by the end of this year - read about that here.

Next version of Mac OS X announced.

Slightly old news but I missed this yesterday, ironically I was too busy playing with the new 13inch MacBook Air that just arrived on my doorstep!

Apple have announced OS X 10.8, or Mountain Lion, which is available now to developers, or “Summer 2012” to everybody else. Just like Lion before it, Mountain Lion will bring over more features from iOS, such as the Messages App, Share Sheets, Twitter integration, Game Center, and further iCloud integration.

AirPlay Mirroring will allow the Mac screen to be displayed on your home TV, via an Apple TV. Notification Center will group all new updates to one list on the side of your screen.

I was unfamiliar with what ‘Share Sheets’ meant, but according to Apple:

When you see it, share it. You’ll find the Share button in many OS X Mountain Lion apps. It’s the new, easy way to spread the word — links, photos, and videos, too. Send links from Safari. Send your notes via Mail and Messages. Post photos to Flickr. Send videos to Vimeo. And tweet just about anything.

Android 5.0 to beat Windows 8 to market?

A Digitimes report has indicated that Android 5.0 (Jelly Bean) will be released in the second quarter of 2012, ahead of an anticipated Windows 8 release in the third quarter.

According to supply chain sources, Google is hoping new tablets will be powerful enough to support dual operating systems, while planning to push Andriod onto notebooks and netbooks as well.

Android 5.0 will be further optimized for tablet PCs, while Google will also integrate its Chrome system functions to push dual-operating system designs. Brand vendors can either choose to adopt only Android 5.0 or add Android 5.0 to Windows 8 devices with the ability to switch between the two OSes without the need to shut down the computer.