Month: October 2016

Enlarge / The fourth-generation Apple TV (left) next to the third-gen model. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

According to an internal e-mail obtained by 9to5Mac, Apple has completely discontinued the third-generation Apple TV and will stop selling it as soon as it fulfills all current orders for the device. It's the end of a long road for that particular Apple TV model, which was introduced in 2012, updated internally in 2013, and discounted to $69 in 2015. Apple is still selling the fourth-generation model with no changes to its price or storage capacity.

Though it was just removed from sale, it ha been well over a year since the third-gen Apple TV received a software update of any great significance. The iOS-based operating system that it runs was still based on iOS 8.4, and though there was some speculation in the run-up to the fourth-generation Apple TV that Apple would build a version of tvOS for the older box, that never came to pass. As it stands, the third-gen model is now two iOS versions behind. It can no longer function as a HomeKit hub, doesn't properly support Apple's new two-factor authentication, can't use features like Apple Music or iCloud Photo Library, and still uses the busted discoveryd DNS service. It can still stream video from its included channels, but it was rapidly falling behind the competition.

Though it was time for the older model to go, this leaves Apple without a midrange or low-end TV streaming box to compete against a wave of new and increasingly capable products in that space from its competitors, including Amazon's new Fire TV stick, the just-announced 4K Chromecast Ultra, and both the $30 Roku Express and the 4K-capable Roku Premiere and Premiere+. And while the fourth-generation Apple TV is still more than fast enough for what it needs to do, paying $149 or $199 for a year-old box that can't handle 4K or HDR content is a tough pill to swallow for anyone not deeply embedded in Apple's ecosystem.

Enlarge (credit: Google)

Don’t laugh, but there may come a time when quantum computers are sorting out your grocery deliveries, and if Paul Clarke, CTO of the online food store Ocado is right, it could be sooner than you think.

In an interview with Ars Clarke revealed his interest in quantum computing to solve the huge mathematical problems that surround automating delivery services. In theory, quantum computing is well suited to probabilistic tasks and will outperform classical computing platforms in this area… just not yet.

Even so, a future move from a binary to a quantum method, while complicated, could ultimately optimise vehicle routing tasks, which feature numerous variables. It could also deliver a boost to Ocado’s forthcoming robot grid technology, optimising the 4D (space and time) conundrums that this much-touted but yet-to-be-unveiled system grapples with.

SAN FRANCISCO—Rumors about the Google Wifi definitely raised some eyebrows. Google already has a router out on the market—the Google OnHub, and even after a year on the market, it isn't fully baked. What would happen to Google OnHub users when Google Wifi launched? Would they be abandoned?

After talking to Google reps at the show, the answer is a resounding "no." While the name might be different, Google isn't changing all that much from its previous router efforts, and the OnHub is still a compatible, supported product. The "Google On" app from the OnHub is still the primary interface for Google Wifi, and the OnHub can be a node in a Google Wifi mesh network.

Google had a few Wifi demo units at the show. Google Wifi is a simple white cylinder with an OnHub-style status light in the center. On the bottom of the unit are two Ethernet ports—one for the modem and another for a switch or single computer. There is also single button on the back to restart the router if it freezes up. The USB-C port on the bottom is a little odd. We were told it was only for power, which if there really are no data capabilities, is an interesting use case for a USB port. There's not too much else to say about the router—it looks nice and relatively compact.

Amazon keeps piling on the Prime perks: on the heels of adding gaming bonuses via Twitch Prime recently, the company has launched a new benefit for readers called Amazon Prime Reading. The service for US Prime members will give them unlimited access to over a thousand Kindle books, magazines, comics, and other reading material at no extra cost.

Some of the included titles are The Hobbit, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, When I'm Gone, The Complete Peanuts Collection Vol. 1, and Transformers: Robots in Disguise Vol. 1. Members can also flip through current issues of magazines including National Geographic Traveler, People, and Sports Illustrated without having subscriptions to those publications.

Enlarge / Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg gives a keynote speech during the SAE Aerotech Congress on September 22, 2015 in Seattle, Washington. (credit: Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)

On Tuesday, a week after Elon Musk's big Mars reveal in Guadalajara, Mexico, Boeing chief executive and chairman Dennis Muilenburg was asked what big innovations his company had planned for its second century of operations. After ticking off a list of flight and aerospace innovations, Muilenburg came to deep space exploration. "First person on Mars. I'm convinced that the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding on a Boeing rocket," Muilenburg confidently said during a Boeing-sponsored tech summit in Chicago called "What's Next."

It doesn't manifest itself publicly all that often, but there is an intense rivalry between Boeing, a blue-blood government contractor with a long history of aerospace firsts, and SpaceX, which has come along in the last decade and threatened the larger's company's space business by offering discounted spaceflight. About the closest thing to trash talking came in 2014, when John Elbon, the head of Boeing's space division, compared the two companies by saying, "We go for substance. Not pizazz."

Boeing, of course, won't be sending anyone to Mars without collecting tens of billions of dollars in federal contracts for its Space Launch System rocket, for which it is NASA's prime contractor. An Ars analysis found that NASA will spend about $60 billion developing and flying the SLS rocket before there's even the possibility of landing four to six humans on Mars in the late 2030s, and that does not include the expense of spacecraft, deep-space habitat,s and accommodations on the surface of Mars.