Month: September 2021

• 

  The iPhone 13 in a variety of colors.

Today, Apple executives took the stage in a virtual streaming event to announce the new flagship iPhone lineup. The iPhone 13 is official.

The body has a similar look to last year, but the cameras in the base model are now arranged diagonally. This year, Apple is cutting down on the size of the front display notch, which still features all the usual Face ID sensors but is now 20% smaller.

The new display in the base model is branded "Super Retina XDR" and is 28 percent brighter, at 800 nits. It comes in 5.4 and 6.1 inches.

Enlarge

As expected, Apple has announced details about the next version of the Apple Watch. Dubbed the Apple Watch Series 7, it has a new retina display with 20% more screen area, brighter indoor performance, and smaller bezels that are 40% thinner.

Apple says the screen is the most durable "crack resistant" display on an Apple Watch, thanks to "stronger geometry." The Series 7 is also IPX6 dust resistant, a first for Apple Watches, in addition to being "swimproof."

There hasn't been much said with regard to new internals. Apple didn't mention a new chip or any other computing components for the watchOS 8 powered device. But there have finally been improvements to charging speeds. With the new USB-C Apple Watch charger, Apple says the Series 7 can charge from zero to 80% in 45 minutes and achieve eight hours of sleep tracking from just an eight-minute charge. Although Series 7's battery charges 33 percent faster than its predecessor, it still has the same 18-hour battery life as the Series 6.

Enlarge / A healthcare worker administers a Covid-19 test to a child at the Austin Regional Clinic drive-thru vaccination and testing site in Austin, Texas, U.S., on Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg)

COVID-19 cases in children have risen 30-fold since late June and are now at record highs, with nearly 500,000 new child cases reported in the past two weeks, according to the latest data released by the American Academy of Pediatrics on Monday. Pediatric cases have "increased exponentially," the AAP said in a statement.

The rise coincides with a dramatic surge in overall COVID-19 transmission driven by the hypertransmissible delta variant. But with more adults vaccinated, children are getting hit harder in this wave than ever before, and they make up a larger and larger share of the cases.

At this point, the US has recorded 5.3 million cumulative cases in children, accounting for 15.5 percent of total cases in the pandemic. That percentage has risen steadily during the current surge, up from 14.2 percent at the end of June.

Enlarge / The new iPad Mini takes most of its cues from the iPad Air 4. (credit: Apple)

After years of stagnating in the same look and features, Apple's iPad mini will finally get a major redesign akin to last year's iPad Air update, the company announced today.

Like other recent iPads and iPhones, the iPad mini drops the home button to make more room on the front of the device for a larger, almost edge-to-edge screen. However, it does not feature Face ID like the iPad Pro. Rather, it follows the 2020 iPad Air in featuring a TouchID fingerprint reader on one of the power button for authentication. It also leaves behind Apple's long-standing, proprietary Lightning port in favor of industry standard USB-C—a change that also came to other recent iPad redesigns.

The new iPad Mini will be available for pre-order today, and will begin shipping next week.

Enlarge (credit: Apple)

It's not the biggest announcement coming out of Apple's product launch event today, but it's still welcome for those who are on the precipice of springing for a new tablet: Apple has released a modest refresh of its entry-level iPad. The tablet's design doesn't change, but it does swap out the A12 chip for the newer A13 chip that Apple says is "up to 20%" faster than the previous model. The new iPad costs $329, the same price as the previous model, despite the fact that the storage has been bumped from 32GB to a much more livable 64GB.

Apple is also bringing a handful of iPad Pro features down to the cheapest iPad. Its new 12MP front-facing camera supports the "Center Stage" feature that can shift the camera's perspective as you move around. The screen also supports the True Tone feature that changes the screen's color temperature to match the lighting in the room you're in.

The new $329 iPad will be available for pre-order today, and will begin shipping next week.

• 

  Beginning with the outstanding Porsche 956, IMSA regulations required that the driver’s feet be behind the front axle for safety reasons. Porsche extended the wheelbase and moved the pedal box behind the front wheels, allowing the 962 to be approved for racing. These IMSA-spec 962s began with Porsche’s Type 962/70 2.8-liter flat six engines with air-cooling only and a single turbo, as twin-turbo systems were not allowed in the IMSA GTP class at the time. The 962-102 was campaigned by legendary driver Bob Akin in 1984. [credit: The Petersen Museum/Ted7 ]

Trying to crown the world’s greatest race car is a futile endeavor, as everyone has a different definition of “greatest.” But if you were making a shortlist for such an award, Porsche’s 956 and 962 would have to make the cut.

When the 956 first debuted with the introduction of Group C racing in 1982, it was a departure from Porsche's previous Le Mans-winning prototypes. From the 917 (which gave Porsche its first overall win in 1970) to the 936 (which won in 1976, 1977, and 1981), all of Porsche's cars used a relatively fragile tubeframe chassis clad in fiberglass bodywork.

But the 956 exchanged this old way of doing things for a much more up-to-date approach. The chassis this time was an aluminum monocoque with much greater stiffness—and much better driver safety.