The change in tune may help address imminent regulatory scrutiny.
Enlarge/ The back of the iPhone 13. (credit: Samuel Axon)
Apple will begin selling repair kits to consumers who want to perform some essential repairs on their iPhones themselves. Titled Self Service Repair, the program will first be available in the United States starting early next year, with more regions gaining access throughout 2022.
At first, the program will apply exclusively to iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 devices, but it will "soon" apply to Macs with M1 chips as well. A news release from Apple about the program says that it's intended to allow "customers who are comfortable with completing their own repairs" access to the parts and support they need, but that it believes going to a Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP), independent repair provider, or Apple Store will still be the best choice for most users.
But for those who do want to repair their phones or laptops themselves, Apple describes the process thusly:
Iodine eliminates needing a propellant tank, since it can be stored as a solid.
Enlarge/ A demo version of the new thruster in operation. (credit: ThrustMe)
Most people are probably familiar with iodine through its role as a disinfectant. But if you stayed awake through high school chemistry, then you may have seen a demonstration where powdered iodine was heated. Because its melting and boiling points are very close together at atmospheric pressures, iodine will readily form a purple gas when heated. At lower pressures, it'll go directly from solid to gas, a process called sublimation.
That, as it turns out, could make it the perfect fuel for a form of highly efficient spacecraft propulsion hardware called ion thrusters. While it has been considered a promising candidate for a while, a commercial company called ThrustMe is now reporting that it has demonstrated an iodine-powered ion thruster in space for the first time.
Ion power
Rockets rely on chemical reactions to expel a large mass of material as quickly as possible, allowing them to generate enough thrust to lift something into space. But that isn't the most efficient way to generate thrust—we end up trading efficiency in order to get the rapid expulsion needed to overcome gravity. Once in space, that need for speed goes away; we can use more efficient means of expelling material, since a slower rate of acceleration is acceptable for shifting things between different orbits.
Motorola’s Moto G Power line of smartphones have a history of offering big batteries and low prices, and the latest version keeps up the trend. The new Moto G Power (2022) has a 5,000 mAh battery that Motorola says should last for up to three days on a charge. But the $200 smartphone also packs a few […]
Motorola’s Moto G Power line of smartphones have a history of offering big batteries and low prices, and the latest version keeps up the trend. The new Moto G Power (2022)has a 5,000 mAh battery that Motorola says should last for up to three days on a charge.
But the $200 smartphone also packs a few other features that aren’t always a given in budget phones including a 90 Hz display and a 50MP primary camera.
The new Moto G Power smartphone will be available in the US in early 2022 and it’s headed to Canada “in the coming months.”
The phone has a 6.5 inch, 1600 x 720 pixel IPS LCD display, a MediaTek Helio G37 processor with 8 ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores and PowerVR GE8320 graphics, and 4GB of RAM.
Motorola will sell models with 64GB of storage for $200, while a 128GB version will set you back $250. Both have microSD card readers for removable storage.
Cameras include that 50MP primary camera (with quad pixel technology that combines light from four pixels into one when saving 12.5MP images), a 2MP depth sensor, and a 2MP macro camera, plus an 8MP front-facing camera.
There’s a side-mounted fingerprint reader, and the phone ships with Android 11 software.
The Moto G Power (2022) has a USB 2.0 Type-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, support for 4G LTE, WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, and NFC. It also has an IP52 rating for water resistance.
While the phone’s 5,000 mAh battery is a key selling point for the Moto G Power, keep in mind that it might take a while to fully charge battery: the phone’s fast charging tops out at 10 watts.
Motorola was one of the first companies to launch a smartwatch powered by Google’s software for wearables. But the Moto 360 was released seven years ago, and a lot has happened since then. Apple entered and then began to dominate the smartwatch market. Motorola was acquired, sold, and divided up. And so the new Moto Watch […]
Motorola was one of the first companies to launch a smartwatch powered by Google’s software for wearables. But the Moto 360 was released seven years ago, and a lot has happened since then.
Apple entered and then began to dominate the smartwatch market. Motorola was acquired, sold, and divided up. And so the new Moto Watch 100 that went up for pre-order today has little in common with its predecessors.
On the bright side, the new watch should get up to 14 days of battery life, which sounds great. It’s also pretty affordable, with a $100 price tag. But with a custom “Moto OS” operating system and no support for third-party apps, I’m not sure we can really call the Moto Watch 100 a smartwatch.
To be fair, it is designed to do many of the things you’d expect from a smartwatch. You can pair it with a smartphone for notifications, GPS features, or to control music playback on your phone. There’s a heart rate monitor, SP02 sensor for blood oxygen levels, and support for step counting, sleep tracking, and 26 different sport modes.
The watch has a 1.3 inch, 360 x 360 pixel circular display, support for Bluetooth 5.0 LE, a 355 mAh battery that can fully charge in 60 minutes, an accelerometer, gyroscope, GPS and GLONASS support, and a swim-proof design with water resistance for depths up to 5 atmospheres.
But it’s not coming from the same Motorola that made the original Moto 360. A company called eBuyNow has instead licensed the Motorola name for this wearable, and that’s the company that’s officially announcing the new product.
And with no support for third-party apps of any type, what you get when you buy the Moto Watch 100 is probably all you’ll get. So if you’re happy with basic features like activity tracking, smartphone notification and a few other apps including weather, alarm clock stopwatch, and timer, then $100 doesn’t seem like a bad price for a device with those features plus smartphone notifications.
But the Moto Watch 100 is hardly unique in offering those capabilities – Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress are littered with similarly affordable watches and activity trackers these days. The main thing the Moto Watch 100 has going for it is probably its name… which doesn’t actually mean very much in this case.
The decrepit remains of Motorola's brand are still floating around out there. Motorola was fragmented across the tech landscape after the sale to Google, with Google (and now Lenovo) picking up the smartphone business, "Motorola Solutions" being spun off to handle the radio business for first-responders, Arris buying the modem division, and VTech licensing the Motorola brand for landline phones. For smartwatches, the Motorola brand was licensed by a company called "eBuyNow," a division of CE Brands, which licenses other dead tech brands like Kodak.
So meet the Moto Watch 100, the latest eBuyNow product trying to relive the glory days of the Moto 360. This watch is just $99.99, so presumably eBuyNow thinks a dirt-cheap smartwatch with whatever brand recognition Motorola still has left will be a good impulse buy.
While the original Moto 360 was an Android Wear (now Wear OS) smartwatch, with the Moto Watch 100, we're seeing the feature-phonification of the Motorola smartwatch. It runs something called "Moto OS," which the website describes as "a streamlined experience focused on health and routine that dramatically increases battery life." There won't be any third-party apps, or an app store, so you'll be stuck with whatever the packed-in features are. As far as we can tell from the user manual, that seems to be fitness tracking with 26 activity modes, continuous heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, and displaying the time and weather. When paired with an Android 5.0+ or iOS 10+ phone, you'll get notification mirroring and remote media control. There's also a companion smartphone app.
In Stuttgart beginnt Doordash aus San Francisco einen Test für Restaurantauslieferungen. Klappt das, sollen weitere Städte folgen. (Lieferdienst, Wirtschaft)
In Stuttgart beginnt Doordash aus San Francisco einen Test für Restaurantauslieferungen. Klappt das, sollen weitere Städte folgen. (Lieferdienst, Wirtschaft)
Apple doesn’t have a great track record with making it easy to perform DIY repairs on the company’s hardware, usually insisting that you take your gear to an Apple Store or authorized repair shop instead. But starting next year, the company plans to begin offering tools, parts, and documentation for customers that want to repair […]
Apple doesn’t have a great track record with making it easy to perform DIY repairs on the company’s hardware, usually insisting that you take your gear to an Apple Store or authorized repair shop instead.
But starting next year, the company plans to begin offering tools, parts, and documentation for customers that want to repair hardware at home. The new Apple Self Service Repair will launch in the US in early 2022 before eventually rolling out to additional countries later in the year.
At launch, Apple says the program will offer repair resources for iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 series phones, before expanding to include Macs with Apple M1 processors in the future.
Apple still recommends most folks looking to repair broken hardware go to an authorized technician, but the company says its new program will make repair manuals available online, and after reviewing them, customers will be able to purchase the necessary replacement parts and tools from a new Self Service Repair Online Store.
Apple says it will “focus on the most commonly serviced modules” at first, including iPhone displays, batteries and cameras. But the company plans to offer additional replacement parts starting later in 2022.
The folks at iFixit, an online repair shop that has been one of many organizations pushing for Right to Repair laws, say that Apple’s announcement is a major advancement, since it flies in the face of Apple’s earlier claims that allowing customers to repair their own hardware would be dangerous.
But it’s also still a limited step. Apple still requires customers to buy official parts from the company’s store and doesn’t support repurposing a display, battery, or other components from another phone for use in repairs. And while it’s unclear if customers will have to pay the same prices for replacement parts and tools as independent repair shops, iFixit notes that Apple has a reputation for charging a lot for those parts – an iPhone 12 screen, for example, costs independent repair professionals $270 (the same price Apple charges to replace a screen for an out-of-warranty devices, meaning that for the most part it’s going to be cheaper for a customer to have Apple replace the screen).
Security camera, fitness tracker, and other smart home tech with over-the-air charging announced.
Enlarge/ In Archos' depiction, the transmitter panel on the right is sending power to the air-quality monitor on the counter.
I've never been impressed by wireless charging devices. Sure, you no longer need to plug a wire into your smartphone, mouse, et cetera, but you still need to place it on a charging pad to charge it. And placing it on a pad doesn't save that much time over plugging a cable into it. Over-the-air charging, on the other hand, is closer to what I envisioned when I first heard the term wireless charging. You're not required to lay your device on any product in order for it to recharge. That vision should soon become a reality with true wireless charging products, like a smartwatch and smart home camera expected to debut next year.
On Tuesday, Archos, a French company that makes Android-powered tablets and smartphones, air purifiers, and Safe-T Mini, a cryptowallet, announced a partnership with Ossia, the Washington-based maker of over-the-air charging technology. Archos is currently making plans to design and build a smartwatch, indoor security camera, air monitor, and smart tracker that can charge their batteries without using a cable or charging pad.
Each device will hold a Cota Power Receiver, which is a small silicon chip that sends out a beacon signal that Ossia says is harmless. That signal bounces off any inanimate objects in its path in order to hit a Cota transmitter. Once that signal is received by the Cota transmitter, it responds by sending power over the air via a 5.8 GHz frequency to the device holding the receiver. According to Ossia, the devices speak to each other 100 times per second.
Konnect will Neukunden überzeugen und hofft, dass die einmal aufgebaute Anlage für Satelliteninternet stehen bleibt. (
In Stuttgart beginnt Doordash aus San Francisco einen Test für Restaurantauslieferungen. Klappt das, sollen weitere Städte folgen. (
Seit sieben Jahren arbeitet Facebook an einem Handschuh, um glaubwürdige Sinneseindrücke im Metaversum zu bieten. (
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