A Helping Hand: Driverless Cars

Driverless cars, or self-driving cars, are the next big change in the automotive industry. They will solve many of the current problems surrounding cars and driving, such as accidents. While some people may argue that self-driving cars will get rid of people’s hobbies, they will actually reduce the amount of accidents, congestion, and increase average speeds, and as a result of that, they will also save time and resources.

Humans, as drivers, are currently the biggest bottlenecks in vehicles. Because of slow reaction times, we do not fully utilize the roads and cars that we created. Because driverless cars are driven by computers, they will have much faster reaction times than humans. And because of higher reaction times, cars will be able to travel much closer together, at much higher speeds. As Randal O’Toole said, “By offering more precise driving, driverless cars would make possible higher top speeds on existing roads.” This means that the capacity of roads will greatly rise, which will increase both the fuel efficiency of cars, and the time efficiency, by traveling closer together, at higher speeds

Having cars travel closer together may seem like it would add more congestion to the roads, but it would actually lessen the amount of congestion. Along with increasing the speeds and capacity of roads, the better reaction times of driverless cars will reduce the traffic that makes commutes agonizingly long. Making commutes shorter will reduce stress, as according to Newsweek, “Studies have found that people with commutes longer than 40 minutes are unhappier, more stressed, and generally experience more worry than those who only have a 10 minute commute.” Reducing stress will make people more efficient when they get to work, allowing them to do more with their time.

Getting rid of more traffic, self-driving cars will almost eliminate accidents. There will still be accidents, caused by computer errors, but the majority of accidents are caused by human error. It is those accidents that waste time and resources. As Randal O’Toole said, “Reducing accidents would not only save lives, it would save the time of people who would otherwise be stuck in congestion caused by accidents.” In addition to drivers, emergency responders’ time will also be saved. Less accidents means less time they spend on the thousands of accidents every day.

However, some people say that driverless cars will get rid of the joy that driving brings them. But this isn’t true, as “The car enthusiast will have to hitch his Mustang up to a driverless car and take it to a different kind of driving range–where he can tool around on a closed course.” (Newsweek) Car enthusiasts will enjoy driving on tracks, where there are no speed limits, and they will be taken off of the road, getting rid of accidents caused by reckless drivers.

Self-driving cars will not only make driving easier and safer. They will lessen the amount of time and resources used while driving. But driverless cars will not just magically appear. Just like the personal computer, driverless cars will require a lot of trial and error, in addition to collaborations between companies. Imagine what your daily commute would be like with a driverless car. Perhaps you would do work in your car, and it would certainly make your commute faster.

Virtual Reality for All: The Radeon RX 480

Besides their new, more modern logo, AMD has an exciting new addition to the Radeon family of graphics cards. At only $199, the Radeon RX 480, AMD hopes to bring Virtual Reality to millions of people. The RX 480’s low price (compared to other VR graphics cards, such as the GTX 980 or the newer GTX 1070 from NVIDIA) allows for “good VR” at a lower cost, which is what the vice president of Radeon Technologies Group, Raja Koduri, uses to explain Virtual Reality coming through headsets such as the HTC Vive, compared to “bad VR” that is headsets such as Google Cardboard, or Samsung’s Gear VR.

Set to formally launch on June 29th, the Radeon™ RX 480 will deliver the world’s most affordable solution for premium PC VR experiences, including a model that is both HTC™ Vive Ready and Oculus™ Rift™ certified and delivering VR capability common in $500 GPUs.

Raja Koduri explained that they are aiming to bring “good VR” to over a hundred million new users. Instead of trying to lower the cost of the headset, AMD is lowering the cost of the PC needed to power the headsets. The GPU, or graphics card, is one of the biggest bottlenecks in terms of budget for Virtual Reality today, costing around $400. And not only will the RX 480 decrease the cost of the graphics card you need for VR, it will also decrease the power you draw from the wall, as AMD claims that it draws less than 150W.

However, While the RX 480 does have some really compelling specs, such as something around 1.08GHz for the boost clock, and 4 to 8 GB of 8Gbps GDDR5, it does have its flaws. One that is minor, but also bothering, is the ports that they put on it. AMD has included three DisplayPort connectors, but only one HDMI. While this might not be that much of a problem on a normal graphics card, they are selling this as a card for Virtual Reality! If you did not know, both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive connect to your computer with an HDMI port. This means that, if your monitor uses an HDMI cable, and you want to do VR with this card (which is probably why you would buy it), you would have to buy an adapter for either your monitor or headset. However, this is not really a big deal, since as mentioned before, you can always buy an adapter. But, it is somewhat annoying, since AMD is saying that this is “good VR” for under $200, however, if you end up having to buy an adapter for anywhere from around $1-$30, you might end up paying more than $200 for the graphics part of your VR PC. Again, this is not really a big problem, unless you are on an extremely strict budget and cannot afford to spend that extra bit of money.

Google I/O 2016

Every year, since 2008, Google has held their conference, directed at software developers, called Google I/O. At this year’s I/O, Google was determined to get ahead of the game, by releasing not just new software features, but also new hardware.

 

One of the most interesting things that Google talked about this year at I/O was “Daydream”. Daydream is Google’s take on mobile virtual reality. Being built into Android N, Daydream is not trying to be better than VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive; it is meant to provide an amazing virtual reality experience on mobile devices. And  for a while now, people have been saying a phone with a 4k screen is a waste of money, but with the addition of Daydream to the next version of Android, higher resolution screens will become more and more popular.

The headset that Google made for Daydream looks like a combination of the Oculus  Rift  and the Samsung Gear VR. The Daydream headset also comes with a remote, but only one, compared to the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift that both come with two remotes. However, they have worked hard on making sure that the interaction with your phone is much, much better than on the Gear VR or Google Cardboard, which use buttons.

 

Google also released two new messaging apps, that both work on Android and iOS. The first one is called Allo. It’s Google’s new messaging/texting app, but it has a trick up its sleeve. Not only can you use it as a normal messaging app, but it has Google’s artificial intelligence built into it. So say you are messaging your friend, and they ask if you want to order Chinese food. Allo will see that, and come up with some pre-fab replies, and also suggestions of Chinese restaurants near you.

The second new messaging app from Google is Duo. Duo is Google’s answer to FaceTime (Apple’s video calling app). Google has made Duo extremely simple to use, and they put a feature called “Knock Knock”, which allows the person you are calling to see you before they pick up.

The second piece of hardware that they just released at I/O is called  Google Home, and is their response to Amazon Echo. While its use is mostly self-explanatory by now (something like Siri in a cylinder), Google tried to make the Google Home attractive to everyone, as it has interchangeable shells, so it can fit in with almost any room style. Google Home can also work with Google’s other smart home products, like the Nest and Chromecast.

 

These were some of the main announcements at Google’s I/O 2016, but there were many more, such as more info on Android N, and Android Wear 2.0.

 

The Future of Laptops: The Dell XPS 13

 

Recently, there has been a higher demand for smaller, thinner laptops, called ultrabooks, and Dell’s XPS 13 is one of the best. Dell has not only focused on making the laptop thinner, but at the same time, making it a powerful work machine.

One of their main selling points for the XPS 13 is its display. While having a maximum
resolution of 3200 x 1800 is cool, Dell has somehow figured out how to make the  bezels extremely thin, which is what they call “InfinityEdge”. However, because of the bezels (or lack thereof),  that the webcam has to be in the bottom left corner of the display section of the laptop. The odd placement of the webcam creates a very awkward angle when viewing someone through the XPS 13’s webcam.

In addition to the wonderful display on the Dell XPS 13, its port selection is pretty good, compared to other competing ultrabooks, such as Apple’s 12 inch MacBook. Starting off with the SD card slot on the right, which many ultrabooks of this size lack, such as the Razer Blade Stealth. Moving forward, there is one USB 3.0 port on the right and another on the left. There is also a USB 3.1 Type C/Thunderbolt 3 port, which can be used for anything from hooking up regular USB devices, or even powering a seperate display. There is also a headphone/mic combo jack right next to the USB 3.0 port on the left, which means, including the power connector and lock, the XPS 13 has a total of 7 ports, compared to the MacBook’s lackluster 2.

In order to drive all of those ports and the QHD+ display, Dell had to put some powerful componenets inside the XPS 13. For the processor, they used Intel’s 6th generation chips, starting at with the i3 6100U (turbo up to 2.3 GHz), and going all the way up to the i7 6560U (turbo up to 3.2 GHz). Then, for memory, you can get either 4, 8, or 16GB of DDR3, but this is not upgrade-able, as it is soldered to the circuit board, and it has no DIMM slots. Finally, there is the SSD(or Hard Drive, as Dell mistakenly calls it). The base model comes with a 128GB PCIe SSD, which stands for Solid State Drive, and going up from there, there are 256GB, 512GB, and even 1TB options available. However, unlike the memory, the storage here is upgradeable, so if you get the 128GB to save money, you can always upgrade it later, to a larger SSD, up to 1TB.

However, almost everything is amazing with the Dell XPS 13, except for the price. The price is where you go “Thou dankish, boil-brained wagtail, Dell!” While the starting price of $799 US may seem reasonable for a high end laptop,  with that much money, you only get the i3, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of solid state storage, and a 1080p screen. While you could argue that you are paying for the premium build quality, take a look at Razer’s Blade Stealth. You can get the base model, that has an Intel core i7 (you have to pay at least $1699 for that in the XPS 13), 8GB RAM, a 128GB SSD, and a QHD (1440p) display, for $999! Buying the $999 model XPS 13 would downgrade you to an i5 and 1080p screen, while keeping the same 8GB RAM and 128GB storage. So, if you are looking to buy a well built ultrabook, the XPS 13 might be for you, but if you are looking for more performance for your money, you might want to look elsewhere, such as the Razer Blade Stealth.

A Showcase of Modern Technology: The HTC Vive

The Oculus Rift (source: wired.com)

The subject of virtual reality has been popping up in the media, more and more over the past coupe of years. First, we heard about the Oculus Rift, which was popularized  by Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus. While the Rift seemed promising at first, it’s delayed release date and lack of freedom has made it less popular, compared to other virtual reality headsets.

 

The Vive’s Motion tracking sensors (source: arstechnica)

This is where the HTC Vive comes in. The Vive is a collaboration between HTC and Steam. While it is younger than the Rift,the Vive is still a very good competitor. Just like the Oculus Rift, the Vive has motion tracking, but not as limited as the Rift’s. With the Oculus, there is a tracking sensor that had to be positioned on a desk or table in front of you. However, with the HTC Vive, there are two sensors that you mount onto the walls of your room, which allows you to walk around in your room, which gives you a much better, more realistic experience, even though you are bound in to a certain area by a box of red lines.

 

The Vive’s handheld controllers (source: digitaltrends)

In addition to the motion tracking sensors, the Vive comes with two amazing controllers that add even more to the immersive experience of it. Many reviewers have said that the tracking on the controllers is so amazing, that you could throw it up in the air with the headset on, and just based off of the visuals, you could catch it perfectly.

 

 

“The best way to think of the Vive might be as an early access season pass for VR” (Adi Robertson @ The Verge)

While the HTC Vive does have many amazing features, there are still some negatives. For example, while Steam VR, the interface that you use to operate the Vive, is designed by Steam, it is still not as user-friendly as some might hope. This means that not everyone can pick up the headset and start using it, without any prior knowledge of Steam VR. Another shortfall of the Vive is the fact that it is extremely heavy. Some users have complained that it is too heavy and makes it tiring to move your head around. However, this problem is not specific to the HTC Vive. It is a problem with most powerful virtual reality headsets, since they need to have lenses, high resolution screens, and many other very heavy pieces of technology.

What Happens to Deleted Files?

People are always saying that when you delete a file, it never goes away. While that statement is accurate, it is not always true. So, what actually happens, when you click delete?

The most obvious example of files not being deleted is the recycle bin. On almost every operating system, there is some sort of trash can, which is essentially a folder, where files are shifted to once you press delete. You can recover deleted files from here, as long as you haven’t emptied it manually, or waited so long that the files deleted themselves. However, even if you “permanently” delete a file, it is still on your hard drive. The sector of your hard drive that the file previously inhabited has just been marked as empty…

An easier way to understand this is to think of your hard drive as a book. When your computer was turn for the first time, it produced a table of contents. This table of contents contains what are called pointers, which are what informs the computer where to look on the hard drive, for a certain set of data. When you delete a file, the part of the table of contents that are for that particular “chapter”, are erased. This means that the pages of that chapter are still there, but they are marked as empty, allowing people to write over them, if they so desire.

So, even when you permanently delete a file, the data for that file is still there. As long as your computer does not fabricate any new files, you could technically still retrieve that file. However, if any new files are created, that creates new pointers in the computer’s directory, which will most likely conflict with the old data, but since it has been marked as empty, the new file takes priority, and overwrites the deleted files.

This technique of writing over previously deleted files is also what causes files to become corrupted. Say you deleted an image that was 10MB, and then downloaded a new text file that was only 5MB. If you then used a data recovery tool to try and salvage the deleted file, it would probably appear something like this:

This happens because when the hard drive wrote over the original data, it only used half of the space that the original file had originally taken up. And, since the original data was never fully obliterated, some of the original image remained, while the other bits are the new file, converted to an image.

And this, the fear of being able to fully, or partially recover data, is why government services physically destroy their computers when they are done using them. However, just like paper, shredded hard drives can be put back together, piece by piece, to obtain the data. While the practice of un-shredding a hard drive is lengthy, and if you mess up the placement of one fragment, or even make an extremely small scratch one, it could possibly ruin the data, it is still possible.

 

Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge @ MWC 2016

MWC, or Mobile World Congress, is currently taking place in Barcelona, Spain, which means that  we are getting details on new smartphones and other devices, from companies such as Samsung and LG. MWC is essentially CES (Consumer Electronics Show), but focusing mainly on mobile electronics, like smartphones, smart wearables, and anything else that can be considered mobile.

Smartphone releases are some of the most exciting things at MWC. And this year, Samsung unveiled their new flagship phones, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. Last year’s release, the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, shocked many people, as the design was much more premium than the previous S5. However, while the design was much better than their older designs, people still had complaints about Samsung’s new design choices. For example, almost everyone was annoyed because of their decision to remove the micro SD card slot, limiting the maximum storage for the phone to 64 GB. Samsung decided to listen to the customers on this issue, along with many other complaints from their customers, and they re-implemented
the micro SD card slot onto their new phones.

Another one of the features that they brought back from their earlier smartphones is the water and dust resistance. The Galaxy S7 will have IP68 certified water resistance, which means that it it can be submerged under 5 feet underwater, for up to 30 minutes. However, the more exciting part of this, is that there are no more flaps to cover the ports, which means that you don’t have to plan when you phone goes in water, which makes it much more practical, as it will still be water resistant if you drop it in water for more than a few minutes.

 

Even though there are a lot of old features that are being brought back on the S7, there are also a handful of new features. One of the new features that Samsung introduced is an always on display. This means that you will not have to actually turn on your phone to see information like the time, or your notifications, but instead, it will always be on your display, when the phone is locked. This is possible because Samsung is using a screen technology called AMOLED, which stands for Active Matrix Organic  LED, and one of the advantages to that kind of screen is that black pixels are not lit up, so the always on display will barely impact the battery life.

Saying Goodbye to the Headphone Jack: The (Possible) Pros and Cons of the iPhone 7

 

While it may feel like Apple just released the iPhone 6s, there are already many rumors and leaks about their upcoming iPhone 7, including a lot about the camera, a return of the “c” (such as the iPhone 5c), and doing away with the 3.5mm port!

 

Fist, let’s start off with the camera. So far, the main rumor regarding the iPhone 7’s camera is that it might ac a lot of options, but they were all mostly tacky, with the exception of one, in which you were able to slightly change the camera angle, after the picture was taken.

However, Apple has been filing many patents lately, and one of them was about their new dual camera design. There were a lot of interesting features that they talked about, but one of the most interesting is being able to capture full resolution pictures, while recording video. While it is currently possible to take pictures while recording video on the iPhone, they are limited to the resolution of the video, and with the dual camera in the iPhone 7, it would be possible to take pictures at the full resolution, while also recording a video, in a lower resolution.

 

Next up, we have waterproofing. On the iPhone 6s, there was an incredibly thin rubber gasket, which kept the inside of the
iPhone 6s nearly watertight. However, Apple did not exactly advertise that their phones were watertight. And since there
is no real reason for Apple to not want their phones to be watertight, we can assume that their upcoming phones will have this feature.

 

 

Another, long awaited feature from Apple that might make its way into the iPhone 7 is finally, wireless charging. While Apple did introduce wireless charging with the Apple Watch, it used a technology called inductive charging, that is only possible on the Apple Watch, as it has a ceramic back, while the iPhones have had aluminum backs, recently. But, back in July, a portable technology company named  Qualcomm announced that they figured out how to make wireless charging that can go through metal. However, they announced this technology too late for it to be implemented into the iPhone 6s, so it will most likely be implemented into the upcoming iPhone 7.

 

One more exciting rumor relating to the iPhone 7 is the re-introduction of the “c” line of iPhones that we first saw with the iPhone 5c. Apple stated that the “c” stood for color, but many speculated that it was also used because it was significantly cheaper than the iPhone 5 and 5s. Because of the c line being cheaper, the iPhone 7c will most likely have the same Apple A9 chip that was used in the 6s, while the iPhone 7 is rumored to have Apple’s new A10 chip. This phone will be for people who are looking to save money, but still buy an iPhone, rather than a cheaper Android phone.

 

And finally, perhaps the most controversial speculation about the upcoming iPhone 7 is the removal of the headphone jack. Apple has been trying to make their phones thinner and thinner over the past couple of years and still keep a reasonable amount of power in them, but the technology needed for the headphone jack takes up a lot of space, which could be used for a bigger battery, or something else like more memory. However, doing away with the headphone jack does pose a few issues, such as comparability. By doing this, people will no longer be able to use their wired headphones, without some sort of lighting-to-audio adapter, which would have to be fairly complicated, as there would no longer be an amplifier, or all of the equipment needed to play audio through the headphone jack.

But, to compliment the lack of headphone port on the next iPhone, Apple is most likely going to start converting all of their headphones to either wireless or Lighting connector, which could explain their recent acquisition of the headphone manufacturer, Beats, even though there are already companies that make headphones that connect to iPhones using the Lightning port, such as these headphones by Philips.

 

The Razer Blade Stealth @ CES 2016

At CES (Consumer Electronics Show) this year, there were many new tech products being introduced, such as new, safer drones, and 8K TVs. However, one of the most interesting products unveiled ad CES 2016 was the Razer Blade Stealth and the Razer Core.

The Razer Blade Stealth (Source: Razer)

The Razer Blade Stealth is a new laptop from Razer, but unlike their Blade and Blade Pro models, the Blade Stealth is an ultrabook. The specs for the Blade Stealth are pretty impressive. It has an Intel Skylake, Core i7-6500U clocked at 2.5GHz (3.1GHz @ max turbo), 8gb of dual-channel memory, and PCIe solid state storage. And since Razer is a gaming company, you would expect all of their laptops to have some sort of discrete graphics, but in the Blade Stealth, they stuck with the integrated, Intel HD Graphics 520, which is why they were able to keep the form factor so small and keep the price down to $999.

However, while Razer is stating that the on-board graphics will be able to drive the 4K screen that comes on the higher end Blade Stealth for work applications, it will not be able to handle the demanding games that people who buy Razer’s laptops expect to be able to play.

And that is exactly where the Razer Core comes in.

The Razer Core is meant for people who have the Razer Blade Stealth, but want to be able to play more intensive games on it when they’re not out-and-about. Razer hasn’t announced the price of the Core yet, but you cannot just buy the Core by itself. Once you have the Core, you will have to buy your own graphics card, which is the really amazing thing about the Core. It connects to the Blade Stealth via a USB type C connector, and it has a PCIe x16 on the other end for you to plug your GPU into. This means that not only can you use any graphics card that you want with the Razer Core, but it also charges the Blade Stealth at the same time, as it has a 300W power supply behind the graphics card.

The Razer Core and Blade Stealth (Source: GameSpot)

One additional feature to make the Core a bit more compelling for Razer Blade Stealth users is that it also adds four USB 3.1 ports on the back, so you can plug your gaming peripherals, so that all you have to do convert your Blade Stealth into a gaming PC is plug the Core into the USB type C port on the Razer Blade Stealth and you can have a better graphics card, a few more monitors, Ethernet, and your USB peripherals.

A Quick Note

I just changed the theme of this site, and I saw that I was now able to upload an image to be the “logo” in the header, instead of just plain text. So I jumped into Illustrator and made this in just a couple of minutes:

After doing that, I then changed the background to what had previously been the header image, as this new theme does not support a header image.

That’s all!