Andrew Orr

Does blue light from smartphones cause blindness? Short answer: No. Headlines claiming that the blue light from our smartphones have been making the rounds. As is usually the case with the media when it comes to science, there’s always greater context (or it’s just downright BS).

The American Academy of Ophthalmology spelled it out recently: No, Blue Light From Your Smartphone Is Not Blinding You. That was in response to a study published this summer that found blue light, plus a chemical naturally found in certain eye cells, could damage cells. The catch: researchers did not use any actual cells from our eyes, because our eyes have defenses against exactly this sort of damage. (They were studying a question unrelated to eye health; the Verge has more on the purpose and meaning of the experiment.)

There are plenty of fake Apple products out there, including chargers that could damage your device. Phys.org provides some things to look out for.

One of the biggest selling points for counterfeits is their cheap price as an alternative to Apple’s accessories. Good news: There are plenty of legitimate options outside of Apple made by third parties…When in doubt, look out for those “Made for iPhone” or “MFi certified” labels and descriptions to make sure what you’re buying will work as expected.

ZDNet recently did some interesting research. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes wanted to know how much it would cost in electricity to charge an iPhone 6 Plus for a year. He chose this model because it has the biggest capacity battery Apple offers in an iPhone. The result will shock you (pun intended).

On average, during an overnight charge, the iPhone consumed an average of 19.2 Wh. According to figures published by the US Energy Information Administration for January 2016, the average cost per kWh in the US was $0.12. Remember that 1 kWh equals 1,000 Wh. So, take our average of 19.2 Wh per day, multiplying that by 365 days, we get 7 kWh, which works out at $0.84 a year. So if you guess under a dollar, well done.

That’s right, it costs less than a dollar for an entire year. The more you know!

Cloudflare is implementing a feature that encrypts your Server Name Indication (SNI). The new technology will be called ESNI.

But, today, as HTTPS covers nearly 80% of all web traffic, the fact that SNI leaks every site you go to online to your ISP and anyone else listening on the line has become a glaring privacy hole. Knowing what sites you visit can build a very accurate picture of who you are, creating both privacy and security risks.

This is a big change. Basically it will stop ISPs, rogue apps, and advertising companies from collecting and selling your browsing history. ESNI will hide the identities of the websites you visit.

The iPhone XS battery, as well as that of the iPhone XS Max, are composed of two different lithium-ion cells formed in the shape of an L (in the phone, not your forehead).

By having one big battery instead of two conjoined, you can ditch a little bit of packaging and eliminate the small gap between them, maximizing your capacity. Picture two small train cars in a row. Next to those, put another car that’s as long as both small cars combined. You can fit more into the single, because you’re eliminating two walls and some in-between space. The same principle applies.

We all tease Apple about all of its products getting thinner, but it takes incredible feats of engineering to actually do that. Featured image credit goes to iFixit.

What is an artificial neural network? They power many technologies such as Apple’s A12 Bionic chip, but what are they? Forbes breaks it down.

Artificial neural networks use different layers of mathematical processing to make sense of the information it’s fed. Typically, an artificial neural network has anywhere from dozens to millions of artificial neurons—called units—arranged in a series of layers. The input layer receives various forms of information from the outside world. This is the data that the network aims to process or learn about.

What I find especially fascinating is how much of a black box an ANN is. This means that while it can figure out a mathematical function, studying its structure won’t tell you what function it’s trying to figure out.

Former Google chief Eric Scmidt predicts that by 2028 the internet will split into two separate webs: A Chinese version and an American version.

If you think of China as like ‘Oh yeah, they’re good with the Internet,’ you’re missing the point. Globalization means that they get to play too. I think you’re going to see fantastic leadership in products and services from China. There’s a real danger that along with those products and services comes a different leadership regime from government, with censorship, controls, etc.

There’s basically already a separate Chinese internet behind the Great Firewall of China. But the prediction here is that through the country’s Belt and Road Initiative, other countries might follow China’s example. And Google is helping.

News over the weekend report that Apple rejects violence, sex, and politics in the company’s video platform.

The result is an approach out of step with the triumphs of the video-streaming era. Other platforms, such as HBO and Amazon.com Inc., have made their mark in original content with edgier programming that often wins critical acclaim.

And other platforms are free to do so. I personally don’t see a problem with this, and it should come as no surprise since Apple has always positioned itself as family-friendly. It may not explicitly call itself such, but it is. And that’s fine. If I want sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, I can find it on Netflix.

An email thread obtained by the Wall Street Journal shows Google engineers talking about political search tweaks related to President Trump’s 2017 travel ban. They specifically discussed using Google search to highlight pro-immigration organizations.

“To the extent of my knowledge, we’d be breaching precedent if we only gave Highlights access to organizations that support a certain view of the world in a time of political conflict,” one email said, according to WSJ.

Google said they were just brainstorming. This seems likely to me. Google might favor its own products in search results, but going so far as to interfere with political issues? I’m not so sure. But it made me wonder how easily a roque engineer could secretly alter the search algorithms.

Lance Ulanoff has a great piece on Medium where he writes about the iPhone XS camera technology. He talked with photographer Pete Souza about the new iPhones, as well as Phil Schiller, Graham TownsendApple’s senior director of camera hardware, and Sebastien Marineau-Mes, Apple’s vice president of software.

One of the really big things we aim for is the first phone, the 1 millionth phone, and the 10 millionth phone we want that experience to be as close as we can humanly manage, and we put a lot of effort, and it’s not something we talk a lot about… but it’s really important to us that there’s no big variation in performance between any phone anywhere the world,” Townsend said.

Big Cable companies are asking for more government handouts, and say “now’s not the time” to talk about internet speeds in the United States.

If the speed goes up, the percentage and competition levels go down – and spark uncomfortable questions like: why is the most technologically advanced nation on the planet providing slower speeds to fewer people at higher cost than any other comparable Western economy?

The answer is that U.S. telecoms want it this way. They want as much money from American taxpayers as possible while refusing to do anything. The real question should be: Why do we let corporations get away with so much corruption?

Motherboard got an inside look at the NSO Group iPhone malware. It works fast and can infect fully-up-to-date Android phones and iPhones.

The company has a group of engineers dedicated to making sure the company’s tools keep working because cell phone companies are in a constant “war” against government hacking providers “to block all those open windows that allow companies like NSO to go in,” according to the entrepreneur who attended the meeting, who was told that as part of the company’s sales pitch.

Scary stuff. NSO Group sells its products to customers (governments) that target political dissidents, journalists, and even an Amnesty International researcher. It claims the product can’t work in the United States.