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How The iPhone Drives the Future of Mobile Silicon

Charlotte Henry ·

When the new iPhone is released next month it will almost-certainly be powered by Apple’s A13 chip. As such, it will be the result of years of research into mobile silicon, not to mention customer dollars. Daniel Eran Dilger explained  the development in an in-depth piece for AppleInsider.

In an interview with Ars Technica last year, Apple’s head of marketing Phil Schiller noted that the company’s silicon designers regularly meet with other groups to explore how their needs can be accommodated in future hardware designs… While Google got more sympathetic media coverage, Apple has been building an ISP into all of its iPhones for years now. It effectively works as part of the camera system, both for users and third-party apps. Every new iPhone delivers further advancements in the ISP, allowing every new generation to capture better photos, higher frame rates, improved exposure and a variety of other advancements that enhance imaging inside and outside the camera app.

 

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'Inside Google, it's a Game of Thrones'

Charlotte Henry ·

While we may be cynical about much of what Google does, it is easy to imagine it being a fairly pleasant place to work. According to report on Business Insider, away from bright colours and free food, there is another, less pleasant, side to things. The sex and politics apparently resembles the goings of a popular HBO television show.

Google is a hotbed of sex and political infighting. And it always has been. A source who spent most of his career at Google put it this way: “Inside Google, it’s a Game of Thrones.” Game of Thrones is a series of novels and an HBO television show. The plot is wildly intricate, but the main story is about how several families from all over the Kingdom are competing to take over the throne. The show and books are full of violence, sex, and political intrigue. There is no violence at Google. But sex and politics? Oh, yes.

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Here's Why DARPA Wants Underground Tunnels

Andrew Orr ·

Popular news yesterday was about how DARPA, a military research agency, put out a request for giant underground tunnels by August 30. The media made it seem like it was some mysterious, scary thing, saying that DARPA didn’t give reasons. But they actually did, and it’s called the DARPA Subterranean Challenge (SubT).

The SubT Challenge is organized into two competitions (Systems and Virtual), each with two tracks (DARPA-funded and self-funded). Teams in the Systems tracks will develop and demonstrate physical systems to compete in live competitions on physical, representative subterranean courses, and focus on advancing and evaluating novel physical solutions in realistic field environments. Teams in the Virtual tracks will develop software and algorithms using virtual models of systems, environments, and terrain to compete in simulation-based events, and explore larger-scale runs in simulated environments that explore significantly expanded scenario sizes and durations.

If we read between the lines, I think a safe assumption is that this is about developing and improving autonomous systems. Think laser mapping, self-driving vehicles, and indoor combat drones.

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It's Almost Crunch Time. R.I.P. Python 2

John Martellaro ·

TechRepublic writes:

With just four months to go until support ends for Python 2, there are still some developers and projects that haven’t made the switch to Python 3….

The pressure to make the move is growing, with the Python 2 interpreter and bundled libraries due to cease receiving bug fixes from January 1st 2020.

This article describes the impact of the Jan 1st cutoff and steps to take for a successful migration to Python 3.

For more information about scripting language support in macOS Catalina, see: “macOS 10.15 Catalina Deprecates UNIX Scripting Languages.“

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Apple Releases iOS 13.1 Public Beta 1

Andrew Orr ·

After confusing people yesterday with the release of iOS 13.1 developer beta, today iOS 13.1 public beta 1 is available.

Beta 1 of iOS 13.1 and iPadOS 13.1 include a handful of features that were removed from earlier iOS 13 and ipadOS 13 betas, most notably enhanced automation with Shortcuts. The testing of beta versions of iOS 13.1 and iPadOS 13.1 may suggest that iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 have been finalized.

Once the public betas wind down, I like to delete my public beta profile so I can get the official iOS release. If you’d like to do the same, instead of waiting for the official iOS 13.1 release, I suggest you delete the profile in Settings > General > Profiles.