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Will we see whisper Siri soon?
Apple have filed a patent for a “a digital assistant that is capable of detecting a whispered speech input and providing a whispered speech response.” Basically Siri that whispers back to you if you whisper to it. This may be Apple’s attempt at making it’s AI assistants to become more ‘human.’ As a result less awkward to use in public situations.
In the patent, Apple explained in which a whispering Siri will help you out when you need it the most. The situations that Apple listed where Libraries and in an office cubicle. While, Apple also noted that a whispering Siri is intended to protect a users privacy.
The way that an iPhone or Apple watch would be able to detect if a users talking quietly or whispering to it. Would be detecting the amplitude and frequency patterns of a users voice. As a result, Apple want to make Siri actually whisper back to you. Not just turn the volume down on your device. Think about it, when someone whispers something to you, you don’t speak back normally. Subconsciously you make the decision to match the other person’s voice pattern.
Just a patent
It’s also very important to note not all patents become reality.
Rainbrow: Gaming with your eyebrows?
So, that shiny new iPhone X you have got? The one where animoji’s where cool for all of a week? It has a new use for the front facing camera! Your eyebrows! Introducing Rainbrow!
What about them?
So, you can now use them to play a game of Frogger. Well technically. Rainbrow is a brand new game that lets you navigate across a rainbow with your eyebrows. Nothing more. Nothing less.
You have to control a face emoji with your eyebrows. So, move down it by frowning and yes, you’ve guessed it, you move up the rainbow by looking shocked. Furthermore in a Super Mario star move, get enough points and you can crush everything in your path! As a result, no deaths either!
Most of all, make sure you play in a well lit room, otherwise the game won’t work.
Download Rainbrow here!
iMac Pro’s are EXPENSIVE
Want a shiny new iMac Pro? Well, re-mortgage the house. It’s going to cost you. A LOT!
While the base iMac Pro is costly at just under £5K, sitting pretty at £4,899, that’s nothing when you start adding on parts.
If you, like us, are a bit of a geek when it comes to computing power. You want the best, most powerful computer you can get. That way you can get your work done as fast and as efficient as possible. So you can either go and start some new piece of creative piece. While on the other hand it gets spares up some time to crack on with COD WW2. Whatever floats your boat.
But……
The iMac Pro, fully loaded costs a grand total of £12, 279. For that low low price you get 12GB of memory, a 4TB SSD and a 18-core Intel Xeon CPU (To release in 2018) Plus if you’re a sucker for all things matching, if you may decide to get matching space grey magic mouse 2/magic trackpad 2 throw an additional £149 on top of that sucker. I mean why not you’re spending 12K as it is. Yet, we’re only saying as Apple’s website state that you can only purchase Space Grey accessories are only available at time of purchase. As a creative you may also want Final Cut Pro X/Logic Pro X on it too (though we suspect you may already have those on your account) but for those that don’t it’s an additional, £300/2oo respectively.
So….anyone want one still?
(Yes!)
Apple Tv
With the Apple TV app, you can now browse a wide variety of apps without ever having to switch between them. You’ll find films and programmes. Handpicked recommendations. And soon, live sport. The Apple TV app is already on iPhone, iPad and Apple TV — so get watching.
The Apple TV app works seamlessly across iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. So if you stop watching a film or programme halfway through, you can pick it up later on a different device. And in a different location.
You’ll find your iTunes purchases, your subscription services and a wide variety of free content on the Apple TV app. It even offers handpicked recommendations. Everything you want to watch is right within the Apple Tv app. (Apple)
Check your homepage after updating to the latest iOS, if, for whatever reason the Apple Tv App is not showing, you can download it here!
Apple buys Shazam
Apple have acquired the music discovery app Shazam! Shazam is the app that basically lets you identify songs, movies, TV shows and commercials from short audio clips. So you are then able to listen to them via your favourite music streaming service. Usually Apple Music/Spotify. So, this is not good news for Spotify.
Apple spokesperson told The Verge:
“Apple Music and Shazam are a natural fit, sharing a passion for music discovery and delivering great music experiences to our users. We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today’s agreement.”
Allegedly the purchase of the music discovery app is $400M! While only pulling in $54M in revenue!
How will this affect you?!
There are a number of ways the acquisition can benefit the tech giant. Music! As a result the most obvious way the music discovery app can help Apple is via Apple Music! (If they shut down the app and use integrate it into the iOS, one would assume via Siri. Therefore Spotify referrals will be non existent) As click throughs per day are said to be 1M. Consequently this is HUGELY beneficial!
To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!
To download Shazam please click here!
iPhone X vs Google Pixel 2 XL Camera
iPhone X vs Google Pixel2 XL Camera!
#iPhoneX or #GooglePixel2 XL- which camera is better? Only one way to find out!See more here http://www.howtokillanhour.com/gadgets-tech/iphone-x-vs-google-pixel-2-xl-camera
Posted by How To Kill an Hour on Thursday, 16 November 2017
iPhone X vs Google Pixel 2 XL Camera
It’s fair to say that the iPhone X vs Google Pixel 2 XL camera conversation is one that is due to dominate in the last quarter of 2017. There are many differences between the iPhone X vs Google Pixel 2 XL In this post we will just be focusing on the performance of heir cameras. Please note that we have not ‘touched’ up or edited any of the images / video’s.
Regular photos
‘Point and Click’ has to be the most used feature of any camera phone or even camera across the world right now. So it made sense to do just that queue autumnal leaves!
Autumnal leaves shot iPhone X vs Google Pixel 2 XL Camera
As you can see the Pixel seems to offer richer colours. Different, yes but is there a clear winner at this point? Of course not! On to the next test.
Skies!
We all love a a good ol sunset / sunrise don’t we. And here it seems that the pixel takes the upper hand. Yes there is a little burn out from the sun. But you get a much better range of colours from the Pixel.
London Skyline shot iPhone X vs Google Pixel 2 XL Camera
Portrait Mode (Rear Camera)
Portrait mode on the iPhone X uses 2 camera’s and you can preview your foreground and background blurs before you shot. The Pixel 2’s single camera takes a pic. The blur is ‘processed’ in afterwards.
Dead wood shot iPhone X vs Google Pixel 2 XL Camera
Dead wood shot iPhone X
At this point personally the richer colours of the Pixel XL 2 were winning me over. Plus there was a slight mis hap during a well earned mid competition coffee break.
Coffee cup portrait on pixel XL 2
Coffee cup portrait on pixel iPhone X
Portrait mode (front facing camera)
It’s as if the iPhone X heard the Google Pixel XL taunting it’s rear end (camera). Because when we did portrait with the front facing cameras, this happened:
The iPhone X seems to find and soften the face slightly which looks good. The slight saturation seems to add a film like feel to the selfies above.
Low Light
We didn’t test low light situations. We can confirm in low light that there is nothing quite like the Google Pixel Xl 2. The below images were taken by Gadget show presenter Ortis Deley in a dim environment recently. We know it was dim because we were there too.
In Conclusion
It is a fact that the Google Pixel XL 2 currently has the highest rated mobile camera in the world right now. It is a consistent performer which gives you a richer set of colours in your pics, out of the box. If you are a selfie king or queen, the iPhone X’s smooth front facing portrait mode may be for you!
Enough siting on the fence though! For us here at how to kill an hour when it comes to cameras we think the Google Pixel 2 XL wins.
Get the Google Pixel 2 XL here.
To listen to the guys talking about this please click here!
iOS 11 Making It Difficult For Law To Unlock Your Phone?!
The next iOS is even more secure than we first thought!
According to security developer ElcomSoft, iOS 11 will require your passcode on the device itself when plugged into a new computer or laptop for the first time, to establish a new trusted computer, regardless if you click ‘trust this computer’
This is especially important for user privacy as constitutional laws try to catch up with technology, over in the US the Fifth Amendment does not protect fingerprints but can apply to passcodes in some instances.
The FBI even paid $900,000 to unlock the San Bernadino terrorists iPhone after Apple refused, claiming privacy violations and apparently the police have even tried to unlock a dead victims device with a 3D printed fingerprint!
Apple Face ID fail was supposed to happen?!
Last week Apple showed off their flagship feature on the iPhone – FaceID
They did an incredible presentation on it and then went to demo it on stage – after a couple of attempts by Apple’s Craig Federighi, it bummed out and said to enter a passcode and they had to go to a backup.
Embarassing.
Well, Apple spoke to Yahoo’s David Pogue and explained all
“People were handling the device for stage demo ahead of time and didn’t realize Face ID was trying to authenticate their face. After failing a number of times, because they weren’t Craig, the iPhone did what it was designed to do, which was to require his passcode. Face ID worked as it was designed to.” (Yahoo News)
Apple later confirmed to the BBC that the quote was real and the phone worked exactly as it should.
When you think about it, it does make sense as the same happens when your thumb is wet or dirty and it doesn’t recognise it, it asks to enter the passcode.
Apple were never going to release a faulty product on release were they, come on. (Ignoring iPhone 4 reception issues)