New features in the pipeline along with the new iteration of the hit timepiece
The next version of the Apple Watch (Series 7) is expected to be released in the coming weeks, and the WSJ reported that the company is currently working on additional health-related features and improvements for the smartwatch. While it is not certain that these to be included in Series 7, there is no doubt that they are coming, either as a software or hardware update.
Apple is already known for many of its current health conscious features, including the well known Exercise rings and Fitness App, as well as the ability to check your heart rate for irregularity with its electrocardiogram and check your Blood Oxygen levels with a Series 6.
One of the new capabilities that may be coming to your Apple Watch will include measuring blood-pressure which would prompt a user when their BP levels are too high (or increasing in rate). This can influence behavior, diet or give you a warning to seek medical attention is the reading is extreme, for example.
When Apple does roll out this feature, it could be a game changer (or rather a life-saver), as hundreds of millions of Americans suffer from high blood pressure and / or hypertension. The condition leads to almost half a million deaths a year according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Another feature said to be in the works is targeted towards females, a thermometer to help with fertility planning. Bloomberg also reported earlier of Apple’s additional health goals to add blood-sugar sensors to help those with diabetes monitor glucose levels.
A useful, even sometimes addictive health aid, which is a good thing
Those who have an Apple Watch can likely attest to its effectiveness in promoting health and well being, particularly around exercise and weight control. The recent addition of of medical features, that in some cases have directly contributed to lives being saved, appear to be a high priority at the giant tech company.
Although it is tantalizing to speculate on the incredible features yet to be added to the device, it will take time for the technological innovations and solutions to be developed in order to make these possible.
Apple has some very ambitious improvements they want to add to its Watch, however there is no official timeline that has been announced and most likely will not be expected before 2022.
The Confusion around 5G goes far beyond the political-nonsense conspiracy theories
Most articles on 5G since the Apple iPhone 12 launch event on October 13th have been looking in the rearview mirror to predict the future: 5G will “disappoint” due to the slow buildout, technical limitations of the format, and various issues with all the competing systems and carriers, and these arguments are casting doubt on the much touted potential.
This perspective misses the point on so many levels, it’s difficult to know where to begin to unpack the myriad of misunderstandings.
Much of the technical discussion has been focused on the various flavors of 5G and the associated limitations and advantages of each. The fact that the fastest 5G, which goes by the sub-category moniker millimeter wave, is not instantly available everywhere for the 5G capable iPhones, and that they will not be in the hands of most consumers before next year, has been met with feigned shock and bewilderment.
And further, many highlight the confusion mounting over the various providers and the various flavors: 5G, 5G E, 5G UW or 5G+ as they are designated by “service indicators” on the iPhone 12 itself. Verizon Communications Inc., T-Mobile US Inc. and AT&T Inc. each have their own systems they have developed and are building out – looking for a piece of the 5G market, expected to be around $1.15 trillion by 2025.
First and foremost – since Apple and iPhone are the leader of all innovations in the marketplace – not necessarily by the sheer number of handsets sold, but by the focus on increasing technical and aesthetic quality, and appealing to the top demographic, not to mention the majority of early adopters, it is precisely the fact that, until now, the iPhone 5G handset did not yet exist, that the buildout is not further along.
The fact that, in real-world tests, it is already performing at up to 7 times the fastest previously available connections, was coupled inevitably with the caveat; physical locations where these speeds can be accomplished are currently hard to find.
Due to the technical issues with this ultra-high speed version of 5G; the inability to travel more than very short distances and the lack of ability to penetrate obstacles or walls, the possibility to get these amazing speeds are, at present, more likely to be found at outdoor locations.
This is, admittedly, an odd conundrum, but you can be sure, with the upcoming massive increase in competition for ISP customers, it is one that will find at least some viable solutions very soon. There are many billions at stake for those that can find ways to improve this issue.
“Standing in front of a camera store in South of Market, I got 5G speeds reaching 2,160 megabits a second, which was 2,900 percent faster than 4G. Even where it was a tad slower — behind the Safeway parking lot in the Marina district — the 5G iPhone drew speeds of 668 megabits a second, which was 1,052 percent faster than 4G.”
– Brian X. Chen for the New York Times
The carriers have not had the market to build for, and needed to be pushed by a huge influx of iPhone 12 owners. Then, meaning now, they will begin to compete with one another for that extremely lucrative group of users. That rising competitive battle is not the only one looming on the horizon.
Regardless of the ultimate time frame of the build-out, there is an obvious and very meaningful conclusion that we can reach here: 1 year from now things will look very different in the options available for those who want to work and play with the help of a faster internet connection (meaning, obviously, everybody).
As can be seen from the chart above in early 2020 the US ranked 13th in desktop download speed while mobile speeds ranked even worse coming in at #33 (various sources have US at #10 for fixed broadband). Liechtenstein is nearly 4x faster, on average, than the US. Also note that the highest average is one-tenth to one-twentieth of the eventual “ideal conditions” speeds of 5G.
Failure of the US Broadband infrastructure and the coming shake-up in the ISP system grid-lock
The problem is not a technological one. The US lags behind due to the pseudo-geographical monopolies held by various ISPs and the ability they have enjoyed to be able to gouge customers with high priced, bad service. Lack of competition often results in slow progress, or no progress.
That is all about to change. You don’t need to have a technician to analyze the various 5G systems, or compare carriers chances of “winning” to realize that the very fact that speeds and options are increasing exponentially is going to re-write the map when it comes to who controls the cash-cow subscription gravy train. That system is about to collapse.
In steps Elon, and his little copy-cat-side-kick Jeffy Bezos, and the landscape is about to become unrecognizable
First, 5G speeds rival or exceed the former fixed / desktop speeds which had commanded a premium for the geographically entrenched providers. 5G home systems will be available in many areas that will be competitive in speed, price and convenience.
SpaceX’s Starlink, with nearly 1,000 satellites already in orbit out of an eventual 12,000, with launches continuing almost weekly with 60 in each launch, is a serious project. This ambitious plan will eventually encircle the Earth completely with interconnected satellites that will link through intermediary “ground stations” with up to 1 million planned for USA alone. Each ground station is just under 19 inches (.48 m) across.
“It looks like a UFO on a stick,” according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk “It’s very important that you don’t need a specialist to install. The goal is for … just two instructions and they can be done in either order: Point at sky, plug in.”
Satellite Broadband, such as SpaceX’s Starlink will not only add ubiquitous 100mbps and higher, low latency coverage, it will also cover the same areas with high population density, major cities, where both current systems and 5G are also focusing.
Exact pricing is as yet unknown, but it is very likely that there will be a high-pitched battle over customers, once the various systems go into the next phase of the rollout. And all of this is not factoring in additional players in 5G and satellite systems.
Longer term (2 years +) there will be major world-wide implications of this shift, toward more and faster options in internet connectivity
The first shift, primarily driven by the geographical independence of satellite broadband, such as Starlink, will be a decentralization of populations at massive scale. While we are looking at a world where, due to the current pandemic countermeasures, WFH a.k.a. work from home is becoming more than a temporary factor. As many as 20 major companies such as Google and Microsoft have announced extended or permanent work-from-home policies as of October 2020.
There are plenty of very serious discussions about what will be done with all the skyscrapers and office buildings once there are no workers to fill the offices. This is not idle chit-chat. A migration has already begun away from the insanely overpriced rents and home prices to take advantage of the work-from-home-anywhere approach.
Extrapolate, based on increased speed and availability of connectivity to millions of locations not currently viable, will soon have internet at minimum speeds rivaling the current world champion Liechtenstein (see above), and you see the beginnings of an exodus of epic proportions. Just in time for economic upheaval, due to the aftermath of the still ongoing global pandemic, and yes, the issues of accelerated global warming, which will, coincidentally, affect costal “elite” cities like Miami, San Francisco, New York and others around the world to a disproportionally large degree.
“The reality is that a technological utopian vision, one where the world is able to shift to sustainable energy and regenerative farming, and create economies based on prosperous and equal distribution of the wealth generated by those systems (along with AI plus robot technology (powered by sustainable clean energy), can only be realized by an acceleration of learning and positive social change. “
-DL
These changes, to be clear, are not all “bad” nor are they all the cause of negative side-effects such as the current covid-19 outbreak.
The reality is that a technological utopian vision, one where the world is able to shift to sustainable energy and regenerative farming, and create economies based on prosperous and equal distribution of the wealth generated by those systems, (along with AI, robot technology powered by sustainable clean energy), can only be realized by an acceleration of learning and positive social change.
Change is urgently needed to build out the human networked-communication-system that will enable the learning and cooperation which is the only hope for the survival of our species. 5G, the iPhone 12 and SpaceX’s Starlink Satellite Broadband are going to be huge factors, in making the first baby-steps toward that change, possible.
It’s All Grown Up: Monster Stephen King novel takes a Scary Jump into Adulthood…
This week, the most anticipated horror movie of the year finally hits theaters. “IT: Chapter 2” is the sequel to Warner Brother’s 2017 blockbuster hit, “IT”, but audiences already know that the film will not be the most conventional of sequels, particularly based on the timeline and source material that it grapples with.
Based on Stephen King’s epic 1986 novel, the two “IT” movies, both directed by Andrés Muschietti, try to translate the over-one-thousand-page book into film. Thus, the project was pretty much always bound to be more than just one movie.
A pre-planned franchise is nothing new to Hollywood. More interesting is the way that Warner Brothers and Muschietti plan on adapting the novel’s intricate narrative structure. Over hundreds of pages, King’s original book switches back and forth between the main characters’ present lives and their childhoods.
It seems that the modern films have decided to take a more linear approach, though, with the first It focusing entirely on the characters as children and “IT: Chapter Two” telling their adult story.
This may be a wise decision on Muschietti and Warner Brothers’ part, for a previous adaptation of “IT”—the miniseries that aired on ABC in 1990—attempted to follow King’s original structure and ultimately ended up congested and ill-paced.
Splitting the extensive story into two chronological films will likely be a more enthralling and digestible way to appreciate It, even if it does deviate from King’s literary form. Therefore, what makes this film an anomaly in the world of direct sequels, is that it takes place twenty-seven years after the events of the first film.
Of course, the “distant sequel” has been somewhat of a trend in Hollywood lately, with classic franchises like Star Wars, Blade Runner, and Men in Black (amongst others) all returning to the big screen within the past few years after decades-long hiatuses.
However, these distant sequels are effective in part because the temporal gap between them and their predecessors is usually mirrored in real time. Seeing beloved characters and settings come back on camera after such long absences can evoke a strong senses of nostalgia, and lure in wistful audiences, also introducing the stories to new generations.
“IT: Chapter Two”, however, has skipped the “real time” gap and instead simply re-casted the characters as adults. It also helps that first film took place in 1989, which causes the twenty-seven year gap to land the sequel right in modern times.
Grown-ups of the Present Day vs. Kids of our Memories
This may allow the sequel to have more contemporary relevance, the relatively short time since the 2017 original allows Warner Brothers to capitalize on the current fanaticism around the first film.
At the same time, though, it sacrifices a sense of authentic nostalgia, and given the amount of mileage the first film got out of retro 1980s references, the lack of nostalgia may put Chapter Two at a critical disadvantage.
Similar to they way that the childhood storyline from Stephen King’s novel took place in the 1950s and made references to the era’s classic horror movies, the first It movie exploited 1980s nostalgia, with music queues, cultural references, and cinematic troupes that brought viewers back to the thriller-filled decade of Nightmare on Elm Street, The Shining, and Friday the 13th, but also the blissful bildungsroman blockbuster era of Stand By Me and ET.
This was evident from the first movie’s marketing alone—the opening line of the 2017 trailer being “when you’re a kid, you think the universe revolves around you,” over shots of the tween-aged characters biking around town and jumping into swimming holes.
The trailers for Chapter Two — which is all we have to go on until the film opens — do not have the same 1980s nostalgic flavor.
It seems like the sequel will keep a small foot in that door through flashbacks, but the bulk of the movie will have to stand on its own unconventional two legs as a modern-day adaptation of a beloved thirty-year old horror novel.
Expectations are high and the trailers imply that “IT: Chapter Two” will deliver on scariness and epic-ness, but without the Kevlar of nostalgic charm that truly made the 2017 movie stand out, audiences will have to see if Chapter Two compensates those lost strengths.
