Items tagged with Lightning
With Apple's announcement of its iPhone 15 family of smartphones switching from a Lightning port to a USB-C port, buyers will want to take note of some safety precautions. Repair technicians warn potential iPhone 15 owners that a cheap USB-C cable could fry their new device.
Apple's recent Wonderlust Event was...
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NASA's Juno spacecraft captured the green glow of a lightning strike in the midst of a vortex near Jupiter's north pole as it made its 31st close flyby of the planet. The orbital path of Juno will take the spacecraft close to the giant planet's night side, which will provide even more opportunities for the...
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A method of harvesting energy out of thin air is being developed by a group of researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Researchers describe it as the "generic Air-gen effect," as it can use nearly any material engineered with nanopores to collect cost-effective, interruption-free electricity.
The...
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An astronaut onboard the International Space Station (ISS) took an incredible of image of a lightning strike while over Southeast Asia, and the Moon took the opportunity to photo bomb the picture. The image was captured last year by an unnamed member of the Expedition 66 crew.
Astronauts aboard the ISS no doubt see...
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A massive electrical charge that blasted 50 miles into space above an Oklahoma thunderstorm was part of a detailed 3D study that has given scientists new data concerning an enigmatic atmospheric phenomenon known as gigantic jets. The bolt of lightning was the most powerful gigantic jet studied thus far and carried...
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A group of Senate Democrats are urging the Department of Commerce to establish uniform charger standards and "restore sanity and certainty" to purchasing electronic devices. The recommendation follows the European Union (EU) passing new rules concerning what type of charging port companies use with mobile...
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The USB Type-C connector was devised to be the be-all and end-all of external connectivity. Whether it's carrying DisplayPort video signals, Thunderbolt high-speed data transfers, power delivery, or plain old USB, this port can do just about everything. For the most part, device manufacturers have swarmed towards this...
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The “duck test” states that if you see something and “it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” However, this same logic path cannot be applied to everything, such as USB cables which could contain more than meets the eye. In the past year, a security researcher and...
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Apple is no stranger to removing ports from its devices. On the MacBook side, the company killed off MagSafe, HDMI, and SD card readers (among other things) in an effort "simplify" things. Even the iPhone has not escaped the scalpel, as caught a lot of heat when it removed the 3.5mm headphone jack starting with the...
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Are you miffed that the latest iPhone doesn't have a dedicated 1/8" audio jack? Well, Apple likely won't be alone, as other smartphone OEMs may be looking to ditch the venerable headphone jack in order to take advantage of audio over USB-C.
This week, the USB-IF (Implementers Forum) announced "USB Audio over USB...
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Leave it to the creative folks at Apple to take its sweet time fixing a problem it created, and then charging a premium for that fix. To be more specific, Apple is finally offering a USB-C to Lightning cable, which will set you back $25 for the version that's 1 meter (~3.3 feet) long, or $35 to double the length to 2...
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The fact that Apple is planning to remove the standard 3.5-inch audio jack on future iPhones has been the subject of much debate over the past couple of months. Some iPhone devouts have even begun warning Apple that this will be the move that pushes them to alternative platforms. It's not hard to understand why: we...
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If you’re a fan of increasingly thin smartphones that prioritize looks over larger batteries for increased runtimes, Apple’s next generation iPhone might be right up your alley. According to sources for Mac Otakara, Apple’s obsession with everything thin will kick into overdrive next year when the presumed “iPhone 7”...
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As we discovered just the other day, Apple's latest iPad, Pro, isn't too repairable, scoring just 3 out of 10 on iFixit's scale - 10 being the best. Somewhat humorously, that's still a lot better the 1 out of 10 score the Surface Book received earlier this month.
Nonetheless, the teardown helped highlight a feature...
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In addition to the revised 15-inch MacBook Pro and 27-inch iMac with 5K Retina Display news from this morning, Apple has introduced a new accessory for all Lightning-equipped iPhones: the iPhone Lightning Dock. The addition of the dock is surprising for two reasons. First, why did it take so long for Apple to release...
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Apple has worked hard to deliver synchronized data across all of your iDevices with iCloud, but for those who aren’t so keen on trusting the cloud with their data, there’s a device coming called the iStick that allows you to transfer files locally. Yes, it’s a USB flash drive (nothing interesting...
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Apple has added a spec to its MFi (Made-For-iPhone/iPad/iPod) program that allows for a headphone connection via the Lightning port instead of the traditional 3.5mm headphone jack, and the functionality will come via an iOS 7.1 software update. According to 9to5Mac, the Lightning port will allow headphones to receive...
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The Consumer Electronics Show hasn’t officially started just yet, but that hasn’t prevented a number of companies from showing of their wares a bit early at venues other than the Las Vegas Convention Center. We’ve already had a number of private briefings that we’ll be able to talk about soon;...
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Great news for those waiting for the tried-and-true USB connector to follow the path of Apple's thinner, smaller lightning connector... at least in terms of overall size. While mini-USB and micro-USB are certainly tiny by most definitions, they're still a little chunky when seen on some of the world's slimmest phones...
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Apple has famously eschewed any industry standardization with its device connectors in favor of proprietary options, including when it rolled out the new Lightning connector and sucker punched an entire side industry’s worth of iOS accessories that weren’t compatible with new iPhones and iPads. Frank...
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Apple’s walled-garden approach to mobile is legendary, and rarely was the company’s control over the entire iPhone/iPad, iOS, and apps ecosystem more evident than when it changed its proprietary 30-pin connector to the new Lightning interface and effectively punched an entire industry of iOS accessory...
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Anticipation for Apple’s rumored plastic budget iPhone is high--not so much because it’s supposed to be a killer device as people want to see if it will be any good. A company called Techdy claims that it’s snagged one of the devices and produced copious photos and a little teardown to show it off. The photos show a white-backed...
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