Can’t Adjust Your MacBook’s Keyboard Backlight?

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January 28, 2018

Apple MacBook Keyboard Backlighting

If you own an Apple MacBook with a backlit keyboard, have you ever been unable to adjust the keyboard backlighting? Instead of showing the brightness level, the pop-up displays a prohibition symbol (🛇), while the backlight will remain off. Fortunately, this is one of the macOS‘s features, and your keyboard probably still works perfectly.

Similar to the auto brightness settings for the main display, the built-in ambient light sensor, located next to the front-facing camera, will adjust the screen brightness according to the surrounding environment. The ambient light sensor is also responsible for changing the keyboard illumination automatically. When the room is brightly lit, the system will disable the backlighting completely to conserve battery life, therefore showing the lock symbol.

Apple Keyboard Backlight

In order to force the keyboard backlighting to switch on, you can temporarily cover up the ambient light sensor. This can make the system think you are in a dark room, hence allowing the backlighting to unlock. You can adjust the illumination normally by pressing the “F5” or “F6” function keys.

No more panic when you see the locked keyboard backlighting pop-up from now on. Your keyboard is not broken.

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Apple HomePod Smart Speaker Is Available for Order on 26 January

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Anson

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January 26, 2018

Apple HomePod Release — Photo from Apple

Apple introduced its first smart speaker, HomePod, back in WWDC 2017 (June). The HomePod is a direct competitor to what Google Home and Amazon echo devices are currently offering. The HomePod was supposed to launch at the end of 2017, but delayed. Finally, Apple announced the HomePod’s pre-order and shipping dates.

According to Apple, the HomePod is aiming to combine both a great speaker and a smart assistant into a single package, similar to the Google Home Max. Inside the HomePod’s 7-inch tall pill-shaped enclosure, there are seven tweeters and one woofer covered with mesh fabric. With the help of an A8 processor and a six-microphone array, the HomePod can detect its location in a room to adjust the directions of audio (beam-forming) and cancel out unwanted echo. Multi-room speakers support will be coming later in 2018, in the form of software update.

Apple HomePod Release

The HomePod also features Siri, Apple’s own smart assistant, that can be used to control music playback or smart home appliances, as well as other simple commands (e.g. send messages and set alarms).

The HomePod will cost USD $349 (MSRP), in either white or space gray color. It will be available for pre-order on 26 January (Friday) from Apple Online Store and will be released on 9 February. The HomePod will first launched in the US, UK and Australia, while France and Germany in Spring 2018.

To know more about the HomePod, you can check out Apple’s press release and its product page.

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Apple iOS 11.3 Will Add Updates to Messages, ARKit And More

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Anson

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January 25, 2018

Apple iOS 11.3 Update Preview — Photo from Apple

Apple provided everyone a sneak peek at the upcoming iOS 11.3 update in a recently published press release. iOS 11.3 will bring major updates to the Messages and Health Apps, as well as HomeKit and ARKit. The update is expected to release in Spring 2018.

ARKit 1.5

With the release of iOS 11, ARKit allows users to have better augmented reality experience using only their iPhones/iPads. In iOS 11.3, ARKit will be updated to version 1.5 with the ability to detect more complex environments. You will be able to place objects on vertical surfaces, such as walls and doors. The real world view will have 50% more resolution and support for auto-focus.

Messages

Apple introduces Business Chat that let users to communicate with different companies within the Messages app. Similar to Whatsapp for Business, you can talk to the businesses’ representatives directly. But Apple’s Business Chat takes a step forward by allowing you to make reservations for the required services and even make purchases with Apple Pay.

For iPhone X users, four additional Animoji is addeed to iOS 11.3, including a dragon, bear, skull and lion. There will now be a total of 16 Animoji characters in the Messages app.

Battery Conditions

Just as what Tim Cook (Apple’s CEO) said before, Apple will provide a option to allow users to switch off the auto slowdown, because of a degraded battery. A more comprehensive battery condition menu will also be added to the Settings. This particular feature will be available for iPhone 6 or later.

There are more updates to the Health app, Apple Music, Apple News, and HomeKit in iOS 11.3. You can check out Apple’s preview for more information.

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Amazon Monthly Prime Membership Price Is Now Increased to $12.99 USD

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Anson

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January 21, 2018

Amazon Monthly Prime Membership — Screen Capture from Amazon

You would probably know what an Amazon Prime membership is, if you have ever tried shopping on Amazon. Joining Amazon Prime will offer you quite a lot of exclusive member benefits. Customers can choose to pay the membership fee in either a monthly or yearly basis. Now, Amazon is going to raise the monthly price from $10.99 USD to $12.99 USD.

What you get from a Prime membership?

Free and fast shipping
Access to thousands of music, movies and TV series
Exclusive shopping deals

If you are a Amazon Prime member, you will be able to have free two-day shipping or even one-day and same-day shipping on a lot of items. You can also watch popular movies and TV series using Prime Video.

The original monthly price of the membership was at $10.99 USD, which the total cost for a year is $131.88 USD. Compare to the $99 USD annual plan, it costs 33.2% more (+$32.88 USD), but it does not require you to pay the whole year upfront. Currently, the monthly price is raised to $12.99 USD, which is 18.2% more expensive per month, and costs $155.88 USD a year. Paying the fee monthly will be 57.5% (+$56.88 USD) more than the annual plan.

This price change will make the $99 USD annual plan more reasonable and much cheaper than the monthly one. Both Prime membership plans provides the same amount of exclusive benefits, while you need to choose whether to commit to a year at first.

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Apple Will Add Option to Stop Automatic CPU Slowdown in Next iOS Update

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Anson

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January 19, 2018

Apple Add Option to Stop Automatic CPU Slowdown — Screen Capture from Apple

Last Month (December 2017), Apple officially admitted that they are intentionally reducing the performances of various iPhone models in iOS 10/11, depending on the phones’ battery health. iPhone 6, iPhone SE to iPhone 7 are affected. A lot of iPhone users disliked the lack of control and even filed a lawsuit against Apple. Recently, Tim Cook (Apple’s CEO) disclosed the company’s upcoming plan on allowing users to switch off the auto slowdown in an interview from ABC News.

What Happened

In iOS 10/11, Apple would deliberately decrease the performance of an iPhone by underclocking the CPU/SoC, if the system detects the internal battery starting to degrade. Users have no control or visibility over the slowdown. According to Apple, this measure is in place because an aging battery may not be able to supply enough voltage to the CPU/SoC at full power, which may cause unexpected shutdowns/restarts.

Apple apologized for the confusion and later offered to swap out-of-warranty iPhone batteries (iPhone 6 or later) worldwide for $29 USD, reduced from $79 USD, until the end of 2018.

Tim Cook:

…in addition to giving everybody a very low price on a battery…We’re gonna give people the visibility of the health of the battery, so it’s very very transparent…And if you don’t want it, you can turn it off…

According to Tim Cook, the automatic throttling can ensure users to perform important actions (e.g. urgent calls or messages) without the iPhone shutting down unexpectedly. He reiterated that Apple has no intention to motivate new iPhone sales by decreasing the performance.

He also said that the upcoming iOS update next month (probably iOS 11.3) will show the health of the iPhone’s battery to users and whether the system is slowing the phone down. Most importantly, there will also be a setting to turn the auto throttling off completely. Though, Apple does not recommend doing that.

The iOS update would be in developer beta in February and publicly release in March.

For more information, you can check out Tim Cook’s interview and Apple’s official statement about this issue.

Update: Apple confirmed the inclusion of this feature in iOS 11.3 update in Spring 2018. The feature will be available for iPhone 6 and later.

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Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) Has A Serious Security Flaw

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Anson

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January 15, 2018

Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) — Screen Capture from Intel

It has not been a perfect year to start for Intel. After the industry-wide “Meltdown” and “Spectre” bugs in tons of processors, a security exploit is found in Intel’s Active Management Technology (AMT) by the Finnish cyber security and privacy company, F-Secure. This problem is potentially affected countless numbers of business computers.

Intel Active Management Technology is a proprietary tool, that allow IT specialists to remotely monitor, maintain, update and control devices over the network. AMT is common equipped by business laptops with a vPro compatible processors.

F-Secure’s Senior Security Consultant, Harry Sintonen:

THE ATTACK IS ALMOST DECEPTIVELY SIMPLE TO ENACT, BUT IT HAS INCREDIBLE DESTRUCTIVE POTENTIAL. IN PRACTICE, IT CAN GIVE A LOCAL ATTACKER COMPLETE CONTROL OVER AN INDIVIDUAL’S WORK LAPTOP, DESPITE EVEN THE MOST EXTENSIVE SECURITY MEASURES

The new security flaw is found by one of the consultant from F-Secure back in July 2017. The exploit can be used by hackers to gain complete control over the affected devices in an extremely short amount of time. The device will still be vulnerable, even if most of your security measures are in place, such as BIOS password, TPM Pin and Bitlocker. Hackers can bypass passwords using Intel’s Management Engine BIOS Extension (MEBx).

To prevent this kind of attack, the most important step is to keep the computers in a secure location, because attackers will need to have physical access to the devices to use this particular exploit. Changing the default “admin” password to a much stronger one for AMT, or completely disabling AMT are also possible solutions.

Intel has not yet responded to the situation. You can check out F-Secure website for more information.

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Google Acquired The UK-based Tech Startup, Called Redux

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Anson

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January 12, 2018

Google acquired Redux — Photo from Redux

As we all know, Google would like to be more involved in developing its own in-house hardware. It recently acquired a part of HTC’s mobile division for $1.1 billion USD, to better control the designing and manufacturing of the Pixel series smartphones. According to Bloomberg, Alphabet Inc. (Google’s parent company) quietly acquired a UK-based tech startup, called Redux.

Redux may not be a familiar name for the general public, because it has never released any consumer products. It is a tech startup, founded in 2013, which focused on developing advanced audio and haptics technologies for mobile devices. The company had participated on last year’s MWC (February 2017), and showcased a tablet that used various vibrations on the screen to act as a speaker, as well as producing haptic feedback like buttons and sliders (similar to Apple’s Taptic Engine).

Screen Capture from Crunchbase

According to information on Cruchbase, the acquisition deal was first announced in August 2017, and finally completed on 10 January 2018. Google has yet to make an official statement about the acquisition.

This acquisition from Google is certainly great for the future development of the Pixel smartphones. Redux’s technologies can omit the need of a speaker inside the phone to free up precious internal space. The haptic feedback can allow Google to compete with Apple’s own 3D Touch display, adding another unique feature to the phone.

Update:
Redux‘s official website is no longer active, but you can check out its archived version.

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Unboxing of Google Home Mini Smart Speaker

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Anson

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January 10, 2018

Google Home Mini Unboxing

Google announced both their latest generation Pixel 2 smartphones, and a number of Google Assistant enabled devices in October’s event (2017). Google is putting more effort in pushing its smart home accessories to the public. A budget-friendly smart speaker would greatly increase the user base, which is what the Google Home Mini is. Let’s unbox it.

Specification

Unboxing of Google Home Mini Google Home Mini has a plastic circle housing, with a diameter of 98 mm and height of 42 mm. It is available in three colors for the fabric top (Chalk, Charcoal and Coral). It has a 40 mm speaker that is firing upwards.

Unboxing

The Google Home Mini is packed inside a cardboard box, with the product name, one of its picture and the colored Google logo printed at the front. Another side of the box shows some of Google Home Mini’s supported services, such as Spotify, Netflix and YouTube.

Unboxing of Google Home Mini

Since Google Home Mini is a smart speaker, it has Google Assistant built-in. Some simple “Ok Google” commands are presented on the side of the package, as well as a link to the instruction page.

Google describes the Home Mini “small and mighty”, and further explains more features about it.

Unboxing of Google Home Mini

The whole package has no adhesive or tape to remove. There is a small pull tap at the bottom to help open the box.

Once the box is opened, the Google Home Mini is sitting in the center, on top of a plastic tray.

All the accessories and paperwork are hidden underneath the tray. You will have a quick start guide, a list of Google Assistant commands, as well as safety and warranty information. A non-detachable micro-USB cable and wall adapter is also included. The adapter can provide power at 5V, 1.8A.

Google Home Mini

The top of the Google Home Mini is made of fabric. It feels soft and smooth to the hand when touching, also allowing the sound from the speaker to come through. There is two touch sensitive areas on both sides for volume control.

Unboxing of Google Home Mini

There is an anti-slip rubber pad at the bottom, in a contrasting coral (reddish orange). At the side, you will find the micro-USB power port and a physical mute button.

When you first plug the power into the Google Home Mini, it will prompt you to download the Google Home app on your iOS or Android devices. Follow the steps shown in the app to complete the set up process. It will only take about five minutes.

After that, you will be able to use your trained “Ok Google” or “Hey Google” voice to activate and control the Google Home Mini. When it is listening or responding to your requests, the four LEDs on the top will be lit up and flashed.

The Google Home Mini fills the gap of a budget smart speaker in Google’s lineup, while at the same time having the ability to do almost everything that a more expensive Google Home and Google Home Max can (with the expense of a 3.5 mm audio output port and better speaker units).

You can check out the Home Mini at Google Online Store.

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ARKit 1.5

Messages

Battery Conditions

What Happened

Specification

Unboxing

Google Home Mini

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