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Apple releases AirPods firmware 3.7.2

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 24, 2017

Apple today released AirPods software 3.7.2, bringing unspecified improvements and bug fixes to the company's first Bluetooth earbuds featuring the in-house designed W1 wireless chip.

According to the German-language publication Macerkopf.de (Google Translate), which first spotted the new firmware, it's possible that it addresses the reported Bluetooth connectivity issues where AirPods would lost connection with their paired iPhone during phone calls.

To install the new AirPods firmware, put both earbuds inside their charging case, then close the case and connect it to a charger or a USB port on your computer. Your iPhone must be paired with your AirPods and connected to Wi-Fi in order for the firmware to download and install.

TUTORIAL: How to install software updates for your AirPods

Keep the charging case within a few inches of your iPhone or the AirPods firmware won't be updated. Keep in mind that updating your AirPods may take a few minutes to complete.

During the update process, your AirPods may be unavailable for use.

You can find out your AirPods firmware version in Settings → General → About → AirPods on your iPhone when the earbuds are connected to the phone.

AirPods originally released with firmware version 3.3.1.

Video: tricking Galaxy S8’s iris scanner into unlocking the phone

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 24, 2017

Eyeballs and faces are not as secure as fingerprints—German hackers with the Chaos Computer Club have bypassed iris authentication technology that's prominently featured in Samsung's Galaxy S8 smartphone. All that's needed to trick Galaxy S8's iris scanner into unlock the phone is an infrared photograph of the eye of the phone’s owner and a contact lens.

ArsTechnica says the photo need not even be a close up.

This video below, originally posted by Starbug (the moniker used by one of the principal researchers behind the hack), demonstrates how to circumvent the iris recognition of Samsung's flagship Galaxy S8 smartphone—such as a basic digital camera, Samsung's laser printer and a contact lens—by using equipment that costs less than the $725 price of an unlocked device.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccQZs8Ofpuk

An attacker must posses a photograph of the phone owner's face, which must be printed out to place the contact lens on the iris in the printout. Holding the image in front of a locked Galaxy S8 fools the iris scanner into unlocking the device.

Princeton Identity, the makers of Galaxy S8's iris authentication technology, say the phone provides “airtight security” and that consumers can “finally trust that their phones are protected”. Samsung itself claimed that Galaxy S8's iris scanning mechanism is “one of the safest ways to keep your phone locked.”

That said, we've known that bypassing the phone's biometrics is laughably easy.

In March, iDevice posted a video proving that Galaxy S8's facial recognition feature can be fooled into unlocking the phone by scanning a simple headshot of the phone's owner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXd26Nqg5tQ

According to The Korea Herald, the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus handsets can even be unlocked by scanning the face of a sleeping person. Samsung is aware that Galaxy S8's facial unlocking technology is not its most secure biometric system: in a March statement to Mashable, a company spokesperson said that facial unlocking cannot be used for purchases with Samsung Pay.

For that, you still must use the phone's fingerprint reader as the iris scanner can only be used to purchase apps and media or unlock the phone. Galaxy S8 includes both iris scanning and facial recognition via the front-facing camera, in addition to fingerprint scanning via a sensor relocated to the rear side.

Apple's own Touch ID fingerprint reader isn't immune to hacks either.

Back in 2013, Starbug demonstrated that fingerprints casually collected off of water glasses can be leveraged to fool Touch ID into unlocking your iPhone. Android phones are susceptible to a similar hack.

As you know, Apple is expected to use facial unlocking and maybe even iris scanning in iPhone 8. Starbug, however, cautions that future smartphones with iris recognition may be equally easy to hack. Iris recognition, says Starbug, is hard to make hack-proof because you can't really hide your iris.

“It's even worse than fingerprints,” added the hacker.

Thunderbolt 3 to go royalty-free by 2018

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 24, 2017

Intel announced today it will be making Thunderbolt 3 royalty-free for manufacturers in 2018 to boost adoption. Moreover, the chip giant will be natively integrating Thunderbolt 3 into its future CPUs, which should help reduce the overall solution cost on the computer.

“We think the first thing is going to drive broader adoption and deployment of Thunderbolt 3 in PCs,” Jason Ziller, Intel’s lead for Thunderbolt development, told Wired. “The second will drive also broader adoption in the ecosystem, with a lot of different peripherals and other devices.”

Intel is continually working with the industry to lower the cost of the cables and the devices. The improving USB-C economies of scale should help Thunderbolt 3 drive down costs.

There are currently about 60 Thunderbolt-compatible peripherals.

About 180 seventh-generation Core CPUs from Intel include native Thunderbolt 3 integration, with another 30 or so expected by the end of the year.

Dan Riccio, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, said:

Apple and Intel have collaborated on Thunderbolt from the beginning, and as the industry leader in its adoption, we applaud Intel’s efforts to integrate Thunderbolt technology into its CPUs and open it up to the rest of the industry.

The Thunderbolt protocol has been struggling to gain traction.

Jointly developed by Apple and Intel six years ago, it's failed to go mainstream due to the royalty fees vendors are required to pay and a combination of high cost and low availability.

Thunderbolt 3 supports data speeds of up to 40 Gbps, allowing you to transfer a 4K movie in about thirty seconds. In addition to data, the protocol allows for power, USB, DisplayPort, HDMI and VGA to be carried over a single reversible port that's compatible with USB-C.

“There always have been and probably will continue to be some wired ports on even the thinnest and lightest computers,” says Ziller. “So having a single port that really do everything that you need is our vision for Thunderbolt 3.”

Apple's MacBook Pro uses a dedicated Thunderbolt 3 controller measuring 10.7mm × 10.7mm.

Microsoft has enhanced Thunderbolt 3 device plug-and-play support in the now available Windows 10 Creators Update, with additional enhancements planned for future OS releases.

By integrating the protocol into its CPUs and making the Thunderbolt specification available to third-party chipmakers royalty-free next year should help Thunderbolt 3 become an industry-standard it was always meant to become.

Apple granted patent for iPhone-compatible Apple Pencil

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 24, 2017

The United States Patent and Trademark Office yesterday awarded a new patent to Apple, seemingly covering a future Apple Pencil that would work with an iPhone. Apple's $99 stylus is currently exclusive to iPad Pro models because the accessory requires a special system underneath the display, which iPhones currently don't have.

The U.S. Patent No. 9,658,704, titled “Devices and methods for manipulating user interfaces with a stylus”, describes a future Apple Pencil as supporting a myriad of electronic devices outfitted with a touchscreen and one or more sensors to detect signals from a stylus.

In some embodiments, the patent describes using a stylus with portable communications devices like iPhone, iPod touch and iPad by taking advantage of the projected mutual capacitance sensing technology that Apple's existing OS devices currently use.

The wording of the patent indicates strongly that a future Apple Pencil may work with other types of apps like word processing, spreadsheet making, game playing, web browsing, image editing, email and more.

Other devices like Macs with touch-sensitive trackpads might also work with a stylus.

Both “iPhone” and “phone” are referenced many times throughout the patent application. One of the included patent drawings clearly illustrates a stylus being used with an iPhone-like device.

The patent was originally filed for in September 2015 and credits Apple engineers Jeffrey Traer Bernstein, Linda L. Dong, Mark K. Hauenstein and Julian Missig as its inventors.

Tim Cook may have hinted in an interview last September that Apple Pencil could soon work with iPhones, thereby suggesting that the next iPhone might incorporate additional sensor support for a next-generation digital stylus from Apple.

Foxconn and Sharp buying a stake in micro-LED startup eLux

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 24, 2017

Apple's favorite contract manufacturer Foxconn Electronics is teaming up with its display-making subsidiary Sharp to acquire a 31.82 percent stake in eLux, a Delaware-based startup engaged in research and development of micro-LED technology and its application to virtual reality and augmented reality devices.

The American startup was established in October 2016 by researchers formerly employed at Sharp's research facilities across the United States.

Sharp says it will team with CyberNet Venture Capital, panel maker Innolux and Advanced Optoelectronic Technology (all affiliated with Foxconn) to buy eLux in October.

Nikkei said earlier this week that Sharp will take a stake of just over 30 percent in eLux, valued at $7 million, in exchange for related patents. Additionally, the Japanese giant will transfer 21 patents regarding micro-LED technology to eLux, said DigiTimes.

Apple is apparently serious about this promising new display technology.

Aside from acquiring micro-LED specialists LuxVue back in 2014, the Cupertino company could kick off trial production of micro-LEDs by the end of 2017, with Apple Watch Series 3 likely switching from OLED to micro-LED display technology.

Power-conserving micro-LEDs consist of small, light-emitting diodes that render images.

They're capable of boosting battery life by as much as 300 percent versus LCDs. The technology allows for improved color gamut and up to two to three times the brightness of OLED-based screens under the same power consumption.

Apple could start building micro-LED screens by end of 2017

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 24, 2017

Despite many technological bottlenecks, Apple could kick off trial production of the power-efficient display panels based on a relatively new and unproven micro-LED technology by the end of this year. According to a supply chain report Wednesday from Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes, the Cupertino giant is likely to crank out a small volume of micro-LED display products from its plant in Taoyuan, northern Taiwan at the end of the year.

Other companies are looking to commercialize micro-LEDs, too.

Samsung-owned PlayNitride should install a production line for micro-LEDs in the second half of 2017, which will use a mass-transfer process that mounts micro-LED chips on thin film transistor substrates. Micro-LED are so small that a five-inch 400-by-600 pixel smartphone panel requires nearly one million and a 4K TV panel about 50 million tiny chips.

PlayNitride doesn't expect first micro-LED-based mobile products to appear before 2019.

Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute is expected to tie up with local businesses to begin trial production of micro-LEDs in 2018, using its in-house developed technology.

Let's not forget Apple's contract manufacturer Foxconn, which recently announced plans plans to acquire display startup eLux for the development of next-generation micro-LEDs.

Apple itself acquired micro-LED specialists LuxVue three years ago.

Business Korea claimed last month that Apple Watch Series 3 is likely to use a micro-LED display before the technology proves feasible enough to be deployed on a mass-scale across Apple's iPhone, iPad and Mac devices.

Samsung Display and LG Display, which currently supply LCD screens for Apple devices, could lose around $1 billion per year should the iPhone maker adopt micro-LEDs.

As we explained before, micro-LEDs could pave the way for Apple devices with longer-lasting batteries and brighter screens. As you know, traditional LCD-based screens waste a lot of energy because they require a backlight.

In addition to boosting battery life by as much as 300 percent versus LCDs, micro-LEDs allow for higher-resolution screens with improved color gamut and two to three times the brightness of OLED technology under the same power consumption.

Image: LuxVue's patent related to commercialization of Micro-LEDs, now owned by Apple.

1Password’s Travel Mode protects your private data from unwarranted searches

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 17, 2018

Developer AgileBits announced yesterday a new Travel Mode feature in 1Password, its password manager for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows and the web. Designed to protect your sensitive data from unwarranted searches when crossing borders, Travel Mode removes all vaults from your devices except for the ones marked “safe for travel.”

Even if a security agent at the US border asks you to launch and unlock 1Password, they'll be unable to disable Travel Mode from within the app or even realize that the app is currently in Travel Mode, for that matter.

To mark the vaults as safe for travel, sign in to your account on 1Password.com.

Click the pencil icon on the vault you wanna mark as safe for travel, choose Safe for Travel and click Confirm. Right before you travel, turn on Travel Mode by clicking your account name in the top-right corner of the interface, choose My Profile and click Enable Travel Mode.

On the devices you’re traveling with, open and unlock the 1Password app.

Any vaults that haven’t been marked as safe for travel will be instantly removed from the app. Rather than simply hide the vaults, the app completely removes them from your devices, including all items and your encryption keys so there are no traces left for anyone to find.

When you’re done traveling, return to My Profile on 1Password.com and click Disable Travel Mode. Just like that, your temporarily removed vaults re-appear on your devices.

“Whenever you turn Travel Mode on or off, you’ll need to open 1Password on your devices while connected to the Internet for the change to take effect,” reads the FAQ on the official website.

AgileBits notes that Travel Mode is included with every 1Password subscription. If you’re a team administrator, you can turn Travel Mode on and off for team members and manage which vaults are safe for travel.

A single-user 1Password subscription cost $2.99 per month, or $4.99 per month for a multi-user family account. Separate subscription options for teams are available as well.

1Password for Mac is a freemium download from Mac App Store.

1Password for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch is available free on App Store.

32GB iPhone 6 now available in UK via EE network

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 24, 2017

A 32-gigabyte version of iPhone 6 has quietly launched in the United Kingdom on the EE network with a 24-month contract, available only in Space Grey. Apple stopped selling 16/64/128GB iPhone 6 smartphones in September 2016.

In recent months, however, the Cupertino giant quietly re-launched the phone in China, Taiwan and a few European countries in a never-before-available 32-gigabyte capacity.

Given that iPhone 6 originally debuted in 16, 64 and 128-gigabyte versions, this new 32-gigabyte storage tier is likely Apple’s solution targeting budget shoppers. Aside from the previously unavailable storage capacity, the 32GB iPhone 6 comes with iOS 10 versus iOS 8 that was pre-installed on the original iPhone 6 models.

Amazon is currently offering the device via its online store in India.

Released back in 2014, iPhone 6 was Apple's first larger-screened smartphone and as such proved a massive upgrade opportunity for the Cupertino firm. The device has a 4.7-inch LCD screen, runs Apple's in-house designed A8 chip and includes an eight-megapixel iSight camera out the back and a rather unimpressive 1.2-megapixel FaceTime selfie camera out the front.

Download Apple’s new Swift app development curriculum from iBooks Store

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 24, 2017

Apple on Wednesday announced a new app development curriculum targeting U.S. high school and college students who are eager to learn the secrets of mobile app development with the Swift programming language.

Titled “App Development with Swift”, the new curriculum is now available as a free download from iBooks Store. It's an extension of Apple’s existing K-12 Everyone Can Code curricula, which has been downloaded 430,000 times.

Noting that the app economy and software development are among the fastest-growing job sectors in America, Apple CEO Tim Cook says his company is thrilled to be providing educators and students with the tools to learn coding.

“Community colleges play a critical role in helping students achieve their dreams, and we hope these courses will open doors for people of all ages and backgrounds to pursue what they love,” said Cook.

The full-year course focuses on app design and development with Swift, the company's modern programming language. It includes various Swift Playgrounds exercises and Xcode tutorials, as well as homework projects, a teacher guide with solutions, grading advice and more.

Starting this fall, the following community college systems serving nearly 500,000 students nationwide will teach the new curriculum, among others:

Alabama Community College System Columbus State Community College Harrisburg Area Community College Houston Community College Mesa Community College San Mateo Community College District

Houston Community College will be opening an iOS Coding and Design School to teach the new curriculum.

“We are thrilled Apple is offering this incredible opportunity to advance student learning, which will especially help us bridge the gap in computer science training for minorities and women,” said Houston Community College Chancellor Cesar Maldonado.

“We can’t wait to see what these students will do and already have local businesses offering mentoring and internship opportunities.”

Apple says that select high schools will teach the curriculum as well. At many campuses, local businesses will also offer students mentoring and internships, added the firm.

More than a thousand schools across the US plan to teach with Everyone Can Code materials in the fall. Feel free to check out Apple’s existing free coding materials on iBooks Store.

Customize the Camera app with SmartCameraShutter

Anthony Bouchard ∙ May 24, 2017

If you’re looking for new ways to customize the Camera app experience on your iPhone or iPad, then check out a new free jailbreak tweak called SmartCameraShutter by CydiaGeek.

This tweak offers a handful of options for chaging the look and feel of the Camera app’s user interface. Complete with both aesthetic and functional mods, SmartCameraShutter might be worth installing if the stock Camera app experience isn’t cutting it for you.

LaunchInSafeMode lets you selectively launch apps without being affected by tweaks

Anthony Bouchard ∙ May 24, 2017

If you install jailbreak tweaks that modify certain apps in particular, then you might find a new free release dubbed LaunchInSafeMode by iOS developer inoahdev useful for troubleshooting when things stop working properly.

This tweak lets you launch individual apps into a “safe mode”-like state in which it launches without the effects of other jailbreak tweaks. In other words, it lets you see if a problem you’re experiencing is caused by a jailbreak tweak or something else.

Pin important notes at the top of the Notes app with Thumbtack

Anthony Bouchard ∙ May 24, 2017

Your iPhone comes equipped with a Notes app right out of the box so you can write things down without forgetting them. On the other hand, people tend to jot down a large number of things, and this makes it hard to differentiate between regular and important notes.

One of the features the stock Notes app lacks is the ability to pin the most important notes so you can tell them apart, and that’s precisely that a new free jailbreak tweak dubbed Thumbtack by iOS developer Evil Penguin aims to fix.