Showing 1 - 7 of 7
Smartphone sales chilling like a fridge
Life, James Hein, Published on 03/02/2021
» According to the UK company CCS Insight, the smartphone trade is beginning to resemble the market for white goods. Instead of jumping on the newest model, many are now waiting until their device is broken or showing signs of age before they trade up. Not that long ago people upgraded every two years or so, this has extended to as much as five or six years for about a third of the market with the new average at around four years. Some manufacturers only provide support for three years of upgrades but Apple and Samsung are now committed to a longer support cycle.
Facebook guilty, Huawei continues to claim innocence
Life, James Hein, Published on 13/03/2019
» I've been thinking about the new foldable phones. For many years, I have been hoping for a foldable e-book that has, to date, not materialised in a form I'd want to buy. There is something about the traditional book format that is familiar and comfortable. The first releases of foldable phones are aimed at those with lots of spare cash and who want to dip their fingers into the technology. These buyers form a baseline for the manufacturers to build on. I see this as testing the waters and I expect to see Apple jump into the market in the near future, as they have a bucket load of patents for similar technologies.
Beware ransomware
Life, James Hein, Published on 08/02/2017
» Ransomware can hit anywhere. In the town of Cockrell Hill, Texas, with a population of just over 4,000 souls, the police force there was hit and lost over eight years of evidence. The attackers used a "cloned email address imitating a department issued email address" to deliver the ransomware and then requested four Bitcoins worth about US$3,600 (126,000 baht) to decrypt the files. Any good IT department would have decent backups but as it turned out this process had only backed up the encrypted files. After talking to the FBI they were told that there was no guarantee they would get their data back so they wiped their servers and restarted with eight years of data and videos destroyed.
The year Samsung outsmarted Apple
Life, James Hein, Published on 31/12/2014
» It is that time of year where I look back and see how many of the predictions I made at the start of the year happened.
Can you spot the difference in the latest iPhone?
Life, James Hein, Published on 02/10/2013
» Reports on the iPhone 5S keep coming in and they're quite mixed, with even a few Apple lovers seemingly jaded by the lack of obvious improvements. My favourite so far is a rather professional-looking clip of a man who's holding two phones, one in each hand, and he keeps getting confused as to which is the new model.
Samsung unleashes 4K video recording
Life, James Hein, Published on 04/09/2013
» It seems like every time I fire up the computer there is another new smartphone or mobile device announcement. This week it is the Koreans and the Chinese. The Samsung Galaxy Note series has been very popular all over the world, but especially in Hong Kong. The latest version has a good-size screen and a battery that lasts long enough for most people. So what do you add to such a device? Samsung has decided that 4K video recording will be the way to go. The plan is that buyers will then rush out and buy a Samsung 4K TV to play the images on. By the time you read this Samsung will have announced more details, but one prediction is 24-bit audio support. The problem here is that the camera lens will still be a tiny thing so I doubt the resulting video will be anything close to a real 4K recorder in quality like those Canon has just released across their new range.
There's no time for a chill pill
Life, James Hein, Published on 10/04/2013
» The primary goal of any IT department is to make stuff available to its users and provide access to company data. This is usually achieved by providing standard desktop configurations tested against known technologies. Adding additional availability to an existing solution is risky and can be costly. Also, in the past, consumer-based IT had little relation to business-based IT, but in the modern world user demands on the IT solution staff is increasing.