Showing 41 - 50 of 109
Password ain't a password
Life, James Hein, Published on 01/02/2017
» How many people do you know, including yourself, who are avid Facebook users? Be honest. You will know that your account contains a large amount of information, much of it quite personal, that data thieves would be happy to mine and use. A solution is to protect this information.
The eternal debate between privacy and security
Life, James Hein, Published on 01/03/2017
» What is the line dividing privacy from national security? If you are a privacy advocate, the line is closer to "everything is private". If you are a nation state wanting to protect its interests, that line falls somewhere nearer to your preschool diary. Homeland in the US is working on a policy requiring selected non-citizens entering the US to provide the passwords to their social media accounts to gain entry. This has triggered feedback from human rights groups, civil liberties groups and a bunch of professors. Given that every nation has a right to protect its borders and a customs official can search everything else you bring in, why not information in the digital realm?
Samsung looks to rebound
Life, James Hein, Published on 12/04/2017
» The Samsung Galaxy S8 will be in stores towards the end of April. Samsung had to get this one right after the Note 7 but they have ended up mostly doing an Apple. One obvious conclusion for the release of a 5.8 and 6.2-inch models so close together in screen size is because of the iPhone regular and S versions; it looks like Samsung thought they needed two models as well. There has been no upgrade in battery size nor camera capabilities between the S7 and S8. Then there are the prices, the most expensive Samsungs ever. Add all of this up and it detracts from what is still a rather nice phone.
Samsung's comeback; buyer beware
Life, James Hein, Published on 30/08/2017
» I have been using the Samsung Galaxy S8+ for some time now and so far, no complaints. If you want to use features like the Edge screen, fingerprint or retina security etc, you will need to do some setting up. The camera is excellent, as is the screen. Response is smooth and the battery life does me all day and then some depending on what I am doing. Connectivity is great and the interface is easy to use. My biggest complaint is finding the right match for a screen protector and a case due to the curved screen. Another is the difficulty in finding a way to give root access but that won't be an issue for most users. The new form factor means it fits into the hand nicely even for the larger model. So, far I have no hesitation in recommending this phone.
Raising the bar on performance
Life, James Hein, Published on 13/09/2017
» Have you ever wondered why sometimes you have full bars on your phone and a few steps later none? Worse if you are in one room of your house it's all good but elsewhere no bars. There are many factors that can affect your reception including distance from your cell tower, the number of people using the network, what is in between cell towers and you and more.
Apple versus Samsung: It's a battle of the 8s
Life, James Hein, Published on 27/09/2017
» The big news from the usual sources is the new iPhone 8. After reading some of the specs and comparisons with the Samsung S8 and Note 8, I am a bit confused. Reviewers crow about facial recognition for the new iPhone, but the S8 range already has it. They go on about the edge-to-edge screen, but Samsung has had that for a few models now. In fact, almost point by point the Samsung range already has all the features of the iPhone 8 but at a lower price point, and that's before the Note 8 comes out.
Do you have a fear of spying?
Life, James Hein, Published on 11/10/2017
» So how safe do you feel in your home security-wise? I'm not thinking of malware but the ability for someone to snoop on you visually or through audio. There have been some concerns about devices like the Amazon Echo and similar being used to tap into what you are saying with everything recorded on servers that authorities could get from say Amazon.
What will 5G mean for you?
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/04/2018
» Is 5G going to save those people with bad internet connections? As the world moves more towards mobile platforms, users want faster and more reliable services. I know I do. 5G is being touted as the way to that future, with the promise of a high-def movie download in seconds and other benefits, like better access to the often-mentioned Internet of Things, or IoT.
A lot of money for fairly little phone, Apple
Life, James Hein, Published on 26/09/2018
» So, the news of the week, or at least as I write this, is the release of the new Apple iPhone range. There are three models ranging from the 5.8 and 6.1 inch models up to the XS Max at 6.5 inches. The latter is a real departure from the early days of Apple declaring that no one needed a large-screen phone. Compared to the latest phone specs across other brands, the features in the new iPhone range are not so special. They do all have very special prices and the bottom of the line starts at US$749 (Thai prices are TBA) and goes up from there topping out at $1449, which would make the whole range easily the most expensive phones per feature on the market today. For this you get no fingerprint reader, no headphone jack, average pixel density and cameras, no expansion memory port but dual SIMs, wireless charging and face detection. Even my most ardent Apple-lover friend will not be forking out their cash for those kinds of prices. I don't expect this range to sell anywhere near as well as earlier models. Seriously, what were they thinking?
AI-aided hope on the horizon
Life, James Hein, Published on 13/02/2019
» Despite some of my criticisms in the past there are some excellent examples of emerging artificial intelligence technologies. I've mentioned some of these from the medical world in earlier articles but a new one caught my eye this week, figuring out in which hotel a picture was taken. No, not to help people remember where holiday snaps were taken but to track down human trafficking where pics of women are taken to sell them for sex. The three groups behind this identification technology are from George Washington University, Temple University and Adobe, all in the US. Like many AI systems a large amount of source data is used and to help with this more than a million images have been collected from 50,000 hotels worldwide. Using all the room elements in backgrounds a neural network is being trained to identify a hotel chain and then a location.