Tuesday, 1 November 2016


Apple is testing a different screen technology that would make future MacBook Pros look even better

Apple is reportedly testing a different type of display called OLED for upcoming MacBook Pros that's thinner, brighter, looks better, and could use less battery power than the current LCD displays, according to Korean news site ET News on Tuesday.

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Apple currently uses OLED displays on the Apple Watch and the Touch Bar on the new MacBooks Pros, and considering the benefits of OLED, it's not surprising that Apple is looking into it.
OLED displays can be even thinner than the LCD displays currently used in the MacBook Pro, which lines up nicely with Apple's apparent goal to make products as thin as possible. A thinner MacBook Pro display would also look striking, as the new MacBook Pros already have incredibly thin displays.


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Overall, OLED displays also look better than LCD displays, as they produce richer colors, including black. In the picture below, both the iPhone 6s (LCD) and the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 (AMOLED, a variety of OLED) are displaying the same image of black at their highest brightness settings. It's clear that the Note 5's OLED-style display produces a better black, which gives more contrast to what's displayed on the screen.


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Another benefit with OLED displays is they can potentially use less power than LCD displays, and therefore offer MacBook Pros with better battery life.
I say "potentially" because it depends on whether you're displaying brighter or darker elements on the screen. With brighter elements, an OLED display is shining several thousands of tiny LED lights, which consumes more power. If you're displaying darker elements, those tiny LED lights don't shine as brightly, and even turn off entirely when displaying black, which doesn't use up as much power.
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This is partly why the watchOS operating system on the Apple Watch has a mostly dark/black theme, as the majority of the display is actually off, which saves on battery. It's likely that the Apple Watch's battery life would suffer if it had an LCD display.
It's not clear when MacBooks with OLED displays will be released, if at all, as the report is still considered a rumor at this point.

Monday, 31 October 2016

Astronauts Touch Down On Earth After 115 Days On The International Space Station




This is the scene when an astronaut sees Earth up close for the first time in almost four months.

Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin slid out of the Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft that delivered him to a remote steppe in Kazakhstan Sunday morning (local time). He and fellow astronauts Kate Rubins of NASA and Takuya Onishi of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency arrived safely after a three-and-a-half-hour journey from the International Space Station - and 115 days in space.

"I'm kind of reluctant to close the hatch," Ivanishin said during a ceremony on Friday when he handed command of the space station to U.S. astronaut Shane Kimbrough. "The time is very special here. ... I didn't have time to know what's going on our planet, and maybe it's for the better. On the space station, you live in a very friendly, very good environment."

The next day, he, Rubins and Onishi clambered into the tiny Soyuz descent module for their trip home. Its quarters are very tight.

As the Soyuz rocketed toward Earth, search and rescue helicopters fanned out around the landing site, waiting for the craft to come into view.

Just before 10 a.m. local time, the Soyuz deployed its parachute and drifted out of the morning sky.

After it hit the ground, rescuers opened the hatch and helped extract crew members via ladders and slides. The craft landed upright, which made the process quicker then when a craft lands on its side.