The News For Jan 27, 2017

Thursday, 26 January 2017

For a while now I’ve been doing Youtube videos and recently I started to switch from gaming videos (Let’s plays and walkthroughs) into other more technology related topics. A series I’ve started is doing a short video going through interesting news I saw during the week.

Here’s The News for January 27, 2017 (and you can subscribe here):

Samsung publishes reasons for exploding Note7

Samsung has finally published the real reason behind the explosions that plagued the Note 7 line. After completing their own investigation as well as three other independent consultants the conclusion was that there were actually 2 issues related to the batteries.

Batteries created by Samsung had a fault where they were too big for the phone’s casing which lead to bending and short circuiting.


After the initial failures, Amperex Technology provided new batteries.

Due to the rush to relaunch the device these new batteries had missing insulation and other low quality parts that made them prone to the same result.

Samsung has said they have overhauled their safety testing procedures to prevent this from happening again.

The whole Note 7 saga has been bizarre and plagued with half truths and half measures, hopefully this really is the end of it.

Samsung has reported they have recovered 96 percent of all the affected devices so there are potentially many more chances for things to blow up.

Samsung also announced they will not shy away from the Note brand, so expect a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 to blow us away sometime this year…

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SpaceX is discarding their next launch rocket

Last week SpaceX made the news with their first launch after the explosion last year. Well they are back in the news again.

This time they’ve announced that their next launch will be the last one that uses expendable rockets.

The rocket being used is fully capable of landing itself but due to the mission parameters it won’t have enough fuel to do the maneuver.

This is due to two reasons, first is that the EchoStart satellite being launched is quite large and heavy.

The other one is that it needs to be put in a geostationary orbit which is around thirty six thousand kilometers above earth’s surface.

The distance and the weight make it impossible for to the rocket to land back.

The company has announced that they intend this mission to be the last time they have to discard a rocket since the next ones will use the new iteration of the Falcon 9 or the Falcon Heavy rockets which should have enough capacity to land back after any mission.

The launch is scheduled for next Monday, January 30.

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Lucasfilms releases the new Start War movie name!

This week Lucasfilms announced the name of the next Star Wars movie, so skip this part if you are so spoiler averse that even knowing the name is unacceptable.

It will be called The Last Jedi and will continue the original Skywalker saga that’s been going for 7 episodes… 4 episodes?

The movie is expected to release on December 15, I wonder if we’ll ever get tired of the yearly Star Wars movie? I know I won’t.

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Apple’s latest beta WatchOS has Theater Mode

This week Apple released new beta versions of their multiple operating systems including watchOS 3.2

Beside the traditional bug fixes and improvements a new feature has been introduced: Theater Mode.

The feature disables the normal raise to wake behaviour of the watch. When enabled the screen can only be turned on by tapping on it.

I’m really looking forward to this feature, not only when going to the movies but also in a more common situation like showering. The water droplets usually trigger the touch screen and make the watch go crazy so hopefully this fixes this issue a bit.

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PC Gaming Hardware Sales for 2016 surprise

For many years now the PC industry sales have been in decline, but a new report by Jon Peddie Research, seems to indicate that at least one area of the industry is actually doing great: PC Gaming hardware.

The report shows that for the first time this market broke through the $30 billion in revenue mark.

A goal that was expected to be reached in 2018.

The feat seems to be fueled by a combination of multiple things: the failure of consoles to entice the enthusiast gamers, and the value proposition of PCs that enable a better experience.

Variety of parts from budget to high end, and customization are also a powerful influence.

The report also makes it a point to identify that PC gamers are very enthusiastic no matter their budget.

Non the less, high end parts still took the biggest chunk of the market with 43%, the midrange 35% and the low end 22%

It’s gonna be interesting to see this same report next year since a lot of people will be finally making their upgrade decisions after AMD launches their Ryzen and Vega lines.

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