Apple Declares Death To All The Ports

Apple just announced its latest MacBook. It’s tiny. It makes the Macbook Air look like a Dell Inspiron circa 2002. But hopefully you’re not one of those jerks that actually uses the ports on the side of your computer. This MacBook only has a single USB-C and it does everything from charging, to sending video out and transporting data.

It’s the only port on the computer meaning owners cannot charge the computer and an iPhone at the same time. It’s not possible to output video to a monitor and input data from an external drive — at least not without a hub.
apple-watch-event0226

This single port was likely the byproduct of Apple’s quest to make the thinnest MacBook possible. Ports take a lot of room. Thanks to their physical structure, the female jack cannot be made that much smaller.

This isn’t the first time Apple threw out industry standards. In 1998 Apple shocked the industry and didn’t include a floppy drive or serial ports in the iMac G3. Instead Apple included a CD-ROM and two USB ports. In 2008, much to the chagrin of video producers, Apple stopped including Firewire ports, a standard it created, on its computers. Apple did away with CD-ROM drives as soon as it could and completely ignored Blu-ray.

But has Apple gone too far here? A single port, one that charges the computer along with much more, forces the owner to turn to other devices to use their devices in familiar ways.

Apple doesn’t rely on the industry to dictate what should be included in its computers, consumer be damned.

Read more

Comments

How To Hide Text In Microsoft Word 2007, Reveal It & Protect It

Sometimes what we hide is more important than what we reveal. Especially, documents with sensitive information, some things are supposed to be ‘for some eyes only’. Such scenarios are quite common, even for the more un-secretive among us. You want to show someone a letter composed in MS Word, but want to keep some of the content private; or it’s an official letter with some part of it having critical data. As important as these two are, the most common use could involve a normal printing job. Many a time we have to print different versions of a document, one copy for one set of eyes and others for other sets. Rather than creating multiple copies and therefore multiple printing jobs, what if we could just do it from the same document? That too, without the hassle of repeated cut and paste. We can, with a simple feature in MS Word – it’s just called Hidden and let me show you how to use it to hide text in Microsoft Word 2007. It’s a simple single click process. Open the docum...

Build Your Own Awesome Personal 3D Avatar with Avatara

Do you use social networks and want to build your own awesome 3D avatar? Maybe you want to send someone a cute cuddly image of yourself (kind of)? Or maybe you have your own ideas of what you would do with an Avatar… Well look no further than Avatara which I discovered from the MakeUseOf directory . You can create 3d avatars out of pre-set up templates or create your own from scratch. To start, visit Avatara’s homepage . You will see this screen: Click Get Started to umm, get started! That will take you to this screen: You see that you can build your own Avatar using an uploaded head shot like the Obama one above (just an example, guys). Or roll with one of their awesome avatars. I chose to start with a blank avatar by clicking Start with a blank avatar at the bottom of the screen. That takes you to here: I clicked on the filter at the top and told it to filter out everything but male characters and then I saw this: I rolled with Buck and continued. You need to click Select...

Boom, the startup that wants to build supersonic planes, just signed a massive deal with Virgin

Have you heard about Boom? Boom is a relatively new startup that’s aiming to build something pretty crazy. They’re not building an app… or a social network… or even some new gadget for the Kickstarter crowd. Boom wants to build planes. Really, really, really fast planes. Specifically, they’re trying to design and build a supersonic passenger plane that goes 2.2x the speed of sound. If all goes to plan, they’ll be able to shuttle people from New York to London in 3.5 hours, and SF to Tokyo in 4.5. Sound crazy? I wouldn’t disagree. It’s worth noting that the company is in the very early days for something as intensive, massive, and hugely expensive as designing and producing a passenger aircraft. They’re still working on their first prototype, and hope to fly it by late next year. But it’s also worth noting that the team behind the plane has some serious talent in its blood: the company’s 11 employees have collectively contributed to over 30 aircrafts — having worked on thin...

Kiran Upadhyay

Search This Blog