STACK #188 June 2020

LIFE TECH NEWS

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MORE SPEED ON THE CARDS

TEEV ON THE TERRACE

The Terrace also has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capability, and is compatible with both Google Assistant and Alexa. Despite the need for weather protection, which can often add all the aesthetic niceties of an army tank, the Terrace still looks the goods, with subtle bezels and sleek lines. It looks even better with the matching newTerrace Soundbar, which Samsung promises packs enough oomph for outdoor viewing with a little help from its distortion cancelling technology. Look out for the Samsung Terrace in time for this year’s Aussie summer.

I f you want to be a more outdoorsy type, but the fear of TV separation is just a bit too much, Samsung now have the telly for you! They’ve unveiled the latest entry in their lifestyle series, the Samsung Terrace. Set to be available in 55, 65 and 75-inch sizes, these 4K QLED sets have been specially designed to be

water and dust resistant, with super-bright screens to combat that pesky sun on clearer days. The Terrace will be easy to connect, even to the point of only requiring one cable by utilising its built-in HDBaseT receiver. HDBaseT is a single- wire system which can carry video, audio and power over reasonably long distances.

T echnology improves sometimes forget how slow going almost anything techy was even a few years ago. Memory cards are just one example of continued improvements being made both in storage capacity and sheer speed – and if you want more of the latter, we’ve got good news. Arbiters of memory card standards The SD Association have unveiled a new 8.0 specification for SD Express memory cards. Bottom line? These can handle speeds of almost four gigabytes a second – around four times that of 7.x spec cards. Good news indeed for those of us into 4K or even 8K video. The bad news? Manufacturers need to make them, and devices have to support them. so quickly that you can

LOOKING THROUGH A GLASS APPLE

T here’s been a bit more rumour leakage at Apple recently, with apparent details divulged of their smart glasses, which we reckon will probably be called “Apple Glasses” or similar, because why complicate things? While Google had their Google Glass and virtual reality headsets

most of us are familiar already. Beyond the addicts who buy based on brand name alone, the key to Apple’s further foray into wearable tech will likely be price point. Rumours have their glasses – which will house two active screens - sitting at around the US$499 price point, before any additions such as prescription lenses.

have seen an impressive take-up by tech-hungry types, Apple have sat back, letting the odd rumour happen, but not confirming or denying anything. But, as you may have noticed, devices such as the iPhone and iPad have been introducing more and more AR-friendly features – this tech being “Augmented Reality”, whereby you look at the real world with digital bits added, like Pokémon Go for example, or the AR cards that came packed years ago with Nintendo’s 3DS handheld games console. Much of this would likely be achieved via the use of easily scanned QR codes, with which

Keeping price – and bulk - down would also be aided by using a coupled iPhone as the main source of computing power. Will everyday people happily wear high-tech specs though? The Apple Watch was a fairly easy sell, as it just looked like a watch. Will the key to the success of Apple’s glasses be making them look like classically-styled prescription spectacles, or will they go the full future Doc Brown? There’s even talk of a round-framed "Steve Jobs Heritage" limited release. So, is there any basis to these rumours? Watch this space…

JUNE 2020

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