OPPO could be developing its own smart ring, as a new patent surfaced
A new patent by the company has been spotted over at the CNIPA website. The device detailed in that patent comes with a detachable holder. The sketches are available in the gallery below.
You can clearly see that there are several different components listed here. The ring itself is one, a ring holder another, and then there’s the integrated electronic component, of course.
What’s interesting here is that the ring holder contains the electronic component of the ring, which should allow the device itself to be considerably thinner than other smart rings.
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OPPO could end up offering different ring holders
This is an interesting approach, and it may even allow OPPO to attach different ring holders to the device, allowing different functionality in the process. This could appeal to a wide range of people. Needless to say, it would also allow you to change the style of the watch.
Do note that this is just a patent at the moment, though. It could never even come to fruition, or OPPO could use some other approach for its smart ring. Chances are that we’ll see a smart ring from the company in the future, though.
HONOR’s smart ring is coming, while Apple cancelled its own
HONOR promised to deliver a smart ring this year, and we expected to see it at IFA 2024, at the latest. That did not happen, however, so we’ll just have to wait and see what will happen with it.
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Based on a trusted source, Apple abandoned its smart ring project, mainly because its functionality makes them compete directly with smartwatches.
SpaceX launched Starship for its fifth flight test at about 8:25AM ET from its South Texas launch site. The company succeeded in returning the Starship Super Heavy booster to its landing pad, where it was “caught” using arms on the launch tower that SpaceX refers to as the “chopsticks.”
The catch was a first for the booster, which the company hadn’t returned without incident before its previous flight test in June. The company’s next task is to return Starship, which is expected to splash down in the Indian Ocean, as it did before.
Starship’s booster being caught by its launch tower “chopsticks.”Screenshot: SpaceX livestream
Liftoff was delayed slightly while it cleared boats out of its launch range, pushing the flight test to the edge of its 30-minute launch window. The Federal Aviation Administration gave SpaceX approval for the test flight on Saturday, October 12th. It had originally expected to clear the fifth Starship test in November, but the FAA and its partner agencies reportedly carried out their assessments faster than anticipated.
Microsoft is making it easier for Windows 11 users to log in to their various services and websites without having to remember a plethora of passwords, instead using passkeys, for which the software giant has just broadened its support.
Specifically, Microsoft has just introduced support in Windows 11 for third-party passkeys (in other words, passkeys made by companies other than Microsoft).
Passkeys are a more secure method of signing into devices, apps, or websites which can leverage biometric authentication such as facial recognition, a fingerprint ID, or PIN via Windows Hello. For the uninitiated, Windows Hello is a security feature in Windows 11 that offers biometric authentication (facial or fingerprint), or indeed a PIN.
Passkeys utilize two unique keys – one stored with the service you’re logging into, and the other is on your Windows 11 device, protected by those biometrics (or a PIN) – and they offer far stronger security than traditional username and password combos.
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Another step towards a password-free world
Microsoft is constantly working to bolster the security of Windows 11 devices, and part of that is a push towards a world that no longer relies on passwords – but more secure logins such as passkeys.
As part of this, Microsoft brought in the ability to use passkeys with Microsoft consumer accounts (rather than just commercial users) earlier this year (back in May 2024).
So now, this capability is being extended to allow the use of passkeys made by third-party developers in Windows 11. That includes the likes of apps such as 1Password and Bitwarden, as Microsoft informs us it’s collaborating with the developers of those applications – and others – in a post on its Windows Developer Blog, aiming for more seamless integration of such third-party offerings in Windows 11.
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Microsoft has also updated Windows 11 to make it easier to use Windows Hello and passkeys. The idea is when you open a website or app that supports logging in with a passkey, you’ll be prompted to select how you’d like to save the passkey – whether you want to use it with your Microsoft account, or another service.
It’s good to see passkey support being widened, and Microsoft getting behind this security measure, and I’m happy enough to give them a go as while I’m alright at living with traditional passwords, I run into a lot of the same frustrations with them as many of you probably do.
I’m also glad that Microsoft is taking a collaborative approach to working with third-party developers here in implementing something that hopefully works well for Windows 11 users.
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Yuval Noah Harari, the author of the bestseller “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” returns with “Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI” (Random House). It examines how intelligence has shaped and controlled civilizations throughout history, and the role of artificial intelligence in changing society, economics and politics.
Prefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now.
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What Is Information?
It is always tricky to define fundamental concepts. Since they are the basis for everything that follows, they themselves seem to lack any basis of their own. Physicists have a hard time defining matter and energy, biologists have a hard time defining life, and philosophers have a hard time defining reality. Information is increasingly seen by many philosophers and biologists, and even by some physicists, as the most basic building block of reality, more elementary than matter and energy. No wonder that there are many disputes about how to define information, and how it is related to the evolution of life or to basic ideas in physics such as entropy, the laws of thermodynamics, and the quantum uncertainty principle. This book will make no attempt to resolve—or even explain—these disputes, nor will it offer a universal definition of information applicable to physics, biology, and all other fields of knowledge. Since it is a work of history, which studies the past and future development of human societies, it will focus on the definition and role of information in history.
In everyday usage, “information” is associated with human-made symbols like spoken or written words. Consider, for example, the story of Cher Ami and the Lost Battalion. In October 1918, when the American Expeditionary Forces was fighting to liberate northern France from the Germans, a battalion of more than five hundred American soldiers was trapped behind enemy lines. American artillery, which was trying to provide them with cover fire, misidentified their location and dropped the barrage directly on them. The battalion’s commander, Major Charles Whittlesey, urgently needed to inform headquarters of his true location, but no runner could break through the German line. According to several accounts, as a last resort Whittlesey turned to Cher Ami, an army carrier pigeon. On a tiny piece of paper, Whittlesey wrote, “We are along the road parallel [sic] 276.4. Our artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven’s sake stop it.” The paper was inserted into a canister on Cher Ami’s right leg, and the bird was released into the air. One of the battalion’s soldiers, Private John Nell, recalled years later, “We knew without a doubt this was our last chance. If that one lonely, scared pigeon failed to find its loft, our fate was sealed.”
Witnesses later described how Cher Ami flew into heavy German fire. A shell exploded directly below the bird, killing five men and severely injuring the pigeon. A splinter tore through Cher Ami’s chest, and his right leg was left hanging by a tendon. But he got through. The wounded pigeon flew the forty kilometers to division headquarters in about forty-five minutes, with the canister containing the crucial message attached to the remnant of his right leg. Though there is some controversy about the exact details, it is clear that the American artillery adjusted its barrage, and an American counterattack rescued the Lost Battalion. Cher Ami was tended by army medics, sent to the United States as a hero, and became the subject of numerous articles, short stories, children’s books, poems, and even movies. The pigeon had no idea what information he was conveying, but the symbols inked on the piece of paper he carried helped save hundreds of men from death and captivity.
Information, however, does not have to consist of human-made symbols. According to the biblical myth of the Flood, Noah learned that the water had finally receded because the pigeon he sent out from the ark returned with an olive branch in her mouth. Then God set a rainbow in the clouds as a heavenly record of his promise never to flood the earth again. Pigeons, olive branches, and rainbows have since become iconic symbols of peace and tolerance. Objects that are even more remote than rainbows can also be information. For astronomers the shape and movement of galaxies constitute crucial information about the history of the universe. For navigators the North Star indicates which way is north. For astrologers the stars are a cosmic script, conveying information about the future of individual humans and entire societies.
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Of course, defining something as “information” is a matter of perspective. An astronomer or astrologer might view the Libra constellation as “information,” but these distant stars are far more than just a notice board for human observers. There might be an alien civilization up there, totally oblivious to the information we glean from their home and to the stories we tell about it. Similarly, a piece of paper marked with ink splotches can be crucial information for an army unit, or dinner for a family of termites. Any object can be information—or not. This makes it difficult to define what information is.
The ambivalence of information has played an important role in the annals of military espionage, when spies needed to communicate information surreptitiously. During World War I, northern France was not the only major battleground. From 1915 to 1918 the British and Ottoman Empires fought for control of the Middle East. After repulsing an Ottoman attack on the Sinai Peninsula and the Suez Canal, the British in turn invaded the Ottoman Empire, but were held at bay until October 1917 by a fortified Ottoman line stretching from Beersheba to Gaza. British attempts to break through were repulsed at the First Battle of Gaza (March 26, 1917) and the Second Battle of Gaza (April 17–19, 1917). Meanwhile, pro-British Jews living in Palestine set up a spy network code-named NILI to inform the British about Ottoman troop movements. One method they developed to communicate with their British operators involved window shutters. Sarah Aaronsohn, a NILI commander, had a house overlooking the Mediterranean. She signaled British ships by closing or opening a particular shutter, according to a predetermined code. Numerous people, including Ottoman soldiers, could obviously see the shutter, but nobody other than NILI agents and their British operators understood it was vital military information. So, when is a shutter just a shutter, and when is it information?
The Ottomans eventually caught the NILI spy ring due in part to a strange mishap. In addition to shutters, NILI used carrier pigeons to convey coded messages. On September 3, 1917, one of the pigeons diverted off course and landed in—of all places—the house of an Ottoman officer. The officer found the coded message but couldn’t decipher it. Nevertheless, the pigeon itself was crucial information. Its existence indicated to the Ottomans that a spy ring was operating under their noses. As Marshall McLuhan might have put it, the pigeon was the message. NILI agents learned about the capture of the pigeon and immediately killed and buried all the remaining birds they had, because the mere possession of carrier pigeons was now incriminating information. But the massacre of the pigeons did not save NILI. Within a month the spy network was uncovered, several of its members were executed, and Sarah Aaronsohn committed suicide to avoid divulging NILI’s secrets under torture. When is a pigeon just a pigeon, and when is it information?
Clearly, then, information cannot be defined as specific types of material objects. Any object—a star, a shutter, a pigeon—can be information in the right context. So exactly what context defines such objects as “information”? The naive view of information argues that objects are defined as information in the context of truth seeking. Something is information if people use it to try to discover the truth. This view links the concept of information with the concept of truth and assumes that the main role of information is to represent reality. There is a reality “out there,” and information is something that represents that reality and that we can therefore use to learn about reality. For example, the information NILI provided the British was meant to represent the reality of Ottoman troop movements. If the Ottomans massed ten thousand soldiers in Gaza—the centerpiece of their defenses—a piece of paper with symbols representing “ten thousand” and “Gaza” was important information that could help the British win the battle. If, on the other hand, there were actually twenty thousand Ottoman troops in Gaza, that piece of paper did not represent reality accurately, and could lead the British to make a disastrous military mistake.
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Put another way, the naive view argues that information is an attempt to represent reality, and when this attempt succeeds, we call it truth. While this book takes many issues with the naive view, it agrees that truth is an accurate representation of reality. But this book also holds that most information is not an attempt to represent reality and that what defines information is something entirely different. Most information in human society, and indeed in other biological and physical systems, does not represent anything.
Amazon has just shaved $180 off of the regular price of Beats Studio Pro. This brings them down to just $169.95, which is back to their all-time low, that we last saw during Prime Day in July. This is another October Prime Day sale that Amazon forgot to end, so you’d better grab them before they are gone.
The Beats Studio Pro are pretty impressive headphones and aren’t the bass-heavy headphones you might know from about a decade ago. Instead, these offer great sound at the mids, highs, and, of course, the bass. Apple has also given the Beats Studio Pro a good battery life. We’re looking at 40 hours of battery life here, which is pretty good for a pair of on-ear headphones. But perhaps best of all is USB-C. Making it super easy to charge these up.
Apple sells the Beats Studio Pro in four colors: Black, Deep Brown, Navy, and Sandstone. It’s a bit of a departure from the older Beats headphones, especially since there’s no Beats red here. But the Navy color is really nice looking.
You can pick up the Beats Studio Pro from Best Buy by clicking the link below.
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