AppleMagazine #160

The largest solar power plant of its type in the world - once promoted as a turning point in green energy - isn’t producing as much energy as planned. One of the reasons is as basic as it gets: The sun isn’t shining as much as expected. Sprawling across roughly 5 square miles of federal desert near the California-Nevada border, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System opened in February with operators saying it would produce enough electricity to power a city of 140,000 homes. So far, however, the plant is producing about half of its expected annual output for 2014, according to calculations by the California Energy Commission. It had been projected to produce its full capacity for 8 hours a day, on average. “Factors such as clouds, jet contrails…

Don’t live your life through a screen. That’s the premise behind HTC’s new Re camera, which aims to let users document all of life’s little moments and actually experience them, too, instead of watching through a viewfinder or a screen. In fact, the Re doesn’t have either - we’ll get to that. The camera, launching Saturday in the U.S., is tiny, waterproof and easy to grip. But, at $199, is it good enough to replace your smartphone or digital camera? HOW IT WORKS Some people asked if it was an asthma inhaler, but the Re is better described as a miniature submarine periscope, about the size of a small candy bar. There’s no need to turn it on. You grab it, and it’s ready to shoot. To take stills of…

ORIGINAL CAST RETURNS WITH NEW ADDITIONS Calling all aficionados of science fiction action films! Are you still catching your breath after the blockbuster success of the Divergent movie earlier this year? The woman behind the original Divergent trilogy of adventure novels, Veronica Roth, certainly has reason to be pleased with the $288.75 million pulled worldwide by the last flick, and there’s already a sequel on the way. Roth only wrote her debut novel, Divergent, in 2011, but earlier this year came the release of its film adaptation, with Lucy Fisher, Pouya Shabazian and Douglas Wick on production duties, while Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor handled the screenplay. As you might expect, the cast was also pretty formidable, with Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ashley Judd, Jai Courtney, Ray Stevenson, Zoe Kravitz,…

Facebook is once again trying to simplify its privacy policy largely to address criticisms that it’s too complex and lengthy for the average user. Laid out with illustrations into short subsections, the new policy explains what types of information Facebook collects and how it uses the data. The new policy is 70 percent shorter than the old one. Many of the changes are cosmetic, designed to make the policy easier to digest. Still, it helps to go through it to get an idea of all the things Facebook knows about you. Users have until Nov. 20 to comment on the proposed changes or ask questions. A finalized version will take effect soon after that. Here are five things to remember about Facebook’s data policies. LOCATION, LOCATION Facebook only recently began…

RUMORED LARGER DEVICE COULD BE VERY GOOD NEWS Looking at the Apple product range right now, including both the devices presently available and those in the pipeline for the coming months, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there’s not much more the Cupertino firm could do. However, there must certainly is one more product in the offing for early next year, at least if widespread reports are to be believed: an iPad Pro. The most recent October keynote was a big one for all admirers of Apple’s wellestablished tablet, with a lithe iPad Air 2 breaking cover alongside the iPad mini 3. Indeed, the use of the term ‘Air’ mimics the naming conventions applied to the MacBook Air and Pro laptops, which begs the question... will we get a more…

I never would have considered writing this review on my iPhone if I hadn’t upgraded to Apple’s new operating system, iOS 8. With the free upgrade, typing on the iPhone’s touch keyboard doesn’t seems as tedious, cumbersome or infuriating as it did before, when a rather dim-witted “auto-correct” system would slip in words that made people look illiterate or, even worse, inappropriate. The new “QuickType” keyboard is smart enough to anticipate what you’re typing, such as the next logical word in a phrase. You’re constantly shown three word choices in a gray ribbon above the keyboard. When the right word appears, tapping on it automatically inserts it into the text to save keystrokes. I just avoided 15 by tapping on “automatically” and “keystrokes” when they popped up. If that’s not…