Bits in Technology 🖥️ - Week 24: June 11, 2018 - June 17, 2018
iPhone 3GS back on sale (kinda)
South Korean carrier SK Telink has found a batch or unopened iPhones 3GS at their warehouse. They plan to sell them with their original packaging for about $41 each, unlocked. The phone used to cost $99 with a 2 years AT&T plan when it was released in June 2009.
The new feature that was introduced with this phone was cut/copy and past, 3 Megapixel autofocus camera and the ability to find your phone. It was the last iPhone with plastic housing before Apple moved to metal and glass housing for their next models.
Lenovo's Laptop Powerhouse
Who said laptops are not good for power uses? Lenovo introduced its latest ThinkPad model named ThinkPad P52 Mobile Workstation.
It features the following specs:
- Up to 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-8850H 6 core processor with vPro™
- Up to NVIDIA® Quadro® P2000 4 GB
- 15.6” FHD
- Supports up to 128GB non-ECC Ram
- 1 TB 7200 RPM, 512 GB PCIe SSD
Some other features include Fingerprint and Facial unlock and of course they are VR ready. The starting price is hefty, starting at $1,749 and going up to $2,399.
5G final specs are ready
Stop the fake 5G every carrier suppose to have. The final specs of 5G by 3GPP are now official. This doesn't mean that we will start seeing 5G networks soon as the real work required for the infrastructures, chips, modems, phones etc to be updated and rolled out will take time.
La Liga "smart way" of catching pirates
La Liga official app downloaded by more than 10 million devices has a "smart" feature of catching unauthorized streams of their matches. It asks used of the app permissions for mic and GPS use. It then, at the time that matches are on can use your mic to record and transmit audio tracks from bar places, for example, to match it with the audio of the match and find out if it is an unauthorized stream of the match.
Of course, the EULA was clear about that (but as we said who reads it) and La Liga said that the audio is in an encrypted not readable file so users have nothing to fear. But this is up to the uses to decide.
Wells Fargo Bans Cryptocurrency Purchases
Customers of Wells Fargo bank are not able to buy cryptocurrency with credit cards. Wells Fargo has put a prohibition for now. This isn't the first bank that did this. Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. all have limited the ways their customers have to buy cryptocurrency.
A study by LendEDU last year showed that 22% of the people that bought cryptocurrencies with credit cards couldn't pay back. This lead to fear for the banks losing their money so banning all purchases, for now, is a solution for them.
Adblock Plus creator to use blockchain to fight Fake News
A new extension by the creators of Adblock Plus is hoping to help with the fake news we have now days.
Trusted News extension currently works by checking four established fact-checking sites (PolitiFact, Snopes, Wikipedia and Zimdars' List) but hopes to offer a decentralized database in Ethereum blockchain and use game-like mechanisms for users to submit feedback on articles to earn tokens. This is still early but let's see if the extension gain any traction.
Kurt Russell to play in a Cryptocurrency Movie
Cryptocurrencies are gaining enough attention for Hollywood to decide to make a movie about it.
The film entitles Crypto, focuses on a young anti-money laundering agent who investigates a case of corruption and fraud.
This will be the most high-profile film with stars such as Alexis Bledel, Jeremie Harris and Luke Hemsworth.
Have a great week! - Chris Myll @coolmyll
