iPhone 6: Update(2)

iPhone 6 release date

Some pundits predict a summer release for the iPhone 6, while Money Morning reckons that the iPhone 5's lack of NFC and Jumbotron display is because Apple's got a proper iPhone ready for a springtime release.
It's quite likely that Apple is moving to a two-phones-per-year upgrade cycle, but we'd bet on a springtime 5S model and a bigger, iPhone 6, update in the Autumn, probably September.
Even Digitimes reckons a springtime iPhone 6 is unlikely: it's predicting a summertime reveal for Apple's next generation phones, which again fits with a WWDC unveiling.

Apple may have a new roadmap, with new phones every spring and autumn

iPhone 6 cases

Multiple rumours say Apple's working on plastic cases for its next iPhone, mixing plastic and metal in such a way that "the internal metal parts [are] able to be seen from outside through special design."
It's unclear whether such cases would be for the iPhone 5S or iPhone 6, or if Apple is simply considering making cheaper iPhone 4s to sell when the iPhone 3GS reaches the end of its life.
Speaking in March 2013, a KGI analyst said it believed Apple would turn to manufacturer Pegatron to make up to 75 per cent of low cost iPhone products.

Pretty, yes, but also horrifically scratch-prone. Will your next iPhone have a plastic back?

New charger design: Folding mode activated!

One scratch to a laptop is all it took for designer Min-Kyu Choi to redesign the power plug – with award-winning results. He and his business partner Matthew Judkins talk to BBC Future about a simple but ground-breaking rethink.

 

 

The UK power plug is a design which has remained almost unchanged since it started being plugged into electrical outlets in 1947. Back then, televisions were the size of a chest of drawers and music players could be the size of a child’s bed – hardly the kind of kit which required a travel-friendly plug.
Now, of course, our technological world is much more portable, and the plug’s prongs are capable of causing all manner of scratches and scuffs to laptops and the like when carried around.

BioShock Infinite: review

Formats PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Developer Irrational Games
Publisher 2K Games
Released 26 March 2013
PEGI 18 

There is a scene halfway through BioShock Infinite in which protagonist Booker DeWitt and his companion Elizabeth are searching the poor underbelly of the floating city Columbia. The shantytown is battered and filthy, kids singing dressed in rags, adults feverishly searching for food. In a basement, a child quivers beneath the rickety wooden stairs. Elizabeth spots a guitar propped up against a chair. She has been imprisoned and studied for her entire life, her experience of the world played out through books and phonogram recordings. “I wish I could play guitar,” she says softly. Without a word, you, as Booker, a man who has spent a great deal of his and Elizabeth’s time together killing to keep them safe, can walk over to the guitar, pick it up, and begin to play. As Booker strums softly on the instrument, Elizabeth sings along and unearths an orange before handing it to the boy under the stairs. Tentative at first, he hungrily grabs the fruit and begins to eat. Elizabeth stops singing, Booker stops playing and the pair make their way upstairs to find a way out of Columbia.