Light Start – A Franken-iPhone 6s, Note 5 stylus woes, a rollup keyboard, Obi Worldphone, and The Witcher
Brett Venter
A zap of electricity and this iPhone 6s logic board is alive!
Apple’s iPhone is coming in hot, with the rumour machine spinning up like an autocannon on a Huey over enemy territory. Above is the latest, a video that shows Apple’s iPhone 6s. Or pieces of it, anyway. The logic board and display have been located (as well as a few other bits, connected and powered up, like a small technological Frankenstein’s monster, to show the handset booting up to a gear logo. The only way this could have been better would be if a chap named Igor threw the switch to get it started. Apple’s not going to be pleased with this one but at least the phone’s not fully working yet.
The Galaxy Note 5 hasn’t landed here yet and that could be a good thing.
It’s up to you to decide whether this design ‘flaw’ in Samsung’s Galaxy Note 5 is as bad as everyone appears to be making out. As it happens, if you stick the stylus for the Galaxy Note 5 into its compartment backwards – that is, with the point facing outwards – then you run the risk of it getting stuck in the phone’s internals and breaking everything. It’s a silly bit of design and one that could have been executed a lot better (as is the case with Samsung’s response to it) but if you’re putting the stylus into your phone wrong on purpose… that’s your fault. Still, Samsung’s catching a lot of flack for releasing the Note 5 with this fault present. If you’re getting one of Sammy’s new phablets: Be careful.
And we’re strangely excited about LG’s rollup keyboard
We’re awfully fond of the portable, so LG’s Rolly bluetooth keyboard, which is set for a proper reveal at this year’s IFA conference in Berlin, has caught our eye in a big way. A little-big way, which is the best kind. When packed its a little tube, of the sort that can easily get lost in a laptop bag. Unrolling Rolly will present you with a nigh full-sized desktop keyboard. Looks like Hollywood may have pictured something right for once.
What is an Obi Worldphone and why do you want one?
New product? Awesome! It’s a phone? Ah… all right. Made by former Apple CEO John Sculley? Now you have our attention… This is the Obi Worldphone, a set of new smartphones from Sculley and design outfit Ammunition’s Robert Brunner. Set for emerging markets (so South Africa’s on the list), the SF1 and SJ1.5 smartphones are due to land… er… later. But we can wait a bit for the 5-inch SF1’s Snapdragon 615, LTE, 13MP/5MP cam combo and 2GB/16GB or 3GB/32GB RAM/storage options. And the SJ1.5’s 720p 5-inch screen, 8M/5MP camera setup, quad-core MediaTek processor and 16GB of storage (with microSD) to get here.
For a studio that has technically just released their third game, Polish developer CD Projekt RED is riding high. Even higher, thanks to the recent revelation that their third (and most-excellent) release The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt has passed the 6 million copies sold mark. Those are impressive numbers on their own but even more so when you realise that they’re for a niche fantasy role-playing game. It’s that damned good. CD Projekt’s Adam Badowski said “”Yes, six million copies is a great achievement for a company making RPGs, but this business is not only about that. If our games are a gallery of sound, picture and text — you are the visitors of this gallery. To an artist, there’s no sweeter sight than people enjoying their work. That’s why, in the name of all the devs in the studio, I’d like to say thanks to each and every one of you.”
