Hunter debuts first HomeKit-connected ceiling fans

Hunter’s Ceiling Fan Models with Smartphone Connectivity Support

With the CES announcement on the success of Apple’s product ecosystem, which includes Apple’s internet of things HomeKit procedure, Hunter Fan Company revealed two Wi-Fi enabled ceiling fans with smartphone connectivity support. Hunter intends to introduce two fan models in the Symphony and Signal which would be featuring Wi-Fi technology together with HomeKit support for smart home mechanizations as well as voice control through Apple’s Siri virtual assistant.

Besides the app based remote control abilities, the connected fans could be activated by utilising the geolocation functions of HomeKit or included as part of a larger scene macro. For instance, users could set a geolocation trigger to turn off fan light, lock the doors and draw the blinds when they intend leaving their house.

Moreover, the fans assimilate with the prevailing smart phone products such as connected thermostats as well as the other HomeKit enabled devices in providing complete automation features. The fan’s dimmable LED light, for instance could be triggered to illuminate when a HomeKit smoke detector tends to go off. The Symphony and the Signal presently are the only ceiling fans which tend to support Apple’s HomeKit home automation platform and they are also the first connected home products of Hunter Fan Company.

Symphony & Signal – Scenes & Triggers

The Symphony and Signal ceiling fans besides being connected to a home’s Wi-Fi network are controlled with Siri voice commands with the capabilities to interface with other HomeKit products such as light and thermostats for a full connected home experience with the use of Scenes and Triggers.

For instance, with a Scene, a home owner having several HomeKit products can at the same time lock door, turn on the lights as well as turn the fan off. With a Trigger, the fan could be set to come on in certain situations like when a HomeKit connected fire alarm tends to detect smoke. John Alexander, Hunter Fan CEO has commented that `their ceaseless innovation is why Hunter Fan is the industry leader and these new Wi-Fi enabled fans together with the support for Apple HomeKit are a testament to the heritage of progress and originality.

 They are beautiful, affordable, high quality pieces of décor which tends to bring state-of-the-art Wi-Fi technology where it may not be expected – the ceiling fan. As we celebrate 130 years, we have several exciting developments to share with the customers and are proud to kick off 2016 at CES with Symphony and Signal’.

Dimmable Integrated Lighting/WhisperWind Functions

The fans tend to measure around 54 inches and are provided with dimmable integrated lighting together with WhisperWind functions for the purpose of powerful air movement with quiet operation. While the Symphony fan has a modern design with white blades, the Signal has wood finished blades with satin nickel housing.

Symphony will be priced at $329 and Signal will be offered at $379. The HomeKit connected fans of Hunter Fan Company would be made available for purchase towards the beginning of spring of 2016 from the company’s website as well as from Amazon, Lowe, HomeDepot and many others.

Apple Warns Snoopers' Charter Will Spark Serious International Conflicts

Consumers at Risk by Snooper’s Charter

According to Apple, millions of consumers would be at risk by the Snooper’s Charter while the hackers and the terrorist would tend to continue in the operation unrestricted. Scrutinizing the Investigatory Powers Bill that had been submitted recently to MP, the Californian giant informed that the proposed laws would be sparking serious international conflicts by imposing non-UK companies to break data encryption, violate international laws and hack their customers in their home countries.

As per the bill, data encryption can only be broken under a warrant received from the intelligence agencies, however Apple cautions that a `key left under the doormat could not just be there for the good guys, but the bad guys would also find it’.

Tim Cook, the company’s chief executive had stated in an exclusive interview with the Daily Telegraph last month that `we do not think people would want us to read their messages. We don’t feel we have the right to read their emails and were of the belief very strongly in end to end encryption with no back doors’.Most of Apple features in fact such as iMessage and FaceTime have already had end-to-end encryption, which means that it is impossible for Apple to comply with the law in its prevailing form.

Committee to Accumulate Evidence/Suggest Changes till Mid-February

To conform to a warrant presently, the company will have to build a completely new service which could be greatly impractical. Apple is also apprehensive that the law reaches beyond UK borders, needing any overseas company with British consumers to fulfil even if their home countries tend to have conflicting laws like the one United States does.

This could give rise in paralyzing most of the multinational corporations, especially the ones in the tech sector who would have to contend with dozens of opposing country specific laws. Apple has informed that `for the consumers for instance Germany, it could represent hacking of their data by an Irish business on behalf of the UK state under a bulk warrant activity, which the provider is not even allowed to confirm or deny.

Maintaining trust in these circumstances would be very difficult’. Till mid-February, the committee has time to accumulate evidence and suggest changes to the proposed law.

Sparking Serious Global Conflicts

Numerous major technology firms including Microsoft, Google and Apple all tend to operate on a global scale that has left many apprehensive about having various laws applicable to different regions which could immobilize substantial sectors of the tech segment, sparking serious global conflicts and paralyze multinational corporations’.

 It was also pointed out by Apple that submitting to regulations issued by one overseas country would give rise to other countries, for instance Russian Federation or China, a cause to demand the same treatment. The technology giant boss has already cautioned against providing spies with a `back door’ to read people’s emails since weakening data security could help the criminals.

Though the company could harbour some insignificant flaws, it is unlikely to have a substantial impact on results and everyone prefers to crack down on terrorist. Cook had also mentioned that he was optimistic, that pressure from the public as well as the press would lead Theresa May and the government to rethink the proposed plans on encryption.

LG Display, Samsung Display to supply OLED screens for iPhones

Apple’s iPhone OLED – Samsung/LG

Taking into consideration the increasing number of rumours claiming that iPhones would soon be integrating OLED display technology, a report from South Korea states that Apple will be soon finalizing a supply agreement which will see Samsung as well as LG Display with the necessary panels in the upcoming handsets.

Quoting unnamed industry sources, the Electronic Times the local Korea times recently reported that Apple would be reaching a decisive supply agreement with the display arms of Samsung and LG and both of them will have experience in creating flexible OLED panels. OLED products for Apple Watch have already been supplied by LG and it is rumoured to be the exclusive supplier for the next gen wearable for Apple.

It is said that the two Korean companies would be injecting around 15 trillion won, around $12.8 billion, by way of capital expenditures for the next two to three years in order to build out production facilities with the potential of churning out OLED panels in adequate numbers to meet the traditionally robust iPhone demand. Apple would be supporting with the equipment costs, though the report did not offer any specifics.

From LCDs to OLEDs

LG intending to repurpose the prevailing LCD production lineto reduce cost, is apparently focusing on moving from a present 4.5G manufacturing process to a sixth generation method though the production yields are in query since the technology is yet untried. Samsung also presumed to be supplying Apple Watch OLEDs, figures in the equation and is expected to net 30% less orders than LG.

Negotiations had been drawn out in part, according to sources, since Apple drove a hard bargain to drive Samsung in accepting the low single digit margins on its sale of OLEDs. For a long time it was rumoured that Apple intended to switch away from LCDs to OLED modules for its flagship smartphones and the speculation grew more urgent when competitor Samsung had adopted the display tech.

The iPhone makers as usual took a stand of wait and see approach and this year introduced the first OLED product in its Apple Watch. A rumour in June, mentioned that Apple had been looking in adopting flexible OLED displays in 2018, a timeframe which tends to fit in appropriately with today’s report.

OLED Screens – Thinner/Improved Image Quality

Last month, Japan’s Nikkei newspaper had reported that Apple plans to begin utilising OLED screens for its iPhone beginning in 2018.OLED screens seem to be thinner and provide improved image quality than the mainstay liquid crystal display screens.

Both the companies are close to a final agreement with Apple for the screens but have declined to comment on the same. According to the paper, Samsung Display that is currently supplying OLED smartphone panels to it parent Samsung Electronics and Chinese vendors is possibly getting a larger volume from Apple than LG Display.

 Apply could also be working on new screen technology at a secret laboratoryin Taiwan, indicating that it may switch to an improved LCD panel before introducing the OLED in the future or it could be a backup if the OLED deal may not materialise.

How to Free Up Space in iCloud

Deletion of backups – Helpful in Conserving Valuable Storage in Apple’s iCloud

Deletion of numerous backups could be helpful in conserving valuable storage in Apple’s iCloud which is Apple’s cloud based content storage system for its Mac and iOS products. iCloud storage service of Apple can be utilised to stack photos, videos, device backups and much more in the cloud. Free space of 5GB is offered by the company to the users but since it is 5GB of space as per Apple ID and not per device, one may find themselves running short of space faster.

Though extra storage could be purchased from Apple, there are options of making up free space in the iCloud account prior to purchase of additional storage. In order to check how much space is being utilised, one could enter Setting on the iPhone or iPad and opt for `iCloud’ then click `Storage’ followed by `Manage Storage’.

There could be a possibility that the backups could be utilising most of the space and if the user has backups from the old device either from an iPhone 4 or iPad 2, which is no longer in possession, they could go ahead and delete the same, by clicking on the backup scroll which is towards the bottom, tap the `Delete Backup’.

Unwanted Items - Deleted

There could also be chances of backing up items which may not be needed and have it saved in the cloud. You could go to Setting and click on iCloud from where you could choose items which you would like to be saved to iCloud and delete whatever is not needed. This will ensure that it is not backed up when you perform a backup the next time.

A stress-free option to free up space in iCloud is to delete photos from backups and instead of having photos stored in iCloud, you could use one of the several third party cloud service which tend to provide more free space than Apple. Google Photos tends to offer unlimited storage for free. Besides this there is also Yahoo’s Flickr app, DropBox, Microsoft One Drive as well as Amazon Cloud Drive.

User could install these apps which automatically back up your photos and have the app start backing up the photos to a separate pool of storage. User would have a backup copy of the photos stored online and get to keep all of it in the iCloud storage whenever needed.

Disable Camera Roll Backups

Users may also disable Camera Roll backups wherein the photos are backed up to a different service. iCloud’s Manage Storage screen enables the user to manage `Document and Data where these are documents, settings, save games besides other bits of data which iCloud syncs between the various devices.

They depend on iCloud storage and files which are not of much importance can be deleted. One could tap an app under `Document & Data’ on the Manage Storage screen to see the files occupying space. User could swipe a file to the left and tap `Delete’ in order to erase it from the iCloud storage.

The user needs to be careful while deleting files since there could be a possibility of deleting important documents together with other files which could be of great importance.

How Apple’s Trojan Horse will Eat the Credit Card Industry

Apple has launched its mobile app payment system called Apple Pay last year among much fan fare and great support from the credit card industry. Apple Pay partnered with a number of banking institutions which issued credit cards. It was supported by the credit card because it solved the most critical technology issue and infrastructure problems which were being faced by the credit card industry. Apple Pay in other hand offered a new avenue for growth for the credit card industry.

Apple Pay is like a Trojan horse for credit card industry

Apple Pay is not yet a popular name in the field of transaction but it is growing at a steady pace, which ensures that it will achieve wider popularity within few short years. Apple has recently announced a deal with China’s Union Pay, which will allow it to operate nationwide in China.

The credit card industry should remain vary of the Apple Pay as it a Trojan horse for them. Once Apple has successfully established its platform on a larger level across the globe then it wouldn’t need the help of banks and credit cards at all. Apple will be able to take advantage of another great technology named blockchain, which will acts an alternative payment option. Bockchain happens to be core technology behind popular Bitcoin and it can function as a transparent ledger of the transactions.

Apple advantage over credit card industry

One of the biggest advantages, which Apple has over the credit card industry, is that it is supported by a grand magnitude of iPhone loyalists. iPhone has a cult-like following all across the globe which brings a great opportunity for the Apple to push the Apple Pay to its followers with each software update or new product offering. But it wouldn’t be easier for the Apple to change the habit of the people but with time we will see a wide number of users actively adopting the Apple Pay platform for making day-to-day transactions than the credit cards.

Apple is also financially equipped to push the usage of Apple Pay by offering credits on purchasing of an iPhone along with exclusive discounts on iTunes store. Even the rebates for credit card fees can also be used for buying the music on the iTunes, iPhone accessories or movies on Apple TV. Currently there aren’t enough outlets throughout the globe, which accepts Apple Pay, but with time it is expected to gain huge momentum.

Credit card companies failed to popularize the use of chip and pin technology

Credit card companies simply failed to force the merchants to install a new chip and pin technology. It should be noted that merchants had complained a lot the time taken by the credit cards in reading card cards. This not just annoys the customers but also costs money in lost transactions. Even this system doesn’t have a uniform guideline for usage as in Europe chip-and-pin transactions require both the chip in the card and a pass code while in US terminals only need the chip.