For the last couple of weeks I’ve been recovering from a little outpatient surgery and my doctor didn’t think it was a good idea for me to be driving a 40 year old truck with power nothing. So I’ve been renting a boring little Chevy which isn’t that bad if all you’re trying to do is get from point A to B. Today I got the green light to start driving the truck and and I took a short drive just to see if anything hurt. Nothing did so in the immortal words of George Costanza, “I’m back, baby!”
Author Archives: Steve Mays
Photo by Henry Domke (Prisma filter)
Face ID
From day-one I was happy with the iPhone’s Touch ID. So I was skeptical when Apple eliminated the home button (and Touch ID) and replaced it with Face ID. But works as advertised. It works so well I forget it’s working. And I guess I don’t care that much how it works. From iMore.com:
Face ID uses multiple neural networks that are built into the dual-core A11 bionic neural engine to process the facial recognition data. It takes a mathematical model of your face and checks it against the original scan of your face that you first registered.
The information is stored on the A11 chip on your iPhone X and not sent to Apple’s servers, so your facial identity is kept private.
It uses a Require Attention feature in order to work. That means you have to be looking at your iPhone for it to scan, You can’t be asleep or looking away for it to unlock your iPhone. […] It doesn’t work with photographs. It doesn’t work while you’re asleep. It doesn’t even work with detailed silicon masks that look just like you.
I tried to think of a way to make some sort of screencast to show how well this feature works but… there’s almost nothing to show. When my phone ‘sees’ my face — and only my face — it unlocks.
Screen Time
I’m fascinated by this new iPhone feature. Here are some of my stats for last 7 days:
- 1 hr 14 min per day ‘on’ phone
- Messages – 48 min/day
- Gmail – 39 min/day
- Google – 20 min/day
- Phone – 20 min/day
- YouTube – 19 min/day
- Picked up my phone 268 times (avg 38 per day)
I think I’m probably a very light user. I’ll bet a lot of people would be shocked to see how much time they spend.
Google+ going away
It’s that scene where all the seniors are gathered at the high school hangout, just before everyone heads off to college or the Army or a full-time job at Wal Mart. Everyone promises to keep in touch but knows they won’t. I’ll miss the friends I’ve made on Google+. I got in the car or on a plane to go meet some of you f2f.
But like everyone else, I could see this coming. I’m guessing a lot of folks will swing over to FB and reassemble there. Not an option for me. In fact, this was my last little toe-in-the-social media-water. I’ve been spending time one a Land Rover forum and feel comfortable with the focused/moderated environment. No politics, no ranting… just guys talking about their trucks.
I guess I’m still a little surprised nobody has figured out a way to do a paid social media platform. Sure seems like there would be a lot (okay, enough) people willing to pay, say, twenty bucks a year for an ad-free site. But no such thing exists as far as I know.