Gadgets of the week: iPhone 6s, crashed aircar, Oculus Rift nebula and Google self-driving cars

The most discussed and notable gadgets appear weekly in this section. We are doing it with the support of the M.Video chain of stores, on whose social networks our discussion columns are already published - subscribe to their communities on VKontakte and Facebook if you want to be the first to know about new materials.

In the latest issue: a new piece of information on the iPhone 6s from the famous analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the crash of the promising AeroMobil flying car, the latest results of testing Google's self-driving cars, the sensational announcement of the start of sales of Oculus Rift and the future of computer mice.

An analyst who makes no mistakes: forecasts for the iPhone 6s

At the beginning of 2015, we already received the first portion of rumors about the next iPhone model, which, according to the established naming tradition at Apple, is usually called the iPhone 6s. Then The Wall Street Journal wrote that the screen of the new flagship will support Force Touch technology (like the touchpad of the new MacBook ), and the smartphone itself will receive 2 GB of RAM and a pink color in addition to the dark gray, silver and gold body colors.

On May 12, well-known KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo released his forecast for what the new iPhone will be like. He confirmed information about Force Touch and 2 GB of RAM, and also stated that in the new model Apple will increase the number of megapixels in the main camera for the first time since 2011 - from 8 megapixels to 12 megapixels.

According to Ming-Chi Kuo, one of the case options will be available in rose gold. What exactly is meant by this is unknown. It's possible it's a color thing, but it's also possible that the case will actually be made of gold, like one of the Apple Watch Edition models, which starts at $10,000.

The analyst expects that an additional microphone will be added to the iPhone 6s body to improve sound quality. Although Force Touch will be one of the main innovations in the iPhone 6s, it may cause shipping delays. It is known that problems with the slow start of Apple Watch sales are caused by partial defects of Taptic Engine parts.

Along with other features, Apple will introduce an improved Touch ID sensor in iPhone 6s for advanced Apple Pay functionality. According to Ming-Chi Kuo, a 4-inch version of the cheaper iPhone will not appear this year, despite widespread rumors .

A promising aircar crashed during testing

On May 8, an AeroMobil flying car prototype crashed in Slovakia . According to eyewitnesses, during the test flight the car went into a tailspin and crashed on the ground.

In the car was the pilot and inventor of the car, Stefan Klein. He managed to throw out a parachute at an altitude of about 270 meters to reduce the speed of the car's fall, but upon impact the AeroMobil was still broken, and Klein was taken to the hospital with minor bruises.

The company said that the data collected during the test flight will be used to improve the car. So far AeroMobil has not announced how they will affect the timing of the vehicle’s launch into mass production.

The first prototype of a flying car was shown in 2013, and in the fall of 2014, the two-seater AeroMobil 3.0 was demonstrated at the Pioneers festival in Vienna. It can accelerate to 160 kilometers per hour on the ground and up to 200 kilometers per hour in the air. Serial production of AeroMobil 3.0 is expected to begin in 2017.

Google's self-driving cars only get into accidents due to the fault of other drivers

On May 11, Google's head of self-driving cars, Chris Urmson, published fresh testing data. As it turned out, a fleet of more than 20 cars had only 11 accidents in six years, and all accidents were caused by the drivers of other cars.

Self-driving cars crashed into the rear bumper seven times, mostly when Google's car was stopped at a traffic light and the driver behind couldn't calculate the braking distance correctly. The company will use the obtained accident data to improve its algorithms.

However, Google research also showed a lot of new things about ordinary drivers, whose habits are not visible in official statistics. For example, the company noticed drivers constantly changing lanes for no reason; some of those observed were distracted by reading books while driving and even playing the trumpet.

Most accidents happen at intersections, so Google has trained its cars to pause before turning to green lights. In one case, the company detected a situation in which a car in the middle row (lilac box) almost hit a cyclist (blue box) who entered the intersection too late: the Google car knew the cyclist’s trajectory and stopped in advance.

Sometimes drivers acted as if Google's self-driving car wasn't there at all, such as turning from the middle lane or cutting off at an intersection. “These and many other cases have only added to the challenges we face on the roads today,” Urmson complained, noting that there are other problems besides drivers, such as low light or bad weather conditions such as snowstorms or heavy rain.

The announcement of the start of Oculus Rift sales was considered big news

The excitement around virtual reality technologies has reached such a scale that journalists and technologists are closely monitoring all the possible successes and failures of companies like Oculus. Everyone is especially excited when the acclaimed Oculus Rift helmet will be available for purchase not only for developers, but also for ordinary users.

The situation is very similar to what happened with Google Glass. Before the project was put into hibernation (with an eye to relaunching it in the future), any change in their sales pattern, from new shipments to expanding the number of Explorer program participants, was news. However, the glasses never became a mass product and never reached store shelves.

Back on March 26 at the F8 conference, Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer hinted at the possibility of an Oculus Rift release as early as 2015. However, on May 6, Oculus VR issued a press release in which the release date of the virtual reality helmet was designated as the first quarter of 2016, and showed the appearance of the future mass product. They promised to start accepting pre-orders at the end of 2015.

What’s much more interesting is what the company never said. The exact release date for Oculus Rift is unknown. The price of the device is unknown. The technical characteristics of the future device are also not reported, although Oculus promised to announce them gradually, along with information about the software and methods of controlling the helmet.

All that remains is to wait. Moreover, many are waiting not for the Oculus Rift, but for the HTC Vive , which is backed by one of the most famous game development studios, Valve.

The future of mice

Our editor-in-chief discussed the April news about Logitech, which abandoned the business of producing cheap computer mice for subsequent resale under the brands of other equipment manufacturers (the so-called OEM mouse production).

Many regarded this news as evidence of the imminent death of mice in principle, especially since Logitech is generally famous for the mice it produces. However, no matter how accustomed we are to touch interfaces, mice are still not going anywhere: at least because they are firmly entrenched in specialized communities - for example, among gamers or designers.

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