Facebook has created a new way to videochat with your Facebook friends. It’s not an app, nor is it some awkward virtual-reality playpen. It’s a device called Portal, and it’s meant to sit in your living room and serve as a two-way conduit for conversations with faraway friends and family.

The company that invades your life in every way is today asking you to stick a stationary camera in your living room and pay for the pleasure.

I can only assume this is meant for people who A) have no concern for the privacy what-so-ever and B) don’t own a smartphone.

The Portal is available in two varieties, a larger 1080p version for US$349 and a smaller 720p for US$199. Both have AI built-in that Facebook claims is self-contained and does not send data back to the mothership that utilising the 140 degree camera can track the caller as you get up and walk around the room, zoomed in on the user.

While Facebook are hardly the first to bring a device like this to market, Amazon’s Echos do a similar thing, they are the ones I’m least likely to allow into my living room giving their practices and continual user data issues.

Source: Facebook Portal: Price, Specs, Release Date | WIRED

The collaboration enables Panasonic and SIGMA to make use of the L-Mount standard developed by Leica for their own developments and to offer both cameras and lenses utilising this lens mount.

It’s a crazy week in the photography world. Photokina is in full swing and with every man and their goat announcing a full-frame mirrorless camera I was shocked to see an even bigger announcement overshadow it.

The collaboration of not two but three large players in the camera game to form a new alliance to allow the use of their lenses across each of their full-frame bodies is nothing short of huge. Sure it’s not Nikon & Canon saying “hey let’s be best buds” to one another but it’s hardly no one either.

Big win for photographers.

Source: L Mount Alliance

The newly announced Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro & Mi 8 Lite smartphones come with all the promise and speed increases you’d expect from a phone announcement in 2018. The new models include an OLED screen, Snapdragaon 845 CPU, dual 12MP cameras on the back & so on an so forth.

The Mi 8 Pro however comes with an additional feature. Announced overnight it was confirmed the Pro version would be offering not only the ability to unlock the phone using Xiaomi’s version of Face ID but it could also be unlocked using a fingerprint sensor that’s embedded beneath the phone’s screen. A feature Apple has long been rumoured to be working on but unable to achieve.

Another interesting feature of the Mi 8 Pro to note is its price tag. Retailing in China for CNY 3,200 (A$647) for the base model you’re getting a hell of a lot of phone for A$1k less than the newly released iPhone XS.

The Mi 8 lineup begins shipping in China on September 28th with no official date or price set for Australia as yet.

Source: 小米8 屏幕指纹版 – 小米商城

iOS 12 is designed to make your iPhone and iPad experience even faster, more responsive, and more delightful. Here are the latest features and improvements in the world’s most advanced mobile operating system.

Being off the beta train this year round I can’t really comment on what’s hot and what’s not in iOS 12.

Gleaming over Apple’s page on the OS update it looks to be mainly focused around performance improvements, it’s new “Screen Time” digital wellbeing stuff and Notifications getting a very, very overdue cleanup.

If you’re in the mood to update today, without waiting for it to prompt you. You can do that via your iOS device’s “Software Update” option hidden away in the Settings app.

Source: iOS 12 – Apple

Weak encryption in Tesla Model S key fobs allowed all-too-easy theft, but you can set a PIN code on your Tesla to protect it.

Any key-fob (and their connected car) made prior to June are vulnerable to the weak encryption attack.  There’s nothing particularly fancy about the attacks, watch the Nicholas Cage classic “Gone in 60 seconds” and you essentially see them do the same thing on a garage remote (from memory).

Telsa introduced a new PIN feature in an update a couple of weeks ago. That plugs the hole for now but Tesla haven’t really told their customers about the dangers in not setting a PIN in detail.

Another solution for car owners is to buy a new key-fob. That’s a cost though and considering Tesla knew of the hack a year ago (and paid a US$10k bug bounty for it) you’d hope they start a program to swap out old for new – at a reduced cost at least!

Source: Hackers Can Steal a Tesla Model S in Seconds by Cloning Its Key Fob | WIRED