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Today's presidential alert test: what, when, where, how and why
Microsoft gets busy with a new range of Surface computing devices
Apple 'Confirms' iPhones Have A Serious Problem

Today's presidential alert test: what, when, where, how and why

Posted: 03 Oct 2018 06:56 AM PDT

Anyone who hasn’t heard about today’s presidential alert test is going to be startled by a loud noise on their phone this afternoon. Here are all the details on FEMA’s emergency alert tests that you’ll be seeing soon.

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The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is conducting a test of two related systems designed to alert people to significant emergencies:

What?

WEA is designed to alert people to anything from dangerous weather to missing children believed to have been abducted (the latter known as AMBER alerts). The message is sent directly to cellphones.

Today’s WEA test will be of a presidential alert, and will look like this:

Presidential Alert

THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.

The EAS is designed as a presidential broadcast system, allowing the president to address the nation during a national emergency. It will be broadcast on most radio and television stations, and will last for approximately one minute. The message will be:

THIS IS A TEST of the National Emergency Alert System. This system was developed by broadcast and cable operators in voluntary cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Federal Communications Commission, and local authorities to keep you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency an official message would have followed the tone alert you heard at the start of this message. A similar wireless emergency alert test message has been sent to all cell phones nationwide. Some cell phones will receive the message; others will not. No action is required.

When?

The WEA presidential alert test is scheduled for 2:18pm EDT/11:18am PDT. It may be received up to 30 minutes later than this – see below.

The EAS test will begin two minutes later, at 2:20pm EDT/11:20am PDT.

The test was originally meant to happen on September 20, but was postponed to avoid distracting resources from FEMA’s response efforts to Hurricane Florence.

Where?

Both tests are nationwide, so should be received by everyone in the USA with coverage. It is the first ever nationwide test of the WEA, which has previously only been used on a local or regional basis.

How?

The WEA message is transmitted through cell towers. Unlike a text message, it will display whether or not you have notifications enabled, and you cannot opt out of receiving it.

Why?

FEMA says that the test ‘will assess the operational readiness of the infrastructure for distribution of a national message and determine whether improvements are needed.’

One element of the test will be determining how long it takes people to receive the message. Although broadcasts begin at a specific time, you may not receive the message immediately – or at all. The broadcast will continue for 30 minutes, but you should only receive a single alert.

There’s a presidential alert test FAQ with additional information available here.

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Microsoft gets busy with a new range of Surface computing devices

Posted: 02 Oct 2018 09:59 PM PDT

Microsoft Corp. today debuted a new range of Surface products that are being hailed by even skeptical observers as “great upgrades.”

As expected, Microsoft announced the Surface Pro 6, a two-in-one laptop/tablet hybrid with eighth-generation quad-core Intel Core i5 processors, a 12.3-inch display, up to 1 terabyte of solid-state disk storage and 13.5 hours of battery life.

Keeping the same form factor as its predecessors, the Surface Pro 6 now comes in matte black, as do all the new Surface products announced at the event today. While regarded by most as being a great product, the one criticism leveled at it so far is that the device still lacks USB-C ports, something primarily seen on newer cell phones as well as Mac laptops on which most tech journalists type their reviews.

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The second new Surface product announced was the Surface Laptop 2, starting at $999. The new version, like the Surface Pro 6, retains the same form factor as its predecessor but now has a matte black option as well as blue, burgundy and silver. A previous gold version has been discontinued.

Under the hood, the Surface Laptop 2 has a Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 126GB of storage. Microsoft claims that the Laptop 2 “is an astounding 85 percent faster than the original Surface Laptop.”

Both the Surface Pro 6 and Surface Laptop 2 come with a “PixelSense” touch display. Microsoft said it can “adapt to help you take your ideas to the next level,” a fancy way of saying that the touchscreens are highly responsive.

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The third and least expected announcement came in the form of the Surface Studio 2, an upgrade to the previous 28-inch computing device that made its debut in 2016.

The Surface Studio 2 offers the same form factor and in this case, the same 28-inch screen. Microsoft claimed it has tweaked the display to be 38 percent brighter than the previous model with 22 percent more contrast.

Surprisingly, the Surface Studio 2 is being shipped with only a seventh-generation Intel Core i7 processor inside. But it does ship with a new Nvidia Corp. Pascal graphics card and 2TB of SSD storage, meaning that it delivers a quicker experience. It’s for those with money to burn, since it starts at $3,499.

Finally came the debut of Surface Headphones, Bluetooth wireless headphones with noise cancellation features. Coming in at a $399, the headphones have built-in support for artificial intelligence assistants, including Apple Inc.’s Siri, Amazon.com Inc.’s Alex and Microsoft’s own Cortana. Although the Surface Headphones, like their predecessors, appear well-liked at the outset, the jury is still out as to whether they’re worthy of the price tag.

Photo: Microsoft

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Apple 'Confirms' iPhones Have A Serious Problem

Posted: 02 Oct 2018 05:20 PM PDT

There’s a lot to like about the new iPhone XS (details) and iPhone XS Max (details). But the two flagships suffer from a serious problem which has also started to impact older models, and Apple has (very quietly) just confirmed it…

Today Apple released iOS 12.1 beta 2 and, despite the software having no official release notes, iFan site iMore immediately announced the update includes a fix for the charging woes introduced in iOS 12. But it’s not all good news.

Apple's iPhone XS (middle) and iPhone XS Max (left) charging problems have spread to older iPhones and iPadsApple

While iMore was predictably promotional about the fix (“With it, no more delay or uncertainty about charging. You’ll be back to just plugging it in and getting power.”), site editor Rene Ritchie then told users not to expect a final release to iPhone and iPad owners before the end of October.

Given iOS 12 was released on September 17th, that’s well over a month to fix to a problem which inhibits (what tests suggest) is a significant proportion of iPhones from charging.

That said, the good news following iMore’s tip-off is initial trials of iOS 12.1 beta 2 on affected iPhones and iPads have resulted in them charging normally. This is particularly positive after reports Apple tech support was telling affected users they needed to replace their devices.

So why hasn’t Apple admitted this fault directly?

Because this is not how Apple works when it comes to contentious issues. As popular YouTuber Marques Brownlee neatly summarises:

“They are pretty much known for not really handling it, they will steer as far away from acknowledging it as a problem as possible and just make a statement about how we are using it wrong.”

Of course, a lot of credit for Apple’s fix goes to Lewis Hilsenteger - aka Unbox Therapy - who used his platform of 12 million YouTube subscribers to highlight the issue (video above) and, as Brownlee notes, this “forces Apple...to respond and to fix it and for that the products get better and we all win.”

As for winning, it is fast becoming clear those who are waiting for Apple’s iPhone XR stand to benefit most of all from this. Not only does the new model deliver the best bang for your buck and superior battery life to both the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, it will also launch alongside iOS 12.1.

Now that’s good timing…

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