Headworx

I'm on iPhone 17 now. Despite all my publicly heralded views about not replacing phones (and cars) too often, I pulled the trigger. Well, to my defense, I still drive the 2005 Subaru Forester. And the 15 is going into really good and caring hands. The key reason for the upgrade has been the telephoto lens , upgraded from 3x to 4x optical zoom and from 12 megapixels to 48 megapixels. That let Apple introduce the 8x feature which is basically the 4x optical and 2x crop (equivalent to 12 megapixels, albeit with smaller pixels). On top of that ShiftCam promises a 240mm (equivalent) Super Zoom Tele add-on lens . I'm yet to see how it works as mine is somewhere in transit. More when it arrives. For the iPhone 15 I bought the Tele 58mm Mobile Lens from Moment , but it has been a lie. While it can be physically mounted on the iPhone's periscope telephoto lens, it does not work well. Only with the standard 1x lens, so not much long lens joy.  And I love taking photos with long lense...

I have recently had a chance to play with a new prototype Bluetooth Low Energy Audio device. Or - should I be more specific - a new application (firmware) for an existing audio device that uses Bluetooth Low Energy Audio. Think of it as any type of wireless earbuds or headphones or - increasingly popular - smart glasses with audio microphones and tiny speakers. The feature allowed an unlimited number of people who were in the radio range to talk to each other. Essentially a voice group chat. That does not sound too exciting (definitely less than a space AI data center), but really brings the Bluetooth audio experience to a completely new level. Thing of it as voice chat rooms. Virtual rooms that you can "enter" with your earbuds and then chat with people. In a similar way to a Zoom call, but locally, peer-to-peer, without any supporting infrastructure or Internet connectivity. Great for events but also great for variety of other activities such as hiking or white water raftin...

Email has clearly become cheaper and cheaper to push advertising messages. This has become apparent during the recent days - the US Thanksgiving followed by the Black Friday which now seems to last for two weeks. I had several brands I liked, that I still was subscribed to, but this time most of them went just too far. Some of them were sending me multiple (three or more) promotional emails per day. So I have radicalized myself cutting off somewhere between 80% and 90% of email subscriptions. One reason is (maybe I'm aging) - I really don't need more stuff. I definitely need more peace and less time spent on keeping my inbox tidy. Gmail has recently introduced a helpful feature - [Manage subscriptions]. Shows you the complete list and for 90% of subscriptions it offers a on-click [Unsubscribe]. So if anyone is stull using email, I highly recommend going through the list and cutting down stuff.