November 21, 2024

Author: Arnold Kim

News

Aperture Replacement ‘Photos’ to Offer Image Search, Editing, Effects and Plugins

Last week, Apple announced that the company would be discontinuing their Aperture photo management software to focus development on the new Photos app that was introduced at WWDC. Details on Apple’s new Photos app, however, remains scarce, leaving Aperture users with a lot of uncertainty.

Ars Technica was able to get additional information from an Apple representative, who indicated that certain professional-grade features would be coming to the new Photos app:

When asked about what Aperture-like features users can expect from the new Photos app, an Apple representative mentioned plans for professional-grade features such as image search, editing, effects, and most notably, third-party extensibility.

Some of these editing features are already depicted in the screenshot that Apple released of Photos at the time of the announcement:

newphotosClick for Full Size Screenshot
The screenshot shows an adjustments panel with settings for Light (Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, Brightness, Contrast, Blacks), Color (Saturation, Contrast, Cast), Black & White (Hue Strength, Neutral Boost, Photo Tone, Grain), Definition, Vignette, White Balance, and Levels.

Apple has promised that existing Aperture users will be able to import their libraries into the new OS X Photos app. Photos is expected to be released early next year.



News

WiFi Performance to Improve As FCC Opens Unlicensed Frequencies

logo-5In February, the Wall Street Journal reported on the formation of a new lobbying group called WifiForward that advocated the opening up of unlicensed frequencies to alleviate Wi-Fi congestion and improve performance. The group consisted of industry partners including Google, Best Buy, Microsoft, and many others.

On Monday, the FCC announced that it was freeing up more airwaves for Wi-Fi usage. The WiFiForward group wrote in response to the ruling:

Today, the FCC voted unanimously to unleash more unlicensed spectrum will support all the things we already use and further drive investment and experimentation—a 50{813a954d5e225a1509f22204ece89c855080ce25555f20805f61bed63cbfde3b} increase in spectrum available for Wi-Fi, to be exact. Consumer devices are already equipped to operate in the band, so they can easily be adapted to quickly take advantage of new 5 GHz channels. And a new Wi-Fi standard, 802.11ac, has just been approved for the 5 GHz band. 802.11ac’s wide channels will allow for a better consumer experience.

The group indicates that consumer devices will be “easily” adapted to take advantage of the new 5GHz channels, and that 802.11ac will be able to take advantage of the new bandwidth.

802.11ac or “Gigabit” Wi-Fi offers speeds up to three times as fast as existing 802.11n wireless networks. 802.11ac has been introduced into Apple’s Mac line starting in 2013, and is expected to be included in the iPhone 6 later this year.