A week after Apple placed a massive order for OLED iPhone screens with arch-rival Samsung, Google is apparently working on pretty much the same thing – except with Korean tech giant and arch rival LG. And guess what? Electronic Times is reporting that the order is for “curved screens,” just like Apple. And again, we are expecting the OLED screens, likely meant for a new Pixel phone, to wrap around the edges of the device.
How many screens? While Apple’s order topped 90 million – and perhaps many more later on – no figures were released on the Google/LG order, but Google is reportedly paying nearly $900 million dollars for the order, so we’ll just guess and say “a whole lot of them.” When the original Pixel phones debuted, Google was often caught short on stock. Just like Apple, it looks like they’re hoping to have a lot of phones on hand when it debuts, perhaps later this year.
The (nearly) silent service
Ford is rolling out a new car for police departments, and not surprisingly, it’s a Ford Fusion hybrid. How will they ever catch any bad guys while driving a lethargic hybrid? Well, to borrow a few lines from a classic movie, this is no ordinary hybrid, this thing is pursuit rated. It’s got a cop motor, cop tires, cop shocks, skid plates for driving over curbs, and it’s made in 2017, so it’ll run good on regular gas – on electricity.
Cop cars burn up to 60 percent of their gas at just sitting at idle, and since the engine in the Ford hybrid is off while it’s… idling, Ford says each car should save police departments nearly $4,000 in gas per car per year. Ford calls the Fusion Hybrid a “Police Responder,” and says it’s more for urban duties, despite its “pursuit” rating. Out on the open roads, big-bore all-gas cop cars, like the 150-mile an hour Dodge Charger, will still chase down the bad guys.
Plenty fast, but….
The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus is finally out, and since it’s packing as much cutting edge tech as Samsung could cram into the thing, it must be a real hot-rod when it comes to performance, right? Well, maybe. According to a side-by-side speed test posted by Everything Apple Pro on YouTube, the Galaxy S8 came in second on multiple speed tests against an iPhone 7 Plus, despite having more RAM and other more up-to-date features.
The S8 runs the Snapdragon 835 quad-core processor at 2.35 gigahertz while the iPhone uses Apple proprietary in-house A10 chip, and only 3 gigs of RAM. So how is it winning? There are so many variables outside of pure processor speed: how the OS works, speed of
Overall, the phones were pretty close in performance – the S8 is still a fast phone – we just felt it was interesting that an older competitor was still faster in almost every test they could come up with. Hit this link to watch the whole video.
We’ve got more news on our Facebook page and YouTube channel, and be sure to tune in to this week’s DT podcasts: Close to the Metal (computers and such) on Tuesday, Trends with Benefits (general tech shenanigans) on Thursdays, and Between the Streams (movie and TV topics) every Friday.