Still Waiting for 2017 / 2018 Honda Odyssey News →

It's nearing the end of 2016 and with the LA Auto show closed out, any news would be celebrated. Unfortunately, Honda has been completely mum on everything related to their plans for the Honda Odyssey. Highly awaiting what the new 2017 / 2018 Honda Odyssey will entail and when it'll debut, I'll save you the search. This is what I found on the popular and awesome Odyclub Forum. Thanks mlempire5.

I spent about a Hour yesterday, Friday 11/ 25 , in the Honda Booth at the Los Angeles Auto show. I asked if folks have been asking about the new Odyssey? The response was " All day everyday!." I talked to Honda specialists, not just booth attendants that have no idea of Honda inside information. I promised not to reveal what each person specialty was in regards to sharing what 2017/2018 Odyssey information they felt comfortable to reveal.

There will be no new Odyssey release before spring of 2017 at the earliest. a few department leaders have seen the outside of the new body, nobody has seen the interior as of yet. Nobody is sure about drive train details except to say they expect the same V-6 from the Pilot will be carried over to the Odyssey. Nobody is sure about the transmission regarding 8 or 10 speed transmission. There has been no work done on brochure development because there are not enough model details released to Honda staff.

The Right Continues to Misfire on Technological Advances

Ingraham is now the National Chairman of the organization that just launched the campaign against Musk and his companies.

They market themselves as being against “the entire culture of corporations making billions of dollars off of the American people for almost zero return to the consumer”, but they target very specific industries.

For example, they say they are against “Big Energy” in their manifesto, but in the section about ‘Big Energy’ they only attack the solar industry because they receive tax breaks. Does the solar industry really represent “Big Energy”? If your goal is really to attack energy subsidies, solar and renewable energy subsidies should be your last target considering their share of federal subsidies: Fossil Fuels.

Politics like this I cannot stand. Relentless idiocracy. Utterless stupidity. So what, we continue to run on gas? Idiots. // *frustrated.

Apple Is Lagging Once Again in TV →

That lists the major players in the market, and demonstrates where Apple sits in the price list. The only company selling an HD-only streaming media device above $50 is Apple. The only company selling a steaming media device without HDR above $90 is Apple.

There is no way to justify spending $150 to enter Apple’s TV ecosystem in the fall of 2016 on hardware alone. When Google is making a streaming UHD HDR player that costs LESS than a replacement Siri Remote, there is a problem with the hardware Apple is selling.

Maybe Apple should just buy Tivo instead of launching the TV App without Netflix integration. At least, Tivo got it right in content search. And yes, even I am surprised that we don't own an Apple TV in ANY iteration. If you care to know, we love our Tivo Roamio, Amazon Fire Stick and our six year old Samsung LED Television along with Sony's PS4. These devices cover our streaming needs exceptionally well.

New MacBook Pros Still Lack Elite Gaming Graphics

If you really want to do some gaming on your new MacBook Pro, there is one option available to you. The high-end 15-inch MacBook Pro (starting at £2,350) can be configured to use the Radeon Pro 460 for an additional £180. The Pro 460 will get you up to 1080p @ 60FPS in some games, with higher quality settings.

It's really unfortunate that NVidia couldn't get their new amazing mobile chipset out in time for the new MacBook Pros.

iPhone 7 Plus' Camera Kills the Competition →

Today the iPhone 7 Plus became way better at capturing the most important thing in our lives: the people we love. If you haven't already, be sure to download iOS 10.1 (Settings > General > Software Update) and give it a shot. You'll be capturing stunning portraits in no time.

Impressive and indeed, game-changing.

Banned! →

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), today announced it is issuing an emergency order to ban all Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphone devices from air transportation in the United States. Individuals who own or possess a Samsung Galaxy Note7 device may not transport the device on their person, in carry-on baggage, or in checked baggage on flights to, from, or within the United States. This prohibition includes all Samsung Galaxy Note7 devices. The phones also cannot be shipped as air cargo. The ban will be effective on Saturday, October 15, 2016, at noon ET.

It's serious. Don't mess around and even think about showing up to the airport with Samsung's Note 7! (Bold is my formatting)

"Unaffected" Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Still Catches Fire

Green said that he had powered down the phone as requested by the flight crew and put it in his pocket when it began smoking. He dropped it on the floor of the plane and a "thick grey-green angry smoke" was pouring out of the device. Green’s colleague went back onto the plane to retrieve some personal belongings and said that the phone had burned through the carpet and scorched the subfloor of the plane.

He said the phone was at around 80 percent of battery capacity when the incident occurred and that he only used a wireless charger since receiving the device.

Running the phone's IMEI (blurred for privacy reasons) through Samsung's recall eligibility checker returns a "Great News!" message saying that Green's Galaxy Note 7 is not affected by the recall.

I'd offload ANY and all Samsung stock as well as do as Mr. Green has; Buy an iPhone 7 or maybe try Google's new Pixel. Maybe there is a reason why Apple does not offer wireless charging or fast charging.

Moving Forward without the Headphone Jack →

Not being able to charge and listen means quiet drives to work or taking the kids to school. If you need your phone to last all day on a single charge, you will try and keep the battery close to 100 percent until you get to work. (This means not using the Lightning headphones to make calls in states that require hands-free calls while driving either.) The removal of the headphone jack will cause issues for a number of low-income consumers who will purchase the iPhone 7 or another phone without a headphone jack over the next few years. And those issues will persist until Apple delivers a legitimate charging solution that doesn’t cost more than a monthly payment for an iPhone.

Talk to your kids on the way to school. Listen to the radio... seriously? Is this a serious argument? Low Income families should not be purchasing the new iPhone 7 until it becomes an affordable option. You don't see people in India or China complaining about not having the best. This is an American problem and Apple develops for the world.

Sure, some consumers will hold onto their existing iPhones, or upgrade to the iPhone 6 or 6S, but in two years those phones won’t be on sale. And if you want to stay in the iOS ecosystem with an up-to-date phone, there will be no device with a headphone jack, forcing you to spend money to retain features that have become staples in your day-to-day life.

You can always buy a phone that is older than 2 years old from other retail means. Such a crappy article just yelling for attention. No one is forcing you buy a phone. The headphone jack is dead, just like the 5.25 floppy, 3.5" floppy, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM... everything else before it. As much as I hate the dongle, we can only move forward. Onward.

Simple reminder. Remember that 2.5" jack that some phones were using for headphones back before the smartphone? That was irritating. The iPhone made the 3.5" headphone jack the standard on phones.

Don't Be an Idiot →

Apple (AAPL) tries to make that painful journey a wee bit easier by tossing in an adapter that plugs into the iPhone 7’s lightning port and lets you use your old earbuds and headphones. The problem for me? I accidentally threw it out with the paper packaging the adapter came with. Based on sheer principle, I refuse to fork over $9 for something I’ve taken for granted on every single iPhone I’ve owned since 2007. But now I have 4 pairs of “old school” EarPods lying around that are semi-obsolete.

How can you write and publish this post based on your own idocracy?

I also finally threw down $150 for a pair of wireless PowerBeats 2 headphones on sale for running. Do I regret the purchase? Not really. The PowerBeats 2 are incredibly comfortable to wear, and the audio quality is good enough for my day-to-day needs. It’s also liberating to run cord-free. But I wish the 5-hour battery life were twice that, and I seriously dread the day they go missing, simply because they’ve fallen off my shoulder.

This is Apple's point although I recommend you should have waited for the PowerBeats 3 debuting shortly with longer batter life.

The DEA Needs to Wake Up →

America faces an opioid crisis: 78 people die daily of overdoses, which is four times as many as in 1999. That means that alternatives for pain that don’t have the same risks are urgently needed. And the possibility that kratom might help people leave their addictions behind makes it seem even more promising as a target for research. So many researchers are wondering why the DEA has chosen Schedule I, instead of a less-restrictive classification. "By restricting our research really you’re restricting the potential for discovery of compounds which could benefit patients who are severely ill," Mehta says.

On September 30, the plant, Kratom, which has been consumed in Southeast Asia as a tea or powder to remedy pain is going to be listed as a Schedule 1 drug because they (DEA) has linked 14 deaths related to it since 2014. Do you see the hypocrisy there? More people have died from pharmaceutical sponsored Schedule 1 drugs on a daily basis but since they're probably being paid off, let's make this plant illegal. The DEA or this administration needs to do what it promised years ago and wake up to alternative medicines.

Horween Leather for Your Brand New iPhone 7 / 7 Plus →

If you haven't already gotten the e-mail or checked it out, Nomad (one of my favorite anything Apple accessories purveyor) just announced an update to their Horween Leather Case. Now available for pre-order and shipping on October 31, it's by far one of the most beautiful and handcrafted cases I've been privy to own, and to tell you the truth, I'm probably on the train for this one too! =) Get yours for $39.95 for the iPhone 7 or $44.95 for the iPhone 7 Plus.

sidenote: one differentiator I can see consumers having is that the new Apple iPhone 7 Leather Case showcases "machined aluminum buttons that match the finish of your iPhone case." If you want to pay for it, Apple's variation on the leather case will cost you exactly $5 more than Nomad's offerings but it's not Horween, it's "European" but I say, to each his own.

Horween Leather offers an unparalleled blend of quality, consistency, responsiveness, and innovation. Through the years, we have cultivated our experience to offer dynamic lines of leathers. Our products include traditional, old world tannages and techniques, carefully updated with modern applications. Today, our leathers are still made by hand, the same way as generations ago.

Beautiful! 

Apple iPhone 7 Benchmarks vs Android

This iPhone 7 Single Core Geekbench testings shows an amazing lead compared to rest. Even dating back to the previous model at one year old, the Apple's Single Core optimization beats the rest. But when it comes to Multi-Core, Samsung does indeed come very close.

Device                    Single Core           Multi-Core
iPhone 7 / 7 Plus         3285 / 3211           5285 / 5191
iPhone SE                    2409                 4051
iPhone 6s / 6s Plus       2375 / 2400           3991 / 4027
Samsung Galaxy S7            1806                 5228
Samsung Galaxy Note 7        1786                 5213
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge       1744                 5203
Huawei P9                    1729                 4735
OnePlus 3                    1698                 4015
LG G5                        1658                 3745
iPhone 6 / 6 Plus            1463 / 1471        2457 / 2470

One VERY interesting feat is the fact that today's iPhone 7 / 7 Plus beats out the MacBook Pro 15" (Late 2011) and even the Mac Pro (Late 2013) in single core benchmarks. Intel better be watching. As The Verge clearly put it,

Now, before you accuse me of being high on my own metaphorical supply, I’m not saying that Intel will be crippled or surpassed anytime soon. But I am arguing that the chip giant is under a substantial threat, the likes of which it hasn’t faced for a long time, maybe ever. A quick look at the Geekbench scores attained by the iPhone 7 quantifies a staggering achievement: the single-core performance of Apple’s latest generation of smartphone processors has basically caught up with Intel’s laptops CPUs. The A10 chip inside the iPhone 7 comfortably outpaces its predecessors and Android rivals, and even outdoes a wide catalog of relatively recent Mac computers (including the not-so-recent Mac Pro). The iPhone’s notoriously hard to benchmark against anything else and this is just one metric, but it’s illustrative of Apple’s accelerating momentum and mobile focus.Now, before you accuse me of being high on my own metaphorical supply, I’m not saying that Intel will be crippled or surpassed anytime soon. But I am arguing that the chip giant is under a substantial threat, the likes of which it hasn’t faced for a long time, maybe ever. A quick look at the Geekbench scores attained by the iPhone 7 quantifies a staggering achievement: the single-core performance of Apple’s latest generation of smartphone processors has basically caught up with Intel’s laptops CPUs. The A10 chip inside the iPhone 7 comfortably outpaces its predecessors and Android rivals, and even outdoes a wide catalog of relatively recent Mac computers (including the not-so-recent Mac Pro). The iPhone’s notoriously hard to benchmark against anything else and this is just one metric, but it’s illustrative of Apple’s accelerating momentum and mobile focus.

This is one POWERFUL A10 Fusion chip and Apple I'm sure is proud. Congrats on the optimizations!

Failure to Recognize →

Apple has squandered its once-commanding lead in hardware and software design. Though the new iPhones include several new features, including water resistance and upgraded cameras, they look pretty much the same as the old ones. The new Apple Watch does too. And as competitors have borrowed and even begun to surpass Apple’s best designs, what was iconic about the company’s phones, computers, tablets and other products has come to seem generic.

It's a generic now standard that Apple has created! No matter what Apple puts out, they are going to be haters because they haven't 1) advanced as much in hardware or software or 2) changed a standard currently widely adopted alienating a large chunk of their user base.

What Mr. Manjoo fails to accept is that no other company goes into their manufacturing details and design process as much as Apple does. It goes without saying, it's all deliberate. In describing the the creation of the new Jet Black iPhone 7, we are shown the process was indeed different from the previous iPhone 6/6s production and that the new Apple Watch series 2 development was put through the ringer in creating a truly water resistant and swimming pool compatible design able to withstand 50m.

Did you even check out the speaker ejecting water? That's pretty ridiculous if you ask me. I don't think Samsung, LG or even HTC put that much care and love for design into ANY of their products. Slow and steady.