Honda civic 2016

The 2016 Honda Civic is due to be unveiled on September 16 in Los Angeles but it looks like we get to see the car fully undisguised before then thanks to these photos which were uploaded to the CivicX.com forums earlier today.

The American spec sedan you see here certainly matches what was seen before in the patent drawings. The roofline has taken on a very ‘Audi A5 Sportback’ shape to it. It’s almost like a hatchback. The sleek roof ends with boomerang-shaped tail lamps.

The Civic sedan will spawn coupe and hatchback siblings as well. Yes, for the first time the Civic hatchback will not be a separate model built on a separate chassis but will instead be built from a single global model.

This will also be the first regular Civic (yes, there’s the new turbo Type R) to come with a turbocharged engine. There’s a chance the new Civic will be offered with a choice of two engines – a 2.0 litre naturally-aspirated VTEC and the new 1.5 litre VTEC Turbo. The latter makes 150 PS and 203 Nm in the Honda StepWGN and Jade RS models that it is currently offered in.

As for the interior, we’ve already caught glimpses of the new Civic’s interior thanks to spy photos. The new Civic will ditch the futuristic dual-tier instrument cluster of previous two generations for a more conventional dashboard design.

What do you think of how the new Honda Civic is shaping up to be so far?

iPad pro

iPad mini 4

As usual, there’s nothing new with the design so it still retains the unmistakable iPad mini appearance with its unibody aluminium body. However Apple has made some significant changes on the overall dimensions. It is only 6.1mm thin, which is the same as the iPad Air 2, the thinnest for an iPad.
In addition, they have also made some weight reductions bringing it down from 331g previously for the WiFi version to just 298.8g. Likewise, the WiFi + 4G Cellular versions which used to weigh 340g on the iPad mini 3 is now just 304g.

The display is still the same 7.9″ incher but they have improved it with the same fully laminated display as the iPad Air 2 with additional anti reflective coating. In the camera department, it gets the same combo as the bigger iPads with an 8MP f/2.2 main camera which now brings Burst shots and Slow-mo onto an iPad mini. Meanwhile the front still gets the same 1.2MP unit.

The most welcome change is the processor, where it gets a newer A8 chip but it is still a notch below the A8X chip that’s powering its top of the line iPad Air 2. Apple claims that the A8 is 1.3x faster in processing and 1.6x faster in graphics than the previous A7.

With iOS 9 being released very soon, the new Split View feature allowing you to run 2 apps side by side was previously exclusive just to the iPad Air 2, (and now iPad Pro) likely due to processor requirement. The new upgraded processor allows the iPad mini 4 to use split view, so this is good news for multi-taskers that prefer to use a smaller iPad. In terms of connectivity, it supports faster 802.11ac WiFi as well as Bluetooth 4.2. The battery life remains unchanged with up to 10 hours of use in a single charge.

New Siri Apple TV

Tim Cook candidly jested said that Apple took a “really long” time to bring an upgrade to the 2012 version of the Apple TV – even chuckling along with the crowd following the statement. Apple’s take on the TV set-top box is now bigger, more powerful and built with Siri to assist you through the new operating system.

An overhaul that sees it now carrying a powerful 64-bit A8 CPU and PowerVR GX6450 GPU, together with 2GB of RAM. Significant jumps in each category; that sees Apple also adding more internal storage (32GB or 64GB), a better WiFi radio (802.11ac) and even a redesigned tvOS.

A great operating system that will see the Apple TV now support Apps and have an accelerometer and gyroscope on its newest remote. Connectors on the small black box are similar on past editions, a power, HDMI and an ethernet port.
With an addition of the app store for tvOS, Apple hopes that its third-party developers will expand and further the device’s functionality that places a new emphasis on gaming. You’ll be using the newly designed remote that comes with a glass touch pad on the top end that connects to your box through Bluetooth 4.0.

Embracing voice-recognition and utilising Siri as its personal assistant, it’ll be one of the best ways to interact with your Apple TV but currently only has support in these 8 countries:

Australia
Canada
France
Germany
Japan
Spain
UK
US

For everyone elsewhere, the Siri button on the new controller will only get you to an “open the on-screen search app”. It’ll probably have the same traits as its predecessor, only with larger search functionality. Don’t be downhearted, if you’re initial thoughts were to pick it up, because Apple usually rolls support as the device’s lifetime lengthens.
You’ll be able to ask the female personal assistant things like:

Search through Apple’s library and its 3^rd party apps for a TV show or movie
Questions about who is starting in our favourite movies or shows
Weather in a particular city
Replay or skip to a certain time line
Replay content and asking “what did she say?” will rewind the content and bring up subtitles

Apple TV’s gaming experience will now have a shot at rivaling the Nintendo Wii, thanks to the new Siri remote that includes the accelerometer and gyroscope. During the keynote we saw a multiplayer game dubbed Crossy Road, which allows users to tether an iPod Touch or iPhone as an additional remote.

Also demoed, was Beat Sports, a music and sports combo that sends music timed baseballs for you to hit. Apple’s main showcase to its new gaming element will be Disney Infinity 3.0, Guitar Hero Live and Rayman Adventures’, surely pleasing a wide range of gamers out there.

A further extension of apps bring about a demonstration of online shopping directly on Apple TV, thanks to companies like Gilt – giving Apple an edge when compared to other set-top boxes out there. Obviously they won’t be leaving out the main purpose of the device, providing TV enthusiasts the viewing tools to get push notifications for game-time moments in live sports games.
Potentially a great living room companion, the Apple TV starts shipping towards the end of October in 80 countries and will go for $149 / RM 641 (32GB) and $199 / RM 856 (64GB). Check out the product pagehere.