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Weekly Rewind: Tiny iPhones, injectable bandages, Bitcoin for dentists, and more

top tech stories
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A lot can happen in a week when it comes to tech. The constant onslaught of news makes it nigh impossible for mere mortals with real lives to keep track of everything. That’s why we’ve compiled a quick and dirty list of this week’s top tech stories, from our 2017 Outdoor Awards to a tiny iPhone  — it’s all here.

Digital Trends 2017 Outdoor Awards

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Technology is transforming every aspect of our lives, making it easier to follow a winding hiking trail, helping us swing a baseball bat more accurately, and keeping us in touch with our friends even as we get away from it all. For the first annual Digital Trends Outdoor Awards, we aim to spotlight and reward the many companies embracing tech and spearheading this revolution.

To do this, we stepped out of the office and onto the mountains, rivers, forests, and trails of the Pacific Northwest to field test a variety of gear designed to not just alter your experience outdoors but to improve it. Be it a footwear company’s dedication to understanding exactly how the human body moves or a phone case brand’s commitment to designing the bear-proof cooler of the summer, outdoor innovation and technology doesn’t fit one definition but features a wealth of benefit.

Read: Digital Trends 2017 Outdoor Awards

2017 Bentley Bentayga review

2017 Bentley Bentayga review
Ronan Glon/Digital Trends

Luxury comes in many different shapes and sizes, but it’s never taken on a form like this. With the Bentayga, Bentley set out to create a new type of vehicle that takes the no-compromise strand of opulence it is famous for to the SUV segment. We spent a week living with the British company’s only high-riding model to evaluate what it brings to the market.

Diehard Bentley historians will enthusiastically dispute claims that the Bentayga is Bentley’s very first SUV. They’re completely right. Here’s a quick fun fact: in the early 1990s, the Sultan of Brunei commissioned Bentley to build approximately six examples of a Range Rover-esque 4×4 named Dominator. All six are gathering dust in his mind-blowing collection, and the model has never been seen in public. He’s not the cars and coffee type, apparently. It’s true that the Dominator is the original Bentley SUV, but the Bentayga is the first one designed and produced for motorists who do not preside over a microstate.

Read: 2017 Bentley Bentayga review

Unfolding injectable bandage can patch up a damaged heart

bandage
Igor Stevanovic/123RF

A smart, stamp-sized “shape memory” bandage developed by engineers at the University of Toronto could help fix damaged organ tissue without the need for surgery. As its creators explain, it could help mend broken hearts — literally!

“Once engineered tissues are made in the lab, the only way for them to get into the human body is by a surgical approach, by opening the chest to place the tissues in,” biomedical engineering professor Milica Radisic told Digital Trends. “In this work, we were able to marry minimally invasive delivery with tissues engineering [to develop] shape memory polymer scaffolds that enable us to inject fully functional tissues into the body.”

Read: Unfolding injectable bandage can patch up a damaged heart

We now know what a tiny iPhone would look like, and it’s adorable

Soyes 7S
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Just as when puppies do something unspeakable on your new carpet, it’s very easy for forgive the Soyes 7S for looking almost exactly like an Apple iPhone, because it’s just so damn cute. It’s cute because it’s tiny — no more than half the size of an iPhone 7 Plus, but perhaps twice as adorable. It’s not an iPhone challenger though, and the specification is slightly lacking in this unusual Chinese phone. Also, it doesn’t run iOS, obviously, but Google Android with a user interface to make it look something like an iPhone.

Soyes has a history of making small smartphones, which are sold through eBay and Chinese device importers, and a quick browse of its (outdated) website reveals in the past it has made phones the same size as a credit card. However, none are as visually interesting as the Soyes 7S, its miniature iPhone clone.

Read: We now know what a tiny iPhone would look like, and it’s adorable

Is that video about to go viral? YouTube tests live viewer count in app

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Think that YouTube video you’re watching could be viral material? A new YouTube live viewer count could give viewers a glimpse at just how hot that video is. YouTube is now testing a feature that shows the number of viewers watching the video at a particular time, according to Android Police.

As a feature that’s only in testing phases, the live viewer counter is only showing up for a select number of users. The feature is being tested inside the mobile app as a counter that pops up under the video title, and is displayed as “# watching now.” The feature gives viewers an idea of how popular a video is by showing the number of other viewers tuning in at the same time.

Read: Is that video about to go viral? YouTube tests live viewer count in app

Smile! Dentacoin wants to become the Bitcoin of the dental industry

Dentacoin Cryptocurrency for Dentists
Getty Images/Mahatta Multimedia Pvt. Ltd.

Of all the technological leaps Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have enabled, arguably their biggest impact has been the creation and proliferation of blockchain technology. The blockchain has many manifestations, though, and a new one is looking to leverage it to create a new outlook for … the dental industry.

Yes, that’s right. It’s cryptocurrency for your teeth.

Called Dentacoin, it pitches itself as a way to improve dental health, cut out insurance companies as middle men, and foster cooperation between dentists and patients. But can a currency with so specific a role possibly hope to compete in a space with 700+ other crypto coins, including the granddaddy of them all, Bitcoin?

Read: Smile! Dentacoin wants to become the Bitcoin of the dental industry

FrontRow is a wearable camera that lets you live in the moment, and capture it

FrontRow
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Smartphones have allowed us to easily capture intimate and memorable moments, such as a baby’s first steps or a graduation ceremony. But too often we’re looking through the smartphone, rather than simply being present. Ubiquiti Labs‘ FrontRow is a wearable camera that wants to help by capturing and sharing the moment, so you can stay in the moment hands-free.

The FrontRow looks like a pocket watch, except instead of a watch face there’s a 2-inch circular display. There are two cameras, one on the back with the display, and one on the front. On the side, you’ll find a power button, and a media button that lets you start and stop recording.

Read: FrontRow is a wearable camera that lets you live in the moment, and capture it

Are you an Aetna customer? There could be an Apple Watch in your future

apple watch
Apple

Want an Apple Watch? You may want to talk to Aetna. According to a report from CNBC, Apple and the insurance company held a number of “secret discussions” last week in order to make the wearable more widely accessible to Aetna customers. And with millions of individuals (23 million, to be exact) using Aetna’s services, that could mean a lot more Apple Watches for a lot more people.

Currently, Aetna already offers its 50,000 employees the smartwatch as part of its corporate wellness program. But while we may not all work for Aetna, even working with Aetna could pay off in the form of a wearable. Apparently, Aetna hopes to work with Apple to offer either a free or discounted Apple Watch as a perk to members.

Read: Are you an Aetna customer? There could be an Apple Watch in your future

Tom Cruise’s on-set injury forces long ‘Mission: Impossible 6’ production delay

Mission: Impossible 6
Featureflash / Shutterstock.com

The fictional Ethan Hunt may be able to consistently pull off the impossible, but the actor who plays him, Tom Cruise, is only human. The action star was shooting Mission: Impossible 6 this week when he suffered a broken ankle during an on-set accident. Production is on hold while he recovers — a process that could take between six weeks and three months, according to Variety sources.

Cruise was filming M:I 6 in London on Sunday when he injured himself. As a TMZ video showed  the actor trying to jump onto a building from some rigging but didn’t quite make it. He collided hard with the building, which evidently caused his broken ankle.

Read: Tom Cruise’s on-set injury forces long ‘Mission: Impossible 6’ production delay

Editors' Recommendations

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
The EU will reportedly vote for USB-C iPhones next week
A blue iPhone 12 sits next to a Lightning charger.

The EU is reportedly planning to vote in favor of a landmark regulation that will mandate the adoption of USB-C for smartphones and tablets, forcing Apple to drop the Lightning port on iPhones. According to a Reuters report, EU lawmakers and delegates are set to meet at an event on June 7. During that meeting, the proposal for universally adopting the USB-C port will be agreed upon as the unified standard for all phones and tablets sold in the region.

"The trilogue next Tuesday will be the second and likely the final one between EU countries and EU lawmakers on the topic," says the report, hinting that the remarkable manifesto will finally get the approval and get enacted as law. The debate around a universal charging standard was broached nearly a decade ago, but in the years that followed, Android makers have moved to the USB-C ports to a large extent. Apple, meanwhile, has remained loyal to the cause of its proprietary port on iPhones.

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Apple to use zero-emission recycled aluminum in iPhone SE
Woman mixing smelting aluminum.

Apple has announced that its iPhone SE will use aluminum that has been smelted with zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Canadian manufacturing partner Elysis has been able to crank out aluminum ingots at a commercial scale and purity while only producing oxygen emissions. Since Quebec is flush with hydroelectric power, the energy used in the process is renewable too. Apple first used this aluminum with its 16-inch 2019 MacBook Pro. Research into the smelting technology was made possible by Apple's Green Bonds. These bonds have been able to funnel investment into eco-friendly projects since 2016.

The fund is a whopping $4.7 billion, so lots of other projects are on the way. The 50 currently on the books from the 2019 fund are expected to offset 2.9 million tons of CO2.  One of these projects will be building wind turbines in Denmark. These will in turn power a local Apple data center. Apple boasts that with the help of its Green Bonds, more than 175 manufacturing partners across 24 countries have pledged to only use renewable energy when making Apple products. With any luck, this will help it claim carbon neutrality along its entire production line by 2030.  
Apple has been using recycled aluminum in its products since at least 2015, and claims that since then it has reduced its carbon emissions from aluminum production by almost 70%. That's great, but recycling aluminum is low-hanging fruit. Much of commercial aluminum is already recycled since mining bauxite ore is expensive and our recycling infrastructure for aluminum is well-established. 
E-waste is a much tougher problem to solve. To that end, we're eager to see how Apple's upcoming self-repair program pans out and expands. The longer we can keep using our devices, the longer we can keep them out of landfills. 

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Apple’s iPhone 13 and iPad Mini are facing more display and touch problems
The iPhone 13 Pro's lock screen.

Apple's new iPhone 13 is in its second week of release, but early adopters are already reporting critical issues with the company's displays. Some have noted that the system intermittently is unresponsive to touch. This comes after the company's new iPad Mini was criticized for experiencing an issue colloquially referred to as jelly scrolling.

The more major issue that affects the new iPhone 13 and 13 Pro are intermittent touch issues. From reports, this happens when the iPhone 13 doesn't register swipes or taps on the display 100% of the time. It affects everything from using the phone normally to tap-to-wake to playing games and switching apps. It isn't consistent, so it may not be immediately obvious to some iPhone 13 owners. It's also not clear whether this is a hardware fault or a bug in the new iOS 15 update. There are even reports of it applying to older iPhones as well on social media platforms and support forums.

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