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The below post has been taken from THE TIME. You can read the post at – THE TIME.

Apple doesn’t usually unveil its new iPhones until September, but the rumors are already circulating about what fans should expect from this year’s model. The successor to the iPhone 7, which may be called the iPhone 7s or iPhone 8, could be a more noticeable departure from the current iPhone’s design. This year’s release will also mark 10 years since the original iPhone launched in 2007.

Here’s a look at what’s been reported about Apple’s next iPhone so far.

Better screen technology

Apple may use an OLED (organic light emitting diode) screen for its next iPhone instead of an LCD display, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. These types of screens offer better contrast than LCD displays, and are often brighter. The blacks in OLED screens are also deeper than those of LCD displays, making colors pop more prominently.

Apple already uses OLED display technology for the Apple Watch, while other tech giants, like Samsung, have been using variants of OLED screens in their smartphones for years. It’s unclear whether or not all new iProhone models will feature an OLED screen or if Apple will reserve them for its high-end variant, as a report from Nikkei Asian Review indicates.

A curved screen

Certain iPhone models may feature a screen that’s curved on both sides similar to Samsung’s Galaxy S7 Edge, according to Nikkei Asian Review. This rounded model will likely be more expensive than the standard edition and may be 5.5-inches or larger, says the report. If Apple indeed decides to give its next iPhone a curved screen, it will likely use an OLED display, as those types of screens are more flexible than their LCD counterparts.

Facial recognition

Apple could add facial recognition to its upcoming iPhone, according to Cowen and Company’s Timothy Arcuri. In a recent note, which Apple Insider published, Arcuri predicts Apple may place an infrared sensor next to the front-facing camera to enable the phone to recognize a user’s face. Separately, Digitimes has reported that Apple plans to add an iris scanner to its next iPhone, although it’s worth noting the website hasn’t always been accurate about future Apple products in the past. Samsung introduced a similar feature on its ill-fated Galaxy Note 7, which included an iris scanner that allowed owners to unlock their phone just by looking at it.

A new name

Apple traditionally releases its new iPhones on a tick-tock cycle, either giving them a title that includes just a number or a number paired with an “S.” For its next iPhone, however, the company may break this habit by simply calling it iPhone X, as Loup Venture’s Gene Munster predicts.

“Apple will likely break from its historical naming convention and call this iPhone something other than iPhone 7S or iPhone 8 because it will be the 10th anniversary iPhone,” Munster writes. “Like they did with the 10th version of the Mac OS, it seems logical that they’ll call the next iPhone: iPhone X.”

Three models to choose from

The introduction of a curved iPhone could mean that Apple plans to offer its next smartphone in three variants instead of two. Apple may release 4.7 and 5.5-inch iPhones with flat screens and then an additional model with a rounded display, according to Nikkei Asian Review.

A new design with no home button

Apple hasn’t significantly redesigned its iPhone since it unveiled the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in 2014. That could change in 2017. The company reportedly plans to overhaul the next iPhone with a new design that includes an edge-poto-edge glass screen and no home button, according to The Wall Street Journal.

These changes would let Apple get rid of the borders around the iPhone’s display, potentially allowing it to make the phone’s screen larger without having to increase the size of the overall device. Further changes could include a glass back similar to that of the iPhone 4 and 4s rather than the aluminum design of Apple’s more recent iPhones, says a note from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Wireless charging

Future iPhone owners may not have to plug their phones into a power cord to charge it. Apple is said to be testing wireless charging technology that could appear in iPhones as soon as 2017, according to reports from Bloomberg and Nikkei Asian Review. Wireless charging has existed in certain Android smartphones for years, but Apple could be exploring a method that makes it possible to power iPhones from a distance, Bloomberg reports. It’s unclear how close that technology is to a commercial release, however.

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The following passage has been taken from THE TIME magazine.

WHEN DOES WINTER START?

In 2016, the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere is Wednesday. The season will begin at 10:44 UTC or 5:44 a.m. Eastern Time.

That means Wednesday is the day with the fewest hours and minutes of sunlight for the whole year, also known as the winter solstice. The word “solstice,” which means the sun has stopped moving, comes from the Latin solstitium, “from sol meaning ‘sun’ and ‘stit-‘ meaning ‘stopped, stationary’ from the verb sistere” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

But the idea of the first day of winter is more complicated than you may think.

The reason Earth has seasons is because the planet is tilted, which causes the impact of the light from the sun to change throughout the year for different regions. Astronomical seasons are based on the sun’s position relative to the tilted Earth, and the winter solstice on Wednesday is a key part of that astronomical cycle.

“Think of the sun as traveling between what is called the winter solstice and summer solstice,” explains Ken Heideman, the Director of Publications at the American Meteorological Society. “The sun keeps moving northward until [on or around] June 21, when the sun’s rays are directly over the Tropic of Cancer. That’s astronomical summer. That’s as high in the sky as the sun is going to get for us. Then it starts moving towards the equator, and when it reaches the equator, that’s the autumnal equinox. Then it keeps going south until the sun is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, as far south as it’s going to go and as far away from us as its going to be. That’s winter time.”

However, for meteorologists and climatologists, winter already began. By their count, it started on Dec. 1, 2016, in the Northern Hemisphere.

‘The alignment of the Earth’s axis doesn’t line up with traditional weather, or the common-sense idea of weather,” as James R. Fleming, a professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, who specializes in the history of geophysical science and meteorology, puts it. That’s because weather data is usually based on monthly temperatures. Since December, January, and February typically have the coldest temperatures on average in the Northern Hemisphere, these scientists consider that three-month period the winter season.

The winter solstice is also not to be confused with the coldest day of the year. There is about a one month lag (27.5 days to be exact) between the winter solstice and the day predicted to be the coldest the year, because it takes a while for the land to cool down, according to Greg Hammer, a meteorologist at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. “It’s like putting a pot of water on the stove,” says Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist in the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who calculates that the coldest day of winter 2016-2017 in the U.S. is expected to be around January 15th or 16th.

“A lot of warmth has been accumulating over July, August, September, October and November leading up to the winter solstice, so the really cold air hasn’t set in right [at the solstice],” Heideman explains. “It’s really the beginning of it.”

So when did humans start tracking winter and the winter solstice?

The answer is lost in prehistory. As TIME has previously reported, ancient monuments are the only clue as to when humans started tracking solstices. “An ancient person in Africa, England or North America, might have sat cold and shivering in a certain point where they had natural mountains or boundaries, and looked off in the horizon waiting for sunrise,” says astronomer Mary Kay Hemenway, formerly of the University of Texas at Austin. “You do this for a long time, and you’ll be aware of which stars you see in the sky and anticipate where the sun is going to be each day. What they were doing is making a calendar. The solstice is the origin of having a calendar system.”

Real comprehension of the solstices and the astronomical seasons came later, after the heliocentric model of the solar system was introduced by Copernicus in 1543, adds Volker Bromm, professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin.

Who defined meteorological winter may also not be totally clear either, but it may have been devised at some point during the early-to-mid 20th century when climatology became more quantitative, according to Fleming. He argues that “the need for the statisticians to generate seasonal averages” may date back to prominent Austrian meteorologist Julius von Hann, who, in 1897, stated that climate is sum of the average weather conditions.

But, whether or not people understood the reasons why winter had come, its beginning has long been noticed. Many cultures had feast days around the date of the winter solstice—including Christmas and Hanukkah. As Fleming puts it, many consider the winter solstice “a moment for celebration because from that point on, the days keep getting longer until we get back to summer.”

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