The Galaxy S7 is officially available today — here’s what you need to know!

Never mind that pre-orders have been shipping for a week. Today is Galaxy S7 day.

Samsung’s retail partners all over the world are opening their doors to anyone wanting to wander in and pick up a new Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge. You’ve seen our reviews on the smaller and edgier versions this year — as well as a look at what you can expect in Canada — but today is the day to put down money on one of these phones and jump into this new experience. For those of you still deciding, here’s everything you need to know to make the choice that best suits your needs.

Which model should you get?

Tough Choice No. 1: Do you get the Galaxy S7? Or the Galaxy S7 edge? The latter is the one Samsung’s really pushing this year, but there are some pretty distinct differences.

The GS7 is smaller, with a 5.1-inch display. It’s also got a slightly smaller batter, at 3,000 mAh. The GS7 edge is larger at 5.5 inches and has a 3,600 mAh battery — that’s 20 percent greater capacity. It’s also got the very cool curved “edge” screen that adds additional functionality.

If you’re on the fence, be sure to read through our comprehensive Galaxy S7 review, as well as our Galaxy S7 edge review.

Which color should you get?

That’s maybe the second big choice, right? This year Samsung hasn’t gone all out on the paint jobs. Gold, silver, black and white. (And those of us in the U.S. missed out on the more awesome colors last year anyway.)

This is a very personal choice, of course, but there are a few pros and cons depending on which color you go for.

More: How to choose a color for your Galaxy S7

Should you upgrade to the Galaxy S7?

We’re going to get into this in more detail, but here’s the short version as we see it. If you’re coming from a Galaxy Note 5, we probably would hold off. It’s absolutely a very good phone with a very good battery and current software. Whether to upgrade from the Galaxy S6 is a tougher decision. If you’ve been OK with the GS6 battery life (one of our chief complaints of that line), you probably can hold off. The phones are very similar in many respects. But if you just have to have more battery, consider switching.

Anything Galaxy S5 and older and you should definitely consider upgrading. There’s a huge difference both in the look and design of the phones, the processors powering them, and in the software running on them. It’s time for an upgrade.

If you’re outside the Samsung ecosystem and are looking to come in? Well, that’s another matter. iPhone owners certainly should upgrade to a Galaxy S7 on principle. (We kid, we kid. Only not really. Get on Android.) But, really, there’s a whole lot in the Galaxy S7 that you just won’t find on any previous-generation phones from any manufacturer. The best-in-class camera. The excellent fingerprint sensor. Even the software’s as good as its ever been. We’ve used them all, and the Galaxy S7 undeniably is the current best of the bunch.

About the GS7 and virtual reality

If you’ve been looking to finally try out some virtual reality system, the Galaxy S7 is ready to go. It works great with Samsung’s own Gear VR system — and in fact you may well receive a free one when you buy your GS7. Gear VR, if you’ve yet to experience it, is Samsung’s $99 system powered by Oculus that brings you straight into videos and games and — well, just about anything. It’s a little bulky, sure, and you need to forget what you look like while you’re wearing it. But it’s also the best bang for the buck at this point.

The GS7 also works with the less-expensive Google Cardboard, of course.

The micro-SD card is back

A big change for the Galaxy S7 this year is that Samsung has brought back the micro-SD card. And that’s important because both the GS7 and GS7 edge ship with just 32 gigabytes of on-board storage. The SD card expands that another 200GB, so you’ll have a lot more room to store pictures and music and movies and such. You also can move app data to the SD card to free up even more space.

Click here for the best SD cards for the Galaxy S7

Where to buy the Galaxy S7 edge

This is always a tricky question when it comes to a device that’s available globally from a variety of retailers, but we can at least offer up some handy links of those who want to buy in the U.S. from one of the major carriers. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint all have the Galaxy S7 edge for sale, and you can also check out major retailers like Best Buy to buy for use on any of those carriers as well.

See at Amazon See at Verizon See at Sprint See at T-Mobile See at AT&T

Where to buy the Galaxy S7

This is always a tricky question when it comes to a device that’s available globally from a variety of retailers, but we can at least offer up some handy links of those who want to buy in the U.S. from one of the major carriers. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint all have the Galaxy S7 for sale.

See at Amazon   See at AT&T   See at Sprint  See at T-Mobile   See at Verizon

For our European friends …

A couple things of note for our pals across the pond. First, we’ve got a good list of where you can buy the Galaxy S7 and GS7 edge in the UK. Be sure to hit that up. But more important is that we’ve got the lowdown on the region-locking that phones in that part of the world may be subject to. The short version is that it’s very real, but probably not something that’s going to affect most people. Read more on that here.

Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge

• Galaxy S7 review
• Galaxy S7 edge review
• Galaxy S7 edge with Exynos: A Canadian perspective
• Here are all four Galaxy S7 colors
• Details on the Galaxy S7’s camera
• The SD card is back on the GS7
• Join our Galaxy S7 forums

AT&T Sprint T-Mobile Verizon

Save big on RAVPower USB-C cables at Amazon — starting at just $2.57

USB-C is growing in popularity and we are finally seeing more phones supporting the new connector. RAVPower is offering its USB-C cables at a steep discount, with prices as low as $2.57 for a USB-C to C cable. If you are looking for something that goes USB-A to C, you will be looking at $5.99 for the price tag, which is still quite a deal. These cables are capable of USB 3.0 speeds, meaning transfer rates of up to 5Gbps.

If you could use an extra cable for your home, office or car, you won’t want to miss out on this deal. No coupon codes are needed, just hit the link below and grab a few for yourself today!

See at Amazon

iPhone battery life not affected by closing apps, so don’t bother says Apple

Swiping away all those apps on your iPhone so they’re not running in the background is a waste of time, apparently. Closing apps via multitasking doesn’t actually affect battery life on the iPhone says Apple.

The SVP of Apple, Craig Federighi, told a 9to5mac reader that multitasking app on iOS doesn’t affect battery performance.

When asked over email, “Do you quit your iOS multitasking frequently and is this necessary for battery life?”, the simple answer given was: “No and no.”

Supporting this unequivocally clear answer, Apple’s own support pages do say that force-quitting should only be used on a case-by-case basis when an app freezes or misbehaves.

Since quitting all your apps doesn’t save battery life that might explain why Apple has never implemented a close all option when in multitasking. Apparently despite being seen in multitasking the apps aren’t actually running so won’t be using any RAM.

Apps that use battery in the background are ones that are still in use, like navigation using GPS or music playing from iTunes, say.

So if you’ve got any other burning Apple questions it might just pay to try emailing the big dogs directly. You never know you might get an insightful reply.

READ: Best smartphones 2016: The best phones available to buy today

‘Elite Dangerous’ will return to Oculus Rift on launch day

Elite Dangerous has been a confirmed VR title since 2013, and has supported the Oculus Rift development kit for well over a year. But development hasn’t exactly been fast-paced. At present, the giant open-world space adventure game only runs on a very outdated Oculus firmware, essentially meaning that gamers have to choose between playing Elite Dangerous or everything else. That’s going to change soon though, as Elite Dangerous will officially be supported on the headset and released on the Oculus Store on launch day, March 28th.

If you’ve already purchased Elite Dangerous through other means, Oculus says you’ll be able to get the new edition free of charge. Players will be able to “migrate” their game to the Oculus Store using a free code from developer Frontier. It’s not entirely clear if players will be able to enjoy the same experience directly through the launcher that shipped with the Steam version. Right now the Steam page only lists the HTC Vive as supported under VR, but that could change closer to the release date. We’ve reached out to Frontier for clarification.

GM buys Cruise Automation to develop driverless tech for its cars

After snatching up what remained of the ridesharing company Sidecar, GM further boosted its self-driving efforts by acquiring Cruise Automation. If that name doesn’t sound familiar, the company makes kits that put driverless technology inside Audi S4 or A4 vehicles. That know-how will be used to bring autonomous features to GM’s vehicles while Cruise remains based in San Francisco.

“This will significantly accelerate the timeline for bringing autonomous vehicles to market,” GM President Dan Ammann explained to Recode. If you’ll recall, GM also has a partnership with Lyft to create a self-driving vehicle network to autonomous ridesharing. Specifics about GM’s timeline are understandably scarce at this point, but nabbing Cruise and its tech will certainly help the automaker pick up speed when it comes to development.

Source: Recode

Even robots can’t survive Fukushima’s ground zero

Five years after an earthquake-triggered tsunami hit Japan’s Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant, there’s still a tremendous amount of cleanup work left. The Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which runs the plant, has managed to clean out spent fuel rods from one building, but it’s failed to reach others that have melted down. The incredibly high radiation levels at the site have even proven too much for five robots that were sent in to find those rods, Reuters reports. Even worse, it takes around two years for TEPCO to design robots suited to individual buildings at Fukushima.

According to Naohiro Masuda, TEPCO’s head of decommissioning, the radiation is so extreme that it simply melts the robot’s wiring. And at this point, robots are the only safe method to try and extract those melted fuel rods, whose locations are currently unknown. One intriguing method for finding the rods, which involved using subatomic particles, has so far been relatively useless.

But that’s not all: A proposed “ice wall” to keep groundwater from reaching the reactors was only just finished in February. TEPCO will start pumping water into the wall soon, but it’s already several months late and critics question just how effective it’ll be. Masuda says a seawall built along the shoreline is keeping nuclear material from reaching the ocean. (Although he wouldn’t go as far to say there’s absolutely no leakage. Of course.)

On top of that, there’s also around a million metric tons of irradiated water being stored on the site, the remnants of water pumped in to cool down the reactors. TEPCO still hasn’t found a decent solution for disposing of the radioactive water, and the storage tanks have already leaked some of the material into the ocean.

The entire cleanup process is expected to take around 30 to 40 years, but TEPCO has understandably come under fire by the Japanese government for its slow start. Looking ahead, Toshiba has developed a robot that can skim the surface of cooling pools to pick up fuel rods, which could fair better than the robots that have to dive into the irradiated water. But TEPCO still needs to find a way to locate and extract the melted fuel rods, which now are basically large radiation globs weighing hundreds of metric tons.

Source: Reuters

Where to buy Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge in the UK

The Mobile World Congress expo in Barcelona is fast becoming a distant memory, but now is the season for flagship phones announced at the show to start making their way to consumers. Today, it’s Samsung’s turn. It’s fair to say the new Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are only iterative improvements on last year’s models; but with slicker styling, the return of expandable storage and flagship-grade performance, they’re among the best Android smartphones money can buy. You may’ve even clocked a few in the wild already, since anyone that pre-ordered either device should’ve received theirs earlier this week. We understand that not everyone’s that organised, though, so join us as we explore all the purchasing options on general release day.

Galaxy S7

We’re talking about new Samsung flagships here, so it’s no surprise absolutely everyone is hoping for a piece of the action. You’ll obviously have to look at what allowances each of the four major carriers are offering with their plans, but it’s probably best to start your search at contract resellers. Unlike the carriers themselves, they have tariff options that don’t require any kind of upfront payment, as well as plenty of reasonably priced contracts not available elsewhere.

As usual, MVNO Tesco Mobile is offering some seriously competitive plans, starting at £37.50 per month with a 2GB data allowance and no upfront payment. giffgaff’s pricing is typically quite reasonable, too, but it appears to be having some stock issues at time of writing. It’s almost not worth mentioning other players, but Virgin Mobile’s tariffs start at £34 per month for a 250MB data cap, and TalkTalk Mobile wants £37.50 per month from existing customers for a similarly small allowance (both of these options come with no upfront costs). It’s best to avoid Carphone Warehouse’s iD network, with the basic 1GB plan requiring £80 down and £37.50 per month.

Since you can’t get the Galaxy S7 on pay-as-you-go anywhere, buying an unlocked model is currently the only way to escape a lengthy contract. Unfortunately, though, there’s no one retailer we can point you towards for that killer deal. All the usual suspects (Expansys, Unlocked Mobiles, Clove, Amazon, Tesco Direct and Samsung, in this case) are selling the S7 for between £550 and £570, making Mobile Phones Direct your best option with its £540 price tag.

Galaxy S7 Edge

The Galaxy S7 Edge is the more expensive of Samsung’s new smartphones, with a bigger screen and curved glass edges. Like the S7, it’s available at all major carriers and resellers, though again, it’s the resellers that have some of the best deals, with several options that don’t demand an upfront payment. You aren’t able to get the S7 Edge on pay-as-you-go anywhere, by the way.

giffgaff doesn’t seem to be having a great deal of luck with stock at the moment, making Tesco Mobile the clear MVNO favourite with plans starting at £41 per month (nothing upfront) for a 2GB data allowance. Virgin Mobile’s tariffs aren’t anything to write home about, starting at £38 per month with no upfront cost for a 250MB data cap. Carphone Warehouse’s iD network, though, is the worst of the bunch. Its 1GB plan is £37.50 per month, but also requires a £130 down-payment.

If it’s a SIM-free phone you’re after, then head to Buymobiles, Unlocked Mobiles or Mobile Phones Direct. They’re all offering the S7 Edge for £620, which is the lowest price we can track down right now. Sure, you’re not exactly getting a bargain — £630-£640 is the going rate at Expansys, Clove, Amazon, Tesco Direct and Samsung’s online store — but what you save is worth a couple of pints, at least.

Take a 360-degree video tour of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider keeps delivering important scientific discoveries, but apart from some Google Street View images, it’s pretty hard to grasp the scale of it. However, a new 360-degree video from the BBC (below) takes you on a visual tour of the world’s largest machine. At up to 4K resolution, you can see parts of the 27 km (16 mile) tunnel where particles fly by at the speed of light in both directions. It also shows the Compact Muon Solenoid detector that looks for dark matter, extra dimensions and the Higgs Boson. The science is mind-bending, but as the video shows, the machine needed to test it is equally so.

Source: BBC

ICYMI: Space junk reboot, biological machine v2 and more

Today on In Case You Missed It: NASA thinks it can extend the life of even dead satellites orbiting Earth with a new solution from the agency and Orbital ATK. Mission Extension Vehicles should go up in 2018 and give the sats battery power for as long as another 15 years. A game developer is trying to make older, classic Nintendo games 3D with an emulator that uses a custom algorithm to separate flat backgrounds into 3D objects. And the National Science Foundation funded work to create a biological machine that can be controlled with electrical or optical signals– while using it’s own muscle tissue for power.

We also wanted to make sure you saw the ostrich chase video that is making the rounds.

As always, please share any interesting science or tech videos, anytime! Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag to @mskerryd.

Adobe warns users to patch a critical Flash vulnerability

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Adobe has released a new patch for Flash that fixes “critical vulnerabilities that could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system,” according to the security bulletin. It says the update (version 21.0.0.182) is a top priority for users of Windows, Mac, Android, iOS and ChromeOS, and that you should install it tout de suite. The upgrade patches 23 holes in the software, but Adobe said one of them, CVE-2016-1010 “is [already] being used in limited, targeted attacks.”

While that’s the only known exploit in the wild, some of the other vulnerabilities could also lead to code execution and allow a hacker could take over your machine. This has become such a broken record that major web players hope that Flash will die soon. Facebook has demanded an end-of-life date from Adobe, while Google says that it will discontinue Flash-based ads. Many experts recommend you uninstall it completely, or if not, you can at least stop the plugin from running automatically in your browser. Another option is to use Firefox, which blocks it by default. The update should be pushed to you soon, but if you can’t wait, download it here.

Via: BBC

Source: Adobe