LG G5 second opinion — at least the camera is nice?

A stellar camera and capable processor aren’t enough to make me recommend this phone to most people.

LG has had a fascinating journey over the last couple of G-series releases. Their phones have a tendency to stick out as uniquely LG, but those hardware decisions don’t usually add or take away from just how good the phones are. This year things are a little different. LG has made the shift to metal with the G5, but made sure to keep the removable battery and expandable storage that helped the G4 stand out last year. Unfortunately that transition comes off a clumsy and awkward, with a host of fairly bland accessories standing almost as an attempt to distract from what LG has assembled.

We’ve already written a full review of the LG G5, and Phil’s thoughts on this experience do a great job focusing on the whole picture LG is trying to assemble this year. As someone who only has the G5, and who isn’t really interested the “Friends” that dock in the bottom of this phone, the picture is a lot smaller. It’s also not quite as clear as what LG has offered in the past, making the overall experience less than great.

But, hey, at least the camera is nice.

How we got here

LG’s relationship with metal on phones has never been great. The G-series has always been plastic, living somewhere in between the creaky flexible mess Samsung used to use and the rigid, smooth plastic HTC used to use. Glossy, metal-colored plastic coated the outside of the G4 last year, and while that doesn’t give a premium sense to the phone it can’t be denied that LG released one of the best pieces of hardware we saw last year. As is all-too-often the case with LG phones, what dragged it down from that top spot was software.

The LG G5 feels like a violent mashup of all the phones released last year.

Late last year LG released the V10, a massive Android phone with polished metal rails and a grippy, flexible backplate that offered access to the battery. It was the first time LG had really messed with a mostly metal phone, and it worked well for people who enjoy those large experiences. The V10 was the first time we saw LG try a fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone where the power button was, which maintained the “rear key” design while adding features to the phone. LG moved on with Google’s guidance to a much better fingerprint sensor on the back of the LG Nexus 5X, which ditched the “rear key” design for volume buttons on the side of the phone.

The LG G5 feels like a violent mashup of all the phones released last year. The profile of the phone is undeniably LG, with an edge that leaves you almost ready to pull the back off as though it were a G4. The smooth metal rim of the phone feels like a compromise between the G4 and the V10, and the fingerprint sensor on the back feels like a combination of V10 functionality and 5X performance. All that was needed now was a way to access the battery, which was solved by making the bottom “chin” of the phone removable.

The hardware

It’s clear that LG’s design team was focused on familiarity while executing all of these different ideas. What isn’t clear is why so many of those executions lack polish. The retail G5 I’ve been using (we bought this one from AT&T) lines up with the removable just fine, but distortions in the back plating where the primer didn’t set evenly looks unfinished. It’s the kind of look I’d expect in a pre-production model, but for a retail unit this is the kind of thing that should never have left the factory.

Lets talk about that primer for a minute. LG has done something technically impressive with the antennae in this phone. Instead of breaking the design up with those rubber or plastic lines that make it so the radios can reach out into the world no matter what, LG put the antennae between the metal back of the phone and the paint that covers the metal. There are no antennae lines on this phone, which is impressive. You do feel a texture difference between the back of the phone and the sides of the phone as a result. The sides of the phone have that cool to the touch metal feel, but the back plate isn’t quite as metallic. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it doesn’t feel like metal, just that it doesn’t feel like the sides. That may be off-putting to some, but not nearly as distressing in my use as how easy it is to completely cover the speaker grille and muffle all sound with my finger.

The edge that separates the back and sides of the phone is another point I found myself appreciating. The metal is almost sharp in the way the two sides angle away from one another, and even has a rough quality to it if you run the edge across your finger. Since it’s on the back of the phone, however, your fingers won’t touch this edge much. Instead that edge catches the palm of your hand, and adds just enough grip to make the phone feel comfortable. This idea would have been brilliant, but the edge is alongside the wider back point of the phone with sides that taper in. This means anyone with larger hands is touching the screen every time they reach across to tap something, which is the exact situation you do not want grip. This was less noticeable on most G4 models due to the way the leather backplates would extend beyond the back a little, but on the G5 is makes using the phone with one hand painfully awkward.

All of this comes together to form a phone that doesn’t feel like it was made to compete in a premium space.

LG’s spectacular bragging rights when it comes to the screen to bezel ratio on their phones has been sacrificed to the removable battery this year, but that doesn’t mean the glass isn’t special. The curved top of this phone feels fantastic when on a phone call — yeah, people still do that — and looks damn nice when set down on a table. The design of the bottom is clever enough, you push in a button that isn’t likely to even be pressed accidentally and out comes a corner of the bottom. Pull the rest of the way, and you have a battery. If you ignore the things you can also shove in this slot to add mostly pointless features to the G5, the battery slot is a little unusual. It doesn’t look like you’ll be able to put a larger battery in this space, which means your only real option is to keep a separate charged battery with you at all times. That isn’t unheard of, but this method of battery removal feels slightly inferior to the V10 design in its ability to extend battery life.

It’s not often that the display on a phone is one of the last things that need to be talked about when discussing the hardware, but here we are. LG’s display is spectacularly average for a high-end display, and feels mostly the same as the G4 and V10. The 2560×1440 resolution IPS display is great indoors, and is plenty sharp for images and text. Outdoors, things aren’t so great. The phone leans a little towards the blue side and auto-brightness doesn’t kick up to full brightness fast enough. Manually setting to full brightness works in most situations, but direct sunlight isn’t one of them. It gets the job done, but don’t expect any situations where you find yourself in awe of what the display is capable of.

All of this comes together to form a phone that doesn’t feel like it was made to compete in a premium space. There’s nothing about the outside of this phone that lets you know it was made to compete for your attention as one of the best phones available today, despite being priced as such.

The software

Android 6.0 is alive and well on the LG G5, with no shortage of modifications from LG — and in my case AT&T — to scratch your head at. If such a thing as peak bloatware exists, we’ve reached it on this version of the LG G5. AT&T is desperate to tell you about their DirecTV partnership as a persistent notification, and beyond that you’ve got the usual suite of worthless apps pre-installed that can only be hidden. When it was all said and done, navigating through and removing the AT&T nonsense took me nearly half an hour. No user should have to go through that as part of the setup process, and while most of this is AT&T’s doing this is something LG allowed to happen.

Imagine a world where these hardware manufacturers started telling the carriers where they could shove all of this user unfriendly crapware. Alright, now back to reality.

Nerds on the Internet collectively wet themselves over LG’s decision to remove the app drawer in their new LG Home design, and then LG bent over backwards to make sure there was an option available to install when the phone started shipping. As someone who keeps almost no apps on the single home screen, the new LG Home isn’t my thing and was quickly replaced. No outrage, no fist shaking, no swearing this would be the end of LG. Just three quick taps in the Google Play Store, and all is well in the world. Whatever you do, don’t try to install the LG Home 4.0 with the launcher. On top of not being available through the play store (it’s in LG’s own “SmartWorld”, it’s painfully mediocre. The Play Store has lots of excellent launchers, go try one. Or see how you like life without an app drawer. Who knows, you might not hate it.

LG’s notification tray looks like it takes up more space than most, but in reality it’s almost the same amount of consumed space as Samsung’s notification tray. LG’s is flat white, which makes it look like it takes up more space. As much fun as it is to jump on the “why can’t you be more like Google” bandwagon, I like a big friendly slider for manually controlling brightness when I need it. LG could give me the ability to ditch the screen sharing and file sharing buttons that I’ll never use, but it’s not a huge deal.

The most important thing about LG’s execution of Android 6.0 on the G5 is that nothing appears to be obviously broken. No LG features get in the way of Android being Android, which is a nice change of pace for LG. I wouldn’t go so far as to call the experience “toned down” but it’s clear LG listened to criticism and fixed behaviors that were obviously broken. On top of this, the Snapdragon 820 processor in this phone screams. Apps launch faster on this phone than any other Android phone I’ve used to date, which is great.

All told, the LG user experience isn’t bad once you spend upwards of half an hour dealing with the mess AT&T and LG made in the beginning. Unfortunately, outside of the double-tap on the volume down key to launch the camera, there also doesn’t seem to be much that feels uniquely LG about the experience anymore.

The camera

While they didn’t quite make it to the top of the pile last year, LG’s cameras in the G4 and V10 are exceptional if you know what you’re doing. The auto modes aren’t much to write home about, but the manual modes have been incredible. This year LG decided what we really needed was a second camera so we could all get nice and artsy with our photos, but that is just the headline of a long list of impressive things this camera can do.

LG’s second camera is an 8MP sensor with a 135-degree wide lens, which complements the primary 16MP sensor in several interesting ways. The first is a sort of picture in picture mode, where the standard shot is seated within the wide shot for a creative double photo. There’s also a mode for taking pictures from all three cameras at nearly the same time, for those interested in showing off what was happening with the front-facing camera at the same time. More than anything, these camera modes are a ton of fun to play with.

LG sacrificed none of the features from the previous generations in the G5, which means an already complex camera became just a little bit more full of features. To me, this is fantastic. If all you want is a camera that takes a quick picture, the Simple mode exists and removes all of the options. If you like playing around with modes and filters, the Auto mode is there to give you something to play with. If you want to see just how far you can push a smartphone camera or you’re a real photographer who wants to use familiar tools to get the best possible shot, Manual mode is for you. It’s a complex camera for sure, but there really is something here for everyone.

There’s no arguing with the results, either. LG’s cameras focus quickly, capture great colors, and there’s a ton of detail in every shot. It’s a camera that easily competes with the Samsung Galaxy S7 in its ability to take a quick, great picture. While it could be argued that maybe LG should consider making Simple mode the default, there’s nothing about this camera experience I would change.

The bottom line

With exception of the camera, there is very little I enjoy about the LG G5. While I applaud LG’s efforts in making it so you can do more with your phone by extending it with various “modules” I struggle to see why I would recommend this phone over the V10. (The much better fingerprint sensor, perhaps.) LG could have gone all-in with these modules and made it so there was something for everyone, or they could have made this phone priced more competitively, but instead we got neither.

This phone seems to exist because someone at LG decided the next phone needed to be metal without compromising the things that make LG phones stand out, and in the process the G5 feels like several different compromises all at once.

Be sure to check out our LG G5 video review!

We’ve got a plethora of new and awesome Android phones available — or soon to be available. And that means we’re knee deep in reviews for all sorts of things.

One of our more recent reviews is the LG G5. As you’ve no doubt heard by now — from us as well as others — is that it’s an unconventional phone. That’s not to say it’s a bad one. But different doesn’t always work. There are some things about the G5 that are spot on and are excellent reasons for picking one up. And there are some things about it that are a cause for concern — or are at least a reason to do some serious thinking before parting with your hard-earned cash.

There’s a lot going on with this phone, and we’ve got the broad strokes in our official LG G5 video review. And when you’re done with that, be sure to check out our full written LG G5 review as well.

Pebble Time priced at just $90 for today only at Meh.com

If you have been wanting to get a Pebble Time smartwatch but didn’t want to spend a lot of money, you might want to jump on today’s sale on Meh.com. The site currently has priced the Pebble Time down to just $90.

That’s a savings of nearly $60 compared to buying the smartwatch directly from Pebble’s website. It will also save you over $30 compared to its price on Amazon at the moment. The catch? Meh.com’s $90 price for the Pebble Time expires today, so you might want to grab it now.

See at Meh.com

Skype nixes plug-in requirement for web-based chats

Skype for Web offers a handy way to bring your chats and calls to your browser. However, to us it on the web, you had to install a plug-in or extension before you could make audio or video calls. As of today, those extras are no longer a requirement, making good on a promise the company made back in 2014. With the Microsoft Edge browser, Skype for Web won’t make you install a plug-in to communicate via audio or video. And yes, group chats are included as well.

Skype says it’s working to bring the extension-free workflow to Chrome and Firefox, and will do so when those browsers work with the H.264 video codec. In addition to reducing the annoyance of having to install a software add-on to get Skype up and running in your browser, plug-in free support also opens up the ability for the full service to be used on devices like Chromebooks. This new version is available for preview starting today, but the company plans to roll it out to all Edge users by the end of the month.

Via: The Verge

Source: Skype

Best HTC Vive VR games you can download right now

We’ve been playing with the full consumer version of the HTC Vive virtual reality headset for the best part of a week and will soon be posting our extensive review. However, before we do we wanted to share our thoughts on some of the games and experiences currently available on Steam that work wonderfully with the new device.

We’ve been working our way through everything that works or is native to the HTC Vive, having downloaded them on Steam. That includes games that have incorporated Vive compatibility even if they are usually played in 2D.

Here then is our list of the best we’ve experienced so far. We’ll also update this round-up as and when we play additional titles – after all, there are 35 games or experiences that we’ve got installed already. It’ll take us a bit longer to get to them all.

For now, here are the games and experiences we think you should consider downloading for your Vive.

READ: HTC Vive preview: An experience that’s out of this world

Cloudhead Games

Best HTC Vive games: The Gallery: Episode 1 – Call of the Starseed

An amazingly immersive adventure, The Gallery offers such a rich and detailed environment and story that it took us a while to readjust to the real world when we removed the headset. It is inspired by 80s fantasy flicks but initially reminds of games of the ilk of Myst or, more recently, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

Objects can be interacted with and carried, while puzzles must be solved as you are tasked with searching for your missing sister. Where it stands out amongst other big scale VR games is that it provides you with two floating hands with which to interact with the world, and this tricks your brain into thinking it is more tangible than it is. Even the wireframe tutorial beforehand is better than some other virtual reality experiences we’ve tried in the past.

If we have one complaint, it’s that the first episode is quite short for a game that costs £22.99. That said, we can’t wait for episode two.

READ: How to set up HTC Vive in the real world and the problems you will face

Dylan Filterer

Best HTC Vive games: Audioshield

A basic idea but possibly one of our favourite VR games to return to often, Audioshield is a rhythm game that uses a virtual space very well indeed. It places a blue or orange light shield in either of your hands, mapped onto the real world controllers, and you have to raise them to fend off the same coloured balls that head towards you.

That sounds simple but considering this is a rhythm game the balls come down in time to chosen music – generally fast dance beats – and often come in different whoops and swirls. You must follow the shapes with your shield or risk ruining your end score.

Song choices found inside the game are limited, but it can also be used with any song file. There are also songs of the day that change.It’s also extremely funny when you give the hardest level a try. Heaven knows what you look like to the external world.

It costs £14.99 and is essential for Vive owners we feel.

i-Illusions

Best HTC Vive games: Space Pirate Trainer

Space Pirate Trainer is only in Early Access at the moment, which means it’s still in development and is missing several key features. However, at £10.99 you can safely take a punt on it and play what’s there until the developer, i-Illusions, adds the rest through regular updates.

What you get to begin with is a decent shoot-em-up in a big virtual play space. The controllers are turned into weapons that can be customised to shoot different kinds of bullets or even double as a shield, while robotic drone-like craft fly around in front of you, trying to shoot you instead.

It’s not too complicated and great fun if not a little tricky to get to later stages (tip, use the shield often). It also gives an impression of the potential for using the motion controllers in games.

Valve

Best HTC Vive games: The Lab

Whenever we’ve talked to people who have briefly tried the HTC Vive The Lab is one of the games they’ve dabbled with. It is Valve’s own free demo software and is therefore an essential title to download right from the bat.

It’s actually a collection of mini-games, experiences and tech demos, but is also something we’ve happily revisited a lot during our testing.

As the developer of Portal and its sequel, Valve has used the setting and characters to present The Lab, with many of the little challenges and games themed around Aperture Science Laboratories and experiments it carries out.

We particularly like the Longbow game, where you have to fire arrows at a horde of vikings who are trying to sack your castle. One controller represents the bow, the other arrows. Soon you genuinely feel like you are stringing arrows and firing them at foes.

Wevr

Best HTC Vive games: theBlu

Not quite a game but an interactive experience, theBlu is another that many have tasted during HTC Vive demos at shows. We only got to play one section during our original trials though, so it was great to find out that there’s another couple of experiences available too.

The whale section, where a giant blue whale swims past you while you are stood on the deck of a submerged ship, is the experience we’ve tried before. It’s no less impressive second or third time around though.

There is also a section based in a coral reef with migrating fish and jelly fish swimming around you. And another places you on the sea bed of a dark, deep world with stranger, luminous creatures lurking. The latter turns your right controller into a torch, so you can peer around more effectively.

At £6.99, theBlu isn’t cheap considering the amount of content available, but it’s definitely the best software for showing family and friends the immersive qualities of VR without them having to do too much.

Owlchemy Labs

Best HTC Vive games: Job Simulator

Job Simulator shipped as a free download for those who pre-ordered the HTC Vive and is still available in a freebie pack, alongside Google’s Tilt Brush and Fantastic Contraption, if you order your headset soon. It’ll cost you £29.99 otherwise.

That might be a bit steep, but it is very funny and offers plenty to do.

Several different work situations are available to try out, from office worker to chef, and you have to complete silly tasks using virtual cartoon hands and the items around you. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and is another that people who have never experienced VR before have been able to pick up immediately.

VRUnicorns

Best HTC Vive games: #SelfieTennis

There’s not really much to #SelfieTennis for its £14.99 cover price, but what it does offer is a fun and silly game you can play by yourself.

One controller spawns balls, while the other can be used as a racket and you are stood on a fantasy tennis court. As soon as you hit a ball across the net, the view switches to the other side and you realise you are playing against yourself. The idea is to keep rallies going back and forth for as long as possible.

There are other silly asides, such as the ability to take a selfie and post it onto social media from within the game, but the fun really lies in you trying to hit the ball back to yourself as much as possible.

It’s actually quite calming. Until you realise that the other you is rubbish at tennis.

Frontier

Best HTC Vive games: Elite Dangerous

Both Elite Dangerous and the Elite Dangerous Horizons pack are VR enabled and compatible with the HTC Vive.

We played the original game on an Oculus Rift a couple of years back and loved it then. It is just as great a VR experience now, although you will need a decent PC graphics card to play without lag or low resolutions, we found.

The normal, 2D version of both games are already brilliant, but add the ability to look around your craft and gaze into space and it further becomes the simulation game promised.

It requires a controller or, better still, flight controls, and you can’t use the Vive’s own wands, but we used an Xbox One controller with a wireless adapter for our PC and it handled well. Be prepared for a steep learning curve though, as this isn’t a mere shoot-em-up.

Elite Dangerous currently retails for £19.99, while an Elite Dangerous: Horizons Season Pass will set you back £24.99.

We’ll be adding more of our favourite HTC Vive games as soon as we’ve played them enough for recommendation.

Watching surgery in VR isn’t for the faint of heart

Next month, my mom will retire as a theatre nurse. For almost forty years she’s been walking into her hospital on a near daily basis, donning a fresh pair of scrubs and helping a surgical team save people’s lives. I couldn’t be prouder. But truth be told, I know little about her job and what actually happens when someone is wheeled inside the operating theatre. In my head, it’s just a nightmarish blur of sedatives, scalpels and face masks.

That’s why I leapt at the chance to watch some surgery at the Royal London Hospital. Not from inside the operation room — oh no, I’m far too much of a scaredy-cat for that — but through a VR headset. Doctor Shafi Ahmed, co-founder of AR and VR firm Medical Realities, made history as the first person to live stream surgery in virtual reality. You could watch it in a browser or using a smartphone with the VRinOR app for iOS and Android. I went with the latter, slipping my Moto X Pure Edition into a beaten up Google Cardboard that’s been gathering dust on my desk.

The stream on my phone went live a little late, so I missed some of Ahmed’s introduction explaining the intricacies of the operation. But here are the basics: a British patient in his 70s was suffering from bowel cancer. Ahmed and his team needed to perform laparoscopic or “keyhole” surgery to dig inside and cut loose a section of his intestine which contained the tumor. An incision would be made to remove it, followed by some delicate patch-up work. It was a routine operation and unlikely to cause complications, but they placed a one-minute delay on the broadcast anyway, just to be on the safe side.

The first 40 minutes were a flurry of hands and instruments. Looking down towards the end of the table, I could see Ahmed with a pair of cutting forceps, carefully picking at the patient’s innards. A section of the torso was clearly visible, but the poor lighting and a slightly pixelated stream meant it was difficult to make out what, exactly, happening. That wasn’t helped by the four or five other people huddled around Ahmed, holding additional forceps and the all-important “telescope” camera.

I was constantly squinting and craning my neck to see the nearest monitor, which was angled awkwardly in relation to the camera rig.

Everyone’s eyes were fixed on two monitors showing the camera’s perspective. That’s where the action was happening. Here, you could see Ahmed expertly tugging and cutting to free the tumor from its surrounding tissue. Occasionally, he would request that someone adjust the camera or reposition their tongs. I felt sick but kept my eyes on the nearest screen, watching the team quietly work.

At this point in the procedure, watching everything unfold in VR seemed a little pointless. Here I was, starting at a video feed inside a video feed. I was constantly squinting and craning my neck to see the nearest monitor, which was angled awkwardly in relation to the camera rig. A simple live stream of the camera inside the patient’s stomach would, in many ways, have been more insightful, provided it was supplemented with the chatter from the operating theatre.

A 360-degree video made by Medical Realities for training purposes.

Those feelings evaporated, however, as soon as the team started to extract the tumor, because everything was happening in plain sight. Ahmed performed the incision and the specimen was quickly on the table, clearly visible to everyone in the room, including myself. I didn’t need to squint at a monitor anymore — I could just watch the surgeons as they worked right in front of me. A few targeted snips and the infected colon was in a petri dish, ready to be whisked off to a laboratory. The team then took out scissors and thread, repairing and re-plumbing what was left of his intestines. It was fascinating to watch, and at this moment I noticed the theatre nurses coming into their own. Whatever Ahmed needed,they were two-steps ahead and ready with the correct utensil.

Watching the operation with Google Cardboard was a little finicky. My headset doesn’t have a head strap, so it was tiring to hold it in position for a couple of hours. On a number of occasions I also noticed the headset’s orientation beginning to drift. To look flat along the operating table, for instance, I would eventually find myself staring at the floor or up at the ceiling. Eventually the app would register the problem and reset, snapping my vision back into the proper position. These moments happened with such frequency, however, that I quickly became irritated. The image quality was also pretty poor — I suspect, however, that this was because of the live stream, rather than my own connection or Cardboard headset.

Despite these technical niggles, I was enthralled by the experience. Afterwards, I Skyped my mom to ask some questions about the procedure, and for the first time, well, ever, we had a conversation about her work that went beyond ‘it was a stressful day’ or ‘the operation had some complications.’ For that alone, I’m glad I took the time to strap on a Cardboard and watch Ahmed work for a few hours. Even if it meant feeling queasy and rushing to the bathroom a couple of times.

A supernova once blasted the moon with radioactive iron

Stars are gigantic hydrogen bombs that normally produce helium with little fuss. When the hydrogen is all gone, however, they implode, causing exotic new elements to be formed by the massive gravitational pressure. If a star is just the right size (eight to 15 times our sun’s mass), it will go supernova, ejecting heavy, often unique isotopes into space. Researchers have found some of those isotopes on the moon, meaning that our solar system was once hit by dust from a supernova just a few hundred light years away.

Scientists studied rocks from several NASA moon landings between 1969 and ’72, including Apollo missions 12, 15 and 16. Within those rocks, they found a radioactive iron isotope called 60Fe that is created almost exclusively in supernovas. The team was able to date the isotope to about 2 million years, based on its half-life of 2.62 million years. That corresponds well with the discovery of the same isotope here on Earth from Pacific Ocean crusts.

The moon’s isotopes provide a better cosmic record than those found on earth, since they’re not altered by passing through our atmosphere. As a result, scientists were able to deduce an upper limit for how much 60Fe reached the moon, and further calculate where it came from. “The measured 60Fe-flow corresponds to a supernova at a distance of about 300 light years,” says Technical University of Munich researcher Dr. Gunther Korschinek.

That means that a Milky Way star not terribly far away went supernova, and the material actually hit our planet. Luckily, those particles were small when they arrived, and if it happens again, we will get a heads up. Supernova ejecta travel at one-tenth the speed of light, max, so if we happen to witness a similar explosion, the consequences won’t hit us for at least 3,000 years.

Via: UPI

Source: Technical University of Munich

AMC decides not to let people text in theaters after all

Well, that was fast. Just two days after AMC CEO Adam Aron said he was considering ways to let patrons use phones in theaters, the company has decided to put the kibosh on that divisive — and potentially terrible — line of thinking.

“With your advice in hand, there will be NO TEXTING ALLOWED in any of the auditoriums at AMC Theatres,” Aron said in a statement posted to the company’s Facebook page. “Not today, not tomorrow and not in the foreseeable future.”

As anyone with a pulse could’ve guessed, that one juicy bit of the interview with Variety led to a social media trial of sorts. To be fair, Aron — who has only been AMC’s CEO for about four months — never said these sorts of changes were going into effect immediately. Instead, he conceded that the movie experience needs to change to get young people going to theatres with the same ferocity their parents did and that the most likely option was to put asshole texters in their own auditorium. Anyway, it’s time to put those pitchforks down: AMC plans to continue courting that lucrative millennial market with more large screens in theaters, better food and more comfortable seats. Now, if only AMC took a harder line on people nudging their friends and raucously whispering “DID YOU SEE THAT?” (because of course they did), we’d be all set.

[Image credit: Jeff, Flickr]

Source: Facebook

Hulu’s recommendations feature starts rolling out to everyone

It’s been over a year since Hulu introduced Watchlist, which puts your queue, favorites and watched content all in one place. Up until today, though, that feature was only available to users who wanted to try it early. But now Hulu’s making Watchlist part of the main experience for every viewer, including those who watch on iOS, Android, PC, gaming consoles and set-top boxes like the Apple TV. Watchlist recommends movies or TV shows you should enjoy next, offering up suggestions based on your preferred and most recently viewed content. You can also find new series you might be interested in.

Sling TV tried something similar in its first major redesign since launch. And Hulu’s on the same page, as it also wants to give people a more personalized UI — one that’s smart enough to know what episode of Scandal you’re on. Hulu says Watchlist is rolling out now, but it could take a week or two before you see it show up on your account.

Livestream’s Mevo camera lets you edit video on the fly

Broadcasting live video is one of the biggest tech trends of the last year. It started with Meerkat, but now Facebook and Twitter (via the Periscope app) are unsurprisingly the dominant players in the space. Most of that video streaming is done using smartphones, but Livestream — one of the first big players in the livestreaming video space — thinks there’s a market for dedicated video cameras. Enter Mevo, the company’s tiny, dedicated camera for streaming video to Facebook Live.

My first thought upon hearing about the camera, which was officially introduced at Facebook’s F8 conference earlier this week, was: Who exactly is Livestream targeting here? Facebook Live video has boomed in a big way with people shooting on their phones, and lots of those users aren’t going to shell out for a $399 external camera. Livestream admits that the Mevo isn’t for everyone, but the company also thinks it’s an opportunity to reach people (or businesses) who want to stream for more than a few minutes at a time.

Specifically, the Mevo camera is aimed at people who want to stream an event, be it a concert, company presentation or anything where it makes more sense to set up a camera on a stand rather than hold your phone up for a long time. From that perspective the Mevo sounds like a solid solution — not least because it lets you keep your phone in your pocket or continue to use it throughout the event you want to livestream.

The hardware itself is small and unobtrusive, with a power button on top, an LED ring around the chassis and a 150-degree lens and microphone up front. That power button also lets you automatically start livestreaming, provided you have all of your settings locked and ready to go. As for storage, the camera includes an SD slot and comes with a 16GB memory card in the box so that it’s good to go from day one. You can record video to that card, but most people who use this device are going to be interested in its livestreaming capabilities.

There are two ways to make that happen: You can connect the Mevo to a local WiFi network or stream video directly with your phone’s cellular connection. For the longer sort of streaming events that Livestream imagines users will want to do, WiFi is preferable — particularly because you’ll need to keep your phone out with the Mevo app running to livestream over cellular.

The Mevo experience can be extremely simple: Once you have the camera set up, you can automatically start broadcasting video by pressing the top button. Even so, the software allows for a significant range of editing features that can make your Mevo videos look a lot more professional. In particular, the Mevo app provides a great on-the-fly editing experience that lets you make videos that give the illusion of a multicamera setup, all with a single Mevo.

By default, the app shows what the camera sees; by tapping and pinching on the screen you can edit the video feed. For example, you can pinch the screen to zoom in on a particular part of the view, be it a closeup shot on a person’s face or something else. You can also tap the screen to automatically switch to a closer view and drag to pan around. It’s hard to explain without seeing it in action, but it’s an effective setup for editing video on the fly.

If you don’t want to do the work (or don’t have a friend handy to act as director), the Mevo app also features some auto-edit features. It has built-in face detection, and you can also tap on objects in the frame to identify them as areas to focus on. Once you’ve done that minimal setup, the app will cut between those faces and objects as it sees fit; if someone is talking animatedly, the camera might do a close cut on that person’s face and then pull back when she’s finished, for example. The results won’t be as good as those you can get with a real editor, but they’ll still likely be better than just going with a single-camera wide shot.

That’s a pretty good way to sum up Livestream’s strategy with the Mevo, in fact: The Mevo isn’t going to beat dedicated video-streaming rigs, but it’s a lot better than shooting with your iPhone. Whether it’s good enough to get people to shell out the somewhat-steep $399 asking price remains to be seen, but it’s not hard to imagine YouTube enthusiasts recording video with a Mevo. And those who love Facebook video but feel constrained by shooting with a phone will likely find the Mevo worth a look.