Motorola Moto Z vs Moto Z Play: What’s the difference?
Motorola offers both the Moto Z and the Moto Z Play in the UK. The two devices can both be used with Moto Mods and they are both customisable through Moto Maker.
The Moto Z starts at £499, while the Moto Z Play starts at £370, but how do they differ?
We have compared the Moto Z to the Moto Z Play to help you find out what the differences and similarities are. Read on to find out.
Motorola Moto Z vs Moto Z Play: Design
The Motorola Moto Z features an aluminium body and it measures 153.3 x 75.3 x 5.19mm, meaning it is super slim. It is also very light, weighing just 136g.
The Motorola Moto Z Play has an aluminium frame, but a plastic rear. It measures 156.4 x 76.4 x 6.99mm and weighs 165g so it is little bigger, thicker and heavier than the Z.
Both devices have a water repellent nano-coating and both have a fingerprint sensor built into the square home button on the front. The Moto Z ditches the 3.5mm headphone jack in favour of USB Type-C only, while the Moto Z Play keeps the headphone port, whilst also including USB Type-C.
As we mentioned, the two devices can also be customised with Moto Maker, though there are more base colour options on the Z, and they are both compatible with Moto Mods, allowing you to add various modules to enhance certain areas.
Motorola Moto Z vs Moto Z Play: Display
The Motorola Moto Z and Moto Z Play both feature a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass.
The difference between the two devices comes down to the resolution. The Moto Z opts for a Quad HD resolution meaning a pixel density of 535ppi. The Moto Z Play on the other hand opts for Full HD, resulting in a pixel density of 403ppi.
Theoretically, that should mean the Moto Z delivers sharper and crisper images than the Moto Z Play, but the colour vibrancy should be similar on the two devices, with rich, punchy colours thanks to the AMOLED technology.
Motorola Moto Z vs Moto Z Play: Camera
The Motorola Moto Z has a 13-megapixel rear camera offering an aperture of f/1.8, along with optical image stabilisation, laser autofocus and 8x digital zoom. There is also a Color Correlated Temperature flash with dual-LEDs.
The front camera is 5-megapixels with a wide-angle lens and an aperture of f/2.2. There is a flash, along with beautification software and an auto night mode. A professional mode is present on both the front and rear cameras.
The Motorola Moto Z Play has a 16-megapixel camera with an aperture of f/2.0. It doesn’t have optical image stabilisation, but it does have both laser autofocus and phase detection autofocus. There is a colour balancing dual LED flash and 4x digital zoom.
The front camera on the Moto Z Play is the same as the Moto Z, with a 5-megapixel sensor, f/2.2 aperture and wide-angle lens. It too has a flash, beautification software and a professional mode.
Motorola Moto Z vs Moto Z Play: Hardware
The Motorola Moto Z has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor under the hood, supported by 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and microSD for storage expansion. It has a 2600mAh battery and it offers TurboPower, which is claimed to deliver 7 hours of power in 15 minutes.
The Motorola Moto Z Play has the Qualcomm 625 processor on board, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and microSD for storage expansion again. Its battery is larger than the Moto Z at 3510mAh, and it too has TurboPower, but in this case it will offer 9 hours in 15 minutes.
As we mentioned previously, both the Moto Z and Moto Z Play have a fingerprint sensor and USB Type-C. They also both have NFC so they will work with Android Pay and they both have a nano-SIM.
Motorola Moto Z vs Moto Z Play: Software
The Motorola Moto Z and Moto Z Play both run on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with very little modification from pure Android.
They have a couple of extra apps on board, such as Moto Migrate, but the experience on both devices is a very close to vanilla Android experience.
Motorola Moto Z vs Moto Z Play: Conclusion
The Motorola Moto Z offers a more premium design to the Moto Z Play, along with a higher resolution display, more powerful processor and a slimmer, lighter build. It also has a few more rear camera functions, like OIS.
The Motorola Moto Z Play is cheaper however, and although it offers a softer display, more plasticky body and a less capable rear camera, it does have a significantly larger battery than the Moto Z.
For those that want a slender, premium Moto phone, the Z is a great choice based on the numbers. For those that want to save the £130 and add a good few hours to the battery life, the Moto Z Play is the one to go for.
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Facebook and Twitter will help Google filter out fake news
Facebook and Twitter have joined a Google-backed effort that aims to tackle fake news that tend to spread on social media. If you use either website, you’ve definitely seen those types of posts — you know, hoaxes, headlines that have nothing to do with the actual story, fake celebrity deaths, and so on and so forth — before. The two companies are now part of the First Draft Coalition, which was announced back in June 2015 along with YouTube Newswire, a curated collection of verified eyewitness videos covering various events. FDC will help not just journalists from partner publications, but also individual users verify stories circulating online.
Facebook, in particular, is a huge addition to the list of partners, seeing as fake and spammy posts spread like wildfire among the website’s billions of users. It will provide coalition members with tools and services that can help them figure out if they’re looking at a hoax. According to Reuters, the coalition is scheduled to launch the platform where members can verify stories by the end of October. For now you can check out what FDC is all about on its website.
Via: The Guardian, Reuters
Source: First Draft Coalition
Huawei Mate 9 all but confirmed for December release
Rumours surrounding what the Huawei Mate 9 will look like, what features it will have and when it will be released have been circling for some time. We could now finally have an answer to that final question: December.
At least, that’s according to Chinese site Weibo, and then picked up by Dutch site TechTastic. The rumour says because the Mate 7 was released in October and the Mate 8 in November, logic suggests the Mate 9 will appear in December. If not then, then at least the fourth quarter of 2016.
The specs we’ve already seen tipped for the Huawei Mate 9 have been pitched once again: 2.8GHz Kirin 960 processor, 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It’s also predicted the Mate 9 will come with a dual lens camera, which this time round is said to be a 20-megapixel affair.
Up until now, rumours have suggested it will come with either a 12-megapixel or a 20-megapixel sensor, we’re hoping for the latter.
The dual lens setup will combine a black and white image sensor with a full colour one and combine the two images to hopefully produce more accurate pictures. The Huawei P9 used Leica imaging technology for its camera, but it’s not clear if the Mate 9 will have the same benefits.
Elsewhere, specs are said to include a 5.9-inch Full HD screen and Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box.
FIFA 17 demo out now, download links for PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360 and PC right here
Electronic Arts has released a mighty demo for FIFA 17, two weeks before the final game’s official release.
It’s available across all formats – Xbox One, PS4, PS3, Xbox 360 and PC – and you can start the download process by clicking on the individual links below.
The download itself might be lengthy. The PS4 version, for example, exceeds 8GB and we’ve found the download server to be slower than usual – thanks to the popularity of the demo. Even with 200Mbps broadband, it’s taken us an hour or more to complete.
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You get to play part of the all-new story mode, The Journey, and exhibition matches with 12 full teams to choose from. Included in the demo are Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, Real Madrid, Paris Saint Germain, Inter Milan, Bayern Munich, Juventus, and a few more major clubs from around the world.
It should keep you going for a couple of weeks. Xbox One owners with EA Access subscriptions can even download and play the full game from next week.
Here are the download links to the demo on each format:
- Xbox One FIFA 17 demo
- Xbox 360 FIFA 17 demo
- PC FIFA 17 demo
- PS4 FIFA 17 demo
- PS3 FIFA 17 demo
Sky to show Drone racing on Sky Sports Mix channel
Sky has announced it has invested $1 million in the Drone Racing League (DRL) and agreed on a deal that will bring the new sport of drone racing to the Sky Sports Mix channel. Sky Sports Mix is free for all Sky TV customers and shows a mixture of live football, golf, cricket, tennis and more.
Drone racing sees pilots fly identical drones around 3D racecourses and all shot in first person view (FPV). Races will be shown across ten, one hour episodes, with a final race that will crown the overall champion. Races will be shown on the Sky Sports Mix channel from October this year.
Sky Sports and DRL have also said one of the races will be held at an “iconic venue” in London.
DRL CEO Nicholas Horbaczewski said: “This is an incredible exciting day for DRL. Our team has worked tirelessly to develop the technology, racecourses, and sporting rules needed to deliver the most elite, competitive, and thrilling drone racing league on the planet. We can’t wait to share it with fans around the world”.
Proterra’s electric bus can travel 350 miles before recharging
A startup called Proterra has been working on electric buses for years, and its latest model has a pretty impressive range. Its Catalyst E2 Series buses can drive up to 350 miles on a single charge, which means it can go a quite a bit further than Tesla’s top-tier Model S that already boasts a 300-plus-mile range. The vehicle can also outlast its predecessor that can only go for 258 miles. As Wired notes, electric buses might even be better than cars, since they don’t need a huge network of charging stations. They drive a set route, so cities can simply install some where they’re bound to pass — the E2 might not even need to recharge until the end of the day. Further, not everyone can afford an electric vehicle, but most people can afford to ride a bus.
The Catalyst E2 Series buses are powered by two gargantuan batteries the size of mattresses that can store up to 660 kWh. Its lightweight frame, along with its regenerative breaking system, also helps it achieve that impressive range. The only thing that might hold cities and companies back from purchasing E2 is that one will set them back $799,000, over twice the amount of a typical diesel bus. Proterra is probably hoping that government subsidies, coupled with the fuel and maintenance savings they’ll get, can convince them to buy the vehicle. If you’re in Los Angeles, you might be able to ride one of the first E2 buses scheduled to hit the road in 2017.
Source: Wired, Proterra
Futuretown’s modular platform turns VR into simulator rides
When we last met Futuretown’s CEO Johan Yang back in February, his startup appeared to be merely a virtual reality game studio, with its popular title Cloudlands: VR Minigolf currently owning 30 percent of the HTC Vive market share. Today, the company is entering the hardware space by announcing its 5D Totalmotion at the Tokyo Game Show. This aptly-named device is a cylindrical motion feedback machine that can fit any module on top to simulate different types of scenarios, such as riding, standing and seated experiences. To demonstrate these, Futuretown also announced four new VR games: Whiteout: Ski VR, Infinity Rider: Motorcycle VR, Wave Breaker: Surf VR and Stallion Adventures: Horse Riding VR.
Even though Futuretown — backed by former HTC CEO Peter Chou — started off as a studio dedicated to the HTC Vive platform, its 5D Totalmotion is open platform and supports two other VR systems out of the box: Oculus Rift and 3Glasses from China. In fact, the company’s using the Rift for its 5D Totalmotion demos at the Tokyo Game Show, in order to maximize the amount of usable space at the booth. CTO Justin Liebregts explained that if all the games ran on the Vive, his team would need to set up partitions between each setup due to potential interference from the passive Lighthouse trackers, whereas the Rift doesn’t have this issue since it uses active trackers that are plugged into the PC.
Yang said he’s aiming to launch the 5D Totamotion within the first half of 2017. That said, all four of the aforementioned titles were playable at the show. I started off with Wave Breaker: Surf VR which got me surfing from a fast-flowing river all the way to the big waves on the sea. It was, to my surprise, physically intense. I wrongly assumed that I wouldn’t need the handlebar, but eventually I learned that I needed to do a lot of twisting, which is a good thing that the standing module comes with shoe bindings à la snowboards. I was also given a Woojer haptic sensor vest to put on in order to simulate the sensation of rush, which Sure, I kept missing the balloons, but it was still fun and proved to be great way to work out. I was already sweating a bit after just this one game.
I was then given a chance to recover by riding on a horse and an eagle in Stallion Adventures: Horse Riding VR. Admittedly, I freaked out a little when the first cheetah briefly chased me, but it turned out that the horse and the eagle were on a fixed track due to the game’s early-stage development. The only control I had over was the horse’s speed: I simply had to tug the riding module’s rope and bob in sync with the horse’s movement to accelerate, and then pull the rope back to slow down. Hopefully the final game will allow more freedom to explore the virtual world.
Later on I checked out Whiteout: Ski VR which let me ski down a mountain in any way I wanted (and also knock out other virtual skiers for a laugh). While I’m no expert in skiing, I wish the game had a dedicated module that would allow my feet to move separately like in real life, rather than using the same module I used for surfing earlier. But that’s not to say it wasn’t fun.
Last but not least, I hopped on the motorcycle module for Infinity Rider: Motorcycle VR. I appreciated how this module offered a realistic handlebar with brake handles and acceleration grip on the right, but the overall body didn’t provide enough tilt for turning (Chou assured me that this will be addressed in an upcoming iteration of hardware). Also, for some reason, I quickly felt sick and had to hop off as soon as the game ended. My guess is it was to do with a combination of visual delay and motion delay, but there was also the possibility of me not getting enough rest after the three previous games. Hopefully Futuretown can fix these issues, as this particular ride has a lot of potential — just imagine riding a speeder bike in a Star Wars VR game.
It’ll obviously be a while before we see the 5D Totalmotion in public places. While there are already other types of VR rides in malls and arcades across Asia, Chou, who also serves as the Honorary Chairman at Futuretown, claims the 5D Totalmotion is already more compelling — even more so than those at Tokyo’s VR Zone, according to feedback he received — and is also much easier to deploy. He isn’t worried about being comparatively late nor potentially being copied by others. “We have soul. People who copy have no soul… By the time we ship the products, they will be so much better [than others].”
Drone racing is coming to Sky Sports next month
Drone racing’s rise to prominence is hardly a surprise. The sport combines a new, rapidly improving technology with skilful pilots and bombastic, three-dimensional courses. If you’ve ever watched a heat, either in person or online, you’ll know it’s an exhilarating spectacle. With this in mind, it’s no bombshell to hear that Sky has made an investment in the Drone Racing League (DRL), a professional outfit backed by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross. As part of its $1 million cash injection, Sky will be showing the entire tournament on its new Sky Sports Mix channel in the UK.
The DRL season consists of four “level” races and a winner takes all World Championship. Pilots earn points throughout the year in the hope of qualifying for the final race, which will take place in a yet to be revealed location. Each contestant has an identical drone, which is hand built and “custom designed” for the tournament. In short, the DRL is a test of the pilots’ abilities, rather than their construction skills. They monitor and control their lightweight quadcopter from a first-person perspective, using a VR-style headset and onboard camera. The same feed is, unsurprisingly, what makes the sport so fascinating to watch both online and on TV.
Sky is planning 10, one-hour episodes for the current season, starting next month. The broadcaster will also be working with London & Partners to bring an official DRL race — the “first professional drone race in the UK,” it claims — to the capital. If you think you’ve got what it takes to compete, best start practising those flips and barrel rolls in your local park.
Source: Sky
Future heart defibrillators could save lives with light pulses
Scientists think that beams of red light could restore normal heartbeat functions in humans, replacing the use of painful electric shocks. Researchers have already tested this on animals and hope to make — incredibly — an optical defibrillator. Biomedical engineering professor Natalia Trayanova, based at John Hopkins University said that with this tech, “light will be given to a patient who is experiencing cardiac arrest, and we will be able to restore the normal functioning of the heart in a gentle and painless manner.”
Typical defibrillators use electric pulses that can damage heart tissue — light would be a safer (not to mention gentler) way of tackling a patient’s irregular heartbeat. The science is based around optogenetics, where light-sensitive proteins are attached to living tissues. When light hits these proteins, they can modify the electrical activity inside your cells.
A team from Germany’s University of Bonn tested mouse hearts whose cells had been genetically engineered to produce proteins that could be triggered by light. One-second light pulses were all that was needed to restore a regular heartbeat.
Scientists at John Hopkins then designed a human heart sim, noting that the blue light used by the German team on the smaller mouse hearts wasn’t strong enough for human heart tissue. Red light, with a longer wavelength, was more effective — at least according to their computer simulation. Optical defibrillators aren’t coming any time soon; it will still take around five to ten years before the technology is ready for human patients.
Source: Futurity
iPhone 7 Plus Camera ‘Ideal for Shooting Outdoor Adventures’
Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller tweeted a link to an Outside article this morning titled “The Year’s Best New Adventure Camera? The Apple iPhone 7 Plus”, which features 17 images shot with the device in various rugged outdoor environments.
The new series of photos were taken by photo journalist and associate editor of Outside Magazine Jakob Schiller, during an outdoor adventure up rivers, down dusty bike trails, through woods, and into classic New Mexico burrito joints, leaving him particularly impressed by the versatility of the 5.5-inch handset’s dual-lens setup.
Over four days of in-the-field testing, I’ve found it to be the best small, lightweight camera you can get for the money, ideal for shooting outdoor adventures when you don’t want to lug around pounds of heavy equipment.
I immediately noticed that the 7 does a much better job capturing details in the shadows and highlights than the 6s, and the color is much more accurate and vivid.
The 12-megapixel sensors that come in the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus aren’t the best for capturing billboard-size advertisements. But Apple does a nice job marrying the sensor to its proprietary software, which helps maximize the camera’s capabilities. The resolution will be plenty high enough for printing off 11-inch x14-inch pictures.
The photographer notes that the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus can shoot in RAW using third-party apps like Lightroom. RAW files aren’t compressed like JPEGs, so users get more detailed files that are easier to tone and crop. Check out the article for more pictures and commentary.
On Monday, Apple CEO Tim Cook followed up some iPhone 7 pictures taken at a Titans-Vikings game shared over the weekend with a group of photos offering a few examples of low-light photography.
iPhone 7 pre-order customers have been receiving shipment notifications regarding their incoming orders, which should be landing this Friday, September 16.
Related Roundup: iPhone 7
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