Google Trips is a pocket-sized vacation guide
If you’ve ever visited a foreign country and realized that you’re not quite sure what to do after hitting all the major tourist attractions, the new Google Trips app might be the digital tour guide you’re looking for. The new app for iOS and Android helps build itineraries around the places you already want to see to help travelers get the most out of their vacation.
In addition to building a game plan for your time away, the app gathers all the information about your vacation — including flights and hotels from your Gmail account — and automatically places them into the trip. That itinerary is then downloadable and available offline in case you’re unable to track down WiFi or don’t an international data plan.
Google says its new app has information available for the top 200 cities around the world. So there’s a good chance if you’re headed out on vacation, Google Trips will have some ideas on what you can do when you get there.
Fujifilm’s GFX 50S is a mirrorless camera with a giant sensor
Fujifilm’s been trying to take on its rivals by offering larger sensors for better quality pictures, but its latest system takes the cake. The new GFX 50S is the first to use the company’s new G Format sensor, which Fujifilm said it fully customized and designed, and measures 43.8mm x 32.9mm. That’s 1.7 times larger than the typical 35mm (aka fullframe) setup in high-end DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. And despite that huge sensor, the 50S still manages to retain a light 800 gram (body only) footprint and a size smaller than a typical fullframe DSLR. The GFX 50S will be available in early 2017, but price is still unknown.
But that’s not all. The new sensor will be a whopping 51.4-megapixels sharp, and its pixel size is an obscene 5.3 microns. The GFX 50S will be compatible with a series of lenses using the new G Mount that Fujifilm is launching, with three of them arriving at the same time as the camera. These are a GF120mm f/4 macro lens, a GF32-64mm f/4 and a GF63mm f/2.8 prime. In mid 2017, three more options will be available: GF35mm f/2.8, GF23mm f/4 and GF110mm f/2. The company is expecting to hit 100-megapixels with this G-mount format in the future, so this could be the beginning of incredibly high-res pictures to come.
The GFX 50S looks similar to Fujifilm’s X series cameras, which sport a somewhat retro look. It has a foldout display that you can tilt vertically and horizontally, as well as a viewfinder that you can attach with a hotshoe. Fujifilm is also offering viewfinders that you can tilt and rotate to make framing odd angles easier, as well as other accessories that it was somewhat vague about.
Fujifilm isn’t the first to market with a compact medium format camera. Hasselblad took that title with its X1D earlier this year. While the X1D is slightly lighter (725 grams) than the Fujifilm, it’s also jaw droppingly expensive at $8,995. We don’t yet know the price of the GFX 50S, but we are expecting (hoping, really) it will cost less than $5,000. Or cheaper than the Hasselblad, anyway, since that brand tends to be pricier than most.
We’ll be checking out the new Fujifilm GFX 50S, along with a bunch of other cameras, directly from Photokina this week, so stay tuned for our impressions.
Aaron Souppouris and Steve Dent contributed to this report.
GoPro’s Hero5 cameras are cloud-connected and natively waterproof
It’s no secret that GoPro had a new flagship action camera in the works, but you never know how rumors may pan out. Today, the company officially announced the Hero5 Black, featuring a 2-inch touch display, 12-megapixel photos (including RAW support) and, as leaks suggested, built-in GPS. What’s more, GoPro’s Hero has voice control (seven languages at launch, more later) and is waterproof without the housing to 33 feet (10 meters). There’s also electronic image stabilization, which is a first for the Hero line. Like the previous model, it shoots 4K at up to 30 fps, as well as 1080p at 120 fps max.
In addition to the GoPro Hero5, there’s also the Hero5 Session. The refined tiny cube cam does 4K recording at 30 fps and 10-megapixel pictures. Similar to the top-of-the-line Hero5, the latest Session is also natively waterproof and offers support for voice commands — like “GoPro, start recording.” Most importantly, both the Hero5 and Hero5 Session are now cloud-connected, meaning they can auto-upload photos and video to an account when the camera is charging.
That said, the cloud features do require a paid subscription to GoPro’s freshly minted service. With it, you can view, edit and share your media anytime from a computer or a smartphone. This will, without a doubt, open up a whole new world of possibilities to GoPro users.
The Hero5 Black is set to hit stores October 2nd for $399, while the Session will be available that same day for $299. As for the GoPro Plus cloud service, the subscription costs $5 per month — although it’ll only be available in the US at launch.
This is GoPro’s $799, foldable Karma drone
We knew it was coming, but after being delayed earlier this year, GoPro has finally unveiled its Karma drone. The new quadcopter is sleek, compact and foldable, designed to fit in most any backpack. To drive home that point, CEO and Founder Nick Woodman had it on stage all along in plain sight at today’s press event. Karma also has a gaming-like controller with a built-in touchscreen for controlling the device. Additionally, living up to Woodman’s “more than just a drone” claim, Karma’s 3-axis stabilizer has a trick up its sleeve — it slides out from the drone and attaches to an included handheld “Karma Grip” so you can record smooth shots on the ground, too.
The whole bundle including a Hero5 will cost $1,099. If you prefer to get it with the new Hero5 Session, it’s $999, or bring your own camera and it’ll cost $799. During the press event today, Woodman was keen to point out that Karma was a stabilization “system” and not just a drone. The quadcopter is, of course, the heart of Karma, but the handheld grip is mountable with regular accessories, which opens the stabilization features to pretty much anything you can stick a GoPro on (though we’re fairly sure it’s not fully waterproof!).
GoPro today also revealed new Hero5 cameras, both of which feature improved internals and waterproof capabilities without a housing. Those will go on sell October 2nd, with Karma expected to hit the shelves on October 23rd.
A fleet of self-driving boats will ply Amsterdam’s canals next year
Amsterdam’s 60 miles of canals cover about a quarter of the city and have helped its citizens get around since the 17th century. While they’ve matched other trials in self-driving public transportation with their own buses, they aren’t ignoring their historic waterways. Next year, the Dutch city’s Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS) will start experimenting with an entire fleet of autonomous boats to haul people and goods while cleaning up the water.
The five-year pilot program, titled Roboat, will be carried out by researchers from MIT, Delft University of Technology (TUD) and Wageningen University and Research (WUR). Obviously, using conventionally-designed boats to transport goods and people will be a major focus. But it will also look into autonomous infrastructure, like floating stages or bridges that can be assembled and disassembled in hours.
Further, the Roboat fleet could track environmental conditions and comb the canals for waste, including the 12,000 bicycles that end up in the water every year. That extends to human waste, too, and testing it in the city’s water systems could tip officials off to outbreaks of disease or other health trends, AMS’ scientific director told The Verge.
Via: The Verge
Source: The Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions
Olympus’ PEN E-PL8 is a stylish Micro Four Thirds camera
It wasn’t too long ago that Olympus introduced its PEN-F camera, and now the company is following that up with a less expensive retro-looking model. Meet the PEN E-PL8, a Micro Four Thirds shooter with a 16.1-megapixel Live MOS sensor, a new TruePicTM VII sensor, 3-axis image stabilization and an ISO range of 100-25,600. Since it is an entry-level PEN, the E-PL8 doesn’t capture videos in 4K, although you can record 1080p at 24 and 30 fps. You also have WiFi connectivity, which will let you transfer images to a smartphone or tablet through Olympus’ mobile app.
It’ll hit stores in October for $550 body-only, or $100 for the kit with a 14-42mm lens. Not bad if you want a stylish, compact camera.
Google wants to help find your next book to read
It doesn’t matter if you’ve got the biggest or best shop in the world if you can’t connect people to the things that they want. It’s an issue that Google is hoping to address in its electronic bookstore with the launch of Discover, a new way to show people stuff they want to read. The service is designed to replace the human booksellers you used to find in Barnes & Noble, offering up recommendations and reviews for stuff you should read.
Discover will gain these insights both by analyzing your reading habits, but also by aggregating sources from across the web. You’ll also be told which titles are being praised by NPR and which ones are about to be turned into movies. As part of Discover, Google is launching Google Play Editorial, a platform where readers will find interviews with authors, articles written by their favorite scribes and recommended reading lists from their heroes.
Discover launches today as part of the Google Play Books Android app, and will be coming to iOS in the near future.
Comcast’s Netflix-on-X1 beta test starts rolling out today
It seems odd to hear, but it’s real: this week Netflix will start to become available on Comcast cable boxes across the country. Announced a couple of months ago, the partnership is rolling out slowly as a beta test, so interested Comcast customers with the X1 platform can go to the Comcast Labs section on their cable box and opt-in.
If you don’t see the app right away, don’t worry, as it will become available to more people over the next few weeks. A formal launch that will put the app in the usual X1 listing for millions of customers will come later this year, and Netflix shows and movies will appear in the video on-demand and search results too.
We haven’t exactly been hurting for ways to watch Netflix, but making it a part of the cable experience is a big move.While Netflix’s app has appeared on set-top boxes before, the possibility of Comcast opening the doors to its customers seemed unlikely, despite Reed Hasting’s positive comments about the X1 platform.
Earlier this summer Comcast used X1 boxes to stream live NBC Olympics coverage to its cable customers, and now that same infrastructure is underpinning Netflix. According to the companies, that will include support for X1 features like the voice remote, Spanish and talking guide that Comcast has rolled out recently. The voice control features have also been updated so that saying something like “Continue watching Daredevil” works correctly.
Source: Comcast
iPhone 7’s ‘Best LCD Display Ever’ Marks ‘Major Upgrade Over iPhone 6’
DisplayMate Technologies has declared iPhone 7 has the “best LCD display” it has ever tested, calling it “truly impressive” and a “major upgrade” over the iPhone 6 based on a series of advanced viewing tests and measurements.
iPhone 7 achieved the highest color accuracy, peak brightness, and contrast rating in bright light of any smartphone display, the highest contrast ratio of any IPS LCD display, and the lowest screen reflectance of any smartphone display.
Apple’s latest flagship smartphone also has image contrast and intensity described as “visually indistinguishable from perfect,” and the smallest color variation when viewing the screen at an angle of any smartphone display.
Color Accuracy and Power Efficiency
iPhone 7 has two color gamuts, including a new 26% larger DCI-P3 Wide Color Gamut, as found in 4K TVs, and a traditional, smaller sRGB / Rec.709 gamut. DisplayMate said both gamuts have been implemented with absolute color accuracy that is “visually indistinguishable from perfect,” which is “truly impressive” and a “major competitive advantage” over other smartphones.
DisplayMate said the iPhone 7 has “the most color accurate display” that it has ever measured, adding that the smartphone’s display is “very likely considerably better than any mobile display, monitor, TV, or UHD TV” that consumers have. In technical terms, the iPhone 7 has a “Just Noticeable Color Difference” (JNCD) rating of 1.1, which is the best result of any smartphone it has ever tested.
Despite having a much wider color gamut, the iPhone 7’s display is 7% more power efficient than the iPhone 6’s display.
Wide Color Gamut LCDs like the iPhone 7 instead use specially tuned Red and Green phosphors to optimally transform the light for the chosen saturated Red and Green primaries, which improves their light and power efficiency.
Brightness
The measured peak brightness for the iPhone 7 is 602 cd/m2 (nits), the highest of any smartphone DisplayMate has ever tested.
The measurement increases up to a record 705 nits when Automatic Brightness is turned on under brightly lit conditions.
On the iPhone 7 the Maximum Screen Brightness can go much higher when Automatic Brightness is turned on, so that users can’t permanently park the Manual Brightness slider to very high values, which would run down the battery quickly. High Screen Brightness is only needed for High Ambient Light, so turning Automatic Brightness On will provide better high ambient light screen visibility and also longer battery running time.
Contrast Ratio
DisplayMate said the iPhone 7 has a record-breaking contrast ratio among IPS LCD smartphone displays.
The iPhone 7 has a measured Contrast Ratio of 1,762, which is Very Good for a mobile display, and the highest we have measured for any IPS LCD display. It is also 26 percent larger than the 1,400 that Apple lists as Typical. However, Contrast Ratio is only meaningful in low ambient light, which is seldom the case for mobile displays.
iPhone 7 also has the highest contrast rating (137 to 160) in high ambient light of any smartphone.
Reflectance
DisplayMate said iPhone 7 has 4.4% screen reflectance, which is a record low among smartphones it has ever tested.
However, the iPhone 7 doesn’t come close to the record low 1.7% screen reflectance of the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, which has a special anti-reflective coating.
Unfortunately, AR coatings still can’t be used with smartphones, which have much higher abrasion and scratch issues than tablets and other touch screen displays because they are small enough to be carried in pockets and bags that have all sorts of scratchy things inside. A number of companies are working on technologies that can produce both low screen reflectance and high abrasion and scratch resistance […] but it’s challenging and also has to be cost effective. Since peak brightness can’t keep increasing due to battery power limitations and thermal issues, developing a low reflectance screen will be the key to improving display performance in high ambient light.
Viewing Angle
DisplayMate said the iPhone 7 has “excellent viewing angle performance” with no visually noticeable color shifts. The display had the smallest color variation when viewed at an angle, earning a JNCD rating of 2.1 or less.
With its Dual-Domain Pixels, the iPhone 7 Contrast Ratio remained close to 1,000 at 30 degrees for both the Portrait and Landscape modes, which is the highest we have measured for LCDs. However, all LCDs do have a strong decrease in Brightness (Luminance) with Viewing Angle, and the iPhone 7 showed (as expected) a 55 percent decrease in Brightness at a modest 30 degree Viewing Angle.
DisplayMate shared more in-depth analysis in its iPhone 7 vs. iPhone 6 display shootout.
Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tag: DisplayMate
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Ceramic Apple Watch Paired With Milanese Loop, Classic Buckle, and More
The Apple Watch Series 2 didn’t change much visually from the original version of the device that launched in 2015, but Apple did introduce one new version of Series 2 that could be immediately distinguished from earlier iterations: the Ceramic Apple Watch Edition. The Ceramic model comes packed in with a Magnetic Apple Watch Charging Dock and a Cloud Sport Band, so many users were curious about what the color would look like with other Apple bands, and one Redditor has posted an extensive collection of photos to showcase just that.
Sold for $1,250 (38mm) and $1,300 (42mm), the high-end model of Series 2 is definitely expensive, but still far below the first generation’s $10,000+ “Edition” models that were made in pure gold. In vvedge’s Imgur album, the Ceramic Edition is paired with a few Woven Nylon bands, including Gold/Red, Gold/Blue, Yellow/Light Gray, Space Orange/Anthracite, and Black.
Higher-priced bands also got paired with Ceramic, in a variety of colors. Vvedge showed off the Space Black and Silver Link Bracelet, the Space Black and Silver Milanese Loop, and the Marine Blue and Saddle Brown Classic Buckle. Because the silver aluminum of the lugs and bands are visually in opposition to Ceramic’s smooth white surface, some users might not like the look of the more costly bands paired with Ceramic.
The Stone and Storm Gray Leather Loop pair better with the device, as do a few of the basic Sport Bands Apple offers. Sport Bands in White, Black, Turquoise, Light Pink, Midnight Blue, Lavender, and Red are all displayed in the album. Apple’s intended paired band with Ceramic — dubbed “Cloud” — caps vvedge’s image collection, and remains the only Sport Band with matching white pin.
Apart from the Ceramic Edition, Apple introduced a number of new collections for the Apple Watch Series 2 and Series 1, as well as a few new colors of the Sport Bands, Woven Nylon, and Classic Buckle. Most users began receiving their Series 2 models on Friday, but a few late pre-order customers still have a few weeks to wait until their Apple Watch comes in the mail.
Check out vvedge’s full Imgur album to see all of the Ceramic Apple Watch Edition band combos.
Related Roundups: Apple Watch Series 2, watchOS 3
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Buy Now)
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