Best Rugged Android Phone
Life is tough enough. The Galaxy S7 Active is the best phone to let you traverse the perilous, waterlogged journey ahead.
Best Overall
Samsung Galaxy S7 Active
See at AT&T
It is truly a bummer that the Galaxy S7 Active is an AT&T exclusive because this is a smartphone worthy of all SIMs. Inside, it’s packed with the same stellar components as the rest of the Galaxy S7 family, including a Snapdragon 820 processor and 4GB of RAM. It also offers a massive 4000mAh battery, in addition to a rugged, dust-proof, and water-resistant enclosure. Its 5.1-inch Super AMOLED display is bright enough to see in the great outdoors and sits behind a shatter-resistant protective coating that can withstand the toughest of falls.
Bottom line: The Galaxy S7 Active is what other consumer-oriented rugged smartphones should aim to be like.
One more thing: If you’re bummed about the exclusivity of this particular device, you might consider the next best thing for your Galaxy S7: An Otterbox case.
Why it’s the best
It’s basically a more robust Galaxy S7 with a better battery.
The Galaxy S7 Active is a great example of what works when a manufacturer attempts to ruggedize one of its existing smartphones. Samsung took the best parts of the Galaxy S7 — its components, its camera capabilities, its other extra bits — and shoved it all into a shock-resistant case. It’s also stylish enough that it’s not a complete outlier; You don’t immediately look at this phone and go, “Well, that’s certainly not geared for me.” The idea is that anyone who wants a tougher smartphone can have it without sacrificing features and aesthetics.
Best MacGyver phone
CAT S60
See at Amazon
The Cat S60 is an unlocked, GSM-compatible smartphone with FLIR thermal imaging available at the touch of a button. CAT swears this is “the world’s most waterproof smartphone,” as it can survive depths of up to 5 meters for an entire hour—that’s 30 minutes more than any of the Galaxy S7 variants claim to last. It’s also drop-proof up to 1.8 meters and reinforced with a strengthened die cast frame, which makes it perfect for perilous environments like construction sites. However, there are some downsides, like the fact that the CAT S60 has a mere 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and it runs on a mid-range Snapdragon 617 processor—the same SoC that’s inside the HTC One A9.
Bottom line: If you’re out in the field on a daily basis and you’re with T-Mobile or AT&T, you have a choice of the CAT S60 as your badass daily driver.
One more thing: The Cat S60 will not work with Sprint, Verizon, or any of their MVNOs.
Best Verizon-compatible phone
Motorola Droid Turbo 2
See at Verizon
It’s really too bad that Motorola keeps its exclusives with Verizon, because the Droid Turbo 2 is still pretty impressive even a year later. This smartphone features Motorola’s ShatterShield technology, so the 5.4-inch POLED Quad HD display is essentially shatterproof. It also comes with a massive 3,760mAh battery, a 21-megapixel rear-facing camera, and 32GB of onboard storage with expandable memory. And best of all, this phone has received its Marshmallow update.
Bottom line: If you’re on Big Red and you’re in need of a smartphone that can withstand all that life throws at you, the Droid Turbo 2 is a worthy consideration.
One more thing: You can order a replacement Moto Shattershield Lens if you scratch up your Droid Turbo 2.
Best Overall
Samsung Galaxy S7 Active
See at AT&T
It is truly a bummer that the Galaxy S7 Active is an AT&T exclusive because this is a smartphone worthy of all SIMs. Inside, it’s packed with the same stellar components as the rest of the Galaxy S7 family, including a Snapdragon 820 processor and 4GB of RAM. It also offers a massive 4000mAh battery, in addition to a rugged, dust-proof, and water-resistant enclosure. Its 5.1-inch Super AMOLED display is bright enough to see in the great outdoors and sits behind a shatter-resistant protective coating that can withstand the toughest of falls.
Bottom line: The Galaxy S7 Active is what other consumer-oriented rugged smartphones should aim to be like.
One more thing: If you’re bummed about the exclusivity of this particular device, you might consider the next best thing for your smartphone: An Otterbox case.
You can’t have HDR on your PS4 and PSVR plugged in at the same time
Sony will finally release its virtual reality headset, the PlayStation VR, next week, with pre-orders shipping and stores stocking the device from Thursday 13 October.
We’ve been playing with one ourselves, with a full review to hit Pocket-lint very soon, but we’ve been made aware of one weird fact that we can’t quite fathom: the PSVR processor unit does not pass through HDR video.
That might not matter to you as you don’t have a HDR-enabled TV or you might not even have a scooby what we’re talking about, but considering HDR was a massive speaking point at the recent PlayStation Event in New York it seems strange that the company’s biggest new release doesn’t support it.
- Sony PSVR exposed: What you get in the box and what you still need to buy
- Sony PS4 Pro: Release date, specs and everything you need to know
- Best VR headsets to buy in 2016, whatever your budget
We’re not talking about the headset itself – that wasn’t likely to have or even need HDR support – but the small box that connects it to your PS4 is also incapable of transmitting the high dynamic range video signal.
HDR was added to all PlayStation 4 consoles, including the original and recently released Slim. It is also, along with 4K, a major feature of the forthcoming PS4 Pro. It gives far greater contrast levels and a much wider colour gamut so that those with HDR-enabled sets can see more natural, vibrant colour representation.
Pocket-lint
The PSVR processor unit is capable of feeding video to both the headset and a TV at the same time, taking a HDMI signal from the PlayStation 4 and passing it through to each device. But while it can pass both 1080p and 2160p signals, it is not compatible with HDR.
That means, to get HDR to your TV, you will have to unplug the PSVR PU and hook your PS4 directly to your TV each and every time you want to have the benefit of HDR gaming.
It’s a huge shame as one of the biggest draws of the PSVR was that it feeds both a TV and the headset simultaneously through HDMI. Neither the Oculus Rift nor HTC Vive VR devices offer the same.
Maybe we’ll get a firmware update that will alter that, but we suspect the unit is fairly dumb in that respect and cannot be changed.
You’ll be able to read more about this and other features and impressions of the PlayStation VR in our review soon.
DxO Mark is another smartphone benchmark you can ignore
Google took to the stage in San Francisco yesterday at its Made By Google event to launch a range of new products, including the Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones.
Replacing the Nexus programme with devices more firmly aimed at the premium smartphone owner, the company gave over a lot of time to talking about the camera.
This script is familiar for anyone who has witnessed a smartphone launch. In this world camera one-upmanship you’ll be told how this smartphone is better, faster, more detailed, how the DSLR is an anachronism, the decaying vestige of time gone by. Cameras are dead, long live the smartphone!
A worrying trend that’s emerging to backup this dialogue, however, is qualification. Google turned to DxO Mark as a value to say that its camera is better than the iPhone. It even used a primary-school style number line to demonstrate how much better than the iPhone it is.
From this line we can clearly see that the Pixel is 3 better than the iPhone 7.
What’s missing from this line is the backstory of turning to DxO Mark to qualify the goodness of a smartphone camera.
DxO Mark has been assessing cameras and lenses for some time, regularly publishing results of their findings. With a move over to smartphones, there’s a league table, a chart, that reports these findings, along with its score.
One of the first smartphones that started talking about being top of the table was the Sony Xperia Z5, with its score of 87. HTC made a song and dance about the DxO score with the launch of the HTC 10. It managed 88, which remarkably, was the same as the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, both then the best smartphone cameras.
The thing about these scores is that they’re easy to point to as a measure of greatness. However, pick up your Samsung Galaxy S7 edge and you’ll find the camera gives you better results than the HTC 10. Samsung’s camera offers a much better experience, regardless of DxO Mark’s results.
We’re not saying that DxO Mark isn’t valid in its testing, we’re saying that offering the score it achieves as a qualifying value for smartphone performance is hokum. We’ll end up in a situation where smartphone reviewers base their results on this benchmark result as they often do with AnTuTu scores, and discussions about smartphone merits with friends will fall into soulless despair as benchmark stats are reported, rather than personal experiences that actually matter.
So can we shelve this camera benchmark please? Everyone has great cameras on their phones, let’s focus on innovative features and enriched experiences, rather than boasting about arbitrary scores.
Video game voice actors push for standardized contracts
In the midst of a protracted squabble, the union representing voice actors has come up with a contract for low-budget indie game developers. SAG-AFTRA is promoting a new agreement for titles under $250,000 that would limit difficult vocal sessions (presumably involving yelling or other vocal gymnastics) to two hours. Actors would also be paid double for such work, and collect residuals above the normal rate ($825.50 for four hours) for games that sell 500,000 units or more.
SAG-AFTRA threatened a strike last year after its previous agreement expired, and negotiations with indie game producers for a new one broke down. Actor and alpha geek Wil Wheaton unwittingly became the poster boy for the cause after tweeting support for the union and explaining in a post why actors need a new deal. Noting that producers have ignored concerns about tough vocal sessions, he said that afterwards, “your voice is wrecked .. and over years and years of this, it’s going to build up into serious and permanent damage.”
Your voice is wrecked .. and over years and years of this, it’s going to build up into serious and permanent damage.
Producers and critics, however, argue that the indie game industry works on tiny margins, so it can’t afford residual payments. They add that developers and programmers work much longer hours than voice actors.
The union failed to carry out its strike threat, and the situation reached an impasse this summer. The contract that voice actors are proposing is essentially the same one that producers rejected before. As a result, Deadline notes, few game producers are expected to sign the deal.
SAG-AFTRA does have a plan “B,” however — it is saying that vocal stress is a workplace safety issue and has also made a claim before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). “We’d rather not have to petition for new regulations,” it said in a statement, “but since the videogame employers are unwilling to address vocal stress in negotiations in a real way, we are investigating this further to protect the voices of our members.”
Sky Q’s Split Screen puts two matches on one TV
If you love sport, picking a match to watch on TV can be a nightmare. Murray’s semi-final against Wawrinka? Or Nadal’s clash with Djokovic? When both are happening simultaneously, you have to pick one or the other (or find a second screen and keep it nearby). Sky is trying to fix this problem with “Split Screen,” a new feature for Sky Q which lets you watch two games side-by-side. It should work for “any multi-match or multi-camera event” broadcast by Sky through its Red button service.
The World Cup qualifiers (October 6-11), the F1 Japan Grand Prix (October 7-9) and the ATP Shanghai tournament (October 11-14) will be the first events to support the new feature. Later, Sky’s cricket and La Liga coverage will include a similar option. You simply press the red button, open the Sky Sports app and select “Match Choice” before choosing a second stream. Be warned though — both fixtures have to be from the same sport. So you can’t watch the tennis and a World Cup qualifier at the same time.
Alternatively, you can select “Highlights” to watch some standout moments while “the main event” is still happening. In the case of Formula 1, this could be a brilliant overtake or a dreadful pit stop. The same option will be available for the Premier League, giving you an easy way to re-watch a particularly bone-crunching tackle or physics-defying goal.
Split Screen is a welcome feature, but one that sounds a little half-baked. The dream, of course, would be true split-screen channel viewing. If you could have Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 on opposing sides — regardless of what sport or match they’re showing — that would be something special.
Source: Sky
Honda’s 3D-printed customizable EV has motorcycle bones
Honda aren’t the first to reveal vehicles with 3D-printed panels, details and more. Hoever, it’s certainly one of the biggest, so it’s efforts warranted a closer look. Fresh off the heels of the Paris Auto Show, Honda showed off its Variable Design platform for micro EVs: petite cars where space — and weight — is at a premium. The automaker wants to offer a vehicle with a customizable layout where drivers can choose what they need. That could be lowered entry points at the doors for senior drivers, a hatchback trunk for delivery vehicles, or space for a family of three. (Somehow!) Take a closer look:
I was a bit cautious of the idea of an entire vehicle composed of 3D-printed panels, but Honda’s spokesperson outlined how it took design and engineering from its motorcycle division, resulting in a light but safe pipe-based skeleton under the panelling. This is apparently what gives the “micro commuter model” structural integrity. The company had some assistance from design firm Kabuku, which added a cute bird design to both the hatchback trunk, as well as accents on the door and seat.
The majority of the car has that familiarly, rough 3D-printed surface to it, but despite being the early first step in Honda’s efforts to offer a heavily customizable electric vehicle, today’s prototype could very much move. A handful of journalists and businessmen got to sit inside and drive it very briefly around a faux Japanese village corner. 3D-printing entire car bodies could lead to reduced design times and cheaper costs. But that’s if it becomes a bigger thing. For now, it’s a hopeful platform that’s still in development.
Facebook Completes Rollout of Messenger App End-to-End Encryption
Facebook has announced that the rollout of cryptographic features for its massively popular Messenger chat service has completed, bringing end-to-end encryption to the largest messaging network in existence.
Back in July, the social network company said it was testing the privacy feature on a limited basis which would eventually be rolled out to all 900 million users of the app. On Tuesday, Facebook told Wired that rollout had finished.
Messenger now implements the same highly regarded cryptographic Signal Protocol that the company’s WhatsApp platform uses to encrypt messages, but the Messenger app needs to be updated and the feature turned on for it to work.
A new “Secret Conversations” option can now be found at the top-right of the app’s New Message screen, provided that users have enabled the option from the Me profile settings screen.
The encryption protocol covers one-to-one text chats and stickers used within threads, but does not currently support the use of videos and GIFs.
Messenger users who update the app will also get to use a new Snapchat-style option that erases messages after a specified duration.
Messenger is free on the App Store [Direct Link] for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.
Tags: Facebook Messenger, privacy, Encryption
Discuss this article in our forums
Yahoo Secretly Scanned Millions of Customer Emails for U.S. Authorities
Yahoo secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers’ incoming emails for specific information at the behest of U.S. intelligence authorities, according to people familiar with the matter.
Reuters spoke to three former Yahoo employees who revealed the existence of the custom code, apparently written in compliance with a classified U.S. government demand. The program scanned hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts for the NSA or FBI, said the former employees and a fourth person with knowledge of the events.
Surveillance experts say the revelation represents the first case to surface of a U.S. internet company agreeing to an intelligence agency’s request by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time.
According to two former employees, Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer’s decision to obey the directive did not sit well with some senior executives and led to the June 2015 departure of Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos. Stamos now holds the top security job at Facebook, which incidentally just completed the rollout of end-to-end encrypted privacy features for its hugely popular Messenger app.
“Yahoo is a law abiding company, and complies with the laws of the United States,” the company told Reuters in response to the claims, but stopped short of denying them. It declined any further comment. The NSA referred questions to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which also declined to comment.
According to Andrew Crocker, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, it’s likely the request invoked Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which permits the bulk collection of communications for the purpose of targeting a foreign individual. But rather than having a non-U.S. target, every single person with a Yahoo email inbox was placed under surveillance, regardless of citizenship.
Speaking to The Intercept, Crocker said the Yahoo program seems “in some ways more problematic and broader” than previously revealed NSA bulk surveillance programs like PRISM or Upstream collection efforts. “It’s hard to think of an interpretation that doesn’t mean Yahoo isn’t being asked to scan all domestic communications without a warrant or probable cause. The Fourth Amendment implications of that are pretty staggering.”
It’s unclear what data Yahoo may have handed over to the authorities, if any, and if intelligence officials had approached other email providers besides Yahoo with the same kind of request.
Contacted by The Intercept, an Apple spokesperson said: “We have never received a request of this type, and if we were to receive one, we would oppose it in court.” The spokesperson also pointed to a section from a recent public letter by CEO Tim Cook, which he said was still accurate:
Finally, I want to be absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will.
Facebook, Google, and Microsoft separately said on Tuesday that they had not conducted such email searches. “We’ve never received such a request, but if we did, our response would be simple: ‘No way’”, a spokesman for Google said in a statement. Twitter also said it has never received such a request.
In related news last month, Yahoo revealed that “state-sponsored” hackers had gained access to 500 million customer accounts in 2014. The revelations come at a sensitive time for the company as it tries to complete a deal to sell its core business to Verizon for $4.8 billion.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Tags: Yahoo, privacy, Yahoo Mail
Discuss this article in our forums
Feral Announces Open World Action Game ‘Mad Max’ is Coming to the Mac
Feral Interactive announced today that the popular open world, third-person action game Mad Max is coming to the Mac on October 20, 2016.
Originally developed by Avalanche Studios and published by Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment, the game features an original story set within the universe of Mad Max.
Players take the role of lone warrior Max and must fight for survival against The Wasteland’s savage factions by engaging in melée combat and vehicular combat.
Following the theft of his Interceptor, Max teams up with the gifted mechanic Chumbucket to build the ultimate survival vehicle, the “Magnum Opus”. Players can design, customize and upgrade their vehicle by choosing from different car chassis and a myriad of upgrades including mounted weapons, armor and engines in order to escape to the Plains of Silence.
As they navigate The Wasteland, gamers will encounter a huge variety of enemies, in a gigantic post-apocalyptic open-world with a range of immersive locations, many of them remnants of the world before the apocalypse.
Originally debuting on console and PC last year, Mad Max was praised by reviewers for its car combat mechanics and graphics, although some criticized the story as well as the melee combat’s more repetitive elements.
The minimum system requirements for Mad Max are an Intel i5 3.2 GHz CPU with at least 8GB RAM, 2GB or better graphics card, and Mac OS X 10.11.6 or later. The game also requires an NVIDIA 680 or AMD R9 290 series graphics card or better.
Further information is available at Feral’s mini-site for the game.
Tag: Feral
Discuss this article in our forums
Sky Q adds split screen viewing to make football and F1 even more thrilling
Sports fans with a Sky Q box are in for a treat as there is a new feature that will help them enjoy tense action like never before.
A Sports Split Screen mode makes great use of the Sky Q boxes’ many tuners in order to present different ways to keep up-to-date with all that’s going on with football, F1 or other events.
Sports Split Screen: Live Streams gives you the option to watch two live streams at the same time, such as two footy matches or tennis games side-by-side. This will certainly come into its own during the last day of the Premier League, for instance.
Race Choice will also present two different camera angles during Formula One coverage.
- What is Sky Q, how much does it cost and how can I get it?
- What can I watch in 4K Ultra HD on Sky Q?
- Sky Q tips and tricks: Getting the most from Fluid Viewing and your Sky Q box
Sports Split Screen: Video Clips gives you the option to catch up with highlight clips from the Premier League or F1 while continuing to watch a live match or race at the same time.
Sky Q customers can access the latter by pressing the red button on their remote and opening the Sky Sports app on screen. That will then offer Match Choice or Race Choice.
The update that introduced the new sports features also adds several additional main TV options. Auto download next episode, now makes sure the shows you love will be ready to view immediately.
AIVAnet 