LG 27UD88 Review: A Well-Rounded Ultra HD Display With USB-C

A few weeks ago, we took a look at LG’s new 27-inch UltraFine 5K display designed in partnership with Apple to pair with the new MacBook Pro. While it’s a high-quality screen that offers a sharp, spacious, Retina desktop, the overall design has generated mixed reactions, particularly in comparison to Apple’s design standards.

At a standard price of $1299 and even Apple’s discounted price of $974, the UltraFine 5K isn’t a cheap display. Its smaller sibling, the 21.5-inch UltraFine 4K, at its temporary price of $524 might be more appealing to users who are willing to give up some pixels and a few features, but there are several other Ultra HD and 4K options on the market, some of which we rounded up in mid-November.

Among these other options, one of the most popular Ultra HD (3840×2160) displays with USB-C connectivity has been LG’s 27-inch 27UD88, which offers a clean design, a matte screen finish to reduce glare, and a broader array of connectivity options than the UltraFine lineup. The 27UD88’s IPS display supports 99% coverage of the sRGB spectrum, 5 ms response time, and a 60 Hz refresh rate.

As with the UltraFine displays, one of the major advantages of USB-C connectivity on the 27UD88 is the ability to transfer data, video, and even power over a single cable, and the 27UD88 offers up to 60 watts of power over USB-C to power a notebook computer.

That’s enough to fully power a MacBook or 13-inch MacBook Pro with USB-C, but not enough for a 15-inch MacBook Pro, which can draw up to 85 watts depending on load. So while it might be enough to maintain or slowly charge your 15-inch MacBook Pro under light usage or while sleeping, if you’re working your machine at all hard, the battery may slowly drain. As a result, you’ll want to use your standard MacBook Pro power adapter connected to another USB-C port on the machine in order to power it.

Setup

Assembly of the 27UD88 isn’t quite as simple as the UltraFine’s “set it on your desk and plug it in” procedure, but it’s still very straightforward and similar to a number of other LG displays. It only requires you to snap an arm into the rear of the display panel (a plate for VESA support can alternatively be attached to the back, although the plate is not included) and then attach the curved foot to the bottom of the arm with a couple of screws that are easily tightened with a screwdriver, coin, or even by hand using the integrated grasping rings.

Once assembled, the display sits sturdily on a desk with very little wobbling, and height adjustment requires no tools, as you can simply grasp the panel by the top and bottom and slide it up or down over a range of 110 mm. Tilt is an easy one-hand adjustment and it allows you to set the panel anywhere between -3 degrees and +20 degrees. A small cable management clip attaches near the bottom of the display arm to help keep things looking neat.

Display Resolution

The 27UD88 works with macOS right out of the box, registering as an available display in System Preferences as soon as it is connected. As with other displays, Apple makes it easy to adjust the resolution depending on whether you prefer larger text and user interface elements or a larger usable space on your desktop.

The default mode is a 1920×1080 Retina display running at 60 Hz with the new MacBook Pro, allowing for the crisp text and images users have become accustomed to on many recent Macs, but many users will likely find everything a bit too large in this mode considering this is a 27-inch display. If you prefer a higher resolution non-Retina desktop, scaled options at 2560×1440, 3008×1692, 3360×1890, and the full 3840×2160 are available. Holding down the option key while clicking the Scaled radio button in preferences brings many more options, including 3200×1800 and an array of low resolutions between 1680×945 and 1152×648.

For years, my main monitor has been an Apple Thunderbolt Display, which is a 27-inch display running at 2560×1440, so I’ve really become comfortable with that size of desktop. For that reason, the UltraFine 5K running at a Retina 2560×1440 fit into my setup perfectly. With the 27UD88 having a slightly larger pixel size, the 1920×1080 Retina resolution it offers ends up with a desktop that’s too large for my tastes, and I suspect that will be true for many other users.

UltraFine 5K (left) and 27UD88 (right)
As a result, I’m finding this display set most comfortably at a scaled 2560×1440, matching the UltraFine 5K (and my old Apple Thunderbolt Display) in desktop size and thus making everything consistent across my displays as I’m testing both the UltraFine and the 27UD88 connected to my MacBook Pro. It means I don’t quite get the sharpness of a 1920×1080 Retina display on the 27UD88, but the smoothing is good enough that everything still looks acceptably sharp at my viewing distance.

Resolution options are more limited when used with the 2016 MacBook, still defaulting to a Retina 1920×1080 desktop but running at 30 Hz and with only a few other lower-resolution scaled options available to choose from. More ambitious users may be interested in looking into a hack that enables the MacBook to run 4K displays at 60 Hz, but the tweak is not something the average user will want to attempt.

Display Quality

The 27UD88 has a maximum brightness of 350 nits according to the specs, which is significantly lower than the 500 nits of Apple’s MacBook Pro and the UltraFine displays. Brightness level needs vary significantly based on user preference and ambient environment, but I generally prefer my displays fairly bright and thus it’s very obvious when I put this display next to my MacBook Pro, and particularly the UltraFine 5K. If you typically turn down your brightness a bit, the 27UD88 should be able to match nicely, but it’s definitely something to be aware of if you like things bright.

This is an IPS panel with 99% coverage of the sRGB spectrum and 10-bit color, so it doesn’t have the DCI-P3 wide gamut color space of the UltraFine displays and Apple’s latest Macs or the Adobe RGB support of other wide gamut displays. It means you might not notice quite as much “pop” in some of the colors as on a wide gamut display, but for general use it’s quite fine. Outside of professional users, sRGB remains the mainstream standard and this display offers accurate color representation within that standard.

Full disclosure here: I’m not a graphic design or video professional, so my perspective is more that of a general user interested in expanding my desktop and making it easy to connect various peripherals, and as far as that goes the display quality here is perfectly acceptable, with good color representation, uniform backlight, and solid black levels. Some users will likely find the default color temperature too cool, but calibration options help users customize things just the way they like, and I’ll cover that a bit more below.

Vertical Orientation

In addition to the standard horizontal display orientation, the 27UD88 also easily converts to vertical orientation for those who prefer that type of setup, a feature not offered by the UltraFine 5K display.

Again, no tools are needed and all you need to do is make sure the display is high enough to ensure clearance and rotate it 90 degrees. From there, it’s just a quick menu selection in Apple’s Displays preferences to switch over to the vertical display orientation.

Build Quality and Looks

Looks are a subjective quality, and we’ve seen a range of responses about the UltraFine 5K with its metal foot and matte black plastic enclosure with fairly substantial bezels. The 27UD88 goes in a bit of a different direction that’s more like some of the company’s other displays, with an all-plastic build highlighted by a silver arm and arc-shaped foot with a faux brushed aluminum look. The stand design certainly attracts attention, and it’s not unattractive despite being plastic while also offering solid stability.

Around the edges of the display panel itself, the bezels are fairly thin on the top and sides at about 5/16 of an inch or so, and a bit larger along the bottom where a separate plastic chin bumps things out to just over 3/4 of an inch. A band of silver plastic along the outside edge of the bezels provides a bit of contrast and helps coordinate with the stand, but it makes the bezels stand out a fair amount, unlike the UltraFine displays where the all-black bezels tend to disappear even with their larger size.

The rear sides of the display and support arm are a glossy, bright white plastic. It’s a design choice that again generates a wide spectrum of reactions from users, but many won’t ever see the back except for the rare occasions they’re plugging in or unplugging cables.

Overall build quality seems good, but this is an all-plastic enclosure and you’ll hear some creaks as you adjust it. The panel can wobble a bit from vibrations if your work surface is at all shaky, likely due in part to the hinge design that allows for vertical orientation, but on my hefty corner desk setup it’s pretty much rock solid.

Ports

Unlike the UltraFine displays that have only a single Thunderbolt 3 or USB-C input, the 27UD88 includes a number of ports on the rear for connectivity in addition to the USB-C port that allows for single-cable connectivity for video, audio, data, and up to 60 watts of power for the notebook. Beyond USB-C, the 27UD88 also includes one DisplayPort and two HDMI inputs, which are convenient for those interested in hooking up additional sources such as a cable box, Apple TV, or another device to use on alternate inputs.

Arm attachment and ports on the rear of the display
On the downstream side, the 27UD88 acts as a small USB hub, offering a pair of USB Type A ports with up to 5V/1.5A of charging power so you can connect mobile devices, wired keyboards and mice, and other accessories. The USB-A ports are officially USB 3.0, but you’ll quickly discover that once you hook the display up to your computer and it begins using those USB 3.0 lanes to drive the display’s pixels, you’ll only get USB 2.0 speeds at best for your peripherals.

For example, connecting a USB 3.0 external 5400 rpm hard drive directly to the 2016 MacBook Pro, I saw read and write speeds slightly above 100 MB/s, about what you’d expect for a USB 3.0 drive considering overheard and other limitations. When connecting the same drive via the 27UD88, however, speeds drop to about 35 MB/s for both read and write, which is right around the usual range for real-world USB 2.0. It’s disappointing, but not entirely LG’s fault considering the amount of bandwidth the high-resolution display itself needs over USB-C.

Read and write speeds connected via display (top) and directly to MacBook Pro (bottom)
Ultimately it means you’re not going to want to connect your external hard drives via the display if you want the fastest available performance, but it’s fine for other peripherals or for occasional storage device use where speed isn’t terribly important.

In addition to display and data ports, the 27UD88 includes a headphone jack and a DC-in port for the display’s power adapter, which is a fairly large external power brick. A Kensington lock slot is included on the rear of the monitor for those looking to physically secure the display to a desk or other large or fixed object.

LG includes an HDMI cable, a DisplayPort cable, a USB-C to USB-C cable, and a USB-C to USB-A cable in the box to support a variety of connection configurations. The USB cables are only one meter in length, however, so depending on your desk setup this may not be long enough. If you need to get a longer one, make sure it can handle USB 3 data. Apple’s USB-C cable included with the MacBook Pro, for example, is intended only for charging and slower USB 2.0 data transfers, and thus won’t work for connecting to the display.

Joystick Button

Like many of LG’s displays, the 27UD88 has only a single joystick button for controlling the display’s menus and power. Moving the joystick right or left adjusts the volume if you have wired headphones or external speakers connected to the display, while a short press on the button allows access to the display’s settings or initially powers the display on. Once in settings, nudging the button forward, backward, or to the sides navigates through the hierarchy of menu options, while a press on the button registers your selection.

Bottom view showing lighted joystick button and vents
A long press on the button will turn the display off, although there is an automatic power-saving mode that will put the display to sleep if no input is detected. The button itself is lighted, and a menu option lets you set the light to be always on or off while the display is active. Setting it to on could be helpful if you need a little bit of light cast under your display to help find things in a dark room, but I left it off.

The light also pulses when the display is in sleep mode and it is bright enough to be distracting if you’re in a dark room trying to sleep, for example. Unfortunately, there appears to be no way to disable or dim this sleep light, so I make sure to power the display down at night if someone is going to be sleeping in my home office, which doubles as a guest room.

Menu Options

The main menu offers quick access to several features, including input selection, a Game Mode picture setting, and deeper setting options. The Game Mode option provides quick access to several picture modes optimized for FPS (first-person shooter) and RTS (real-time strategy) games by tweaking such adjustments as FreeSync, response time, and black stabilization.

Main menu accessed with quick press of the joystick button
Within the deeper menus, a “Quick Settings” section provides easy access to brightness, contrast, headphone volume, input, and display ratio settings, while a “PBP” (Picture by Picture) section lets you display two inputs side-by-side on the display at once with appropriate settings for swapping sides of the display or which input’s audio is being routed to the headphone jack.

PBP mode with MacBook Pro via USB-C and Apple TV via HDMI displayed side-by-side
A “Picture” section offers a broad array of preset optimized picture modes, as well as plenty of manual adjiustments for sharpness, black level, gamma, color temperature, and more to let you custom calibrate the display.

Various picture calibration menus
Within the manual calibration options, you’ll see a variety of standard settings including granular 0–100 scales for sharpness, black stabilization, and RGB balance, as well as a few options for gamma, color temperature, and response time. Other options include Super Resolution+ (LG’s technology for optimizing upscaled images), Ultra HD Deep Color, FreeSync synchronization for AMD graphics cards, and more.

Finally in the main menu, a “General” section addresses settings related to language, automatic energy saving and standby, and more.

OnScreen Control App

LG’s OnScreen Control app, available for Mac and Windows, offers a variety of ways to manage multiple LG monitors and multiple windows within a single monitor. It’s similar to the LG Screen Manager app discussed in our UltraFine 5K coverage in that it offers a Screen Split feature that lets you divide the screen into multiple sections where apps will automatically move and resize as you drag a window from one section to another.

OnScreen Control app with display settings
OnScreen Control also lets you control a host of display settings for the 27UD88, including volume, brightness, contrast, display ratio, picture mode, energy saving, response time, and more, settings which aren’t available for the UltraFine displays. The app will even let you set up specific picture modes depending on which app is active.

Per-app display modes can be set using OnScreen Control

Wrap-up

The 27UD88 is a solid display if you’re looking for something in the Ultra HD or 4K range, but its 27-inch size makes it something of a tweener in pixel density. Everything is a bit too large on a Retina 1920×1080 desktop, and while scaling works okay for higher-resolution options, you do still lose some of the sharpness you’d get with Retina.

This is an attractive display, with the arc-shaped foot providing a clean, modern look even with the faux aluminum finish on the plastic. The bezels are thankfully thin around the top and sides, and even the bottom bezel is fairly minimal. Some users will appreciate the matte screen that minimizes distracting reflections, but others will undoubtedly prefer the glossy screens found on some other options for their accuracy.

Given the number of devices I juggle on a regular basis, I appreciate the multiple inputs on the 27UD88. I can hook up my MacBook Pro via USB-C and both third- and fourth-generation Apple TVs via HDMI and easily switch between them on the fly as needed. The USB-A ports are also great for keeping Lightning and Apple Watch docks at the ready on my desk.

The main point of a large external display is to have a quality screen, however, and when putting the 27UD88 side-by-side with the UltraFine 5K, there is a clear winner on that count. The UltraFine’s extra pixels, brightness, and wide color make it clearly superior to the 27UD88 in that regard. Throw in the lack of speakers for beefier sound than a computer can directly provide and the fact that the 27UD88 doesn’t push enough power over USB-C to fuel my 15-inch MacBook Pro, and the choice for me is clear: UltraFine all the way.

That’s not to say the 27UD88 is a bad option by any means, depending on your needs and the machine you’d be pairing it with – it’s actually quite good for many users. It’s several hundred dollars cheaper than the UltraFine 5K and offers some additional flexibility for connectivity that some users may need, so if these factors are important for you, the 27UD88 is definitely worth considering.

It’s a well-rounded external display option if you can find it at a good price, particularly if you’re looking to pair it with a 13-inch MacBook Pro that the display can sufficiently power. It’s still one of the relatively few USB-C displays on the market, although many more are coming as adoption of the standard continues to rise.

Pricing

In comparing prices across vendors, the 27UD88 is the model number you’ll see most often, and it’s LG’s consumer offering that comes with a one-year warranty. LG also sells a 27MU88 model for business customers, and that model comes with a three-year warranty and is otherwise identical to the 27UD88, so keep the warranty difference in mind if you’re comparing prices across vendors and the two models.

The 27UD88 carries a list price of $699, but at the time of this writing supplies are very short with many retailers being completely out of stock, so keep an eye out and be ready to grab one if you’re in the market for it. LG tells us the supply shortages are temporary, so availability should improve.

Note: LG provided the 27UD88 display to MacRumors free of charge for the purposes of this review. No other compensation was received.

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Leica M10 preview: The rangefinder refined

Leica doesn’t do things like other camera makers. The German brand has a cult-like following of photographers who appreciate the brand’s unflinching craftsmanship and pinnacle lens quality.

The champion Leica has always been its full-frame M-series rangefinder. Which, in 2017, returns in its M10 guise: a wilier, more advanced model that – ignoring its total shun of video capture (good riddance, eh?) – redefines the rangefinder’s modern appeal.

We handled one at Leica’s London base to get a feel whether this £5,600 body-only wedge of metal can continue to get Leica fans’ wallets to open. On this brief inspection we’re pretty sure that won’t be a problem.

Leica M10 preview: What’s new?

To look at the Leica M10 is visually similar to the M9, but has really taken on board usability. The rangefinder sits pride of place, of course, but it’s the rejigging of button positions that makes the camera feel different to before.

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The rear LCD screen in far larger, at 3-inches, with the accompanying d-pad no longer sitting quite so close to the screen in a better upward position for thumb placement. The left-side button arrangements are also limited to three rather than five – comprising LV (live view), Play, and Menu.

To the top of the camera is an ISO dial which juts out the side of the body. It’s next to impossible to move, however, and takes a good two-handed approach to yank it upwards into its adjustable position to select between auto, M, and ISO 100 – 12,800 sensitivities.

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At 33.7mm the camera is a lot thinner than the earlier M9, too. Indeed it mirrors the earlier M4 film model – short of the ISO dial on the back of that earlier film model the two cameras are like twins – to make for the smallest full-frame digital system camera on the market.

Leica M10 preview: What’s a rangefinder like?

Leica sticks to the classics in the M-series, with its manual-focus lenses a principal aspect of the system.

Looking through the M10’s circular viewfinder reveals outlined crop marks to identify the frame (these are dependent on your lens of choice), while the centre point is used to manually align the image into desired focus.

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No autofocus, no messing about here. Interestingly, however, you can use the live view function to see the image on the rear screen – which zooms into 100 per cent scale to assist with pinpoint focus acquisition.

Leica M10 preview: New sensor

A new era needs a new sensor, with the M10 adopting a higher-resolution 24MP sensor compared to the 18MP chip in the earlier M9.

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That’s paired with the same Maestro II processor that you’ll find in the Leica Q, including a 2GB buffer so that rapid shooting frame after frame won’t clog up the camera. Leica claims 100 successive JPEG fine images can be shot without slowdown (at 5fps; raw files max out at 30 frames total).

Native sensitivity has shifted too, with ISO 100 now available proper. That’s a full stop better than the ISO 200 starting point of the M9. At the upper end the M10 maxes out at 12,800 standard, or can be pushed to ISO 50,000 within the settings if you really want to push things in low light.

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We’ve not had a change to shoot with the camera in detail, so can’t comment on precise areas of image quality. Leica being Leica, however, we suspect it’ll be mighty fine.

First Impressions

The Leica M10 is one of those cameras that looks back to go forward. It doesn’t bring anything disruptive to the market, but it no doubt brings exactly what staunch Leica fans will want: more resolution, a slimmer build and better control.

It’s mad expensive, of course, but this is the Red Dot brand we’re talking about here. So while the £5,600 price tag sounds excruciating to mere photographic mortals, it won’t stop customers snapping up an M10.

Sammus is somewhere between nerdcore and afrofuturism

Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo used to get the same question every time she set down the mic and stepped off the stage. She came to expect it after performing in crowded bars, big music festivals or comic book stores, and the question usually came from a well-meaning stranger or new fan of her music.

“Who makes your beats for you?”

This would happen right after she’d screamed into the mic that she was Sammus, a producer and rapper, and that everything she just did on stage was her work. The question would come in different forms — “Where’s your boyfriend?” was another staple — but the sentiment was the same. People assumed Sammus didn’t produce her own music.

“That aspect has actually opened up a tremendous amount of insight to me, in terms of what other women might go through,” Sammus said. “It’s this kind of weird thing where your skill set is questioned. Even the ability to do certain things is questioned right away, even as the words are leaving your mouth that you have done this thing.”

Nowadays, Sammus is a big enough name in the world of nerdcore hip-hop that she doesn’t get that question as often. Still, she’s one of just a handful of high-profile women rappers in nerdcore, and she’s also one of the few high-profile black MCs working in the genre.

Nerdcore is a contemporary brand of hip-hop whose songs focus on traditionally geeky things like programming, video games or Star Wars. These spaces are generally dominated by white men — and so is nerdcore. As a woman, it’s hard enough to break into the hip hop industry, let alone a niche offshoot genre overrun with technically savvy testosterone.

That’s one reason Sammus didn’t actively position herself as a nerdcore artist at the beginning of her music career. She simply wrote lyrics that drew on her own life experiences, and her songs happened to include a lot of geeky references and nerdy nostalgia bombs. It was natural: Both of her parents are professors, and she grew up playing video games, knowing she would one day earn a master’s degree, at the very least.

Her undergraduate thesis at Cornell University focused on digital music interfaces and gender, and today she’s a PhD student in the field of science and technology studies at Cornell.

Sammus was already producing her own songs by the time she was an undergrad, and Mega Ran, one of the top nerdcore MCs, took an early interest in her work. Mega Ran helped her build up a profile within nerdcore; they even collaborated on an album set in the Castlevania universe.

Today, Sammus proudly calls herself a nerdcore artist, but she’s not completely settled with this label that was slapped on her. She struggles to find her place within a genre that, on the surface, looks like the antithesis of her own experiences.

“I’ve had such a weird relationship with this term, nerdcore,” Sammus says. “Because I think, in some regards, it’s cool and does kind of capture some of what I’m doing. But in other ways, I feel like it doesn’t quite cover the full spectrum of what my music is about.”

Sammus is just as likely to rap about retro video games or Harry Potter as she is about racially driven police violence or female sexual liberation. She’s socially aware and delights in interweaving quirky, geeky references with heavy real-world issues. Her songs occupy a fuzzy space between nerdcore and afrofuturism, an artistic movement that places black people in science-fiction worlds in order to comment on past, present and future race issues.

“I want so badly for my work to be seen in this vein, and if that means that people see it as nerdcore as well, that’s dope,” Sammus says. “But I really want my work to be in line with this movement that talks about seeing black people in spaces we’ve never imagined.”

Sammus isn’t alone in this goal. Mega Ran, the veteran nerdcore MC who helped Sammus break into the genre, also raps about issues of race. As black rappers within nerdcore, Sammus and Mega Ran bring a unique perspective to the genre, but they also face specific challenges.

The common image of a “nerd” is a young white man. So, when artists like MC Frontalot or MC Lars rap about video games or programming, no one bats an eye. Often, when a black man does the same thing, his expertise is questioned. When a black woman does it, her very identity as a “nerd” is up for debate.

“The conceit coming from a lot of black folks who make nerdcore music is different from a lot of white folks who make nerdcore music, in that for us, for black folks, we’re fighting to be seen as nerds and geeks,” Sammus says. “It’s like, I can be this thing. I’m not just the other thing that you told me that I was.”

When Sammus first started learning about nerdcore, it seemed like a bunch of white men making parodies of gangster rap, co-opting the genre’s masculinity and flipping it to talk about silly things. Now she sees more of the nuance within nerdcore, but there’s still a disconnect between the things Sammus raps about and what white male artists rap about.

For example, she has a song called “Time Crisis” that discusses the realities of being a 30-year-old woman feeling pressured to have children and conform to other gender-specific norms.

“That’s not a thing, necessarily, that MC Frontalot is going to talk about,” Sammus says. “Not because he’s not a great rapper, not because he’s not a thoughtful person, but that’s just simply not a challenge that he’s facing in the way that I might be facing it.”

Don’t get it wrong: Sammus appreciates her place within nerdcore. She’s never felt slighted by other rappers, and she shares a common, geeky history with Mega Ran, MC Frontalot, MC Lars, MC Chris and all of the other nerdcore MCs. Sammus even participated in a light-hearted diss track aimed at Alex Trebek after he called nercdore fans “losers” on an episode of Jeopardy in October.

Nerdcore has provided Sammus a platform for her music and her message. It’s marketing shorthand that helps her book gigs at comic book stores, SXSW, PAX, MAGFest and other venues. And, she’s seeing progress that gives her hope for the future of diversity in nerdcore.

Sammus recently played MAGFest and noticed an encouraging trend: There were more women and people of color nerdcore MCs than she’d ever seen before. And, after her set, a handful of underrepresented people came up to her saying they were starting to write and produce their own songs too.

“I think it’s going to continue to shift to skew more in the direction of lots of people of color, women, non-binary folks, who love games and love cartoons and love geek, nerd stuff, but want to use it to talk about their unique experiences,” Sammus says.

Plus, Sammus is part of Mega Ran’s Nerdy People of Color Collective, which brings together creatives like Kadesh Flow, 1-UP, Shubzilla and WWE wrestler Xavier Woods for collaboration and support.

People still approach Sammus after her shows, but the conversations are a little different than when she started performing. Every time she plays a comic store or a convention nowadays, there’s always someone of color, a woman or a non-binary person who comes up and asks a simple question: “Can I have a hug?”

They’re appreciative that Sammus is on that stage, representing the diversity of geek culture. And Sammus is proud to be there. She revels in bringing up issues like the Black Lives Matter movement to new audiences just as much as she enjoys rapping about pixels to her peers.

“In that way, I don’t mind this label as much,” Sammus says. “It’s under the label, but it’s pushing it at every boundary.”

Fujifilm’s GFX 50S pairs a huge sensor with a DSLR-like body

Fujifilm is kicking off 2017 with the launch of its first medium-format mirrorless camera, the GFX 50S. As we reported yesterday, the new shooter comes with a giant 51.4-megapixel CMOS sensor (43.8 x 32.9mm), the same image processor as the X-Pro2 and X-T2, as well as a 117-point autofocus system. You won’t find any 4K video features here, however; the device is limited to 1080p recording at up to 30fps. Still, people are probably more interested in the GFX 50S’ still photography capabilities anyway.

At $6,500 (body-only), this medium-format mirrorless is much cheaper than similar cameras such as Hasselblad’s X1D, which costs about $9,000 without a lens. That’s a notable price difference, so it will be interesting to see how they fare against each other. Since the GF system is completely new, Fujifilm designed three lenses for it to start, including the GF63mm f/2.8, GF32-54mm f/4 and GF120mm f/4. Like the camera itself, these will also be available in February for $1,500, $2,300 and $2,700, respectively.

And if you have any CM-W and Super EBC HC Fujinon lenses, there will be adapters sold separately, according to Fujifilm.

Compared to when we first saw it last year, we now know a lot more about the GFX 50S, including the resolution of its medium-format sensor — which looks insane when you put it next to a Micro Four Thirds. Fujifilm says the camera I checked out at its event in NYC is the final production model, but the software is still being worked on. Having said that, I didn’t notice any issues as I was taking shots or browsing the menus.

I was surprised by how light the GFX 50S felt the first time I picked it up, especially since it has the shape of a DSLR. Of course that changes as soon as you use it with the hefty 120mm lens, but overall I was expecting to be much heavier than it actually is (800 grams). If you’ve ever used a Fujifilm camera before, you won’t be surprised to find the company’s classic manual dials, which let you adjust settings like exposure compensation and select different shooting modes with ease.

Fujifilm says the GFX 50S can take 400 shots with a full battery, or 800 if you buy the vertical battery grip, though no word on how much that’s going to cost yet. While the GFX 50S is likely going to be at the top of many medium-format camera buyers’ lists, we’ll have to wait to put it through its paces before slapping any conclusive labels on it. The camera arrives in February, so you have time to start saving up for it if you like what you see.

A closer look at Fujifilm’s X-T20 and X100F compact cameras

Fujifilm’s first medium-format mirrorless, the GFX 50S, isn’t the only camera the company is getting ready to launch. Yesterday, it also revealed the X-T20 and X100F, the latest additions to its X-series line of compact shooters. Even though the X-T20 is ostensibly a successor to the X-T10, it’s actually more like an affordable version of the X-T2. Meanwhile, the X100F is geared toward fans of fixed-lens systems. Both feature new X-Trans sensors, classic retro designs and Fujifilm’s trademark physical dials, which lets you easily adjust settings like exposure compensation and shutter speeds.

In the case of the X-T20, it comes with the same 24.3-megapixel APS-C sensor as the X-T2 (with faster autofocus), 4K video at up to 30fps and a 2.3-million-dot electronic viewfinder. Unlike its higher-end sibling, the X-T20 features a 3-inch touchscreen, allowing you to do things such as tap-to-focus and zoom in on your shots. The best part is that it costs way less than than the X-T2: $900 without a lens.

The X100F sports the aforementioned sensor as well, along with an improved 91-point autofocus system and a fixed 23mm f/2.0 lens. Fujifilm also upgraded the camera’s hybrid viewfinder, offering up to 6x magnification and 60fps support. On paper, it seems to be the perfect camera for people who love Fujifilm’s X100 series, including the X100S and X100T.

I had the chance to check them out at an event in New York City, albeit only for a few minutes. The X-T20 feels very similar to the X-T2 and X-T10 when you’re shooting with it, and you can definitely tell the autofocus is as speedy as Fujifilm promises. Meanwhile, the X100F is much lighter than the X-T20, thanks in large part to that 23mm pancake glass. For context, the X-T20 demo unit was paired with a 50mm Fujinon lens.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance to take my own sample images, but we’ll have more on the X-T20 and X100F before they hit stores next month.

The best smart smoke alarm

By Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. When readers choose to buy The Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here.

We can’t overstate the importance of having functioning, reliable smoke detectors in your home. From 2007 through 2011, almost a quarter of all home fire-related deaths in the US occurred in homes with nonworking smoke alarms. Though any functioning smoke alarm will alert you to problems if you’re at home, a smart alarm can alert you anywhere your smartphone has an Internet connection. After extensive testing by a former firefighter, we found that the second-generation Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide alarm is the best smart smoke alarm.

Who this is for

Among all the smart-home devices available today, a smart smoke alarm is probably the most important and the one that even smart-home skeptics should consider. The primary task of any smoke alarm, smart or not, is alerting you to potential danger. A smart alarm will do so even when you’re not home, and for most people, that should make such an alarm worth its price. Whether you’re across the street or across the country, a smart alarm will let you know (via your smartphone) when it detects smoke in your home.

How we picked and tested

We looked at both battery-powered and hardwired alarms, and we evaluated their wireless interconnectivity features. Photo: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

A smart smoke alarm should alert you on your smartphone when it senses smoke, as well as tell you which room is in danger; it should also include intelligent low-battery alerts and remain easy to silence safely from the app. Some other features worth having include voice alerts, self-testing and reporting, and the ability to reach an emergency-contact person automatically if you don’t respond. Most important, an alarm should connect wirelessly with other alarms in the home, or come in a hardwired version that you can wire to other alarms, so that when one alarm senses danger all alarms in the house will sound.

Because your safety is at stake, for us to even consider a smoke alarm for testing, it had to meet UL standards for smoke and carbon monoxide (CO) detection. UL (formerly Underwriters Laboratories) is a safety consulting and certification company that has been keeping Americans safe for more than 100 years by drafting standards for the electrical devices and components people use every day.

We wound up testing seven smart fire alarms and similar devices that included options that met our requirements.To test these devices, we put them in a two-story, detached home. We installed both battery-operated and hardwired versions (where available) and used their self-testing features to evaluate the effectiveness of their smart alerts and wireless interconnectivity capabilities. Additionally, we simulated smoke with each device to determine how well the alert features worked in a “real-life” scenario.

We evaluated each device’s companion app, and connected the devices to any smart-home systems they were compatible with and evaluated the effectiveness and usefulness of any added features.

Our pick

Photo: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

The second-generation Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide alarm is the best smart smoke alarm for everyone because it reliably and calmly alerts you to potential danger whether you’re home or away, before the actually loud and grating alarm kicks in. It also informs you of problems such as a device malfunction or low batteries without waking you up at 2 a.m. It lets you silence nuisance alarms through its app—so you’re less likely to disable it in a fit of annoyance. On top of that, it interconnects with other Protects to sound the alarm throughout your home, and it integrates with your smart-home system to further mitigate the dangers of a fire or carbon monoxide event.

The Protect’s sensors can detect carbon monoxide, heat, humidity, room occupancy, and ambient light. It also has the Split-Spectrum Sensor, a sensor unique to Nest that, though photoelectric, promises to detect fast-burning fires more quickly than traditional photoelectric sensors do. To learn more about ionization and photoelectric sensors, see our full guide.

Perhaps most important, the Protect self-tests its functions every 200 seconds, in addition to performing a sound check once a month to test its speaker and horn. Colored status lights (green for good, yellow for problems) let you know the Protect is working properly. Although a couple of the other smart alarms we tested conduct self-checks, none of them do so in a way that’s so visible to the user. For example, the First Alert Onelink battery-powered alarm is completely dark at all times unless there’s an emergency, a design that often led us to wonder whether it was working at all. In contrast, if your Nest Protect is glowing yellow, it will announce what’s wrong, or you can look at the app to see what the issue is. That type of peace of mind is worth a lot in our opinion.

When the Protect is triggered, the alert takes you to the app, where you can silence the alarm. If smoke or CO levels are too high, it will tell you that it can’t silence the alarm and will give you guidance on what to do next.

Budget pick

Roost’s smart functions come as a battery that you install in any smoke alarm, or as a complete alarm with the battery already installed. Photo: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

If notifications when you are away from home are your main priority, a Roost Smart Battery is an excellent, inexpensive choice. This 9-volt smart battery is not a smoke alarm itself, but thanks to its built-in microphone and Wi-Fi chip, it can turn any smoke alarm powered by a 9-volt battery or hardwired with a 9-volt backup into a smart one. Roost’s smart functions are also available in two hardwired alarm models, one for smoke only and another for smoke and CO, both with the Roost battery included. The biggest flaw in the system is its lack of wireless interconnectivity between battery-powered alarms, but the Roost makes it easy and cheap to add whole-house interconnectivity to a wired system with a single battery or device.

Once connected with the Roost app, the battery will send you alerts when the alarm goes off. Because you tell the battery upon installation where it’s located, it can tell you where the danger is, and it will send you an alert when the alarm stops, so you know whether the danger has passed. You can silence any battery-only alarm from your phone (though you can’t do the same with hardwired alarms), and you have no need to worry about 2 a.m. battery chirps—you’ll get a notification long before the battery runs out.

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Kristen Stewart co-wrote a paper on machine learning

Kristen Stewart, best known for her role as Bella in the Twilight saga, has co-authored a paper on machine learning. It details her use of a technique known as ‘style transfers’ for select scenes in Come Swim, a short film that will be shown at Sundance and marks her directorial debut. The process has become popular with apps such as Prisma, which allow the user to apply filters in the style of famous paintings. At its core, the system relies on deep neural networks to identify the “content” of your photo and the “style” of another, blending them together into a completely new image.

Stewart and her team used style transfers to create some unusual, dream-like sequences in the film. Come Swim is a “poetic, impressionistic portrait of a heartbroken man underwater,” so it made sense to pepper some scenes with these surreal, mind-bending shots. Rather than imitate Picasso or Dali, Stewart used one of her own paintings as inspiration. It was difficult, however, to achieve the exact look she wanted, especially over multiple frames. The paper outlines some of the tricks she picked up to better control the effect — cropping the painting in different ways, for instance, forced the algorithm to focus on particular colors or brush strokes.

She also found that the quality of the style image had drastic effects on the final result. Initially, the team worked with a photo captured on a smartphone, but later swapped it for a better lit, higher resolution image. The change allowed for a “more faithful transfer of the subtleties in the contrast, color and texture.” They then experimented “style transfer ratio,” or the number of times the technique should be applied. Increasing the iterations would improve the image’s texture, but at a certain point — roughly 256 — the improvements were perceived to be negligible.

For the final cut, the team used a cross-dissolve effect to subtly transition between the original footage and the style-transferred version.

Stewart’s paper, co-authored with special effects engineer Bhautik J Joshi and producer David Shapiro, was released through the online repository arXiv. That means it hasn’t been peer-reviewed — a footnote that’s bound to make some researchers scoff. Whether it gets the all-important rubber stamp of approval doesn’t really matter, however. What’s interesting is that more people, including directors and actresses, are starting to look at the technology as a way to execute their most daring and imaginative ideas.

Via: Quartz

Source: arxiv.org

Korean Go body to ban smartphones thanks to Google’s AI

South Korean Go players will be banned from using smartphones during official tournaments in the future, and it’s all thanks to Google’s AlphaGo AI. The Korea Times reports that the Korea Baduk Association — baduk being the local name for Go — is currently drafting new rules that will outlaw smartphone use in matches. While the organization is fully aware you can’t carry AlphaGo around in your pocket at the moment, it’s preempting a time when certain AI tools that can give players a competitive edge do become available on smartphones.

It may seem strange that smartphone use is permitted in official Go competitions as it stands, but then there’s basically no precedent for digital tools being of any help to experienced players. Though IBM’s Deep Blue chess computer beat world champ Garry Kasparov in 1997, the number of variables and strategic complexity of Go have kept programmers from creating bots that exhibit anything more than an amateur skill level.

This all changed with AlphaGo, an AI developed by Google’s DeepMind team that uses a neural network for a more human-like approach to problem solving. Last year, AlphaGo claimed a historic 4-1 victory over grandmaster Lee Sedol; and, more recently, a newer prototype version of the AI has been wiping the floor with other top players online.

The Korea Baduk Association isn’t in any great rush to implement new rules, since AI Go coaches aren’t an immediate threat. “But when it becomes more popular and widespread, we will push ahead with more concrete regulations about the use of smartphones during matches,” an association official told The Korea Times. It makes sense that the organization would start thinking about how to keep competition pure now, though, instead of having to react to future tools that can give players a leg up.

Source: The Korea Times

Trump’s plan for energy independence sacrifices the environment

Shortly after Donald Trump was sworn into office, the White House’s website changed. Beyond the splash image of him and Vice President Mike Pence, under the “issues” tab is an outline for what Trump plans to do next: eliminate the Climate Action Plan and Waters of the U.S. rule. These “burdensome regulations on our energy industry” have been keeping American workers down for too long, and by nixing them wages will increase by $30 billion over the next seven years. Somehow. And almost assuredly at the expense of the environment.

“Sound energy policy begins with the recognition that we have vast untapped domestic energy reserves right here in America. The Trump Administration will embrace the shale oil and gas revolution to bring jobs and prosperity to millions of Americans. We must take advantage of the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, especially those on federal lands that the American people own. We will use the revenues from energy production to rebuild our roads, schools, bridges and public infrastructure. Less expensive energy will be a big boost to American agriculture, as well.”

Meaning, the country may begin mining federal lands for fossil fuels and energy independence. But the plan so far is vague enough that, as presented to the public, just about anything can be done under it. What’s more, the closing sections are at odds with what came before it. The post goes on to say that “protecting clean air, clean water, conserving our natural habitats and preserving our natural reserves and resources will remain a high priority.” The types of extraction typically used in mining and oil drilling aren’t exactly environmentally (or worker) friendly, hence Obama’s $28 million investment in training former coal workers for high-tech jobs last October.

Rather than having the Environmental Protection Agency focus on pesky things like climate change, Trump’s version of the administration, led by climate change skeptic Scott Pruitt, will “refocus” on protecting our air and water. Protecting them from what, exactly?

In May 2016 Trump said he’d rescind the Climate Action Plan as part of his first 100 days in office, so he’s working to keep one of his campaign promises. Already, the White House’s website has been scrubbed of any reference to the Climate Action plan. Same goes for anything regarding climate change, or the climate itself. Versions from the Obama administration live on in archived form.

Source: White House

President Obama’s final bill is aimed at bringing tech to DC

The last bill President Barack Obama signed before leaving the Oval Office for good establishes a permanent pathway for technology innovators and entrepreneurs to work with the federal government across a variety of industries. The Presidential Innovation Fellows program was introduced as part of a bipartisan effort in 2012, and Obama’s final signature makes it permanent.

PIF pairs top technologists with government employees and programs to address issues like transparency, public access to digital health records, technology education in K-12 schools and employing veterans. Fellows, as the tech savvy folks are called, serve for between 6 and 24 months.

Notable past PIF fellows include GarageBand CEO Patrick Koppula, Weather Underground founder Alan Steremberg, Shutterstock president and CFO Adam Riggs and Boston Children’s Hospital director of digital innovation Alexandra Pelletier.

“By signing this bipartisan bill into law, President Obama took an important step toward ensuring that the federal government continues to strengthen its collaborative efforts with innovators and entrepreneurs while improving efficiency and accountability,” Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) says in a press release. “The Presidential Innovation Fellows Program is a unique and effective way to engage civil servants and technologists to work together in public service for the good of the American people.”

This morning, Donald Trump was sworn into the presidency, and he has promised to undo a handful of regulations implemented and overseen by Obama in the past eight years. Trump has historically denied the existence of climate change, and minutes after his inauguration, the Trump administration committed to eliminating the Climate Action Plan and Waters of the US rule. Trump had previously vowed to rescind these programs within his first 100 days in office.

Obama has taken a number of steps to ensure his legacy is preserved, including dismantling a registry used to track Muslims in the US and blocking attempts to drill for oil off of the US Continental Shelf.