Chrome 58 Canary update adds MacBook Pro Touch Bar support

Why it matters to you

If you have a Touch-Bar-equipped MacBook Pro, there’s one more supporting app to look forward to. If you don’t, then there’s one more reason to buy one.

An upcoming browser update, Chrome 58, looks likely to include support for the MacBook Pro Touch Bar, as a recent Canary release has that functionality included. This represents the first time that Chrome has shown any support for the Touch Bar, but shows that Google now sees it as a worthwhile feature to develop.

When Apple debuted the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, many people weren’t convinced it was a worthwhile feature. There is still some debate on the topic, but bedroom hackers and corporations alike have found a multitude of different uses for it and now Google’s Chrome looks set to join that list of supporting applications.

In the Canary build of the browser update, the Touch Bar gains support for a number of features. There’s the ability to refresh a page, go forward and back, search, open a new tab and access the the usual Touch Bar media controls.

More: Google makes Chrome for iOS open source

You can also add a website to your list of favorites, though these base functions are all you can expect in this build. As 9to5Mac reports, the controls and options don’t contextually change when you watch a video or open up a new tab.

Still, now that we’ve seen these Touch Bar functions appear in the Chrome Canary build we expect them to show up in the stable Chrome 58 update too. It will likely pass through a couple of additional testing channels first, but MacBook Pro Touch Bar support is almost certainly coming to Chrome, which will be a nice addition for those running the browser on their new laptops.

For anyone not willing to wait though, you can dive into the testing pool and grab yourself the Canary build of the Chrome 58. It’s available via the Chromium repository, where you’ll find all stages of the latest Chrome builds.

For those of you with MacBook Pros with Touch Bars, what are some of the interesting uses you’ve found for the touch interface?

Your next device could run on a network called LTE-U thanks to T-Mobile

Why it matters to you

LTE-U adds additional bandwidth to your network, which could mean faster, smoother connections.

T-Mobile is tapping into a new resource. On Wednesday, the Bellevue-based mobile service provider announced the deployment of a new technology called LTE-U, and it’s hoping that it’ll provide a greater edge over competitors like AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint when it comes to network capabilities.

So what exactly is LTE-U? It’s a newly approved (the Federal Communications Commission gave it the green light on Wednesday) variant of the 4G LTE network that actually shares radio frequencies with radio routers and Bluetooth headphones. It basically adds additional bandwidth to your network, which could mean faster, smoother connections. And just yesterday, Nokia and Ericsson were given permission to start deploying LTE-U devices, something T-Mobile has been quick to take advantage of.

More: Sprint still wants to merge with T-Mobile so it can take on Verizon and AT&T

T-Mobile says that its customers will be able to leverage “the first 20 MHz of underutilized unlicensed spectrum on the 5GHz band and use it for additional LTE capacity” with its new mobile data.

“T-Mobile’s network is second to none, with more capacity per customer than the Duopoly … and LTE-U will only accelerate our lead,” said Neville Ray, CTO at T-Mobile. “T-Mobile’s built a track record of introducing new innovations first, including deploying more LTE Advanced technologies than anyone in the U.S. All that innovation means one thing — a fantastic customer experience.”

The Un-carrier has actually been testing LTE-U equipment since late last year, but now that the FCC has agreed that LTE-U can work in tandem with Wi-Fi technologies, the floodgates have been opened.

“We continue to push the boundaries of bringing new technologies in the unlicensed arena. Nokia is committed to working alongside T-Mobile to bring new solutions to market,” Ricky Corker, Nokia EVP and Head of North America said. “We stand ready to enhance T-Mobile’s leadership proposition and show what the future of mobile communications can be for Un-carrier customers.”

MyKronoz ZeTime hybrid boasts analog hands that tick in time to a color touchscreen

Why it matters to you

The MyKronoz ZeTime combines the best of both worlds — it’s a smartwatch with analog hands that tick independent of a color touchscreen.

MyKronoz may be based in Geneva, Switzerland, but the watchmaker is better known for an expansive collection of digital wearables than luxury timepieces. The company offers an electronic wristband in virtually every flavor, from fitness trackers and heart rate monitors to full-color smartwatches. And at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year, it has a world’s first up its sleeve: The ZeTime, a “hybrid smartwatch” with mechanical hands over a round screen.

A marriage of analog and digital, the ZeTime boasts a physical “smart crown” and 44mm waterproof (3ATM) stainless steel case “inspired by the finest Swiss design,” and features mechanical hands mounted in a tiny hole in the watch’s 240 x 240-pixel TFT circular display. It’s a boon for battery life: The ZeTime’s mechanical hands move for up to 30 days with a single charge, and continue to tick even when the screen is switched off. And thanks to MyKronoz’s proprietary Smart Movement technology, they automatically adjust the time based on timezone.

“My inspiration has been to combine the best of our Swiss heritage in traditional watchmaking with the key features of a smartwatch to persuade the majority of consumers to adopt our wearable technology,” Boris Brault, CEO and founder of MyKronoz, said in a press release. “This has been accomplished with ZeTime, the perfect hybrid smartwatch. It combines the best of both worlds: watch hands of an elegant traditional timepiece with a full-color touchscreen.”

More: Hands on: MyKronoz ZeSplash

The ZeTime is more than just a high-tech analog watch. It boasts a three-axis accelerometer and optical heart rate sensor that can track activity statistics like steps, distance, calories, and minutes of active sleep. And when paired with a smartphone via Bluetooth 4.1, it serves up music playback controls and notifications of incoming calls, messages, weather forecasts, and calendar appointments.

The ZeTime will ship in early September 2017 starting at $200, alongside silicon, genuine leather, carbon-fiber, and other styles of interchangeable straps. Its 200mAh internal battery charges wirelessly via an included dock.

MyKronoz is forging ahead at a time when iPhone maker Apple dominates the industry. According to market research firm Canalys, the Apple Watch accounted for more than half of the 9 million smartwatches shipped last fiscal quarter and generated 80 percent of all revenues. But the company is confident in the market’s growth.

“When I started in early 2013, people thought that I was mad – why would I start a smartwatch company in Switzerland and enter such a challenging market? It turns out that my vision and passion have paid off, as our company has sold nearly 2 million smartwatches since then,” Brault said. “This disruptive mentality goes beyond the company’s mission to provide ‘smartwatches for everyone’ by striving to become an industry leader on price point, wide range, and fashionable design.”

What is an alternative mobile carrier?

Alternative mobile carriers are often cheaper and just as reliable as the networks they rely on.

Alternative carriers abound around the world, and are becoming an increasingly reliable source of low-cost connectivity in the U.S. Also known as an MVNO, or Mobile Virtual Network Operator, these alternative operators are often no-frills, and cost less than the incumbent networks on which they operate.

What is an alternative mobile operator?

The idea behind an MVNO is simple: instead of spending the billions of dollars building an entirely new nationwide network, companies enter into deals with the incumbent providers in a particular country — in the U.S., that’s T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint — to resell access to their networks. These often come in the form of contracts, where the smaller companies will buy space on the network — voice, messaging and, of course, data — at a heavily discounted, bulk rate, and sell it to you, the customer, for a profit.

This benefits everyone in the equation: the incumbent gets a bunch of money upfront to invest back into its business, or give to shareholders in the form of dividends; the alternate provider gets to sell access to the network at a lower cost to the incumbent while still making a profit; and you, the user, gets to purchase access to a high-quality, fast and reliable network at prices lower than those incumbents.

Such a market only works when there is robust competition in the wireless market, which increasingly exists in the U.S. and is extremely common across Europe, where the market was built with alternative providers in mind.

So what’s the big deal?

Alternative providers don’t often have the financial resources to build their own networks, which is why they purchase wholesale acces to the companies that do, like the ones mentioned above. But because these smaller companies don’t have the overhead of maintaining a network — the virtual in the term MVNO — they have more flexibility to provide service at lower costs. For people looking just to connect to a network without all the frills and fringe benefits that come with a contract, these are great options.

Because these smaller companies don’t have the overhead of maintaining a network, they have more flexibility to provide service at lower costs.

The other thing is that MVNOs are usually aimed at single account holders — most eschew the share or family plan model of the larger incumbents — or specific demographics that may not be hit directly by the Big Four. In other words, alternative carriers are exactly that: meant to capture the customers remaining in the margins, or those looking to pay bottom dollar to avoid the often-superflous frills — T-Mobile Tuesdays come to mind — that are, many times, built into the cost of the plans of the incumbents.

Some alternative carriers, such as Cricket Wireless and Boost Mobile, are owned by the Big Four themselves — AT&T and Sprint, respectively — which allows the major incumbents to get ahead of any customers who want to leave by offering them a simplified, often discounted alternative that keeps them in the network.

More than one network

But many alternative carriers don’t just use one network. We’ve talked many times about Project Fi, which works with Google’s Nexus and Pixel phones to make service incredibly easy and convenient. Well, Project Fi does’t just connect to one network; it connects to four — T-Mobile, Sprint, U.S. Cellular in the U.S., and Three in then UK — deciding between the top one dynamically depending on the coverage.

Instead of spending the billions of dollars building an entirely new nationwide network, companies enter into deals with the incumbent providers in a particular country.

That’s another advantage of these virtual operators: they can negotiate great deals with a number of carriers, and thanks to the beauty of the SIM card, give customers the best option wherever they are.

Fewer phones

Finally, one thing to keep in mind about alternative networks is that the companies often don’t offer the latest and greatest smartphones. In fact, they often don’t sell phones at all. That’s because they don’t want the hassle, and the overhead, of having to stock expensive devices they may not use. That’s where unlocked phones come in.

If you’re savvy enough to buy a phone that you know will connect to the network of a particular carrier, you can save big money over the same two-year period a phone is usually paid off when on a big carrier.

Your turn

Are you subscribed to an alternative carrier? If so, which one, and why? We’re really curious, so let us know in the comments!

Qualcomm announces Snapdragon 835 VR dev kit, Leap Motion integration

Qualcomm rolls out a VR dev kit, teams up with Leap Motion to bring natural interaction to mobile VR.

The Snapdragon 835 will be powering this year’s flagship phones, but Qualcomm is increasingly looking to virtual reality as a growth driver. To that effect, Qualcomm included several features in the Snapdragon 835 that make it an ideal platform for mobile VR, including 15ms motion-to-photon latency and six-degrees-of-freedom for precise motion tracking.

The company has now introduced a VR development kit, which has a head mounted display (HMD) powered by the Snapdragon 835 and an upgraded VR software development kit. The reference design headset allows users to experience virtual reality untethered, offering a 2560×1440 AMOLED display split between both eyes, six-degrees of freedom (6DoF) motion tracking via two monochromatic cameras with fish-eye lenses, two monochromatic VGA global shutter cameras with depth sensing, and a host of sensors.

The Snapdragon 835 HMD is designed for untethered VR.

The HMD also packs in 4GB of RAM, 64GB storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and USB-C connectivity, Qualcomm’s Aqstic audio codec, and a trackpad on the right side for controlling the interface. Talking about the trackpad, Qualcomm has also announced that it is partnering with Leap Motion to integrate its hand-tracking tech into the platform.

The integration lets Qualcomm to render hand movements with low latency, essentially allowing you to use your hands as the controller in virtual reality. Qualcomm will demonstrate the technology later this week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco as well as Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Qualcomm won’t bring its HMD to market, with the headset instead serving as a reference design for OEMs to build upon. The dev kit itself will be available to developers in Q2 2017, and Qualcomm is rolling out a HMD Accelerator Program that’s designed to lower the barrier for entry for manufacturers looking to build VR products.

These are the exclusive games for PlayStation VR

Which games are exclusive to PlayStation VR?

PlayStation VR is here and its library of games continues to grow. We love that a lot of our favorite titles from other platforms are also available on PSVR, but the real meat lies in the exclusive stuff.

What are the exclusive games, you ask? Here are all the titles that you’ll only be able to play if you own a PS4!

Read more at VR Heads!

Lost luggage could be a thing of the past thanks to Samsonite and Vodafone

We may not have all been in the situation where our luggage has been lost on holiday, but we’re all well aware of the issues some holidaymakers and business travellers face. Luggage maker Samsonite wants to put an end to lost items full stop, and has teamed up with Vodafone to help combat lost suitcases.

Vodafone already offers a Track&Go system, which is a device you put in your bag that you can then track from your phone, and alerts you if the bag goes beyond the set geolocation radius.

Samsonite wants to build upon this technology and has introduced what it is calling Narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT). This extension to Vodafone’s system will let you view your bag’s location no matter where it is in the world, so it doesn’t have to rely on a maximum set distance from your phone. If you bag does happen to get lost en route to or from your destination, then the system will automatically provide you with the necessary contact details to help get it back. And because some flights can be long, the NB-IoT technology will have a long lasting battery life.

Samsonite’s technology isn’t ready for large-scale production just yet, but the company has committed itself to research and developing it further. A concept Track&Go case will be on display at Vodafone’s booth at Mobile World Congress, which kicks off next Monday the 27 February.

LG G6 will launch on 10 March, Galaxy S8 to follow on 21 April

Korean news outlet ET News has revealed what are allegedly the official launch dates for two of this year’s most anticipated flagship smartphones. The LG G6, which will be revealed at Mobile World Congress this Sunday the 26 February will supposedly launch in LG’s native South Korea on 10 March. There will be a preorder window from 2 to 9 March. ET News hasn’t revealed when the LG G6 will launch in US and European markets.

• LG G6: Release date, rumours and everything you need to know
• Samsung Galaxy S8: Release date, rumours and everything you need to know

The Samsung Galaxy S8 meanwhile be unveiled in New York on the 29 March finally laying to bed rumours of other possible launch dates, and will go on sale on 21 April. It means 2017 will mark the first time LG’s smartphone will go on sale before Samsung’s, but Samsung will launch the Galaxy S8 in global and domestic markets at the same time in an attempt to improve sales.

ET News reports that Samsung is waiting to see the reaction to the G6 before determining a preorder schedule. If reception to the G6 is good for example, Samsung may choose to open up preorders for the Galaxy S8 early to try and entice customers away from LG’s phone.

From the leaked renders and images we’ve seen of both phones, they look similar. Both will ditch physical front-mounted buttons in favour of larger screens, while retaining slim and easy to hold form factors. Both companies could be seen as wanting to regain consumer confidence too, as the LG G5 used modules which didn’t really take off.

• Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus: Release date, rumours and everything you need to know

The G6 will lose the modularity in favour of an all metal build. Samsung meanwhile has the Note 7 debacle in its recent history and so will be wanting to pull out all the stops with its new flagship to improve sales.

Samsung’s next smartphone chip is ready for gigabit LTE

Mobile World Congress is nearly upon us, giving Samsung ample reason to show off the latest product from its chip foundries. The company has announced the Exynos 9 Series 8895, a flagship CPU that’s made with a 10-nanometer manufacturing process. The smaller circuits, it’s hoped, will offer 27 percent better performance while drawing 40 percent less battery.

The 8895 ships with eight cores, four of which are Cortex A53s, paired with a quartet of Samsung’s custom-designed variants. The company claims that it’ll play back 4K video at 120fps as well as offering VR content at the same resolution. Security fans will also note that the 8895 comes with an additional processing unit designed to keep your fingerprint, iris and payment data securely locked away from prying eyes.

Additionally, the chip is Samsung’s first to boast a gigabit LTE modem and support for five carrier aggregation. The hardware is expected to throughput data at 1Gbps and upload those Instagram selfies at a top speed of 150Mbps. That should keep your lust for high-capacity data networks at bay while those 5G networks are built out.

If history is any indication, it’s more than likely that the Exynos 9 Series 9985 will sit at the heart of the forthcoming Galaxy S8. At least, it’s the chip that’ll be found inside the international version of the device — since the US edition of the last few flagships used Qualcomm CPUs instead. We’re likely to find out for sure in the run-up to the device’s expected launch at the tail-end of March.

Source: Samsung

Bethesda shows the insane shape-shifting potential of ‘Prey’

In the upcoming Prey, Mankind is in serious trouble. With the alien Typhon over-running the once prosperous Talos 1 space station our fate falls into the hands of unlikely protagonist, Morgan Yu. Having been experimented on and given Typhon abilities, the latest trailer shows Yu learning to mimic his surroundings, opting to defend the human race by turning into vaguely useful household objects.

Using these unique abilities, players will be able to harness the deadly power of objects found on the space station, transforming into lamps, teapots and even a freshly-ripened banana.

While these powers are unlikely to strike fear into the hearts of the demonic Typhon, the I Am Bread-esque shenanigans allow players to solve unique puzzles and access new areas. Thankfully, As Yu levels up the Mimic Matter ability, he can transform into more intimidating objects, eventually controlling the likes of Operator robots and security turrets.

Prey will also feature a slew of other Typhon abilities, including the power to control the minds of other humans. Serving as a reboot to the 2006 FPS of the same name, fans were disappointed to learn that this new entry in the franchise wasn’t the resurrection of the cancelled Prey 2. After spending some time with the upcoming game however, we’re pleased to say that the new Prey is shaping up to a unique and tense experience – and one that constantly kept us guessing.

The game will be released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on the 5th of May.