Football in 4K and Dolby Atmos, is there anything better? Our verdict

We’ve written a lot about Dolby Atmos of late, especially about the audio tech’s ability to enhance movie viewing. But it doesn’t stop there.

BT Sport has taken the bold step to accompany some of its Ultra HD presentations of live footy matches with Dolby Atmos soundtracks. And we were amongst the first to try it out.

We were invited to an exclusive screening of Liverpool vs Chelsea to find out if 4K visuals and Dolby Atmos audio are a match made in Heaven. It was the first game to be broadcast live in the format, even for viewers at home with a BT Ultra HD YouView box, a 4K telly and the right sound system. And what a match it was.

• Best TV footy ever? Liverpool v Chelsea to be broadcast in 4K and Dolby Atmos
• BT Ultra HD YouView+ review: A bold step into future 4K entertainment
• Dolby Atmos explained: What is it and how do I get it?

Watching football on the TV has always been an immersive experience. The love for your club, hatred for others, getting your mates round for food and drinks, it’s a weekly ritual. We’ve seen progress from standard definition to high definition, which made the action noticeably better, the fuzzy lines around the ball disappeared for example.

Then came 4K, with BT being the first to the punch to broadcast live sport in 4K Ultra HD.

As long as you have BT Infinity fibre broadband, the BT YouView+ 4K UHD box and the accompanying TV subscription, you can get super-sharp football in your home. BT then had another first in November 2016 when it announced it would be bringing Dolby Atmos to the home for select sporting events. We attended an exclusive event in London to watch the world’s first football match in 4K Ultra HD and Dolby Atmos, complete with half time punditry from Robbie Savage. Here are our thoughts.

Football in 4K: A thing of beauty

We’ve already experienced sport in 4K via BT’s Ultra HD sport channel as the service has been live for just over a year now. Sky Q presents matches in 4K too.

You may think that an increase in resolution won’t affect things that much, but we’d beg to differ. The extra clarity on offer really does make for an incredible viewing experience. Each screen at our event was different, so it was hard to judge exactly what BT’s service was delivering, but we settled on one display and were happy with what we saw.

The colours of the red and blue shirts were bold, punchy and vibrant, as was the green grass. The extra detail on offer meant we were also able to clearly see spots of mud all over the pitch where boots had dug up the ground. Slow motion replays really benefit from 4K, not only do they make tackles and tricks easier to see, but you’re able to see individual beads of sweat running down the players’ faces.

If you haven’t seen football in 4K, but have the opportunity to, we urge you to. Once you go 4K, you won’t want to go back.

Football with Dolby Atmos: “…as if we were sitting in the Kop…”

But it was the Dolby Atmos sound we were really interested in. Could the extra height channels and microphones placed around the stadium deliver a more immersive experience?

In a word, yes.

Right from the kick off, it was apparent that Atmos worked. The noises and cheers from the crowd were all around us, just as if we were sitting in the Kop with the other Liverpool fans. BT and Dolby were using Kef speakers with upward firing modules to deliver the height and they worked perfectly. We’d say in-ceiling speakers would be even better, but it was good to hear a more realistic setup that most people will have in their home.

We did find that commentary was lost quite a bit in the cheering. We were in a noisy environment anyway, but we could barely hear a word of what was being said.

We could hear the commentators talking, but what they were saying wasn’t clear. We’d have to listen to a match in Atmos at home to find out if this will be a regular thing or not. We didn’t feel it detracted from the experience though, the point of watching football in Dolby Atmos is to make you feel as if you’re right there in the stadium, and to that extent, it certainly did its job.

These are also early days for the format, and it’s likely BT will refine the mix for future matches. Even as it stands, football in the home (or a pub) has never sounded better.

Nintendo Plans to Launch Two or Three Mobile Games A Year

Nintendo announced on Wednesday that it plans to launch two or three mobile games every year, a day after the Japanese company made a one-third cut to its full-year operating profit outlook (via Reuters).

Yesterday, Nintendo was able to report its first quarterly profit in a year as its mobile games division started to generate revenue, but it wasn’t enough for disappointed investors who had hoped profit from games like Super Mario Run would have grown fast enough to offset falling earnings in Nintendo’s console business. Shares of Nintendo Co Ltd dropped more than 4 percent on Wednesday following the news.

Launched in December, Super Mario Run helped third-quarter revenue from mobile gaming and related merchandise reach around 7 billion yen ($61.7 million). So far downloads have hit around 78 million, although Nintendo admitted less than 10 percent of users paid the one-off $9.99 fee to unlock all of the game’s features. Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima said it would be taking steps to make the game last longer for people who had paid as well as those had yet to do so.

“We are taking a number of steps to ensure that Super Mario Run can be enjoyed for a long time, both by those who have already made the full purchase and by those who have downloaded the application but not yet made the purchase. We are also taking steps in-game to raise the ratio of purchases among consumers downloading the application for the first time.”

Putting its plans into action, Nintendo yesterday rolled out an update to Super Mario Run that includes a collection of feature additions and bug fixes, along with a new “Easy Mode”.

Nintendo’s next title, the tactical role-playing game Fire Emblem Heroes, launches on iOS tomorrow, and is a radical departure from Super Mario Run, not least because it will be a free-to-pay title, favoring micro transactions and in-game currency over a one-off unlock payment. However, like Super Mario Run, Heroes will require players to have a persistent internet connection in order to play.

Nintendo’s other planned mobile game is a currently untitled iOS version of Animal Crossing, which is expected to launch in the next fiscal year, so anytime between April 2017 and March 2018.
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Apple Overtakes Samsung As World’s Top Smartphone Vendor in Q4 2016

Apple overtook Samsung to become the world’s largest smartphone vendor in the fourth quarter of 2016 as shipments reached 439 million units.

According to independent research firm Strategy Analytics, global smartphone shipments grew 3 percent annually to hit a record 1.5 billion units in 2016. Apple shipped 78.3 million handsets in the fourth quarter of the year – around 800,000 more units than Samsung – allowing it to recapture its number one position with 18 percent global smartphone market share.

Apple shipped 78.3 million smartphones worldwide and captured 18 percent marketshare in Q4 2016, rising a steady 5 percent annually from 74.8 million units in Q4 2015. This was the iPhone’s best performance for over a year, as Apple capitalized on Samsung’s recent missteps. Samsung shipped 77.5 million smartphones worldwide in Q4 2016, dipping 5 percent annually from 81.3 million units in Q4 2015.

Bolstered by the popularity of the iPhone 7 and particularly the iPhone 7 Plus, Apple’s 5 percent increase in shipments year-over-year helped it secure a 17.8 percent share of the global smartphone market, narrowly beating Samsung’s share of 17.7 percent, which was negatively impacted by the company’s Note7 battery fiasco. Samsung captured 21 percent share for the full year, marking its lowest level since 2011.

Despite the Q4 results, Samsung maintained first position in annualized figures, with 309 million units shipped worldwide in 2016, compared to Apple’s 215 million units. Despite struggling in China against rivals like OPPO, Huawei’s impressive overseas performance helped it maintain third position, with a record 10 percent global smartphone market share in Q4 2016 – the first time the company has reached double figures – while OPPO held on to fourth position and grew 99 percent annually to capture a record 7 percent global smartphone market share.

The research comes one day after Apple released its Q1 2017 financial results, in which it reported record results over what corresponds to the fourth calendar quarter of 2016. Cook was bullish on the iPhone’s future, and talked up the smartphone’s importance across a range of segments, including home automation, health, CarPlay, and enterprise. “I think the smartphone is still in the early innings of the game,” Cook said during the earnings call. “App developers are still inventing and there are some exciting things in the pipeline that I feel really good about.”

Related Roundup: iPhone 7
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Snapseed’s first update of the year adds a new Curves tool and other features

Why it matters to you

Already a powerful photo-editing app, the addition of the Curves tool offers another handy way to get the most from your images.

Snapseed launched back in 2011 and for many smartphone-camera enthusiasts is the go-to app for knocking images into shape.

The app’s first update of 2017 landed on Tuesday, bringing with it a useful “Curves” tool for iPhone users that offers quick and precise adjustments to elements such as brightness, contrast, and color.

Anyone who’s used more advanced photo-editing software on their PC will already be familiar with Curves, though it’s likely that casual smartphone photographers will be seeing it for the first time with Snapseed’s update. While editing apps already offer a slew of ways to make adjustments, Curves is a fast and powerful way to transform your images that doesn’t take long to feel at ease with.

So, how do I use it?

After you’ve downloaded the update, open an image and tap on the pencil icon bottom right to access Snapseed’s suite of editing tools. Tap on Curves and your image will appear with a grid showing the Curve line.

Tap anywhere on the line to create an anchor point, and then drag it around to change the look of your photo. Tap multiple times to create multiple anchor points along the line, and move each one to make image adjustments, minor or major. You’ll soon start to see how different movements lead to different kinds of changes.

If you’re looking for ideas, try creating an anchor point close to the top of the line and another close to the bottom. Next, use the two points to create an “S” shape and see how the image starts to pop according to how pronounced you make the shape.

Alternatively, when you open the image, you can swipe through a large number of presets at the bottom of the display that show the anchor points for each one.

When you’re done, simply hit the check mark bottom right.

Android’s update, which also rolled out this week, doesn’t include Curves, but hopefully it’s coming soon.

Other Snapseed improvements for both iOS and Android include better face detection for the app’s Face filter, and the added ability to force line breaks in multi-line text styles. It’s also improved the grain quality for black and white edits.

More: Photo editing apps you can get for free

Nik Software, the San Diego-based company behind the free Snapseed app, was bought by Google in 2012. For a couple of years following the acquisition, few updates were issued for the app, leading many to wonder if the software would be shuttered.

However, since the launch of version 2.0 in 2015, multiple features have been added in a bid to retain its existing users and attract new ones looking for a simple yet powerful photo editing option for their smartphone.

Japan’s ‘fishing net’ plan to clear junk from space has hit a snag

Why it matters to you

To ensure the safe operation of satellites orbiting Earth, as well as the safety of future space missions, it’s vital that the issue of space junk is dealt with soon.

Well, no one ever said it was going to be easy.

Japan’s high-tech space junk collector appears to have fallen at the first hurdle after the country’s space agency, JAXA, admitted on Tuesday that efforts to deploy the vital “fishing net” component had so far failed.

The unmanned Kounotori 6 spacecraft departed from the International Space Station (ISS) over the weekend and on Tuesday was supposed to begin its first trial run to clear up some of the trash orbiting Earth.

If it’d successfully deployed, the net – essentially a 700-meter-long electrodynamic tether comprising thin wires of stainless steel and aluminum – would’ve created a magnetic force strong enough to affect the movement of targeted trash, slowing it down and causing its orbit to decay. The idea is that the junk would burn up as it entered Earth’s atmosphere.

But despite JAXA’s best efforts, the all-important tether has so far failed to extend.

The agency promised it would carry on trying to get its experimental technology up and running, though it only has until the weekend as the spacecraft is set to disintegrate when it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere on Monday.

More: This company wants to combat space junk with a fleet of satellite repair vehicles

Space junk left behind during five decades of space exploration is becoming a serious issue. Old orbiters, pieces of disused rockets, and a large number of fragments created by collisions are all orbiting our planet, creating a dangerous hazard for the ISS inhabitants and satellites, as well as future space missions.

NASA says “many millions” of pieces of space debris are currently orbiting Earth, with around 20,000 fragments larger than a softball.

“They travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft,” the U.S. space agency reports on its website.

Other proposed solutions for clearing up space junk include  laser systems, solar-sail “parachutes,” trash-eating spacecraft, and targeted air puffs designed, like JAXA’s experimental system, to force the junk to de-orbit and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

But as things stand, all that space garbage looks like it could be circling our planet for some time to come.

Acer Spin 5 review: An affordable all-rounder

Tech is getting more expensive. Apple, Tesla, Nescafe and just about every other company out there has either already put up prices in the UK, or is planning to do so.

That makes laptops like the Acer Spin 5 all the more important. Normal folk who were on the cusp of buying a MacBook last year are being priced out like Brixton flat buyers, so more affordable laptops such as this are there to take care of the wounded.

The Spin 5 is flexible, has a great screen, is powerful enough and has the price we’re after. But it’s not built like a MacBook. Does that matter for the money?

Acer Spin 5 review: Design

• Plastic body, metal lid
• 19.7 x 329 x 229mm; 1.62kgs

Dealing with the worst bit first: the Acer Spin 5 doesn’t feel expensive, or all that tough.

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Everything but the lid is plastic, and even that one bit of metal doesn’t instantly look like the stuff because it uses a cross-hatched pattern finish. There’s a reason why Asus and HP haven’t nicked this idea. Plain anodised or lightly brushed metal looks better.

This cross-hatched style is used on the plastic bottom too, but the plastic inside, around the keyboard, is faux brushed metal.

Polarising mixed finishes aside, the Acer Spin 5 is actually a very neutral-looking laptop. All-black, you only really notice the textures when you get up close.

Using plastic rather than metal might lead to you assume the Spin 5 is going to be light, but at 1.62kgs it’s actually only just light enough to fit in the slim and light category.

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However, at the price the big rival is the HP Pavilion x360, which is only fractionally thinner and lighter. If you want something truly slim and light, look for a laptop with a standard hinge or prepare to pay more. 

The one Acer Spin 5 build element that continued to annoy us after the first five minutes is the flex-happy keyboard surround. Where, for example, most mid-price HP laptops feel built to withstand being punched, this one bends when you press moderately hard around the trackpad or keyboard.

It does seem to only be this one panel of plastic that’s a bit weak, though. The lid isn’t too bendy and the underside plastic seems much tougher too. You don’t need to worry about the Acer Spin 5 falling apart in your rucksack, it’s just a pity the weakest part of the laptop is the one you touch most often.

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Acer’s own Swift 3 has a much more impressive build for slightly less cash. What that laptop doesn’t have is the Spin 5’s flexible hinge. Like a Lenovo Yoga 11 710, the hinge flips all the way around to meet the keyboard’s backside. It’s the most homely of hybrids, ready to sit on your kitchen worktop and act as a digital cookbook, or sit on your paunch to let you watch Netflix when you’re in bed, feeling literally too lazy to move.

Acer Spin 5 review: Screen and connectivity

• 13.3-inch, 1920 x 1080 resolution screen (800:1 contrast)
• 1x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0, Ethernet, HDMI, microSD card ports

Given the hinge makes this a modern kind of laptop, we’re a little surprised to see Acer leave out a USB Type-C port, fast becoming the norm for all but the cheapest of laptops. You get one USB 3.0, two USB 2.0, an HDMI and a microSD slot (why it’s not a standard SD we have no idea).

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The Spin 5’s screen is fairly tablet-like; it has a touchscreen, a glossy finish and decent-if-not-remarkable 1080p resolution.

It’s a very good screen for the price, with contrast better than some much more expensive laptops (at 800:1) and colour performance on-par with many of them too. Sure, a new MacBook, Razer Blade Stealth or an OLED laptop is going to make colours pop a lot more, but if you’re after a normal colour laptop rather than a super-saturated wide gamut one, the Spin 5 fits the bill.

The screen is fairly bright too. We tried using it at a sun-soaked end of a pub (we don’t work outside when the temperature hovers around 1C) and didn’t have to use full brightness to see what was going on.

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For the nerds out there, its max brightness is 303cd/m. That’s pretty bright, if not supernova enough for Acer to claim it as a key feature.

Acer Spin 5 review: Keyboard and trackpad

• Shallow press keys
• Built-in backlight
• Plastic trackpad

As long as you’re not too bothered by the plastic feel, the Acer Spin 5 makes a good roving worker laptop. The keyboard is good, with the same high-quality feel we’ve seen in Acer’s other recent mid-range laptops. Keys have a soft action and are typical of the classic ultrabook design in their shallow style, but are comfortable to type on for hours.

Pocket-lint

There’s a backlight too, making it easier to work in the dark. That’s something you don’t even get on the top-end Acer Swift 7.

Other Acer laptops like the cheaper Acer Swift 3 feel better still, though, because you don’t have to deal with the slight flexing of the plastic plate in which the keyboard is mounted. It makes a keyboard feel that bit less well-defined.

The trackpad is solid aside from the issue that we’ve already raised what feels like a dozen times already elsewhere: it’s plastic. This means when you glide your finger back and forth, it won’t feel as smooth as a high-end glass pad. Most laptops around this price use plastic, though.

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After using the Acer Spin 5 for a couple of days, the only part of the pad that continues to grate is the button layout. This is a pad with integrated buttons, but still gives the left and right a 50-50 split of the pad’s width. We find relegating the R button to the bottom-right works better. It’s a tactic HP uses in its similarly-priced Envy laptops.

Acer Spin 5 review: Performance

• Intel Core i5-7200U (2.5GHz dual-core)
• Built-in Intel HD 620graphics
• 8GB RAM; 256GB SSD

Pay more and you can get a nicer frame and fancier trackpad, sure, but the Spin 5 has almost exactly the same power as many more expensive ultraportable laptops. Our particular model uses an Intel Core i5-7200U, a fairly recent CPU for January 2017.

If you already have a last-gen laptop with a Core i5, the improvements are nothing to get too excited about, but the Acer Spin 5 does have enough power to make Windows 10 sing. As the laptop uses a 256GB SSD there’s no hard drive to slow things down either.

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The 8GB RAM gives you room to open up a bunch of programs without the system slowing to a crawl. Right now that’s the amount we recommend to any laptop-buyer on a budget.

Unless you’re a hardcore gamer/video editor/power user, you’ll have no problems with the Spin 5’s performance. It’s not laggy, and in general use feels close enough to as fast as Windows machines get. For the basics, anyway.

Like almost every slim and light laptop, the Spin 5 does not have a dedicated GPU, relying on the Intel HD 620 baked into Kaby Lake processors. These integrated graphics chipsets aren’t completely useless, but by the standards of the PC gaming elite, they are. You can play The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim just fine (1080p, low/mid settings), but you probably shouldn’t even bother approaching The Witcher 3 as you’ll get sub-15fps, and not even at 1080p either.

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This stands for every slim laptop bar the Microsoft Surface Book, though, which has a bit more going on under its magnesium surface. Under pressure the Acer Spin 5’s fans do make a bit of noise, but as it’s not a high-pitch whine we don’t mind too much.

Acer Spin 5 review: Battery life & sound

• Around 10-hours battery per charge

Battery life is great too. When using the default power management software, working on the laptop for an hour with the brightness at around 65 per cent, typing away as we usually do, ate just 10 per cent of the battery.

Feed the Spin 5 an easy task and you’ll get around the 10-hours of use. There’s definitely a good chunk of performance management going on, though, because Skyrim runs much slower away from the power adapter using the standard battery saver plan. It doesn’t ruin Windows 10’s feel, mind.

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The last of the Acer Spin 5’s little compromises is speaker quality. They don’t sound bad, aren’t harsh or paper-thin, but also don’t have the sheer volume or middy bulk of the best mid-range laptops.

Treat the Spin 5 as a portable laptop and the positioning can be an issue too. The driver grilles sit on the flat underside of the bottom rather than at the curve of the edges, meaning you tend to partially block them when using the laptop on your knees. Even in other positions thanks to the hinge they’re not ideally placed.

Verdict

If you’re in the US, you can grab the Acer Spin 5 at a great price right now: at $499 for the entry-level model it’s highly competitive for this sort of laptop; at the time of writing you’ll even find the 256GB SSD version for that price. It’s a bargain.

In the UK you’ll pay £629 for the 256GB version though. It’s the old awkward US-to-UK price problem magnified thanks to the diminished pound. However, even with this considered the Acer Spin 5 is a good-value buy – as long as you don’t mind living with the less-than-impressive build.

In context the Spin 5 is £250 cheaper than the Asus ZenBook Flip and £20 less than the HP Pavilion x360. It can’t quite outsmart the Lenovo Yoga 11 710 in terms of price though and while the 2016 version of the HP is more solid, the Acer has a much better screen and a more neutral look. All that makes it a solid, affordable contender.

Acer Spin 5: The alternatives to consider

Lenovo Yoga 11 710

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• £549

If power isn’t the be-all and end-all of your purchase then the silent and fan-free Core M processor inside this flexible and affordable Yoga might be the perfect purchase.

HP Envy x360

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• £779

A little pricier than the Pavilion x360 option, the Envy ups the build quality compared to the Acer. If that’s important then this is a viable alternative.

Samsung sends out invite for product launch on 26 February, Galaxy Tab S3 expected

Samsung has laid all rumours to rest about its presence at MWC by sending out an official invitation for a press conference on 26 February 2017. It’s a day before Mobile World Congress officially begins, and is the same day that LG will be unveiling the G6 smartphone. LG’s event actually takes place earlier in the day at 12, while Samsung’s is scheduled for 7PM CET.

• Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 “confirmed” for MWC reveal, Samsung’s iPad rival less than a month away

There’s an image to accompany the invite which looks like a device, which are much deliberation, we believe to be the lower bezel of the tablet with the home button and fingerprint scanner in the centre. As for why Samsung wants to give the home button particular focus in the invite remains to be seen.

• Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 review: A genuine iPad rival?
• Mobile World Congress 2017: Nokia, Sony, Huawei smartphones and more

The Galaxy Tab S3 is expected to come with the same 9.7in 2048 x 1536 display as the Galaxy Tab S2, but get a bump in processor speed, with Samsung said to be using a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 with 4GB RAM. There should be two versions of the tablet: Wi-Fi only and Wi-Fi with LTE with prices expected to start at around 700,000 Won (£485, $608), but as ever pricing is just speculation for now. Pocket-lint will of course be attending MWC at the end of February, so we’ll bring you all the latest news and hands-on when we can.

Samsung Galaxy MWC 2017 press conference: Here’s how to watch it and what will be launched

Samsung has announced that it will be holding a press conference on the eve of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the end of February.

For those hoping to see a new flagship smartphone, in the guise of the Samsung Galaxy S8, we’re sorry to say we think you’ll be disappointed. That’s more likely to be launched at a dedicated event in a month or so.

However, Samsung has revealed it will be unveiling “new products” on its news site, so here are some of our thoughts on what will be announced (based on current rumours) and how to watch the event yourself.

Samsung Galaxy MWC 2017 press conference: What time does it start?

The Samsung press conference starts at 7pm (CET) on Sunday 26 February, the day before MWC 2017 begins in earnest. That means it’ll be livestreamed from 6pm GMT, 1pm ET and 10am PT.

We suspect it’ll run for an hour.

Samsung Galaxy MWC 2017 press conference: Where can I watch it?

Samsung will be streaming the event online as it happens. We’re hoping to host it here on Pocket-lint with details available closer the time.

It will also be available to watch online at http://www.samsung.com/galaxy and on the Samsung Newsroom website.

Samsung

Samsung Galaxy MWC 2017 press conference: Why not “Unpacked”?

Samsung usually calls its Mobile World Congress press events Unpacked, but has opted to buck the trend this time.

We believe that’s because the Unpacked events are specifically held to launch new smartphones, be they Galaxy S or Note devices.

If anything, the lack of Unpacked on the invite suggests that the much-rumoured Galaxy S8 will not be the focus. We might see something on it at the very end though, as a tease.

It is thought that Samsung will hold a dedicated Unpacked event in March instead, with rumours currently pointing to a New York location.

Samsung Galaxy MWC 2017 press conference: What will be launched?

With Samsung saying the “new products” will be announced – plural – here are our thoughts on what will and won’t be at the event:

Samsung Galaxy S8

As we’ve written above, this event will not be used to officially announce the Samsung Galaxy S8. That is more likely to have its own dedicated event a month or so later.

There might be a little tease at the end of the press conference though – Samsung has done similar with other products in the past. So make sure you watch it through.

• Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus: What’s the story so far?
• Samsung Galaxy S8 vs Galaxy S7: What’s the rumoured difference?
• Samsung Galaxy S8 vs LG G6: What’s the rumoured difference?

Samsung Galaxy Tab S3

This is surely a banker. A recent rumour heavily suggested that the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 tablet would be unveiled at Mobile World Congress, backed up by a quote from a Samsung spokesman. And you only need look at the full invite to see part of a device that looks similar to the bottom of the Tab S2.

We believe, therefore, the Galaxy Tab S3 will be the star of the show.

Samsung Galaxy A5 and A3

Already formerly announced, during CES in Las Vegas in January, the Samsung Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 smartphones are now on pre-order in Europe. We’d be surprised if there wasn’t a mention about the rollout across the region during MWC.

It isn’t bringing the Galaxy A7 over here.

New Samsung Gear smartwatch

With the Samsung Gear S3 Classic and Frontier smartwatches still relatively new it is unlikely that we’ll see a replacement at this year’s Mobile World Congress, even though it is traditionally a launch ground for wearables.

Instead, we might see a new collaboration version, with a designer or two.

We’ll add to this list as more rumours emerge on the build up to the Samsung MWC 2017 press conference, do check back.

NASA’s new satellite radiator is a work of art

Satellite radiators are typically huge and heavy — not at all ideal for tiny spacefarers like CubeSats. To address small satellites’ need, NASA Goddard technologist Vivek Dwivedi has teamed up with Brigham Young University scientists to develop a “smart” radiator inspired by origami. The three-dimensional structure made out of temperature-sensitive materials like shape-memory alloys can fold and unfold to preserve and shed heat, respectively. It also folds when it wants to soak up heat from the sun or the Earth, because the team found that the deeper the cavities, the greater the absorption.

The Brigham Young scientists are still working to enhance the radiator’s design, though you can see the prototype’s structure in the image above. Dwivedi, on the other hand, is focusing on developing a vanadium oxide coating that can enhance its heat-retaining and shedding capabilities. The material begins as a semi-conductor and transitions into a metal state when it reaches 154 degrees Fahrenheit. Since its ability to radiate heat increases when it switches to metal state and temperatures fluctuate wildly in space, Dwivedi is trying to find a way to lower its transition temperature. He plans to do so by applying very thin layers of of silver and titanium to the vanadium oxide.

The researchers aren’t quite done developing the radiator yet. But when they’re finished, it can be attached to any part of a small satellite’s surface.

Source: NASA

TalkTalk chief Dido Harding is stepping down

After weathering the worst of a major customer hack in October 2015, TalkTalk CEO Dido Harding is stepping down after seven years in charge. In a regulatory announcement today, the provider confirmed that Harding will stay with the company until May, when Tristia Harrison — who is currently the Managing Director of TalkTalk’s Consumer division — will replace her. To assist with the transition, TalkTalk founder Charles Dunstone will scale back his role at Dixons Carphone and serve as Executive Chairman.

Unsurprisingly, the bulletin doesn’t acknowledge the difficult circumstances that the company has faced over the past 15 months. With clearer operating strategies and a recent rebrand behind her, Harding says she will leave TalkTalk having “laid the foundations for long term growth,” to concentrate on her career in public service. She is a non-executive member of the Court of the Bank of England, a member of the House of Lords and a trustee of Doteveryone.

Since the hack in 2015, which affected around 170,000 customers, TalkTalk has worked hard to rebuild its reputation. Free upgrades were offered to customers to stop them leaving, but that didn’t stop 100,000 subscribers from jumping ship. In December, a teenage hacker that played a key role in the breach was sentenced to a 12-month youth rehabilitation order, after pleading guilty to seven charges under the Computer Misuse Act.

In a separate announcement, TalkTalk said that revenue had fallen on the previous year, caused by a high number of customers renewing contracts or accepting new price deals. Just yesterday, the company introduced a number of short-term price cuts, as well as price freezes until 2019. “Between now and May, we will work together on a handover that maintains focus on this years’ performance and enables the new team to prepare for the next financial year and beyond,” Harding said.

Source: TalkTalk