Casio Pro Trek WSD-F20S takes Android Wear 2.0 to an even tougher level

It’s Baselworld this week, the world’s biggest watch trade show being held in Switzerland, so we expect to be inundated with smartwatch launches.

Casio, for example, has announced a more rugged, luxury version of its WSD-F20 we saw at CES in January.

The Casio Pro Trek WSD-F20S is powered by Android Wear 2.0 and is extremely limited edition – only 500 models are being made.

Its main differences over the standard version are a sapphire crystal face and ion plating.

The smartwatch itself comes with a 1.32-inch TFT LCD display, with a resolution of 320 x 300. It has Bluetooth 4.1 and Wi-Fi connectivity, plus its own GPS chip on board.

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It is water resistant down to five metres. The battery is claimed to last more than one day through “normal use” and takes approximately two hours to charge fully.

The limited edition version comes in black and blue, with a special case. It is compatible with both Android and iOS, thanks to the new Android Wear software.

Price and availability is yet to be revealed, but Pocket-lint will be at Baselworld this week to check it out in the flesh. We’ll also be looking at all the Android Wear 2.0 smartwatches on display, so check back often.

Pocket-lint Gadget Awards 2017 nominations open: We want to hear from you

Towards the end of each year, we host our awards ceremony to reveal the best gadgets from the previous 12 months.

The Pocket-lint Gadget Awards is now in its 13th year and we’re doing things a little different to before in order to ensure the very best products rise to the top.

As always, the awards ceremony will be held later in the year – on 14 November 2017 at Church House Westminster in London – but we’re opening the nominations process now. If you have already seen a game, gadget, car or service you particularly think is worthy of acclaim, you can use our nominations form to give us the heads up.

You can continue to do so until mid-September as the longlist of eligible products will not be drawn until 19 September 2017. After that time you’ll then get a chance to vote, when we open for public voting once the shortlist is announced on 3 October.

We’ve also extended the amount of Pocket-lint Gadgets Awards categories this year. There are now 19 categories in total, with 18 of them nominated and voted for by yourself and tech industry luminaries combined.

Here are the categories, including the overall product of the year which is gleaned from the winners of each of the individual categories. It’s the one with the most amount of votes overall:

• Best game
• Best interchangeable lens camera
• Best compact camera
• Best smartphone
• Best tablet / 2-in-1
• Best laptop
• Best on-ear headphones
• Best in-ear headphones
• Best TV
• Best home entertainment device
• Best streaming service
• Best smarthome device
• Best wireless speaker
• Best games device
• Best VR device (including 360 cameras)
• Best fitness gadget
• Best smartwatch
• Best car
• Product of the year

To see last year’s winners for an idea of what to vote for, you can head here: The Pocket-lint Gadget Awards winners.

You can also head to our dedicated Pocket-lint Gadget Awards 2017 hub to find our more about this year’s event.

Jeep Cherokee Overland review: Off-road heritage with on-road comfort

The mid-size SUV market isn’t short of options: Germany is represented by the Audi Q5 and BMW X3, Japan has the excellent Nissan Qashqai, Seat has just released the Ateca to fight Spain’s corner, and America has the Jeep Cherokee.

The Cherokee has been around since 1974, although its current form of crossover SUV was only introduced in 2014, but the thing that’s remained constant is Jeep’s heritage for proper off-road performance.

Can a go-anywhere, tackle any terrain attitude help the Cherokee stand out amongst its peers to deserve a spot on your driveway? We spent a week with one to find out.

Jeep Cherokee review: Design

Being a review model, we were loaned a Cherokee with all the bells and whistles attached in the Overland version, which sits at the top-end of the series, just below the fully rugged Trailhawk edition. It gets a wealth of kit as standard, including full Nappa leather interior, dual-pane panoramic sunroof, Jeep’s Active Drive 1 4WD system (more on that later) and an 8.4-inch touchscreen display with pretty much every conceivable connection you could wish for.

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The Overland edition is essentially a more luxurious version of the Cherokee, to help it better rival cars such as the Q5 and X3. It’s Jeep adjusting to the market’s demands. While it looks similar to the other models in the series, it gets a few aesthetic changes, namely in the form of body coloured bumpers and a new set of 18-inch wheels.

It’s an imposing looking car, coming in at just under two tonnes on the scales, 4.6m (4,624mm) in length and 1.8m (1,859mm) in width. But in spite of that, it’s surprisingly simple to manoeuvre around town and park, thanks to good visibility all round, plus a rear reversing camera which displays on that 8.4-inch screen.

We’re pretty happy with the Cherokee’s looks overall – but that face is clearly going to split the pack. It’s a big, statement car. Our personal niggle is with the front grille and how it bends over the front of the bonnet – it lacks the boldness of its Grand Cherokee sibling.

Jeep Cherokee review: Interior

Those leather seats offer heat and ventilation capabilities as standard – meaning cool air can be pushed out the perforations in the leather –  complete with Overland logo stitched into them, and carpet floor mats (which on occasion we had to run our feet through as they’re incredibly deep and soft), and a leather-covered dashboard (at first we thought the dashboard was plastic, but some stitching along the top shows there’s more to it than first meets the eye).

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The chunky steering wheel, which has a plethora of buttons, has a small segment of wood at the top, which, while nice to hold onto as you’re cruising along, feels slightly out of place considering there’s no wood anywhere else inside.

To some, the number of buttons on the steering wheel could be a bit intimidating. There’s certainly a lot to get your head around. Volume and track skip buttons are on the other side of the wheel, where you fingers rest if you hold your hands in the “10 and 2” position. We’re used to them being on the front side in other cars. Instead, the front hosts buttons to navigate the 7-inch multifunction display, adaptive cruise control, phone calls and voice commands.

Flanking that centre 8.4-inch touchscreen is a full colour 7-inch driver’s instrument cluster display. It’s not going to rival Audi’s full Virtual Cockpit, but it’s certainly a step up over the 3.5-inch monochrome display on lower-specced models.

We always felt relaxed and comfortable when driving the Cherokee. The seats – which coupled with the armrest almost emulate an armchair – can be electronically adjusted to virtually any position you wish. Finding a comfortable driving position shouldn’t be too difficult, although we would like the steering wheel to feature reach adjustment, instead of just height.

Jeep Cherokee review: Interface and connections

The 8.4-inch display dominates the front of the cabin and runs on Uconnect, an operating system used across the FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) group.

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This means the Jeep Cherokee doesn’t have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto – however, it does have Siri eyes-free, which means you can press a voice command button on the steering wheel to activate, then voice commands such as sending messages or navigating to a destination (provided you have an iPhone connected, of course).

Uconnects is still a simple-to-use system and you’re not left short of ways to connect to it. There are two USB inputs (one by the gearstick and one in the armrest), an SD card slot, CD player (retro, but there you go), AUX input and Bluetooth.

There are seven quick-access icons along the bottom of the screen, which can be switched out for others depending on the ones you think you’ll use most. We left ours with the default settings of radio, media, controls, apps, climate, nav and phone.

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The system is quick to respond to commands and flicking between menus is a breeze. Everything is clearly laid out and we like how all the information we need is given a place, no matter which sub screen you’re on.

However, sun streaming through the passenger window can make the screen hard to see. We tried turning up the brightness up as far as it could go to get around this, but it’s more down to the angles at play – it would be great if the screen could be angled slightly towards the driver.

The 7-inch multifunction display is a little more irksome, though. It’s quite slow to scroll through the 10 different screens and we felt that only a few of them were genuinely useful. The media screen only shows you what input you’re using, but no song or radio station information, so you can’t use it to select different tracks, for example. We left ours on the fuel economy screen most of the time, but we would’ve liked to be able to rearrange it so the average MPG was more prominent.

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When using the built-in satellite navigation – the Overland comes with it as standard – it prompts a pop-up on the 7-inch display so you only have to glance down. These are clear and detailed, too. We did find the sat nav didn’t always take us on the best route though. We spent some time in Devon with our test vehicle, and rather than take a main route to a small town, it took car-width back roads instead. Perhaps the car just wants to show off its all-terrain abilities.

Jeep Cherokee review: Performance

Our Overland was fitted with a 2.2-litre MultiJet II engine (200bhp), mated to a nine-speed automatic gearbox and Active Drive 1 system. There’s only one other option for the Overland edition: the same engine, but with Jeep’s Active Drive 2, which includes a low-range mode for the gearbox if you’re really going to put its off-road credentials to the test.

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It’s certainly punchy, put your foot to the floor and all 200 horses will gallop to 60mph in just over eight seconds, which isn’t bad considering the car’s weight. If you do put your foot straight down then the automatic box is a little slow to respond though; it has to think about your request before coming up with the goods.

As is common with big, burly off-roaders, fuel economy isn’t the greatest. We managed to average around 42mpg on a five hour drive to Devon, but it still used a full tank of diesel. We’ve seen worse from some others, though, so it’s not a major sticking point.

The standard acoustic front windows and windscreen help keep wind and road noise to a minimum when behind the wheel. We had our music turned up for most of our driving time – hard not to, as the Overland edition comes with a nine speaker Alpine sound system that can go loud and low, thanks to an included subwoofer – so didn’t hear much anyway. But we muted the tunes when on the motorway and could only hear a whisper of wind (it was actually the air vents on our review model providing a more annoying whistling sound when pushing out cold air, so we quickly turned them off).

There is a bit of body roll in the bends, so the Cherokee doesn’t always feel completely planted to the road, but steering is nicely weighted and pretty precise. Driving around twisty Devonshire roads put this Jeep to the test, and we found ourselves smiling at the performance a lot more than we expected to.

Jeep Cherokee review: Active Drive

The Active Drive 1 system fitted to our model is represented by a dial next to the gear stick that lets you choose from four settings: Auto, Snow, Sport and Sand/Mud. Auto intelligently assess the road conditions and whether you’re going up an incline to adjust the power being sent to all the wheels.

Sport disengages traction control – though you can turn it back on – and makes the Cherokee that little bit more fierce, by making gear changes a little quicker and sending 60 per cent of the engine’s power to the rear wheels.

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The other two modes don’t make much difference on normal road conditions, but they work by sending power to different wheels as and when required.

If you’re someone who loves or needs greater off-road abilities and will be buying a Cherokee for that very reason, you’ll want to check out the Active Drive 2 system which has the low ratio mode – ideal for ascending and descending hills with much better skill (but that we didn’t test in this review vehicle).

Verdict

As an everyday SUV the Cherokee offers unconventional looks without neglecting its off-road hook. Visually it’s not going to be for everyone, but that’s a matter of taste.

Our Overland model came with the wealth of kit as standard, plus the technology pack, all totalling just under £45,000. An equivalent Audi Q5 or BMW X5 would cost nearer to the £50,000 mark or more. But for that extra £5k the German brands offer a slightly more luxurious interior and complete package when it comes to tech controls.

As a multi-purpose vehicle the Jeep only really has competition in the Land Rover Discovery, as both these companies have true expertise when it comes to off-roading. Again, the new Discovery gets little to nothing wrong, which makes the Jeep a trickier proposition. We would’ve liked the Cherokee to feel more planted to the road, again putting it slightly behind its rivals.

If you know you’re going to find yourself stuck in the mud on a regular basis, or want to go green-laning as a hobby, the Jeep Cherokee earns a place on your considerations list. It’s just less likely than the more obvious competition to come out on top as first choice.

The Samsung DeX will turn the Galaxy S8 into a PC

Real-life photos of the Desktop Experience Station for the Samsung Galaxy S8 have leaked online via Winfuture.de, less than a week until the company’s latest flagship officially launches.

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The Desktop Experience Station, or DeX for short, is a dock that you put the Galaxy S8 or S8 Plus into, and for them to then act like a proper PC.

The dock doesn’t have wireless charging built-in unfortunately, but it does has a static USB Type-C port for you to insert into the phone. You’re then given two USB 2.0 ports, a 100 Mbps Ethernet port and an HDMI output that can power 4K monitors at up to 30 GPs.

As regular PCs have cooling fans, so too does the DeX dock, to make sure the Galaxy S8 doesn’t overheat. Samsung certainly doesn’t want a repeat of the Galaxy Note 7 debacle.

Winfuture.de has only obtained pictures of the dock itself, and not of it working with Galaxy S8 smartphone attached, so it’s still unclear exactly how the two will function together and how they will rival a traditional PC or laptop.

Considering the DeX station will cost €149.99, it could certainly prove to be a worthwhile accessory for the inbound flagship.

We’d expect Samsung to provide more details at the phone’s official launch next Wednesday the 29 March.

You can now use Amazon Alexa on Huawei Mate 9: Here’s how it works

Remember when Huawei said it would bring Amazon Alexa to the Mate 9 phone? Well, today is the day.

At CES 2017 in January, the Chinese first manufacturer announced that an over-the-air update would deliver a “Huawei Alexa app” to Mate 9 customers in the US. That update is now rolling out, meaning soon you can activate intelligent voice control on Huawei’s phone. You’ll be able to do almost everything with Alexa on Mate 9 that you can do with Alexa on an Amazon Echo-branded speakers.

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Huawei/Pocket-lint

How does Alexa work on Mate 9?

When the Huawei Alexa app rolls out to your Mate 9 via an over-the-air update, you’ll have to manually launch the app every time in order to use Alexa. There’s no hot-word detection in the current version of the app, and Huawei didn’t reveal any plans to add such functionality.

What can you do with Alexa on Mate 9?

The Huawei Mate app offers many Alexa features, like the ability to controll your smart home devices, check the news, shop, listen to Audible content, and more. While we haven’t had the chance to play with the Huawei Alexa app yet, Huawei told Pocket-lint that the experience is largely voice-driven, for people on the go. But it still offer access to “features and scenarios” you expect from Alexa.

Those include the ability to control your smart lights, smart thermostats, smart locks, and smart fans and access to fun games like Jeopardy, Magic Door, and 20 Questions, as well as skills, news flash briefings. You’ll also have the ability to create shopping lists, order items with voice shopping, and cue up podcasts and Audible content. But you won’t be able tap into every Alexa feature.

For instance, you can’t yet set alarms.

What can’t you do with Alexa on Mate 9?

Huawei said timers/alarms are coming soon. Also, you can’t yet access music like Spotify or even TuneIn briefings through the app. These abilities will come later this year. Huawei also told Pocket-lint that the Huawei Alexa app doesn’t offer geolocation, so if you want Alexa to serve up location-specified results to your questions, you’ll have to manually input your location in Amazon’s own Alexa app.

Also, when you’re sitting at home near an Echo, then load up the Huawei Alexa app and say “Alexa”, both your phone and the speaker will start going off. Unlike Google Assistant AI on a Pixel device and in the Google Home speaker, there’s is no intelligent handing off of responses. But the Mate 9 does boast a full mic system with noise cancellation, so it should your hear commands from across the room.

How do you manage Alexa on Mate 9?

You’ll still need the Amazon Alexa app installed on your device to manage settings, features, and skills for Amazon’s voice assistant. And Huawei said multiple Mate 9 devices can be connected to the same account. So, if everyone in your family owns Mate 9 devices but uses the same Amazon account for Alexa (for whatever reason), you can just log in and manage them through the Amazon Alexa app.

When does Alexa roll out to Mate 9?

The Huawei Alexa app is exclusive to Mate 9 and will exclusively become available to all Mate 9 users in the US simultaneously on 22 March 2017. Huawei didn’t reveal any plans for an international roll out. Pocket-lint plans to post a review when we’ve had a chance to really test it out.

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LG is finally launching its mobile payment system (in Korea)

LG is finally ready to debut its Samsung and Apple Pay rival now that it has forged a partnership with US-based firm Dynamics Inc. According to Reuters and Yohnap News, the Korean tech giant plans to launch its mobile payment system aptly called “LG Pay” in its home country this June. It will use Dynamics’ wireless magnetic technology and will work with existing credit card terminals, just like Samsung’s solution — you only need to tap your phone against the device to make a purchase.

The service will first be available through the LG G6, which is already available in Korea. It’ll roll out to LG’s other phones later through a software update. Unfortunately, the company hasn’t officially announced the service’s details yet, so you’ll have to wait a bit to get your questions answered. It’s still unclear if and when LG Pay will be released elsewhere and if it will charge fees like Apple Pay does.

Source: Reuters, Yonhap News

Critical security flaws found in LastPass on Chrome, Firefox

Last year Google Project Zero researcher Tavis Ormandy quickly found some “obvious” security problems in the popular password manager LastPass, and now he’s done it again. Last week Ormandy mentioned finding an exploit in one version of its extension for Firefox, before following that up with a new bug that affected both Chrome and Firefox, and finally a third vulnerability that could allow “stealing passwords for any domain.”

The first vulnerability has apparently not been addressed yet, which Ormandy mentions may be the result of Mozilla needing time to review the updated extension before pushing it to users. Based on his tweet, it could reveal a user’s password, but not all of the details have been revealed yet.

The issue reported by Tavis Ormandy has been resolved. We will provide additional details on our blog soon.

— LastPass (@LastPass) March 21, 2017

We are aware of reports of a Firefox add-on vulnerability. Our security is investigating and working on issuing a fix.

— LastPass (@LastPass) March 22, 2017

The second issue could be more serious, with the ability to steal a user’s passwords or, if the binary version of the extension is installed, run any code the attacker tells it to (in an example, Ormandy causes the target’s computer to open a Calculator program.) According to LastPass the issue has been resolved, although a promised follow-up blog post with more details has yet to appear.

I found another bug in LastPass 4.1.35 (unpatched), allows stealing passwords for any domain. Full report will be on the way shortly. pic.twitter.com/9VkV7R3vud

— Tavis Ormandy (@taviso) March 21, 2017

There’s even less info available about the latest vulnerability identified, although the version number (4.1.35) matches a LastPass changelog note for its most recent Internet Explorer add-on.

The pace of these discoveries and the lack of information from LastPass is certainly troubling, although using a password manager to maintain unique passwords can help protect you from being hacked. We’ve contacted the company and will update this post with any news, however, it may be wise to disable the affected browser extensions for now. If you’re suddenly looking for another service to store your important login information, Tavis (who makes a habit of poking holes in security products) suggested KeePass, a manager that doesn’t use browser extensions to keep a layer of security between websites and your vault.

Oops, new LastPass bug that affects 4.1.42 (Chrome&FF). RCE if you use the “Binary Component”, otherwise can steal pwds. Full report on way. pic.twitter.com/y92vm3Ibxd

— Tavis Ormandy (@taviso) March 20, 2017

Source: Tavis Ormandy (Twitter), LastPass (Twitter), LastPass Support Forum

UK banks finally learn how to clear cheques in a day

Despite a huge rise in online and contactless payments, cheques are still ridiculously popular. In 2016 alone, Brits sent over 477 million of them, making their recipients wait up to five days to get their hands on the money. For decades, the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company has facilitated this delay by requiring banks to send them to a clearing centre — which involves a system of checking, verifying and transportation around the country — but that wait will soon be reduced to one day under new rules unveiled today.

From October 2017, banks will be able to utilise the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company’s new industry-wide imaging system. Customers will pay them into their bank as usual but banks will swap images of the cheques instead of popping them in the post. “The new system will mean that if they pay in a cheque on a weekday they will be able to withdraw the funds by 23.59 on the next weekday (excluding bank holidays) at the latest,” said the organisation in a statement.

Some banks, including Barclays and Lloyds, have already trialled a similar technology in their apps. Customers can access funds (limited to around £500) by taking a photo of a cheque using their smartphone. However, this was limited to customers with the same bank.

The Cheque and Credit Clearing Company notes that while some banks and building societies will go live from October 30th, it will take until “the second half of 2018” for all UK institutions to get on board. The move will also put an end to the practice of “floating”, a process where customers use the five-day clearing period to get their hands on the intended funds before they’re debited from their account.

Source: Cheque and Credit Clearing Company

‘Castlevania’ successor ‘Bloodstained’ is coming to the Switch

The next game by Castlevania mastermind Koji Igarashi is coming to the Nintendo Switch. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was pitched on Kickstarter in 2015 as a spiritual successor to the beloved gothic adventure series. With Igarashi at the helm and the promise of new, updated ‘Metroidvania’ gameplay — a style that fuses side-scroller platforming with deep exploration and RPG mechanics — the project raised more than $5.5 million from 64,867 backers. The updated platform support does come with a downside, however — the Wii U version is being cancelled.

In a backer update, the team said the launch of the Switch had made it “difficult to receive the necessary support” from Nintendo for the Wii U version. “We are very sorry that it has come to this after all your support, but we hope you will understand,” the post reads. Backers who had selected the Wii U as their preferred platform will now receive the Switch version automatically. It will be possible, however, to request a PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One or Vita copy instead, using the team’s backer survey tool. Supporters can also get a full refund, should they prefer.

The Switch release is good news for Nintendo. The company needs a steady flow of games to keep owners and prospective buyers interested in the platform. Nintendo’s first-party exclusives will always be the main draw, but the company could use some third-party software to fill the gaps in between. The Switch is underpowered compared to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, so support will likely come from smaller indie releases. Games like WarGroove, Stardew Valley and Overcooked, as well as Yooka-Laylee, which also ditched the Wii U in favor of Nintendo’s new console.

If you’re a Castlevania fan, however, you might have to wait a while for Bloodstained. The game was delayed last September from a planned March 2017 release to the first half of 2018. “The last thing I want to do is keep our backers waiting,” Igarashi said at the time, “but after receiving such incredible support, I feel responsible for delivering the best product I possibly can. Again, I offer my sincerest apologies.” For Switch owners, then, it’s one to put in the diary and forget. Still, it’s good to know that Nintendo’s new hardware will have support beyond its first year.

Via: VideoGamer

Source: Bloodstained (Kickstarter)

LinkedIn tries to be your tech news source with ‘Trending Storylines’

Most every social network offers a news aggregation service to help keep its users abreast of what’s happening in the world around them. However, many of these feeds (looking at you Twitter and Facebook) tend to devolve into echo chambers as users both consciously and unconsciously filter out dissenting opinions. On Wednesday, LinkedIn announced that it is debuting its own aggregation service, dubbed “Trending Storylines”, which aims to help members of its community break out of their respective bubbles and find more diverse news sources.

Trending Storylines is a curated news feed that highlights the day’s trending stories and personalizes what you see based on what the company knows about you. That includes your identity, network, and behavior patterns, Tomer Cohen, Vice President of Content, Search & Discovery Products, told me during a recent interview. It grew out of the company’s older LinkedIn Today program, which monitored 150 influencer accounts and promoted posts based on what they were sharing and commenting on.

With the new system, “we wanted to see not just what people are reading but how they think,” Dan Roth, LinkedIn’s Editor-in-Chief told me. “The guiding principle was: there is incredible insight trapped inside the cubicles of professionals everywhere. What if we gave people the ability to talk about what they know or based on their expertise?”

To that end, LinkedIn has spent the last couple years fully redesigning its feed, resulting in referral traffic from the network to some of its top publishers jumping by as much as 300 percent since last year. A user’s feed used to feature a little bit of everything, Tomer said, “but that’s not a great way to build a user experience so we shifted it to be completely about professional stories.” Therefore, the company is giving users more control over what appears on their feed.

That is, say you’re in the solar industry. You can now follow just the topics and people that directly relate to your industry while ignoring unrelated posts from people you may be connected to on the site, such as recruiters or people you know but who work in a different profession. You can connect with and follow two entirely different sets of people on the site if you want to.

Plus, since there isn’t really any anonymity on LinkedIn, you don’t have to worry about your feed or comments being hijacked by trolls or conspiratorially-minded racist uncles. “People come to LinkedIn for a reason,” Roth explained. “Whatever it is they’re doing in their professional world is what they want to talk about. That alone rules out a lot of what would constitute ‘fake news’. This is not the place where you post conspiracy theories about a pizza chain.”

What’s more, each curated story serves as a jumping off point to more deeply read and discuss the topic. Every story includes a quick summary of the issue and links to curated posts covering the topic as well as recommendations for relevant industry leaders and opinions from people from your network who are talking about it. Each story is also uniquely tagged so that you can easily follow the news as it develops.

Trending Storylines uses a hybrid curation system to generate its content. On one hand, LinkedIn leverages machine learning algorithms to help surface trending stories and ideas from across its network. On the other, the company also employs around two dozen human editors scattered around the globe that help round out each topic with quality posts and diverse opinions from influencers, industry leaders, even if the user doesn’t individually follow them. The editors also serve as reality checks against the algorithms to prevent the system from inadvertently promoting inappropriate items.

The new Storylines feature will begin rolling out in America beginning today before eventually expanding to the entire global network. Stories will initially focus on the fields of tech, finance and health before likewise expanding in due time.