Canon’s first drone is here — and it’s carrying a rumored $40K price tag

Why it matters to you

Canon is the latest camera company to jump on the aerial photography bandwagon, but the its first search-and-rescue drone is manufactured by Prodrone and looks pretty pricey.

Canon has entered into the drone market — sort of. Canon Japan’s website is now showing off a drone called the PD6E2000-AW-CJ1, a search-and-rescue drone paired with Canon’s ME20F-SH camera that can see in the dark with an ISO of 4 million, but it’s rumored to cost a pretty penny.

The drone isn’t built by Canon — the company announced last September an investment in the Japanese industrial drone company Prodrone Co. that would allow the imaging company to supply their cameras and use their branding and distribution networks to sell the drone. According to the report, Canon hopes to sell 5 billion yen worth of drones, or about $4.5 million, by 2020.

More: Drone sightings are up, but the FAA hasn’t confirmed any plane collisions yet

The drone looks like an update of Prodrone’s PD6-AW, which is an all-weather drone that can handle a 22-pound payload. Paired with Canon’s camera that’s capable of seeing in the dark, the system could be a serious tool for search-and-rescue applications, since both weather and low light tend to be difficult scenarios for a drone to both fly and record in. Even by starlight, Canon Japan says the camera will be able to recognize the shape of a subject.

The drone is also expected to use a two-axis gimbal to reduce blur by correcting for pitch-and-roll movement.

Canon hasn’t announced a price for the drone, but Canon Rumors is suggesting a $20,000 price tag. The low-light camera by itself is $20,000, so if rumors prove true, the entire outfit would cost $40,000, a hefty price even for industrial-grade drones.

With some big drone sales goals for the next three years, the CJ1 could be the first of several. Prodrone, as the name suggests, is a company focusing on commercial drones, however, so the launch of a consumer-grade drone like the GoPro Karma or DJI Mavric  would come as a surprise.

Samsung DeX Station pre-orders will be delivered along with the Galaxy S8

Why it matters to you

If you planned on buying a Galaxy S8 smartphone, you can turn it into a desktop PC too with just a few accessories.

If you plan on ordering yourself one of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S8 or S8+ smartphones and fancy some accessories with it, they should arrive on the same day as the smartphone. That goes for the Samsung DeX Station too, which is now available for pre-order and will set you back $150.

The Samsung ‘Docking Experience’ DeX puck is a small hub device which lets you use your new S8 smartphone like a micro-PC, running it to a monitor with full mouse and keyboard support. We had a quick look at it last month and our early impressions were strong. Performance is snappy and the setup is easy, though we did note that it could use more app support. That may come post release though.

The little device packs a pair of USB 2.0 Type-A ports for connectivity, as well as a USB Type-C port for charging purposes. It can also connect up to your local network over Ethernet connection and to your TV or monitor over HDMI.

More: Experts claim Galaxy S8’s display is the most impressive they’ve seen in a phone

If you like the sound of it though, and have a Galaxy S8 winging its way to you toward the end of this month, you can now pre-order the DeX for $150.

But you won’t want to stop there. If you do plan to turn your new smartphone into a PC, you’ll need some accessories for full functionality. If you don’t have a PC already, you’ll need a keyboard and mouse and ideally, you’ll want a new monitor, too. Fortunately we have a handy guide to some of the best peripherals you can pick up to make your new Galaxy S8 ‘docking experience” as fluid as possible.

Amazon also has a handy list of additional extras you can buy with your S8, from cases to fast chargers.

Samsung DeX Station pre-orders will be delivered along with the Galaxy S8

Why it matters to you

If you planned on buying a Galaxy S8 smartphone, you can turn it into a desktop PC too with just a few accessories.

If you plan on ordering yourself one of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S8 or S8+ smartphones and fancy some accessories with it, they should arrive on the same day as the smartphone. That goes for the Samsung DeX Station too, which is now available for pre-order and will set you back $150.

The Samsung ‘Docking Experience’ DeX puck is a small hub device which lets you use your new S8 smartphone like a micro-PC, running it to a monitor with full mouse and keyboard support. We had a quick look at it last month and our early impressions were strong. Performance is snappy and the setup is easy, though we did note that it could use more app support. That may come post release though.

The little device packs a pair of USB 2.0 Type-A ports for connectivity, as well as a USB Type-C port for charging purposes. It can also connect up to your local network over Ethernet connection and to your TV or monitor over HDMI.

More: Experts claim Galaxy S8’s display is the most impressive they’ve seen in a phone

If you like the sound of it though, and have a Galaxy S8 winging its way to you toward the end of this month, you can now pre-order the DeX for $150.

But you won’t want to stop there. If you do plan to turn your new smartphone into a PC, you’ll need some accessories for full functionality. If you don’t have a PC already, you’ll need a keyboard and mouse and ideally, you’ll want a new monitor, too. Fortunately we have a handy guide to some of the best peripherals you can pick up to make your new Galaxy S8 ‘docking experience” as fluid as possible.

Amazon also has a handy list of additional extras you can buy with your S8, from cases to fast chargers.

Adobe InDesign gets a modern makeover, while Illustrator now has a crop tool

Why it matters to you

Graphic designers will find a few changes inside Adobe Illustrator and InDesign, with adjustments aimed at simplifying the interface.

InDesign is getting a new look. In Adobe’s latest update to InDesign CC, the desktop publishing software gets a redesigned interface with a modern look. Adobe also updated Illustrator CC today, April 6, adding the much-requested crop tool.

Despite InDesign’s new look, current users familiar with the existing controls will be happy to see the control scheme hasn’t been vastly rearranged. The change was inspired by the design on touch devices, Adobe says.

More: Adobe’s Project Sky Replace could be Photoshop’s next big feature

At the top menu, the text field options are slightly different, designed to stand out with more contrast. Buttons, like the Publish Online option, now have rounded corners. In the toolbox, the selection, text, pen, and eyedropper icons also see a slight redesign.

Adobe

The redesigned interface also now comes with four color themes, including dark, medium-dark, medium-light, and light for customizing the way that new interface looks. Adobe says the interface enhancements make it easier to jump between tools, and also eliminate a few distractions.

Getting that project off the ground is also a bit simpler — the redesigned new document panel offers easy access to recently used templates as well as saved templates and access to Adobe Stock templates right from the start.

Illustrator also sees a new version today with the addition of the crop tool. Previously, designers had to use the mask tools or open the file in Photoshop to crop off part of the artwork. The new feature now finds a home in the top toolbar next to the mask tool.

Adobe

Besides being simpler than moving over to Photoshop for a crop, the ability to crop and scale images within Illustrator enhances the software’s performance by making those files smaller and easier to handle, Adobe says. The update comes as Illustrator celebrates its 30th birthday this year, with the service now being used for around 180 million graphics projects every month.

Both updates are available to Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers beginning today.

You may be entitled to a settlement if you used social media apps on your phone

Why it matters to you

Privacy concerns over mobile data is nothing new, but now, iPhone users are being paid for their troubles.

If you used social media on your smartphone between 2009 and 2012, you may be entitled to a payout. Per a new settlement discovered by Law360, those who downloaded and used apps like Yelp, Twitter, and Instagram during the four-year period might be able to collect on a privacy settlement. The decision, which was handed out in San Francisco federal court on Monday, requires eight companies (Instagram, Foursquare, Kik, Gowalla, Foodspotting, Yelp, Twitter, and Path) to pay a total of $5.3 million to consumers.

The settlement comes after a lengthy court battle that first began in 2012 over the iOS feature known as “Find Friends.” A group of iPhone users sued a number of social media companies, as well as Apple, for violating their privacy by neglecting to tell them that Find Friends would take contact lists and send them to company servers.

More: Microsoft details new privacy options, pledges data-collection transparency

While the defendants have insisted that they did nothing wrong for years, noting that they had to store contact lists for Find Friends to work, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar disagreed in his ruling. “Fundamentally, this case is about whether Apple’s conduct and that of application developers violated community norms of privacy,” Tigar wrote in his 21-page ruling. “A ‘reasonable’ expectation of privacy is an objective entitlement founded on broadly based and widely accepted community norms.”

So just how much of a payout can you expect? Not that much, really, especially since the decision probably affects millions of people. All the same, if you’re looking for a quick way to make a few dollars, you may want to check out whether or not you’re eligible. To see if you are, take a closer look at the proposed Q&A for the claim process here.

Nvidia claims the pricey Titan Xp is the new graphics card performance champion

Why it matters to you

If you have deep pockets and need the best of the best when it comes to graphics cards, the best just got better.

Nvidia has debuted a brand-new Pascal graphics card called the Titan Xp, which it claims is even more powerful than the recently launched 1080Ti. Compared to that previously top-of-the-line card, the Titan Xp packs more CUDA cores, more memory, and a wider memory interface for more than 10 percent extra bandwidth.

Although AMD has continued to offer decent competition for Nvidia over the past few years, especially around the midrange, Nvidia has found itself leapfrogging its own cards with new releases. The Titan Xp is no different, stealing the specification, and likely the performance crown, from Nvidia’s own GPUs.

More: Power boost: EVGA boosts clocks and cooling on GTX 1080 Ti designs

The Xp is an updated version of Nvidia’s previously released Titan X, which ruled the roost as the most powerful single graphics processor (GPU) card in the world — until the 1080 Ti came along. It makes use of a full-speed GP102 graphics chip, with all of its 3,840 CUDA cores unlocked and raring to go.

The core clock is the same as the 1080 Ti, a boosted 1,582MHz, but the Titan Xp’s memory configuration is a little more impressive. It comes with 12GB of GDDR5X running at a higher 11.4Gbps, and has a memory interface width of 384-bit, which delivers 547.7 GBps of total bandwidth.

Although overall performance is unlikely to be leaps and bounds ahead of the already monstrous 1080Ti, it could be (as Ars points out) that the Ti was simply too much of a smart buy when compared to the Titan X, and Nvidia felt the need to have a new, ultra-expensive top-tier card.

If you want to pick up a Titan Xp, they are available now and will arrive within one to three days, according to Nvidia. Its price tag is a whopping $1,200, which not only puts it far out of the reach of almost all consumers, but makes it redundant for all but benchmark score-chasers and those who need the absolute most powerful graphics card right now.

Google’s newest Material Design tools make previewing colors a breeze

Why it matters to you

A new Material Design tool from Google helps app developers test colors before they make the change.

Material Design, the colorful, grid-based design language Google developed to unify its web and mobile properties, is getting a fresh coat of paint. On Thursday, the Mountain View, California-based company announced a new color utility that will let developers create, share, and apply color palettes more easily to their apps and games.

Specifically, the new Material Design resource allows developers to create color schemes with lighter and darker shades of primary and secondary colors — think light blue and dark green, or bright cyan and faded magenta. A new text accessibility feature checks if in-app fonts are readable on colored backgrounds, as measured against the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines legibility standards. And a color preview feature lets devs preview pallet changes across the entirety of their app, and automatically generates the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code necessary to implement the changes.

More: Google announces winners of its 2nd annual material design contest

“Material Design is […] a system that supports and strengthens communication and productivity with new tools and inspiration,” Rachel Been, creative lead for Material Design, said. “With these new tools to dabble with color schemes, you’ll be able to give your users a richer experience, so we can’t wait to see what you come up with.”

Google describes Material Design, which it introduced with Android 5.0 Lollipop in 2014, as a “material metaphor […] inspired by the study of paper and ink, yet technologically advanced and open to imagination and magic.” It’s the successor to the Holo UI Google debuted alongside Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in 2012, and it’s defined by colorful icons, responsive transitions, and depth effects such as lighting and shadows.

More recently, Material Design has begun to trickle down to the rest of Google’s mobile and web portfolio. In early 2016, for instance, a new Chrome browser UI adopted a visually simplified three-dot Settings button and large, rounded buttons.

More: Three puzzle games are winners of the first Google Play Indie Games Festival

It followed in the footsteps of Google’s Search, YouTube, Drive, Maps, and Google+ design refreshes. Elements were enlarged, colorized, and spaced out. Menus were consolidated. And navigation buttons were made a lot flatter and cleaner.

Google’s goal is nothing short of Material Design domination. It hosts an annual Material Design Competition to crown the best third-party take on the design language, and it’s methodically refreshing apps like Contacts on the web. If the launch of today’s new tools mean anything, it’s that Material Design’s not going anywhere.

Twitter launches a lightweight version of itself with Twitter Lite

Why it matters to you

With 45 percent of global smartphone connections on 2G networks, lightweight versions of apps are key to success. Twitter is jumping on the bandwagon with Twitter Lite.

Facebook has done it, YouTube has done it, and now, Twitter is doing it, too. We’re talking, of course, about offering a lightweight version of the platform to make it easier for users in countries with less robust access to data to use Twitter. On Thursday, Twitter product manager Patrick Traughber published a blog post announcing the debut of Twitter Lite, described as “a new mobile web experience which minimizes data usage, loads quickly on slower connections, is resilient on unreliable mobile networks, and takes up less than 1MB on your device.”

Twitter Lite is a faster, data friendly way for people to use Twitter to see what’s happening in the world.

???? https://t.co/AIUgyCAFj0 pic.twitter.com/9EIG7pgK6O

— Twitter (@Twitter) April 6, 2017

While smartphone adoption is growing at a rapid rate around the world, infrastructure isn’t necessarily keeping up. In fact, the GSMA reports, 45 percent of mobile connections remain on 2G networks. And given that smartphone adoption is now at around 3.8 billion connections, that’s a lot of phones on slower networks.

More: Lightweight YouTube Go app, planned for release last year, is now available

Enter Twitter Lite, which not only requires less data, but promises 30 percent faster launch times and quicker navigation throughout the platform. Users will still be able to see the core components of the social media service, including timeline, Tweets, Direct Messages, trends, profiles, media uploads, and notifications, but won’t have to worry about downloading a data-sucking app.

And to make things more efficient still, Twitter has added a data saver mode, which shows users a preview of images and videos. That means you won’t have to load every single image — only the ones you really care about, potentially reducing your data usage by up to 70 percent. Twitter Lite also offers offline support so you’ll be able to maintain your session even if your connection is spotty.

Anyone and everyone can check out Twitter Lite today at mobile.twitter.com on a smartphone or tablet. More information can be found at lite.twitter.com, and if you’re interested in learning how the tool was built, you can do that here.

Western Digital launches its first external solid state drive, the 1TB My Passport SSD

Why it matters to you

Western Digital is one of the biggest names in data storage, and its My Passport SSD demonstrates the company’s new interest in the market for external solid state drives.

Western Digital has launched a brand-new external storage drive, dubbed the My Passport SSD. Not surprisingly, it’s a solid state drive that’s tailored to suit users who need to carry a large amount of storage capacity with them while they’re on the move.

The My Passport SSD boasts a sleek external design, and measures 90 millimeters in height by 45 millimeters in length, with a thickness of less than half an inch. It’s fitted with a single USB Type-C port that takes care of both data transfers and charging responsibilities, according to a report from Beta News.

More: Adata introduces the XPS SD700X, a fast and rugged external SSD for gamers

The company’s first external solid state drive supports the USB 3.1 Gen 2 specification, and as a result is capable of transfer speed of up to 515 MB per second. It comes packaged with a USB Type-C cable, as well as an adapter that provides compatibility with USB Type-A ports on older hardware.

Western Digital has kitted the drive out with plenty of security features, including password protection options and 256-bit AES hardware encryption. Users are also protected against other scenarios that might result in data loss, as it’s been tested to withstand a drop from up to 6.5 feet in the air, and up to 1500G of force.

A solid state drive doesn’t possess the same moving parts as a traditional, mechanical hard disk drive, which makes it a particularly good choice for an external drive that’s going to spend its time in and out of luggage, and otherwise being used on the go.

Western Digital will offer 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB versions of the My Passport SSD, which will cost $100, $200, and $400, respectively. The drives will soon be available to purchase from the company’s website, but it seems that for the time being, they’re exclusive to Best Buy.

Comcast takes the wraps off Xfinity Mobile, its new wireless service

Why it matters to you

Comcast wants to supply your smartphone internet via Xfinity Mobile, a new wireless plan.

Comcast already pipes internet into millions of homes, and now it wants to take its service to the airwaves. On April 6, the media giant announced the details of a new service, Xfinity Mobile, that will compete toe-to-toe with Google Fi, US Cellular, and incumbents like AT&T and T-Mobile.

Xfinity Mobile will launch with an unlimited data, talk, and text plan starting at $65 a month for up to five lines ($45 per line for customers with Comcast’s top X1 TV packages), or $12 per GB a month a la carte. A combination of Comcast’s 16 million Wi-Fi hot spots and Verizon’s network will supply coverage — as with Google’s Fi technology, phones phone will automatically switch between Wi-Fi and cellular depending on network conditions — and Xfinity Mobile customers will get their choice of an iPhone, a high-end Samsung phone, or a “more modest” handset from LG.

More: Comcast may want to be your next wireless carrier

Sign-ups will be restricted to Comcast’s 25 million subscribers at launch, which the company said is to ensure a “high level” of customer service. Xfinity Mobile subscribers will be able to get in touch with reps via text and “other means,” Comcast said.

The pricing is in line with the competition — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint offer plans ranging from $50 a month for a single line to $90 a month. And that’s no mistake. “We believe we have very competitive unlimited plans,” Greg Butz, president of Comcast’s mobile business, told Reuters.

When Comcast does get the ball rolling on mobile, it’ll become the first cable mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) — in other words, the first wireline internet provider to buy capacity on other wireless carriers’ networks.

“The lines between wired and wireless networks are blurring,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts told Fortune. “For Comcast […] being a wireless operator isn’t optional. All network operators are going to be in the wireless business whether they like it or not.”

More: Look out, Verizon — Comcast is launching its own mobile service in 2017

It’s a logical step for Comcast, which faces declining revenue in the wake of an ongoing cable TV exodus. In August 2016, every major cable TV company, including DirecTV, Comcast, and Character, lost subscribers. A collective 812,000 U.S. customers canceled their pay TV subscriptions, and there were 1.4 million fewer cable subscribers in the quarter overall compared to the same period a year ago.

It isn’t all doom and gloom. A forecast from analysts at SNL Kagan projects that broadband subscriptions will increase by 8 million over the next decade, heading off an expected 1.5 percent decline in traditional TV subscriptions. But Comcast’s not taking chances.

More: Best T-Mobile plans

And Comcast isn’t the only company in this position. Charter Communications is also said to be launching a wireless service next year. And AT&T, which owns satellite provider DirecTV, debuted an internet TV package — DirecTV Now — earlier this year.