Cassini probe survives first dive between Saturn and its rings

NASA’s Cassini probe has emerged unscathed after its first dive between Saturn and its rings. The spacecraft’s ground team had to spend 20 hours wondering whether the probe was doing well or whether it plunged to its death a few months too early. Thankfully, it got back in contact with NASA at 2:56AM EDT today, April 27th. By 3:01 AM, it started beaming back precious data about the planet’s atmosphere, including the unprocessed images of Saturn’s features above.

The probe flew 1,900 miles above the gas giant’s clouds and around 200 miles away from the innermost rings, a region that has never been explored before. NASA wasn’t even 100 percent sure whether the ring’s particles in the region could hurt the spacecraft enough to cause its premature death. Since it was going to travel at speeds reaching 77,000 mph, the team chose to be careful and used Cassini’s dish-shaped antenna as a shield to protect it. They had to turn the antenna away from the Earth to do that, so it couldn’t beam back data until the probe was out of the 1,500-mile-wide gap.

Cassini Project Manager Earl Maize said in a statement:

“No spacecraft has ever been this close to Saturn before. We could only rely on predictions, based on our experience with Saturn’s other rings, of what we thought this gap between the rings and Saturn would be like. I am delighted to report that Cassini shot through the gap just as we planned and has come out the other side in excellent shape.”

Before the Cassini probe plunges into Saturn’s atmosphere on September 15th, it will perform the same dive 21 more times in the next few months. It’s on a mission to gather as much data as possible, though the info it sends back from the first one will help NASA ensure it can survive until it’s time for the probe to say goodbye.

We did it! Cassini is in contact with Earth and sending back data after a successful dive through the gap between Saturn and its rings. pic.twitter.com/cej1yO7T6a

— CassiniSaturn (@CassiniSaturn) April 27, 2017

Source: NASA JPL

Apple Music’s Original TV Plans Now Include Potential Shows and Videos From J.J. Abrams and R. Kelly

Jimmy Iovine, one of the heads of Apple Music, has given multiple interviews and visions for the future of Apple’s streaming music service over the past few months, mainly detailing how Apple Music will morph into “an entire pop cultural experience” with the advent of original video content. In an interview with Bloomberg posted online today, Iovine continued that pitch by stating, “I’m trying to help Apple Music be an overall movement in popular culture,” detailing plans that include original shows and videos with partners like director J.J. Abrams and rapper R. Kelly.

The expansion of Apple Music beyond streaming new songs and music videos by artists began slowly for Apple, with the company releasing a tour documentary in partnership with Taylor Swift in 2015, as well as a 23-minute short film with Drake in 2016. Those modest beginnings have helped Apple learn what works and what doesn’t, with Iovine stating, “We’re gonna grow slowly no matter what, I don’t know how to do it fast.”

Iovine further mentioned that Apple’s vast resources provide the Apple Music team with enough room for betting on risky projects, so the service can “make one show, three shows” to see what viewers favor.

“A music service needs to be more than a bunch of songs and a few playlists,” says Iovine, 64. “I’m trying to help Apple Music be an overall movement in popular culture, everything from unsigned bands to video. We have a lot of plans.”

Apple Music’s foray into video programming could be a temporary dalliance, but if Iovine succeeds, the world’s wealthiest company could increase its investment, routinely competing for top projects. “We have the freedom, because it’s Apple, to make one show, three shows, see what works, see what doesn’t work until it feels good,” Iovine says.

Those slow-to-build plans apparently include a largely redesigned, “new edition” of the Apple Music app coming to iOS 11 this fall that will “better showcase video.” Because of this update, Iovine said that Apple won’t make the same mistakes that rival Spotify has made in producing original video content, but subsequently not promoting it enough to get people to watch. “We’re going to market it like it’s a TV show,” Iovine mentioned. “You’re going to know this is out.”

Currently, those shows include Carpool Karaoke: The Series and Planet of the Apps, although the former show was recently delayed indefinitely and the latter has only a vague spring launch date. In the immediate future, Iovine said that Apple Music’s video ambitions are still very music-related, including Dr. Dre’s Vital Signs, and Iovine even wants to produce a sequel to R. Kelly’s rap opera Trapped in the Closet.

“For a music streaming service,” Iovine says, “we’re building a very decent slate.”

According to Carpool Karaoke producer Ben Winston, who helped sign the agreement to partner with Apple along with star James Corden, the mere fact that Apple is involved with producing these new shows is all it takes to get people excited to work with them. “If I call LeBron James and I name five networks or cable channels or even different online platforms, I’m not convinced he agrees to sit in a car,” Winston says. “If you say you’re doing a new show for Apple, people get excited.”

But the company’s plans are far bigger than just original content that has a music slant, with Iovine having met with well-known Hollywood creatives to discuss “possible ideas,” including director J.J. Abrams and producer Brian Grazer, although talks with Grazer regarding Imagine Entertainment are said to have “fizzled out” for unknown reasons. Of course, any specific details regarding what a J.J. Abrams-produced series on Apple Music might be were not given.

Previous reports of Apple’s dealings in Hollywood have been largely critical of the Cupertino company’s inability to forge ahead with a consistent, unified vision in the original content space. For Iovine, the almost-two-year-old service still has a ways to go. “Apple Music is nowhere near complete in my head,” he said. Achieving his vision for the future of Apple Music has gotten Iovine in hot water with some of his colleagues, as well.

Some ideas get Iovine into trouble. He’s taken meetings with artists and made arrangements to release music without telling anyone in advance, frustrating colleagues. He’s persuaded artists to release music exclusively with Apple, frustrating record labels. But no one doubts his knack for bringing people together.

Everyone from Apple CEO Tim Cook to Apple Music executive Bozoma Saint John have reinforced Apple’s future with original content coming to its music streaming service. Earlier this year during an earnings call, Cook said that Apple is starting off slow — echoing Iovine’s comment — and has a “toe in the water” testing original content, while Saint John said of Apple Music as a whole: “We’re developing something very special and we just want people to pay attention.”

Tags: Jimmy Iovine, Apple Music
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RoboBees, city sanctuaries, and hot hives could save the world from ‘beepocalypse’

Agriculture has come a long way in the past century. We produce more food than ever before — but our current model is unsustainable, and as the world’s population rapidly approaches the 8 billion mark, modern food production methods will need a radical transformation if they’re going to keep up. Luckily, a range of new technologies might help make it possible. In this series, we’ll explore some of the innovative new solutions that farmers, scientists, and entrepreneurs are working on to make sure that nobody goes hungry in our increasingly crowded world.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or have had your head buried in an empty mining bee hive, you’ve probably heard about the current “beepocalypse.” Over the past few years, colony collapse disorder (CCD) has ravaged bee populations worldwide. More than 40 percent of colonies in the United States died in 2016 alone, so to call the plight a “decimation” would be a gross understatement.

Nearly one-third of our diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, bees are responsible for 80 percent of that pollination. Needless to say, an enormous portion of our global food network hinges on the well-being of this unsung agricultural workforce. Simply put: If they go, we go.

There are a slew of underlying causes behind this massive die-off, and consequently, there’s no silver bullet that will reverse the trend. The issue is a multifaceted one, and solving such a labyrinthine problem will require a web of complementary efforts.

Luckily, planet Earth already has somebody on the case.

Right now, all over the world, conservationists, engineers, and everyday citizens are leveraging modern technology to help save our buzzing, winged allies. In this article, we’ll take you on a tour of not only the biggest problems facing beekeepers right now, but also some of the amazing solutions people have dreamed up to solve them.

Turns out that pesticides are bad for bees. Who knew?!

Over the past few decades, farmers have looked to genetically modified crops and a new class of pesticides — namely neonicotinoids (or neonics) — to stretch yields to meet our global food demands. Unfortunately, the residual effects of these crops and pesticides have been directly linked to higher rates of colony collapse disorder — a phenomenon in which the majority of worker bees abandon the hive and leave their queen behind.

Even if we stopped using neonics worldwide yesterday, our problems wouldn’t be over.

Therein lies the conundrum. We rely on these agricultural chemicals to produce adequate amounts of food for ourselves, but they’re also killing bees and chipping away at a crucial pillar of our food system. Scientists say we probably shouldn’t keep using neonics, but farmers will likely continue to do so because they boost crop yields. It’s a vicious cycle.

The good news is that lately, more and more countries are beginning to ban some of these pesticides — thereby forcing growers to figure out alternative methods.  However, even if we stopped using neonics worldwide yesterday, our problems wouldn’t be over.

Pesticides are just the tip of the iceberg

Big Ag and the bastardization of beekeeping

Commercial beekeeping has always been a lucrative business. However, in recent years, beekeepers have begun renting out more and more of their hives for pollination purposes (rather than simply making honey) to remain profitable.

This is often done on a massive scale, incorporating semi trucks loaded with hundreds of hives and millions of bees. These beekeepers travel the highways following the pollination cycles across the country and rent out their colonies to the highest bidders.

Bees, however, are quite finicky. If the temperature dips below 50 degree Fahrenheit, or if it’s rainy, particularly windy, or even cloudy, bees are less likely to leave the hive and pollinate. To guarantee a crop is pollinated, farmers will often utilize commercial beekeepers as an insurance policy of sorts.

Honeybees are outrageously efficient pollinators. When they land to gather nectar from a flower, their hairy bodies trap pollen, which is then carried between flowers as the bee continues its work. This facilitates reproduction between flowering plants far more efficiently than any man-made method.

Many will often rent double the necessary number of bees for a given crop in order to ensure it gets pollinated no matter what. Unfortunately, this generally means there is half the amount of food in a given field to adequately nourish the bees. To compensate for this imbalance, many beekeepers will supplement their bees’ diet with alternate food sources. This is usually includes cheap, less nutritious corn syrup to further buoy profitability.

“Just because of the way [beekeepers] have to manage them in high numbers of colonies to make money is detrimental to their health,” says Dr. Francis Drummond, a professor of insect ecology at the University of Maine. “So it’s sort of a catch-22.”

Corn syrup isn’t as nutritious as cane sugar, and cane sugar isn’t nearly as nutritious as nectar from flowers. Similarly, the current system of perpetual transportation is also stressful and detrimental to the overall health of these commercial bee populations, making them more susceptible to disease and parasites.

Like a FitBit for bees, the system uses cameras inside of the hive to monitor activity.

“Anytime you have a population of a host that is infected by a parasite or disease, and also kept at really high densities, they tend to be more prone to acquiring that disease,” said Drummond.

One way to combat this is with better monitoring tech that allows beekeepers to bolster healthy populations and mend sick ones. Take EyesOnHives, for example. Like a FitBit for bees, the system uses cameras inside of the hive to monitor activity and relay data to beekeepers via a smartphone or tablet.

With the help of software, hours of hive surveillance can be broken down into colony activity patterns to provide useful analytics. The application collects data not only on individual bees but also monitors the hive as a cumulative “superorganism.” This allows the app to gauge hive health via analytical spikes and dips so keepers can react to disruptions more quickly.

And boy, are there plenty of disruptions to be worried about.

Fight the mite

The Varroa mite — or Varroa destructor as it is formally known — has ravaged bee colonies worldwide for decades. Since the invasive species’ introduction to North America in the late 1980s, the pest has been responsible for wiping out entire populations of Western honeybees.

It’s easy to see why. Western honeybees are completely defenseless against the mite. The parasite — no bigger than a sesame seed, latches onto a bee and sucks its blood, eventually either killing it outright or making the bee more susceptible to disease and viruses. To make matters worse, beekeepers don’t really have much recourse when it comes to these mites, and are often forced to use everything from acids and bleach to horse tick medicines to combat them. But of course, these too can have negative effects on the colony.

Thankfully, there may be a safe solution to our destructor problem.

The Thermosolar Hive is as simple as it is effective. Unlike honeybees, varroa mites cannot withstand high temperatures. The Thermosolar Hive takes advantage of this by using a rooftop solar panel that’s designed to increase the heat inside of the hive to lethal temperatures for the Varroa mite without harming honeybees.

The creators of the hive claim it accelerates spring colony growth, pollen-collection capacity, and flight activity. The hive is still in the prototype phase at this point, but could be a powerful weapon in the fight against the mite.

Of course, if this simple approach doesn’t pan out, there’s a backup plan. In a future with cornucopias of genetically modified foods, we may also have hives humming with genetically modified honeybees.

Engineering better bees — and building robots just in case

Harvard’s RoboBees might one day be used to pollinate our crops — but right now they must be tethered to a power supply, which severely limits their range.

Another plan to mitigate the Varroa mite problem comes from Mother Nature — with a twist. The idea is to use a technique called RNA interference (RNAi) by feeding bees sugar syrup with synthetic RNA code that’s specifically designed to work against the Varroa mite. When a mite begins to leach blood from these biotech bees, a synthetic RNA enters its system. Rather than being nourished, the pest is instead left with a diminished ability to breathe, eat, or reproduce — and that’s just one of the many clever approaches that researchers are dreaming up.

Harvard University is taking things a step further by planning for an all-out Silent Spring scenario: A world without naturally occurring bees. At the university’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Robots, researchers are designing entire fleets of so-called “RoboBees” that might pollinate our crops in a bee-less future.

These RoboBees (or more accurately, Autonomous Flying Microbots) are not only equipped with wings, but also sensors that mimic the eyes and antennae of bees, thereby allowing the units to both “sense” and respond to their environment. It may sound crazy and far-fetched, but this isn’t just academic vaporware. The team has been developing these robots for more than five years, and believes RoboBees could begin artificially pollinating crops within a decade.

It’s a promising project, and could very well end up saving the day — but it’s also important to remember that us regular Joes aren’t at the behest of the latest technology to reverse the beepocalypse. There are plenty of basic steps cities and citizens alike can take to actually make a difference.

Building bee-friendly cities

One of the most problematic results of both large-scale farming and climate change is the depletion of biodiversity in favor of monoculture. A diet of predominantly one food source is not ideal for optimal bee health. An area dominated by tens of thousands of acres of single, seasonal crops cannot adequately nourish a healthy hive year-round — let alone seasonally.

While cities are constructed for humans, the spaces can be easily adapted to act as bee sanctuaries. An impressive effort underway in Oslo, Norway, could be implemented in cities around the globe to revive colonies locally. They call it the world’s first “bee highway.”

Normally associated with the countryside, beekeeping in urban areas has boomed in popularity over the past nine years. Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find a major metropolis without at least one hive in it. (Credit: ByBi)

As part of the project, citizens are encouraged to use outdoor spaces (parks, school gardens, roofs, etc.) to create bee-friendly habitats around Oslo. Individuals can list and map their planting efforts on a website to encourage others nearby to follow suit with their own habitats and other diversified gardens.

Oslo isn’t the only place where people are rethinking urban design with pollinators in mind. Researchers at the University of Maine are working with a full landfill in Hampden and repurposing portions of the site for a similar project. Maine is primarily dominated by forest ecosystems. Unfortunately, these areas are not exceedingly conducive to bee health. Professor Frank Drummond and others are planting pollinator gardens at the inactive Pine Tree Landfill to identify plants that are most beneficial to bees in the area.

Other U.S. states are also starting to better utilize roadside vegetation in an effort to promote plant diversity specifically geared toward bees. To aid in this endeavor, the U.S. Department of Transportation plans to conduct a study this spring to determine what roadside vegetation pollinators are consuming. The data will be used to promote biodiversity and stronger pollinator habitats along right of ways.

Moving forward

By attempting to create an efficient food supply network, we’ve unwittingly turned the entire apparatus into an unpredictable mess.

“Unfortunately, if you take a really close look at a lot of agriculture, it’s clear that we are very dependent on what you might call outside inputs,” said Drummond. “Whether it’s living organisms like honeybees or petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides, that’s the way large-scale agriculture has gone. It’s just sort of where we are, but it does make our agriculture vulnerable to disruptions. I would say it’s sort of become a fact of life until something happens.”

Fortunately, some ingenious high- and low-tech options are already well underway.

Do we need to build a smarter, more efficient, less destructive global food supply? Absolutely. Will this happen overnight? Don’t hold your breath.  In the meantime, we must take steps to prop up our chief pollinators on a micro level, or we couldbe next on the chopping block.

As truly beautiful as it is to imagine a fleet of RoboBees pollinating the countryside, it might be best to heed the warning of the canary in the coal mine, because our pollinators are dropping like — well, bees, at this point.

LG is learning from its past mistakes in India, but there’s a long way to go

LG has finally figured out how to launch a flagship phone in India.

To say that LG hasn’t fared well in India would be an understatement. The South Korean manufacturer failed to make a dent in the highly competitive budget segment, and its efforts in the high-end segment were steamrolled by the likes of Samsung and Apple. The company is languishing in tenth place in the Indian market, a position that’s “shamefully poor” according to LG India’s MD Kim Ki-Wan.

LG’s mobile woes are in stark contrast to the company’s overall success in India, where it leads the field for TVs and home appliances. LG is now looking to turn things around for its mobile unit, and has stated that its goal in 2017 would be to break into the top three brands in the country. That’ll be a gargantuan task considering Samsung’s continued growth and the steady rise of OPPO, Vivo, and Lenovo.

To counter the decline, LG is turning to local manufacturing and creating India-specific models to attract mainstream buyers. The company is also figuring out the vagaries of the Indian handset market, judging by the recent launch of the LG G6. The phone made its debut for ₹51,999 ($810), and LG offered an enticing ₹10,000 ($150) in cash back to those picking up the phone from Amazon India, its exclusive online partner. The launch-day offer is no longer available, but the company will continue to offer a cash back deal of ₹7,000 ($110) throughout the course of this week.

LG is focusing on local manufacturing, but it is lacking compelling budget devices.

The premium segment in India constitutes a small subset of the overall market, but it dominates the mindshare. And by rolling out attractive offers, LG is effectively undercutting the Galaxy S8 and S8+, which retail for ₹57,900 ($900) and ₹64,900 ($1,010) respectively. This time around, Samsung isn’t offering any cashback deals, instead throwing in a free wireless charger to customers pre-ordering its flagship.

The spec sheet notwithstanding, two factors determine how a phone sells in India — pricing and discounts. E-commerce companies have been rolling out aggressive deals and discounts for years now in a bid to sign up users, and that has led to a mindset where customers are unhappy with paying full price for online goods. And in this context, LG has absolutely nailed the launch of the G6 in India. The phone offers great value for money at ₹45,000, and while it may not have a 10nm chipset, it makes up for it with excellent cameras backed by a gorgeous design, 32-bit Quad DAC, and 64GB storage.

The company can use the G6 as the platform to reinvigorate its India strategy, but LG needs to launch affordable phones that offer great value for money. With the likes of Xiaomi, Huawei, and Lenovo constantly pushing the boundaries in this segment, the South Korean manufacturer needs to have a standout product to affect real change in its market share.

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• LG G6 review!
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• Everything you need to know about the G6’s cameras
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BlackBerry KEYone will be available in the U.S. and Canada on May 31

Keyboard addicts, start your engines…

The BlackBerry KEYone is coming to the U.S. and Canada on the last day of May. That’s the official news out of TCL, purveyor of all things BlackBerry hardware these days. The phone was initially supposed to launch in April, but unforeseen delays pushed its release back to the edge of summer.

Back at MWC, BlackBerry Mobile said that the KEYone would cost $549 unlocked, and we can now confirm that there will be two models available at launch, one for AT&T and T-Mobile and another for Verizon and Sprint. The latter carrier will also reportedly stock the phone in stores later this summer, and BlackBerry Mobile is keeping the door open for other carriers, too, though none are being announced at the moment. More information on that front will be shared later in May.

Keyboard addicts can get the phone in just over a month.

More concrete are the KEYone’s release details for the Canadian market, which despite market share declines still has a sizeable following of BlackBerry loyalists. Also available starting May 31, the KEYone will be sold at Bell, MTS, Rogers, SaskTel and Telus Business (but not consumer) for $199 on a 2-year term, which likely translates to $699 outright. The phone goes up for pre-order on May 18.

The KEYone is a big deal for the nascent BlackBerry Mobile brand, which is putting a considerable amount of marketing power behind the phone. While its seemingly-antiquated design necessitates a stubbier screen than a typical smartphone, the excellent hardware keyboard feels perfect — just as it did years ago on older BlackBerry models. Reviews are coming soon, so stay tuned.

BlackBerry KEYone

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How to disable icon notification badges on the Galaxy S8

This could be your favorite feature … or it could annoy you every single day.

One of the features on Android that’s requested frequently, particularly by anyone who’s used an iPhone, is notification badges on app icons. That means that as notifications for that app pile up, a small circle with a number indicating the amount of unread notifications is placed on its icon. Listening to demand, Samsung includes this feature in the Galaxy S8 — but it isn’t perfect.

So long as the app supports these notification badges, you’ll see the number of unread notifications on that app icon. Unfortunately, unlike iOS this isn’t a standard framework for Android apps, so only some of your apps have badges while others don’t. That’s annoying.

No matter which side of the issue you fall on, we can all agree that having a setting in the phone to turn off these icon badges would be a beneficial thing. Unfortunately, Samsung doesn’t give us such a setting, so we have to go our own way.

To get this done, we have to start by installing an app from the Play Store. The app we’ve used with success is called Package Disabler Pro (Samsung) — it’s $1.49 and worth every penny even if you just use it for this one task. There are many other package disablers out there, and some may even work for this purpose, but the one linked above is the one we’ve used and can speak to.

So with that app installed, here’s the process you need to follow.

• IMPORTANT: Before going through this process, you must clear all icon badges from your apps and make sure they stay clear until you disable the icon badge package. If you have unread icon badges at the time of doing this process, the badges will be stuck there until you start all over — it’s not permanent, but it’s annoying and wastes your time.

With icon badges cleared, open Package Disabler Pro from your app drawer.
Enter your own passcode in the text field to enable device administration and tap Enable Admin.

• The passcode is local to this device and doesn’t have to match any other passcode you have on the phone.
• Remember the passcode!

On the next screen tap Activate at the bottom of the screen.
Scroll down and find BadgeProvider and check the box next to it.

WARNING: Do not check any additional boxes without first knowing what you’re doing. Some of these packages are critical to the function of your phone.

And that’s it! So long as you keep Package Disabler Pro installed and the checkbox checked, icons will not have notification badges on them. If you ever want to revert the process you can simply open Package Disabler Pro, revert your changes and uninstall the app — no damage done.

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Understanding the Galaxy S8’s display resolution options

The Galaxy S8 and S8+ default to ‘Full HD+’ resolution, but it’s easy to go higher or lower. Here’s why you might want to do that.

The Galaxy S8’s Quad HD+ SuperAMOLED panel is one of its standout features. Indeed, that big, almost bezel-free display features heavily in Samsung’s ads for the phone. By default, though, it’s not set to run at its full, native resolution of 2960×1440, instead it’s downsampled to “Full HD+,” or 2220×1080. And if you want, you can set it to go even lower, down to “HD+” — 1480×720.

Let’s take a look at the Galaxy S8’s resolution options, and examine which level you might want to pick.

How to change the Galaxy S8’s screen resolution

The screen resolution option is easy to find.

Open the notification shade by swiping down from the top of the screen.
Tap the cog icon to open the Settings app.
Tap Display
In the menu that appears, tap the Screen resolution option.

From here, you can adjust the slider to choose HD+, FHD+ or WQHD+. After selecting your option, tap Apply to set it, or Cancel to go back without changing anything.

The resolution slider affects the sharpness on the screen appear — the native WQHD provides the best picture quality, however setting a lower resolution may improve battery life. The default FHD+ resolution doesn’t push the display to its limits, but may provide modest battery life improvements compared to WQHD.

As you might expect, the jump from FHD+ to WQHD+ is more noticeable on the larger Galaxy S8+, thanks to its larger 6.2-inch display size. But it’s worth switching and switching back to see how noticeable the change is to you. Depending on how you use the phone — and which size of S8 you own — the change may or may not be noticeable.

Note: Changing the resolution setting on the phone won’t affect the picture quality when using the Samsung Gear VR.

The jump up to WQHD+ is most noticeable on the larger S8+

So you may want to switch up to WQHD+ if you have a Galaxy S8+ and getting the very best possible picture quality is more important than the slight battery hit you may take. (We haven’t noticed much of a reduction in longevity when running at the higher resolution on the S8+, for what that’s worth.)

On the smaller, S8, with a smaller screen and smaller battery, the increase in pixel density is harder to notice, and the dent in battery life slightly more apparent if you switch to WQHD+.

As for the lower HD+ option, most of the time you’ll want to leave this alone. In a pinch, you may want to switch to the lowest resolution option as a temporary measure to improve battery life. (The Galaxy S8 also has other battery-saving options under Settings > Device maintenance > Battery, by the way.) Another reason would be if you have reduced vision to the point where there’s no visible difference between the three resolution settings.

For the majority of Galaxy S8 and S8+ owners, the default FHD+ will be just fine, providing good display quality and balanced battery life.

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+

• Galaxy S8 and S8+ review!
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• Everything you need to know about the Galaxy S8’s cameras
• Get to know Samsung Bixby
• Join our Galaxy S8 forums

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BlackBerry KeyOne now available in the UK, exclusively from Selfridges

BlackBerry, under license by TCL Communications, has launched its latest Android-powered flagship smartphone, the KeyOne, in the UK. It’s currently available to buy exclusively from Selfridges on Oxford Street, but will be available from Carphone Warehouse stores nationwide from 5 May.

• BlackBerry KeyOne preview: Fingerprint scanner and QWERTY keyboard for BB’s next flagship

The KeyOne is the successor to the BlackBerry Priv, and features, in true BlackBerry style, a full physical keyboard. Each key can be assigned to a different shortcut and a fingerprint scanner is integrated into the space bar.

Other long standing BlackBerry features to make their way across to the KeyOne include the company’s security features. The pre-installed DTEK app will keep an eye on your phone’s security status and will let you know if any apps are taking advantage of any permissions they’ve been granted.

The KeyOne will also come pre-installed with Android Nougat 7.1 with full access to the Play Store for apps and games and the battery, the largest ever to be fitted to a BlackBerry phone, claims to last up to 26 hours.

Elsewhere specs could be considered lower-than-flagship status, with a full HD display with 3:2 ratio, Snapdragon 625 processor and 3GB of RAM. A 12-megapixel image camera adorns the rear of the phone, while an 8-megapixel camera is on the front for selfies, complete with 84-degree wide-angle lens.

• BlackBerry KeyOne: Release date, specs and everything you need to know

The BlackBerry KeyOne is available to pick up now from the Home and Tech department at Selfridges for £499 SIM-free.

When QLED meets Galaxy S8: A guide to Smart View, Samsung Connect and controlling your Samsung TV with your phone

Modern TVs are hyper-connected, with the likes of Samsung packing a whole range of functionality into its smart TVs. 

For many, the relationship with the TV is all about the remote control and the TV’s native apps, but there’s a whole world of interaction with your smartphone too. 

Samsung is building itself an ecosystem, with the smartphone at the very core, but with the TV at the heart. These two categories of devices dominate your time at home: the TV is your biggest and best screen, it’s where you relax and consume content, but your smartphone is your most intimate device, always in your hand and vying for eye time too.

Here’s how Samsung offers you more when these devices are working in tandem. For this feature, we’ve used the very latest 2017 Samsung QLED TV with the Samsung Galaxy S8+, with a range of helpers along the way.

Samsung Connect

Samsung Connect is a newly branded hub, appearing on the Samsung Galaxy S8 as a centre point for your connected home devices. It’s closely tied into Samsung’s connected home arm at SmartThings, but also to other connected Samsung devices. 

In addition, Samsung Connect is a home for your Bluetooth devices, listing everything you have connected to your phone and giving you individual control, replacing the Quick Connect option of older devices.

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It’s also somewhere that your Samsung TV will show up. We’re using the Samsung QLED Q7F, a new 2017 television, but this will also work with some of Samsung’s older smart TVs too, like the 2016 KS models. 

From the Samsung Connect app you can tap on your detected TV and once you’ve accepted the connection request on your TV’s display, you’ll be given a controller on your phone and a whole load of other functions. 

This controller reflects the physical smart remote that comes with the TV (for the QLED at least), giving you volume and channel controls, guide access, the home button to open your TV’s hub, four-way controller and pause controls. There’s also a “more” button that gives you other clever options, like the ability to turn off your connected set-top box. 

At the bottom of the controller you get a range of other options – browse content, mirror screen, view TV on phone and play TV sound on phone. 

Those first two options – browse content and mirror screen rely on a separate system called Samsung Smart View, which we’ll look at in a second. 

The latter two options offer a function that’s available between Samsung phones and TVs for a while. To save confusion, we’ll deal with these individually below.

Top tip: You don’t have to open the Samsung Connect app itself to access these functions. If your phone and TV are connected, you’ll be able to access those controls directly from a banner in the notifications tray.

It’s worth adding that we’ve found Samsung Connect to be really solid when it comes to controlling the TV. We’ve found the connection stable, so it’s a useful feature when your remote is out of reach.

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How to watch your Samsung TV on your Samsung phone 

If you’re lucky enough to have both a Samsung Smart TV and a Samsung Galaxy S phone (compatibility depending, we’re using a Q7F and Galaxy S8+, but we’ve done this with the KS9500 and Galaxy S7 before) then it’s possible to watch your TV on your phone.

This is ideal for those who want to move to a different room without missing out – perhaps going to the bathroom – or if you’re watching a movie with the family and you have to cook dinner and don’t want to miss out. 

If you’ve got Samsung Connect on your phone, as we said above, there’s the option to watch TV through that app. You simply have to tap that option and the TV will be mirrored on your phone. There’s a minor delay, as the TV content is sent to your phone, so it’s slightly out of phase. 

If you have an older phone, you might find this option in Quick Connect instead, although we suspect that will be phased out so Samsung Connect becomes the sole terminology used.

The word mirrored is important because you can’t watch something else, this isn’t a fancy alternative to Sky Q or EE TV’s multi-tuner options, you all have to watch the same thing. If you’re watching football on the toilet and someone changes it to Pokemon XYZ on Netflix, that’s what you’ll be watching. That said, you can watch anything that’s showing on your TV – streaming content, Xbox gaming, whatever. 

It’s not only watching you can do, however, as you get controls too. This is where it becomes important to set-up your TV and connected devices correctly. As the latest QLED TVs will control attached devices, you can use your mirrored phone to change channels on a connected set-top box, for example to switch your YouView box to a different channel. Now that’s clever. 

How to listen to your Samsung TV sound on your phone 

This is a popular option for those who want to watch something noisy after hours, perhaps when the kids are in bed or when you don’t want to disturb anyone else. It lets you watch on your TV, but through a connected pair of headphones you can listen privately. 

Again, this now falls into the Samsung Connect app, so on the Galaxy S8, it’s just a case of tapping that option from Samsung Connect and the audio track is sent over.

It’s pretty good and having used this option, we found that the lip sync was good enough. It’s not quite as connected as watching through the TV’s own speakers or a sound system, but it certainly works.

Samsung Smart View

We’ve mentioned Smart View a couple of times and this is something that appears two-fold on Samsung phones:

Smart View/Screen Mirroring in Quick Settings

Samsung has offered screen mirroring for some time. In older devices this is simply called screen mirroring, but in the Galaxy S8 it’s now called Smart View. In both cases you’ll find an option in the Quick Settings (the swipe-down area of shortcuts) and you can then send your phone content to your TV. 

This is a quick and simple option for mirroring, with everything on your phone appearing on the TV. The quality is designed for convenience so it’s not great, but it works with everything, so any content on your phone will appear on your TV – photo albums, streaming video, websites, the lot.

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In some cases it’s integrated into Samsung apps too. For example, open the Samsung Gallery and you’ll have the option to send that directly to your connected TV. 

Bonus point: for those using the Galaxy S8 or S8+, you’ll know that you now have an 18.5:9 display and your TV is 16:9. Fear not. Within your phone window you’ll see the settings cog. Tap here and you can change the aspect of the content while you’re casting, so it fills the TV properly. Remember to hold you phone in landscape, naturally.

Smart View the app

Here’s where it gets really confusing, because Samsung offers an app called Smart View too. This is a universal app that’s been around for a few years for all Android devices as well as iOS devices, providing connected functions for those using Samsung phones as well as those not using Samsung phones. We’ve tried it on the Google Pixel XL and iPhone 5S with the QLED Q7F and this is how you get controller functions without having access to Samsung Connect.

Confused? There’s no need to be. If you have a Samsung phone, you’ll only need the Smart View app to enable the browse content option we mentioned above, if you don’t have a Samsung phone, you’ll need to download the app to get a smartphone controller for your TV.

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The browse content option presents you with a selection of thumbnails for the apps installed on your TV, e.g., Play Movies, Netflix, Amazon Video and basically launch those apps and control them. That means you can use your phone to open Amazon Video on your TV, select what you want to watch and hit play.

You can also browse through content here, so select the show you want to watch on a particular service, before hitting the button and getting your TV to play it.

That’s great, but it’s not that simple. Unlike Samsung Connect, the Smart View app is a poor performer. Even on Samsung’s new flagship S8+ smartphone, the app frequently disconnects and then refuses to reconnect. The same applies to the iOS version, to the extent that it’s more frustrating than useful. 

But that’s not the end of the world, it’s just a limitation and it’s difficult to tell if it’s the TV, the phone, the app or your everything that’s causing the problem.

Using casting with your Samsung TV 

So Smart View (the app, not the mirroring part from Samsung phones) is a bit of a dog, but it’s not the only option you have for taking control of your Samsung TV with your phone. There’s a neat casting option too that you can use for some applications. 

Let’s make this point first: Samsung does not support the Google Cast protocol, you can’t send everything that’s Google Cast enabled to your TV, but some services use a different protocol called DIAL.

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The good thing about DIAL is that it’s integrated into the cast button at the top of an app, exactly the same as if you were using a Chromecast. The apps that currently work in this way include Netflix and YouTube (and not just with Samsung TVs, but with a whole world of connected devices).

The advantage they offer is that you can browse the content on your phone, find what you want, hit the button and play it on your TV. Unlike mirroring, the TV then picks up the online stream, retrieving the highest quality it can support. For example, cast Luke Cage on Netflix and while it would be in HD on your phone, it plays in 4K HDR on your TV. 

While Google has pushed its own casting option and that’s compatible with loads of services if you have a Chromecast, as it stands, Netflix and YouTube are your only option on your Samsung TV out of the box.

What if you’ve got a Chromecast already?

Well you’re in luck if you’ve got a Chromecast already for one main reason: automatic HDMI switching. If your Chromecast is connected to your Samsung TV’s One Connect box, then when you cast something to it, the TV will automatically switch to that input so you can start playing without needing to use a remote control, without having to change input or anything else. Again, Chromecast will select the highest quality stream it can play, and off it goes.

So course, Samsung’s smart TVs offer pretty much all the apps you might want to cast, in which case a Chromecast isn’t really worth buying, just so you don’t have to use the remote control. Chromecast is a better addition to older dumb TVs, to widen their skillset, but that said, if you’re used to using Chromecast with your phone, then it’s still a slick experience, especially with the new Chromecast Ultra. Just remember to switch on the HDMI UHD Color option in the settings menu.

What about Bixby?

Good question. Bixby is Samsung’s new AI assistant. Launched on the Galaxy S8, Bixby has plans to span all Samsung devices to bring connectivity and convenience.

At the time of writing, however, there’s no Bixby cross-over at all. We suspect that Bixby will become a controller for Samsung Connect, but as it stands, you can forget about Bixby for the timebeing.

That said, the latest Samsung QLED TVs offer voice control through the remotes and it behaves in much the same way as Bixby voice control on smartphones, so we suspect it’s the same underlying system.

• What is Bixby? Samsung’s smart AI explained

Forza Horizon 3 update adds crazy Hot Wheels tracks to muck around on

There have been plenty of great downloadable content for the Forza games over the years but few have us as excited in Pocket-lint Towers as the latest.

As of 9 May, Forza Horizon 3 will be getting a major, game-changing expansion. It adds a new location, new cars and, most importantly, loop-the-loops, stunts and other orange track-based shenanigans.

That’s because it is based on and licensed by Hot Wheels, the toy car system that specialises in crazy action, jumps and the like.

Forza Horizon 3 Hot Wheels will be available for Xbox One and Windows 10 PC version of Forza Horizon 3 as DLC for the main game. Its price it yet to be revealed, but it will also be included as part of the game’s Expansion Pass, so if you’ve purchased that already you’ll get the download from release day as part of your initial payment.

The expansion adds an all-new campaign, which culminates in a final stunt showdown on a massive Hot Wheels Goliath track. Along the way you’ll race using boost pads, high-bank turns, half-pipes, jumps and giant mechanical dinosaurs. There is also a new stunt swap feature that lets you customise tracks for your friends to check out and race on.

There will also be 10 new cars and a new barn find to discover.