Where to buy LG’s G6 for the best price in the UK

The launch of LG’s latest smartphone, the G6, has been somewhat staggered. First there were pre-orders, and then a prerelease specifically for those eager customers. But over the last few days, the G6 has gone on general sale pretty much everywhere. After last year’s ambitious but tepidly received, modular G5, LG has gone back to basics — if you can call ample power, a big and beautiful display and two primary cameras “basics,” that is. Intrigued? Well, here are all the carriers and retailers in the UK that’d be more than happy to sell you one.

Occasionally LG phones have failed to gain traction with all major UK carriers, but the G6 has curried favour across the board. Contract resellers are the only outlets offering the G6 on these networks without an upfront payment, though, and with a range of data caps within these contract options, they’re worth checking out.

As is usually the case, Tesco Mobile has the best deal among MVNOs. For £34.50 per month and no upfront payment, it’s offering an LG G6 with a 2GB data allowance, besting giffgaff and Sky Mobile’s cheapest contact options.

If you’re after a SIM-free, unlocked model, look no further than Tesco Direct, which is selling the G6 for £629 while every other online retailer is sticking firmly within the £645 to £650 range.

Early ‘iPhone 8’ Case Has Vertical Camera Cutout, Suggests Front-Facing Touch ID

Mobile phone leaker KK Sneak Leaks posted an image on Twitter this morning purporting to show one of the first third-party protective cases for Apple’s upcoming redesigned OLED iPhone, which isn’t expected to launch until at least September.

The transparent case has a few features that are consistent with recent schematics purporting to depict the front-running design of the so-called “iPhone 8”. Most prominent is the cutout on the upper left of the case which indicates vertically aligned dual cameras, as opposed to the horizontal alignment on the iPhone 7 Plus.

Purported third-party case for “iPhone 8” via KK Sneak Leaks
Conspicuous in its absence however is any sort of opening for a fingerprint sensor located on the rear, suggesting Touch ID will remain a front-facing feature. Apple is rumored to be trying to build Touch ID into the iPhone’s display, but the company has reportedly been struggling with perfecting the technology, suggesting it could resort to putting the sensor on the rear of the device.

The pill-shaped volume buttons shown in the picture on the right side appear to be in their normal places, but the power button on the left looks longer than on previous iPhones, which is something we’ve also seen on recent dummy models. Elsewhere, the bottom of the case indicates standard speaker grille locations either side of what will presumably be an all-in-one Lightning connector.

Early case leaks have historically been fairly accurate indicators of new iPhone designs, with some exceptions, but this is a uniquely challenging year for third-party case manufacturers looking to nail down the final design.

Apple is still thought to be testing multiple prototypes for its upcoming “10th anniversary edition” iPhone, and rather than be privy to the final design, case makers may simply resort to following the most likely one based on the same leaks covered by rumor sites, so bear those caveats in mind.

Apple’s 4.7-inch OLED iPhone is likely to be sold alongside two standard “S” cycle iPhones with LCD displays, which are said to be similar in size to the existing iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. Rumors suggest the leading candidate for the final chassis design is a stainless steel frame sandwiched between symmetrical glass on the front and the back. Apple is also supposedly working on an inductive wireless charging solution for its “premium” handset model.

Rumors also suggest Apple’s “iPhone 8” supplies may be highly constrained when the new range of phones launches, making it harder to obtain in the first few months of release, although this is not an unusual claim in the months preceding a new iPhone launch.

Related Roundup: iPhone 8 (2017)
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Google Classroom makes it easier than ever to teach and learn

Why it matters to you

The move to open Classroom to anyone with a Google account demonstrates the company’s increasing interest in the education sector.

Whether you’re a natural-born educator or a learner with a thirst for knowledge, Google wants you to know that its Classroom software is now open to one and all.

A month after the web giant opened the platform to learners with nothing more than a Google account, the company said on Thursday it’s extending the same availability to anyone that wants to teach, too. Up until now, Classroom was only available to teachers working at an educational organization who signed up via Google’s G Suite for Education service.

For those not in the know, Google Classroom is an education-focused tool that helps educators set up and manage classes. It incorporates Google’s own collection of online software, including Gmail, Docs, Calendar, and Hangouts.

Students using the system can view their assignments on Classroom’s Work page, in the class stream, or on the class calendar, and also use it to submit completed work. All class materials are automatically filed into Google Drive folders.

Notably, the platform recently started to incorporate various intelligent features to improve the efficiency of the system for teachers.

Google said this week that it’s been trialing the new, open-to-all format over the last few weeks, with teachers creating “some great new classes for adult education, hobbies, and after-school programs.”

In a post announcing the change, Google highlighted the work of educator Tony Vincent to demonstrate how the management tool can now be used. The Iowa resident tweeted out an invitation at the end of last month to gauge interest in his free online course teaching graphic design. After receiving positive responses from people around the world, he quickly filled all 75 places for his six-week class, which kicked off at the start of April.

Explaining why the system was an improvement on, say, simply posting an instructional piece on YouTube, Vincent said, “I didn’t want to just publish a video tutorial and never see the end results.” He added that when he heard Google Classroom was open for personal accounts, he thought it’d be a great chance to gather a group of like-minded folks to “learn, create, and share.”

If you fancy creating and giving lessons and are looking for an easy way to manage the process, Classroom is an option worth checking out. And all you need to do it is a Google account.

Google Classroom makes it easier than ever to teach and learn

Why it matters to you

The move to open Classroom to anyone with a Google account demonstrates the company’s increasing interest in the education sector.

Whether you’re a natural-born educator or a learner with a thirst for knowledge, Google wants you to know that its Classroom software is now open to one and all.

A month after the web giant opened the platform to learners with nothing more than a Google account, the company said on Thursday it’s extending the same availability to anyone that wants to teach, too. Up until now, Classroom was only available to teachers working at an educational organization who signed up via Google’s G Suite for Education service.

For those not in the know, Google Classroom is an education-focused tool that helps educators set up and manage classes. It incorporates Google’s own collection of online software, including Gmail, Docs, Calendar, and Hangouts.

Students using the system can view their assignments on Classroom’s Work page, in the class stream, or on the class calendar, and also use it to submit completed work. All class materials are automatically filed into Google Drive folders.

Notably, the platform recently started to incorporate various intelligent features to improve the efficiency of the system for teachers.

Google said this week that it’s been trialing the new, open-to-all format over the last few weeks, with teachers creating “some great new classes for adult education, hobbies, and after-school programs.”

In a post announcing the change, Google highlighted the work of educator Tony Vincent to demonstrate how the management tool can now be used. The Iowa resident tweeted out an invitation at the end of last month to gauge interest in his free online course teaching graphic design. After receiving positive responses from people around the world, he quickly filled all 75 places for his six-week class, which kicked off at the start of April.

Explaining why the system was an improvement on, say, simply posting an instructional piece on YouTube, Vincent said, “I didn’t want to just publish a video tutorial and never see the end results.” He added that when he heard Google Classroom was open for personal accounts, he thought it’d be a great chance to gather a group of like-minded folks to “learn, create, and share.”

If you fancy creating and giving lessons and are looking for an easy way to manage the process, Classroom is an option worth checking out. And all you need to do it is a Google account.

DJI is offering a huge cash reward in a bid to solve an airport drone mystery

Why it matters to you

DJI’s actions highlights the seriousness of the issue of illegal drone flights in restricted airports as the aviation industry continues to seek effective methods to deal with such incursions.

With drone ownership skyrocketing in the last couple of years, it seems sadly inevitable that there’s always going to be a few ne’er-do-wells getting kicks out of flying their machines in places where they really shouldn’t.

Airports spring to mind, and for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) the troubling issue of rogue drones flying close to planes is a growing one.

The most recent FAA data, collected between February and September 2016, listed 1,274 possible drone sightings by U.S. air traffic facilities compared to 874 for the same period a year earlier.

But the problem isn’t confined to the U.S. Pretty much any airport in the world faces the same danger from rogue drones, with one unlucky hub in China currently experiencing a string of illegal incursions. Indeed, the airport has been so badly affected that drone giant DJI has stepped in with the offer of a cash reward of up to one million yuan (about $145,000) to help catch those responsible.

Across four days in April spanning one week, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) disrupted multiple flights — 60 on one particular day — at Chengdu Shuangliu International, 950 miles south-west of Beijing, the BBC reported.

While it’s not clear if the authorities have proof that the flying machines are made by DJI, the Shenzhen-based company evidently feels compelled to help catch those behind the rogue flights. DJI said in a statement that flying a UAV close to an airport threatened public safety while also damaging the reputation of the consumer drone industry. A machine translation of the statement goes so far as to describe the illegal flights as “acts of evil.”

DJI includes software with its drones that prevents pilots from operating them inside restricted zones, so if the drones flying near the airport are indeed made by the company then the owner has clearly overridden these restrictions.

Such incidents have prompted a slew of companies to develop their own hardware solutions to bring down rogue drones and include everything from net-firing bazookas to electromagnetic defense shields. In the Netherlands, they’ve even trained eagles to pluck the flying machines out of the sky.

Little Nightmares review: A dreamy little horror game

When small, so-called indie developers get together to make a game, they have a massive advantage over their established peers: a complete lack of expectations. So they can let their imaginations run riot, without having to worry about commercial viability and concentrate on creating something fresh and original.

Little Nightmares operates according to just those criteria: it’s a 3D, side-scrolling platform/stealth/puzzle game which extensively mines the sort of bizarre, feverish nightmares we can all remember having as kids, to pleasingly macabre effect.

It’s also a game with a slightly unexpected provenance: publisher Bandai Namco was hitherto seen as very Japanese and parochial, but Little Nightmares is the first of a new programme of indie games that its European division is nurturing. Developer Tarsier Studios is Swedish, has been around since 2004 and its highest profile previous effort was bringing LittleBigPlanet to the PS Vita.

Little Nightmares review: Stripped back simplicity

In time-honoured indie-game fashion, Little Nightmares keeps things as minimal as possible – for example, there isn’t a single line of dialogue in the entire game, nor will you find any conventional form of storytelling in it.

However, its story does unfold as you progress through it – in large part through your own imagination, trying to make sense of the weirdness it contains. Which is a property that marks out the very best indie games from the rest: if you had to compare it to an existing game, Limbo would spring most readily to mind.

Little Nightmares’ plot is thus: you control a tiny little girl (at one point, you encounter a pigeon, which is barely smaller than she is), called Six, who wears a yellow oilskin to give the character some distinctive on-screen presence.

Bandai Namco

Six wakes up in a pretty inhospitable place which has the feel of a prison to it – dark, dank and uninviting. The only item she has is a lighter. You understand that she must escape from the hellhole in which she finds herself.

Little Nightmares review: Simple mechanics

Six can do all the things that any little girl can: jump, run (not very fast), crouch, pick up and throw objects and climb – and that’s it; she has no special powers whatsoever. So, Little Nightmares’ gameplay revolves around working out what you must do to keep her moving forward. That it game ebbs, flows and evolves is a testament to Tarsier Studios’ ingenuity.

At first, Six is more or less on her own, bar the odd rat, and black slug-like creatures that will kill her if they catch her (the game is heavily checkpointed, and whenever you resume after a mishap, cutely, you must wake Six up). Next you encounter robot eyes, which frazzle Six if they catch her in the light they shine. But then weird, misshapen humanoids begin to enter the equation: sinister figures with ridiculously short legs and long arms, and later obese, vaguely troll-like creatures.

Bandai Namco

There are some great, Limbo-style mechanical puzzles to negotiate too: Six can pull levers (usually by jumping up to them and swinging on them; even door-handles are too high for her to reach without something to stand on) which, for example, de-electrify bars that she must squeeze through, and you encounter moving contraptions which might, say, let her hang from meathooks (as long as those meathooks aren’t already carrying a butchered body) and move to inaccessible areas.

Little Nightmares review: Stealth gameplay

Stealth mechanics soon come into the mix, as Six escapes from one area to the next, each of which has its own distinct feel.

One group of enemies is blind, but has preternatural hearing, so you must figure out how to keep to sound-muffling carpets and avoid creaky floorboards – and use sound-making objects as lures.

Bandai Namco

Another set of enemies can see, but has such a short attention-span that if you hide Six underneath a table or the like, they soon give up looking for her. While you have to use stealth techniques in such sequences, Little Nightmares stops a long way short of Metal Gear Solid levels of stealth-rigour.

By the end, Six becomes bolder in her encounters with humanoids, and things eventually hit a really freaky crescendo – there’s even a final boss-battle, in which Six’s sole item of equipment is a mirror.

At that stage, you’re left in no doubt that she isn’t as sweet and innocent as she looks. The first indications of that appear when she periodically experiences hunger pains and must find food before being able to carry on her escape (she makes some very strange meal-choices). That’s an example of how Tarsier Studios has taken every opportunity to ensure that Little Nightmares is satisfyingly dark, often gruesome and always riven with black humour. Its macabre ambience is perhaps its best aspect – at times, it’s reminiscent of the film Delicatessen.

Bandai Namco

Of course, it isn’t perfect. After all, it’s a little indie game which will only set you back £16, so it was always bound to be short, and indeed it is – you can breeze through it in maybe three hours. Nor is there a vast amount of replay value, although you can revisit particular chapters that stuck in your mind, should you so wish.

Verdict

Little Nightmares offers a perfect illustration of what the indie development sector brings to gaming.

It’s out-there, endlessly clever, truly original and very entertaining – especially if you have a sense of humour which tends towards the darkest end of the spectrum.

Although short and without much replay value, Little Nightmares is impressive entry from Bandai Namco into the curious world of indie games.

Little Nightmares is available now, priced £16, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows

Nintendo 2DS XL gives you massive screens to play on but none of that 3D nonsense

Nintendo is fully on the comeback path. Not only is the Nintendo Switch going great guns, breaking all manner of launch sales records, it is breathing new life into the DS range with an all-new handheld.

The Nintendo 2DS XL expands upon the success of the 2DS, a console designed to play 3DS games but without the 3D screen younger kids are dissuaded from using. However, it ditches the flat design in favour of a clamshell body, like its 3DS equivalents. It also ramps the screen sizes up a fair notch.

Coming in black and turquoise, or white and orange, the 2DS XL has two screens. A 2D 4.88-inch at the top and a slightly smaller touchscreen at the bottom. It also has Amiibo support thanks to an NFC sensor under the lower screen.

It weighs 260g and packs the exact same power as the current 3DS XL. All 3DS games (and DS games) will work on the 2DS XL.

The new handheld comes with a 4GB microSD card in the box to expand its storage capabilities and, importanly, a power adapter. Nintendo famously left out chargers in former releases, presuming that people were simply upgrading and had one already.

The Nintendo 2DS XL will be available from 28 July. Its UK price is yet to be revealed although it is listed in the US for $150 (around £116 at today’s exchange rate).

There are three new games also coming to 2DS, 3DS, 3DS XL and the new 2DS XL on the same launch day. Hey! Pikmin, Miitopia and Dr Kawashima’s Devilish Brain Training: Can you stay focused? will each expand their respective franchises.

Facebook’s Messenger Lite expands to 132 more countries

From the text-only Facebook Zero way back in 2010, to more recent Project Aquila, Mark Zuckerberg and company have made it clear that reaching the developing world is a huge priority for the company. So there was little surprise when it announced Facebook Lite and Messenger Lite, which offer stripped-down, low-bandwidth versions of Facebook’s two main products for users in emerging markets with spotty service and expensive data rates. After officially launching in just five countries last year, Facebook is now expanding the rollout of Messenger Lite to another 132 countries.

Facebook’s head of Messenger David Marcus shared the major expansion in a status update today, noting that the Lite version is designed for older phones with limited memory and processing power. Users will still be able to chat with Messenger’s more than 1.2 billion users, but they’ll be limited to sharing text, photos, links and stickers. Processor-heavy features like Messenger Day, photo filters and third-party apps won’t be available, but the app itself is designed to use less memory and data while compensating for unstable networks at the same time. Although Facebook has been coming after Snapchat’s users hard in recent months, Messenger Lite will compete more directly with it’s own WhatsApp as the messaging platform with the lowest barrier to entry.

Germany, Colombia, Italy, Vietnam, Algeria, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, Turkey, Japan, Taiwan and the Netherlands are all included in the new rollout, according to Marcus. Meanwhile, as TechCrunch points out, Messenger Lite is not available in Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Sudan, UK, US and North Korea, but the vast majority of the planet now has access to Messenger’s core features. From a hardware perspective, Messenger Lite is only available on Android, but it works with older versions of the operating system all the way back to Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Facebook

Google+ ‘Topics’ highlight active users and communities

Google’s latest feature for its social network can make your home stream look a little bit less lonely. Next time you check Google+, you’ll see a new block in your stream listing topics you can explore. The social network already has hundreds of topics on rotation that you can click through, including Black & White Photography, Art, Science, Toy Models & Crafts. They’re all in English, Spanish and Portuguese, though, and it’s unclear if they’ll ever be available in other languages.

By exploring the topics listed, you could find new or hidden communities and individuals who share your interest. It could also show you relevant collections you might not see otherwise. Google is rolling out the feature within the next day or so — keep an eye out for it if you’re looking for contacts to add, because everyone else you know is on Facebook.

Source: Google

M&S to trial online grocery deliveries

As the UK online food delivery market continues to grow, some big name businesses are worrying that they’re missing out. Amazon finally threw its hat in the ring almost a year ago and now Marks and Spencer (M&S) has announced it’s preparing sell groceries online from this autumn.

According to CEO Steve Rowe, online groceries didn’t make financial sense for the company in the past, mainly because customers don’t spend enough on food to make the service profitable. However, M&S now says it can no longer ignore one of the fastest growing areas of the UK grocery market.

“We continue to review food online carefully,” said Rowe, reported by The Guardian. “It has not cost us anything over the last five years by not being online with food. Our customers haven’t moved yet, but they will and we need to ensure that we are ready with the right response. There are unanswered questions over what this means for M&S and we have a team looking at this now with a view to undertaking a soft trial in the autumn.”

M&S already provides a small food delivery service, offering a small selection of entrees and alcohol online. A wider launch will see it go head-to-head with Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Ocado and Amazon, which are often associated with a “big shop.” Although M&S’ food business has grown substantially over the last decade, it’s used to customers filling small baskets of own-brand speciality goods.

The announcement comes soon after the company announced it will close six stores as part of a wider plan to boost its food business. Over the next five years, 30 stores will close indefinitely and 45 others will be “downsized or replaced” as “Simply Food” shops.

Source: The Guardian