Don’t judge this yacht by its exterior — the inside rivals a luxury home

Why it matters to you

You could round up ten friends for a life-changing charter experience on the Ocean Emerald.

Some people think the Ocean Emerald looks like a floating hospital. Others are drawn to the industrial exterior and luxurious but livable interior spaces on the 41 meter (135 foot) superyacht,  according to Boat International.

The Ocean Emerald was built in Italy in 2009 by Rodriquez Yachts, a company since acquired by International SPA. The exterior and interior were designed by London-based architect Lord Norman Foster of Foster and Partners. The yacht’s 28-foot beam affords an owner’s suite that extends from side to side. The suite has a centerline king-size bed, a 60-inch television, ocean-view sofas, en-suite bathroom, and two private terraces. There are four additional staterooms for up to 10 guests plus quarters for the crew of eight, which includes the owner.

The Ocean Emerald is based in Thailand and is one of only a few superyachts available for charter. The owner, Nigel Plaskett, was a successful British manufacturer who sold his company three years ago. Plaskett has a home in Thailand but has his office on the yacht and always stays on board when the Ocean Emerald is chartered, usually 8 to 12 weeks a year.

Two 1,400 horsepower diesel engines have a range of up to 2,800 nautical miles with 6,868 gallons of fuel at a 14-knot cruising speed. Maximum speed is 18 knots, so if you want to water ski or wakeboard, you’ll have to be pulled by one of several watercraft stored in the garage.

Toys abound on the Ocean Emerald. A side-loading garage opens to store a 49-foot tender, two jet skis, and an 18-foot 4-passenger jet boat. No one will be left out if they are seeking fun in, on, or by the water because the yacht is also equipped with kayaks, a paddle board, towable inflatables, water skis, a wakeboard, four full sets of diving equipment, 12 sets of snorkeling gear, and fishing equipment.

Amenities on board include air Conditioning, Wi-Fi, a deck Jacuzzi, exercise equipment, and stabilizers for passenger comfort at anchor and underway.

Ocean Emerald is available for charter for $94,000 a week plus expenses. If you’re interested in renting, be sure to check with the broker handling the charter to learn exactly what “plus expenses” means, as it can vary widely in different parts of the world and with the type of charter contract offered. If, for example, “all expenses” includes all food, fuel, and anything else used during the charter, the total can easily add up to 25 to 50 percent of the base charter fee. In other cases, three meals and fuel for 3 to 4 hours of cruising a day are included in the base fee.

Make the Bixby button great again: BixRemap will open Google Now instead

If Bixby isn’t your thing, here’s how to replace it with Google Now.

The Galaxy S8 has been mostly well received by everyone. Blogger and users who have scored their phones already are saying really good things, and even the naysayers are impressed with the hardware. It just seems like a damn good phone so far. But there is one thing a lot of folks are saying they would like to change: The Bixby button.

Bixby seems like a cool robot friend AI thing. Unless you’re on Verizon or in Europe, that is. I won’t dismiss it outright until I’ve tried it long enough to know if I like it or not.

But other people feel differently and want the convenience and familiarity that comes with Google Now and hate that the button is hard-programmed to open Bixby when pressed. Earlier methods to bypass this have been patched by Samsung as they “exploited” services that they didn’t need to access in order to gain control over the button. But because Android developers are crafty and awesome, we have a new app that will save the day.

Developer Dave Bennett is using his own service (you’ll need to enable it when you first run the app) that overrides the Bixby behavior. When you press the button, Bixby opens but is quickly backgrounded while Google Now opens. Ha! Awesome, Dave.

You can grab the app (it’s free) from the Play Store link above. We don’t know if Samsung will find this app not to their liking and patch it away, but it works today so live in the moment and show Bixby who is the boss.

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+

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

Verizon
AT&T
T-Mobile
Sprint

How to fix one eye displaying darker than the other in VR

A lingering issue plenty of users have reported in VR is one displaying darker than other.

As the technology for VR grows and develop, there are going to be small problems that crop up. One of the lingering problems that’s been cropping up as far back as 2014 and has appeared on Daydream, Gear VR, and even Oculus Rift, is one eye displaying darker visually on the screen than the other.

Read More at VR Heads!

‘Avatar’ sequels start arriving on December 18th, 2020

James Cameron has spent years drumming up hype for his Avatar sequels with little to show for it (the first sequel was originally due this December). However, his team is finally ready to commit to specific release dates — for all the new movies. The production team has revealed that Avatar 2 should arrive on December 18th, 2020, with the rest staggered throughout the next few years. The third movie is slated for December 17th, 2021. There will be a 3-year gap between that and the fourth movie, which debuts on December 20th, 2024. The fifth and final (?) title will appear on December 19th, 2025, 16 years after the first.

Cameron and crew have started “concurrent” production of the sequels, which are poised to make cases for both high frame rate video as well as Avatar’s signature blend of CG with real-world acting. In theory, this gives the team a better sense of the timing than it might have if it was taking a serial approach.

With that said, you may still want to take these dates with a grain of salt. It’s not just that the releases have been pushed back in the past, it’s that the scope has changed over time. Cameron added a fourth sequel to the mix just in 2016, so it won’t be surprising if the schedule shifts due to further creative changes or unforeseen challenges. Really, the big news is simply that the director is getting the ball rolling after years of prep — the dates just give you a rough idea of what to expect.

Via: Variety

Source: Avatar (Facebook)

YouTube fixes Restricted Mode issue censoring LGBTQ+ videos

YouTube says it has fixed the issue that made Restricted Mode a bit too restrictive. The option was supposed to make the website more suitable for minors when switched on, but its older version also filtered out millions of harmless videos, including hundreds of thousands featuring LGBTQ+ themes. It affected Canadian indie pop duo Tegan & Sara’s music videos, a recording of someone coming out to his grandmother and a lesbian couple’s wedding vows, among numerous other perfectly wholesome content. People rightly called out YouTube, which apologized for what it said was a mistake its system made.

While YouTube doesn’t delve into the details of what it had to fix, it assures everyone it has already corrected whatever it was that was “incorrectly filtering videos for [the] feature.” The team also manually reviewed a bunch of censored videos and will use them to train its algorithms. It took a while for the platform to address the problem, but as a result, Restricted Mode now has access to 12 million additional videos.

Despite its promise to roll out more changes in the future, YouTube admits that the system will “never be 100 percent perfect.” Some G-rated videos will likely still get caught in its sticky filters, but at least you can now contact the team when it happens through a new form built for that specific purpose. If you’re wondering what should and shouldn’t be able to go through Restricted Mode’s filter, check out these guidelines the platform listed:

• Drugs and alcohol: If you’re talking about drug use or abuse, or if you’re drinking alcohol in your videos, your videos will likely not be available in Restricted Mode.
• Sex: While some educational, straightforward conversations about sexual education may be included in Restricted Mode, overly detailed conversations about sex or sexual activity will likely be removed. This is one of the more difficult topics to train our systems on, and context is key. If your music video features adult themes like sex or drug use, that video will likely not make it into Restricted Mode.
• Violence: If your video includes graphic descriptions of violence, violent acts, natural disasters and tragedies, or even violence in the news, it will likely not appear in Restricted Mode.
• Mature subjects: Videos that cover specific details about events related to terrorism, war, crime, and political conflicts that resulted in death or serious injury may not be available on Restricted Mode, even if no graphic imagery is shown.
• Profane and mature language: Inappropriate language including profanity like “F bombs” will also likely result in your video not being available in Restricted Mode.

If you put @YouTube on restricted mode a bunch of our music videos disappear. I checked myself. LGBTQ people shouldn’t be restricted. SAD!

— Tegan and Sara (@teganandsara) March 19, 2017

Source: YouTube

Apple Confirms iCloud Subscription Tier Cancelation Emails Were Sent in Error

Apple on Saturday emailed some iCloud users to apologize for a bug that caused them to receive an email earlier this week stating their paid storage subscription plan had been canceled.

The emails went out to predominantly 50GB iCloud subscribers on Wednesday, causing some MacRumors readers to speculate that Apple was discontinuing the storage tier completely. Options to purchase some of the plans through macOS and iOS were also reportedly affected.

However, as predicted, the emails were sent in error. Apple has now followed up the errant message to clarify that it was a mistake and that there has been no change to users’ subscription plans.

“You recently received an email incorrectly stating that your iCloud storage plan has been discontinued,” the email read. “Your 50 GB iCloud storage plan is not affected and will continue to renew automatically.

“We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you have any questions, please contact us.”

(Via AppleInsider.)

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Open up in this weekend’s comments thread

Sit back, relax and chat about stuff because it’s the weekend!

The weekend is finally here. The five days between them sometimes feel like they take forever, but this week was pretty cool with all the Galaxy S8 stuff. Flo and Daniel have to be especially grateful that the calendar says Saturday this week. Be sure to have a look at the reviews (some things need more than one) they wrote for the Galaxy S8 and S8+ if you haven’t already.

• Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ review: Such great heights
• Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ review: Simply two of the best

I’m sure they weren’t the only ones working long hours to get things done. But that’s all behind us and it’s time to enjoy life two days at a time.

Part of the way we relax is on the couch with a phone surfing the internet. When you’re doing that it’s always fun to talk about things with other internet surfing relaxed folks. Here’s an open space where you can do just that. Talk about anything with anyone (but be kind to each other and don’t go too far). Phone stuff is cool, but so is car stuff or lawnmower stuff or the best way to make a Mint Julip stuff.

Here’s my random thought to get things started:

I got to play with a PS4 Pro, Xbox One and a Gaming PC all hooked to the same fancy ASUS ROG monitor and all playing the same titles earlier in the week. Anyone who says a console looks and plays as nice as a PC isn’t being honest with themselves or you. And not just a little bit — when you see things side by side it’s a little crazy how much difference is between good (console) and great (PC). A PlayStation or Xbox is still awesome for playing games on the couch, but try not to compare either to a PC the way I did because you’ll never unsee it. I was happier before I did it.
Now it’s your turn. Tell us all something cool!

Recommended Reading: Juicero and the Silicon Valley hype machine

Silicon Valley’s $400
Juicer May Be
Feeling the Squeeze
Ellen Huet and
Olivia Zaleski,
Bloomberg

We never bought into the hype of a $700 juicer, but the folks at Juicero were able convince some that its WiFi-connected device was worth the investment. Well, you now only have to hand over $400 as the price dropped since it launched. Unfortunately, the juice packs that the machine uses can be squeezed by hand, which led the company’s CEO to offer refunds this week to unsatisfied customers.

‘The Last Goodbye’ is the VR Holocaust memorial we need today

You’ve read about the Holocaust in books and seen it portrayed in films. But it’s another experience entirely to walk through the site of a concentration camp in virtual reality, led by a survivor who lost his entire family there. The Last Goodbye, which debuts at the Tribeca Film Festival this week, follows Pinchas Gutter as he makes his final pilgrimage to Majdanek, a former Nazi Germany extermination camp in occupied Poland. It’s a trip he’s made many times, but this one has a specific purpose: to capture his account of the Holocaust so we never forget that it actually happened.

“I think that you have to confront pain to be able to heal it,” Gutter says in the film. “Unless you have somebody that can say, ‘I was here, I saw this, this was done to me,’ I don’t think people would accept it as the gospel truth.”

The Last Goodbye, a co-production by the Shoah Foundation, Here Be Dragons, MPC VR and OTOY, is a 16-minute-long experience that combines 360-degree video and photorealistic interactive environments from Majdanek. The studios captured tens of thousands of photos and spent five months painstakingly reconstructing them virtually. And, in a VR first, they also recorded high-quality stereo video of Gutter on-location, which results in an avatar that can believably make eye contact with you. All of that makes The Last Goodbye a VR journey that’s as painful as it is immersive.

David Korins, the set designer for the musical Hamilton, developed the installation for The Last Goodbye. It’s the size of a small room, with a mirrored exterior that makes it stand out from the plethora of VR showpieces at Tribeca. Going through the experience involves much more than just donning a VR headset: After walking down a small hallway, I met a guide who directed me to take off my shoes as a sign of respect. I then crossed a threshold of pebbles and stepped into the room, which had bare walls and cool ambient lighting. My guide, in a calm and collected voice, described the basics of the experience to me, helped me set up the headset, and left me alone. I took a deep breath and braced myself for what would likely be an emotionally painful journey.

The Last Goodbye begins in Gutter’s hotel room, where he’s steeling himself for the upcoming trip. He was first sent there with his family when he was 11, and he describes, in heartbreaking detail, the process of how they were stuffed onto a train car with dozens other families. As I started to explore an interactive model of one of those trains, the horrors of the Nazi’s genocidal campaign against the Jewish people came starkly into focus. Someone built this thing just to efficiently ship families to their doom.

That realization was reinforced as I was guided throughout Majdanek. There’s the shower room, where Gutter recites the same Hebrew prayer he did as a child, right after being forced to jump into an anti-septic bath. He was certain he was going to be gassed there. At one point, you see rows upon rows of bunk beds, where he describes the feeling of trying disappear, so that the guards didn’t notice him. Toward the end, we see the furnaces that incinerated tens of thousands of bodies. And that’s where I got sick to my stomach.

It’d be one thing just to see these rooms in VR, but hearing Gutter’s recollection from childhood makes it all the more tragic and meaningful. When he reveals that he can no longer remember anything about his twin sister, aside from her golden braid, it’s hard not to tear up alongside him. I’m not a religious person, but I try to have faith in humanity. Seeing these tools of genocide up close, even virtually, made me physically shake at points.

There’s been plenty of talk about VR as a vehicle for empathy. You’re not just seeing something displayed on a screen, or imagining it from a book; in some sense you’re sharing an experience. And that’s truer than ever before with The Last Goodbye. I’ve gone through countless VR experiences, but this is by far the most meaningful one. And it’s particularly necessary today, when even prominent White House employees can’t recall exactly what happened during the Holocaust.

Looking ahead, The Last Goodbye could end up touring around the world at museums. But I also hope it’s eventually made available for home download. You won’t get to experience the elaborate set design, but it’s still worth seeing Pinchas Gutter’s story in VR. In fact, it’s more important than ever.

Huawei P10 lite review

Recently Huawei launched this year’s “P” model, the high-end P10 with its Leica-branded dual cameras and a sleek metal design. However, as a high-end phone it will be outside the budget of some consumers. Therefore Huawei has also launched a cheaper version of the P10 called the P10 lite. It doesn’t come with the P10’s dual cameras nor does it have the same flagship level internals, but similarly neither does it carry the same price tag!

I got the device a few days ago and I have been trying it out. So here is my in-depth review of the Huawei P10 lite.

Design

Although the P10 lite uses the same name as its bigger siblings, the P10 and P10 Plus, it doesn’t really use the same design language. There are several significant differences including no physical home button, no dual-cameras, and no USB Type-C port.

However what you do get is a metal frame, chamfered edges, and a fingerprint reader on the back. On the front you get a 5.2-inch display along with a discrete Huawei logo. As mentioned, there is no physical home button and the P10 lite uses on-screen navigation keys.

Going around the rest of the phone, the volume rocker and textured power button are on the right, while the SIM tray is on the left. At the bottom you will find the speaker grill and the micro USB port for charging the 3,000 mAh battery. On the back is the rear facing camera along with the flash and the fingerprint reader.

Display

The Huawei P10 lite comes with a Full HD 5.2-inch IPS display and 2.5D glass. According to my testing the display is capable of 445 nits of brightness and according to the specs it has a contrast ratio of 1500:1. That 1,920×1,080 resolution yields a very decent 423 pixels per inch.

The display is plenty bright enough for indoors and it is still usable outdoors, however at only 445 nits it could struggle in very bright direct sunlight. You can change the color temperature of the display in the Settings menu to be a little warmer or cooler to better suit your tastes, but for me the default settings were good enough.

Overall the display is crisp and vibrant and certainly a plus point in this “lite” version of the P10.

See also:

AMOLED vs LCD – What is the difference?

October 13, 2013

Hardware and performance

The Huawei P10 lite features an in-house Kirin 658 SoC built on 16nm FinFET. It is a slightly beefed up version of the Kirin 650 found in the Huawei P9 lite. It has an octa-core CPU configuration with four Cortex-A53 cores, clocked at 2.36 GHz and another four clocked at 1.7 GHz. The chip also features a Mali-T830 MP2 GPU.

There are two variations of the device, depending on the particular model and region. There’s a 32 GB version with 3 GB of RAM and another 32 GB version with 4 GB of RAM. It seems that Western Europe, Northern Africa, Southeast Asia, and APAC get the 4 GB version, while the rest of the world gets the 3 GB version.

Most of the models have dual-SIM support with the second SIM supporting 2G only, however there is one model that takes just a single SIM. Regardless, all models have a microSD card slot.

Although the Cortex-A53 is designed more for power efficiency than peak performance, the P10 lite still feels fast and fluid. The UI animations are smooth, apps open and close quickly, and with 4 GB of RAM multi-tasking is a breeze.

2D games work well on this device and it can also manage 3D games, however the GPU will be under powered for those looking to play complex 3D games at high frame rates.

In terms of the benchmarks, the Huawei P10 lite scored 901 on Geekbench’s single-core test and 3310 for the multi-core test. That is on par (if not slightly better) than other octa-core Cortex-A53 based processors like the Snapdragon 625, which you find in phones like the Huawei Nova and the Moto G5 Plus.

For AnTuTu, the P10 lite scored 61164, which places it in the company of older phones like the LG V10, the Nexus 5X and the Samsung Galaxy S4. A flagship P10 gets over 132,000 for AnTuTu, so you can reckon that the P10 lite has about half the performance of today’s leading high-end devices or the same performance as a flagship device from 2 years ago.

As for Epic Citadel, the device manages 46.6 frames per second in Ultra High Quality mode, which is actually higher than I was expecting considering the GPU in the Kirin 658 only has two shader cores.

The fingerprint reader on the P10 lite is very good. To be honest I have come to expect nothing less from Huawei. The fingerprint reader on the P10 is excellent and the P10 lite has followed suit. Since the fingerprint reader is on the back, you can wake and unlock your phone just by putting your finger on the reader. You can also use the fingerprint reader to trigger the shutter while taking photos, as well as use it to swipe left and right when viewing photos in the gallery, or to answer a call.

The Huawei P10 lite features a single speaker on the bottom edge, next to the micro USB port. The speaker is quite loud and the sound is reasonable considering it isn’t a front facing speaker. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was very little distortion at full volume, something I frequently hear on other mid-range phones.

The P10 lite has a 3,000 mAh non-removable battery, which is a great plus point when you consider how sleek Huawei have made this device. I ran Epic Citadel to test the battery life while playing 3D games. According to my calculations you will be able to play 3D games for around 4 hours from a full charge. As for simpler tasks like browsing or watching video you will get at least 8 hours.

Overall you will be able to get through a full day without needing to reach for the charger. You should get between 5 and 6 hours of screen-on time during a 24 hour period for mixed activities like 3D gaming, web browsing and taking photos.

When it comes to battery charging, the P10 lite supports quick charging and the supplied charger is a rated as high as 18W ( 9V/2A). To go from 10% to 100% takes 87 minutes with the final 22 minutes accounting for the last 10% (from 90% to 100%). To get to 50% from 10% takes around half an hour.

Software

The Huawei P10 lite runs Android 7.0 out of the box, complete with Huawei’s Emotion UI 5.1. The biggest gripe that people seem to have with EMUI is the lack of an app drawer, however that should no longer be an issue as Huawei has included the ability to change the home screen to include an app drawer!

For those of you unfamiliar with EMUI, the general look-and-feel is different to stock Android with Huawei’s own launcher and a re-designed settings page. However besides the UI changes there are lots of additional features that you don’t get with stock Android including motion gestures, a floating dock, voice control, a one-handed mode and Huawei’s own take on the “do not disturb” mode.

Under motion gestures you can enable motions like “flip to mute” and “raise to ear” to answer calls. There is also the familiar Knuckle gestures which allow you to take a screenshot by double tapping the screen with your knuckle, or drawing a letter to open an app. Both types of knuckle gesture can be disabled if you find they misfire.

Since the P10 lite uses on-screen keys, Huawei has added the ability to customize the order of the navigation buttons. By default the back button is on the left and the recent apps is on the right. However this can be reversed to Samsung’s (old) way of doing things if you prefer. It is also possible to add a fourth button for opening the notification panel. Tapping the icon is the equivalent to dragging the notification shade down from the top.

Huawei has included a basic battery manager which can detect power-intensive apps as well as optimize the phone’s settings for better battery life (screen brightness etc). There is also a power saving mode which limits background app activity and reduces some of the visual effects. Plus there is an ultra power saving mode which gives you access to a basic launcher and just a few essential apps like phone and messaging.

Camera

You get a 12 MP rear camera with a 1.25 micron pixel size on a 1/1.28 inch sensor. While Huawei claims things like “20 percent more light” the truth is that a 1/1.28 inch sensor is tiny, even by smartphone standards. Having said that, I am impressed with the photos this device can take, especially those in good day light conditions. As expected, the camera struggles in lower lighting, but not as badly as I had feared. The images can be grainy and colors often appear more muted than in better lit conditions.

Apart from the more standard modes like HDR and Panorama there are lots of camera modes available including a full manual mode, which offers greater control over ISO, exposure and shutter speed. Other modes include time-lapse, slow-mo, and watermark. Huawei also added a light painting mode, that lets you capture light trails created by things like moving cars, or the stars in the sky. The effect can be really cool, but does require very steady hands, or a tripod mount, to get the shot to look the way you’ll want it.

The 8 MP front-facing camera is also solid enough, and should make selfie junkies happy. You will find a standard beautification mode available, plus the Perfect Selfie mode, which allows you to tinker with your selfie portraits with options to enlarge your eyes and thin your face!

My biggest complaint I have had with previous Huawei devices is that the camera app didn’t rotate all the UI elements when you move from portrait to landscape. The good news is that this has been (mainly) fixed with the P10 lite (and also with the P10).

Since this is a budget-friendly phone there is no Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) or 4K video.

Here are some sample photos to help you judge the camera for yourself:

Specifications

Gallery

Wrapping up

The Huawei P10 lite certainly ticks a lot of the right boxes for a mid-range device. It’s thin, has a good sized battery, and offers reasonable performance, all on a budget. Also the ability to enable an app drawer should help EMUI find greater acceptance. The software offers some good extra features and having 4 GB of RAM is nice. While it doesn’t have a dual camera setup, the included camera is certainly usable especially in good lighting.

Overall I would say if you are looking for a phone on a budget then it is certainly worth considering the Huawei P10 Lite.