Want to see the best Adidas trainers ever? Sneakers with built-in drum machine

Digital branding agency Neely & Daughters was tasked with coming up with the coolest pair of Adidas trainers ever made, as part of a pitch for the Mi Adidas label and it certainly met the requirements.

The Mi Adidas TR-808 sneakers are not only tasty-looking basketball hi-tops, they have a TR-808 drum machine built inside – hence the name.

The Roland TR-808 drum machine is legendary, dating back to the early 80s and synonymous with the early days of hip hop. So putting the same technology inside the custom trainers is a masterstroke.

The Mi Adidas TR-808 shoes are equipped with a volume control on the side and the ability to fiddle with six pre-programmed settings. You can also listen to the type of beats used in a video put together by the agency (above).

Unfortunately, there are no plans to ever release an actual pair of the TR-808s. They were only ever designed to be a prototype concept and are destined to remain the best Adidas shoes never made.

You’ll have to make do with the 3D-printed Futurecraft 4D sneakers instead. Adidas confirmed last month that it will be putting them on sale later this year and subsequently mass-producing pairs by the end of 2018.

Amazon’s touchscreen ‘Echo Show’ may launch today for $230

You really might be able to pre-order Amazon’s touchscreen Echo sometime today, May 9th, if the leaked listing AFTVnews got its hands on is the real deal. Based on the screenshot (posted below the fold), the device is officially called the Amazon Echo Show, and it will set you back $230 in the US. The leaked listing didn’t show prices in other regions, but it could cost you £220 or €240 if you’re in the UK or Germany, respectively. That aligns with the price the Wall Street Journal was expecting and is almost $100 more than the newly launched Echo Look. The listing also says that pre-orders will begin shipping on June 28th, and each customer is limited to four units, likely to prevent resellers from hoarding.

If, like us, you didn’t like its whole 90’s TV aesthetic, you might want to check out the company’s other Echo speakers instead: the renders leaked in the past few days are identical to the image in the listing, The device is expected to sport a 7-inch display with a camera on top and a speaker underneath. It will, of course, be loaded with Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa and will reportedly be able to make internet-based phone calls. We might know more real soon if the e-retail giant truly does launch the product in a few hours, so make sure to check back for more info.

Source: AFTVnews

Amazon’s latest Prime incentive is exclusive music concerts

Not content with merely streaming music, Amazon is preparing to put on its own live shows. Prime Live Events will be ticketed and exclusive to Prime members, adding an extra incentive to its “all-in” subscription. The initiative starts on May 23rd with a Blondie performance at the Round Chapel in Hackney. Alison Moyet will then take the stage on June 12th, followed by a Texas set at Porchester Hall four days later. Finally, Katie Melua will be throwing a concert at Cadogan Hall in Chelsea on July 25th and 26th. Amazon says more shows will be announced in due course.

The company’s move into live music serves another purpose. All of the concerts will be filmed and released worldwide through Prime Video, Amazon’s homegrown video streaming service. The app is a key component of the Amazon Prime bundle — although access can be bought separately — and its success relies on a steady stream of exclusives. As Netflix pushes into live comedy, it makes sense for Amazon to push back with live concerts. If it can attract big-name stars, these shows could act as the pendulum that persuades on-the-fence-customers to subscribe.

Amazon has experimented with live music events before. The company threw a concert for Robbie Williams at St. John Hackney Church on December 14th, and another for John Legend at The Round Chapel the next day. Both were limited to Amazon customers and later released through Prime Video. These, then, were essentially trial runs, or a proof-of-concept for Prime Live Events. As part of today’s announcement, Amazon is also updating Amazon Tickets, an online portal where anyone can buy live music, theatre and comedy stubs. Now, similar to O2 Priority, Prime members can purchase tickets ahead of their general public release.

If nothing else, all of these new events should put a little pressure on Apple, which has long dominated the headlines with its annual and highly successful Apple Music Festival (formally iTunes Festival) in London.

Via: Amazon PR

Source: Amazon Prime Live Events

Future phones will ID devices by their electromagnetic fields

While NFC has become a standard feature on Android phones these days, it is only as convenient as it is available on the other end, not to mention the awkwardness of aligning the antennas as well. As such, Carnegie Mellon University’s Future Interfaces Group is proposing a working concept that’s practically the next evolution of NFC: electromagnetic emissions sensing. You see, as Disney Research already pointed out last year, each piece of electrical device has its own unique electromagnetic field, so this characteristic alone can be used as an ID so long as the device isn’t truly powered off. With a little hardware and software magic, the team has come up with a prototype smartphone — a modified Moto G from 2013 — fitted with electromagnetic-sensing capability, so that it can recognize any electronic device by simply tapping on one.

With the help of machine learning to classify device types, this phone was able to accurately toggle the corresponding apps or charms by merely tapping on almost anywhere on a variety of connected devices: Phillips Hue LED bulb, fridge, TV, thermostat, router, smart door lock, projector and more. Even “dumb” devices such as a coffee machine can be recognized, it’s just that the phone obviously wouldn’t be able to control them, but one could implement other types of interaction (maybe launch a coffee capsule catalog upon tapping?).

In another set of demos, the team showed how the phone could show contextual charms upon tapping various connected devices. For instance, tapping a monitor would give you the option to send either files or pre-selected text from the phone to the PC (which sounds more straightforward than the NFC feature in Windows); whereas tapping a TV or a Chromecast Audio would give you the cast button.

While the prototype phone has a dongle sticking out from the bottom, Future Interfaces Group reckoned the commercialized version of this electromagnetic-sensing technology may be able to use the phone’s existing antenna or metallic chassis to achieve the same goal. Another challenge is to improve noise rejection and also fine-tune this technique, so that devices of the same model can be distinguished from the minute differences in their electromagnetic signatures, which is something that Disney Research appeared to be confident in. As to when we may see this feature on future smartphones, group director Chris Harrison said it’ll be at least a year before it gets commercialized — much like the team’s other recent project, Electrick.

Source: Chris Harrison (PDF)

Microsoft just fixed a serious Windows Defender bug

Over the weekend, Google Project Zero researchers Tavis Ormandy and Natalie Silvanovich tweeted about discovering “the worst Windows remote code exec in recent memory.” According to Ormandy, it could work against a default installation and even become “wormable” — able to replicate itself on a targeted machine and then spread to other computers automatically. Now we know more about what the problem is since, in just two days, Microsoft’s Security Response Center and Windows Defender developers were able to come up with a fix that is now available via Windows Update for Windows 7, 8.1, RT and 10 (according to Microsoft, the Control Flow Guard security feature lowers the risk of this attack on 8.1 and 10), as well as other versions that IT professionals may be more familiar with.

As described by the Project Zero team, the problem resided in Microsoft’s antimalware protection engine, which is supposed to scan files for issues, but could be tricked into executing code included in an email, on a webpage or in an instant message. Now that it’s patched, your Windows computer should download the updated version automatically within the next day or two.

If you’re in a hurry, you can punch the update button and get it manually, likely without a reboot — just check your Windows Defender settings to make sure it has an engine listed with version 1.1.13704.0 or higher.

Just released malware protection engine update to
address RCE vuln – Defender will autoupdate. https://t.co/rzn5QWo6sV

— Security Response (@msftsecresponse) May 9, 2017

.@natashenka Attack works against a default install, don’t need to be on the same LAN, and it’s wormable. 🔥

— Tavis Ormandy (@taviso) May 6, 2017

CVE-2017-0290 is tweetable 🙂

var e = new Error();https://t.co/0RDygaVW6B(message : 7 );https://t.co/xkH9SQpNJE

— Natalie Silvanovich (@natashenka) May 9, 2017

Still blown away at how quickly @msftsecurity responded to protect users, can’t give enough kudos. Amazing.

— Tavis Ormandy (@taviso) May 9, 2017

Source: Google Project Zero, Microsoft Security Advisory

The Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus: So much to love, but not without its flaws

Samsung changed everything. Again.

Well, maybe that’s not entirely correct. I suppose what I mean is that Samsung has changed how I feel about its phones again.

For a long time Samsung was kind of just there. It made phones that had great specs but looked terrible and put me off by either those terrible looks or just being the big guy that everyone bought into on the Android side. For some of us geeks, our phones say a lot about who we are and I didn’t want to be just like everyone else who bought the latest Galaxy. That’s my own personal hang-up, but we all have them.

But, something changed a few years ago. Unless you’re living under a rock or you really don’t pay attention to tech, you know that Samsung changed up the design of its Galaxy S flagship with the S6. Metal and glass, curved displays, premium materials. No longer did the Galaxy S line have hardware you had to suffer through to have the best specs and the most features packed into your device.

I still wasn’t sold. I watched as my good friend got the Samsung Galaxy S6 because on paper it was the best choice. Horrendous battery life and slow updates plagued the device. The S7 was great, if not a bit small, while the S7 Edge was harder to handle than I was willing to put up with.

And then there was the S8. Try as I might I couldn’t distance myself from it while all the leaks were coming out. I ended up with one on launch day. The specs, the display, the unmatched beauty of the hardware. Some combination of them pulled me in and it has me now. I bought my Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus with open eyes to Samsung’s past sins and while it hasn’t been perfect so far, it has changed how I think about phones the same way my first iPhone did.

I don’t know if this is a review in the sense that you would normally think of a review. I’m going to tell you some things I love, some things to watch out for and I’m going to trust you to make up your mind whether this is the phone for you because you’re an adult (or close to it) and you have to make your own decisions in this world.

What I love

Display

If I started anywhere other than the Infinity Display I might hurt the feelings of the Samsung Engineers who designed it and the PR reps reading this. It is, without a doubt, the best feature on a smartphone right now and it isn’t even close.

When other reviewers say that the Galaxy S8 (or in my case, the S8 Plus) has the best display on a phone ever, they’re not joking. The previous crown probably went to the Note7 (RIP) or the Galaxy S7 but now it belongs to the S8. The AMOLED display is now measured out at a ratio of 18.5:9 instead of the old 16:9. That means its over twice as tall as it is long. It gives the feeling that you’re holding this huge slab of awesome in your hand and it’s a little easier to hold because of how slim it feels.

We generally know the AMOLED story by now. The black pixels are just turned off to give it an infinite contrast ratio. The colors are over saturated (although you can mess with that a bit in the settings) to make everything pop even more. It may not be the most lifelike display out there, and if that’s your preference more power to you, but it does look amazing.

Since the display doesn’t follow the normal aspect ratio, some apps or videos will have black bars on the sides or top and bottom. Every app that I’ve stretched has worked out perfect, even some apps that didn’t work on the G6, which also has an abnormal display ratio. I have the black Galaxy S8 so the bars on the sides of the videos aren’t noticeable when I’m watching a video, and even if they were, you can zoom in to get rid of them. It’s not a perfect solution but watching some of the highest resolution content you can find on YouTube on this display is an experience akin to watching a 4K TV for the first time.

Battery Life

Holy shit does this thing have an amazing battery. Sure, we all use our phones differently but I’m a pretty general case. I screw around on Reddit a lot, watch a lot of videos, stream the radio broadcast for my favorite MLB team (Go Reds!), text, chat on Kik and Facebook Messenger Lite. Really standard stuff.

To give you some idea of where I’m coming from though, most phones die out on me before the end of the day. The only phones that really could keep up with me are the Moto Z Play with its absurd battery life and the OnePlus 3T. I don’t have hard numbers in front of me, but I know that I would charge those phones before bed, take them off the charger and let them idle through the night and use them all the next day. I almost always got through the day.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus doesn’t have the best battery life out there but it does sit somewhere between the Moto Z Play and the OnePlus 3T. I could top out around 10 hours of screen on time with the Z Play and I usually get around seven to eight hours with the Samsung Galaxy S8. I don’t often have WiFi on because honestly I have unlimited data from T-Mobile and if they aren’t bugging me about it, I don’t worry much.

I generally stay on auto-brightness because Samsung seems to be one of the only OEMs out there that has it figured out. But, when I do pop up the screen to the brightest levels, I can tell a noticeable difference in battery life. It drains FAST. Luckily, the S8 has a stupid bright screen and I almost never have to pop the screen up that high. Think super sunny day where you don’t want to take your sunglasses off. That damn bright. Battery life numbers are something that determines whether I keep a phone and the S8 certainly has the potential to stay as my daily driver because of good the battery life is.

Battery life numbers are something that determines whether I keep a phone and the S8 Plus certainly has the potential to stay as my daily driver because of good the battery life is.

Build Quality

Calling the Samsung Galaxy S8 the best built phone on the market is a little more subjective that saying it has the best screen on the market. It has the glass front that wraps around to the aluminum frame. That frame connects to the glass back which feels fantastic in the hand.

For me, this is exactly what a premium phone should feel like. It’s hard to describe exactly how the phone feels in the hand which is why you need to go into a carrier store and play around with it before dropping over $700 on it. Just know that as soon as you pick it up, there are going to be fingerprints everywhere.

I’ll just leave it at this. There are no lines that look out of place. There are no curves that feel anything other than subtle. There are no ports that don’t look finely machined. Samsung seemingly put everything they had into making the Samsung Galaxy S8 look and feel like the pinnacle of smartphone design. Some of you aren’t going to like the sleek curved look and prefer something like the flat angular look of the G6 over it and that’s fine. Variety is the spice of life. All I know is that when I pick up the Samsung Galaxy S8, I don’t want to put it down again.

What I don’t love

Display

We started with the display in the last section, so let’s start there again. For this gripe, I don’t have much of an issue with Samsung itself as much as I have a gripe with Corning, the makers of Gorilla Glass.

Gorilla Glass is the sheet of glass that sits on top of the Samsung Galaxy S8. Corning has been making Gorilla Glass for ages now and it ends up on basically every smartphone released every year. This year we’ve been treated to Gorilla Glass 5 and the law of ascending numbers says that Gorilla Glass 5 should be better than Gorilla Glass 4 that was on the Samsung Galaxy S7 last year, right?

In theory, maybe. In practice, it seems not.

I’m on my second Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus. The first device I picked up on launch day had several deep scratches on it within the first 48 hours. While you can sit there and say “yeah, but scratches happen”, they wouldn’t have to this phone under normal circumstances. The Friday I picked the phone up and most of the Saturday after I was in the hospital with a family member and could barely touch my phone let alone find something to scratch it on. I was back in the store on Monday to exchange it. Strike one.

Strike 2 has already shown up. There’s what appears to be an abrasion on my second Galaxy S8 Plus. I can normally overlook it but to say I’m less than pleased would be a gigantic understatement. A friend of mine who writes for another site has seen scratches show up on his review unit Samsung Galaxy S8, his personal Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus, and review unit LG G6 which all have Gorilla Glass 5. Perhaps this is just confirmation bias because it has happened me and my friend, but there’s also a thread over on Android Central’s forums with other people complaining about it too. If you plan to pick this phone up, also plan to pick up a screen protector you’re comfortable with.

Software

It’s time for the old “bash on Samsung’s software” party, right? Well, no, not exactly. For the most part, I’ve enjoyed what Samsung has done. In fact, I haven’t even moved off the stock launcher since I installed my apps. That’s partially so I could review Samsung’s software and partly because I actually like the stock launcher now.

While the launcher is the more forward facing part of the system, the software isn’t just the launcher. The settings menu has seen some tweaks, and I don’t know if they’re really for the better. In previous versions of TouchWiz, you could pin settings to the top for easy access. That’s gone and I can’t really figure out why they’d remove such a convenient feature. A lot of settings aren’t where I’d expect them to be, but Samsung does suggest other settings areas at the bottom of the screen and I can generally find it from there.

The Theme store is fine, if not a tad pricey, and the app drawer can be organized just like stock Android is even though it isn’t that way out of the box.

So, all of that is fine. My beef is what the software does to the phone. Bixby is completely redundant since I use Google Assistant and shows up in the camera app more than I’d like. The nagging messages about turning the volume up too loud, turning the screen up too bright, or whatever else Samsung feels like complaining about that day are really very annoying.

Almost as annoying as the phone coming out of the box at a lower resolution than advertised. Due to a software setting, the S8 comes out of the box at 1080p. I’ve been using it at that resolution because I can’t tell the difference when I pop it up to 2K, but if you’re going to advertise a screen resolution, it should at least be that out of the box with an option to change it, not the other way around.

1 of 2

And, whatever they’ve done in the software to make this phone stutter when going through lists, please fix it. Holy crap is it annoying. The Pixel XL, V20, G6, OnePlus 3T, and Moto Z Play, all phones I’ve used in the last 9 months seemed to have gotten this figured out and they’re all on older processors. If you can’t get scrolling and frame drops out of the system on the latest and greatest that Qualcomm has to offer, you need to hire better engineers.

Conclusion

This review wasn’t meant to be an exhaustive take on what makes the Samsung Galaxy S8 right for you. We didn’t touch on the camera (which remains mostly unchanged from last year), the bump in storage to 64GB from 32GB, the unbelievably quick charging times, the decent bottom-firing speaker, or the truly awful placement of the fingerprint sensor. Most of those things you can figure out yourself just by looking at the facts and figures, you don’t need me to insult your intelligence by telling you how amazing it is to have double the storage or something.

What you need to know, however, is how this phone makes me feel. I consider myself a phone geek (or a phone douche, as my friends call me) and this is the first phone I’m truly considering keeping long term. Normally it’s three or four months and you’re out.

If you’re going out to buy a phone for the next two years, this is the best phone on paper and it will be for a while. Hell, it might be until Samsung’s next phone comes out in the fall. But go play with it first. Reading a million reviews online won’t do anything to help you if you walk into the store, pick it up and hate it.

As for me, I can’t seem to put the thing down.

Logitech G and McLaren are offering the fastest gamer in the world a dream job

Why it matters to you

For many virtual racers, this one-year prize could be a dream job, enabling the winner to help improve the machinery of real-world Formula 1 racecars.

Logitech G said on Monday, May 7 that it teamed up with McLaren to create a new competition that will see the winner serving as an official Formula 1 simulator driver for an entire year. Called World’s Fastest Gamer, the competition will whittle virtual racers down to a handful of finalists who will race to win the one-year contract at the McLaren Technology Centre this fall.

“[The winner] will work with engineers at both at the McLaren Technology Centre and at grand prix circuits across the world to develop and improve the machinery driven in the real world by the team’s drivers, Fernando Alonso, and Stoffel Vandoorne,” Logitech said.

According to McLaren, virtual racers on PC, console, and even mobile will battle each other in the McLaren Technology Centre this summer. Gaming experts will select six of the best, and then add four more to the roster stemming from online events that will take place this summer as well. These ten individuals will then proceed to “the toughest job interview of their lives” over a five-day track.

Ultimately, the chosen individual will receive the “World’s Fastest Gamer” title and land the one-year contract with McLaren. As for what happens after that one-year contract expires, that’s unknown, but the player will walk away knowing he/she had a part in improving the Formula 1 in the real world.

“Not only will they race against each other across a variety of different gaming titles on different platforms, they will also need to demonstrate their engineering know-how, ability to work as part of a team, and display the mental and physical strengths required for such a unique position,” Logitech added.

Logitech G is the gaming arm of peripheral-maker Logitech. Its racing-themed products include the $400 G29 racing wheel (PS4/PS3), the $400 G920 racing wheel (Xbox One, PC), and the $60 Driving Force Shifter for the G29 and G920 wheels. Logitech G is also heavily into eSports, which sponsors a number of teams and individual players such as Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi and Nicolaj “Incarnation” Jensen.

In addition to Logitech G and McLaren, the upcoming competition will also be sponsored by Ideas+Cars chief maverick officer and founder Darren Cox, who previously served at Nissan and Renault U.K. Also on board is the online sports media platform Givemesport, and racing equipment supplier Sparco USA. That latter company now offers a line of products for gaming such as the $259 Respawn seat.

Logitech G didn’t say when the competition will begin, but we will likely find out more once the E3 2017 gaming convention is behind us this June. The company also didn’t provide any specifics about the job such as its remuneration or payment of expenses.

Logitech G and McLaren are offering the fastest gamer in the world a dream job

Why it matters to you

For many virtual racers, this one-year prize could be a dream job, enabling the winner to help improve the machinery of real-world Formula 1 racecars.

Logitech G said on Monday, May 7 that it teamed up with McLaren to create a new competition that will see the winner serving as an official Formula 1 simulator driver for an entire year. Called World’s Fastest Gamer, the competition will whittle virtual racers down to a handful of finalists who will race to win the one-year contract at the McLaren Technology Centre this fall.

“[The winner] will work with engineers at both at the McLaren Technology Centre and at grand prix circuits across the world to develop and improve the machinery driven in the real world by the team’s drivers, Fernando Alonso, and Stoffel Vandoorne,” Logitech said.

According to McLaren, virtual racers on PC, console, and even mobile will battle each other in the McLaren Technology Centre this summer. Gaming experts will select six of the best, and then add four more to the roster stemming from online events that will take place this summer as well. These ten individuals will then proceed to “the toughest job interview of their lives” over a five-day track.

Ultimately, the chosen individual will receive the “World’s Fastest Gamer” title and land the one-year contract with McLaren. As for what happens after that one-year contract expires, that’s unknown, but the player will walk away knowing he/she had a part in improving the Formula 1 in the real world.

“Not only will they race against each other across a variety of different gaming titles on different platforms, they will also need to demonstrate their engineering know-how, ability to work as part of a team, and display the mental and physical strengths required for such a unique position,” Logitech added.

Logitech G is the gaming arm of peripheral-maker Logitech. Its racing-themed products include the $400 G29 racing wheel (PS4/PS3), the $400 G920 racing wheel (Xbox One, PC), and the $60 Driving Force Shifter for the G29 and G920 wheels. Logitech G is also heavily into eSports, which sponsors a number of teams and individual players such as Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi and Nicolaj “Incarnation” Jensen.

In addition to Logitech G and McLaren, the upcoming competition will also be sponsored by Ideas+Cars chief maverick officer and founder Darren Cox, who previously served at Nissan and Renault U.K. Also on board is the online sports media platform Givemesport, and racing equipment supplier Sparco USA. That latter company now offers a line of products for gaming such as the $259 Respawn seat.

Logitech G didn’t say when the competition will begin, but we will likely find out more once the E3 2017 gaming convention is behind us this June. The company also didn’t provide any specifics about the job such as its remuneration or payment of expenses.

Comcast announces Xfinity xFi dashboard for easier Wi-Fi management

Why it matters to you

If you’re a Comcast Xfinity customer with the right equipment, then managing your home W-Fi network just go a lot easier.

Home networks are increasingly complex today, with an array of devices connecting via Wi-Fi that demand stable connections and create management nightmares. Toss in things like parental controls, and home networks can be as difficult to maintain as the typical business network.

The usual Wi-Fi router can be incredibly difficult to setup and configure, meaning that most home users simply avoid doing more than just getting connected to the internet and then leaving things at their default settings. Comcast hopes to change things with its new Xfinity xFi experience, which it is making available to its 10 million Xfinity internet customers at no extra charge.

Xfinity xFi is a new management experience that’s available via the web, via a mobile app, and on supported TVs with the company’s X1 voice remote. xFi can be accessed immediately by Xfinity customers using the xFi Wireless Gateway or the xFi Advanced Wireless Gateway.

According to Comcast, 86 percent of all home broadband traffic passes over Wi-Fi, and the average number of Wi-Fi-connected devices in American homes will hit 50 by 2020. xFi hopes to make these networks easier to manage by providing a number of features, including:

• Instant Setup: simple, easy setup of Xfinity Internet service and home Wi-Fi
• Manage On Any Device: ability to take control with easy-to-use apps, the web, and X1 voice remote
• Find My Password: view and modify Wi-Fi names and passwords
• Name & Organize: see all connected devices and give nicknames for easy reference
• Easy-To-Use Tools: set parental controls and bedtime schedules for any family member on the home Wi-Fi network
• Who’s Using What: create personal profiles and assign devices to individual family members
• Text Alerts: receive alerts when new devices join your home network
• Pause With A Tap: instantly pause Wi-Fi access on your home network, by device or user
• Voice Control: say “show me devices” into the X1 voice remote and see results on the biggest screen in the home
• Monitor Activity: see who’s most active on your home network and when
• Troubleshoot Wi-Fi: identify devices that are not working properly and receive tips to fix them
• Cloud Management: see and control your home Wi-Fi network from anywhere
• Safe & Secure: first line of defense against phishing and malware

“The adoption and use of connected devices has grown dramatically and Comcast has created a solution that makes it easy to control and manage them,” said Eric Schaefer, Comcast Cable’s senior vice president of internet and communications services. “xFi is a personalized home Wi-Fi experience that gives customers the fastest speeds, best coverage, and ultimate control in their homes. And it’s a platform that will allow us to bring future innovations to our customers, address common pain points, and vastly improve the way millions of people interact with their home Wi-Fi network.

Going forward, Comcast plans to launch xFi pods that work with the xFi Wireless Gateway or Advanced Wireless Gateway to extend Wi-Fi coverage over remote areas that today aren’t reached by existing routers. The company has invested in Plume, maker of distributed Wi-Fi systems, and will utilize Plume’s low-configuration, adaptive mesh technology with the new xFi Pods.

Current Xfinity customers can get started with xFi by going to http://www.xfinity.com/myxfi or by downloading the xFi app for iOS and Android devices. The service is available at no extra cost and is ready to support 10 million Xfinity internet customers.

Qualcomm goes all-in on all-day battery with new Snapdragon 630 and 660 platforms

Qualcomm is going to make budget phone buyers very happy.

Qualcomm is back with two new 600-series chips to power the next generation of mid-range phones. The company has announced the Snapdragon 630, a successor to the wildly popular Snapdragon 625 (and little-used 626), along with the Snapdragon 660, a completely revamped and more-efficient sequel to the Snapdragon 650 (and 653).

Let’s start with the basics.

Snapdragon 630

The Snapdragon 630 is the more minor of the updates, keeping much about what made the popular Snapdragon 625, which quickly became a battery darling in phones like the Moto Z Play and Huawei Nova Plus (and the upcoming BlackBerry KEYone). It maintains the eight-core Cortex-A53 breakdown of four high-speed cores and four lower-clocked cores, though they are up to 30% faster across the board. And while the graphics chip has also been updated from the Adreno 506 in the Snapdragon 625 to a faster Adreno 508, the fundamental architecture hasn’t changed — both are still built on a 14nm process — and improved performance isn’t the priority.

Instead, the Snapdragon 630 brings the platform into 2017, with support for LTE speeds up to 600Mhz with 3x carrier aggregation; Bluetooth 5.0, Quick Charge 4.0, and USB 3.1 with USB-C; and a better camera experience with the new Spectra 160 image signal processor.

The Snapdragon 630 will be powering mid-range devices starting in Q3 of this year, and it’s definitely going to help devices in the $300 to $400 range reach their potential — aside from the older CPU architecture and anemic GPU, most of the improvements in the platform come directly from the Snapdragon 820 and 835 line.

Snapdragon 660

The Snapdragon 660 is the biggest announcement of the day, making massive improvements over the current Snapdragon 650, 652 and 653. The most important takeaway is the additional battery savings from the switch to a 14nm manufacturing process from the aging and inefficient 28nm process that reached maturity in 2013. That, coupled with the move to Qualcomm’s Kryo cluster, based on the custom CPU design that debuted with the Qualcomm 820 last year, means that the Snapdragon 660 should be one of the most-coveted upper-midrange chips on the market.

Coming to devices as early as June — expect the first announcement within the next few weeks — the Snapdragon 660 has eight Kryo cores, four performance cores at 2.2GHz and four at 1.8GHz, and promises a 30% improvement in speeds over the Snapdragon 653. There’s also a new Adreno 512 GPU, which is a nice bump over the 510 in the previous generation, and support for Qualcomm’s 2016-era X12 baseband, which includes 3x carrier aggregation for speeds up to 600Mbps. Quick Charge 4.0, Bluetooth 5 and USB 3.1 are also included, too.

Aside from the new features, Qualcomm is making perhaps the biggest noise about the improved camera experience inside the Snapdragon 660. While it has the same Spectra 160 ISP as the Snapdragon 630, better support for 4K capture and the same electronic image stabilization that was popularized in high-end phones from 2016 has filtered down to this mid-range line.

Finally, the battery savings that people saw in the Snapdragon 625 are also included in the 660, which is promising; Qualcomm says that users will see an average of two additional hours when moving to a Snapdragon 660 from a 653 using the same hardware (which obviously won’t happen, but they’re looking for an apples-to-apples comparison).

The takeaway

These chips are going to be very interesting, especially given the success of the Snapdragon 625 and the relative failure of the 650 lineup. For the 630, this is very much an evolution, sticking with what works while shoring up on auxiliary features like cellular speed and camera performance.

The Snapdragon 660 is revelatory, largely because it will bring most of the Snapdragon 835’s best features to the $400 to $500 range, and will allow manufacturers to get away with offering a mid-range chip for their flagships.

What do you think of these new chips? Will you be holding out for one or the other? Let us know in the comments!