‘How to shoot on iPhone’ videos explain why your pictures suck

The iPhone camera has been a consistently emphasized point by Apple, and for good reason. The quality of pictures it can take increases with each iteration, and for most people, smartphone cameras have become their primary way to take photos. Of course, not all of our pictures come out looking like those highlight shots Apple uses in its ad campaigns, but several videos and a website the company just posted may help close the gap.

Most of the videos in the “How to Shoot on iPhone 7” website are vertically oriented for viewing on your phone, perfect to learn about features it has that maybe you never quite figured out how to use. Portrait mode, shooting stills during or shooting a vertical panorama are fairly easy to do, if you can find the right setting. Some of them focus on things like composition, in case you need more basic photography advice.

So, is this enough information for you to become a festival-flogging “influencer”? Probably not, but no matter phone or app you use it could help your next picture look a little bit better.

Source: Apple ‘How to Shoot on iPhone 7’

Microsoft’s design rules push Windows ‘beyond mere rectangles’

Microsoft’s Fall Creators Update for Windows 10 might have an ironically uncreative name, but the upgrade itself is flush with artistic potential and useful features. It will give users a timeline to manage complex work sessions, APIs that tie all of Microsoft’s services together and, notably, a new design paradigm intended to radically overhaul the flat rectangle user interface it’s known for. Microsoft’s Fluent Design System focuses on five core tenets to help developers build more creative and engaging user interfaces: Depth, Material, Light, Scale and Motion.

These philosophies are intended to draw a line in the sand between Microsoft’s stiff, old design and a new future of interactive user experiences. “It’s time to move beyond mere rectangles confined to a plane,” Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore declared as he introduced the design language at Build. “It’s not just about visuals, it’s about interactive models and spaces and how all this comes together.” Let’s take a quick look at each element and how it might change how Windows apps are designed.

Light

Ask any filmmaker worth their salt, and they’ll tell you all about how important lighting is in a scene. With design, it’s no different: how bright or dark an interface is can change how the user perceives it. Belfiore says it creates atmosphere, lending an app design a sense of place. That’s true enough, but when it comes to designing an interactive menu or app interface, it’s also an important tool for drawing a user’s attention. An illuminated button can teach customers how to use an app, or highlight a program feature they might otherwise pass over.

Depth

Between the classic era of gray, dull menus and the short-lived, flat “Metro” design language, Windows has almost exclusively relied on boring, square frames to present users with information and tools. With Fluent Design, Microsoft is challenging developers to kill that paradigm by breaking information and objects free of a traditional 2D frame.

Rather than presenting a flat, traditional calendar, for instance, Microsoft’s Build presentation imagined an “at-a-glance” agenda zooming in and telescoping important events toward the user — creating an illusion of depth by layering and sizing more important appointments to appear larger. The hope is that by using depth to lend interfaces the illusion of a physical environment, Windows apps will be able to keep their users engaged for longer.

Motion

A well-animated interface is an engaging one, and the Motion edict is all about keeping a user’s attention by giving them something active to look at and interact with. Belfiore likens the use of motion in Fluent Design to a director using movement to lead the viewer to the story they want to tell. “Motion design has a special power to bring all of our experiences to life,” he says, “and lead people from one task to another with a cinematic ease.”

Microsoft illustrates this with the Xbox One’s live pop-in menu, music visualization in a media player and with a motion graphics transitioning a simple graph to a more dynamic, brightly colored array of representational shapes. All examples that quickly draw the attention of the user to the task at hand, be it controlling music, managing game settings or simply keeping the viewer engaged with a dataset.

Material

Like most of Fluent Design’s core concepts, Material almost seems like a dig at the visual style of Windows’ past. The functional squares of the traditional Microsoft interface may be, well, functional, but it lacks a connection to the physical world. Belfiore suggests that the key to making users love Windows app design is to emulate the “sensory and invigorating” feel of the materials that make up the real world.

“We want to bring more of that character to our designs in the right way, with a physical quality,” he says. “Inviting people to touch and interact.” This statement could easily be dismissed as an effort to give apps more interesting textures — but with Windows 10, the idea of making a PC interface inviting to touch holds some merit. We may think of PCs as simple, traditional keyboard and mouse interfaces, but the Fall Creator Update leans hard on better voice control, better touch interaction and natural feeling stylus input. Building an interface that invites that kind of interaction makes a lot of sense.

Scale

Most of Microsoft’s new design language seems primed to improve the traditional computing environment — objects under glass controlled with peripherals and accessories. Scales is a bit different. Here, Microsoft is looking toward its own future. Specifically, the scale of digital objects used in 3D interfaces and virtual / augmented reality.

The relative “size” of digital assets happens to be something VR developers have been working on for a few years now — an object that might be properly scaled when viewed through a computer monitor might seem incredibly large or surprisingly small when viewed through an AR or VR headset. Getting the size of virtual objects right is paramount to building a good first-person interface. By challenging developers to think about the scale of their interface in terms of a 3D environment, Microsoft is asking them to imagine how their product might look through the company’s Hololens headgear.

In theory, all five of these core design tenets have the potential to help Windows developers create more robust and interactive user experiences — but what would a Fluent Design inspired Windows actually look like? Microsoft didn’t reveal much during the Build Keynote, but at the end of the style’s teaser video, a few brief examples flashed by the screen, including mock-ups for a Fluent Design calendar, and a possible new Windows desktop.

These images are almost surely just concept art at this point, but they certainly embody the core tenets of Fluent Design. This new desktop, for instance, oozes depth — with light and shadow work clearly defining where each window is within a physical space. Each object in the scene has a distinct feel, a nod to the material element that makes them feel more tangible than a standard square window. The light, depth and material elements also highlight the idea of scale between the objects, making it easy to imagine these same interface windows being projected on a wall in an augmented reality environment.

It’s too early to say for sure how Fluent Design will work out, but Microsoft is clearly thinking about its user interface in a completely new way. It’s weird and a little bizarre — but the idea that the next version of Windows could look completely different is absolutely exciting.

Be the Bane of eavesdroppers with Hushme, a mask that muffles private calls

Why it matters to you

Want to avoid potential eavesdroppers? This voice-muffling tech is the most privacy-conscious hands-free kit yet.

Want to look like Hollywood dreamboat Tom Hardy and be able to take confidential business calls without fear of being overheard? A new Kickstarter campaign has just the solution.

The good part? Thanks to some smart noise-cancelling tech, you will soon be able to confidently speak in public about your game-changing startup idea without having to worry that other people are listening in. The bad part? The Tom Hardy persona you will resemble is Bane, the Batman antagonist from 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises.

“We have created the world’s first voice mask for smartphones, called Hushme,” CEO Roman Sakun told Digital Trends. “Hushme is a Bluetooth hands-free device, with the additional features of voice masking. You connect it to your mobile and can listen to a music or use as a traditional hands-free, but if you are in open space office and need to make a private call, you just put it on and speak. Due to insulating materials, your voice is decreased by 60 percent in ‘passive’ mode, and [people at a distance of three feet cannot] understand what are you speaking about. If you are in a crowded noisy place like a railway station or airport, then you can use ‘active’ mode and get almost 100 percent privacy.”

In this ‘active’ mode, the Hushme employs the same voice-dampening insulating technology, but also utilizes speakers on the outside of the device to generate masking sounds. In place of hearing you read out your credit card details or reveal top secret business plans, eavesdroppers will be treated to sounds like wind, ocean, or falling stones, all of which will be cleverly mixed with your voice. People receiving the phone calls will reportedly hear your voice as normal.

It’s certainly an innovative concept, and despite its attention-grabbing look, Sakun says there is plenty of demand for the product.

“It’s a little bit of an unusual thing, but very useful — and that’s really what people need in offices or on the go, when you need privacy,” he continued. Possible use-cases include everything from gamers who want to use voice chat at night without disturbing friends or family to the aforementioned business person on the move.

If you want to get hold of a Hushme unit, you can currently place a pre-order on Kickstarter, where units cost $189. Shipping is set for December.

Toshiba storage products based on ‘3D’ Flash memory put through paces

Why it matters to you

Always looking for more storage? Toshiba’s latest Flash storage technology is capable of cramming 64GB of data on a single chip.

While Microsoft flashed new technologies and announcements during its Build 2017 developer conference in Seattle, Dell had a conference of its own this week in Las Vegas — Dell EMC World 2017. It was during this event that Toshiba demonstrated its latest Flash storage technology, which is capable of cramming 64GB of data on a single chip.

More specifically, Toshiba demonstrated its third-generation BiCS Flash memory technology made up of 64 layers. As a reference, traditional “2D” Flash NAND memory used in SSDs, USB drives, and the like increase storage capacity by expanding cells horizontally like a city block. Eventually, the capacity of a storage device is bound by physical limits.

Toshiba’s “3D” Flash-based memory builds vertically, like a skyscraper, providing 64 “floors” of office-like storage cells. In turn, each cell can store three bits of data, thus a single chip can hold 512 gigabits (Gb) of information, which translates into 64 gigabytes (GB). Throw multiple chips into an SSD, and that drive has a crazy-high storage capacity.

“The future of SSDs is 3D,” said Greg Wong, founder and principal analyst of Forward Insights. “3D flash memory is enabling the production of higher-capacity and more cost-effective SSDs to better meet a variety of requirements across the consumer and enterprise spaces.”

Stacked flash memory isn’t anything new, but it’s becoming more mainstream. Flash-based memory makers typically slap special names on their 3D NAND technology, such as Intel’s 3D XPoint brand, Samsung’s V-NAND brand, and Toshiba’s BiCS brand, which is short for Bit Cost Scaling.

Ultimately, all three achieve the same purpose of scaling storage capacity vertically while using slightly different techniques. Toshiba promises high speed due to the way data is shoved into each storage cell. It also promises high reliability based on how each cell is spread apart to prevent interference from neighboring cells.

Another benefit of BiCS is power reduction. Because the storage cells support an extremely fast “single-shot” programming sequence, the overall storage chip consumes less power. Standard hard drives also consume more power because they include spinning magnetic storage discs and disc readers to read and write data. Flash storage has no moving parts.

The 64-layer BiCS Flash chip demonstrated during Dell’s convention resided in a new Toshiba XG Series SSD. This was the drive’s first public showing, and will serve as a launch pad for Toshiba’s third-generation BiCS Flash technology.  The drive connected to its host laptop via an internal NVMe PCI Express interface packing around 1TB of storage using 64GB and 32GB chips.

“The new XG Series SSD is an ideal platform to launch the 64-layer flash memory, due to the product’s broad adoption, maturity, and robustness, honed over multiple generations of PCIe/NVMe client SSD product releases,” the company said.

Toshiba plans to move all client, data center, and enterprise SSD to the new 64-layer BiCS Flash memory once the XG Series SSDs hit the market. For now, Toshiba is sampling the 64GB BiCS Flash chip to original equipment manufacturers.

Some HP PCs are logging keystrokes by accident; a fix is on its way

Why it matters to you

Your HP PC might be recording what you are typing, but a fix is on the way.

Privacy and security are hot topics lately given the amount of malware that is constantly circulating throughout the internet by criminals and even government agencies with the purpose of accessing our personal and business information. At the same time, information is sometimes gathered inadvertently that could nevertheless end up making its way to nefarious parties.

In many cases, issues arise where a function that is meant to make things easier for users ends up being poorly executed. One example of exactly that phenomena seems to have created by an audio driver that has shipped in a number of HP PCs, Techspot reports.

Security firm Modzero discovered code in a Conexant audio driver that supports an HP feature that enables controlling audio hardware by using keyboard combinations that toggle features on and off. One example would be a hotkey for enabling and disabling the microphone.

This driver apparently intercepts and saves keyboard input in order to control the functionality. While it is meant to only grab onto the required key presses, it seems to grab all the key inputs and saves them to a file. Worse yet, the file is not encrypted, meaning it would be easy to access by malware in real time or after the fact.

modzero

Although the problem is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the file is overwritten after each start, the researchers note that it could exist in backup files and could thus be recovered well after the fact. You can check if your HP PC is affected by looking for the programs “C:WindowsSystem32MicTray64.exe” or “C:WindowsSystem32MicTray.exe” exist and renaming them if they do. If a “C:UsersPublicMicTray.log” file exists, then that should be deleted.

We reached out to HP to get its take on the situation, and it provided the following response:

“HP is committed to the security of its customers and we are aware of an issue on select HP PCs. HP has no access to customer data as a result of this issue. We have identified a fix and will make it available to our customers.”

This is obviously a mistake on the part of the driver developers and, hopefully, HP will resolve the issue soon. We note that there is no evidence that any malware or other software has made use of the data that is collected by the driver and so there is no reason to panic at this point. Nevertheless, keep an eye out for an update from HP, which should then be implemented as soon as possible.

AI-equipped drones taught themselves how to fly by crashing 11,500 times

Why it matters to you

Drones need to be able to autonomously fly better to cope with the complexities of the real world. This is one way of teaching them to do so.

You know the saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again?” Well, it also counts for drones. At least, that is the takeaway message from a recent paper titled “Learning to Fly by Crashing,” published by roboticists from Carnegie Mellon University.  They subjected hapless drones to 11,500 collisions in 20 different indoor environments, spread over 40 hours of flying time, to prove it.

They did it for a good reason, too — and it is not because they have a whole lot of old quadcopters to get rid of before the start of the next academic year.

“We are interested in the problem of drone navigation: How does a UAV learn to avoid obstacles and learn to navigate,” Abhinav Gupta, an assistant professor in CMU’s Robotics Institute, told Digital Trends. “Unlike most other problems where data is the answer to many hard questions, what makes this problem hard is [a] scarcity of relevant data. We can use human experts and ask them to fly drones, but such data is small in size and biased towards success since the number of crashes is very low.”

Instead of using a computer simulation to solve the problem, Gupta and colleagues set out to build a framework where the goal of the drone is to crash. In their study, the drones were instructed to fly slowly until colliding with something, after which they would return to the starting position and set off in a new direction. By doing this repeatedly and then feeding the crash data into a convolutional neural network, the team was able to train a drone to be able to more successfully fly autonomously — even in narrow, cluttered environments.

The algorithm controlling the drone works by splitting the picture the drone sees into two separate images and then turning in the direction of whichever looks less likely to result in a crash. The results were surprisingly effective.

The drone still runs into problems, particularly involving glass doors and plain walls, but it is a whole lot better than it was before its training. Should we wind up living in a world where thousands of drones are constantly buzzing around, carrying out a range of tasks in complex real-world environment, research like this is going to be vital to developing better autonomous flying machines.

In the meantime, researchers get to exercise their destructive whims by making robots crash for the sake of “science.”

Verizon’s new Fios chatbot wants to tell you what is on television tonight

Why it matters to you

If you need to know what’s on television tonight, you can now just ask the new Verizon Fios chatbot on Facebook Messenger.

We’ve become an antisocial bunch.

After all, now that you can email, text, or instant message someone rather than, you know, talk to them, why would you ever opt for real human interaction anyway? Verizon understands this mentality and on Thursday, the company introduced the Fios chatbot on Facebook Messenger, branded as “a new way for Fios customers to find, watch, and manage the video content that matters most to them.”

The new bot lets customers search and discover new content, find personalized viewing recommendations, and even manage their DVRs simply by posing a question in the Facebook Messenger app. All you need to access the bot is a Fios account, and once you logged in and made contact with the AI system, you can ask questions like, “What’s on tonight?” From there, you’ll receive a Facebook message about programming, suggested content, and more. If you like what you see, you can elect to watch a program immediately via the Fios Mobile app, or if you would rather watch it at home later, set your DVR to record the program.

“The Fios chatbot is one example of everything we’re doing to digitally transform the customer experience at Verizon,” said Miguel Quiroga, head of digital for Verizon’s Fios consumer business. “We’ve built these capabilities because our customers want us to be available wherever they’re increasingly active. This is an example of how we at Fios are leaning in towards a customer-first experience.”

While the chatbot is focused on entertainment content, Quiroga notes that “it will continue to evolve based on how people use it. In effect, our customers will be ‘co-creating’ the platform with us.”

Verizon is the latest in a string of companies following customers to their platforms of choice, which these days, increasingly seems to be messaging and social media platforms.

“Our customers expect Verizon and the other brands they follow to engage and interact with them on an on-demand basis,” Quiroga said. “And they want that interaction to be personalized based on their needs and preferences.”

So if you need to know what is on tonight, Verizon and its new chatbot can help.

Apple launches new website for budding iPhone photographers

Why it matters to you

Apple’s new website makes phone photo techniques digestible.

It’s no secret that the iPhone has fantastic cameras. Thanks to innovations like optical image stabilization and high-quality zoom, it’s produced some of the most stunning smartphone photography the world has ever seen. Need evidence? Look no further than Flickr — or your local movie theater.

But Apple thinks that a little technique can take iPhone photography to the next level. And to that end, it’s launched a new tip-packed website for dilettante photographers.

A collection of guides — 16 in all, covered in a series of video clips — give an overview of iPhone camera basics like close-ups, framing, lighting, zooming, and more. They explain concepts like “the golden hour” — the natural lighting conditions right before sunset — and techniques like shooting backlighting a subject with locked focus and low exposure. Other tips include portrait framing with the iPhone’s “depth effect” cue, snapping selfies one-handed, capturing street light, converting pictures to black and white, shooting without flash, and more.

“Every day, more photos are taken with the iPhone than any other camera in the world,” Apple said. “We believe that everyone can take great photos. So we’ve put together these tips and techniques to help you take even better ones with your iPhone.”

Apple’s new page also highlights camera features available exclusively on the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Apple’s newest models. Apple said the iPhone 7’s OIS sensor helps deliver up to three times longer exposure compared to the iPhone 6s, and that its True Tone flash — an array of four LED lights that adjust to color temperature of the environment — produces up to 50 percent more light than the iPhone 6S.

The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus’s dual-lens camera system — two 12-megapixel sensors, one with a 56mm “telephoto” lens — enables unique effects, too. Both have optical image stabilization up to two times and Portrait mode, which applies a depth-of-field effect that blurs out the background and sharpens the foreground subject.

“[Portrait] mode, known as ‘bokeh’ and previously only capable on DSLR cameras, turns the camera you carry around with you everyday into an even more powerful photography tool,” an Apple spokesperson said.

It’s not the first time Apple’s honed in on the iPhone’s camera features. Its most recent “Shot on iPhone” campaign, which went live in 25 countries in early 2017, put a spotlight on nighttime shots from photographers around the world. Jennifer Benni, one of the featured artists, said that the iPhone’s photos “blur the line” between phone photography and photography shot on higher-end cameras.

There’s real merit to Apple’s claims. In September 2016, camera authority DxOMark called the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7s’s cameras “Apple’s best yet.” It praised their brighter f/1.8 lenses (compared to the f/2.2 of the 6S and 6S Plus), “vivid and pleasant” color capture, and “good stabilization.”

The goal of Apple’s new website, it would seem, is to help people put it to great use.

High-end laptop Shootout: Microsoft Surface Laptop vs. Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch

Microsoft introduced its first traditional notebook at a recent educational event, rounding out its Surface line of hardware. While the apt-titled Surface Laptop is ostensibly directed toward the education market and runs the limited Windows 10 S, it’s priced and equipped to compete with high-end notebooks. In fact, the Surface Laptop aims to compete with the MacBook Pro, and Microsoft went so far as to highlight the laptop’s alleged battery life and performance advantages over Apple’s flagship.

However, does the Surface Laptop bring something new to the traditional notebook market, or does Apple’s venerable MacBook Pro 13 manage to teach Microsoft’s latest machine a thing or two? Read on to find out which high-end notebook is worthy of your hard-earned cash.

Specifications compared

Surface Laptop

MacBook Pro 13 (with Touch Bar)

Dimensions
 12.13 x 8.79 x 0.57 (in)
11.97 x 8.36 x 0.59 (in)
Weight
 2.76 pounds
3.02 pounds
Processor
7th-generation Intel Core i5 or i7
6th-generation Intel Core i5 or i7
RAM
 4, 8, or 16GB RAM
8 or 16GB RAM
Display
 13.5-inch IPS PixelSense display
13.3-inch IPS display
Resolution
 2,256 x 1,504
2,560 x 1,600
Storage
 128GB, 256GB, 512GB SSD, 1TB (coming)
256GB, 512GB, 1TB SSD
Touch
10-point touchscreen
Touch Bar
Ports
 USB Type-A 3.0, mini-DisplayPort, SurfaceConnect, 3.5mm headset
4 x USB-C (Thunderbolt 3), any can charge; 3.5mm headset
Webcam
 720p HD with infrared camera for Windows Hello support
720p FaceTime HD
Operating System
Windows 10 S (upgradable to Windows 10 Pro)
MacOS Sierra
Battery
 TBA
49.2-watt-hour battery
Price
$999+ 
$1,799+
Review
Hands-on impressions
3 out of 5 stars

Tried-and-true design takes on something new

When Apple updated the MacBook Pro line in late 2016, it opted for the same aluminum chassis and reiterated the same elegant, understated design that has adorned its lineup for a few generations. The new MacBook Pro looks a lot like the old MacBook Pro, with a chassis that’s considerably thinner and a display that’s framed by smaller bezels. As always, the MacBook Pro looks good in just about any environment, and Apple had no good reason to change things all that much.

Microsoft was designing something new, however, and it went in the opposite direction in creating the Surface Laptop design. First, the Surface Laptop utilizes a wedge shape that tapers from really thin at the rear to even thinner at the front. The hinge is also hidden to keep things streamlined, and the use of the same Alcantara fabric that covers some other Microsoft Surface keyboards both maintains the brand’s familiarity and promises a soft-touch feel when typing.

In addition, Microsoft is offering the Surface Laptop in four colors — platinum, burgundy, cobalt, and gold. The machine is made of machined aluminum, which is a departure from the magnesium alloy that Microsoft used to fashion its other Surface products.

It’s hard to fault either design. Both machines are thin, light, comfortable to hold, and crafted with some serious attention to detail. We think Microsoft has offered enough personality, though, that it deserves some credit — the Surface Laptop is a unique design that manages to stand out without putting off, and that’s a fine line to walk.

Winner: Surface Laptop

Both are easy enough to carry around, and should last a while

The Pro 13 is a light machine at just over three pounds, and it’s also quite thin at 0.59-inches thick. Like many modern notebooks, the overall chassis size was minimized thanks to the thin bezel that frames the display. Needless to say, it’s a comfortable machine to carry around.

At the same time, Apple decreased the battery capacity with the revised Pro line in its quest to decrease thickness. The Touch Bar version has the smallest battery in the current Pro lineup (49.2 watt-hours), but it still managed to squeeze out 10 hours and 17 minutes in our battery tests.

As previously mentioned, the Surface Laptop is a wedge, starting at 0.57-inches thick at the rear and tapering to 0.39-inches thick at the front. It’s very light at 2.76 pounds. Because its display uses Microsoft’s unusual, 3:2 aspect ratio, the Surface Laptop’s dimensions are a litter wider and taller than those of the MacBook Pro.

Microsoft promises 14.5 hours of battery life on the Surface Laptop, though the company has yet to publish the device’s official battery capacity. Given that Microsoft’s video testing showed the Pro as offering around the same 10 hours as our own test, we’re comfortable assuming that we can trust its Surface Laptop estimates.

Going by these numbers, the Surface Laptop promises superior battery life, at least while watching video. It’s also thinner and lighter than the Pro, though it is a bit wider and taller. In terms of portability, then, Microsoft’s first notebook is the preferable machine to carry around.

Winner: Surface Laptop

The pen (and touchscreen) is mightier than the Touch Bar

Apple focused its user interface innovation on the Pro’s keyboard, eschewing a full touchscreen in favor of an OLED strip that runs along the top of the keyboard where the physical function keys used to be. Called the Touch Bar, this new feature has generated some support among developers, and has gone on to become a useful addition in a variety of circumstances (despite our personal reservations).

The MacBook Pro also sports a massive touchpad that utilizes the company’s faux-click Force Touch technology. Some people love it, some not so much. At the same time, making the machine so thin meant squeezing in the second-gen of Apple’s butterfly keyboard, which has extremely shallow key travel and a very specific feel. Again, some people love it, and some hate it.

The Surface Laptop, of course, utilizes Microsoft’s well-conceived touchscreen technology with 10-point multitouch support. It also offers full support for the Surface Pen, and for the innovative Surface Dial that Microsoft debuted alongside the Surface Studio last year. Apple’s Touch Bar is nice, but a touchscreen display, active pen, and the Surface Dial allow for more power and flexibility. Note, though, that the Pen and Dial are not standard.

In terms of the keyboard, Microsoft utilized a variant of the mechanism used in its various Type Cover keyboards, which offers 1.5-millimeter travel, and a mechanism that Microsoft promises is comfortable for long-term use. According to early impressions, the Surface Laptop’s keyboard is also somewhat hit or miss depending on the user, but it’s likely nowhere as polarizing as Apple’s newest keyboard. The decently-sized touchpad with Precision Touchpad support seems more conventionally useful, and that might be a net benefit in this case.

Winner: Surface Laptop

Only the slightest performance advantage (on paper)

The Pro 13 is built around sixth-gen Intel Core processors, and relies exclusively on Intel Iris integrated graphics. RAM can be bumped up to 16GB, and up to a 2TB PCIe SSD can be configured.

The Surface Laptop, on the other hand, utilizes seventh-gen Intel Core processors, and offers a choice between standard Intel HD graphics and the slightly improved integrated Intel Iris Plus GPU. Up to 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB PCIe SSD can be selected, though a 1TB model will be available down the line.

In other words, both machines are powered by very similar components. We haven’t yet run benchmarks on the Surface Laptop, but Intel’s seventh-gen Core processors offer a 15-percent performance improvement out of the box. For this reason alone, it’s likely that loading up with newer components gives the Surface Laptop a slight advantage.

Winner: Surface Laptop

When it comes to connectivity, the future outweighs the past

Apple drew some criticism for dropping any semblance of legacy support and equipping its new MacBook Pro machines with only the new USB Type-C connection. The Pro 13 with Touch Bar includes four of these futuristic ports with full Thunderbolt 3 support, meaning that although you’ll need dongles to connect your legacy devices, you’ll still be able to connect quite a few of them.

Microsoft went in a different and, dare we say, somewhat archaic direction with the Surface Laptop. It’s not only lacking in connectivity, with only three total inputs, but they’re decidedly old-school. There’s a single USB Type-A port, a DisplayPort, and Microsoft’s proprietary Surface port for charging or connecting a dock.

While the use of USB Type-A provides some legacy support, it’s only one port, and it’s slower than USB Type-C / Thunderbolt 3. The DisplayPort is nice, but if you want to connect via HDMI, then you’ll need an adapter anyways.

Both machines offer modern Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, along with 3.5-millimeter headphone jacks. Those are pretty standard fare today, however.

We prefer to see a mix of legacy and future support in terms of connectivity, and so we’ve dinged the newest Pro in comparison to machines such as HP’s Spectre x360 15, which manages both USB Type-A and USB Type-C connectivity. However, we have to give Apple the nod in this particular case.

The Surface Laptop is almost comically under-equipped in terms of connectivity, and it’s hard to imagine why Microsoft wouldn’t equip even a single USB Type-C port. We just don’t understand Microsoft’s decision here.

Winner: MacBook Pro 13

Two excellent screens, no real advantage

Apple equipped the Pro 13 with what’s widely characterized as one of the best displays you can buy in a notebook today. It’s extremely bright, with excellent color quality, accuracy, and strong contrast. It’s a 13.3-inch display with 2,560 x 1,600-pixel resolution and 227 pixels per inch.

The display on the Surface Laptop still needs to undergo independent testing, but if Microsoft’s other Surface displays are any indication, then this one is likely to be excellent as well. It’s a 13.5-inch display that uses Microsoft’s PixelSense technology for accurate touch and pen input, and it runs at 2,256 x 1,504-pixel resolution, or 201 pixels per inch. Because it utilizes the usual Surface 3:2 aspect ratio that’s a bit taller and squarish than most widescreen displays, it’s great for productivity. Nonetheless, it does have some letter boxing when watching video.

Both machines offer excellent displays, although we’ll need to wait for final colorimeter testing to see just how good the Surface Laptop panel really looks. It’s hard to call a winner here because, while the Surface Laptop offers a slightly larger display, it’s also a bit less sharp. We’re going to go ahead and call this one a tie, and say that regardless of which of these machines you pick up, you’re going to love the display quality.

Winner: Tie

Price and Availability

Simply stated, the Pro 13 is an expensive machine. The Touch Bar version starts at $1,799, and comes with a 2.9GHz Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD. This goes all the way up to $2,899, which nets you a 3.3GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. Needless to say, that’s one expensive notebook.

Microsoft, however, priced the Surface Laptop to be marginally more competitive at the low end and then ramping up from there. With an Intel Core i5-7200U processor, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB SSD, the Surface Laptop costs $999. The current high-end machine is configured with an Intel Core i7-7500U processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD, and costs $2,199.

That means that when similarly equipped with a Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD, the Pro 13 is $2,499 whereas the Surface Laptop runs $2,199. Microsoft priced its new notebook at the high end, but Apple still carves out a special place for itself.

The Surface Laptop will ship in June, whereas the Pro 13 is available today. Nevertheless, Microsoft maintains a small advantage in pricing, which is faint praise given how the generally stratospheric pricing strategies that both companies have employed.

It’s worth noting that the Surface Laptop ships with Windows 10 S installed, which along with some other limitations, means you won’t be able to install applications from outside of the Windows Store. From now until December 31, Surface Laptop owners can upgrade to Windows 10 Pro for free, and after that, it will cost $49. That’s not enough to sway our decision, but we find it an interesting decision on Microsoft’s part.

Winner: Surface Laptop

Conclusion

Both the MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar and the Surface Laptop represent their respective company’s best effort at producing the perfect notebook. They’re both thin and lightweight machines with superior designs and build quality, and they both enjoy an attention to detail that’s otherwise unmatched in the PC industry.

At the same time, they represent different philosophies. Microsoft went with a modern, fresh, and somewhat unusual approach, particularly in regards to the keyboard. Apple, on the other hand, took something that’s tried-and-true and made it thinner, while still managing to stock it with the company’s most up-to-date technology. Which approach is better comes down to personal preference, and to one’s tolerance for standing out in the crowd.

In the final analysis, both the MacBook Pro and the Surface Laptop are excellent machines that also command high-end prices. Regardless of which you select, you’re going to spend a pretty penny. We might change our opinion once we’ve had a chance to review the Surface Laptop in full, but for now, we give the overall win to the newest addition of the Surface lineup.

Winner: Surface Laptop

Just can’t resist the urge to peek at Facebook? Here’s how to block it, or any other website

We’ve all been there. You’re sitting at your desk at work, fiddling with some spreadsheets or documents online when you get a sudden urge to take a peek at Facebook. A harmless mistake, sure, but you’re not feeling so productive once an hour rolls by and you’ve gotten absolutely nothing done. And what about those kids of yours? Staying up all night perusing Facebook, YouTube, and god knows what else certainly isn’t conducive to a healthy lifestyle. Fear not, though! There are plenty of ways to block access to certain time-consuming or explicit websites, whether you want to restrict access altogether or only during specified hours of the day. Here’s how.

Altering host files

Block using Windows hosts file

Blocking specific websites in Windows is child’s play — and usually childproof. It’s completely free, doesn’t require any additional software, and just takes a few quick alterations to the Windows hosts file on your computer. The hosts file, a plain text file your operating system utilizes for mapping IP addresses and hostnames, can be used to redirect a domain name back to the local computer, essentially blocking the desired website. It’s a simple process and a great way to restrict users from seeing content you don’t want them to see, regardless the browser and the time of day. Keep in mind, however, that you must have administrator privileges in order to change the file, and you can always undo the change if need be.

Disclaimer: Altering your computer’s hosts file to block a website can be a little technical. Avoid doing so unless you feel comfortable making the modifications and taking the risk.

Step 1: Enter “C:WindowsSystem32driversetc” in the Windows search bar, or navigate to the folder by clicking your way through Windows Explorer.

Step 2: Double-click hosts and select Notepad when prompted to choose a program to open the file with. Alternatively, you can launch Notepad and navigate to the host file by choosing File > Open, and locating the C:WindowsSystem32driversetc folder in your computer’s directory.

Step 3: In Notepad, you will see several lines of text used for mapping purposes. Underneath the last line of text — it should say something regarding a local host — enter “127.0.0.1” and press the spacebar. Next, type the IP address of the website you want to block on the same line. For example, type “127.0.0.1 http://www.youtube.com” to block all traffic from the popular video-sharing site.

Continue to add websites you wish to block in this manner, each beginning with”127.0.0.1.” followed by a space and the appropriate website. Make sure to only use “www” and avoid adding “http,” unless you want to render the entry invalid, and do not alter any other text in the hosts file.

Once you’ve added the sites you want to block, click the File option in the upper-left corner, choose Save — do not change the name or save location — and ignore any warnings regarding editing the hosts file. Then, close Notepad when finished.

Now, open your favorite browser and test the results! You should automatically get a blank page whenever you attempt to access any of the sites on your blocked list. You may have to restart your browser and wait several minutes for the changes to take effect.

Using MacOS hosts file

Blocking websites using MacOS works in a similar fashion to blocking them using Windows. The process is free, relatively quick, and requires altering your Mac’s hosts file to redirect a specified domain name. It’s a simple process that will prevent users from seeing content you deem block-worthy across browsers, but one that can be reversed if you want to grant access to the sites in the future.

Disclaimer: Altering your computer’s hosts file to block a website can be a little technical. Avoid doing so unless you feel comfortable making the modifications and taking the risk.

Launch Terminal by accessing the main applications folder, clicking Utilities, and selecting the program from the resulting list. You can also do so by searching for the program in Spotlight.

Now it’s time to make a copy of the hosts file just in case something goes awry. Type “sudo /bin/cp /etc/hosts /etc/hosts-original” on the Terminal command line to make a backup of the file in question. Afterward, hit Enter and type in your administrative password when prompted. It may appear as though the keystrokes aren’t being registered properly — i.e., your cursor won’t move — but rest assured that they are.

Next, type “sudo nano /etc/hosts” and hit Enter on the Terminal command line to open up your hosts file in a nano box. Then, enter your administrative password when prompted.

Once the hosts file is opened, you will see several lines of text used for mapping purposes. Underneath the last line of text — it should say something regarding a local host — enter “127.0.0.1” and press the spacebar. Next, type the IP address of the website you want to block on the same line. For example, type “127.0.0.1 http://www.youtube.com” to block all traffic from the popular video-sharing site.

Continue to add websites you wish to block in this manner, each beginning with “127.0.0.1.” followed by a space and the appropriate website. Make sure to only use “www” and avoid adding “http”, unless you want to render the entry invalid, and do not alter any other text in the hosts file.

When finished, hold down the Control key and press “O” to save the changes. Then, hold down the Control key and press “X” to exit the hosts file.

Next, type “sudo dscacheutil -flushcache” and press Enter to flush your existing cache and put the changes into effect. Alternatively, you can restart your computer.

Once you’re back up and running, open your favorite browser and test the results! You should automatically get a blank page whenever you attempt to access any of the sites on your blocked list.