Watch SpaceX re-launch used Dragon capsule for the first time

Today, SpaceX will launch another Falcon 9 rocket on a resupply trip to the International Space Station. However, it’s the first time the group will use a refurbished Dragon cargo capsule for one of its missions — a capsule that’s already been to space and back.

This particular Dragon capsule was used to deliver supplies to the ISS in September 2014 and landed in the Pacific Ocean upon return. It’s been tweaked back into working order and is set to deliver SpaceX’s 11th ISS cargo load. The company has big plans for its Dragon capsules. Along with recycling them for resupply trips, SpaceX hopes to use them for manned missions well.

The launch is scheduled for 5:55pm EDT from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center with a backup launch date Saturday, June 3rd at 5:07pm. SpaceX will also attempt its 15th Falcon 9 landing. You can watch the launch and landing here, on NASA TV, or on SpaceX’s website starting at 5:15pm.

Source: SpaceX

The Wirecutter’s best deals: Save $40 on Amazon’s Echo speaker

This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. When readers choose to buy The Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, they may earn affiliate commissions that support their work. Read their continuously updated list of deals here.

You may have already seen Engadget posting reviews from our friends at The Wirecutter. Now, from time to time, we’ll also be publishing their recommended deals on some of their top picks. Read on, and strike while the iron is hot — some of these sales could expire mighty soon.

TP-Link AC1750 Wi-Fi Range Extender RE450

Street price: $90; MSRP: $98; Deal price: $80

This is a solid price on TP-Link’s Wi-Fi range extender, which typically has a street price between $85 and $90. We’ve seen it as low as $68 twice, but that pricing is more the exception than the rule and occurred once on Tech Monday and another time with a promo code. If you’re finding that your Wi-Fi could use a boost in certain areas of your home and don’t care to wait for a rock-bottom price, this is a nice opportunity to pick one up at a good discount. Shipping is free.

The TP-Link AC1750 Wi-Fi Range Extender RE450 is our top pick for the best Wi-Fi range extender. David Murphy writes, “If your router needs help getting the Wi-Fi signal to part of your house or apartment, give it a boost with the TP-Link AC1750 Wi-Fi Range Extender RE450. After spending 140 total hours researching Wi-Fi extenders and testing more than 20 over the past year and a half, we’ve decided that the RE450 is our new recommendation for most people.” He continues, “In all of our recent wireless tests, the TP-Link RE450 was faster than all 12 other extenders, including our previous pick, the Netgear EX6200.”

Logitech M705 Wireless Marathon Mouse

Street price: $30; MSRP: $40; Deal price: $20

Here’s a nice deal on Logitech’s Marathon wireless mouse, which has seen more regular sales since the holiday season of last year. Though it typically sits around $30 and up to $40, we’re seeing this $20 deal with far more frequency. Even so, this is still an excellent deal as we haven’t seen this mouse lower. Shipping is free with Prime.

The Logitech Marathon M705 is our top pick for the best wireless mouse. Kimber Streams writes, “The Logitech Marathon Mouse M705 is the best mouse for most people. It was our testing panel’s favorite, and we think it has the best overall balance of features: medium size, ergonomic shape, six customizable buttons, long battery life, a Unifying Receiver (which lets you use up to six Logitech keyboards and pointing devices on a single USB port), and a three-year limited warranty. When we first recommended the Marathon in July 2014, it cost $50, and it’s an even better deal now that the price has dropped to around $30.”

Anker SoundSync Drive Bluetooth Car Kit

Street price: $20; MSRP: $40; Deal price: $17

For those looking to bring some new life to an aging car stereo, this is a good deal on a Bluetooth car kit. The Anker SoundSync Drive has run buyers $20 or more in the last 9 months and rarely sees discounts as it has been in pretty strong demand. As a result, at $17, this is a good price. Shipping is free with Prime.

The Anker SoundSync Drive is our top pick in our Best Bluetooth Kits for Every Car Stereo guide. Nick Guy writes, “If you have an auxiliary-audio input (aux-in) jack, you’re in luck, because aux kits are the most-reliable and best-sounding way to add Bluetooth to your car. We recommend Anker’s SoundSync Drive because it has great sound quality while playing music, and sounds more intelligible during phone calls than any other model we tested. Its microphone produces a clearer-sounding voice on the other end than any of the options we tested. The other devices we considered all sounded muffled, but Anker’s aggressive noise and echo cancellation made voices easier to understand—even with the windows down, driving at 50 mph. Unlike some competitors that have a permanently attached power adapter that monopolizes your car’s accessory-power jack, the SoundSync Drive works with any USB power source, such as a USB charging port in your car or a standard USB car charger. (While no charger is included, the Anker is about $10 cheaper than the next-best model.) To use it, simply stick it to your dashboard with the included adhesive backing and press the big button to turn it on whenever you turn on the car. We would prefer it if it turned on and connected automatically, but the Anker’s superior voice quality and lower cost ultimately won us over.”

Amazon Echo

Street price: $180; MSRP: $180; Deal price: $140 for Prime members with code ECHOSAVE40

While not the best price we’ve seen, Prime members can get $40 off with code ECHOSAVE40 on this speaker, which is rarely seen a great sale prices. We’ve featured two deals as low as $130, but $140 is still a solid price and as good as we’ve seen in some time. The promo code works for both the black and white colors. Shipping is free.

The Amazon Echo is a speaker we recommend in our Alexa guide. Grant Clauser writes, “Echo, always listening via Amazon’s Alexa voice service, lets you play music, order pizza, and get questions answered, and can control popular smart-home devices and 1,000-plus other things.”

Clauser continues, “Thanks to the Echo’s far-field microphones, Alexa can respond to voice commands from almost anywhere within earshot. And there’s no activation button to press. Simply say the trigger word (either “Alexa,” “Echo,” “Amazon,” or “Computer.”) followed by what you want to happen, and it will be done—as long as you’ve set up everything properly and are using the correct command (it’s still very much a work in progress and you should set your expectations accordingly). Once you get used to the quirks, using Alexa feels much more natural and responsive than speaking to a phone-based voice assistant like Apple’s Siri. As a result, you’ll likely find yourself using your phone less frequently when you’re at home.”

Because great deals don’t just happen on Thursdays, sign up for our daily deals email and we’ll send you the best deals we find every weekday. Also, deals change all the time, and some of these may have expired. To see an updated list of current deals, please go to The Wirecutter.com.

Elon Musk leaves Trump’s council after US exits Paris climate pact

Today, president Donald Trump announced that the United States would be withdrawing from the Paris Accord. As promised, Tesla CEO Elon Musk then announced that he would no longer be part of presidential councils based on Trump’s decision.

Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2017

Tesla isn’t the only company unhappy with today’s decision. Apple, Google, Microsoft and others penned a public letter to the president asking him not to remove the United States from the Paris Agreement. The CEO of GE, Jess Immelt also tweeted his disappointment in the withdrawal. GE builds many of the turbines used in power plants including a new hybrid turbine that uses batteries in additional to traditional energy sources.

Musk was part of Trump’s Business Advisory Council. That spawned criticism based on Trump’s comments on the environment. Musk’s reaction to that criticism has been that its better for him to be there to be a voice for his environmental ideals. But withdrawing from the Paris Accord was a deal breaker.

Under Paris deal, China committed to produce as much clean electricity by 2030 as the US does from all sources today https://t.co/F8Ppr2o7Rl

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2017

Ironically, several oil and coal companies including Shell, Exxon Mobile and Cloud Peak Energy had asked Trump to make sure the US continued to be part of international pact to reduce carbon emissions.

Samsung Galaxy Book review: You’re better off with a Surface Pro

It took a few years, but Microsoft’s Surface Pro line is an undeniable hit. It also popularized the convertible tablet category — touchscreen-driven devices you can hold in your hands that also have power and attachable keyboards for getting “real work” done. The Surface Pro’s success means it has its fair share of imitators, from Apple, Google and the swath of Windows PC makers out there.

Naturally, Samsung produced its own, last year’s Galaxy TabPro S. That device features a great screen and solid battery life but was hurt by a terrible keyboard and slow performance. With the new Galaxy Book, Samsung appears to have fixed those issues — this convertible has a more spacious keyboard and Intel’s 7th-generation Core i5 processor on board. But all that power introduces some unfortunate trade-offs.

Hardware

Probably the most important part of a tablet is its screen, and the Galaxy Book is no letdown here. The 12-inch display is of the Super AMOLED+ variety, with rich colors and inky dark blacks. The screen is running at a 2160 x 1440 resolution though it’s also set to scale text and UI elements up to 150 percent so everything isn’t completely illegible. Regardless, the workspace feels sufficiently spacious for a 12-inch screen and text is razor-sharp.

I can only think of one problem with the display: Its wide 16:10.7 aspect ratio makes holding the Galaxy Book in portrait an odd experience. Since this tablet was designed to be docked into a keyboard, it’s not surprising that its size was optimized for landscape usage, but I generally prefer the proportions Apple and Microsoft use for the iPad Pro (4:3) and Surface Pro (3:2), respectively — those devices feel equally suited to portrait and landscape usage.

Even if it did have different proportions, the Galaxy Book isn’t really made to be held for long periods of time. It weighs in 1.66 pounds — light for a computer with a Core i5 processor but quite heavy for a tablet. That’s the problem with most larger convertibles in general. Sure, you can use it as a standalone tablet, but you probably won’t want to.

Overall, the Galaxy Book is a relatively plain, spartan device. Two speaker grilles can be found on the left and right sides of the tablet; they produce surprisingly decent audio. There’s a fan vent up top, along with a power switch and volume rocker. The right side also houses two USB-C ports and a headphone jack, the only ports to be found here. The back of the Galaxy Tab is pretty plain, with a Samsung logo, small camera bump and a few ridiculous Intel stickers. If you opt for the model featuring built-in Verizon LTE, your device will also be graced with a giant Verizon logo on the back. Goody.

The back camera comes in at 13-megapixels and is paired with a 5-megapixel front-facing shooter. They’re both… fine. The front-facing camera is arguably much more important on a device like this, and it worked well in video chat, which is all most will rely on it for.

The Galaxy Book hardware gets the job done, but it lacks the refinement and class of the iPad Pro or the Surface Pro’s unique design and adjustable hinge. It doesn’t do anything wrong, but it also doesn’t push the tablet form factor forward in any notable way.

Typing experience

Samsung makes it clear that the Galaxy Book is meant for getting things done by including a keyboard cover, just as it did last year with the TabPro S. It’s a smart move — looking at the marketing for the Surface Pro, you’d be forgiven for assuming the keyboard comes with it — it doesn’t. The other bit of good news is that the Galaxy Book’s keyboard is a big improvement over the one that came with the TabPro S.

It’s basically a full-size keyboard with the same layout found on most Windows 10 laptops. The keys in the function row are small, but the others are full size. So, there’s basically no adjustment period or learning curve, which can’t be said for the iPad Pro’s Smart Keyboard. But, it’s still not an especially good keyboard. The key travel is naturally shallow to make it work in such a thin device. Although, it’s comfortable enough that I generally didn’t think about it. Samsung even made it backlit — something I did not expect.

Unfortunately, the experience falls apart when you’re not typing on a desk, table or other flat surface. Most convertibles still have compromised experiences when you use them in your lap, and the Galaxy Book is no exception. The keyboard cover is thin and light, which is good for not adding a lot of bulk — but it’s also extremely bendy and flimsy feeling. When resting my palms on either side of the trackpad and typing away, I could bend the keyboard so much that I’d accidentally “click” the trackpad, which is very distracting. It’s even easier to do this if you rest a single hand on a palm rest; the unbalanced weight clicks the trackpad immediately. Once I figured out what was happening, I could take care to avoid it, but it just goes to show how tough it is to get this experience right.

The Galaxy Book’s keyboard cover also functions as a stand. It can be propped up at three different angles and also can be laid down at a slight angle with the keyboard hidden (for drawing with the S Pen). These angles work pretty well, but the flexibility of the Surface Pro’s hinge is hard to ignore. Microsoft’s convertible hasn’t always worked great in the lap, but the company has made big improvements over the years. Samsung still has a lot of work to do here. That’s primarily because the combination of the full-size keyboard plus the “wedge” holding the screen up makes the Galaxy Book pretty big in the lap. Fortunately, the magnetic connection between the stand and the tablet itself is pretty strong and reliable.

Samsung’s software

While the Galaxy Book runs a mostly unmodified version of Windows 10, Samsung did include a few extra apps here to help users take advantage of its S Pen, which comes in the box alongside the keyboard. Again, I have to give Samsung props for including this accessory for free, something neither Microsoft nor Apple are doing.

One of the extra apps is Samsung Notes, which functions as a digital canvas that can sync between your Galaxy Book and a Samsung smartphone. Oddly, Samsung notes isn’t a complete note-taking solution. Although you can jot down text, draw images and attach photos to your notes, the only place you can do keyboard text entry is the “title” field. That means if you also want to take text notes (as most of us do), you’ll need to use another app. That’s enough to make Samsung Notes useless for me.

Another app, Samsung Flow, could be a big deal if you own a Samsung smartphone. Once set up, the app uses your smartphone as an authenticator to unlock your Galaxy Book. More importantly, it pushes notifications from your phone and lets you respond to incoming messages. I didn’t get a chance to test this out, as I didn’t have a compatible phone handy — but if it works as promised, it could be a useful addition for those invested in the Samsung ecosystem. (Are there really people invested in the Samsung ecosystem?)

Otherwise, there’s not a lot to differentiate the Galaxy Book from other Windows 10 devices. The S Pen works just fine with Windows Ink apps like Sticky Notes and Sketchpad, and the lack of latency is truly impressive — it’s one of the more responsive stylus experiences I’ve had. But it’s not so much better than the Surface Pro that it should be a major consideration if you’re deciding between the two devices.

Performance and battery life

The Galaxy Book I’ve been testing includes Intel’s 7th-generation Core i5 processor, a dual-core chip running at 3.1 GHz; it’s paired with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB hard drive for a whopping $1,329.99. I thought that was expensive for a tablet, but it’s in the same realm of pricing as a similarly configured Surface Pro, once you include a stylus and keyboard.

That was more than enough power for my needs. My usual workflow includes several Chrome windows loaded up with around a dozen tabs as well as Slack, Todoist, Twitter, Microsoft’s Groove Music (I figured I’d try the first-party option this time out) and Word. That all ran with nary a hiccup. I had also tried out a configuration of the Galaxy Book with only 4GB of RAM; unsurprisingly, that version didn’t run nearly as well. I ran into pretty frequent Chrome tab refreshes, and music skipped from time to time. It still feels a bit cheap to offer only 4GB of RAM on a computer priced over $1,000 — but Microsoft also only includes 4GB in the lower-end Surface Pro configurations, so at least Samsung isn’t a total outlier here.

Benchmarks confirmed the unsurprising but welcome news that the Galaxy Book far outperforms last year’s TabPro S. That should be obvious given the major chip upgrade here, but it’s welcome news for people who may have enjoyed Samsung’s form factor but not the semi-sluggish performance.

Overall, throwing more horsepower into the Galaxy Book definitely fixed the performance issues we saw with last year’s TabPro S. Unfortunately, this also introduced a new problem of its own: battery life. The amount of useable time I got from the Galaxy Book was simply all over the place. The first model I tested was simply pathetic, with the computer regularly dying after less than three hours. It also took more than four hours to charge while in use. Both of these numbers seemed so bad that Samsung thought there was something wrong and sent me a replacement device.

Initially, I had the same poor battery life with my replacement. But, after a few days, things seemed to normalize, and now I can get between five and six hours of work out of this computer. I don’t know what changed, but things definitely improved after I ran our battery test. That test loops an HD video with the screen set to 66 percent brightness, and the Galaxy Book managed just over eight hours before it shut down. That’s not terribly inspiring (Samsung promises 11 hours of video playback, a number I couldn’t come close to), but it’s not the total disaster I experienced the first few times I used the Galaxy Book.

Battery life

Galaxy Book
8:08
Surface Book with Performance Base (2016)
16:15
Surface Book (Core i5, integrated graphics)
13:54 / 3:20 (tablet only)
Surface Book (Core i7, discrete graphics)
11:31 / 3:02 (tablet only)
iPad Pro (12.9-inch, 2015)
10:47
Galaxy TabPro S
10:43
HP Spectre x360 15t
10:17
HP Spectre x360 (13-inch, 2016)
10:03
ASUS ZenBook 3
9:45
Apple MacBook (2016)
8:45
Samsung Notebook 9
8:16
Dell XPS 13 (2015)
7:36
Microsoft Surface Pro 4
7:15
HP Spectre 13
7:07
Huawei MateBook
6:35

This is partially a matter of physics: A very thin body combined with a powerful processor like the Core i5 is going to be problematic. But devices like this are meant to be portable first and foremost, and I never felt all that comfortable leaving a charger behind. That’s a big knock against what Samsung’s trying to do here.

Samsung describes the Galaxy Book as a “fast-charging” device, but that’s only true if you’re not using it. If the Surface Book is powered off, it does charge relatively fast, but if you’re trying to do work and charge it, expect to wait three to four hours for a full battery. If you’re out and about and want to just top the machine off, you had better be prepared to take a full break from your work.

Configurations and the competition

In classic Samsung fashion, there are a host of different Galaxy Book configurations. As tested, the 12-inch model I used includes a Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and that costs a whopping $1,330, with keyboard and S Pen included. Samsung also sells a model with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for $1,130; you can add Verizon LTE to that model for an additional $170.

If you’ve been paying attention, it should be clear that the Surface Pro is the most direct competitor to the Galaxy Book. That device was just refreshed with 7th-generation Core m3, i5 and i7 processors. While the Surface Pro is cheaper off the bat, Microsoft doesn’t include a pen or keyboard — once you add in those accessories, a comparable Surface Pro will cost

But the Surface Pro features a few advantages. Its screen is slightly bigger and runs at a higher resolution (2,736 x 1,824), and its built-in hinge is more flexible than Samsung’s keyboard cover. Speaking of the keyboard, Microsoft’s keyboard cover is far superior to Samsung’s, as well. Naturally, the Surface Pro doesn’t work with Samsung’s Flow software that links the Galaxy Book to a Samsung smartphone, but that won’t be a dealbreaker for many potential buyers. If you’re deep in Samsung’s ecosystem, you could make an argument for the Galaxy Book — but most people will probably be happier with Microsoft’s convertible. We’ll need to fully review the new Surface Pro before we can say for sure, but Microsoft’s track record here means it’ll likely deliver.

If you’re not interested in buying from Microsoft, Lenovo’s Thinkpad X1 tablet is another option — but much like the Galaxy Book, there aren’t a lot of compelling reasons for recommending it over a Surface Pro. Huawei’s Matebook is another convertible with a similar design, but it has a terrible keyboard cover that makes it a complete non-starter.

And while most people looking at the Galaxy Book probably need Windows 10 over iOS, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. It’s not cheap, but its screen is top rate, there are tons of apps that take great advantage of Apple’s Pencil stylus and its battery life is superb. If you’re an iPhone user, you’ll appreciate the tight integration between your phone and tablet, as well. Just know that multitasking on iOS falls far short of Windows.

Wrap-up

Samsung’s Galaxy Book doesn’t get anything totally wrong. And if it were a few hundred dollars cheaper than the Surface Pro, it could find an audience. But as it is, the good things about the Galaxy Book (its display and overall performance) are come with some big tradeoffs. Battery life in particular has been a big letdown, and though the keyboard cover is better than it was last year, it’s still not as good as what Microsoft offers.

Battery life and a good typing experience are essentials, particularly on a mobile device like the Galaxy Book. Given the compromises, it’s hard to recommend Samsung’s latest over the Surface Pro. For its price, the Galaxy Book needs to be near-flawless — unfortunately, it doesn’t reach that lofty goal.

Photographs by Evan Rodgers and Nathan Ingraham

First WWDC 2017 Decorations Start Going Up at McEnery Convention Center

With just four days to go until the 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple has started decorating the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, where the event will be held.

Based on images shared on Twitter, the Convention Center is being decorated with banners, flags, and other artwork. The design Apple is using matches up with the design that was seen on the original announcements, featuring a top-down view of people in colorful outfits.

An entire side of the Convention Center has been covered in the design, as has the VTA station in front of the building. The artwork was created by Los Angeles artist Geoff McFettridge

This year’s event in San Jose is the first Worldwide Developers Conference that’s been held outside of the Moscone Center in San Francisco in many years. Apple expects to host about 5,000 developers, with hundreds of Apple engineers available to answer questions and host app development sessions.

The Worldwide Developers Conference will kick off on June 5 at 10:00 a.m. with a keynote event where Apple is expected to debut iOS 11, macOS 10.13, watchOS 4, tvOS 11, and several hardware products, including new Mac notebooks, new iPads, and perhaps the much-rumored Siri speaker.

For the June 5 keynote, MacRumors will provide a live blog both here on MacRumors.com and on our MacRumorsLive Twitter account, along with detailed coverage of everything Apple announces during the week.

Related Roundup: WWDC 2017
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Super Phantom Cat (Review)

Super phantom cat is a Retro-platformer from Veewo games, joining a long list of games by the developer which can be seen here. It follows a cat (well, kinda. You’ll see) as you try to escape an alternate galaxy, and collecting various goods as you go. Download links, as well as a trailer, are available on their site.

Huh, Super Phantom Cat. As far as retro platformers go, You sure do play well. Game is simple – get to the end of the level, using left/right controls, a jump, and skills called “sprites” (more on them in a bit) It’s the usual drill. Of course, you can collect stars and coins, both for points. Coins can be replaced with data (More on that in a bit too) which does other things.

HOLD UP! What about Storage?

Do keep an eye on this one. At the time of writing, Super Phantom Cat (Or Super Cat, as its known as when installed) needs 132MB of space. Not horrifically big, but some people may have issues.

And Permissions….

Now, Super Phantom Cat is built for the Pre-Marshmallow era, meaning that it does not support run-time permissions. If you are on Marshmallow or later (or know how to get into AppOps on older versions – or you use Xprivacy, you clever little rooters) You may want to disable a few things:

A little worrying, but Contacts may have legitimate uses.

Contacts make sense since pre-marshmallow apps that don’t use the new SDK’s have to use said permission for Google Play Games sign-in. Telephone? No idea what’s going on there. Still turned contacts off because I can be a little bit of a hypochondriac like that.

*Coughs* Dan… the game?

Oh right! So, the story follows a cat (you) as you travel through the phantom world, trying to get home. On your way, you meet another cat who teaches you the ‘lay of the land,’ so to speak. This other cat rescues you then leaves you to do the tutorial before turning back up over the next few levels to teach you things. In fact…

I managed to grab tutorial footage! (Apologies for the volume bar at the start, and the sound. was not going to sacrifice quality for sound.)

After that, the game explains its ‘sprites.’ these plucky power-ups provide a variety of abilities like shooting, ground pounds, and short range teleporting.

OOO! A weapon sprite!

As you may guess, sprites make your life much, much easier.

Anyhow, you may not like cats. Well, don’t worry, there are multiple characters to unlock! As the story progresses, you can start unlocking more and more characters. Some have unique bonuses, like extra health, or starting a level with an upgraded bullet sprite. the characters range from cats to birds and even people.

Honestly, my only issue is spelling. It’s not horrific, but when you see a typo, it can drive you mad. For example, if you die, you’ll randomly be given the chance of a free revive- in exchange for watching an advert when you ‘exist’ the game. Yes, it’s meant to be ‘exit.’ Speaking of adverts, you will get them when you die. However, log in 5 days in a row, and you get an ad-free experience. That offer is pretty good.

In-App purchases

As far as in-app purchases go, Super Phantom Cat is not too bad. In fact, only 4 things can be brought:

• An alternative set of worlds, for £1.69
• Unlock all characters for £1.39
• 3 items that, when used, give 20 minutes unlimited stamina for £1.39
• Unlock a previously locked world early for £1.39

And you don’t feel you need to actually buy any of them, other than the alternative worlds. There’s no there way to get them.

Conclusion

Overall, Super Phantom Cat is a rather good platformer that rewards people that play it with the lack of adverts, as well as well-placed hints to let you know if you missed something – or to explain things. Personally, I will keep this installed for a while yet – may get some new features for all I know.

Motorola announces new TurboPower, GamePad, and SoundBoost 2 Moto Mods

Why it matters to you

Motorola’s Moto Mods are one of the Moto Z’s best attributes, and Motorola committed to them in a major way at Mobile World Congress.

Update: After previewing new modular peripherals for its Z series smartphones at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Motorola has announced pricing and availability. By Kyle Wiggers. 

One of the most unique — and arguably best — features of Lenovo’s Moto Z series is Moto Mods, which include accessories like cameras, speakers, batteries, and more. Earlier this year at Mobile World Congress (MWC), Lenovo announced a slew of new Mods headed to market. And on June 1, it announced when they’d be available — and how much they’d cost.

The TurboPower Pack, GamePad, and SoundBoost 2 will retail for $80 later this year, and the Wireless Charging Shells are $40 apiece.

Here’s everything you need to know about Motorola’s new Moto Mods, which be fully compatible with the Moto Z2 Play.

Power accessories

TurboPower Pack

Motorola’s new TurboPower Pack snaps onto any Moto Z like an external battery, and gives any Moto Z up to 50 percent more power via a 3,490mAh battery. It can charge the phone at 15W speeds — up to 50 percent in just 20 minutes, Motorola claims — and it’s smart enough to detect the phone’s level of charge and replenishing the battery when it’s “most efficient.” It also charges in less than an hour.

Charging Adapter

Another charging accessory, the Charging Adapter, is designed to recharge any new and existing Moto Mod. It’s a tiny box that fits over the metal connector on the Mod to be charged and plugs into an outlet.

Style Shells with Wireless Charging

Motorla’s Style Shells stands now come in more colors, and support fast charging up to 10W.

GamePad

Motorola’s new GamePad Moto Mod, which was developed in partnership with the gaming division at Lenovo, adds console controls to Moto Z devices — specifically two joysticks, a directional pad, trigger buttons, and a lanyard loop. A dedicated 1,035mAh battery powers its LEDs without having to draw from the phone’s battery for power.

SoundBoost 2

JBL’s SoundBoost 2 Mod adds beefed-up audio to any Moto Z device. It works with a new JBL app that lets you adjust the sound coming from the speaker, and offers up to 10 hours of playback via a built-in battery. It’s also splash-resistant, comes in three colors, has a fabric covering, and automatically pairs to your phone when you flip open the kickstand.

Amazon Alexa

Those aren’t the only Mods Motorola committed to shipping this year.

Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service, the set of APIs that allow hardware makers to integrate the Alexa voice assistant into their products, will hit Moto Z devices in the form of a specially designed Mod. It features a glowing blue light that illuminates when Alexa is activated, and a pyramidal base that doubles as a desk stand.

More: Is a Hasselblad camera module coming to the Moto Z? Leak says it’s possible

Interestingly, the Alexa-equipped Moto Mod is akin to Amazon’s Echo Show. It pairs with a companion app that shows search results based on voice queries — if you ask about the weather in Barcelona, for example, it will show a three-day weather forecast.

Motorola said that later in the year, Moto Z would gain “deeper integration” with Alexa. It will respond to Alexa’s wake word from the lock screen, and show results in a companion app.

Concept Mods

Motorola showed off concept Mods, or ideas for Moto Mods that might (or might not) make it to market, at Mobile World Congress in March.

One of the most impressive adds wireless charging to any Moto Z on the market. Another includes four SIM slots.

A Polaroid-like printer for Moto Z devices spits out photos on compact sheets of paper, and a robotics module adds motors and connectors that transform any Moto Z into the brains of a Lego remote-controlled car or automaton. Another Mod, a mutlilevel docking station, serves as a charger for multiple Mods.

Two other concept Mods skewed a bit more practical. One, a giant, tablet-like stand with a docking station that fits a Moto Z Force, is more than a little reminiscent of Motorola’s Atrix laptop dock and Lenovo’s PadFone. And a virtual reality headset Mod uses a Moto Z handset’s screen as a VR display, much like Samsung’s Galaxy Gear.

More Mods on the horizon

Mods are the number one reason people are buying Moto Zs, Motorola said, and they’re putting them to use. The average Moto Z user swaps Mods an average of 14 hours a week.

To help spur third-party Mod development, Motorola has teamed up with manufacturers to engineer a development platform. It will continue to design Mods itself, but it’ll also co-design Mods with partners, and let approved third-parties make, sell, and market Mods entirely by themselves.

In many cases, it’s jump-starting the development efforts itself. In India, Motorola hosted more than 100 developers, engineers, students, and partners to discuss new Moto Mod concepts. And it’s spearheaded hackathons in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and San Francisco.

The pop-up events dovetail with Motorola’s Transform the Smartphone Challenge, a competition that saw enterprising hardware developers pitch ideas for Moto Mods at events in New York and San Francisco. They subsequently launched crowdfunding campaigns on Indiegogo, and had a shot at meeting with Verizon and Motorola representatives to get their Moto Mods featured in Motorola’s online store.

Google uses ‘Wonder Woman’ to inspire next generation of female programmers

Why it matters to you

The tech industry still suffers from an overwhelming lack of diversity, and programs like this one could help change that in the future.

A recent study co-published by Google and Gallup states that just 48 percent of girls between seventh and 12th grade are “very confident” they could learn computer science, compared to 65 percent of boys. An International Game Developers Survey from 2014 estimated that although the percentage of female game developers had more than doubled since 2009, women still only represented less than a quarter of the industry.

Clearly there’s an imbalance that has pervaded the field. And although tech companies have made strides in terms of representation, there’s still much work ahead. Even Google, it must be said, has come under fire in recent years for failing to do enough to fix the lack of diversity within its walls — especially where equal pay is concerned. And that brings us to this week.

On Friday, Wonder Woman hits theaters, and Google is using the opportunity to take action. The company has developed an interactive coding project to introduce girls to the fundamentals of the trade. The experience will allow budding programmers to recreate three unique scenes from the movie.

Meanwhile, the DC Legends mobile RPG available through the Play Store has been updated with new missions where gamers can play as Wonder Woman.

The coding project is being headed up by Made With Code, Google’s initiative to empower young women to pursue careers in computer science — whether they have some tech know-how or none at all. It will be accompanied by an advance screening of the film, where 100 teen girls from the Los Angeles area will be invited to see Wonder Woman before getting the opportunity to try the programming experience for themselves.

Google is hoping that by helping girls become acquainted with the basics, it can chip away at societal norms and stereotypes that push women away from technical industries like computer science. A great deal of the pressure is exerted at home and in schooling — so much so that Made With Code concludes “encouragement from adults and peers is the No. 1 contributor to a teen girl’s decision to pursue computer science.”

Those interested can visit Made With Code to explore other projects similar to the Wonder Woman one. Additionally, parents and teachers can use the site’s resources to discover ways to introduce programming to the young women in their lives.

Curved sensors are getting closer to reality thanks to new Microsoft research

Why it matters to you

Curved camera sensors won’t be mass produced any time soon, but researchers are getting closer to bringing them to market.

Curved camera sensors are poised to offer better low-light performance and enhanced image quality — but manufacturing challenges have prevented the new tech from actually coming to market. A team of researchers from Microsoft, however, may have found a solution. The group recently published its work in the Optical Society of America Journal, detailing a new process for designing curved sensors that overcomes several obstacles, including expense and performance.

Earlier studies showed that using a curved sensor could reduce the weight of the camera and lens by 37 times, the researchers wrote, but in order to achieve a higher-quality image than current flat sensors, that curve had to match the field of view created by the lens. Creating a highly curved sensor, however, involved deforming the material into a curve, which stretches the pixels and doesn’t allow for a high resolution output — or breaks the sensor entirely.

The Microsoft team instead developed a silicon sensor with flexible die edges, allowing the sensor to curve more without the pixel stretch. By placing the sensor on custom molds and slowly stretching the sensor, the group’s attempts resulted in a larger curve without breaking the sensor during the bending process. The group tested the process on a number of different sensor sizes, including a camera with an f/1.2 lens that had twice the resolution of a traditional DSLR.

The research brings the idea of a curved sensor closer to reality by navigating through manufacturing pitfalls. The group says that the curved sensors are likely still a ways from mass production, but plans to continue the research already underway, including infrared variations.

The curved sensors could potentially be found inside future DSLRs, however, they require a completely different lens design, making it more likely that the tech will find its way inside cameras with fixed lenses first, such as in smartphone cameras.

Adobe’s new app makes mobile scans searchable with auto-recognized text

Why it matters to you

Adobe’s auto-text recongition technology is now available in smartphones, making it easy to turn physical documents into searchable PDFs.

Using a smartphone camera to scan a new document is not anything new, but Adobe’s attempt at a mobile scanner uses artificial intelligence to turn the image into an editable PDF.  Adobe Scan, announced on Wednesday, is a free app for iOS and Android.

Like other scan apps, Adobe Scan snaps a photo of a document to turn it into a digital file. But, thanks to Adobe’s AI programming inside Adobe Sensi, translating a physical document to a digital one is not the end. The program will auto-recognize text, making it possible to refine the document later in Adobe Acrobat or easily copy and paste. Since the text is auto-recognized, documents become searchable too.

Adobe Sensi also powers the app’s ability to auto-recognize the document’s boundaries for an accurate crop. The program will also automatically correct perspective errors and remove shadows. Users can also fine-tune the scan with a set of manual adjustment tools, including cropping, rotating and re-ordering pages for larger documents.

“When you think of it, documents are the lifeblood of society, communicating data and information that spans contracts, textbooks, financial statements and everything in between,” wrote Abhay Parasnis, Adobe executive vice president and chief technology officer. “The challenge is unlocking the intelligence that lives in those documents, and extracting meaning that can be searched, analyzed and incorporated into digital workflows. Adobe Scan represents a critical step toward our broader innovation imperative for Adobe Document Cloud, and there’s much more to come.”

The tradeoff for the smarter scans? The app is cloud-based. The documents are automatically uploaded to the free Adobe Document Cloud in-app for access across multiple devices while exporting options comes with the $10 a month PDF Pack. Subscribers also have access to extras like adding signatures and merging PDFs. Adobe Scan is available from both the App Store and Google Play.