Best Tempered Glass Screen Protectors for Google Pixel

As usual, the curved screen of the Google Pixel makes finding a tempered glass screen protector that much harder.

Looking to keep your Pixel’s screen in pristine condition? A tempered glass screen protector is your best bet. The problem is, like so many newer phones these days, the Pixel has a slightly curved screen around the edges which is less than ideal and can result in the dreaded halo effect.

It’s been a point of discussion in the forums, with the consensus being that the following screen protectors are your best bets. It’s also worth considering pairing your screen protector with a quality case, which will add another layer of protection and help cover a bit around the curved portion of the screen.

• Mr Shield [3-pack]
• Supershieldz [2-pack]
• Orzly Pro-Fit
• Spigen [2-pack]

Mr Shield [3-pack]

Mr Shield offers the best value for Pixel screen protectors — you can get this 3-pack for under $10. When properly installed this screen protector will like up with the actual screen of the phone but leave the curved bevel along the side and edges exposes. That’s where a case will come in handy to provide protection in those vulnerable areas.

These screen protectors feature a cutout around the front-facing camera and ear speaker and come with everything you need to get a clean and dust-free installation the first time — though if you mess it up you’ve got two more fresh attempts.

See at Amazon

Supershieldz [2-pack]

Supershieldz is another trusted brand for tempered glass screen protectors, and it offers a 2-pack for the Google Pixel. Similar to Mr Shield’s offerings, these screen protectors feature cutouts along the top for the front-facing camera and ear speaker.

Again, because the screen is curved and the tempered glass is flat, this won’t provide the ideal edge-to-edge protection, but it will protect against direct impacts to the screen and also features an oleophobic coating to help keep fingerprints from smudging up your screen.

See at Amazon

Orzly Pro-Fit

The Orzly Pro-Fit screen protector offers really good protection with a trim around the screen that’s available in either black or white to fit the style of your phone, so if you’ve been looking for edge-to-edge protection this is your best shot.

However, to get that full protection requires a dot matrix grid that may be hardly noticeable to some and extremely distracting to others. Users have also reported that this screen protector is a fingerprint magnet so you may need to carry around a microfibre cloth to keep your screen protected and smudge-free. Either way, if full-screen protection is what you’re after, it’s worth giving it a try.

See at Amazon

Spigen [2-pack]

Spigen actually offers a full line of tempered glass screen protectors for the Google Pixel, which are all case friendly. That’s good news, because of Spigen also makes some really great cases. It offers a 2-pack of crystal clear tempered glass screen protectors that come with everything you need for a clean install. If you’ve had difficulties installing a screen protector before it can be really handy to have that second screen protector if you need a second go at it.

Alternatively, Spigen also sells single screen protectors with trim around the screen (very similar to the Orzly screen protector) available in black and white. It aims to offer true edge-to-edge protection and are also worth considering if that’s exactly what you’re after.

See at Amazon

What’s your take?

Do you use a screen protector on your Pixel? Got an opinion on one we’ve featured here? Let us know in the comments!

Google Pixel + Pixel XL

• Google Pixel and Pixel XL review
• Google Pixel XL review: A U.S. perspective
• Google Pixel FAQ: Should you upgrade?
• Pixel + Pixel XL specs
• Understanding Android 7.1 Nougat
• Join the discussion in the forums!

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Which is the best music streaming service in the UK? Apple Music vs Spotify and more

Music streaming is by the most popular way for us to consume music. Where once we had to import and rip CDs to our computers, or download songs (legally we hope), we now access to the world’s music catalogue through our smartphones.

There’s fierce competition between music streaming services too, but out of all the services available, there four that can be considered the “big players”: Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play Music and Amazon Music Unlimited.

While all four offer access to similarly large catalogues of music, each have their own unique features to help differentiate. Which means picking the service that is right for you can be tricky. Fortunately, we’re here to help run down the services available and what they offer.

Quick Summary

Apple Music is an ideal service if you rely heavily on iTunes and have an iPhone. It combines your iTunes library on your computer, with any songs you add from Apple Music’s cloud servers. The catalogue is extensive, it gives you access to music videos, along with some exclusive content from select artists. It also has the 24 hour Beats 1 radio station, which is a great place to discover new music.

Spotify is the current King of music streaming, with over 50 million paying subscribers. You can add your own music to your Spotify library, but it’s not as simple and straightforward as Apple’s offering. Spotify can be accessed on a wide range of speakers, soundbars and other home entertainment equipment via Spotify Connect.

Google Play Music will let you add up to 50,000 of your own songs to your online library, which you can then download for offline listening across devices, providing you pay for the Unlimited tier. It has an instant sharing platform through Google+ and is available on a wide range of devices.

Amazon Music Unlimited is the latest service to the streaming party but has arrived with a few party tricks. It has different pricing tiers for exactly the same content, depending on if you’re a Prime subscriber or if you just want to use it through an Echo device.

Apple Music

What is it?: Apple Music is a service with access to tens of millions of songs. It has been designed to combine music you have bought with music you’ve saved from Apple’s cloud services in the Apple Music library. The app has five tabs/features comprising Library, For You, Browse, Radio, and Search.

The For You tab serves up a mix of handpicked albums and playlists based on the music you like, while the Browse tab presents the week’s newest tracks, videos and playlists that have been selected by Apple Music editors. The Radio tab is where you’ll find Beats 1, which is a 24-hour live global station led by DJs such as Zane Lowe, Ebro Darden, and Julie Adenuga, as well as other expertly-created stations created by radio DJs.

Library is where you’ll find all your music, whether it be songs you’ve imported from your computer, songs you’ve bought from iTunes or songs you’ve added from Apple Music’s servers. And finally, Search is where you, well, search for any music you want.

Siri has been programmed to work with Apple Music so you can ask her to play the best songs from 1994… and she will do just that. Once you’ve started playing a song, you can swipe up to reveal the next songs in the playing queue or lyrics to the song that is currently playing (you’ll only get these features if you have iOS 10 installed). 

If the song you’re listening to isn’t in your library, you can add it, add it to a playlist, create a station of songs based around the one playing or share it with friends.

Price:

• £9.99/month per user.
• £14.99/month for a family of six
• Free to listen to Beats 1 without subscription

Devices: 

• iOS
• Mac
• PC
• Android

Conclusion: Apple Music is a single app that combines your music, a streaming service and a worldwide live radio station. Everything lives in one place, so you can stream anything choose or you can let Apple Music choose for you. 

Spotify

What is it?: Spotify boasts around 125 million users, 50 million of which pay for the service. The rest subscribe to Spotify’s free tier, which limits music quality and plays adverts every few songs. The free tier also excludes users from using other features such as being able to use it with Sonos and Spotify Connect.

You’ll be able to add your purchased music into Spotify using your computer, but you’ll have to add them manually. You will be able to listen to tracks offline if you pay for the Premium version, but you can’t download songs with the free tier.

Spotify gives you access to millions of tracks and ready-made playlists, along with Spotify radio. It will learn as you listen and through associations, will make recommendations based on your tastes. There is also a band merchandise store front that will give you easy access to your favourite band’s T-shirt, for example. Spotify also offers Facebook integration so you can follow your friends to see what they’re listening to.

Additionally, Spotify teamed up with Google to offer Chromecast and Chromecast Audio support allowing anyone to turn any speakers into smart connected players and Spotify Connect allows you to play the service through compatible speakers. 

Price: 

• Free tier with adverts.
• £9.99/month for Premium tier
• 50 per cent off Premium with Unidays or NUS Extra for student
• £15/month for a family of five

Devices: 

• Android
• BlackBerry
• Boxee
• iOS
• Linux
• MeeGo
• Microsoft Windows
• Openpandora OS X
• PlayStation
• Roku
• S60 (Symbian)
• Samsung Smart TV
• Sonos
• Squeezebox
• Telia Digital-tv
• TiVo
• WD TV
• webOS
• Windows Mobile
• Withings Aura.
• Home entertainment systems and cars via Spotify Connect

Conclusion: Spotify is the most widely available music streaming platform that offers a huge range of songs at a reasonable price. 

Google Play Music 

What is it?: Google Play Music All Access has 35 million songs in its library, but also allows you to add up to 50,000 of your own locally stored tracks, to stream to your device and download it for offline playback with the Unlimited tier.

It’s able to curate radio stations from artists of your choosing if you pay for the Unlimited package, but you’ll get recommendations based on your tastes within the free subscription.

At the moment there is no option to expand your personal collection above the 50,000 mark but Google+ is built in so you can share your music choices with others and see what your friends are listening to for recommendations.

Price: 

• £9.99/month

Devices:

• Android
• PC
• Mac
• iOS

Conclusion: Google Play Music is affordable, has a large library, allows sharing, radio and smart suggestions, plus you can keep your own music library backed up and easily accessible.

Amazon Music Unlimited

What is it?: Amazon Music Unlimited is Amazon’s own fully-fledged music streaming service. It runs separate to Prime Music, which is only accessible for Prime subscribers. Prime Music has a much smaller catalogue of music.

Music Unlimited has access to “tens of millions” of songs from the major labels which can be accessed via the Amazon Music app, available for a range of devices.

Music Unlimited has just one tier, but different pricing options depending on whether you’re a Prime subscriber or if you want to use it solely through one of the company’s Echo devices. 

Price: 

• £9.99/month for non-Prime subscribers  
• £7.99/month or £79/year for Prime subscribers
• £3.99/month when used through a single Echo device
• £14.99/month or £149/year for up to six family members

Devices:

• Android
• iOS
• Mac
• PC
• Web Player
• Echo
• Amazon Fire devices
• Select home entertainment systems and cars

Conclusion: Amazon Music Unlimited has some ground to make up on its competitors, but with a number of pricing options that undercut them, it could certainly be a force to be reckoned with.

Xbox Project Scorpio: Release date, price, specs and everything you need to know

Microsoft pulled a bit of a pleasant surprise during last year’s E3 games trade show. As well as announce the Xbox One S, which has since sold in bucket loads, it revealed that an all-new Xbox is in the works; a console it called the “most powerful console yet” and capable of full 4K gaming.

This year it will fully announce the machine fully – with an Xbox Media Briefing on Sunday 11 June in LA expected to be dedicated to the launch of “Project Scorpio”.

So here’s everything you need to know about it.

What is Project Scorpio?

Project Scorpio is the codename for Microsoft’s next Xbox console. It was teased at E3 2016 but will be fully revealed at this year’s event this coming weekend – including its actual name. The tease was added to the Xbox press conference we suspect because Sony was soon to announce (and release) the PS4 Pro, even though Microsoft claimed it was to get developers on board.

Xbox boss, Phil Spencer said at the E3 reveal, “We’re announcing Project Scorpio today to give our developers and partners the ability to take advantage of that capability now.”

It wasn’t the first we’ve heard of Project Scorpio, however. Those who follow games industry news will know that the Scorpio name was bandied around from early 2016 – and many of the leaked details were effectively confirmed by Microsoft.

Microsoft

Project Scorpio hardware and specs

Microsoft’s mid-generation successor to the Xbox One was rumoured to be a far more powerful than Sony’s new, fully 4K-capable PS4 Pro before official specs were available and now it seems that is true.

The Digital Foundry was given access to the new box and specifications at Microsoft HQ in Redmond and, on paper and in practice, Scorpio is a more capable console than any we’ve seen before.

• Official Xbox Project Scorpio specs revealed, most powerful console ever

It runs on what is called the Scorpio Engine, which uses a custom SoC (System on Chip) with an enhanced version of the Jaguar core CPU adopted by the Xbox One S. Almost every other aspect is beefed up too:

• Processor: Eight custom x86 cores clocked at 2.3GHz
• Graphics: 40 customised compute units at 1,172MHz
• RAM: 12GB DDR5
• Memory bandwidth: 326GB/s
• Hard drive: 1TB 2.5-inch drive
• Optical drive: 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player

The latter inclusion is interesting because Sony decided against a 4K Blu-ray deck for its PS4 Pro. The Xbox One S does have a 4K player, however.

• PS4 Pro vs Project Scorpio: What’s the difference?

Digital Foundry explained more about each of the different specifications on its dedicated YouTube channel.

Project Scorpio and virtual reality

In the announcement of Project Scorpio, there was also a fair amount of talk of VR. With Bethesda already showing off plans for Fallout in VR – which we’ve had a chance to demo – another aim of Project Scorpio is to deliver high-fidelity VR gaming.

Since then, Microsoft has confirmed that Project Scorpio will support the company’s own Mixed Reality headsets in future. Devices that utilise the tech formerly known as Windows Holographic offer a mixture of VR and augmented reality, and that means virtual reality games will eventually be part of the new console’s make-up.

We’re likely to find out a bit more during E3, but rumours have it that there will be no demos of Xbox VR until 2018.

Microsoft

Project Scorpio games: Does Project Scorpio replace the Xbox One?

Microsoft has been clear from the first mention of Project Scorpio that it will be a part of the Xbox family. Games that run on Xbox One or Xbox One S will also run on Project Scorpio, but with better graphics, higher frame rates or resolutions. It’s a similar story to the way the PS4 Pro plays PS4 games but often with enhancements and sometimes in 4K.

The message pushed by Spencer is that “no one gets left behind”, so as Scorpio pushes things forwards, Team Xbox is keen to ensure that the humble Xbox One gamer doesn’t feel they have to go out an buy a new console to keep up. Equally, those who do get Scorpio will still be using the same services as they do now and be part of the same Xbox Live community.

Project Scorpio release date and price

It’s perhaps exciting to be able to put a date on a future release. Project Scorpio is slated for a December 2017 launch, right in time for “the holiday season”.

Of course, there’s no price yet, but we fully expect to find out during Microsoft’s E3 2017 press event. Fingers crossed.

These are exciting times.

Apple 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display (2017) preview: Bright and powerful

The Apple iMac range has received a spec boost for 2017, promising better screen technology, more processing power, Thunderbolt 3 slots and more. But should you be excited by these additions?

We’ve been using the new 27-inch 5K iMac for the last 24 hours to get a feel for the new all-in-one desktop machine. Although this new model isn’t as powerful as they top-spec iMac Pro due out later this year, it certainly offers plenty. 

New 5K iMac review: Design

• All-in-one aluminium housing
• Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse 2 included
• 2x Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C); 4x USB; SD card; Ethernet; 3.5mm jack

The bottom line is that the new iMac’s design is virtually the same as the 2015 iMac. Why change something that clearly lots of people like? There are the same clean lines and curves to that aluminium housing. The ports are all still tucked away around the back – great for being out of sight, less practical for adding accessories ad hoc.

Pocket-lint

There is one notable change to this array of rear ports: the addition of two Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) slots. This move gives users plenty of potential to connect other screens, docks, or hard drives. In addition there’s the usual 3.5mm headphone jack, SD card slot, four USB sockets, and an Ethernet connector.

In the box you’ll also get a Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse 2, although you can choose to change these to a Magic TrackPad and the new Magic Keyboard with numerical keypad for those who like to crunch numbers.

27-inch iMac (2017) review: Screen

• 27-inch, 5120 x 2880 resolution display
• DCI-P3 wide colour for 1 billion colours
• 500 nits brightness

The new iMac’s screen may look like the same 27-inch panel that many love, but this time around it offers a wider colour gamut – DCI-P3 for blasting up to 1 billion colours in your general direction – and a brighter output.

Indeed, it’s 43 per cent brighter than the last generation model, delivering up to 500 nits output. Which all sounds like a lot of figures, but the brightness level is really noticeable in use, it certainly tickles the retinas.

Pocket-lint

However, this screen isn’t capable of supporting 4K HDR (high dynamic range) as it doesn’t tick the ultra-high brightness box. It is a strange omission, we feel, given the advantage of better colour in HDR content.

HDR capabilities aside, the screen is vivid whether you’re watching movies, editing pictures, or even just reading your email. Put simply, the new iMac’s display is stunning.

New 27-inch iMac review: Processors and graphics

• Discrete graphics: AMD Radeon Pro 500-series as standard
• Graphics have dedicated 4GB-8GB VRAM
• Intel Core i5 Kaby Lake processors as standard (Core i7 upgrades available)
• 8GB 2400MHz DDR4 RAM as standard (configurable up to 64GB)
• User-accessible RAM port for RAM upgrades

It’s not just a new screen, though, as the new iMac’s internals have been upgraded too. There’s now Intel Core i5 and i7 Kaby Lake processors that deliver up to 4.2GHz (4.5GHz with Turbo Boost).

Aside from the processor, the new models support up to twice the memory as the previous generation, plus it’s moved from DDR3 to DDR4. It’s 8GB RAM as standard – but you can access the rear RAM port and add up to 64GB total yourself (without incurring the same off-the-shelf embedded cost that Apple would otherwise charge).

Pocket-lint

Graphics on iMac are much more powerful this time around, with the new Radeon Pro 500-series graphics with up to 8GB of dedicated VRAM. It means that the 27-inch model has a 50 per cent bump in GPU terms compared to the earlier generation.

Storage sees a boost, too, with the Fusion Drive now standard across all 27-inch configurations. This is Apple’s hybrid drive that combines a standard hard disk with flash storage to give you the best of both worlds: fast storage for your most used apps, with enough space available for long term storage. Or upgrade to full SSD, with up to 2TB drives offered that are also 50 per cent faster than those in the outgoing models.

About the only thing that hasn’t changed is the FaceTime HD camera – which remains the same as the previous models.

The model we tested was the entry-level, but this still features a 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of memory, and 1TB Fusion Drive. At £1,749 it’s not unreasonably priced. Go all-in, however, and that price rises rapidly. With all the possible internal customisations – including a 2TB SSD drive, Intel Core i7 4.2GHz processor and 64GB RAM – the 27-inch iMac will set you back a cool £4,949 (or $5,299).

Pocket-lint

Our time with the new iMac was brief so we’ve not been able to put the new machine through as many “day to day” tests as we would have liked. A quick spot of image editing with Pixelmator, 4K video editing with iMovie, watching Darth Vader on the HTC’s Vive VR headset, and playing the gorgeous game Firewatch in Ultra setting kept us plenty busy though. Even with just 8GB our model was able to deliver the goods, although we would love to see what a difference 64GB would make when crunching through heaps of massive images or video content.

Apple 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display review: Software

• MacOS ‘High Sierra’ coming later in 2017
• Will be MacOS ‘Sierra’ for launch

The new iMac runs the MacOS Sierra for the time being, but will be eligible for an update to MacOS High Sierra later in the year when the new version of the operating system comes out.

That update will bring a number of speed and storage improvements thanks to the adoption of a new file system. There are other features as we’ve detailed in a separate feature: What’s new in MacOS High Sierra?

First Impressions

The latest iMac is lovely. From a day’s use we’ve found it performs really well thanks to the beefed-up processing and graphics power, paired with that bolder, brighter screen. It doesn’t disappoint. 

If there’s one complaint, it would be the short-sightedness of not including HDR support. In a world that’s quickly finding it the new industry standard, trying to position a machine with such a creative focus that isn’t able to support such content may come as a blow. Apple will say that it’s not just a case of adding a few more nits brightness to achieve HDR, and that’s true, but it would certainly be a great addition for the high-end user.

That slight grumble aside, the new iMac will hugely appeal to many. It looks great, it runs great and is highly configurable – meaning you can turn it into one super-powered machine if you have the cash. We look forward to giving it a proper run for its money when we get it in the office for a full review.

A piracy lawsuit is tearing Kodi’s add-on community apart

Some of the biggest third-party Kodi streaming addons are no longer available. TorrentFreak reports that ZemTV and Phoenix have recently closed following a lawsuit from US satellite broadcaster Dish Network, with other streaming add-ons following suit. The add-ons, which offer on-demand and live streamed content free of charge, are accused of direct copyright infringement of various TV channels.

In a statement on the TVAddons forum, Phoenix developer Cosmix confirmed the closure, but didn’t elaborate on the exact reason why: “In light of current events we have decided to close down Phoenix,” he said. “This is not something that was easy for us to do; we have all formed a bond that cannot be broken as a team and have a HUGE support base that we are thankful of.”

It’s thought that while the Dish lawsuit is currently focused on other streaming add-ons, developers like Cosmix are distancing themselves (full list here) from any potential legal action due to the costs involved. Many Kodi developers consider themselves hobbyists and administer add-ons in their free time for no financial reward.

As copyright infringement damages can run into the hundreds of thousands (the Dish Network suit demands $150,000 per infringement), developers could be hit hard. ZemTV was removed from the TVAddons library as soon as it was named in the lawsuit and One242415 — the developer behind Navi-X, Phoenix and his own add-on — also announced that his creations will cease working in the coming days.

ZemTV rose to prominence as a reliable source of live TV streams from around the world. Phoenix, on the other hand, offered access to TV shows, movies and live sport, which led it to become one of the banner add-ons advertised by retailers selling “fully-loaded” Kodi boxes. In April, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) ruled that sales of streaming boxes that come pre-loaded with piracy add-ons constitute copyright infringement, which could lead to a European crackdown on such hardware.

Kodi — the company behind the popular media center — often finds itself entangled in legal action, even though it actively discourages the promotion of piracy add-ons on its platform. It provides the open source software but doesn’t dictate which add-ons are allowed on the platform.

Instead, it asks that developers of so-called piracy add-ons don’t affiliate themselves with Kodi. The team dreams of having legitimate services like Amazon and Netflix offer their own apps, but that’s a tough ask when it’s constantly having to deal with the negativity around illegal streaming add-ons on its platform.

Source: TorrentFreak

Two people spent 48 hours in nonstop virtual reality

If you own a virtual-reality headset, you’ve seen a few health and safety rules. Don’t use your VR headset in a moving vehicle, for instance, or make sure to take frequent breaks. For most of us, these guidelines make sense: VR nausea is a very real problem, and limiting our time in artificial worlds is the easiest way to avoid getting simulator sickness. But what if you broke all the rules and decided to stay in virtual reality for 48 hours straight — eating, sleeping, working and living in a VR headset? Well, then you’d be Dean Johnson, head of innovation for Brandwidth and crazy man who spent two days blindfolded with technology.

Johnson has been challenging the rules of consumer VR from the beginning — when virtual reality hit the mainstream last year, he spent 24 hours immersed in a mix of Rift, Vive and Gear VR experiences, setting an unofficial record for longest time in virtual reality. This year, he doubled that effort, recruiting Sarah Jones from Coventry University to join him in two days of extreme VR immersion — breaking for only five minutes each hour to record vlogs and use the facilities.

The experiment was designed to question the arbitrary limits of VR-use time and help expose virtual reality to a wider consumer audience, but it wasn’t a PR stunt for any specific headset manufacturer. “In fact, it was quite the opposite,” he says. Every company he invited to participate in the project turned him down. “Mostly because they thought we’d die,” he joked.

The fears of the likes of Oculus VR and HTC weren’t completely unfounded. Johnson didn’t just spend two days watching movies and playing games in virtual reality — he wore VR goggles while driving go-karts, getting tattoos and walking across the wings of an airplane in-flight. “We wanted it to be as physical as possible,” he says. “How extreme do you need to get with the physical additions to VR to make it feel real?” It sounds almost like a silly question, but when you’re wearing a headset that partially blinds you to your environment, the influence of your mixed reality could have unexpected results.

Johnson and Jones’ wind-walking adventure, for instance, was seen through a GearVR’s pass-through camera — but despite the physical exertion of fighting the wind on the wing of a plane, the experience wasn’t completely real. “It still didn’t feel real to us with what we were seeing,” he says, “but the movement — the buffeting and forcing yourself against the wind, they were the things that physically added the extra dimension.” They just couldn’t see well enough through the GearVR to get the full experience. Johnson thinks it might have been better if the headset had been displaying a VR dragon ride. “If everything you were seeing felt real, that would all be amazing.”

Go-karting fared a little better — the limited view of the GearVR’s pass-through camera gave the drivers’ vision a lower framerate and letterboxing but didn’t seem to hamper the experience in the same way. “It’s amazing that our brains just corrected and we got used to seeing that view,” Johnson says. “We were going pretty quickly around the go-karting track, not hitting anything — though with really reduced visibility.”

These spectacle events are novel, but some of the more interesting results came from the smaller experiments. Johnson wore a VR headset to a tattoo parlor to see if the distraction of a false reality could dull the pain of being branded with a nerdy Apple tattoo in the real world. It did.

After briefly removing the headset to measure his pain threshold in the real world, Johnson spent the rest of his tattoo session playing Gunjack. “If the headset off was my 10 benchmark,” he said, giving the pain a number, “It came down to like a six or a seven. It really did seem to have some effect.” According to his Apple Watch, his heart rate dropped in VR too, averaging at 74 beats per minute in the headset to 103 without.

Living in VR drastically changed mundane everyday life, too. Having a face-to-face conversation with anybody meant logging into Facebook Spaces or another social-VR app, and sleeping was an altogether different kind of experience.

“When you wake up in VR, you just believe everything,” he explains. Normally, virtual reality is a conscious choice, but if you wake up in a simulation, surrounded by dinosaurs and spaceships, you don’t’ have time to question your reality as you regain consciousness. “It’s kind of like waking up in an unfamiliar hotel room. You may not know where you are or what the timezone is, but you just believe you’re in a hotel room. Why would you not?”

Despite breaking every VR health-and-safety guideline imaginable, Johnson and Jones walked away from the experiment relatively unscathed. They learned, at worst, that watching a 360-degree movie in a car is a nauseating experience — but that doesn’t mean their extended time in VR didn’t have consequences.

Johnson admits his vision without glasses was slightly more blurry for a few days after the experience, but it was the physical pain that bothered him most. “The bridge of my nose got bruised,” he said, “And Sarah’s cheeks have kind of permanent red marks on them.” If the health and safety warnings were right, it wasn’t because of the risk of experiencing altered-reality for long periods — it was because the headsets were never designed to be worn indefinitely. “I think we’re just physically glad to be out,” he concluded. “If you had done anything for two straight days, you’d just be glad to be out.”

Mac VR support is more confusing than you think

Early on in yesterday’s WWDC keynote, Apple announced VR support in OS X, along with an external GPU dock for Mac developers. That news excited a lot of people.

External GPUs, for what it’s worth, work right now in macOS Sierra without huge issues (Bizon has been selling external GPU enclosures for a while). What Apple’s new High Sierra OS brings is full support for GPU docks in its graphics API. Couple that with NVIDIA’s commitment to release graphics drivers for macOS and it’s suddenly going to be a lot easier for Apple users to boost the power of their machines.

Immediately after Apple’s VR announcement, a colleague remarked that adding an external GPU would be “dope if you’re buying a MacBook Air or a low-powered machine” — you’d have an ultraportable that you plug into a dock for VR and high-end gaming. That dream isn’t realistic though. It feels like many people don’t quite understand what a GPU does and why adding one to an underpowered machine won’t make it VR ready.

We’re not going to get super technical here — if you want to know more about the underlying problems when pairing strong GPUs with weak CPUs, you can read every technical analysis of Sony’s PS4 Pro ever written. Instead of geeking out on the CPU’s role in gaming, let’s just remind ourselves of the machines that Apple has made over the past five years, in rough order of processing power:

• MacBook
• MacBook Air
• Mac mini
• MacBook Pro
• iMac
• Mac Pro

Which of these Macs, with an added GPU, is “VR-ready”? It depends who you ask. HTC and Oculus began with the same required specs for their respective headsets: Your setup had to involve a CPU equivalent to an Intel i5-4590, a similar GPU to a NVIDIA GTX 970 and at least 8GB of RAM. While HTC has mostly held fast on that specification, Oculus has lowered the baseline significantly. It now suggests the minimum specs required are an Intel i3-6100 and a NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti. (That’s thanks largely to custom software on Oculus’ part, and the “recommended” CPU remains the i5-4590.)

Taking the i3-6100 and i5-4590 as our baselines for required CPU performance — and ignoring port selection for now — it’s immediately apparent that the MacBook, MacBook Air and Mac mini do not meet the minimum required specifications for VR, no matter what GPU you add.

Pretty much every MacBook Pro with a quad-core processor would breeze through the CPU requirement tests: That includes the 15-inch Touch Bar model but also runs back to the high-end 15-inch models from 2013. As for the 13-inch and dual-core 15-inch models, that’s up for debate: An i7 might meet Oculus’ base spec but would be nowhere near HTC’s. We don’t yet have full details of the chips inside Apple’s new Kaby Lake-powered MacBook Pros, but there’s a strong chance the small bump in power will bring even the i5 13-inch Touch Bar model up to Oculus’ spec.

Anyone with a trash can Mac Pro, unsurprisingly, has enough theoretical CPU power to handle a VR headset with ease. As does every Retina iMac ever made. But here we get to the other problems: I/O, and speed.

Apple briefly showed a Thunderbolt 3 GPU enclosure containing an AMD RX 580 (a more-than-VR-ready GPU) yesterday onstage. Thunderbolt 3 is a fairly new connector, so that rules out all but yesterday’s new iMacs and more-recent MacBooks and MacBook Pros from supporting the dock. Of course, there are Thunderbolt 2 enclosures out there, but even with the increased throughput of Thunderbolt 3, there’s a big hit to raw power when using a GPU dock. Factor in the fact that you’d also be relying on the dock’s USB ports for data transfer to the VR headset and Thunderbolt 2 docks just don’t seem practical in this use case.

So where does this leave us? Apple has clearly put the pieces in place to encourage VR, and gaming in general, in a bigger way on macOS. Valve is adding SteamVR support to the platform, and popular engines like Unreal Engine 3 and 4, Source, and Unity all run on Macs. The groundwork has been laid, and once we get to the point where there’s a bank of gaming-ready hardware in users’ hands, chances are we’ll see more titles supporting macOS.

That hardware is on its way too. The top-of-the-line 5K iMac (and only that model) is VR-ready out of the box, as is Apple’s iMac Pro, due this December. It’s also safe to assume the new Mac Pro will support headsets with ease whenever it arrives, and we can’t be more than a couple of years away from a VR-ready 15-inch MacBook. There are several reasonably sized Windows laptops that pull off the feat already, albeit relying on some very noisy fans to do so, and NVIDIA’s new Max-Q tech will make these machines less noisy and power hungry in the months and years to come.

Despite these advances, those wanting a 12-inch or 13-inch Apple laptop with strong VR support are going to be waiting for quite some time. Maybe 360-degree video and other limited-use applications for VR will run, but for the most part the MacBook’s CPU prevents it from handling VR experiences well. That doesn’t mean that external GPUs are pointless to these machines, though, as graphics cards are useful for a lot more than VR and gaming.

Like most ultraportables, the 12-inch MacBook isn’t set up for heavy-duty tasks. (Nor, truth be told, are the 13-inch MacBook Pros, despite the designation.) I used to have an i7 MacBook Air as my daily computer, and design work, video editing and photo processing were a chore. But these “Pro” applications like Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Lightroom and InDesign all support hardware acceleration, and a GPU dock will make using them on an ultraportable Mac entirely viable.

Quite why the dock will cost developers $600 when the GPU inside it can be purchased for under $300, I’m not sure. (In Apple’s defense, it’s branded as a dev kit, and Razer and other companies charge similar prices for their Thunderbolt 3 docks.) Either way, the RX 580 inside is a strong midrange card, and it will dramatically improve performance across a wide range of applications. Of course, CPU and RAM limitations are still a thing outside gaming, but you would be able to edit video on a 12-inch MacBook without things falling apart. Hell, assuming the drivers are up to scratch, you should also be able to play games quite nicely at lower resolutions and frame rates, assuming the CPU demands of the title aren’t too large and that it supports macOS in the first place.

Because of the GPU dock announcement, basically overnight I’ve become extremely interested in buying a new MacBook when High Sierra arrives this fall. I currently have a (VR-ready) Razer Blade for gaming and a 15-inch MacBook Pro from mid-2015 as my everyday computer. When I’m away from a power outlet, though, battery life on the Pro just isn’t good enough. I don’t tend to do anything particularly heavy when out and about, but Chrome and Slack alone will near-enough zero the Pro’s battery in three hours or so.

The Razer Blade Stealth and Core GPU dock

I’m a niche case for sure, but Apple has done a terrible job of taking care of people like me over the past few years. Although even I might disagree, my reliance on Creative Cloud apps probably makes me a “Pro” user in Apple’s mind. But I don’t want a traditional desktop or an iMac, and that’s left me choosing between a 15-inch MacBook with a Touch Bar I don’t really want and a Pro Windows laptop like the Surface Book, which I’d struggle to deal with on a daily basis for work. (It’s not that Windows is necessarily inferior; I’m just so used to macOS for work at this point.)

With full support for external graphics, though, I can choose from a specced-out 13-inch MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar and a 12-inch MacBook. Whatever machine I pick, I’d get a thinner, lighter laptop, adequate battery life on the road (thanks to the lower-powered components inside) and strong performance when it truly matters. At my desk, I’d have a GPU powering my external display and accelerating performance in the Adobe apps I use every day. External GPU docks also typically have an array of ports that reduce the need for additional dongles.

Of course, I’m going to hold off on decision-making until people put external graphics support on macOS through its paces. The aforementioned Razer Core makes a big difference when paired with the company’s Blade Stealth laptop for sure, but it’s not without its issues, and you don’t get anywhere near the performance you do when using the same graphics card internally. Even if Apple sells it to consumers, I’d also probably opt for a third-party dock and a GTX 1070 over Apple’s AMD box, so I want to see what NVIDIA’s macOS drivers are like as well.

While there are some lingering questions, this is still a positive move from Apple. Choice is something that the company has, at least recently, been very bad at offering its users. And the fact that Apple is giving me a couple of upgrade paths that don’t feel like huge compromises has made me excited about buying a Mac for the first time in a long while.

Humans can help AI learn games more quickly

Google taught DeepMind to play Atari games all on its own, but letting humans help may be faster, according to researchers from Microsoft and Germany. They invited folks of varying skills to play five Atari 2600 titles: Ms. Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Video Pinball, Q*Bert and Montezuma’s Revenge. After watching 45 hours of human gameplay, the algorithm could beat its mentors at pinball, though it struggled at Montezuma’s revenge — just as Deepmind did.

Unlike with DeepMind’s trial-and-error methods (below), however, the human-aided AI learned to play the games in less time than other AI systems. “Current state-of-the-art approaches require millions of training samples,” the paper states. “A promising way to tackle this problem is to augment [deep learning] from human demonstrations.”

The researchers trained the AI using “Javatari,” an Atari 2600 emulator coded in Javascript that works on any browser. They then opened it up to anyone to try, recording actions taken at each time step along with the reward earned. To further motivate players, they showed them how their average scores compared against other humans as well as Google’s DeepMind system from 2015.

In the end, the study collected 45 hours of 60 fps gameplay, around 9.7 million frames in all. After crunching that data, the machine could beat humans at pinball and match them at Q*Bert and Space Invaders, though it was overmatched in both Ms. Pac-Man and Montezuma’s Revenge.

The team acknowledges that the latter, more strategy-oriented titles are still giving the machine fits. However, it found that recording the feats of better players gives better results, so it’s using that data to tweak the next round of research. “The most important development of the dataset is to collect more data from professional players who achieve higher scores,” the researchers explain. If you want to do your own study, the massive 12.5 GB dataset is available for anyone to use.

Via: Geek.com

Source: Atari Grand Challenge, Arxiv

A day with Apple’s new iMac (no, not the Pro)

I have some good news and bad news. The good news: I left WWDC on Monday with an iMac. The bad news: It’s not the iMac Pro. Sorry, folks, but our review of that space-gray machine with the 18-core processor and $4,999 price tag will have to wait until December, when it goes on sale. What I have today is a consumer all-in-one: a refreshed 21.5-inch system bringing a slew of under-the-hood upgrades. (I also have in my possession an updated MacBook, but I’ll need more time to test that.)

Before I talk you out of reading further, hear me out. The refreshed iMac does bring some exterior improvements, including a wider Magic Keyboard with a built-in numeric keypad; a second Thunderbolt 3 port; and a display that’s 43 percent brighter and supports a billion colors. That’s enough for us to take a closer look, even if it doesn’t deserve the full review treatment.

Speaking of the sort, I’m mostly going to skip over the usual design section. Zeroing in on that upgraded display, I happen to have a 4K iMac on my desk in New York, so to me the bump in brightness is subtle at best, at least if I’m relying on my memory and unable to do a side-by-side comparison today in California. Ditto for the improved color range; the colors here are pleasing and punchy, but weren’t they always?

That said, a coworker who’s not used to iMacs said the brightness was the first thing he noticed — and it wasn’t even yet set to its max of 500 nits. (“I feel like the screen punched me in the face,” he said. I’m pretty sure he meant that as a compliment.) In any case, while I might not be able to quantify the difference as “43 percent,” I think we can agree that whoever buys this will be pleased by the brightness as well as the vibrant colors.

Other than the display and that extra Thunderbolt 3 port, the design remains unchanged. Regardless of whether you choose the 21.5- or 27-inch iMac, they each have the same dimensions as before, with the same unibody aluminum enclosure, the same thin profile and the same pass-through hole for the power cable. The port selection is mostly the same too, save for that extra Thunderbolt 3 socket. Rounding out the list, you get four USB 3.0 connections, an SDXC card slot, an Ethernet port and a headphone jack.

Now, about that keyboard. I’m not sure how clear Apple made this during its keynote Monday, but although you can opt for a larger Magic Keyboard with a numpad, that’s not the default option; you have to select it while configuring your order online. Also, it costs $30 over the standard version. (You can buy it separately too for $129.) If you do go with the numpad keyboard, you can expect the built-in battery to last at least a month on a charge, with full recharges taking about two hours. Oh, and if you’re worried about the footprint, don’t be: It’s not that this keyboard is big, it’s that the standard one is just unnecessarily small. You will probably have room for it.

“I feel like the screen punched me in the face.”

Like before, the 21.5-inch version starts at $1,099 with a 1,920 x 1,080 display. But now, getting a 4K display will only cost you $200 more, as Apple offers the high-resolution screen in $1,299 and $1,499 configurations. The 5K 27-inch model ranges from $1,799 to $2,299, depending on which model you choose. As for performance, the big thing to keep in mind is the range of specs that are now available. Across the board, both machines pack seventh-generation Intel Core i5 and i7 “Kaby Lake” processors. The RAM here is now of the DDR4 variety, and you can have more of it than before, too: up to 32GB on the 21.5-inch model, and up to 64GB on the 27-incher. The graphics are also said to be up to three times faster, with AMD Radeon 500 series chips in all of the 4K and 5K models. If you buy the 21.5-inch model, you can expect up to 4GB of video memory; on the 27-incher, up to 8GB.

Lastly, the solid-state drives are said to be up to 50 percent faster. In particular, Apple’s hybrid Fusion Drive is now standard on the 27-inch version, and comes included on the high-end 4K model as well. To me, this feels both overdue and still not enough. Like, come on, guys: Just make flash storage standard across the board, or at least on all machines with a 4K or 5K display. But really, no one deserves the sluggish performance afforded by a 5,400RPM hard drive, especially not in 2017.

The unit I tested wasn’t the most tricked-out model. This was the top-of-the-line 4K machine (but without any additional upgrades), with a 3.4GHz Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 4GB Radeon Pro 560 GPU — a configuration priced at $1,499. That’s actually not that different from the older iMac unit I tested, except that one had a 5,400RPM drive, and this one makes use of Apple’s hybrid Fusion Drive. For that reason alone, the difference in performance is obvious. Whereas that older machine would frequently hang, or take several minutes to load up my usual programs (Slack, Notes, Chrome, etc.) upon boot-up, this one is much more adept at the basics: launching apps and letting me easily switch between open programs.

Will this be all the horsepower you need for things like photography and 4K video editing, though? That’s all subjective, but to the extent that the iMac, particularly the 27-inch version, has always catered to creative pros, I believe these upgraded machines will keep up — if not for everyone, then certainly a lot of people. But with the iMac Pro coming out relatively soon, I can understand why well-heeled professionals would prefer to wait and see. Really, it’s only mainstream consumers and creative types with more-limited needs (or means) who can safely buy an all-in-one now. But for their purposes, I have no doubt that the iMac offers more generous specs than before for the money.

Get all the latest news from WWDC 2017 here!

iOS 11 Makes it Easy to Share Your Wi-Fi Password With Nearby Friends

With the developer beta of iOS 11 out in the wild, new features of the operating system have been coming to light throughout the week, including an unobtrusive volume indicator and new AirPods controls. In iOS 11, users will also be able to easily join a Wi-Fi network thanks to a new password sharing process between trusted devices, which should reduce the hassle of joining new networks.

The feature allows one iOS device with knowledge of a Wi-Fi network’s password to grant access to a separate iOS device that still needs the password in question. 9to5Mac detailed an example where an iPad was already on a Wi-Fi network, while an iPhone still required the Wi-Fi password to connect.

All devices must be running iOS 11, and it appears that macOS High Sierra will support the feature as well.

Images via 9to5Mac
After navigating to Settings > Wi-Fi and choosing the right network, the iPhone user is greeted with the traditional password screen (seen above), but on iOS 11 when the iPhone is brought near the iPad, a card on the iPad notifies its user that the iPhone wants to join the network (seen below).

The iPad user can then tap and send their password to the iPhone, which recognizes the password, fills out the information, and connect to the Wi-Fi. As Apple notes, the iOS device or Mac with knowledge of the network’s password must be unlocked for the transfer process to work.

There are plenty more iOS 11 tidbits to discover in the wake of the official unveiling this week at WWDC, so be sure to check out the MacRumors iOS 11 roundup to find out everything we know about the newest version of iOS.

Related Roundup: iOS 11
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