Are those cheap VR headsets worth it?

What’s the harm in buying the cheapest VR headset you can find?

The absolute coolest thing Google has done with VR is make it something truly accessible to everyone. Earlier this year, Hallmark started building Google Cardboard headset into some of its premium cards, just to give you an idea of just how accessible this simple bit of immersive technology is now. While $13 and tax is a little much for a greeting card, it’s right on par with some of the cheapest VR headsets you can buy today, and that level of accessibility is amazing.

That having been said, just because you can buy a VR headset for less than an average movie ticket doesn’t always mean you should. Here’s what you gain and lose by looking at the cheapest form of VR as your default purchase option.

The cost of immersion

Good VR isn’t cheap, but cheap VR can be pretty good.

There are two big things that make VR interesting, and they both have to do with that sense of immersion. A successful VR experience tricks you into thinking, if only for a moment, that you are actually a part of the thing you’re watching or interacting with. Immersion is a lot easier with the big Desktop VR headsets, with motion controllers and the ability to walk around in the virtual environment. With portable viewers like Google Cardboard, those moments of true immersion rely on your ability to shut out the world around you for a moment.

A big part of this can be resolved with audio. A set of decent headphones connected to your phone can make you feel more present and immersed in any VR experience. The other thing is comfort, which is often difficult to accomplish when holding an actual cardboard box to your face with both of your hands.

While it can be helpful for a VR headset to have a head strap and headphones built in, so you can just put the headset on and have your arms resting at your side, it’s not a requirement by any means. It ultimately comes down to personal comfort, which for some people means not having anything tightly secured to your face but still able to fill your field of view with the experience playing out on your phone.

Inexpensive and cheap aren’t always the same thing

There are inexpensive VR headsets worth taking a look at to see if the experience provided is enough for you to appreciate the immersion, but they’re often a little unusually designed when compared to the traditional Google Cardboard experience. Some headset offer a rigid plastic shell to hold the phone and strap to your head, but several others fold up like prescription glasses and can actually be carried your wallet when not in use. There’s no one answer here for the “right” kind of mobile VR headset, because comfort is a very personal thing. This is a big part of why Google Cardboard is so open to new designs and concepts, because accessibility is the most important part of this particular experience.

It’s important to remember Google Cardboard apps were never meant to be the kind of thing you enjoyed for more than a few minutes at a time. Those little bursts of immersion are enough to make you say “wow let me share this” and pass the headset around a group of friends. If your goal is to put this headset on and wear it for an hour or more, you really should start looking at Google Daydream and not too far beneath that level of build quality and immersion.

More: Samsung Gear VR (2017) review

Enjoy an ad-free Pocket-lint with Multipass!

Have you seen the yellow Multipass button on at the top of our website? Pocket-lint has teamed up with Multipass to give you a way to access not only Pocket-lint, but also some of your favourite websites around the web without adverts. Better yet you still have the knowledge that you are supporting the great journalism we offer.

Billed as a Netflix or Spotify for content, using Multipass will allow you to view Pocket-lint completely ad free without the worry of having to install complicated ad blockers or the awkwardness that you aren’t supporting your favourite sites.

Here are three good reasons to sign up to Multipass today:

Support journalists and content creators

Putting together a publication on a daily basis takes time and resources. Investigating stories, researching features, and testing review products all takes a lot of effort. That work has to be paid for. While some readers turned to the “grey” area of adblockers, the move means the content creators, that’s us in this case, aren’t getting paid for the work we do. Without revenue many websites wouldn’t be able to exist.  

Having a better surf experience

Paying for content on the web is standard practice for many publications from the Wall Street Journal to the The Times. Supporting journalists and content creators like us, allows us to create quality and diverse information. We’ve chosen to partner with Multipass to enable you to pay one subscription for a bundle of websites rather than just us.

Multipass gives you more than a single paywall

Single paywall offerings from major newspapers around the world offers you access to that site and no other. With Multipass you get access to not only Pocket-lint, but also a number of other websites covering a range of topics like politics and sport. The more websites that sign up to Multipass the more access to great ad-free content you get, meaning your subscription only becomes better over time. Think of it like a Spotify for content.

Normally, Multipass is $9.90 per month, but you can get the early adopter (Pocket-lint) price of $6.90 a month for a limited time. What’s even better, is you keep that price for the lifetime of your subscription.

You can find out more and sign up for Multipass at https://www.multipass.net/en

Google purges private medical records from search

Very few things qualify for removal from Google’s search results, and according to Bloomberg, that list just grew by one. The tech titan has apparently begun purging personal medical records from results pages — Google didn’t make a big announcement about it, but a new line on its Removal Policies website confirms the new rule. Under the section marked “Information we may remove,” there’s a new entry that says “confidential, personal medical records of private people.”

Google might have begun working on the category’s addition after an unfortunate event in December that exposed the sensitive medical condition of a massive number of people. An Indian pathology lab mistakenly uploaded 43,000 patients’ blood tests, including their names and corresponding HIV test results. Google, doing what Google does best, indexed them all. This new policy could prevent mishaps like that from affecting people’s lives, especially if they have a condition they only want close friends and family to know.

Before adding the new category, the search giant would only scrub your info if they’re something that’d make it easy to steal your identity. Those include Social Security Numbers and photos of signatures, as well as personal financial data like credit cards and bank accounts. It then eventually started accepting requests to remove revenge porn or nude images uploaded to the internet without your consent. Other than those, though, the only way you could get your info pulled was to take advantage of EU’s “Right to be forgotten” rule, and that would only work if you’re from one of the union’s member states.

Source: Bloomberg

Nintendo’s 3DS isn’t dead, but it is trapped in the Switch’s shadow

Earlier this year, Nintendo announced a brand-new console, a hybrid portable device that serves as both a portable entertainment machine and a game system for the living room. At a glance, it looked great — but some criticized the Nintendo Switch for having “nothing to play” except the new Legend of Zelda game, of course.

Nintendo’s E3 show served as a strong answer to those critics: Between Super Mario Odyssey, the promise of a new Pokemon game, new Xenoblade, Yoshi and Kirby titles and a Switch port of Rocket League, Nintendo gave buyers every reason to pick up its latest portable console. At the same time, it gave fans almost no reason to pick its other handheld device. If you don’t already own a 3DS, you’re probably never going to buy one now.

This wasn’t the plan — at least not publically. After Nintendo revealed that the Switch was a hybrid portable, the obvious question bubbled to the surface: Is the new console going to replace the 3DS? The company said “no,” emphatically, and pushed out a short list of new releases that will keep 3DS owners happy in the short term.

Indeed, the 3DS has since seen the release of Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia, Poochy & Yoshi’s Wooly World. Revamped Pokemon games and a Pikmin spin-off are on the horizon too — but the company’s E3 offerings were almost completely devoid of new announcements for the stereoscopic handheld. In total, the company revealed just three new 3DS games for the show: a remake of Mario and Luigi: Superstar saga, a reimagining of the second Metroid game and a fast-paced sushi puzzle game.

Taken in a void, those all sound great. Metroid is a franchise that’s been dormant for far too long, and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions looks like a solid update to the GBA classic — but in the context of the company’s massive outpouring of Switch support, it feels a little discouraging. Nintendo didn’t fib when it promised to support the 3DS for the foreseeable future, but the handheld’s upcoming releases are launching without fanfare, and seem to rely heavily on games that were previously announced.

Recent and upcoming releases like Ever Oasis and Hey! Pikmin weren’t even mentioned during the show, and details about Pokemon Ultra Sun and Moon were scarce. The 3DS version of Fire Emblem Warriors wasn’t shown off either.

Sure, Nintendo hid a Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrille and the Millionaire’s Conspiracy pop-up cafe in downtown LA, but that game will launch on smartphones before hitting Nintendo’s console. There’s obviously a fair amount of things to play down the line, but almost none of it was part of Nintendo’s show event. If it wasn’t for brief 3DS showcases sprinkled throughout Nintendo’s all-day Treehouse livestreams, the stereoscopic console would have been all but absent from E3.

This isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, but it’s all context that colorizes Nintendo’s previous statements about the future of the 3DS. It’s true, the Switch isn’t replacing the 3DS — at least not yet — but the lack of games showcased at E3 shows that the family of handhelds really isn’t Nintendo’s priority. I believe Reggie Fils-Aime when he says they’re going to “support” the 3DS through 2018, but that probably just means churning out the last of the games in production for it, very few of which, if any, will probably be first-party developed titles.

If you already own a 3DS or 2DS device, this is ultimately good news. It means that you’ll have at least another 18 months of play out of the device — but if you’ve been thinking about picking one up, it’s a reason to step back. With few exceptions, the 3DS library as it is today is all new buyers can expect from the console. If you want to experience the best of Nintendo’s franchises going forward, you’ll want to look at Nintendo’s newer portable. That’s also a good thing: If E3 showed us anything, it’s that the Nintendo Switch is going to have a great first year.

Android’s in-app browser gets a security upgrade

One often-used component of Android is WebView, a micro-browser that lets you view web pages from inside apps, rather than having to use Chrome. However, pointing a slender window towards the internet is an easy way for a nefarious type to get past your device’s security. It’s an issue that the folks at Google are taking seriously enough to spend real time and effort making WebView more secure.

The company has announced a pair of updates for the platform, crucially incorporating Safe Browsing within WebView itself. It means that, should an app request to view a site that’s already on Google’s malware and phishing databases, you’ll be shown a warning. In addition, Google has sandboxed WebView’s renderer, making it harder for malicious apps to gain access to the host app.

Developers will be able to enable Safe Browsing by adding a single line of manifest code to their apps. Users, meanwhile, can sit back and relax, knowing that — soon — another annoying security hole just got closed. Unless, you know, you’re still rocking an older version of Android.

Source: Google

Keiichi Yano wants to make a music game with heart

“Now let me welcome everybody to the wild, wild West.
A state that’s untouchable like Eliot Ness.”

It’s rare for a video-game developer to rap during an interview. It’s rarer still for him to recite a Tupac track with perfect pitch and cadence. But that’s Keiichi Yano, the Tokyo-based game designer behind cult classics Gitaroo Man and Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, better known as Elite Beat Agents in the West. He loves music and will happily talk for hours about jazz, electronica or the intricacies of mumble rap.

His latest game, Project Rap Rabbit, fell woefully short of its Kickstarter goal this week. I met Yano a few days prior, during the chaos of E3, when it already seemed inevitable the campaign would fail. We talked about the title, its development and how he might proceed without public funding. To my surprise, Yano was unfazed by the Kickstarter’s fate and hinted that there might be another way to bring the game to market. “I can’t comment on anything we’re doing right now or anybody that we’re talking to. But yeah, I hope we can get this out one way or another.”

So what is ‘Project Rap Rabbit’?

Yano’s latest project is a wildly ambitious music game about Toto-Maru, a rabbit with the ability to change the world through rhythm and rhyme. Like Gitaroo Man, it’s a title that treats music as both a gameplay and storytelling device. Whereas Rock Band is essentially a virtual jukebox, allowing you to perform your favorite songs, Project Rap Rabbit is an original interactive musical. The tracks are enjoyable to play through, requiring precision strategy and timing, but they also reinforce and accentuate the narrative, underlining key conversations and conflicts.

The game is set in an alternate version of feudal Japan, where anthropomorphic animals roam the streets. When the planet is struck by a mysterious calamity, many citizens are forced to find new homes. While some embrace the movement of people and the diversity it brings, many resent it, creating a social divide not too dissimilar to our own reality. Toto-Maru’s quest is simple: to bring the people back together, restoring peace and prosperity in the process.

Keiichi Yano is best known for ‘Ouendan’, a rhythm game for the Nintendo DS. It was brought to the West as ‘Elite Beat Agents’ in 2006.

A partner in rhyme

Yano is working on the game with Masaya Matsuura, the creator of the colorful and eccentric PlayStation title PaRappa the Rapper. The pair met 18 years ago, before Yano embarked on his own rhythm game for the PlayStation 2. “I first approached him when I started developing Gitaroo Man because I had to meet the man who was the source of all this, right?” Yano recalls with a chuckle. They’ve kept in touch since and, on several occasions, considered collaborating. But it never panned out, due to a mixture of factors — financial, technological and cultural.

So, for years, they would meet once or twice a week in Tokyo and discuss what they were working on. “Every time I see him, it always feels fresh to me,” Yano explains. “Because he’s a very progressive guy. He might be thinking one thing one year, and then he’ll be completely someplace else in another. So it’s always just fun to catch up with him and get updates on what he’s thinking.”

The project started with PQube, a small indie game publisher based in Letchworth, a leafy town 40 miles north of London. The company asked Yano whether he would like to make a new game, and he, in turn, reached out to Matsuura. The Gitaroo Man developer knew he wanted to “augment” the project with “some other force” but hadn’t considered Matsuura until an early brainstorming session with PQube. When the idea was brought up, he quickly messaged his old friend on Facebook. “‘Hey, there’s a chance [that we can do a new music game], what do you want to do?’” Matsuura was intrigued and the pair set up a meeting face-to-face.

“It didn’t feel like a reunion at all,” Yano recalls, “it was more about, ‘Let’s explore new ideas and new ways of thinking about things.’” Almost immediately, the two developers found common ground. They were interested in similar ideas, both narratively and from a gameplay perspective, which quickly led to an agreement. Matsuura joined iNiS, the video game studio Yano co-founded in 1997 (it stands for “infinite Noise of the inner Soul”) to help lead the project. With a 10-person team, the pair began formalizing what the story and mechanics would be.

Express yourself

For years, Yano and Matsuura have dreamed of a music game that allows the player to be more expressive. In the past, when they discussed potential collaborations, it was often about music manipulation, tracks that would change tempo depending on your performance or branch into different styles at the press of a button. Some of these concepts have since been explored, but at the time, they were wholly original. Both designers craved an experience in which the player could feel she was creating something truly original and personal in real-time.

“How can music be more interactive and play a more defining role rather than be just, I dunno, the base layer that everything goes on top of?” Yano said. “Because that’s what modern music games do today, right? It’s all essentially supported by the music itself. And the music itself doesn’t change, because they’re usually songs that you and I both know. So you’re just building gameplay mechanics on top of that.” Instead, Yano wanted the music to be driven by the gameplay.

“[Matsuura] and I were both musicians and instrumentalists, so we really understand and love the interactiveness, if that’s a word, of musical instruments,” Yano said. “Because that’s the coolest thing, right? It’s cool to press something and then suddenly the sound is just … awesome. You’re immersed in that, and there’s a feeling against that. So that’s what we’re always trying to do.”

“We really understand and love the interactiveness, if that’s a word, of musical instruments.”

That’s easier said than done. Mainstream video games need to be approachable and easy to understand. That restricts the number of options you can give the player at any one time. Push too far toward realism, for instance, and you’ll end up with a piece of professional audio software. Go too far the other way and you’ll make a thoroughly enjoyable but creatively limiting title like Guitar Hero. “On some level, you need to virtualize the experience so that it’s still entertainment,” Yano adds. “But at the same time, let the player feel like they’re making important choices.”

Rap battles

To that end, Yano and Matsuura developed a rap-battle simulator. Project Rap Rabbit is split into two phases: call and response, which mimics how lyricists spar in real life. As your opponent tries to embarrass you, the game will highlight “focus words” that make up the bulk of his argument. A mood wheel will then show up in the corner of the screen, giving you time to choose a counter-rapping style. Coerce, joke, boast or laugh — it’s up to you. During the response phase, you’ll be asked to press buttons rhythmically with the beat and hit specific triggers when the focus words appear in your own lyrics.

Enemies will be susceptible to different rapping styles. As the difficulty ramps up, these weaknesses will change midbattle. You’ll need to read the situation and, at certain junction points, change your strategy in order to deal extra damage. Toto-Maru will also have a skill tree, similar to conventional role-playing games, so you can define his strengths and shortcomings as a rapper. It all adds to the game’s depth, which far outstrips Gitaroo Man and PaRappa the Rapper. Expert players, for instance, will learn to combo by quickly alternating between rap styles, or using the turntable-inspired sample technique that requires double, triple and quadruple-tapping specific focus words.

If all goes to plan, Project Rap Rabbit will have multiplayer too. Yano wants the game to be technical and competitive — the musical equivalent of Street Fighter or Tekken. So, unlike Rock Band, which offers a simple score chase, Project Rap Rabbit will put two players head-to-head. “So it’s all about, ‘If you do this, I’m going to counter with this, and then if you’re going to counter with this, I’m going to counter with something else.’” That’s why the call and response phases are so crucial. Like a high-speed game of chess, top players will need to plan multiple moves ahead.

A story to tell

Early in the project, Yano and Matsuura talked about Japan and its “hidden” history. Certain periods, Yano explains, were largely undocumented and raise questions about Japanese culture and the influence of outside forces. You can find paintings and patterns, he says, that feel out of place for their particular time period or reference styles that first blossomed in other countries.

In particular, the pair were interested in the story of Yasuke, a black samurai from Africa. While his origins are shrouded in mystery, most believe he was brought over as a slave in 1579. He quickly became a local sensation, however, which earned him an audience with the hegemon and warlord Oda Nobunaga. Yasuke impressed and was eventually hired as Nobunaga’s retainer and weapon bearer. His life as a samurai was cut short when Nobunaga was attacked and forced to commit seppuku by his general, Akechi Mitsuhide, in 1852, following a coup.

“Again, it’s the discovery of this hidden history that not a lot of people know,” Yano says.

Project Rap Rabbit is a fantastical, offbeat attempt at filling in these gaps. Toto-Maru started as a human; a rapping samurai with an eye-catching kimono. But as Yano and Matsuura developed the story, which centers around diversity and inclusion, they realized the game needed a friendlier, more-approachable hero. By chance, the team’s lead artist had started drawing a rabbit. It immediately caught Yano’s attention. “I said, ‘That’s interesting! That kind of works!’” The artist developed the idea overnight, and it eventually became the key art for the website, Kickstarter and teaser trailer. “In one fell swoop, we had the world and the protagonist and — I would not say the father or teacher figure, but the authority figure — all wrapped up in this one piece of art,” Yano says.

The animals weren’t enough, though. The team wanted to imbue its version of feudal Japan with some modern, fresh ideas. It turned to anime like Spirited Away, the hit fantasy film by Studio Ghibli, and Samurai Champloo, which combined Edo-era Japan with kinetic hip-hop music and culture. Yano started drawing drones in the sky and liked how they looked against the game’s existing artwork. It reminded him of the classic Ukiyo-e art style, which contemporary artists have started adopted to portray current and futuristic scenes.

Rap was then a natural genre to explore. “A lot of people think it’s because we’re creating some PaRappa spiritual sequel. That was, actually, really more secondary. It was more about the fact that we had a message we wanted to convey, and rap just seemed like a really good vehicle to do that.”

There are many types of rap music, all of which will be represented in the game. In general, however, it won’t sound as “homey” as PaRappa the Rapper, in order to reflect the 20 years that have passed since Matsuura’s game came out. “Rap has evolved; it’s a really big part of our mainstream culture now,” Yano says. “It’s in all forms of pop music, and it’s obviously an expressive instrument in and of itself. Not to mention there’s a whole culture surrounding rap battles and street rap. So with us doing a rap game, and all that history behind us, it’s going to be a different sound to PaRappa.”

Keiichi Yano is optimistic ‘Project Rap Rabbit’ will come out “one way or another.”

Kickstarter troubles

All of these ambitions have been overshadowed by the team’s Kickstarter. The way Yano describes it, crowdfunding was the only option. Pqube was involved in the project but didn’t have the resources to fund all of its development. They needed cash and the public’s support to continue. But the campaign was criticized for its lack of gameplay footage and some strange stretch goals, one of which required $4.96 million to make a version for the Switch. The stretch goals were later reworked, but by that time, the damage had been done. People were excited about the project, but it didn’t have the momentum to reach its goal.

“It’s clear that there were things we could have done better,” Yano says. “And that was a good learning experience.”

He admits that “with 20-20 hindsight,” the team probably showed its game a little too early. “But I actually don’t regret making that decision, because it allowed us to engage with a community at a time when we weren’t 100 percent sure there would be a community.”

It had been so long since Gitaroo Man and Project Rap Rabbit, after all. They knew there was an audience for music games, but their particular style, which blends story and gameplay, felt like a gamble. “Engaging with your community very early is always a scary thing because you’re still working on stuff. But I actually had a lot of fun with it. Man, things like, all of the fan art that came through. It was just good to hear a lot of feedback early on around what people expected from us, and obviously there was some amount of things that we channeled through that exchange, and that we reflected overall [in the game] as well.”

Still, the campaign finished with $205,000, nowhere near its $1.08 million Kickstarter goal. That was not the original objective.

“Crowdfunding in the modern day, it’s a very tough place. It requires certain things to happen even before you start the campaign. And you know, we would have probably been better off doing some things that we just weren’t able to, for one reason or another.” Yano seems upbeat, however. He talks about the game with a passion and conviction that suggests its release is an absolute certainty. The collaboration with Matsuura, the ideas underpinning the music and story. I have a feeling there’s something he’s not telling me.

“We thank everybody that supported us, regardless of the final outcome on Kickstarter. We’re very thankful to everybody who supported it. I loved the fan art and everything, and yeah, we’re going to try to get this out one way or another. So please stay tuned for updates. We’ll have more as we have more!”

Make of that what you will.

Supply Chain Evidence Mounts for Advanced 3D Sensing Abilities Coming to iPhone 8

Ahead of the iPhone 8’s predicted September announcement date, supply chain reports over the past few days have indicated a ramp up of 3D sensing components that are predicted to be destined for augmented reality and biometric security applications in 2017’s high-end iPhone 8. In a research note by BlueFin Research Partners, “winners” for iPhone 8 component production are said to include Finisar and Lumentum for 3D sensing modules and Broadcom for wireless charging components (via Barron’s).

Reports began building last week when iPhone camera component supplier Largan Precision confirmed that it will ship lenses for 3D sensing modules in the second half of 2017, while refraining from directly mentioning Apple and iPhone 8. In a recent quarterly earnings report, supplier Finisar made remarks that heavily suggested it will be “one of two or three suppliers” of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL) in the iPhone 8, according to LoupVentures.

iPhone 8 rendering by Benjamin Geskin
Such technology could be implemented into the iPhone 8’s rumored 3D sensing module and help “enrich the augmented reality experience” in the next-generation iPhone. Apple and CEO Tim Cook earlier this month detailed plans to back AR and its potential as an indispensable future technology with the reveal of ARKit, a developer platform that will provide the building blocks for consumer AR iPhone apps.

Likewise, Lumentum has announced that it expects to see volume shipments for its VCSEL lasers begin in the second half of 2017, timed with the annual production ramp up of iPhone manufacturing.

On last nights earnings call, Finisar management did not mention Apple by name, but they highlighted they expect to see volume VCSEL orders in their second fiscal quarter, which is the October quarter end of this calendar year. The company anticipates shipping “millions” of units during the quarter, but management also went on to say they anticipate unit shipments to be in the “10s of millions” in future quarters, which gives us further confidence 3D sensing and AR applications will be one of the focus features in the next generation of iPhones. In May of this year, Lumentum was the first VCSEL supplier to announce they anticipate volume shipments to begin in the second half of 2017.

We also want to highlight Finisar acknowledged they are shipping VCSEL lasers to multiple customers, but one customer (aka Apple) is accounting for the majority of total demand. We believe Finisar and others supplying VCSEL lasers are supply constraint and shipping everything they can manufacture. We believe Apple has secured a high percentage of all VCSEL lasers created, which we view as a large competitive advantage and will make Apple a leading AR player in the smartphone space.

LoupVentures further suggested that the significantly updated iPhone 8 will have a front-facing, low-end VCSEL laser and a rear-facing, high-end VCSEL laser, meaning that AR applications could take advantage of either camera. A long-running rumor for the iPhone 8 has been a dual-lens rear camera that could provide increased separation between the two lenses and allow for a greater difference in perspective, helping fuel better AR experiences. A front-facing dual-lens camera has been suggested as a possibility in the new iPhone as well.

In estimating the iPhone 8’s cost, the site believes that Apple will add around $100 onto the cost of the smartphone specifically due to incorporating 3D sensing modules. That price comes to around $950 (with no storage tier size references), and largely falling into line with the new iPhone’s predicted “premium” status.

For its part, Broadcom is said to have a predominant place in the supply chain for wireless charging components of the iPhone 8, a feature fellow supplier Wistron recently confirmed will be coming to at least one of 2017’s iPhone models. iPhone 8’s wireless charging is expected to be fueled by inductive technology, because long-range wireless charging for an iPhone is still expected to be years away from feasibility.

In total, reports surrounding iPhone 8 component manufacturing have been increasing recently, with Apple said to be dominating the NAND memory chip supply chain and increasing shortages for an already strained section of component supplies.

Related Roundup: iPhone 8
Tags: ARKit, augmented reality
Discuss this article in our forums

Dual camera smartphones: The history running through to the Galaxy Note 8

With more and more smartphones launching with a dual camera system, or two lenses on the back, we’re taking a look at where this has all come from and romp through the history of dual lens smartphones. 

Dual lens cameras on smartphones aren’t new, with a number of models offering a range of unique features using this camera setup, as far back as 2011.

Apple might be have brought it to the masses in 2016, but follow us as we walk you through smartphones dual lens camera systems of the past and present and into the future.

LG Optimus 3D and HTC Evo 3D: Another dimension

In 2011, 3D was a thing. The world’s TV manufacturers were lining up 3D TV sets, there were 3D films being produced and we were being told that 3D was the next big thing, again.

Pocket-lint

For smartphones, it was the opportunity for innovation. The LG Optimus 3D was announced in February 2011 and the HTC Evo 3D launched on Sprint in March 2011. 

Both these smartphones (and there were some others) used dual lenses to allow them to take 3D video and 3D photos. They use the same technique used by regular 3D cameras, using those dual lenses to create a sense of depth in images. This was boosted with a 3D display to view those images, without the glasses. 

But 3D was just a passing phase, and although we could capture 3D, ultimately, that was only the start of the story for dual lens cameras.

• LG Optimus 3D vs HTC Evo 3D: Which has the better 3D camera?
• LG Optimus 3D review: Seeing double
• HTC Evo 3D review: Three’s a crowd

HTC One M8: Making sense

It was the HTC One M8 that really introduced dual lens cameras to the world and saw HTC trying to do something different. The HTC One M8 was launched in April 2014 and very much used two sensors in the same way that modern smartphone cameras do.

Pocket-lint

With a 4-megapixel UltraPixel main image sensor and a secondary 2-megapixel sensor capturing extra data, the dual lens camera was used, like 3D, to create a sense of depth in photos. The idea was that the second lens could capture this depth information to create a depth map and feed it into the final image.

That meant you could create bokeh/background blur effects, you could refocus the image with a tap and you could easily manipulate photos, keeping the subject sharp and changing the backgrounds.

The One M8 was clever, but the camera wasn’t that impressive. The effects were rather gimmicky and the benefits of having a dual camera didn’t really make an impact – even if the full metal body did.

• HTC Duo Camera explained: What is it and what will it do?
• HTC One M8 review: Full metal masterclass

LG G5 and LG G6: Going wide

Step forward a few years and LG announces the LG G5 in February 2016. There are two things that are interesting about it. Firstly, it attempts to integrate modular accessories. Secondly, LG equipped it with dual cameras.

Pocket-lint

In the case of this LG smartphone, there’s a main 16-megapixel sensor and a second 8-megapixel sensor. Rather than combining information to create effects, LG’s dual camera approach is straight shooting. The 16-megapixel camera offers regular photos, but the second lens is wide-angle. 

With 135-degree lens on the rear for that 8MP camera, the LG G5 could shoot wide-angle photos to great effect. You simply switch from one camera to the other by tapping the button in the app and you can get more in. Perfect for tight spots or landscapes, with that slight fish-eye effect that’s on trend.

LG followed up the G5 with the G6 in April 2017, repeating the camera positioning again, but this time with two 13-megapixel cameras on the back, one with a 125-degree wide angle to again capture those super-wide photos.

• LG G5 review: Modular misfire?
• LG G6 review: The first great smartphone of 2017

Huawei P9: Leica’s monochrome mark

With LG making its mark, Huawei launched the P9, in partnership with Leica, in April 2016. With two cameras sitting on the back, Huawei’s big selling point wasn’t about depth sensing or wide-angle, it was about monochrome.

Pocket-lint

Leveraging Leica’s classic monochrome cameras, the Huawei P9 presented two cameras on the rear, claiming one lens captured RGB colour and the second lens captured monochrome detail. Both cameras are 12-megapixels. 

This results in some great black and white photos, but working together, the P9 attempts to combine information from both sensors to make all your photos better. The results are very good, it’s a very capable partnership. There’s also a P9 Plus with the same offering, but slightly larger.

Step into 2017 and the Huawei P10 repeats the performance, but this time pairs a 20-megapixel camera with a 12-megapixel camera. It can still capture monochrome data, but also offers depth sensing, again designed to have a better idea of how to pick it the difference between the foreground and background.

• Huawei P9 Leica camera explored: Double the camera, double the fun?
• Huawei P9 review: The flagship and the folly
• The best smartphone camera: Getting the most from Huawei P10 and P10 Plus dual cameras
• Huawei P10 review: Android’s iPhone-killer, or flawed imitator?

Honor 8: Slightly less Leica, but very much the same

With the Huawei P9 launched, it was only a matter of time before sub-brand Honor produced an equivalent model. Called the Honor 8, again, there is a dual camera on the back. 

Pocket-lint

With the Leica tie-in being for the Huawei phone, the Honor 8 doesn’t make much of the monochrome side of things, but again offers twin 12-megapixel cameras, one with an RGB sensor, the other with a monochrome sensor. 

The message is the same: data is combined to result in sharper images, with better grip on colour and monochrome detail. Again, the result is a camera that’s very capable, especially on a phone that’s purportedly mid-range. Honor expanded this to the Honor 8 Pro too.

• Honor 8 review: A different take on the premium mid-range market
• Honor 8 Pro review: Flagship that’s no money pit

Apple iPhone 7 Plus: A play to zoom

The Apple iPhone 7 Plus features two cameras on the rear. Both are 12-megapixels, both offer optical image stabilisation, but they offer a different focal length. The first camera offers 23mm zoom, which is sort of wide – not super wide like LG, but wider than the old iPhone camera.

Pocket-lint

The second camera is zoomed at 56mm. This means that everything appears closer through this lens. It’s like LG’s pairing, but reversed. The idea, according to Apple, is to let you zoom without losing so much quality. To get closer to the subject you can switch to the 56mm camera and any digital zooming you then do is starting from a closer position, so the loss in quality will be slightly lessened compared to a regular smartphone camera.

Apple is also looking to play HTC’s game by offering a portrait bokeh effect. This will aim to get you that blurred background effect that is created by shallow depth of field on DLSR cameras. Using information from both sensors it will create a depth map, keeping the subject sharp and blurring the background.

• Apple iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus: Release date, specs and everything you need to know
• Apple iPhone 7 Plus camera: Dual camera tech explained

It takes two to Tango: Lenovo Phab 2 Pro and Asus ZenFone AR

It’s not just zooming and bokeh – those super consumer features – and need a dual camera setup on the back: welcome to Project Tango.

Pocket-lint

Tango is all about a different kind of capture and experience which in many ways harks back to the 3D cameras we talked about at the beginning of this feature. Google’s Tango project is about the phone knowing where everything sits in a 3D environment around it. Sound familiar? Yes, it’s the basic principle behind a lot of AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) content. 

There are two phones that currently support Tango – the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro and the Asus ZenFone AR. Although you can buy these devices commercially, they are really developer phone, designed to help those working in this new world of mixed reality to create their applications and experiences. 

These phones are going to be used for things like 3D mapping of rooms, letting you scan a room and then use mixed reality to insert a new kitchen, for example, or to use real life capture that can then go into a virtual reality application.

Asus also has the Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom, another model with twin rear cameras.

• Asus ZenFone AR preview: A solid introduction to mixed reality
• What is Google Tango?

OnePlus 5: An iPhone-alike zoomer

OnePlus, the brand that touts the “flagship killer” has joined the dual camera fray with the OnePlus 5. This model packs in two camera on the rear, one with 16-megapixels and the other at 20-megapixels, offering both bokeh features and a method of zooming.

Pocket-lint

The OnePlus 5 attempts to do everything with its dual camera configuration. There’s depth sensing aiming to deliver better bokeh effects through the portrait mode, but there’s also a play to zoom.

OnePlus refers to its cameras as wide angle and telephoto, with the 16-megapixel f/1.7 camera picking up the wide-angle business and the 20-megapixel f/2.6 camera for telephoto. OnePlus called this “2x lossless zoom”, but in reality it’s a 1.6x optical zoom from the lens, with a 0.4x coming from smart multi-frame capture. Essentially, it does the same as the iPhone does.

• OnePlus 5 review: The flagship-killer’s coming of age

Samsung’s debut: Samsung Galaxy Note 8?

Stepping into the future and we’re faced with rumours that the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 might offer a dual camera configuration. Now we’re in the realms of the unconfirmed, so feel free to go and read something else.

Poyoco Tech

Samsung so far hasn’t played in the dual camera arena, and when it does, expectations will be high. The Samsung Galaxy S8 survives without it and it’s one of the best smartphone cameras around. 

There’s talk of a highly sophisticated system with the dual camera said to be the biggest upgrade that the Note 8 will feature, more important than the switch to a 18.5:9 display. We’re talking optical image stabilisation on both cameras and a telephoto arrangement that offers 3x optical zoom. We remain sceptical, but are happy to be surprised too. 

• Samsung Galaxy Note 8: What’s the story so far?

The future: Oppo’s 5x optical zoom periscope lens

So far, pretty much all these lens arrangements have been the same, i.e., the sensor faces out the back of the phone with the lens in front. But there could be another way to flip this around.

Pocket-lint

Oppo showed off a prototype of an alternative method of arranging the cameras on the back on the phone. Presently, the limitation is the thickness of the phone, as that only gives you limited space in which to work. Oppo’s solution is to flip the telephoto camera 90 degrees and use a mirror, like a periscope, to bring the light path into line.

The advantage this offers is that you are not limited by the thickness of the phone, because the lens array is running at 90 degrees. Yes, you need internal space to accommodate this solution, but you could end up with greater optical zoom because you have more space for the lenses. The prototype we’ve seen looked impressive in its performance. But how much zoom do you really need from a phone, and as the zoom increases, how do you stabilise it?

The future? Perhaps.

• Oppo’s new 5x dual-camera uses periscope technology to offer lossless zoom

The Air Force and IBM are building an AI supercomputer

Supercomputers today are capable of performing incredible feats, from accurately predicting the weather to uncovering insights into climate change, but they still by and large rely on brute processor power to accomplish their tasks. That’s where this new partnership between the US Air Force and IBM comes in. They’re teaming up to build the world’s first supercomputer that behaves like a natural brain.

IBM and the USAF announced on Friday that the machine will run on an array of 64 TrueNorth Neurosynaptic chips. The TrueNorth chips are wired together like, and operate in a similar fashion to, the synapses within a biological brain. Each core is part of a distributed network and operate in parallel with one another on an event-driven basis. That is, these chips don’t require a clock, as conventional CPUs do, to function.

What’s more, because of the distributed nature of the system, even if one core fails, the rest of the array will continue to work. This 64-chip array will contain the processing equivalent of 64 million neurons and 16 billion synapses, yet absolutely sips energy — each processor consumes just 10 watts of electricity.

Like other neural networks, this system will be put to use in pattern recognition and sensory processing roles. The Air Force wants to combine the TrueNorth’s ability to convert multiple data feeds — whether it’s audio, video or text — into machine readable symbols with a conventional supercomputer’s ability to crunch data.

This isn’t the first time that IBM’s neural chip system has been integrated into cutting-edge technology. Last August, Samsung installed the chips in its Dynamic Vision Sensors enabling cameras to capture images at up to 2,000 fps while burning through just 300 milliwatts of power.

Senators question Trump’s approach to cybersecurity

The consequences of a large-scale cyberattack on critical infrastructure was well-documented in May when the UK’s healthcare system was brought to its knees by ransomware. Now, despite President Trump promising to develop a “comprehensive plan to protect America’s vital infrastructure from cyberattacks”, White House senators are pushing the president to take meaningful action following evidence that something similar could be on the cards for the US.

Newly-revealed forensic reports show that a recent power outage in Ukraine’s Kiev was caused by a piece of malware known as CrashOverride. This has been linked to the thought-to-be-Russian hacker group Sandworm, which was responsible for planting malware on US energy networks in 2014.

The malware caused a power outage equivalent to one fifth of the city’s power capacity –- not a completely debilitating figure, but researchers believe the hack was a ‘test run’ for wider application elsewhere, and noted that this piece of malware is the most evolved example of its kind observed in the wild.

As such, a group of 19 senators wrote to President Trump on Thursday, calling on the White House to instruct the Department of Energy to conduct an analysis of the Russian government’s capabilities to disrupt America’s power grid, as well as an investigation into the ways they may already have.

The letter, signed by Senators Bernie Sanders, Ron Wyden, Maria Cantwell and Al Franken, among others, reads: “We are deeply concerned that your administration has not backed up a verbal commitment prioritizing cybersecurity of energy networks and fighting cyber aggression with any meaningful action.”

The group wants answers within 60 days –- perhaps an ambitious target given Trump’s so-far seemingly relaxed approach to the issue. A similar request was made last March which the White House ignored, and while the Trump administration has issued an executive order for the assessment of security of critical infrastructure “in the coming months”, Senators argue that Trump’s budget proposal means funding cuts for the Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability.

According to Wired, the researchers behind the latest reports also have concerns about the White House’s approach to the country’s cyber security. “The potential impact here is huge,” said ESET security researcher Robert Lipovsky. “If this is not a wakeup call, I don’t know what could be.”

Via: Wired

Source: US Senate (PDF)