China starts 200-day simulation of living on another planet

The US definitely doesn’t have a monopoly on long-term simulations of living on another planet. Four Beijing University students have begun a 200-day isolation experiment, Lunar Palace 365 (why not Lunar Palace 200?), where they’ll live solely on the resources they would have on the Moon or Mars. That means generating life-giving oxygen from plants, recycling urine to produce drinking water and otherwise making the most of limited supplies.

As with other tests, the bigger challenges may be psychological. The students will have daily tasks to keep them motivated, but they’ll still be living in a tiny space, cut off from friends and family, for the better part of a year. How will they cope with a The test will also show how they react to going without sunlight for a significant stretch of time, which could affect their physical and mental health.

This isn’t the longest such test, but it could be important for China. The country is determined to catch up to the space programs of the US and Russia, and that means being ready for extended stays on distant worlds. What China learns now could pay dividends if it’s ready to explore the Solar System right as its biggest rivals embark on their own manned explorations of the Solar System.

Source: Reuters

Mercury’s next manmade visitors will be European-Japanese orbiters

Why it matters to you

Studying Mercury can reveal secrets of how our solar system evolved.

An unusual new spacecraft has been revealed for an upcoming mission to Mercury. Dubbed BepiColombo, it’s a joint project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), designed to travel to the least explored rocky planet, which sits closest to the Sun.

Only two spacecraft have ever visited Mercury — Mariner 10, which flew by in 1974 and 1795, and MESSENGER, which orbited more than 4,000 times before crashing onto the planet’s surface in 2015. Both of these were NASA missions. BepiColombo will be the first Mercury mission for both ESA and JAXA, and the scientists behind it hope to uncover some unique features about the largely unknown planet.

“Mercury plays a fundamental role in understanding the formation and evolution of our  solar system,” Johannes Benkhoff, a project scientist at ESA, told Digital Trends. “Until recently, Mercury was the least known planet in the inner solar system and its precise characterization is long overdue.”

As a joint venture, BepiColombo boasts an unconventional “stacked aircraft” design, which consists of a transport module carrying one orbiter each for the European and Japanese agencies. The two orbiters will disjoin once they arrive at Mercury, before dipping into separate orbits.

Japan’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter is designed to study the planet’s magnetosphere with five custom instruments, while ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter is optimized for remote sensing of the planet’s surface with eleven instruments.

Getting the orbiters into position will be a challenge, as the planet basks in sunlight and radiation levels that would obliterate familiar lifeforms. The aircraft developer Airbus has coated the European orbiter with 50 layers of ceramics and aluminum insulation to shield it from these extreme temperatures.

To Benkoff, it’s worth the effort. “Studying Mercury fits very well into ESA’s program and our science goal,” he said. “We can also demonstrate international collaboration and our ability to do state of the art science and engineering.”

The mission will cost around $1.48 billion, including cooperation with 33 companies from twelve European Union nations, and companies in the United States and Japan.

The agencies plan to launch the module from Kourou in French Guiana on October 5, 2018. It is expected to arrive at Mercury on December 5, 2025.

Take back control! Here’s how to turn off autocorrect on your iPhone or iPad

So you want to know how to turn off autocorrect on your iPhone or iPad? We can certainly understand why — when the iPhone was released back in 2007, there was a lot of buzz about how phones were moving away from plastic hardware keyboards towards on-screen keyboards that completely rely on touch screens. People who were used to typing into their Blackberries all day found it challenging to adjust. Apple built autocorrect into their keyboard to help users type with confidence and minimize typing mistakes. That sounds great in theory, but it doesn’t always work properly.

Autocorrect sometimes inserts a word that you didn’t mean to write or makes “corrections” you didn’t want to make. People who type in certain languages other than English find autocorrect very annoying. As a matter of fact, depending on the language, having autocorrect enabled can make it impossible to type a sentence correctly in that particular language. Let’s take a look at how to turn off autocorrect on your iPhone.

Steps to disable autocorrect

Step 1: Go to Settings > General > Keyboard.

Step 2: Make sure the Auto-Correction toggle is set to the off position.

Another issue you might encounter is that your keyboard may stop correcting a particular word and let you type it incorrectly. It may be that the keyboard has saved incorrect words in the dictionary and is looking at them as correctly spelled. Don’t worry, because you can also erase the keyboard dictionary and let it start learning again if this gets too annoying.

Steps to reset the keyboard dictionary

Step 1:  Go to Settings > General > Reset.

Step 2: Tap Reset Keyboard Dictionary.

Step 3: If you have a password set, it will ask you to enter it at this time.

Did you know that you can also train your keyboard to type certain phrases or symbols? Check out our guide on how to create keyboard shortcuts for your iPhone or iPad.

After a while, you may find that other keyboards such as the Gboard from Google or the Swiftkey keyboard work better for you. These keyboards also feature autocorrect and different typing methods such as Swype, where you can just drag your finger from letter to letter. You may find your typing experience improves as you try third-party keyboards. If you want to try other keyboards, check out our list of the 17 hottest keyboards for iPhone and iPad.

Honda bets on luxury over range with the electric Clarity

In 1998 Honda introduced the first hybrid to North American roads. The Insight looked like a futuristic CRX and should have heralded the automaker as a leader in the green-car space along with Toyota and its Prius. Except it didn’t. The Prius took off while Honda continued to produce the less-popular Insight along with a few other hybrids including a V6 Accord. The company even tip-toed into the electric market with a limited run of Fit EVs. But as for a proper electric platform, it wasn’t until this year that the automaker decided to enter the market with the Clarity.

Clarity is Honda’s new line of green cars. Previously, the Clarity was just a fuel-cell vehicle with limited availability. Now it’s three automobiles on a single platform: a fuel-cell version, plug-in hybrid and the pure electric car we drove. Honda says the entire line is about making a choice based on your driving habits. So before you throw down some cash, you have to decide, “How far will I really drive in this thing?”

For folks interested in the EV, it’s not that far. The electric Honda Clarity has a range of 89 miles — far fewer than a Chevy Bolt, Tesla Model 3, and Volkswagen e-Golf. But what it lacks in range it makes up for in luxury — according to the Honda. To be fair, the company mostly delivers on that argument.

The interior feels more like an Acura than a Honda with plush seats, recycled Ultrasuede door accents, wood paneling and stitched materials. From the back seats to the dash, the car feels far fancier than other Hondas. Our videographer, Kyle, was especially smitten with the comfort of the rear seats. (We don’t let him sit in the front. He knows why.) The front seats were equally cozy except for one thing: legroom. At 6-foot-3, I found the driver’s side legroom to be wanting. I felt cramped and wondered if Honda’s desire to make passengers in the back seat feel welcome was at the expense of the actual driver. At least if they’re tall.

The rest of the of the interior was less anti-tall-person. The dash is neatly laid out and includes the requisite touchscreen in the center. Honda’s infotainment center runs a version of Android. It’s easy to navigate and includes buttons on the side of the display for quick access to high-level features.

A few times during our drive we ran into some latency issues, especially with the right-side blind-spot camera loading after we had already changed lanes. A nice safety feature, but not helpful if it takes five seconds to load, as it did about 15 percent of the time.

The dash cluster was equally easy to decipher and has just enough information about your driving style — but not so much that it would confuse the driver with information overload. It’s the less-is-more design rule, and here, well, it rules. The climate controls were knobs and buttons (rather than on-screen), which I’m always a fan of, while the gear selector was a series of buttons. Your personal preference may vary, but I still prefer an actual lever.

Honda wants the Clarity to be a luxury-esque line. At no time does Honda say “sport luxury” or even hint at an action-packed time behind the wheel. So if you’re expecting Audi, BMW or Mercedes type of driving experience, don’t even bother sitting in the driver’s seat. The Clarity EV is more of a cruiser. It does have some get-up-and-go off the line in Sport mode thanks to the 221 pounds of torque. But it quickly fades, and you’re back to relaxing and thinking about your next charging stop.

Steering is equally leisurely, with noticeable understeer if you push the car to its limits, which is remarkably easy to do. The suspension is tuned more for sucking up bumps and potholes — which it did wonderfully, even on San Francisco’s deteriorating roads — than taking on a mountain drive.

Where it does possess speed is charging. The Clarity EV comes standard with DC fast charging. It can go from zero to 80 percent charged in 30 minutes. So in the time needed to eat some lunch, you’ll have a nearly charged vehicle.

In fact, there’s only one trim level for the Clarity EV. What you see is what you get. There’s no upgraded or base model. But there’s also no way to actually buy the car. Honda offers it as a lease only with $2,000 down and $269 a month. The automaker does offer a generous 20,000 miles per year — way more than most other leases.

That said, you also get features like adaptive cruise control with an auto-stop function (if it encounters a stopped vehicle or another object), lane assist, lane-departure warning and brake warning. One glaring omission was sensor feedback during parallel parking. The backup camera is fine, but having information on how close the front and side of the vehicle is to other cars is pretty much a given for vehicles in this class. Still, all things considered, the Clarity is a good deal.

That is, if you’re cool with that 89-mile range. Honda says that the entire Clarity line gives potential customers a choice. If you want more range, you can go with the plug-in Clarity hybrid (42 miles on battery only and about 330 miles total) which the automaker hasn’t announced lease pricing for; for the ultimate range (366 miles) and first-adopter cred, there’s the fuel cell Clarity, which leases for $369 a month with $2,868 down.

So who is the EV Clarity for? Honda hopes it’s folks who live in California and Oregon and want a luxury electric car without paying luxury prices. More likely than not, most people will choose the plug-in hybrid Clarity. But it’s important for the automaker to have a true EV in its lineup. As the automotive world moves toward alternative drivetrains, Honda can’t afford to wait like it did between the Insight and the Clarity again.

The best kitchen scale

By Christine Cyr Clisset and Michael Sullivan

This post was done in partnership with The Sweethome, a buyer’s guide to the best homewares. When readers choose to buy The Sweethome’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here.

After nearly 45 hours of research, three years of testing, and interviews with pro bakers, cookbook authors, a culinary instructor, and a registered dietitian, we’re confident that the Escali Primo Digital Scale is the best for most people. The Escali scale is impressively accurate and reads weights quickly in 1-gram increments. It’s also affordably priced and easy to use and store, and it has a long battery life. Of the models we tested, this scale had the longest auto-off function, so you can take your time measuring. We think this 11-pound-capacity kitchen scale is ideal for all your basic home baking and cooking needs.

Who should get a kitchen scale

Anyone who wants more consistent results from their baking, cooking, or coffee brewing should consider getting a kitchen scale. It’s also probably time for an upgrade if your current scale is damaged or isn’t reading properly.

For weighing very small amounts very precisely—such as espresso, spices, or leaveners—you’ll want to invest in a digital pocket scale. These models weigh in increments of 0.1 or 0.01 gram, and as their name implies, they’re small enough to fit in a pocket.

How we picked and tested

We used a series of lab weights (0.5 g, 1 g, 20 g, 50 g, 100 g, and 500 g) to test the accuracy of each kitchen scale. Photo: Michael Hession

For this guide, we considered only digital scales, which combine accuracy and a slim design at a better price, and are the standard in professional kitchens. A good digital scale must read accurately in both grams and ounces, preferably using decimals rather than fractions, and should have a maximum capacity of at least 11 pounds. The best scales can quickly show a gradual increase in weight when you’re measuring, which allows you to anticipate when to stop adding an ingredient.

Any decent digital food scale has a tare button, which allows the scale to subtract the weight of the mixing bowl and report only the net weight of the ingredients. Also, the auto turn-off function shouldn’t kick in too quickly, as it’s frustrating when the scale turns off before you’ve finished measuring.

Beyond those basics, the buttons on the scale should preferably be covered in a plastic membrane, so that you can clean the unit easily. Also nice is if the scale has a good-size weigh platform that easily holds a large mixing bowl or sheet pan. Some models have removable platforms, which is convenient for cleaning.

We used a series of lab weights to test the accuracy of each scale. We slowly added flour to a bowl placed on each scale to evaluate the device’s speed at reading weights. Then, to get a better feel for how we liked each model’s specific features, we used the scales daily for about two weeks. We also sprinkled flour on each scale to see how easy they would wipe clean, or if they had any crevices that trapped grit.

Our pick

We think the Escali Primo Digital Scale is the best for most home cooks and bakers. Photo: Michael Hession

The affordably priced Escali Primo Digital Scale is the best scale for most home baking and cooking needs. In our tests it read weights quickly and was one of the most accurate scales we tried. It’s capable of weighing ingredients between 1 gram and 5,000 grams (about 11 pounds), and has a simple design with an easy-to-use interface. The weigh platform is conveniently elevated, so you can still read the digital screen when using large, oversized bowls. It has a small footprint for convenient storage, and four rubber feet on the bottom to keep the scale from sliding on the counter. The Escali scale comes with a limited lifetime warranty.

Unlike our upgrade pick, the My Weigh KD8000, the Escali Primo Digital Scale’s display isn’t backlit. Despite that limitation, our testers didn’t have any difficulty reading the digital screen. Also, although you can’t disable the auto-off function on the Escali, our testers found that the preset four-minute auto-off feature provided enough time to weigh ingredients.

An inexpensive but accurate scale

We recommend the Ozeri scale for anyone who wants a basic kitchen scale on the cheap. Photo: Michael Hession

We think the Ozeri Pronto Digital Multifunction Kitchen and Food Scale is a great choice if you want something that’s very inexpensive but still accurate. Although it’s similar in appearance to our top pick, it has a shorter auto-off function (two minutes versus the Escali’s four minutes), and it’s slightly slower at reading weights.

In our tests, the Ozeri correctly measured lab weights to the gram, though we did notice a slight delay when measuring items as small as 1 or 2 grams. As on our top pick, the Ozeri’s digital screen isn’t backlit, but its elevated weighing platform still allows you to read the scale.

The Ozeri scale is covered by a one-year warranty, in contrast to the Escali model’s limited lifetime warranty, but because it’s so cheap, we don’t think that limited coverage is a dealbreaker.

A large scale for advanced bakers

With its ability to display in baker’s percentages, the My Weigh KD8000 is best for advanced home bakers and pros. Photo: Michael Hession

We recommend the My Weigh KD8000 for serious bakers who make a lot of bread or want to prepare large batches of food at once. Its 17-pounds, 6-ounce weighing capacity was the highest in our test group. Unlike our other picks, the My Weigh KD8000 allows you to disable the automatic-off function and the backlight. This scale was also the only model we tested that allowed us to remove the weigh platform for easy cleaning. The My Weigh KD8000 comes with a 30-year manufacturer’s warranty.

In our tests, the My Weigh KD8000 was accurate to the gram and responded quickly, though it occasionally had trouble reading a weight of 1 g if we added an ingredient slowly. On all weights over 1 g, it quickly gave a correct reading.

A small scale for precision weighing

The American Weigh Scales SC-2KG Digital Pocket Scale measures in increments of 0.1 gram for precision weighing. Photo: Michael Hession

For precisely weighing small amounts of ingredients—such as coffee, spices, or leaveners—we recommend the American Weigh Scales SC-2KG Digital Pocket Scale. This scale weighs in increments of 0.1 gram, has a tare button, and offers a small but brightly backlit screen. It’s also covered by a 10-year warranty.

The American Weigh SC-2KG was very accurate when we used lab weights in our tests. It had a slight delay when reading ingredients measuring as little as 0.5 gram, but for all other weights, this scale was very responsive. When we used the 500-gram weight, the scale read about 1 gram off. Even so, we still think this scale is very accurate and precise, and a steal considering it’s so inexpensive.

Because the push buttons on this model are not sealed, they are more prone to water damage, so be careful when measuring liquids and immediately wipe up any spills that may occur near the interface.

This guide may have been updated by The Sweethome. To see the current recommendation, please go here.

Note from The Sweethome: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.

How Jelly used robots to create its clear, bulletproof skateboards

Since its official launch roughly five years ago, the La Jolla, California-based company Jelly Skateboards marched to the beat of its own drum. It sells a line of clear, polycarbonate boards capable of stopping a bullet — a unique idea that has helped company president Sven Alwerud carve out a special niche in the skateboard industry. Though the road was certainly bumpy, Alwerud’s affinity for skateboarding kept him focused and provided a much-needed reprieve from the stresses of starting a business.

“I love skateboarding because it stops time,” Alwerud reminisced to Digital Trends. “It’s a beautiful thing because you’re just concentrating on one thing — moving forward.”

From the age of 12, Alwerud firmly grasped his passion for skateboarding. As he grew older, he turned a small bearing cleaning business in his hometown of Temecula into the (now) highly successful Jelly Skateboards. For years, his enthusiasm helped pave the way for Jelly to make a name for itself but today, Alwerud employs the help of a rather odd co-worker: A customized manufacturing robot.

Taking time out of his busy schedule, Alwerud sat down with Digital Trends to talk about his innovative robot, collaborating with his mechanical engineer father, and how he overcame the challenges of bootstrapping a skating startup.

The inception of the ‘Jelly’ skateboard

The origin of the Jelly Skateboard began with two 15-year-old SoCal locals who each possessed a deep passion for surfing and skateboarding. On one particularly normal high school day, the duo — Alwerud and his friend Cody Leuck — began doing something any teenage boys might do and completely dismantled their wooden skateboards. With the pieces flayed out in front of them, they thought, “how could we design a more flexible board?” Born from this idea was the concept of a clear skateboard manufactured out of bulletproof glass. Like anything (some boards are now made of aircraft aluminum), the process of prototyping an innovative new board was extensive.

Born from this idea was the concept of a clear skateboard manufactured out of bulletproof glass.

When Alwerud was in college, he fell so head over heels for one of his prototypes that he rode the thing to all his classes around campus — and other students began to quickly take notice. As the duo started fine-tuning this crowd favorite, they knew it needed to be durable, flexible, clear, and eco-friendly.

After several trials of combining traditional shapes with cutting-edge materials, they finally found the right combo that gave the feeling of surfing while skateboarding. With the removal of the wooden layer of Polyvinyl acetate found in traditional boards, the product became 100 percent recyclable and in 2012, Jelly Skateboards was officially incorporated. Now, Alwerud faced the greatest battle — funding his strange-looking board and bringing it to market.

Burning the candle at both ends

Once the final prototype process completed, Alwerud bootstrapped the entire venture to get Jelly Skateboards to the masses. To do this, he bartended five nights a week after traveling to hosts of trade shows during the day. A grueling undertaking, his hard work paid off as he was able to meet many high-quality contacts along the way. These relationships paved the road for Alwerud to eventually make the acquaintance of a key investor — from there, a partnership formed.

With capital in hand, Alwerud had the ability to offer two fully-customizable boards: a 26-inch shortboard named the KingSlayer and a 34-inch pintail longboard dubbed the Jelly Man O’ War. As the first batches of Jelly Skateboards began to sell, Alwerud quickly realized the demand for boards, trucks, and accessories was real. Plainly put, he needed help to keep up with the requirements of production.

Luckily for Alwerud, his dad — a famous robotics engineer — offered to help the upstart company and brought with him decades of experience which would prove priceless to the future of Jelly Skateboards.

Like father, like son

An old adage says, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” and in the case of Sven Alwerud and his father — Sven Alwerud Sr. — innovation, engineering, and design run deep in their family’s blood. After the skate and apparel company Zumiez placed a rather large order from Jelly, Alwerud Jr. knew a simple phone call to his father would solve a major production assembly need. After all, Alwerud Sr. — President of Inventek Engineering — is one of automation’s founding fathers.

“One of the biggest challenges of owning your own skateboard company is assembling skateboards. It’s just too time-consuming to assemble, pack, and ship,” Alwerud Jr. told us. “My dad worked for some of the most famous companies in the world such as Tesla, Ford, and Apple designing complex robots for major automation and mechanical integration production needs. So, I called him and discussed the large order from Zumiez and hinted, ‘When am I gonna get my robot?’ As any supportive parent would do, he replied, ‘Oh, heck no — I’ll make you one to do the assembly instead.’”

“This precision, combined with the most modern technology, created one badass robot that did the job.”

For perspective, creating a robot capable of assembling skateboards might set a company back upwards of $70,000. Luckily, Alwerud Sr. already owned the components for a robot that assembled pens. However, his company would not be completing the build of the robot for several few months, leaving the parts (essentially) up for grabs.

“My dad already had the parts and decided to use them to create a robot to help assemble my skateboards,” Alwerud Jr. added. “He designed the robot in two days and with his years of automation experience, he was able to use the simplest designs and techniques which helped reduce the chance of error and downtime. This precision, combined with the most modern technology, created one badass robot that did the job.”

Jelly hopes robots will help fuel its future

Moving forward, Alwerud Jr. hopes to reach the point where he can purchase another robot — similar to the one his dad built — to continue production of his skateboards. Despite its exorbitant price tag, he notes the efficiency and precision of such robots have the ability to replace “six or more workers.”

By taking advantage of this process, he knows he’d be able to achieve more high-quality products in a shorter amount of time — something which easily pays for itself in the long run.

Moving forward, Jelly Skateboards plans to continually work on new design concepts and manufacturing processes while simultaneously perfecting its current products. This is especially true when it comes to their popular Jelly Man O’War 34-Inch Long Boards. Sven added, “Besides the product being 100 percent high-grade bulletproof resin, we’ve worked hard to perfect the 11-inch radial concave design — creating a spring in the deck that gives the flex of a snowboard and flow of a surfboard.”

Be sure to also check out our list of the best electric skateboards and best hoveroards if you’re interested in electrifing your ride.

Bypass geo-restricted streaming services for $35

Every year, more and more people are cutting their cable cords and turning to online streaming for all their TV and movie entertainment — and it’s clear to see why. Whether it’s for the convenience to watch what you want when you want on whichever device you want, or simply to save some money every month, the trend shows no sign of slowing.

Get a lifetime subscription to Getflix for only $35! Learn more

But despite being hosted and streamed from what was once called the World Wide Web, you often lose access to all your favorite streaming services if you leave the US. Sure, you can always use a VPN — if you’re savvy enough to know how to set one up and can afford another monthly subscription in your life. And you’ll want to have it available on all of your devices, not just your laptop. If you only care about accessing your streaming services, you need to get Getflix.

Getflix calls itself a Smart DNS, because unlike VPNs that reroutes and encrypts your entire connection through overseas servers, it only reroutes the parts of your connections required for online streaming. This means you’ll be able to connect to public or hotel Wi-Fi and access a whole bunch of awesome streaming services such as Hulu, HBO GO, Amazon Instant Video and more! Best part, for a limited time only you essentially get lifetime access to Getflix for only $35!

To be clear, Getflix still requires you to have your own active subscription to the streaming services you want to use with it. And ironically, Netflix is not on the list of services supported by Getflix. But well over 60 streaming sites and services are, including popular music streaming services such as Pandora, Slacker and more. And Getflix also includes access to a free, optional VPN & SmartVPN account to encrypt all your traffic with 256Bit SSL encryption for the times when you need that, too.

Avoid geo-locked content with Getflix! Learn more

Officially you get a 30-year licence to use Getflix — a value of over $800 — so you’ll want to get in on this opportunity to save 96% on this deal and never worry about get locked out of your streaming services no matter where in the world you are!

From the Editor’s Desk: Why DxOMark scores are basically worthless

DxOMark controversy is back in the news this week, but the problem with the mobile camera rating system isn’t as simple as manufacturers ‘buying’ inflated scores.

This week, following a small amount of fanfare, the OnePlus 5 nabbed a DxOMark Mobile score of 87. A day later, as if timed perfectly to demonstrate the flaws of its rating system, DxO gave the LG G6 an 84. And the Internet is suitably riled up. Comment threads suggest something untoward has happened as a result of OnePlus’s recently-announced partnership with DxO. Reddit is swimming in incredulous anger.

Let me start by saying I don’t think DxO has allowed however much money changed hands between it and OnePlus to influence the objectivity of its testing. Nobody is directly buying or selling higher benchmark scores — that would be crazy. Nevertheless, it’s become clear that as a basis for judging whether one smartphone camera is better than another, the firm’s numbered scores are, at best, flawed.

DxO’s overall scores are taken from an average of sub-scores for exposure and contrast, color autofocus, texture, noise, artifacts and stabilization. There’s a brief explainer (dating all the way back to 2012) detailing how DxO generates these mobile scores, apparently showing a mix of automatic and perceptual testing — the latter involving a human using the phone out in the real world. For the automated tests, DxO relies on software like its own DxO Analyzer, which is used by the world’s top camera makers to gauge image quality.

The specifics of DxO’s partnership with OnePlus (and other manufacturers like HTC and Google) haven’t been publicly disclosed. But presumably, it’s this software, along with other testing equipment, that the imaging teams at these phone makers get access to.

Single numbered scores for phone cameras are at once too vague and too specific.

Firstly, let’s address the flaws of using a single number to sum up the entire mobile camera experience. Reducing a smartphone camera to a percentage score has the problem of being at once too vague and too specific. A number — a non-weighted average — doesn’t do justice to the complexity of modern smartphone cameras, where performance can vary widely depending on the situation, and not all factors are equally important. At the same time, a score out of 100 implies precision. The OnePlus 5, Huawei P10 and Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ are all equally good, the numbers tell us. The LG G6 and Moto G4 Plus, also equal, with DxO scores of 84. Anyone who’s used these devices out in the real world will tell you the reality is not even close.

Meanwhile, DxO rates the Galaxy S6 edge+ as an 87, whereas the Galaxy Note 5 is an 86. Both phones have the same internal hardware and camera modules. There’s a one-point variance between these two phones, which in imaging terms are identical. There’s also a one-point difference between a Samsung Galaxy S8 and a Sony Xperia Z5, which are light-years apart in real-world performance.

This underscores the craziness of putting stock in these single numbered scores for phone cameras, particularly when the same variance can exist between two physically identical cameras and two very, very different ones. DxO scores may well serve as a decent benchmark for the raw capabilities of each camera (personally, I think even that is debatable — see the LG G6 vs Moto G4 Plus example above), but they also have the effect of muddying important details around real-world use.

DxOMark scores often don’t line up with reality, telling us the LG G6 is only as good as last year’s Moto G4 Plus.

DxO’s written reviews are far more informative — actually digging down into the important details that make a phone camera good or bad. Yet it’s the numbers that manufacturers flaunt in their marketing materials, and which DxO displays hierarchically on its sidebar.

Next, there’s the very obvious problem — and potential conflict of interest — of selling testing hardware to phone makers which you eventually use to publicly rate them on their performance. The idea, presumably, is to allow phone makers to make their cameras better by using repeatable, scientific tests around image quality. But this also has the effect of allowing OEMs to “teach to the test.”

DxO’s partnership model allows OEMs to ‘teach to the test’

Like a wily student preparing for a standardized test, manufacturers who partner with DxO, and get access to its hardware and software, can tune their image processing to ace the firm’s synthetic tests (within the limits of the hardware, of course). As a result, their review scores are higher when DxO eventually publishes them — because they’ve had access to the testing hardware all along. Manufacturers who don’t partner with DxO are at an automatic disadvantage in terms of their score, even though real-world, outside-of-the-lab image quality might not be substantially different. When that happens, as it is bound to, consumers who put faith in comparisons between scores from partners and non-partners are potentially misled.

That’s how we end up with scores that tell you the Moto G4 Plus is as good as the LG G6, which is worse than the OnePlus 5.

And that’s where the potential conflict of interest arises. Partner with DxO, and your phone has the opportunity to max out its eventual review score — and if it’s a new flagship phone, maybe steal the crown with a new high score. Manufacturers who don’t license DxO’s stuff compete on an uneven playing field.

All that being said, often DxOMark scores do match up with the observations of experienced tech reviewers. The firm correctly called the Google Pixel as the best smartphone camera of 2016. And I think most reviewers would agree that the HTC U11 has, by a slender margin, probably the best phone camera released in 2017 to date.

But that shouldn’t compensate for the egregious examples of DxOMark scores not lining up with reality, the most recent of which tells us that LG’s flagship phone of 2017 is only as good as a year-old Motorola mid-ranger. As a result, these scores can be pretty much worthless for directly comparing two or more phones.

Bottom line: DxO’s reviews are informative and well-researched. But those numbered scores? Forget ’em.

Other odds and ends for a working weekend:

• We’re a month out from Android O being finalized, and surely just days away from finding out what “O” stands for. Oatmeal Cookie is apparently the internal codename — don’t read too much into that; internal codenames are often different to public nicknames. But really what other options are there besides Oreo? If Google doesn’t ink some kind of partnership with the cookie giant, Oatmeal Cookie might end up winning by default.
• On a related note, big win for Sony if it can be first with Android O on a new phone, as the rumor mill would seem to suggest.
• DxOMark controversy and jelly scrolling hullabaloo aside, I’m enjoying the OnePlus 5, and I’ll have a second opinion piece coming up early next week. The camera is pretty good. Not great. Not bad. I award it 85 AleXMarks.
• Because I’m about to do some traveling, and Google still insists on charging crazy money for the Pixel C, I have an iPad Pro on the way to me. (Don’t judge.) I’ve used iPads on and off over the years — almost inevitably selling them after a few months. We’ll see if the latest one fares any better, and how it eventually adapts to iOS 11.
• Google surely has a convertible of its own on the way this fall. I’m eagerly awaiting the Android tablet space being less of a wasteland than it currently is.

That’s it. More hot takes from me in a few weeks.

-Alex

How to deal with Connectivity Issues for Star Trek: Bridge Crew on PSVR

Network issues are a common part of online gaming. But you can take control of the situation.

One of the coolest parts of Star Trek: Bridge Crew is the ability to group up with 1-3 of your closest friends and manning the Bridge of the USS Aegis.But your fun can quickly grind to a halt if one of you is having lag or connectivity issues. Fortunately, we have some tips if you find yourself in this unenviable position, so you can get back to saving the galaxy quickly!

Read more at VRHeads