Afghanistan will soon have free mobile access to Wikipedia

Afghanistan has been rapidly improving its technological infrastructure since the Taliban was ousted in 2001. A group of film historians in the country recently digitized films that had been saved from destruction during Taliban rule. An all-girl robotics team fought a recent travel ban and finally got the chance to compete in the US. And in 2010, the country moved ahead with plans for national electronic ID cards. Now, thanks to a partnership between regional provider Roshan and the Wikimedia Foundation, people in Afghanistan will get free access to Wikipedia via their phones for the next year.

According to the Independent, the Wikipedia Zero initiative is set to launch in the region later this month. It will give anyone in Afghanistan full access to Wikipedia including search and editing abilities. The access will not count towards users’ data plans, either. Considering that Roshan just added 4G service last month, this is a big step forward. Wikipedia Zero has been providing free access around the globe since August of 2012, and has since added more than 60 operators in 50 other countries to the list.

“At Roshan, we are proud to have been leading the efforts to increase access to information,” deputy CEO of Roshan, Altaf Ladak, said in a statement. “The partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation expands the frontier of access to information and knowledge, especially for Afghanistan’s youth who make up almost two-thirds of the population.”

Source: Independent

iPad Pro could be Apple’s next device to use Face ID

It’s safe to assume that the face recognition system in the iPhone X will eventually reach other devices, but which ones are next in line? KGI’s Ming-Chi Kuo might have an idea. The historically accurate analyst expects the next generation of the iPad Pro to adopt the TrueDepth camera and, by extension, Face ID. This would unify the experience across Apple’s mobile devices, the analyst says, and would spur developers knowing that they could use face recognition across multiple Apple devices, not just one handset. The new iPads would ship sometime in Apple’s fiscal 2018, which ends in September of next year.

There’s another question to be answered: if this happens, will the Touch ID fingerprint reader go away? It’s not so clear. Apple clearly took advantage of eliminating the home button to expand the iPhone X’s screen size, but that’s not as necessary on devices that already have large displays. Also, Apple has typically kept larger bezels on the iPad due to its size — you need at least some space for your thumbs on a device that you can’t easily hold in one hand. We’d add that it could complicate multitasking, since Apple already uses an upward swipe on the iPad’s bottom edge to bring up the app dock. How would you handle that while also using a swipe to go to the home screen?

Whatever happens, it would make sense for the iPad Pro to get face recognition. Apple has made a habit of bringing relatively new features to its higher-end iPads (such as upgraded displays and the Smart Connector), and TrueDepth might be one more reason to spring for a Pro instead of sticking to the base model. And if Apple is going to continue pushing augmented reality, it’ll want tablets that particularly well-suited to the task regardless of the camera you’re using.

Source: 9to5Mac

New medical superglue seals large wounds almost instantly, prevents scars

Why it matters to you

New superglue sealant could be quicker than stitches, and permit a prettier end result.

When repairing damaged organs and tissues, surgeons will often use staples or sutures. Skin glue can also sometimes be employed, but this is only for the most superficial of wounds. Until now, that is. That’s because a team of researchers from the U.S. and Australia have developed a new hyperelastic type of surgical superglue, called MeTro, which could be used as an alternative to staples or sutures — minus the scarring risk.

“We have developed a material based on natural proteins that is both sticky and elastic,” Ali Khademhosseini, an associate faculty member at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, told Digital Trends. “The protein is based on elastin, which is normally expressed in elastic tissues in our body, such as lung and vessels, and provides the tissue with mechanical resilience and elasticity. This material can be used in surgical applications to seal incisions, such as in the case of sealing air leaks after resection of lung tumor. Since the material is both strong and elastic, it can be used in applications that previously required sutures. Also the material can degrade as the tissue is formed.”

MeTro has so far been demonstrated in studies with rats, where it was able to help close up incisions in arteries, as well as punctures in lungs. It has additionally been demonstrated in pig lungs, where it was used to seal up wounds even when the lungs were repeatedly inflating and deflating. “We have shown that the material can be used in large animal models,” Khademhosseini continued. “The next step would be to try to develop a clinical trial where it can be used in humans. This would require a significant level of funding and potentially commercial partnership.”

Extrapolated to humans, Khademhosseini said that MeTro could be utilized for closing incisions after surgery. It could also potentially be used to treat serious internal wounds on site in scenarios like major car accidents or war zones.

In addition to Harvard University, other institutions involved in the research included Northeastern University, Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), and the University of Sydney in Australia. A paper describing the research was recently published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Security firm says Equifax made it far too easy to access salary and job data

Why it matters to you

If you thought that Equifax’s recent data breach was the only thing to worry about, guess again.

One of the more notorious data breaches in 2017 was the Equifax hack that exposed the private information of roughly 145 million Americans. The Equifax breach is particularly troublesome because of the company’s status as a central clearinghouse for some of the most sensitive information that’s stored online. Now, it appears that the company’s lax security extends beyond basic security and may have made salary and employment information far too easy to access.

The news comes via KrebsonSecurity, which broke the story on October 8, 2017. Apparently, Equifax TALX, a service that is used for automatic verification of income and employment history data that’s used when someone applies for a loan, has utilized authentication procedures that are far too easy to bypass. Simply put, accessing the data is far too easy for anyone with access to information — such as social security numbers and dates of birth — that has been readily available for many people thanks to past data breaches.

The TALX system should only be accessible by credentialed companies such as banks and employers. As KrebsonSecurity discovered, however, many accounts can be accessed merely by entering an employer name and a complete or partial social security number. Then, the PIN that’s requested is in a majority of cases just a date of birth in easily guessed formats. Once validated, some very juicy information is available, including salary and employment history that dates back a decade or more.

Even the system’s advance authentication can be bypassed if the TALX customer failed to fully populate all the relevant information, and in many cases, detailed instructions on how to complete the authentication forms is available online. That makes it far too easy for nefarious parties to guess at how to successfully authenticate and gain access to the system.

If you’re concerned about your information being made accessible to unauthorized parties, then KrebsonSecurity provides a way to help safeguard your data:

“Fortunately, you can reduce the likelihood that an acquaintance, co-worker, stalker or anyone else can do this by claiming your own account, changing the PIN, and selecting a half-dozen security questions and answers. As always, it’s best not to answer these questions truthfully, but to input answers that only you will know and that can’t be found using social networking sites or other public data sources.”

As KrebsonSecurity notes in an update, Equifax has taken the TALX portal down for scheduled maintenance. It’s unknown whether that’s purely coincidental or if it’s in response to the story that was published yesterday. In addition, some commenters on the original story indicated that additional steps are being added that should help, although the data is still too easily accessible for anyone who’s willing to do the necessary research.

These photos show off the Google Pixel 2’s camera in all its glory

Why it matters to you

If you’re looking for a phone with a great camera, these shots prove that the Google Pixel 2 could be the phone for you.

The original Google Pixel and Google Pixel were both highly praised for their cameras, and it looks like the new Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL will be no different. In fact, camera benchmarking site DxOMark has given the cameras in the two new phones the highest rating for a smartphone camera ever — which is no small feat.

Of course, nothing beats real-world use — and we now have some of our first real-world photos of the Google Pixel 2’s camera in action. No surprises here — they look pretty good. The photos were taken by Google employee Isaac Reynolds, so take them with a grain of salt, but Reynolds does claim that the photos are unedited, which is good news.

The Pixel 2’s camera is pretty full-featured and offers all the tricks you would expect from a high-end camera. offers a 12.2-megapixel sensor with an f/1.8 aperture and both optical image stabilization and electronic stabilization. It also boasts dual-pixel phase-detection autofocus to keep those shots nice and crisp.

The photo gallery itself shows off almost 40 shots from the Pixel’s camera, including in a pretty wide variety of lighting conditions and settings. As a report from 9to5Google notes, the photos were clearly taken during testing, as some of them date back as far as July, proving that Google has been working on the camera in this phone for quite some time. That work really seems to have paid off.

You might already know that the Pixel does not have a dual camera, but that doesn’t mean it’s not capable of a decent portrait mode — in fact, as the photos demonstrate, the camera produces a pretty nice bokeh effect in portrait shots thanks to a combination of machine learning and dual-pixel technology.

We also get a pretty good look at Google’s motion stabilization technology, thanks to a video posted in the gallery. It seems as though the stabilization has only gotten better since the original Google Pixel. The video shows an unstabilized and a stabilized video side by side, and the results are pretty impressive.

The Google Pixel 2 and Google Pixel 2 XL are both available for purchase now, and you can check out our buying guide to figure out where to get them for yourself.

Waste your time like you mean it by following the best Instagram accounts

In 2012, Facebook purchased Instagram, then a promising photo-sharing app, for a cool $1 billion dollars. In just a few years the app had swelled to more than 700 million users and a value of approximately $50 billion. (Talk about return on investment.) Based on data recently released by the photo-sharing app, individuals somehow manage to spend nearly 30 minutes a day perusing Instagram. While this time could be presumably spent doing something more productive, the app certainly does have its merits. In fact, based on the inherent photographic documentation and location data, a team of researchers with Cornell University recently claimed Instagram could be a useful anthropological tool.

While this may be true, the majority of us simply use to the platform in search of the dankest memes, cat photos, and epic fails. Nonetheless, with each post, share, and elusive like, we are still technically doing our part to make sure this truly wonderful chapter in our species’ devolution is properly indexed. That said, from mouthwatering #foodporn posts to the Internet-famous pets of the Instaverse, here are the best Instagram accounts to help you more aptly waste your own time … in the name of science, of course.

Food

Unless you’re sadly part of the Soylent movement, most of us can appreciate a good nom. That said, with more than 130 million #foodporn posts, foodie culture is alive and well on Instagram. From Aziz Ansari‘s tour de tastes and Lorde’s purported secret onion ring review account, to the delightfully straightforward Hot Girls Eating Pizza, there are plenty of options to choose from.

Tasting Table

While Tasting Table may not be the choicest option for foodies with dietary restrictions, the red-blooded omnivorous among us will drool over the peanut-doused African chicken, grilled cheese donuts, and eggs Benedict hosed in hollandaise. Hell, sometimes, you’re just in the mood for a damn plate o’ bacon. Don’t worry, Tasting Table has you covered there, too.

Food Baby NY

Food Baby NY works with a rather basic albeit wonderful premise: Glamour shots of the choicest food in New York City alongside a cute baby. Go ahead and follow and watch Food Baby take a bite out of the Big Apple one nom at a time. While most of us were probably gargling down stringed something or others when we were Food Baby’s age, she conversely seemingly spends most of her time harming kimchees waffle fries, cavatelli, and vanilla custard doughnuts like there’s no tomorrow. Food Baby is all of us, all of the time. Never grow up, Food Baby.

Food with Michel

Food Envy is very real and Michel will make you feel a certain way with his brimming buckets of chicken and waffles, mac and cheese bread bowls, and smoldering hunks of sauced meats. Go on with your bad self, Michel, but please keep posting.

Vegan Fat Kid

We haven’t forgotten about those who are vegan, and Vegan Fat Kid is one of the more popular #foodporn Instagram feeds out there. Witness some of the best food stories, bomb tostadas, awe-worthy gansitos as VFK eats through Los Angeles.

These amazing science fair projects make your potato battery look prehistoric

Thanks in part to the fact that information is so readily available online, kids today are smarter than ever before. Sure, quick access to distractions like Snapchat and Angry Birds aren’t helping, but games and tools like Minecraft, Tynker, and Parrot are letting kids use their creativity to explore problem solving in ways no other generation has.

But their prowess for problem solving doesn’t stop at the computer. The projects kids make at science fairs nowadays easily beat out the smelly potato batteries and homemade volcanoes you remember making when you were their age. From flying robots to a Lego spacecraft, these are some of our favorite science fair projects.

Lego Loki Launcher

Sisters Kimberly and Rebecca Yeung had one simple mission: Launch their cat into space. Kimberly and Rebecca were only nine and eleven-years-old at the time, but they were able to successfully launch their spacecraft 78,000 feet into the air with a GoPro and tracking devices attached so they could analyze the data and take in the view from (near) space. Lego Loki Launcher was able to take flight with a weather balloon, and once it popped at its peak, a parachute deployed and the craft came back down a mile of its launch site.

Their project caught the attention of President Obama, and it was featured at the final White House Science Fair in 2016. And don’t worry, they didn’t actually send their cat into space, just a picture of him, along with a lego R2D2.

Wearable sensors for Alzheimer patients

Kenneth Shinozuka’s grandpa is one of more than 5 million Americans who suffer from Alzheimer’s. Even though his grandpa lives with him and his family, it was still difficult to notice when he would get out of his bed and wander around, and potentially hurt himself.

So at 15, Shinozuka did something about it. He built a slim sensor for his grandpa to wear on his heel, and every time he stepped out of bed his family would be alerted on their phones via the app he developed. Shinozuka’s work earned him honors at the Google Science Fair, a $50,000 scholarship, and the Scientific American Science in Action Award.

Robots that fly and avoid danger

Fruit flies suck, but Mihir Garimella loves them. Probably because they helped inspire his flying robot design and win him top honors in the 13-14 age category at the Google Science Fair in 2014.

After months of coding and tinkering with sensors, Garimella developed a lightweight sensor module and attached it to a small drone body that he built. Just like a fly, Garimella’s robot can avoid dangers, and he’s hoping that future improvements to his design will allow his robot to be used for rescue missions in unpredictable environments like collapsed buildings.

A robot to clean New York’s subways

High school friends Amro Halwah, Stephen Mwingria, and Si Ya Ni, used to always be late to class.

They’d always be late because they had to take the New York subway to get to school, and the system was always delayed because of rubbish fires in the tunnels. The three of them decided enough was enough, and with the help of a grant from MIT,  they built a 100-pound robot that moves on rails and vacuums up debris in the tunnels, so that no more fires could ignite. Their robot isn’t used by subways yet, but it was featured at the White House Science Fair.

Help ambulances move through traffic

Traffic is a nuisance to us, but for ambulances it’s life or death. Viney Kumar realized this after he visited India when he was 14 years old and saw an ambulance stuck in traffic for nearly an hour. It upset Kumar that there wasn’t a better way for ambulances to travel, so he decided to do something about it.

When he went back home to Australia, he started work on a transmitter to alert drivers of when an ambulance is nearby. By installing his transmitter in an ambulance, drivers with Kumar’s app will be alerted when an emergency vehicle is within 800 and 500 meters. This gives drivers 67 seconds to respond to an ambulance, which is way better than the current average of 14 seconds. Kumar’s amazing project won at the Google Science Fair for his age group, and he’s hoping that companies like Google and Apple will consider putting his technology in the dashboards they’re building for cars.

Google is opening pop-up stores in New York and Los Angeles

Why it matters to you

If you’re in New York or LA beginning October 19, you may want to check out the Google pop-up store.

Start the countdown, friends, because in 10 days, you’ll be able to walk into a storefront hosted by Google. Reprising its successful pop-up concept from last year, Google is once again hosting two pop-up stores to sell its new Made by Google products. Slated to open on both the east and west coasts of the United States, these transient stores just may be a reason to mark your calendars.

Google’s not sharing much information about the pop-ups as of yet — currently, a landing page notes only that the New York City store will be located at 110 Fifth Avenue and will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. for the duration of the popup; and that the Los Angeles store will be located at 8552 Melrose Avenue and will keep the same hours as its New York counterpart. While the tech giant hasn’t confirmed how long the stores will remain open, if history is any indication, we can expect to be able to walk into a physical Google store through the holiday season.

It’s likely that the products to be found at the pop-up will be those that made their debut at the October 4 Google event. That suggests that you could buy the new Pixel 2 smartphones from the store, as well as the premium Chromebook known as the Pixelbook, alongside its compatible Pixelbook Pen stylus. We might also see the Pixel Buds, which are Bluetooth headphones capable of translating among 40 languages thanks to Google Assistant and Google Translate. On the smart home side, the pop-up might feature the Google Home Mini and Google Home Max.

Other recently launched products that could be found at the pop-ups include the Google Clips (an A.I.-enhanced mini camera) and the Daydream View VR headset. Of course, the vast majority of this is speculation, and Google has made no confirmation of what it might be selling at its short-lived stores. That said, on its landing page, Google is offering eager buyers the opportunity to sign up for updates about devices, news, tips, and offers from Google.

So if you’ll be in LA or New York in a week and a half, you might just want to pop by the Google pop-up.

Pixel 2 XL vs. Galaxy Note 8: One phablet to rule them all

The Pixel 2 XL, the larger of Google’s two new smartphones, is a testament to the company’s hardware expertise. It has a 6-inch P-OLED screen that can display more than 16 million colors, a zippy Qualcomm processor, and one of the best cameras on the market. Even better? It retails for potentially hundreds of dollars less than the high-end iPhone X.

The Pixel 2 XL has a formidable competitor in the Galaxy Note 8. Samsung’s 6.3-inch phablet has a curved edge-to-edge screen, a massive amount of memory, and support for wireless charging. But those perks don’t come cheap — the Note 8 starts at over $900.

Suffice to say that even if money’s no object, it’s not an easy decision. Here’s how the two compare.

Specs

Galaxy Note 8

Pixel 2 XL
Size
162.5 × 74.8 × 8.6 mm (6.40 × 2.95 × 0.34 inches)
157.9 x 76.7 x 7.9 mm (6.22 x 3.02 x 0.31 inches)
Weight
195 grams (6.88 ounces)
175 grams (6.17 ounces)
Screen
6.3-inch Super AMOLED
6-inch P-OLED display
Resolution
2960 × 1440 pixels (522 ppi)
2880 x 1440 pixels (538 ppi)
OS
Android 7.1.1 Nougat
Android 8.0
Storage
64GB, 128GB, 256GB
64GB, 128GB
MicroSD card slot
Yes
No
NFC support
Yes
Yes
Processor
Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 (U.S.), Samsung Exynos 8895 (international)
Snapdragon 835, with Adreno 540
RAM
6GB
4GB
Connectivity
LTE, GSM, CDMA, HSPA, EVDO, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi
GSM, CDMA, HSPA, EVDO, LTE, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi
Camera
Dual 12 MP rear (both with OIS), 8MP front
12.2 MP rear, 8 MP HD front
Video
Up to 4K at 30 fps, 1080p at 60 fps, 720p at 240 fps
Up to 4K at 30 fps, 1080p at 120 fps, 720p at 240 fps
Bluetooth
Yes, version 5.0
Yes, version 5.0
Fingerprint sensor
Yes
Yes
Other sensors
Accelerometer, barometer, gyro, geomagnetic, heart rate, proximity, iris, pressure
Gyroscope, accelerometer, compass, proximity sensor, barometer
Water resistant
Yes, IP68 rated
Yes, IP67 rated
Battery
3,300mAh

22 hours of talk time, 13 hours of internet, 16 hours of video playback, and up to 74 hours of audio playback

Fast charging, wireless charging (Qi standard)

3,520mAh

Fast-charging

Charging port
USB-C
USB-C
Marketplace
Google Play Store
Google Play Store
Colors
Midnight Black, Orchid Gray
Just Black, Black & White
Availability

AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, Unlocked

Google Store, Verizon, Best Buy

Price
$930
$849
DT review
4 out of 5 stars
Hands-on review

When it comes to internals, the Pixel 2 XL and Galaxy Note 8 have a lot in common.

The Note 8 and Pixel 2 XL pack Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 system-on-chip, the same chip in flagships like the LG V30 and HTC U11. (Qualcomm says it has a 27-percent performance advantage over the Snapdragon 821, the first-gen Pixel’s processor.) But the Note 8 has an advantage in the RAM department: 6GB of RAM compared to the Pixel 2 XL’s 4GB. The jury’s out on whether or not that will make a noticeable day-to-day difference, but on paper, the Note 8 is theoretically capable of juggling more apps, Chrome tabs, and tasks in the background than the Pixel 2 XL.

In terms of storage space, the Pixel 2 XL can’t beat the Galaxy Note 8’s sheer flexibility. The Note 8’s top-end model boasts 256GB, and every model has a MicroSD card slot than can fit a removable card. The Pixel 2 XL, on the other hand, doesn’t support MicroSD cards and maxes out at 128GB.

Things are a bit more evenly matched on the audio side of the equation. Both phones support Bluetooth 5.0, the latest standard, and high-quality audio codecs like Qualcomm’s aptX.  The Galaxy Note 8 has a 3.5mm headphone jack, unlike the Pixel 2 XL, but the Pixel 2 XL has stereo front-facing speakers.

In our book, though, the Galaxy Note 8 wins on overall hardware. Its extra RAM, storage options, and 3.5mm port put it ahead of the Pixel 2 XL.

Winner: Galaxy Note 8 

Design and display

Julian Chokkattu / Digital Trends

You’d be hard-pressed to find two phones that look less alike than the Note 8 and Pixel 2 XL.

The Note 8’s exterior is a mix of aluminum, water-resistant plastic, and shatter-resistant Gorilla Glass 5. It has an edge-to-edge screen that curves around the phone’s bezels, as opposed to the Pixel 2 XL’s flat screen. The Pixel 2 XL boasts a resolution of 2880 x 1440 pixels and a tall 18:9 aspect ratio, but the Note 8 is slightly taller, with a resolution of 2960 × 1440 pixels and an 18.5:9 aspect ratio. The Note 8 display also has the advantage of support for high dynamic range (HDR). In apps like YouTube, Netflix, and others that take advantage, expect its color contrast, black levels, and brightness to come out on top of the Pixel 2 XL’s display.

Both phones’ fronts are relatively minimalist, owing to their narrow top and bottom display bezels and software-based home and navigation buttons. The Pixel 2 XL’s physical buttons comprise a single power button and a volume rocker. The Galaxy Note 8 isn’t all that different, with the notable exception of the Bixby button — a button that launches Samsung’s AI-powered voice assistant (more on that later).

Flip both phones around and it’s a slightly different story. The Galaxy Note 8’s fingerprint sensor sits adjacent to the rear camera, which makes it both difficult to reach and easy to smudge. The Pixel 2 XL’s fingerprint sensor, by contrast, is smack-dab in the middle of the phone — your index finger’s natural resting place.

The Note 8 and Pixel 2 XL are on even footing in the port department, save the Pixel 2 XL’s absent headphone jack — both have USB-C connectors. With the exception of the Pixel 2 XL’s two-tone design rear cover, which creates some much-needed visual contrast on a phone that’s otherwise somewhat plain, they’re both fairly low profile. Most folks won’t find either polarizing.

The Note 8 is IP68 rated to withstand up to 5 feet of water (for 30 minutes), and the Pixel 2 XL is IP67 rated for up to 3 1/2 feet (for 30 minutes).

The Galaxy Note 8 and Pixel 2 XL trade blows in the design department, but the Note 8’s superior water resistance and curved screen win it the round.

Winner: Galaxy Note 8

Camera

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

The Note 8 and Pixel 2 XL approach photography differently. The former has dual rear cameras, but the latter’s single rear camera draws on sophisticated artificial intelligence.

Let’s start with the Pixel 2 XL. Its 12.2-megapixel, f/1.8 aperture, 1.4μm pixel sized-camera uses clever software to improve clarity in low light and boost sharpness in bright daylight. It taps a Google-designed imaging chip, optical image stabilization (OIS), and electronic image stabilization (EIS) to counteract jerky hand movements, and boasts dual pixel phase-detection and laser autofocus technologies that hone in on subjects in milliseconds.

The Pixel 2 XL’s other AI smarts make the camera even more useful. The Google Camera, the app that powers the phone’s sensors, has an iPhone 7-like Portrait Mode (on both the rear and front camera) that slightly blurs the background while keeping the foreground in focus, an effect known as bokeh. Another feature — Motion Photo — records a three-second clip before and after you tap the shutter button.

Then there’s the Google Lens, an AI photo analyzer that can pick out books, DVD covers, architectural landmarks, and more. Thanks to Google-designed AI chips that process more than 180 trillion floating point operations per second, Google Lens can give a description of a building in a photo or identify the artist of a painting.

That’s all very impressive, but so is the Note 8’s rear camera, which consists of a f/1.7-aperture wide-angle lens and a f/2.4-aperture telephoto lens. The Note 8 uses them to the fullest in Live Focus, a camera mode that lets you apply bokeh to your photo before or after you capture it, and Dual Capture, which takes a close-up and a wide-angle shot at the same time.

When it comes to video, both phones’ rear cameras support resolutions up to 4K at 30 frames per second (and 1080p at 120fps). Samsung says the Note 8’s dual OIS gives it a leg up over phones like the iPhone 7 Plus, but Google says the Pixel 2 XL’s combination of OIS and EIS performs even better. When we have the Pixel 2 XL in hand, we’ll put the latter claim to the test.

The two phones’ cameras are as evenly matched as they seem, but early evidence suggests the Pixel 2 XL’s camera slightly edges out the Note 8’s. In early October, camera authority DxOMark gave the Pixel 2 XL an unprecedented 98 rating, slightly above the Galaxy Note 8’s score of 94.

It’s tough to declare a winner in the photo category without having put the Pixel 2 XL through its paces, but based on what we know so far, it just about beats the Galaxy Note 8 in terms of picture quality. Software like Google Lens is the icing on the cake.

Winner: Pixel 2 XL

Battery life and charging

The Pixel 2 XL has a 3,520mAh battery, which is a tad larger than the Galaxy Note 8’s 3,300mAh battery. It’s too early to tell how much of a difference that 220mAh will make in the real world, but we’re not expecting anything dramatic. The Galaxy Note 8 lasted about a day with moderate to heavy use in our testing, and we’re expecting the same of the Pixel 2 XL.

Both phones support fast charging, albeit different standards. The Galaxy Note 8 can fully recharge in 90 minutes thanks to Samsung’s Adaptive Fast Charging. The Pixel 2 XL, on the other hand, taps USB Power Delivery for up to 7 hours of battery life in 15 minutes of charging. With the right adapter, you can charge up the Pixel 2 XL faster than the Note 8.

The Note 8 has wireless charging, too. It’s compatible with any Qi charging pad, unlike the Pixel 2 XL. But, despite that advantage, the Pixel 2 XL comes out slightly ahead in the battery category, thanks to the extra capacity and faster charging capability.

Winner: Pixel 2 XL

Software

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

The Note 8 ships with the latest flavor of TouchWiz, Samsung’s custom-designed interface that runs atop Android 7.1.1 Nougat. Perhaps the highlight is Samsung’s Bixby assistant, which serves up contextually useful information on the fly, and support for the Dex Station, a dock (sold separately) that transforms it into a functional desktop replacement. That’s to say nothing of the Note 8’s iris- and face-scanning security features, which save you the trouble of having to type in a password.

The Pixel 2 XL, on the other hand, runs stock Android 8.0 Oreo. Among the headliners are Notification Channels, which let you toggle notifications on a per-app basis. A brand-new picture-in-picture mode lets you minimize apps like YouTube to a draggable window, and new limits on apps’ background tasks promise battery life improvements across the board.

But the Note 8 has something the Pixel 2 XL doesn’t: Samsung’s S Pen stylus. There’s Screen Off memo, a feature which lets you sketch and write memos without switching on the Note 8’s display, and Smart Select, which generates GIFs. Air Command pulls up a list of app shortcuts when the S Pen’s removed from its slot, and Magnify turns the S Pen into a digital magnifying glass, enlarging the text and images around its tip. Finally, a new feature called Live Messages lets you sketch an animated image and share it with friends as a GIF.

The Pixel 2 XL doesn’t have an answer to the S Pen, but does have features that take advantage of its custom hardware. Active Edge launches an app or setting with a squeeze of the phone’s touch-sensitive bezels. The low-power Always On Display mode shows a monochrome clock and notifications, even when the phone is off. Now Playing taps the Pixel 2’s three-microphone array to identify music playing nearby and put a link to the relevant Google Play Music listing on the lock screen. Google’s AR Stickers, which launch in preview alongside the Pixel 2 XL, project digital labels onto tables, chairs, and other surfaces.

It’s also worth noting that the Pixel 2 XL has the latest flavor of Android and will continue to get software updates the moment Google rolls them out for at least the next three years.

Winner: Tie

Price and availability

The Pixel 2 XL isn’t as expensive as you might expect. Google’s flagship ships in 64GB and 128GB storage configurations for $849 and $949, respectively, with a Google Home Mini speaker (a $50 value) free with every purchase for a limited time. Alternatively, you can opt for Google’s monthly financing option, which is $35.38 per month for the 64GB model and $39.54 per month for the 128GB model.

The Note 8, on the other hand, starts at $930 for 64GB.

But the Note 8 is available from more places, including AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint in the U.S. The Pixel 2 XL, like last year’s Pixel XL, is exclusive to Verizon, the Google Store, and a handful of brick-and-mortar retailers.

Still, $930 is a steep price to swallow. And that’s why we’re giving the win to the Pixel 2 XL.

Winner: Pixel 2 XL

Overall winner: Pixel 2 XL

There’s no denying that the Galaxy Note 8 is a powerful smartphone with capable cameras and a beautiful screen. But the Pixel 2 XL has it beat in several respects.

The Pixel 2 XL has a better camera, a bigger battery, and it can be had for less money than the Galaxy Note 8. Sure, the Pixel 2 XL doesn’t have an answer to the Note 8’s iris scanner, headphone jack, or S Pen stylus, but it more than makes up for its shortcomings with clever software, custom hardware, and Google’s cloud-powered AI.

Put the cutlery down: Food could soon levitate straight into your mouth

Why it matters to you

Food that levitate into your mouth could help make technology like virtual reality more multisensory.

Whether it’s floating clocks or hovering smartphone chargers, levitation is hot right now. That’s why we’re totally hyped at the prospect of some fascinating research coming out of the Sussex Computer Human interaction (SCHI) Lab at the U.K.’s University of Sussex, where engineers have figured out how to make a levitating food-delivery system, in which tasty grub floats straight into your mouth. No knife and fork required!

“We are interested in a way to deliver small quantities of food to a user without anyone touching the food,” Sriram Subramanian, professor of Informatics at the University of Sussex, told Digital Trends. “We created a way to deliver food from a dropper to the user’s mouth without touching anything. Food morsels are levitated using acoustic levitation techniques, and transported using our device to the user’s mouth. This is an semi-automated process giving us digital control over what food is delivered to the user’s mouth, when it is delivered, and how much is delivered.”

So far, the TastyFloats technology has been used to levitate tiny droplets of wine, blue cheese, bread, lettuce, meat, bread, and raspberry grain. Interestingly, the droplets of food changed the way that the flavors were registered by users. In volunteer trials, sweet tastes were reported as being more intense and recognizable, while bitter tastes were much harder to recognize.

“Our biggest challenge in this work was to be able to control the levitation system so that food morsels are stable in the system, whether it is wine, meat, or cheese that we are levitating,” Subramanian continued. “In other words, we needed to find a way to control the levitation energy so that it is strong enough to hold different density food items, but not so strong that they evaporate.”

Subramanian suggested that the technology could be used to deliver a more complete multisensory experience to people experiencing virtual reality, television, or gaming. Imagine, for example, being in a virtual environment that not only looks real but tastes real, as well — without you needing to do any more than open your mouth to achieve the intended effect.

“What we’ve created [so far] is a first prototype that is somewhat cumbersome to use,” Subramanian said. “In the future, we want to make the delivery system more robust and easy to deploy. We would also look to try and create a short movie experience which incorporates our TastyFloats system to get an idea of how users experience it. Finally, we would love to work with content developers to create content that harnesses the potential of our device. While I can easily see a more refined version of our system becoming a real-world device, this is probably a few years away.”