AMD stuffs Radeon Vega graphics into its Ryzen Mobile chips

It’s been a revival year for AMD. Its Ryzen chips thrust it back into the desktop arena — so much so that it practically forced Intel to dramatically ramp up the capabilities of its upcoming eighth generation Core CPUs. And with its RX Vega video cards, AMD finally had a way to compete against NVIDIA’s latest batch of GPUs. Now, the company is setting its sights on laptops with its upcoming Ryzen Mobile chips. And, as you might expect, they’ll feature integrated Vega graphics. AMD’s goal? To power ultrathin laptops that can still play a few rounds of Overwatch.

Although AMD is no stranger to laptops, it’s never been a market where the company truly shined. Last year’s seventh-generation APUs (its term for processors that combine CPUs and GPUs) helped it catch up with Intel. But with Ryzen Mobile, AMD is looking to leap far beyond the competition. The company claims it delivers desktop-class CPU performance, and its integrated Vega graphics are about as powerful as NVIDIA’s GTX950M dedicated GPU.

To start, AMD is launching two new mobile processors: the Ryzen 7 2700U and Ryzen 5 2500U. Both chips will pack in four cores with eight threads — just like Intel’s eighth-generation laptop processors. The higher-end Ryzen 7 will feature clock speeds between 2.2GHz and 3.8GHz, and it’ll pack in 10 Vega cores. The Ryzen 5, meanwhile, will see between 2GHz and 3.6Ghz speeds and eight Vega cores. In comparison, Intel’s new chips can reach up to 4.2Ghz, but its integrated graphics aren’t nearly as powerful.

AMD also announced a few intriguing stats: The new chips pack in 200 percent more CPU speed and 128 percent more graphics performance than the last generation, all while using 58 percent less power. That’s the result of moving to more efficient architecture on all accounts. Ryzen Mobile shines when it comes to multithreaded performance, in particular. It reached a surprisingly high Cinebench R15 score of 719, while Intel’s Core i7-8550U clocked in at 498, and AMD’s last-gen chip scored a mere 325. (Single threaded performance barely made a budge in Cinebench, though.)

Even when pitted against Intel’s Core i5-7600K — a powerful desktop chip — the Ryzen 7 mobile processor won out, reaching 707 compared to Intel’s 662 in Cinebench’s multithreaded benchmark. That’s even more impressive when you consider the Intel chip has a high 91-watt thermal design profile, or TDP, which means its meant to withstand much more voltage. The Ryzen 7’s TDP is a mere 15 watts.

As for pure GPU performance, Ryzen Mobile blows away last year’s chips, as well as Intel’s current integrated graphics. In 3DMark Time Spy, the Ryzen 7 reached a score of 915, while Intel’s Core i7-8550U scored just 350. You’d have to combine an Intel chip with NVIDIA’s 950M dedicated graphics to get anywhere close.

Of course, AMD isn’t directly comparing itself to NVIDIA’s 10-series mobile GPUs, which deliver astounding desktop-like performance. But that makes sense. Those graphics cards are dedicated components, not integrated directly with a CPU like Ryzen Mobile. At this point, AMD is basically trying to push what’s possible with thin laptops and mid-range gaming. And though the company isn’t saying much about future plans yet, reps noted that it wouldn’t be difficult to scale Vega’s performance in laptops to directly compete with NVIDIA’s fastest hardware.

Although Ryzen Mobile machines certainly won’t replace dedicated gaming machines, they’re fast enough to satiate gamers on the road. AMD claims the Ryzen 7 chip gets around 59 frames per second in League of Legends while playing in 1080p. Overwatch, meanwhile, scores a respectable 66 FPS in 720p with low settings.

AMD’s Ryzen Mobile die with Radeon Vega GPU.

AMD

The new laptop chips also sport several beefed-up features. AMD’s Precision Boost 2 technology lets them scale down their clock speeds gracefully as more threads are required. Previously, there would be a big speed dip as you needed more processing threads. AMD describes its new technology as more opportunistic — it’ll take as much performance as it can get depending on the current temperature, voltage and load. Additionally, the company’s new mobile XFR technology lets well-cooled laptops sustain peak clock speeds for much longer than before. Turning that feature on gave the Ryzen 7 a 23 percent speed boost in Cinebench’s multithreaded benchmark.

And of course, there’s battery life. AMD claims you’ll see up to twice the performance of last year’s chips, according to its reference benchmarks. Ryzen Mobile gets over nine hours of YouTube video viewing on a test system, compared to 4.5 hours for the previous generation. MobileMark 14, which recreates typical laptop usage, saw around 13.5 hours of battery life, whereas the last generation saw 10.7 hours. These figures are just meant to give you a sense of the improvement, though. Actually battery-life times will depend on the hardware manufacturers actually use in their systems.

You’ll find the Ryzen Mobile first in HP’s Envy X360 convertible, Lenovo’s Ideapad 720S and Acer’s Swift 3, all of which are being refreshed later this year. AMD points out it’s relatively simple to integrate the new chips into existing laptop designs. In fact, it can get some serious performance boosts when it’s placed into cooling systems meant for much hotter chips. The Ryzen Mobile chips are also 24 percent thinner than before, which means it’ll fit into thinner systems.

Given that AMD is typically known for its mid-range and low-end laptop chips, it feels strange to be genuinely excited about what its next processors mean for high-end laptops. Who wouldn’t want a machine that’s as thin as a MacBook Air that you can also use for a bit of gaming? Ryzen Mobile, in particular, is something only AMD could build. Intel has faster desktop chips, and NVIDIA has faster dedicated mobile graphics. But nobody else could combine the strengths of both into a single mobile-ready processor.

Amazon discounts LG’s G6 if you accept Prime ads

Amazon didn’t have much joy selling its own phone, but has achieved plenty by selling other people’s under its Prime Exclusive Phones label. The deal is that users get a discount off the price of a mid-range handset in exchange for Amazon slinging you ads on your lock screen. If you turned your nose up at an Alcatel A50 or Moto G5, then perhaps LG’s early-2017 flagship, the G6, might be more of a temptation.

The handset launched at the start of the year and was something of a recovery for LG after the mis-step that was the G5. That ambitious yet massively flawed handset tried something new with modularity that did not find a welcome home with customers. As a consequence, the G6 hits all of the core buttons buyers would hope to expect from a flagship smartphone. In our review, we praised everything bar the underwhelming battery life and clunky user interface, but it’s still pretty stellar.

The G6 comes packing a 5.7-inch QHD display with that slightly quirky 18:9 aspect ratio paired with a 1.6GHz Snapdragon 821. 4GB RAM sits beside 32GB internal storage, and LG still includes a microSD-card slot in its devices that’ll let you expand its capacity up to 2TB. The ad-supported LG G6 is available for $399.99 for Prime members and is unlocked on all major networks.

Amazon is also stocking some of the other members of the G6 family, including the enthusiast-level G6+ with 128GB internal storage and a 32-bit DAC for better sound. That’ll set you back $499.99, and is similarly unlocked for all of the major US phone networks. Prospective buyers can also find a lower-end Q6, priced at $299.99, and the LG X Charge, which packs a 4,500mAh battery, for just $199.99.

Uber’s multi-destination feature makes riding with friends easier

Uber has launched a multiple stop feature that lets riders add up to three stops on their trip, eliminating the need to add a new address after each drop or pick-up. Open the app, hit “Where to?” and then tap the “+” symbol to add the addresses of each stop. You can add or remove stops in real time, with your requests syncing with your driver’s directions immediately, and you can still split the cost of the fare with friends via the app.

It’s a useful feature for both parties, helping drivers minimise the time spent on each trip and giving riders more transparency on their fares. The function is already in use in some major cities worldwide, but will roll out more widely in the coming week. Londoners, of course, will miss out (for now, at least).

Google Pixelbook review: A premium Chromebook that’s worth the price

When we reviewed Google’s Chromebook Pixel in 2013, we said it was a gorgeous, well-built computer that almost no one should buy. That’s also how we felt about the follow up in 2015. See, Chrome OS has been considered fine for a cheap second computer, but it was pretty much impossible to recommend anyone drop $999+ for the Pixel. Chrome OS was too limited, when a computer running Windows or macOS costs the same amount.

Google’s ambitious new Pixelbook suggests that won’t be the case anymore. The laptop bears no resemblance to the original Pixel, but it’s cut from similar cloth. It’s still one of the nicest laptops you can find — but it’s also still running Chrome OS.

But for a growing segment of the population, that might not be a problem. Google believes that as the many students who’ve used Chrome OS for years transition into adulthood, they’ll be looking for high quality laptops that run the software they’re familiar with. Moreover, Google says that premium laptops make up 20 percent of the market — the Pixelbook is its latest attempt to get a piece of that pie.

Hardware

The Pixelbook makes a striking first impression, with a design that borrows heavily from Google’s Pixel smartphones. The whole computer is made up of silver aluminum matched with white accents. On the lid, it’s made of glass, which helps let WiFi signals through. The bottom of the laptop (not a part of the computer we look at very often) has a matching white panel, but it’s made of plastic rather than glass. Along the edges you’ll find a power button, a volume rocker, a headphone jack and two USB-C ports.

Open up the Pixelbook and you’ll find another white panel that makes up the trackpad and palmrests. The palmrests are raised, which keeps the keyboard from touching the screen when the Pixelbook is closed. They’re also made of a soft plastic that’s much more comfortable than resting your wrists on the sharp aluminum of a MacBook. It’s a similar effect to what Microsoft achieved by covering the Surface Laptop with soft, Alcantra fabric. I am concerned the pure white rests will get grubby after extended typing sessions — hopefully they’re easy to clean.

Like many other Chromebooks, the Pixelbook has a 360-degree hinge that lets you use the computer in four different modes: Laptop, tablet, tent (with the hinge pointed up in the air) and “entertainment” (with the keyboard folded underneath). The latter two modes are functionally indistinguishable and not all that useful, honestly. But given the number of computers that offer these options there must be someone who appreciates it.

As with most other convertible laptops, I find using the Pixelbook in tablet mode to be… fine. At 2.4 pounds, the Pixelbook is a light laptop but a heavy and awkward tablet. I don’t mind holding my one-pound iPad Pro for hours at a time on a flight watching movies or playing games, but I wouldn’t do the same with this computer.

In laptop mode, the Pixelbook shines. The keyboard is totally different than the one found on the original Pixel, but it’s almost as good. Since the Pixelbook is so much thinner, the keys only have 0.8mm of travel, but there’s none of the shallow feeling that you find on Apple’s newer MacBooks. Instead, the keys are soft but not squishy and very quiet. Despite the fact that the Pixelbook is essentially the same size as Samsung’s Chromebook Pro, the keyboard on Google’s machine is much, much better. Nothing is cramped, all the keys are big enough, and there’s even a nice backlight. I happily typed away on this computer for hours at a time and had zero issues.

Sadly, the trackpad isn’t quite as good. Basically all other laptops have a small bit of space between the end of the trackpad and the edge of the laptop’s body. The Pixelbook doesn’t, and I was surprised at how much that bothered me, particularly when the computer was in my lap. Compounding the problem was a feeling that the trackpad was positioned too low on the Pixelbook. I wish that the entire trackpad and keyboard assembly was moved up just a bit from the Pixelbook’s edge. The good news is that the trackpad itself is very responsive, it’s just not the most comfortable to use.

One of the reasons I had such an irrational love of the original Pixel laptop was its screen. Not only was it gorgeous, it also had a somewhat-rare 3:2 aspect ratio. While most laptops go for 16:9, the Pixel’s screen was taller and better for browsing the web and writing. The Pixelbook keeps that ratio, but the smaller 12.3-inch touchscreen (the original Pixel had a display closer to 13 inches) means that the resolution has decreased to 2,400 x 1,600, from 2,560 x 1,700. That slight loss of pixels is enough to make the Pixelbook’s screen feel a little cramped, especially when using it at the default scaled resolution of 1,200 x 800.

Otherwise, it’s a very bright and crisp display with excellent color reproduction and viewing angles. It doesn’t feel overly saturated, but the great contrast helps make colors pop. Some have complained about the large bezel surrounding the display, but for a convertible device meant to be used as a tablet, it’s not terribly surprising.

Performance and battery life

Most Chromebooks don’t use powerful processors, but the Pixelbook is an exception. The base $999 model includes a quad-core Intel Core i5 processor paired with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It’s the first Chromebook with that much storage, which allows users to install more Android apps and save more files offline. The $1,199 model I tested sticks with the same processor and RAM but bumps the storage to 256GB. And if you’re feeling particularly crazy, you can spend $1,649 on a Pixelbook with a Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.

For most users, the entry-level model should be more than sufficient. I never came close to filling up the SSD, and performance was outstanding. I typically run several Chrome windows with no less than a dozen tabs in each, along with web apps for Tweetdeck, Todoist, Google Play Music, Google Keep, Hangouts and Slack. I never ran into any slowdowns or stutters, and the extra horsepower kept Android apps working faster and smoother than I’ve seen on any Chromebook. I was even able to dive into fairly graphics-intense games like Asphalt 8 while keeping the rest of my windows and web apps running without performance taking a hit.

Unfortunately, that performance comes at the cost of battery life. Despite Google’s claims that the Pixelbook lasts 10 hours between charges, we got just under eight hours in our standard battery test (looping a 1080p video with brightness set to 66 percent). Under my actual workday routine it fared even worse — I typically needed the charger after about six hours. It’s disappointing, but in line with what other Chromebooks with less powerful processors offer these days.

One bit of good news is that the Pixelbook charges very quickly with its included USB-C power adapter. Google says that plugging in for 15 minutes will get you through two hours of work, which was accurate in my tests. Powering back up to 95 percent took about an hour and change all told, which is pretty quick. I just wish that it didn’t drain quite so fast — and that Google provided better battery estimates so I didn’t get my hopes up to begin with.

Software

As usual, Google made a few tweaks to Chrome OS to go along with the new hardware. The biggest is easily the addition of the Google Assistant. Once you get the Pixelbook set up, say “OK, Google”, and it’ll respond just like an Android phone or Google Home. The Assistant lives in a little window that pops up in the lower left hand side of the screen; it reminds me a bit of the Siri window that slides in on a Mac or Google’s Allo chat app.

There are multiple ways to access the Google Assistant — you can say “OK, Google,” or hit a dedicated key (it’s basically the Chromebook equivalent of the Windows key). The Assistant is smart enough to open the various apps on your Pixelbook needed to answer your queries. When I told it to play Stranger Things on Netflix, the Android app opened up right to the show’s episode list. If you ask for a movie, playback will start right away. The same goes for music; ask for tunes and the Assistant will open up your music app of choice and start playing.

Other than the Assistant, you won’t notice many changes to Chrome OS. Google redesigned the app launcher — again — to make it look like the Android app menu. There’s a handful of recently launched apps at the top, followed by the full list of everything installed on your Pixelbook.

The Pixelbook features the Google Play Store, which is finally out of beta. The combo of the Google Assistant and improved Android apps makes the whole Chrome OS experience feel more complete. Even though I mostly used web apps on the Pixelbook, having the option to open up responsive versions of Lightroom or Microsoft Office was definitely helpful, even just the mobile versions.

Android tablets never took off because too few apps were designed for large screens, but on the Pixelbook, running some apps in “phone” mode can be useful. Having Facebook Messenger running on the side of my screen just makes sense, for example. I also liked having the Todoist app running in a little phone-sized window so I always had my current task list handy.

Even though I did almost everything on the Pixelbook over the last few weeks, I still needed my MacBook Air to get photos edited, resized and watermarked for this review. Basic photo clean up is possible with apps like Lightroom and Snapseed, but professionals will still feel hamstrung. And video editing is still basically impossible.

Pixelbook Pen

The last piece of the PIxelbook story is the Pixelbook Pen. It’s a pressure- and tilt-enabled stylus that uses Wacom technology. Unfortunately it is not included with the Pixelbook. You’ll have to shell out an extra $99 for it. The Pen’s most unique feature is that it offers another way to interact with the Google Assistant. Pressing and holding a button the side of the Pen and then circling something on your screen will prompt the Assistant to search for information related to what you highlighted.

If you circle an album cover, for example, Assistant will bring up info on the artist along with links to find out tour dates and so on. Sadly, it’s not hard to confuse the Assistant — it had a hard time recognizing an image of Google’s own Pixel 2. To be fair, the phone is just a black rectangle, but it shows how tricky image recognition can be.

Otherwise, you can do typical stylus things with the Pixelbook Pen, like taking notes and sketching. Google claims that the Pen’s latency is only 10ms, but I found performance to be a disappointment. When taking notes in Google Keep, there was significant lag; writing on the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil or on the Surface Pro with Microsoft’s Surface Pen was definitely a better experience. Noticeable lag showed up when I tried making some crude drawings in various apps like Painter, ArtCanvas and ArtFlow. That said, it appears the Pixelbook Pen can achieve low-latency results if the app is properly tuned. I tried a beta version of the Squid note-taking app, and it was notably better than Keep.

For now, the Pixelbook Pen isn’t a must-buy. I like using it to grab screenshots and mark them up, but I’m not much for using a stylus to take notes — I’d rather just type them out, particularly when the input is laggy. The Google Assistant features are fun, but not essential. Think hard before shelling out money for it, chances are you’ll get by just fine without it.

The competition

The Pixelbook doesn’t have any real direct competition — no one else is making Chromebooks quite like this. The best Chromebook on the market is probably the Asus Chromebook Flip C302, which costs less than half of what the Pixelbook will run you. But it doesn’t have a stylus and its screen isn’t nearly as good as the one on the Pixelbook. Its construction feels much less solid, but that’s par for the course on a $479 computer. It’s still an excellent machine for people who want to get the Chrome OS experience without breaking the bank. If you have to have stylus support, Samsung’s Chromebook Pro and Chromebook Plus are worth taking a look at. The keyboard and battery life are let downs, but they’re both still solid machines.

Outside the Chromebook space, Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop is the same price as the Pixelbook. It’s similarly well-designed and powerful and has battery life that is essentially unmatched. You get a lot of computer for your money and it also can run any software in the Windows Store. Shelling out a little cash to upgrade the limited Windows 10S to the full version of Windows 10 gives you access to all programs for the platform. It won’t run Android apps, but that’s not a concern when you have the breadth and depth of Windows available.

Wrap up

The question is the same one we asked of the Chromebook Pixel: Is it worth spending $1,000 on a laptop running Chrome OS? The answer this time is different: Yes… with a couple of caveats.

Photo and video editors as well as serious gamers will still need to look at more traditional options. But, anyone else looking for a high-quality laptop should give it real consideration. In the last two and a half years, Chromebooks have become more popular and many essential services work perfectly well in a browser. Plus, Android apps on Chrome are finally a real and useful thing

Look, computers with this level of design and specs don’t come cheap. The Pixelbook is among the best laptops I’ve used in a long time. It’s thin, light, fanless, powerful, comfortable to use and beautiful to look at. Unless you need a full-featured Mac or Windows PC, the Pixelbook is worth the price.

Uber faces another lawsuit alleging gender and race discrimination

Things have been relatively quiet on the Uber front recently, at least in regard to lawsuits, as CEO Dara Khosrowshahi gets his new house in order. That changed today, as Reuters reports that three female engineers are suing Uber for racial and gender discrimination. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday at California’s Superior Court in San Francisco.

The women, Ingrid Avedano, Roxana del Toro Lopez and Ana Medina, are software engineers who identify as Latina. They assert that Uber’s employee ranking system favors men, white and Asian employees, rather than being based on “reliable performance measures,” according to Reuters.

They claim that women, black and Latino/Latina employees are not granted pay raises, bonuses, stock, benefits and other wages and compensation because of the preference Uber gives men and white and Asian employees. The three engineers say that this has made it more difficult to advance at the company and, as a result, their jobs consist of more menial tasks than their male and white/Asian peers.

It’s too early to tell what will happen here, but Uber has a terrible track record of sexual harassment and gender discrimination, so much so that former CEO Travis Kalanick was forced to leave the company. Clearly it’s going to take awhile for the company to clean up its act — if that’s even possible, considering how entrenched toxicity is in Uber’s company culture.

Source: Reuters

Developer Warns That Granting iPhone Camera Permissions Allows Apps to Secretly Capture You

Following the demonstration of a phishing attack that used Apple-style password requests to get into an iPhone user’s Apple ID account, developer Felix Krause this week has detailed another proof-of-concept project, this time focused on the iPhone’s cameras.

Krause warned that any time you grant an app permission to access your iPhone’s front and back cameras, the app can secretly take pictures and videos of you as long as it’s running in the foreground (via Motherboard).

Similar to his previous blog post, Krause’s camera privacy project isn’t about disclosing a new iOS bug, but more about warning users that this kind of privacy violation is possible within iOS. Many apps regularly request permission to the camera in iOS, allowing users to post photos from their Camera Roll, take a picture within the app without leaving it, and more.

Krause explained that with these permissions granted to a malicious app, the iPhone’s front and back cameras can be turned on when that app is running. From there it could record content, upload it online, and even run real-time facial recognition software to detect emotions, all without indicating that your iPhone is recording you or your surroundings.

Image via Felix Krause
Krause created a demo called watch.user to further emphasize his point, creating a fake social network app that tracks the user. As you browse, Krause explained, “you’ll suddenly see pictures of yourself, taken a few seconds ago while you scrolled through the feed.” In the image above, he explained that with a vision framework in iOS 11 a developer could even map someone’s face to track their expressions, and Krause’s mapping software displayed a corresponding emoji as a further proof of concept.

The developer said that there are “only a few things you can do” to potentially prevent this from happening, including purchasing camera covers to place over your iPhone’s lenses. Otherwise, you have to revoke camera access for all apps — which would greatly hinder the usefulness of many apps — and instead always use Apple’s built-in Camera app.

Krause reported the issue to Apple, and mentioned a few ways it could be potentially addressed:

– Offer a way to grant temporary access to the camera (e.g. to take and share one picture with a friend on a messaging app), related to detect.location.

– Show an icon in the status bar that the camera is active, and force the status bar to be visible whenever an app accesses the camera

– Add an LED to the iPhone’s camera (both sides) that can’t be worked around by sandboxed apps, which is the elegant solution that the MacBook uses

To double check which apps have access to your iPhone’s cameras and photo library, navigate to the Settings app in iOS, tap Privacy, and there you’ll find Photos and Camera. Apps that you’ve granted access to each will be listed, and you can change settings with toggles or choosing to “Never” allow access. As a point of emphasis, Krause’s project isn’t a bug or a major security breach you need to worry about, but it is a good reminder to ensure the apps you grant camera access to are trustworthy.

Related Roundups: iPhone 8, iOS 11Buyer’s Guide: iPhone 8 (Buy Now)
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The Morning After: Thursday, October 26th 2017

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

It’s the end of the road for Kinect, and Google’s testing an update for Android that Pixel 2 owners will be very interested in.

The iPhone X is almost here.Apple denies reports that it altered Face ID specs

Pre-orders for the iPhone X open up Friday morning at 3 AM ET, but according to rumors, the supply for Apple’s premium phone will be tight. Bloomberg reports from the factory saying that the company relaxed specs for Face ID to help boost production — a claim that Apple quickly denied as “completely false.” Whatever the truth is, that OLED-screened iPhone is almost here, and it will probably be difficult to get — at least at first.

That’s it.Microsoft ceases production of the Kinect

In interviews with Co.Design, Microsoft revealed that manufacturing for its Kinect sensors has ceased. While retailers will continue to sell off stock, that’s the end for the device that launched as an accessory for the Xbox 360 and moved a reported 35 million units. Despite later launching as a pack-in with the Xbox One, support and popularity have dwindled, and Microsoft’s attention has moved on to platforms like Windows Mixed Reality. Meanwhile, PrimeSense — the company responsible for tech used in the original Kinect — was acquired by Apple, where it’s being used to make FaceID work.

Oreo update.Android 8.1 preview unlocks your Pixel 2 camera’s AI potential

We’ve barely gotten a taste of Android 8.0, but Google is already working on the next edition. The feature we’re most excited about? Pixel Visual Core support for third-party apps, which will let any camera app use the phone’s AI chip for stuff like HDR+ photography.

How much do you trust your courier?Amazon Key opens your home for indoor deliveries

Amazon’s latest innovation for Prime members is a little different. The Key service uses an Amazon security camera and approved Smart Lock to let delivery people and other service providers into your home even when you’re not around. The camera records their entry and exit, while to gain entry they’ll use, when necessary, apps on their phone, which can be tied to something like the barcode on a package. We don’t see how this could go wrong.

Canto means ‘I sing.’Nissan’s EVs will swap engine noises for a ‘song’

DoT rules say that EVs and hybrids need to make noise to alert pedestrians, and Nissan has come up with an interesting solution — take a listen.

But wait, there’s more…

• Verizon will allow 4K video streaming… for $10 extra a month
• Netflix’s ‘Bright’ movie has a new trailer and release date: December 22nd
• AT&T looks to DirecTV Now as customers ditch satellite
• AT&T’s ‘5G Evolution’ mobile hotspot promises twice the speed of LTE

The Morning After is a new daily newsletter from Engadget designed to help you fight off FOMO. Who knows what you’ll miss if you don’t subscribe.

Facebook will pull used car ads into its Marketplace

Facebook Marketplace has been around for a year now. In that time, the social network has gotten a firm grasp on what users are buying and selling on its Craigslist rival. (It’s also made sure to stop you from hocking certain things like, ahem, hedgehogs). But, cute critters were always going to be a niche category anyway. What’s really popping on Marketplace are cars. And, soon Facebook will give you even more ways to track down and purchase vehicles. It’s integrating listings from leading car sales and research websites (including Edmunds, Cars.com, Auction123, CDK Global and SocialDealer) to help you find your next ride.

Facebook’s enhanced vehicles section, stocked with cars from an exhaustive amount of auto dealers, will land on Marketplace in the coming weeks. With it, you’ll be able to filter rides by make, model, year, mileage, type, and transmission — just as you would on a typical listings site. Plus, you’ll be able to consult Kelley Blue Book’s valuations to make sure you’re getting the best deal. And, if you require one-to-one assistance, dealership reps will be lurking in Messenger to help you with your purchase (which sounds better than being hounded in a used car lot).

The vehicles update is limited to the US. But, Facebook says it’s working on other features (such as jobs, event tickets, and home rentals) for its wider community.

Logitech’s Circle cameras now obey Google Assistant commands

Checking what your Logitech Circle cameras are seeing could be as simple as barking out a simple voice command — so long as you have all the necessary devices. The home security cameras now work with Google Assistant, though you’ll of course need to have a Home speaker, an Android phone or an iPhone loaded with the voice assistant’s app. You’ll also need a Chromecast or a TV with built-in Chromecast capability to view the live video feed from your camera.

If you already have all those, then you simply have to say “Ok Google, show me the front door camera” to watch what’s going on in front of your house. Replace front door with “backyard” or any other location where you placed one of Logitech’s cams. The feature is now available in the US for both Circle 2 and the original Circle cameras, whether wired or wireless. Logitech says the integration will make its way to other countries in the future, as well.

Source: Logitech

BT is slashing the price of line rental for landline-only customers

A BT landline costs £19 per month, and that’s without any kind of free calls package added on top. The cost is easy to ignore when it’s absorbed into a TV and broadband package for £38.49 per month, but customers that only have a landline end up paying over half that price for just the one, essential utility. From April 2018, however, landline-only customers on BT — of which there are around a million — will start paying just £12 per month for line rental. That £7 per month price cut equates to a saving of £84 per year, and you can thank telecoms regulator Ofcom for that.

Ofcom decided the landline-only market needed some extra regulation earlier this year, noting that the cost of line rental had steadily increased in recent history while the cost of providing the basic service had fallen. Many landline-only subscribers are elderly or considered vulnerable, and Ofcom thought it only fair pricing was readjusted so customers that didn’t want a TV or internet bundle could get better-value line rental. BT already offers special, low rates to certain socially excluded and vulnerable customers, but next year’s price cut will cover a broader demographic.

There are roughly 1.5 million landline-only customers throughout the UK, two-thirds of which get their service from BT. Thus, Ofcom first proposed a price cut in late February this year that BT subsequently committed to, and it’s hoped that other providers will take similar steps for their landline-only patrons following BT’s lead. Not only will line rental for these BT households reflect a backpedal to 2009-era pricing, but monthly service and call cost increases will now be capped in line with inflation.

Source: Ofcom