OnePlus 5T review: Potent power at a practical price
For the past four years, whenever I’ve been asked where to find a good deal on a smartphone, “OnePlus” has been one of the first words out of my mouth. The company has made a name for itself by building impressive phones that it sells at impressively low prices – and the OnePlus 5T is the latest in that lineup. With an enlarged 18:9 AMOLED display and a revised camera that dedicates an entire half of its optics to low light, the OnePlus 5T is a promising contender. But here’s the thing: at $499 to start, the 5T is also the most expensive OnePlus phone to date.
With affordable phones getting better every month and vendors like Amazon lowering prices in exchange for lock screen ad space, $499 feels like a lot to ask for a phone family that used to start a full two Benjamins cheaper. Find out if the latest from the “Flagship Killer” is worth your dough in MrMobile’s OnePlus 5T Review – and then check out Andrew Martonik’s full review right here on Android Central!
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The Morning After: Tuesday, November 21st 2017
Hey, good morning!
This Tuesday, we’re testing concrete speakers, blissful Dreamcast games reimagined in VR, and a robot that will copy your moves.
Get your letters ready.
The FCC’s plan to undo net neutrality is about to be revealed
According to reports, Ajit Pai will unveil the details of his plan to roll back Title II net neutrality protections later today. Timed during a short holiday week, the plan is expected to follow what we heard in April — with rules preventing ISPs from blocking, slowing down or charging extra for different kinds of content removed, and responsibility for managing disputes pushed to the FTC.
Concrete speakers are heavy on the wallet.
Master & Dynamic’s concrete speaker is equal parts sound and spectacle
If you’re a fan of well-designed headphones that have a unique aesthetic, Master & Dynamic should be at the top of your list. Earlier this year, the company ventured into another product category: wireless speakers. In true M&D fashion, it didn’t cut corners on design, materials or sound, and even opted to make its first model out of concrete. It looks great and, as Billy Steele discovered after spending several weeks with one, the MA770 is more than capable when it comes to audio quality. But, it’s not for everyone.
Remote control.
Toyota’s T-HR3 robot mimics your movements
While Toyota’s third-generation humanoid robot doesn’t do backflips, it is capable of copying a human operator’s movements. The control unit not only sends motions, it also provides force feedback motors to enable precise control, and a head-mounted display to see what the robot is seeing.
NFC would’ve been nice.
Honor’s 7X is a big, unremarkable mid-range phone
It’s no wonder Huawei’s been the third-biggest smartphone manufacturer in the world for so long now. The company releases so many of the things, it’s hard to keep track. Following Huawei’s recent launch of the Mate 10, it’s now sub-brand Honor’s turn to welcome a new device to its ranks: the Honor 7X. It’s designed to succeed the year-old 6X, which offered dual-camera tricks at a mid-range price. The 7X has a key selling point of its own, too, in the form of a big ol’ 5.93-inch FullView display.
You don’t need to be tethered to experience virtual bliss.
‘Rez Infinite’ arrives on your phone through Daydream VR
Rez in VR is pretty amazing, and now one of PlayStation VR’s best games is available on Android phones that are compatible with Daydream. There’s a free-to-play demo, but you’re going to be laying down cash for it, who are we kidding?
But wait, there’s more…
- What we’re buying: Lightroom on a new iPhone, Google’s Pixel 2 cases
- What’s on TV: ‘Godless,’ ‘Marvel’s Runaways’
- DOJ slaps AT&T with antitrust lawsuit over Time Warner purchase
- DJI threatens legal action after researcher reports bug
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UK government issues advice on what makes ‘Kodi boxes’ illegal
While streaming services like Netflix and Spotify have provided easy (and affordable) ways for Britons to enjoy legal content in their homes, the UK government is still waging war against what it calls “illicit streaming devices.” This week, the Intellectual Property Office published official guidance on such hardware, reiterating that streaming copyrighted material via an Android TV steamer or so called “Kodi box” is illegal and that any offending add-ons or software should immediately be removed.
While streaming boxes — like a Raspberry Pi, Amazon Fire Stick or a variety of Android-powered streamers — are completely legal, they immediately become “illicit” the minute they are used to serve TV shows, movies and subscription sports channels without the necessary subscription. Over the past year, there has been a significant rise in the listing of “Fully Loaded”, “Jailbroken” or “Plug and Play” streamers on marketplaces like eBay, which are sold with the intention of facilitating piracy.
The IPO argues that not only does the use of illicit streamers deprive the UK’s creative industries of revenue that could be used to fund new TV shows, films and sporting coverage, but that such devices often come without adequate parental controls or are unsafe. Streaming boxes shipped from outside the European Union may not have passed the required safety standards, putting owners at risk of household fires.
Much of the talk around illegal streaming centres on Kodi, a free and legitimate piece of media software that allows enthusiasts to easily organise the media they own. Third-party developers can create their own add-ons for the platform, which has led to a boom in the illegal streaming of movies, TV shows and live sports. Rightholders have begun to strike back, though, after an anti-piracy alliance supported by many major US and UK movie studios, broadcasters and content providers recently shut down some of the most popular piracy-enabling tools on the platform.
The IPO clearly states that Kodi, by itself, isn’t to blame, but that online sellers or tech-savvy consumers are specifically adapting legal software to create “illicit streaming devices.”
So how do you know if the set-top box underneath your TV is illegal or not? “If you are watching television programmes, films or sporting events where you would normally be paying to view them and you have not paid, you are likely to be using an illicit streaming device (ISD) or app,” the IPO says. “This could include a film recently released in the cinema, a sporting event that is being broadcast by BT Sport or a television programme, like Game of Thrones, that is only available on Sky.”
Via: TorrentFreak
Source: Intellectual Property Office
Dish customers can no longer access CBS TV channels
If you’re looking forward to watching the NFL this Thanksgiving you might find yourself stuck watching holiday reruns instead, as CBS is making good on its threat to black out dozens of channels in response to its ongoing subscription feud with Dish. According to Dish, the network last night barred customer access to 28 local channels in 18 markets across 26 states.
The two sides have locked horns over the fees CBS wants from Dish for retransmission of its content. In a statement, CBS said it had been trying for months to reach an agreement with Dish, and added that “Dish is infamous within the media industry for its long history of disputes with content providers”. Dish responded by claiming CBS is attempting to “tax” customers on programming that’s losing viewers, and that it’s “regrettable and unnecessary that CBS is bringing its greed into the homes of millions of families this Thanksgiving”.
Much of CBS’s local programming is available for free over-the-air (OTA), and Dish is offering its customers digital OTA antennas at no cost, so they can continue to access news, popular network shows and sports from CBS. But those that rely on their pay-TV package to get these stations will just have to sit tight until an agreement is reached — and it seems unlikely that will happen any time soon.
Source: BusinessWire
Overhauled Scrivener 3 Writing Suite for macOS Now Available
Popular long-form writing suite Scrivener reached a significant milestone late on Monday, with the long-awaited release of its third major iteration since its debut on Mac over a decade ago. Scrivener 3 brings a host of new features and improvements, including an overhauled interface with a more modern look, and a Compile system that is easier to use but also more flexible.
The Compile window has been redesigned to present users with formatting options for exporting their project, a preview pane, and settings for the project, offering a more streamlined system for regular users but also quick access to more advanced options. In addition, support for ePub 3 and enhanced compatibility with the Kindle format are also now available.
Meanwhile, a new bookmarking feature in Scrivener’s Inspector pane works as a powerful cross-referencing tool, by allowing users to link individual documents in a project to other documents, to other locations on a Mac, or even to locations online.
The application’s metadata fields have also been improved, so that users can now use multiple-choice lists, customizable checkboxes, and dates to help organize their documents and research. Both the metadata fields and the aforementioned new bookmarking feature integrate into Scrivener’s existing outliner view as well as its search function, making both features more powerful than ever before.
Elsewhere, there’s a new, more comprehensive system for styling text in documents, additional writing statistics for keeping track of progress, and a new “Copyholder” feature that enables users to refer to up to four documents in the main window. Draft and session progress bars have been added to the toolbar, while a new “Dialogue Focus” function highlights only dialogue in text. Lastly, the entire app codebase has been re-written for 64-bit, and extensive Touch Bar support has been added.
Scrivener 3 is available now on macOS for $45 from the Literature and Latte website. Customers with an earlier version of Scrivener for macOS that was bought through the web store are eligible for an upgrade discount. Users who purchased Scrivener 2 on or after August 20, 2017, can update to Scrivener 3 for free. Scrivener 1 or 2 users who purchased before that date, can update to Scrivener 3 for the discounted price of $25.
Tag: Scrivener
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iMac Pro Could Include Mobile Connectivity for ‘Always On’ Theft Protection
A new blog post over at Pike’s Universum, a site known for digging deeper into Mac firmware files, claims to have found data relating to some form of mobile connectivity in the upcoming iMac Pro that could be used for “advanced theft protection” similar to Apple’s Find my iPhone service.
Even the cheapest iMac Pro costs $4999 and is thus far more expensive than any other iMac model that is now available, let alone the top of the line one with a price tag north of $15K, and it is so easy to walk away with a 27-inch computer, and that may be why Apple is going to introduce a new kind of “Find my iMac Pro” type of theft protection. One that phones home to report the exact GPS location. And there’s no way of switching it off…
The post goes on to suggest that the data could alternatively relate to a new feature in the iMac Pro that uses a SIM card to make phone calls. “Or perhaps the data that I found has to be a leftover from iOS for the iPhone,” ends the post, qualifying the claims as speculation at this point.
No further details on the uncovered data in the iMac Pro firmware were forthcoming, but Pike’s Universum has offered relevant information in the past. The site revealed some of the iMac Pro’s tech specs back in April, two months prior to it being announced, including that it would have Xeon processors, ECC RAM, faster SSD storage, AMD graphics options, and Thunderbolt 3 ports, although some of the specific details were inaccurate.
Later, in June, the site claimed that files in a macOS High Sierra developer beta suggested the iMac Pro could be powered by Intel’s next-generation server-grade Skylake-EX and Skylake-EP processors, which are based on a platform codenamed “Purley.” The blog added that the new iMac Pro also appears to be coming with a Secure Enclave, suggesting it will have an ARM coprocessor like the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar for added security.
Over the weekend, several developers discovered data in Apple’s BridgeOS code that suggests the upcoming iMac Pro will feature an A10 Fusion chip with 512 MB of RAM. While the full functionality of the A10 chip isn’t yet known, the chip will enable support for “Hey Siri” functionality, potentially even when the iMac Pro is turned off.
Unveiled at WWDC in June, the iMac Pro is scheduled to launch next month, but Apple has not yet provided a specific launch date for the high-end desktop.
Related Roundup: iMac ProTag: Pike’s Universum
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‘Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp’ Begins Early Worldwide Rollout on the iOS App Store
One month after its announcement during a Nintendo Direct in late October, Nintendo today has begun rolling out Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp onto iOS [Direct Link] and Android devices worldwide, following a limited soft launch in Australia. The game was announced to be coming out tomorrow, November 22, but it has begun appearing on the iOS App Store for some users in the United States, United Kingdom, and France, and potentially other markets where it is launching.
The new game is Nintendo’s fourth mobile app created in partnership with developer DeNA and follows Miitomo (launched March 2016), Super Mario Run (December 2016), and Fire Emblem Heroes (February 2017).
Similar to the latter two games, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is a mobile-optimized version of its franchise’s larger console games, and introduces a few new features into the traditional Animal Crossing gameplay to streamline certain actions for one-handed smartphone sessions. For example, both fishing and bug hunting are as simple as tapping on the screen, and the world that the player occupies — centered around a campsite — is scaled down from the villages of games like New Leaf and Wild World.
The main mechanic of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp centers on convincing animal villagers to stick around at your campsite by foraging for materials and crafting their favorite furniture. Outside of the camp, there is also a beach, river, island, and other areas that are accessible through your camper, which you can also customize and decorate to your liking. Additionally, you can visit your real friends to check out their camps to give them “kudos” on their decorations and see what items they’re selling in their Market Box.
Any time you visit Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, the game will reflect the time of day and current season of the real world, and Nintendo has said it will be launching seasonal events over the holidays with exclusive furniture, outfits, and item decorations for players to collect.
Images via Touch Arcade
Nintendo’s latest smartphone game is free-to-play and uses optional “Leaf Tickets” as in-game currency, but our sister site Touch Arcade got hands-on time with the game in October and found very little reason to spend real money in the game, thanks to gameplay systems that eventually reward players with the items they want if they put in the time to get them.
You can also spend Leaf Tickets to craft any furniture you might not have the materials for, but again, the first session of the game sprays so many of these different things at you that you’re really going to need to play the game for a while before you’re running low on anything.
There’s other “cheater” items (and I’m saying “cheater” with the absolute most exaggerated air quotes imaginable) that you can buy with Leaf Tickets too like fishing nets and honey, which are used to catch loads of fish or bugs in one go- But, it seemed like if I wanted to invest the time I could just fish and catch bugs all day, so this seems like a real weird way to spend premium currency.
Players should note that Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp requires a “persistent internet” connection — mentioned in the game’s “digest” trailer — which seems to be similar to the always online requirement of Super Mario Run. At the time of Super Mario Run’s launch, Shigeru Miyamoto said that Nintendo’s reasoning behind this move is to “support security” and prevent piracy.
Looking ahead, Nintendo’s next mobile game is rumored to be set within The Legend of Zelda universe, although it’s still unclear exactly what the gameplay would be for that app.
For more information on Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, head to Nintendo’s website, and you can download the game on the iOS App Store for free beginning today [Direct Link]. For those playing on iPhone X, the game has been optimized to support the 5.8-inch display of Apple’s new smartphone.
Tags: Nintendo, Animal Crossing, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
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Now some of London’s buses use coffee to get started each morning
It’s no longer just humans that use coffee to get started each morning. Now some of London’s buses are guzzling the liquid lightning to fire up their engines at the beginning of their daily rounds.
OK, they’re not downing the Starbucks stuff or anything made at the city’s plethora of indie coffee shops. Instead, they’re making use of a biofuel made from oil extracted from waste coffee grounds.
The project is the result of a collaboration between recycling firm Bio-bean, Shell, and Argent Energy.
Brits drink more than 50 million cups of coffee a day, which in London alone creates more than 200,000 tons of coffee waste a year, according to Bio-Bean.
To make the fuel, Bio-bean collects waste from cafes and factories that produce instant coffee, and extracts oil from it at its processing plant. After mixing it with diesel, the result is a B20 biofuel containing a 20 percent bio-component that includes the coffee oil.
It reduces CO2 emissions by around 10 to 15 percent compared with traditional mineral diesel, and prevents waste coffee from ending up in landfill where it releases harmful methane. And importantly, London buses can use the fuel without the need for any engine modification.
“It’s a great example of what can be done when we start to reimagine waste as an untapped resource,” said Bio-bean founder Arthur Kay.
Bio-bean said that so far, 6,000 liters of coffee oil has been produced. If this was used as a pure-blend for the bio component and mixed with mineral diesel to form a B20, it “could help power the equivalent of one London bus for a year.”
If the project stays on track, the coffee-based biofuel could one day power up to a third of London’s buses and have a meaningful impact on pollution levels in the capital city, among other advantages.
“The poo bus”
It’s not the first time that Brits have utilized waste products to power their buses, though a trial effort in 2014 was rather more, shall we say, stinky. Dubbed “the poo bus,” the 40-seat vehicle ran solely on biomethane gas generated from human sewage and food waste.
It could travel up to 184 miles on a single tank of the gas, which was generated via a treatment process known as ‘anaerobic digestion.’
Importantly, it produced far fewer emissions (pun very much intended) than regular diesel engines, helping to improve the surrounding air quality. And in case you’re wondering, the bus filtered out impurities, so pedestrians didn’t have to hold their nose when the bus trundled by.
Sadly, the plan to extend the fleet of poo buses went down the toilet last year when the operator failed to win vital funding from the government.
KFC’s ‘Internet Escape Pod’ offers an oasis of calm in Colonel Sanders’ embrace
With Cyber Monday just around the corner, things are about to get crazy in busy homes across the land with everyone jumping online, hitting their top shopping sites, and ordering stuff they don’t need.
If the mayhem gets all too much, KFC suggests you climb inside its absurd Internet Escape Pod for some peace and quiet. It’s a Faraday cage of sorts, with its frame of stainless steel mesh designed to prevent any gadgets taken inside it from connecting to the internet.
With “a hailstorm of coupons, BOGOs, hot dealz, and brand advertising” coming your way this Monday, pod owners will be able to seek sanctuary in the protective embrace of Colonel Sanders. Yes, that’s him lying on top of the pod, though it has to be said, he looks rather slimmer than the regular Colonel we’ve come to know and love. And goodness knows what’s happened to his arms.
KFC
The pod weighs eight pounds and besides the steel mesh consists of high-density foam and enamel paint. The door handle (pictured) is a chicken drumstick. We’re assuming it’s fake.
KFC’s Internet Escape Pod costs a mere $10,000, or in KFC currency, around 400 eight-piece family meals.
It seems as if there’s only one pod available, and the product isn’t sold out yet, which tells you something about its popularity.
If you are the one that orders it, bear in mind that shipping is likely to take a week, so having it ready in time for Cyber Monday could be a close run thing.
A cheaper way of staying offline on Monday would be to go for a stroll and leave your phone at home, or, if you need to stay in, to turn off your connected devices. But then you might miss out on all those bargains …
KFC’s marketing team sure likes to enjoy itself. From sending its Zinger sandwich into space for no good reason (with the help of Rob Lowe), to the launch of a metal tray that also acts as a Bluetooth keyboard for your phone, to a Gamer’s Box with a built-in controller and smartphone mount, the company clearly likes to have fun with its promotions.
Although not all of its decisions turn out for the best.
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Toyota’s T-HR3 robot mimics your movements
While Honda’s ASIMO has taken much of the attention for automaker-built robots, Toyota has been working on humanoid helpers of its own for years, and now it’s unveiling a third-generation model. The THR-3 expands on previous models built to test specific joints and movements by putting together a full body to be controlled by a human operating its Master Maneuvering System. The force feedback-enabled control system includes a head-mounted display (HTC Vive), “data glove” and torque servos that allows the operator to “instantly manipulate” the robot by mapping their motions and force precisely.
The 5-foot-tall, 165 lb robot is still intended as a test platform, but the idea is to build on this with robots that “home, medical facilities, construction sites, disaster-stricken areas and even outer space.” The video shows off T-HR3 practicing its balance, and sensitively picking up a ball without popping it, although there’s nothing in the demo that matches the backflipping Boston Dynamics robot — yet. That may explain why Toyota also pursued acquiring the robot builder before Softbank snapped it up and still has plans to invest over a billion dollars in robots and AI research.
Source: Toyota
AIVAnet 