Experts will use 3D imaging technology to assess art damage
Preserving and restoring art is a very tricky business. Trying to maintain the balance between original work and repairing damage is difficult and oftentimes methods aren’t always agreed upon by members of the art community. This has been seen over and over again with works like Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling work. But sometimes we can catch a break when new technology helps preservers analyze and repair damage with minimal disruption to the work itself. An example of that is taking place right now as experts will soon use 3D imaging technology to assess a certain type of damage being found on a number of Georgia O’Keeffe paintings.
As the Associated Press reports, art conservation experts in Santa Fe and Chicago will use this type of technology to detect, track and analyze a particular type of chemical buildup found on many of O’Keeffe’s paintings that cause thousands of tiny blisters to form and grow. Canvases used by O’Keeffe and many other 20th century artists were primed with non-drying fats or oils and when they combine with pigments or drying agents, it can lead to a buildup of soap that causes the blisters. “They’re a little bit bigger than human hair, and you can see them with the naked eye,” Dale Kronkright, an art conservationist at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, told the AP. And when enough of those little blisters show up, they can begin to darken a painting. “Left unchecked, they will continue to grow, both grow in number and grow in size — and in damaging effect,” Konkright said.
During a two-year project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, researchers will record paintings under different light frequencies as they look for clues about the paintings’ chemical composition. That used to require removing a postage stamp-sized piece from the artwork, but with 3D imaging technology, that sort of damage can be circumvented. The researchers will also develop imaging technology that can assess the blisters’ growth. The project aims to better understand what triggers the soap formation, when it tends to happen and what determines how quickly it progresses. Ultimately, the researchers plan to create a web-based system wherein art conservationists can upload images of their paintings and get information about the risks of soap formation so that they can prevent as much damage as possible.
The project is being run by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Northwestern University and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Via: Popular Mechanics
Forever 21 breach exposed customer credit card info for months
If you shopped at a Forever 21 store this year, there’s a chance your credit card information may have been stolen, CNET reports. The retail store confirmed this week that between April 3rd and November 18th of this year, a number of point of sale terminals at stores across the US were breached. While it hasn’t provided any numbers on how many customers were affected, Forever 21 did say that in most cases, card numbers, expiration dates and verification codes, but not cardholder names, were obtained by hackers. However, in some cases names were also obtained.
Encryption is usually used by the store to protect its payment processing system, but in some stores, the encryption was sometimes off, opening up their point of sale terminals to malware. Not every terminal in every affected store was infected with the malware and not every store was impacted during the full time period of the breach. In some cases, credit card data stored in certain system logs prior to April 3rd were also exposed.
Forever 21 said payment processing systems outside of the US work differently but that it was investigating whether non-US stores were affected as well. Purchases made through its website weren’t impacted by the breach.
Chipotle and GameStop suffered similar breaches this year while hotel giant HEI announced it was hit with the same type of data breach last year.
In a statement, Forever 21 said, “In addition to addressing encryption, Forever 21 is continuing to work with security firms to enhance its security measures. We also continue to work with the payment card networks so that the banks that issue payment cards can be made aware of this incident. Lastly, we will continue to support law enforcement’s investigation of this incident.”
Via: CNET
Source: Forever 21
Future versions of Chrome OS won’t pause Android apps when switching windows
A post on Reddit reveals that the beta release of Chrome OS 64 provides true Android app multitasking using a new toggle labeled Android Parallel Tasks. To access this toggle, make sure Chrome OS is in developer mode, navigate to the Android settings, and scroll down to the bottom to toggle on the multitasking feature.
Typically, on Android phones and tablets, you see multiple apps on a list after touching the virtual Overview button. Technically, these apps are open but they remain in a paused state save for the current app displayed on the screen. That’s due to the physical size of the screen and to conserve battery power.
But with Chromebooks, the screen and batter are larger, thus pausing Android apps isn’t necessary. With Android Parallel Tasks toggled on, you can move from Android-based window to window, and each app will remain active even though they’re not your main focus. Given Windows, MacOS, and Linux provide the same multitasking experience, adding Android Parallel Tasks to Chrome OS makes perfect sense.
For example, on Android phones, if you were to have Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and a handful of other apps open, they will all pause, save for the app you currently have displayed on the screen. On a Chromebook with Chrome OS Beta 64, those same apps can appear on the screen un-paused no matter which app you are currently using. To close them, simply click on the “X” like you would on a Windows, MacOS, or Linux PC.
“I did notice that once enabled, it will cause some loading issues with the Play Store and a few other apps,” the post states. “Those will take longer to load — but they will load eventually. The toggle does, however, work as intended. V64 Beta is currently very buggy on my Pixelbook (crashes a lot with other random issues), so i would not recommend using it as a daily driver.”
In the overall epic story of Chrome OS, the Google Play Store and its suitcase of Android apps is rather new to the scene. Chrome OS was originally designed to be a lightweight, open-source operating system that relied on web-based apps. But the platform officially opened its arms to Google Play in May 2016, enabling Chromebook owners to download and install Android apps. Google followed up with Split View so that device owners could have two active Android apps running as long as they consumed one half of the screen.
Even though Android and Chrome OS are two different operating systems, the downloaded apps aren’t running on your typical CPU-hogging emulator. Instead, Chrome OS now includes technology that creates an isolated environment so that Android apps can run at “near-native” speeds. The Google Play apps are downloaded to Chromebooks along with instructions on how they should run at an optimal level.
Given support for Google Play is still relatively new, there are still a few kinks to work out. But Google’s list of Chromebooks supporting the Play Store continues to grow at a steady rate.
Editors’ Recommendations
- How to install Android apps on a Chromebook
- Chromebook multitasking to improve with ‘split view’ (with one big catch)
- Google to add Android-like in-line notification replies to Chrome OS
- More than a screenshot: Learn how to record the screen on an Android device
- From Oreo to Jelly Bean, here’s how to turn off notifications in Android
Future versions of Chrome OS won’t pause Android apps when switching windows
A post on Reddit reveals that the beta release of Chrome OS 64 provides true Android app multitasking using a new toggle labeled Android Parallel Tasks. To access this toggle, make sure Chrome OS is in developer mode, navigate to the Android settings, and scroll down to the bottom to toggle on the multitasking feature.
Typically, on Android phones and tablets, you see multiple apps on a list after touching the virtual Overview button. Technically, these apps are open but they remain in a paused state save for the current app displayed on the screen. That’s due to the physical size of the screen and to conserve battery power.
But with Chromebooks, the screen and batter are larger, thus pausing Android apps isn’t necessary. With Android Parallel Tasks toggled on, you can move from Android-based window to window, and each app will remain active even though they’re not your main focus. Given Windows, MacOS, and Linux provide the same multitasking experience, adding Android Parallel Tasks to Chrome OS makes perfect sense.
For example, on Android phones, if you were to have Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and a handful of other apps open, they will all pause, save for the app you currently have displayed on the screen. On a Chromebook with Chrome OS Beta 64, those same apps can appear on the screen un-paused no matter which app you are currently using. To close them, simply click on the “X” like you would on a Windows, MacOS, or Linux PC.
“I did notice that once enabled, it will cause some loading issues with the Play Store and a few other apps,” the post states. “Those will take longer to load — but they will load eventually. The toggle does, however, work as intended. V64 Beta is currently very buggy on my Pixelbook (crashes a lot with other random issues), so i would not recommend using it as a daily driver.”
In the overall epic story of Chrome OS, the Google Play Store and its suitcase of Android apps is rather new to the scene. Chrome OS was originally designed to be a lightweight, open-source operating system that relied on web-based apps. But the platform officially opened its arms to Google Play in May 2016, enabling Chromebook owners to download and install Android apps. Google followed up with Split View so that device owners could have two active Android apps running as long as they consumed one half of the screen.
Even though Android and Chrome OS are two different operating systems, the downloaded apps aren’t running on your typical CPU-hogging emulator. Instead, Chrome OS now includes technology that creates an isolated environment so that Android apps can run at “near-native” speeds. The Google Play apps are downloaded to Chromebooks along with instructions on how they should run at an optimal level.
Given support for Google Play is still relatively new, there are still a few kinks to work out. But Google’s list of Chromebooks supporting the Play Store continues to grow at a steady rate.
Editors’ Recommendations
- How to install Android apps on a Chromebook
- Chromebook multitasking to improve with ‘split view’ (with one big catch)
- Google to add Android-like in-line notification replies to Chrome OS
- More than a screenshot: Learn how to record the screen on an Android device
- From Oreo to Jelly Bean, here’s how to turn off notifications in Android
Watch a hybrid drone break records by hovering for more than four hours
Your typical drone has a flight time of around 25 to 30 minutes, so what would you guess a record-breaking quadcopter can manage? 45 minutes? 90 minutes? 100 minutes, even? Try four hours, 40 minutes — the record claimed by Spanish drone manufacturer Quaternium with its Hybrix.20 fuel-electric quadcopter.
“Multicopters are the preferred aerial platform for commercial applications, but their limited endurance makes them useless for many missions such as emergency response or monitoring of big infrastructures,” Alicia Fuentes, CEO of Quaternium, told Digital Trends. “This is because multicopters have been traditionally electric. In 2013, the founder of Quaternium, Jose Luis Cortés, had the vision that making them hybrid, like cars, would mean an incredible improvement in flight time. And this is what we have proven by performing a flight 10x longer with Quaternium hybrid technology.”
The drone flight took place on Christmas Eve in Valencia, Spain. The Hybrix.20 drone was able to achieve its record due to carrying an onboard combustion engine with a generator that kept the battery charged during the entire flight.
As can be seen in the video at the top of this page, the record attempt consisted of the Hybrix.20 drone hovering in the air with a clock in the foreground showing the time that elapsed. Unfortunately, it won’t be an official Guinness World Records (which lists the longest drone flight as two hours, six minutes, and seven seconds) since no officials were on hand to document it.
Does Fuentes think the company can beat its own record in 2018? “This is just the beginning,” she said. “The potential of hybrid technology for drones is huge. At Quaternium, we believe that we will all be amazed with its evolution in the short term. The hybrid race has just started. I would expect surprising improvements in 2018, not only coming from Quaternium, but from other emerging companies as well.”
While achieving records is all well and good, however, feats like this help drive drone innovation forward in a way that will be useful for everything from drone-based search-and-rescue missions and crop monitoring to drone delivery services like the fabled Amazon Prime Air.
Editors’ Recommendations
- Polaroid (yes, that Polaroid) now has four new camera drones
- Drone-owning Brits face clampdown as government moves to make skies safer
- Futuristic ‘spinning drone’ may one day fight our battles for us
- The top 10 most expensive drones that you (a civilian) can buy
- A Phantom 4 drone hit a helicopter over New York and the drone came out worse
Keep those promises with the help of these great New Year’s resolution apps
The new year is almost upon us. Hopefully, 2017 was a good year for you, but if you want to make 2018 even better, you’ll want to set up some New Year’s resolutions. What better way to achieve your resolutions than with the technology you already have at your disposal? You can use your devices to keep on track and help you achieve your goals — all you need are the right apps. Let’s take a look at some resolutions that you may have, and some of the best New Year’s resolution apps to help you achieve them.
Check out our picks for the best deals to get you ready for the new year, and if you’re buying a computer, take a look at the New Year’s resolutions for computer users.
Read more — Scribd
Scribd is definitely one of the most popular apps for accessing magazines, ebooks, graphic novels, and even audiobooks on the go. The app provides personalized recommendations, but you can also browse by topic, or explore what’s currently trending. You’ll have access to some of the most popular publications on the planet, including Bloomberg, Time Magazine, People Magazine, Fortune Magazine, Money Magazine. The app is also incredibly handy if you’re a university student since it allows you to search for dissertations, scientific studies, government reports, and even sheet music. Your unlimited selection of books will not only sync across all your devices but will be ready for you to read offline. The app is free to download and comes with a 30-day trial period, but a membership cost is $9 a month.
Download now for:
Android iOS
Learn a new language — Duolingo
So you want to learn a new language? Well, felicidades! Estamos muy orgullosos de ti! You should try Duolingo. This app will give you as much as you can handle in the form of short, lesson-orientated bursts. You can learn at a gradual pace, too, and even practice with your friends. There is a bit of gamification here, so it will feel almost as if you’re playing a game and striving to reach the next level. There are 23 languages to choose from including Spanish, Italian, French, German, Russian, Greek, and yes even English.
Download now for:
Android iOS
Set good habits — Way of Life!
The more information you provide the app, the better it will be able to help you get rid of those nasty habits in the new year. You can set up reminders and custom messages to give you that little push you need in your daily life. The app also allows you to keep journals and notes, in addition to logging your exercise, and even how much water you drink. The free version limits you to only three items you can choose to track, but you can upgrade to the premium version for $5 to get access to unlimited items.
Download now for:
Android iOS
Fall in love — 36 Questions
Do you want to fall in love? Getting to know someone can be tricky, so having some icebreakers can be helpful. These questions were created by Dr. Arthur Aron, and they’re said to make you fall in love. To get started, just read the questions and then take turns answering them honestly. Questions are in sets of three, and each question will get a bit harder to answer than the previous one.
Examples of questions you’ll answer are:
- What would constitute a perfect day for you?
- If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?
- Complete this sentence: I wish I had someone with whom I could share …
Download now for:
Android iOS
Change your career — Glassdoor
If you’re looking for a new job, or you’re thinking about changing careers, the first thing you’ll want to do is some research. Glassdoor offers much more than the latest job listings. You can check out reviews for the company, salaries, benefits, and other things that are important to you. You will also be able to use the Know Your Worth tool so that you can calculate your current market value and search average wages. You can also see what former employees have to say about a company.
Download now for:
Android iOS
Save more money — Goodbudget
Very few budgeting apps are as well rated as Goodbudget. Here you will be able to do all your money management and keep track of all your bills and expenses. You can also download them as a .csv file if you like to work on it in Excel. You also can sync a budget across multiple devices and the web. With this app, you will be able to create a budget and stick to it. It’s a great way to get your spending under control and help you achieve your budget goal.
Download now for:
Android iOS
Get in shape — Nike+ Training Club
Nike+ Run Club is a running app that takes an adaptive approach to your training. Based on your goals and fitness level, it will adapt its recommended training curriculum to better suit your progress. Not only does the app help you stay motivated by integrating with social apps like Facebook, but it will allow you to send a “shoutout” to a friend to help them stay motivated. This app is even available for Apple Watch.
Download now for:
Android iOS
Bikesharing has existed for a century, but tech is making it massive
Bikeshare is a simple concept that has been comparatively hard to implement. The basic idea is easy: there’s a supply of bikes around town, and anyone can take one and use it. When the ride is over, the rider returns the bike to the place where they picked it up, to a designated rack, or they just leave it wherever they happen to be for the next person to use.
Shared bicycle systems of various kinds have been around for over 100 years, but until recently logistical and social issues have doomed almost all idealistic bike sharing efforts all over the world. Specifically, free bikes have been stolen and vandalized so frequently that bikeshare operators soon ran out of money and patience.
Worldwide, China has far more bikeshare opportunities than most countries, but they also have the most problems. The Chinese government has encouraged entrepreneurship in the bikeshare space, to help reduce traffic congestion and air pollution. In Beijing today, there are 15 different bikeshare companies fielding an estimated 2.35 million bicycles. The city of Guangzhou has 700,000 bikes in service, accounting for about 4 million trips per day.
Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
ai Xuefei/Getty Images
However, the saturation of bicycles in some Chinese urban centers makes sidewalks and mass transit stations impassable. Chinese bikeshare users often abandon bikes in the street or on the sidewalk. Thousands of bikes have been seized and impounded by local authorities in an effort to keep Chinese cities from being buried in bikes.
European and American cities have also had their struggles, with dozens of bikeshare programs started and abandoned over the years. But that’s changing now, courtesy of the same technology that enables unattended short-term car rentals.
How modern bikeshare works
Motivate is the market leader in commercial bikeshare systems. The company currently operates bikeshare fleets in Boston, Chattanooga, Chicago, Columbus, Jersey City, New York, Portland, Washington D.C., and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Theft and vandalism nearly bankrupted bikeshare companies. Now riders have to have skin in the game.
To keep shared bikes under any kind of control, companies have to make sure the riders have skin in the game. Accountability is achieved through identification and financial responsibility. That’s why riders typically need a credit card and a smartphone app, or at least a verified member number, to rent a bike in a modern system.
When an available bike has been located, the rider reserves the bike and unlocks it either with the phone app, a card swipe, or an access code for that particular bike. The rider then uses the bike and returns it to any dock or approved alternate location and re-locks the bike. The rider is billed for the time used, plus a fee of a dollar or two if the bike is not returned to a docking station. The rider is responsible for damage to the bike, or for the full cost of the bike if it’s lost or stolen during the ride.
A typical bikeshare example
Portland, Oregon had a free bikeshare program called Yellow Bike in the 1990s. As in many other communities, the rate of theft and vandalism quickly killed Portland’s experiment. Now bikeshare is back on Portland streets, this time in a public-private partnership called Biketown. Biketown is a joint project of the Portland Bureau of Transportation, Nike, and Motivate.
“Theft is not a problem for us now,” says Tom Rousculp, Marketing Manager of Biketown. “We have a thousand bikes in our system. Over the year and a half that we’ve been operating, there are three bikes that we can’t find.”
It’s not that people in Oregon are more trustworthy now than they were 20 years ago. It’s technology.
“The real reason is that they all have GPS on them,” Rousculp reveals. “Every bike has LoJack because we need to know where it is. Riders can see where available bikes are locked through our app. But through the back end, we can see where every bike is in real time. We’ll actually get an alert if a bike has been out for longer than three hours on a single trip. We just need to know if the user has been taking a long ride around town or something.”
Having solved the big problems of theft and vandalism, Biketown also has to deal with the logistical challenges of a successful bikeshare program.
“We have a thousand bikes in our system. Over the year and a half that we’ve been operating, there are three bikes that we can’t find.”
“In the morning, people are riding in from the outskirts of downtown into the central city and you get the bikes piling up around these stations or around these transportation nodes,” Rousculp explains. “We have a group of employees whose job it is to rebalance the system. They go down in the morning and pick up the bikes and bring them back to the outlying stations. They make sure any given station is typically about half full. That way there is always a bike to take and always space for a bike to be left. Those are the big ongoing operational pieces that we do on a day-to-day basis.”
Part of rebalancing the system is picking up bikes that have been left away from Biketown docks.
“We have docking stations but our system allows you to lock to a bike rack or a stop sign, or to any kind of fixed object throughout the system area. That allows you the flexibility to not have to go to a Biketown station. There’s a $2 fee associated with parking away from a station in most areas of the city. But if you return a bike that was parked away from a dock, you get a $1 credit. That helps rebalance the system for us and we reward you for it.”
There’s no place like home
Programs like Biketown are the future of urban bikeshare, but free honor-based systems are still in use. One program that has been successful is Green Apple Bikes in Manhattan, Kansas. Manhattan is home to Kansas State University and has a population of about 55,000 people.
“I don’t know if it’s just how great of a town Manhattan is, or just that we got the luck of the draw with the volunteers that we have,” says Emily Gorman, Program Director of Green Apple Bikes. “It’s very informal. Our bikes are all free to everyone in the county for 24 hours, and then you can return it to a Green Apple bike rack, or a virtual rack. All that means is that it’s parked somewhere in public view, maybe on a street corner or in front of a building. If that bike isn’t currently being ridden, it’s considered to be in a virtual rack, and it is able to be used.”
“Our bikes are all free to everyone in the county for 24 hours, and then you can return it to a Green Apple bike rack”
Green Apple Bikes has had its share of unscrupulous riders, but Gorman believes they’re the exception.
“There’s a saying that, if you make something foolproof the world will invent a better fool,” Gorman jokes. “I’ve seen bike hoarding, and we’ve seen bikes that were purposely and maliciously destroyed, such as where the handlebars are dented or inverted, or chains are ripped off. We had an issue where our seats were getting stolen, so we ordered a new prototype for our next batch of bikes that makes the seat much more difficult to steal.”
Green Apple Bikes is also involved in a program that takes donated bikes and refurbishes them. Then they give the bikes to needy residents.
“Recipients are vetted out to make sure that they’ll take care of the bike,” Gorman explains. “They’re instructed on maintenance and they are provided a helmet and some general care guidelines.
“They’re also provided with $50 credit at the bike shop that does the refurbishing. They can take the bike in and utilize any of that $50 to make improvements or adjustments.”
The Green Apple project started small, but is growing steadily with the support of several local business sponsors.
Gorman says. “Our fleet right now is about 250 bikes,” Gorman says. “We started with 12 bikes in 2015 and we steadily increased it. We’re really looking to increase that number, so we purchased 400 new bikes this fall.”
Editors’ Recommendations
- The best electric bikes you can buy
- Lock your bike without a key with the Bisecu smart lock
- Now you see it. Then you don’t. Disappearing bike rack could declutter cities
- Bike across the water’s surface on the Manta5 Hydrofoiler
- Stop leaving grease stains on your seats with the best bike racks on the market
The best laptops for photo editing
Although you can pick up any laptop for basic photo editing, professionals need a specific “environment” to produce optimal results for print and digital publishing. We talked to our staff photographers here at Digital Trends to find out what features they needed on a daily basis — and which made for the ideal photo-editing tool.
The most important, of course, are solutions with high-resolution displays, support for large color spaces, high levels of brightness, and wide viewing angles. Without a vibrant and accurate display, there’s no way of knowing the editing choices you’re making are correct. Of course, the hardware backing these displays is important too, whether that’s discrete graphics, Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, PCI Express-based storage, or touchpads that don’t suck.
Taking all of that into account, these are the best laptops for photo editing.
Our Pick
Dell XPS 15
Dell lands in the top spot of our list of the best laptops for photo editing — and the main reason is for its screen. XPS 15 configurations include an option for a Full HD resolution, as well as a UHD resolution with full touch support. More importantly, the display is based on IGZO panel technology, which results in a high-performance screen that supports near 100 percent of both the sRGB and AdobeRGB color spaces, which is pretty rare. It should be noted that even though we prefer the XPS 13 overall as a laptop, its display doesn’t perform quite as well in the AdobeRGB spectrum.
Overall, Dell offers four models packing seventh-generation Intel Core processors. Their base design is the same across the board, providing two memory slots supporting up to 32GB of system memory (Dell only sells up to 16GB), a Thunderbolt 3 port (which supports only two PCI Express lanes), several standard USB-A ports, and an SD card slot. This should give you everything you need to support both legacy accessories and high-speed connections — both of which are essential for the modern photographer.
You can read our full review of this laptop here.
See on Dell
Screen size:
15.6 inches
Screen resolution:
1,920 x 1,080 – No Touch
3,840 x 2,160 – Touch
Screen type:
IGZO
Color space:
sRGB 100 percent
AdobeRGB 99 percent
Screen brightness:
350 nits
Processor:
Intel Core i3-7100H
Intel Core i5-7300HQ
Intel Core i7-7700HQ
Graphics:
Intel HD Graphics 630
GeForce GTX 1050 (4GB GDDR5)
Memory:
8GB DDR4 @ 2,400MHz (2x slots up to 32GB)
Storage:
256GB PCIe SSD
256GB PCIe SSD
500GB 7,200RPM HDD + 32GB SSD
Audio:
2x speakers w/ Waves MaxxAudio Pro
Camera:
720p with dual array digital microphones
Connectivity:
Wireless AC (2×2)
Bluetooth 4.1
Ports:
1x SD card slot
2x USB-A 3.1 Gen1
1x HDMI 1.4
1x Thunderbolt 3 (16Gbps)
1x Headphone/microphone combo
Security:
Fingerprint reader
Backlit keyboard:
Yes
Battery:
56WHr
97WHr
Power adapter:
130 watts
Dimensions:
14.06 
x 9.27 (D) x 0.66 (H) inches
Weight:
Starting at 4 pounds
Starting price:
$949
Best Mac
MacBook Pro 15
Macs are still the go-to-device for ad designers, graphic artists, and all other creative individuals. The love relationship between Apple and Adobe still burns after 30 years, as students became teachers only to pass their Mac-based Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign knowledge to students over the past three decades. Sure, Windows-based devices work just as well, but Apple and Adobe have put a lot of work into making sure that MacBooks remains the first choice for photographers.
However, our photographers didn’t love the options Apple presented in its most recent update of the lineup. In particular, they weren’t all that impressed by the functionality of the Touch Bar, which was supposed to be this laptops’ killer feature. Similarly, the choice to move completely to Thunderbolt 3 ports was controversial, and it’s sure to upset photographers who still rely on USB-A external hard drives and SD cards. You can make it work, so as long as you’re willing to use a fair share of dongles.
That being said, we chose the MacBook Pro 15 it’s fantastic display marries its crazy max brightness of 500 nits with extensive support for the DCI-P3, sRGB, and AdobeRGB color spaces. It’s the best display you can buy on a laptop, and that’s absolutely worth it to some photographers. The cherry on top is that the 15-inch version comes with its discrete AMD Radeon Pro graphics card and isn’t as overpriced as the 13-inch version.
See on Apple
Screen size:
15.4 inches
Screen resolution:
2,880 x 1,800
Screen type:
IPS
Color space:
DCI-P3 100 percent
sRGB 100 percent
AdobeRGB 91 percent
Pixel density:
220 pixels per inch
Screen brightness:
500 nits
Processor:
Intel Core i7-7700HQ
Intel Core i7-7820HQ
Graphics:
Intel HD Graphics 630
AMD Radeon Pro 555 (2GB)
AMD Radeon Pro 560 (4GB)
Memory:
16GB LPDDR3 @ 2,133MHz
Storage:
256GB PCIe SSD
512GB PCIe SSD
1TB PCIe SSD
2TB PCIe SSD
Audio:
2x stereo speakers
Camera:
720p FaceTime HD
Connectivity:
Wireless AC
Bluetooth 4.2
Ports:
4x Thunderbolt 3
1x Headphone jack
Security:
TouchID
Backlit keyboard:
Yes
Battery:
76WHr
Power adapter:
87 watts
Dimensions:
13.75 x 9.48 (D) x 0.61 (H) inches
Weight:
4.02 pounds
Starting price:
$2,399
You can read our review of the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Apple’s Touch Bar here.
Best budget option
Asus ZenBook UX330UA
The ZenBook UX330UA is our cheapest solution of the batch, but it’s not “cheap” in performance. Configurations include seventh and eighth-generation Intel Core i5 processors, and integrated graphics. Both power a 13.3-inch screen with Full HD or QHD+ resolutions, but you won’t find touch input on any configuration. The screen supports 100 percent of the sRGB color space, but only 74 percent of the Adobe RGB color space. That’s not as good as the XPS 15 or MacBook Pros, but it’s in line with laptops that sell for hundreds of dollars more.
According to the specifications, the display has a maximum brightness of around 315 nits, making it great for brightly-lit environments. Meanwhile, you’ll find that the configurations only vary in the slightest, with the differences residing in the processor, resolution, and integrated graphics. Otherwise, you’ll see the same 720p camera, USB ports, and 57WHr battery promising up to 12 hours of up-time on a single charge.
One of the bigger selling points resides in the laptop’s size, measuring just 0.53 inches thick and weighing a mere 2.64 pounds. Other notable features include a MicroHDMI port so you can connect an external display that supports a resolution of 4,096 x 2,304 at 24Hz. The USB ports can connect to additional external displays using the appropriate USB adapter.
You can read our review of the Asus ZenBook UX330UA here.
See on Amazon See on Newegg
Screen size:
13.3 inches
Screen resolution:
3,200 x 1,800
1,920 x 1,080
Screen type:
IPS
Color space:
sRGB 100 percent
NTSC 72 percent
AdobeRGB 74 percent
Pixel density:
276 pixels per inch
Processor:
Intel Core i5-8250U
Intel Core i5-7200U
Graphics:
Intel UHD Graphics 620
Intel HD Graphics 520
Memory:
8GB LPDDR3 @ 1,866MHz
Storage:
256GB M.2 SATA SSD
Audio:
2x speakers Bang & Olufsen
Camera:
720p
Connectivity:
Wireless AC
Bluetooth 4.1
Ports:
1x Micro SD card reader
1x Headphone / microphone jack
2x USB-A 3.1 Gen1
1x Micro HDMI
Security:
N/A
Backlit keyboard:
Yes
Battery:
57WHr
Power adapter:
45 watts
Dimensions:
12.7 x 8.7 (D) x 0.53 (H) inches
Weight:
2.64 pounds
Starting price:
$750
Best Compact Option
Razer Blade Stealth
Okay, so Razer is best known for manufacturing products for gamers. But you have to admit: the Razer Blade Stealth should suffice as a great laptop for editing photos. The 12.5-inch screen is based on IGZO technology, providing close to 100 percent coverage of the sRGB and AdobeRGB color spaces. The drawback is that the laptop doesn’t include a discrete graphics chip to handle all the rendering and compiling power, but that’s why Razer sells the Core V2 external GPU enclosure.
The only configuration required on your part pertains to storage: a 512GB or 1TB PCI Express-based “stick” SSD. Everything else crammed into the Stealth remains the same: a UHD resolution with touch support, 16GB of system memory, a 2MP camera, a handful of ports, and even a Thunderbolt 3 port promising transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps (depending on the supporting hardware).
Here’s our review of the 2016 version of the Razer Blade Stealth laptop.
See on Razer
Screen size:
12.5 inches
Screen resolution:
3,840 x 2,160 with Touch
Screen type:
IGZO
Color space:
sRGB 98 percent
AdobeRGB 95 percent
Pixel density:
352 pixels per inch
Processor:
Intel Core i7-7500U
Graphics:
Intel HD Graphics 620
Memory:
16GB LPDDR3 @ 1,866MHz
Storage:
512GB PCIe M.2 SSD
1TB PCIe M.2 SSD
Audio:
2x speakers
Dolby Digital Plus Home Theater Edition
Camera:
2MP
Connectivity:
Wireless AC
Bluetooth 4.1
Ports:
1x Thunderbolt 3
2x USB-A 3.1 Gen1
1x HDMI 2.0a
1x Headphone / microphone jack
Security:
N/A
Backlit keyboard:
Yes, supports Chroma
Battery:
56.3WHr
Power adapter:
45 watts
Dimensions:
12.6 x 8.1 (D) x 0.52 (H) inches
Weight:
2.84 pounds
Starting price:
$1,249
Editors’ Recommendations
- Samsung refreshes its Notebook 9 laptops for 2018, adds model supporting S Pen
- The best Linux laptops you can buy
- The best touchscreen laptops
- It’s real! Lenovo unveils 25th Anniversary ThinkPad with retro keyboard, styling
- The monstrous ROG G703 Asus laptop could easily chew through your PC games
Related Topics:
Asus, best laptops for photo editing, Dell XPS 15, macbook pro, Razer, Computing
Don’t Miss
What is a blockchain? Here’s everything you need to know
Up Next
Lifesaving app lets users share their location even if there’s no cell signal
Lifesaving app lets users share their location even if there’s no cell signal
Due to the hyper-connected world we live in, there are very few times that we’re not contactable. One of the occasions we may not be, though, is when we potentially need it the most: If we’re ever in a life-threatening scenario, such as being lost in the wilderness where there is no cellular coverage. That’s where researchers from Spain’s Universidad de Alicante (UA) want to help. They developed a smart receiving device and an associated app that is capable of transmitting a person’s GPS coordinates and an SOS message — even if they don’t have cellular signal to send it.
“In many mountain areas there is no mobile phone coverage, and it is not possible to contact emergency services,” José Ángel Berná Galiano, a mountaineering enthusiast and professor in UA’s Department of Physics and Systems Engineering and Signal Theory, told Digital Trends. “In this situation, the injured person can only wait for the rescue teams to find him after the disappearance is reported by friends or family. The technology that I have developed allows the conversion of a smartphone without mobile phone coverage into a distress beacon, emitting the coordinates of the place where it is located and a text message using the Wi-Fi interface. The rescue teams can detect this distress signal with a specifically designed device, weighing just 500 grams, and at distances of at least three kilometers in open areas. Thus, the search operations of a person are faster, allowing saving the life of a person.”
As Galiano points out, even when a smartphone does not have mobile phone coverage, it still emits a series of mobile phone signals which can be detected. Some rescue teams around the world (although not in Spain) have a device they carry onboard rescue helicopters which can determine the location of a smartphone using a complex signal triangulation process. Unfortunately, this technology is prohibitively expensive — costing upward of $80,000. The prototype of Galiano’s receiving device, on the other hand, costs only $700.
The new system has already been tested by mountain rescue teams in Spain, and has the support of the Spanish Mountain Federation (FEDME) to put it into operation. Since the technology could also be applied to a range of situations — such as earthquakes, large forest fires or other scenarios where regular mobile telephone services fail — hopefully it will be adopted more widely around the world.
Editors’ Recommendations
- 3D-printed objects can connect to Wi-Fi without electronics
- Two new devices from Republic Wireless help parents combat screen addiction
- Scientists create unpowered 3D-printed objects that can communicate via Wi-Fi
- SMS to PC and back again: Here’s how to send a text message from a computer
- 5G to reach a billion people by 2023, with VR and AR firing up development
Lifesaving app lets users share their location even if there’s no cell signal
Due to the hyper-connected world we live in, there are very few times that we’re not contactable. One of the occasions we may not be, though, is when we potentially need it the most: If we’re ever in a life-threatening scenario, such as being lost in the wilderness where there is no cellular coverage. That’s where researchers from Spain’s Universidad de Alicante (UA) want to help. They developed a smart receiving device and an associated app that is capable of transmitting a person’s GPS coordinates and an SOS message — even if they don’t have cellular signal to send it.
“In many mountain areas there is no mobile phone coverage, and it is not possible to contact emergency services,” José Ángel Berná Galiano, a mountaineering enthusiast and professor in UA’s Department of Physics and Systems Engineering and Signal Theory, told Digital Trends. “In this situation, the injured person can only wait for the rescue teams to find him after the disappearance is reported by friends or family. The technology that I have developed allows the conversion of a smartphone without mobile phone coverage into a distress beacon, emitting the coordinates of the place where it is located and a text message using the Wi-Fi interface. The rescue teams can detect this distress signal with a specifically designed device, weighing just 500 grams, and at distances of at least three kilometers in open areas. Thus, the search operations of a person are faster, allowing saving the life of a person.”
As Galiano points out, even when a smartphone does not have mobile phone coverage, it still emits a series of mobile phone signals which can be detected. Some rescue teams around the world (although not in Spain) have a device they carry onboard rescue helicopters which can determine the location of a smartphone using a complex signal triangulation process. Unfortunately, this technology is prohibitively expensive — costing upward of $80,000. The prototype of Galiano’s receiving device, on the other hand, costs only $700.
The new system has already been tested by mountain rescue teams in Spain, and has the support of the Spanish Mountain Federation (FEDME) to put it into operation. Since the technology could also be applied to a range of situations — such as earthquakes, large forest fires or other scenarios where regular mobile telephone services fail — hopefully it will be adopted more widely around the world.
Editors’ Recommendations
- 3D-printed objects can connect to Wi-Fi without electronics
- Two new devices from Republic Wireless help parents combat screen addiction
- Scientists create unpowered 3D-printed objects that can communicate via Wi-Fi
- SMS to PC and back again: Here’s how to send a text message from a computer
- 5G to reach a billion people by 2023, with VR and AR firing up development
AIVAnet 