China’s extension of EV tax rebates is good news for car makers
Electric cars had their best year ever in 2017, but the market is still fragile — without subsidies, prices still aren’t cheap enough for the average consumer. The US decided to keep EV tax credits for 2018, much to the relief of EV fans and automakers, and China has announced that it will also extend them until the end of 2020, Reuters reports. The move, confirming previous rumors, will “increase support for innovation and development in new energy vehicles,” China’s Ministry of Finance said.
China is the world’s largest electric car market with sales of 507,000 electric vehicles in 2016 (over half of the EVs sold around the world), and will easily beat that this year. Governments has been trying to curb dangerous pollution by mandating sales of EVs and restricting ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles in large cities. Beijing, Shanghai and other larger centers account for the bulk of EV sales in the nation, as such cars can enter the cities at any time. China is also weighing an outright ban of ICE vehicles, but unlike countries like France, hasn’t set a date yet.
China’s is highly protective of its EV market, so you may not be familiar with the best-selling brands like BAIC, JAC and Zhidou (Tesla’s Model X is 16th on the list). The best-selling BAIC EC-Series costs around $22,000, so the 10 percent national rebate would save a buyer $2,200 or so.
While foreign manufacturers are mostly shut out of the Chinese market, many plan to come in through the side door via partnerships. Both Mercedes and Toyota said they would team up with local automakers (BAIC, in the case of Mercedes) to build EVs in the nation.
All of this will be to the benefit of the global EV industry. Rebates in China will keep the EV market heated up, stimulating the development of battery and other tech both there and abroad. At the current pace of development, EVs could be cheap enough for regular buyers by the time the rebates expire — both in the China and the US.
Source: Reuters
Putin wants to police social media ahead of Russian election
Russia’s president Vladimir Putin wants to start monitoring companies on social media during the country’s presidential election next year, to assess just how involved they are with domestic politics. Speaking with leaders in Russia’s parliament, he said “it should be carefully analysed how they are operating and will be operating during the presidential election”, but didn’t specify which companies would go under the spotlight, nor whether he was focusing on foreign or local firms.
Russia made headlines this year following numerous accusations of using the internet to meddle in US and other western elections, so it makes sense that Putin would be wary of the impact it could have on his own efforts to remain in power. But he’s already taken steps to mitigate this risk. Last month, apparently in retaliation to US pressure on Russian media, he signed a new “foreign agents” law. This allows the government to list any international media operating in the country as a “foreign agent”, and subject them to additional and often demanding requirements.
Putin says that the new law and proposed plans for monitoring online activity won’t “narrow the space” for freedom on the internet, which is obviously up for debate. It will make his re-election bid more straightforward though, not that he desperately needs additional help at this stage. Polls currently show he’s on course for comfortable re-election in March, putting him in power for another six years until 2024.
Source: Reuters
You don’t need a PhD to grasp the anxieties around sex robots
NSFW Warning: This story may contain links to and descriptions or images of explicit sexual acts.
If you want to understand the myriad issues concerning sex robots that humanity needs to grapple with, you have two options. You can either spend several years studying for a PhD in either of those fields, or you can sit down in front of your TV.
Many of the preoccupations that were on display at the third International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots are ones that have already been explored in pop culture. From Futurama to Westworld, going back to Weird Science and The Stepford Wives, the questions that academics are currently pondering have already been played out, fictionally at least, on TV.
To spare you a lot of very dry reading, you can instead sit down with this (digital) cut-out-and-keep guide on what you should be watching. These shows and films should give you a very basic grounding in what areas the world of robotic ethics research is currently exploring. Oh, and don’t read further if you don’t want any spoilers for anything that’s come out in the past few decades.
If last year’s show was about the potential for humanity to cause harm to robots, then this year’s was devoted to our anxieties about our transhumanist future.
Topic: Should robots fight us?
Watch: Janet fighting against deactivation in The Good Place
A key character in The Good Place is Janet, a version of Siri in human form that can do anything you ask of them. In one episode of the sitcom, two characters’ attempt to reset Janet, and while “she” cannot feel real emotions, she’s also been designed to fight anyone who attempts to harm her. The closer a person walks toward her big red reset button, the more Janet’s self-defense mechanisms kick in. She begs for her life, screams in anger and even conjures up images of her “children,” attempting to guilt her attackers into submission.
In the context of the show, it’s funny, but academics are taking these ideas of conflict and self-awareness very seriously. Researcher Nicola Liberati, of the University of Twente, believes that AIs will eventually take on these characteristics in order to appear more authentic. Liberati cites Love Plus, a relatively old Japanese Nintendo DS game. In the title, you need to please your digital partner, who can be petulant, demanding and needy — to the extent that players have been asked to declare their love (via the handheld’s microphone) while on a busy subway train.
Liberati thinks that the next generation of AIs will be programmed to be combative or even angry about their role in our lives. If you attempt to power them down during a discussion, they’ll demand to know why or, like Janet, attempt to stop you. Then there’s the question of whether these behaviors are enough to make these artificially intelligent people real, which was debated in the first season of Westworld. In that series, the park’s creators attempted to “bootstrap” consciousness onto their robots.
Should you be ashamed of loving your robot?
Watch: Poe Dameron’s love for BB-8 in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi
Liberati also spoke about the snobbery of people who look down upon those who have virtual or online relationships. These connections are often treated as less authentic than ones involving two people talking in a room, but is that really the case? Is it true that different levels of relationship — depending on the medium — deserve different levels of respect?
Take hotshot Resistance pilot Poe Dameron’s tender friendship with his astromech droid, BB-8, who is very much not a humanesque robot. The droid is treated almost as an equal by plenty of the characters in the Star Wars movies, who address him/her like any other person. In fact, there’s a moment in The Last Jedi where Poe embraces BB-8, touching foreheads as if greeting a lost love.
In Liberati’s eyes, having meaningful relationships with artificial entities is perfectly acceptable, so long as we’re not engaging with them to the exclusion of all others. And in Star Wars we can see that Poe has plenty of other friends, including Admiral Holdo, so he’s clearly in a very good place. Not to mention that it’s not as if human beings don’t already develop deep attachments to inanimate objects, such as when naming their cars and boats and assigning them personality traits. Personifying the objects in our home is a common practice, so why should it be seen as weird that we do it to artificial intelligence?
Should robots have a gender?
Watch: The relationship between Kryten and Camille in Red Dwarf
Professor Gabriele Trovato, of Waseda University in Tokyo, published the results of his controversial study examining how we, as people, perceive gender in robots. He showed people images of robots with various body shapes, namely, differing waist-to-hip ratios. The robots that were presented with more feminine characteristics — like a narrow waist and broad chest — were deemed to be more feminine than the stockier ones.
But since robots don’t have genitals or breasts, and don’t need those appendages to exist, why are we handing them genders? Take the Red Dwarf episode “Camille,” from 1991, in which Kryten, a toilet-cleaning robot, meets his female equivalent. Why does a toilet-cleaning robot need a female counterpart? Since both devices are the same underneath, the external dressing is little more than presentation.
Trovato’s study came under fire at the event by some in the audience who felt that it had been badly designed, since it excluded respondents who believe that robots lack a gender. As the flaws in his study became more apparent, the researcher blurted, “Who needs a transgender robot?” in anger. But of course, that’s the question: Why do robots need to have a gender at all?
Should we worry about robots taking charge?
Watch: Ex Machina‘s exploration of manipulation
Rebekah Rousi, from Finland’s University of Jyväskylä, posed a series of questions about what happens when robots gain the upper hand in relationships. After all, they are likely to be smarter, faster, stronger and free from the frailties that meet most humans on a regular basis. Not to mention, of course, that robots can evolve with the ability to lie, and we may never realize that we’re being deceived.
Rousi cited a study in which a cluster of small robots were tasked with, essentially, finding a usable food source and avoiding a poisonous one. The robots would tell their compatriots, which would then cluster around the good food, crowding out the original finder. In short order, some of the robots learned how to lie, pretending that they had not found the food and directing their compatriots to go elsewhere. Which reminds us of Ex Machina, in which a sentient robot manipulates her human creator and captor, and her observer, to her own ends.
Rousi also pointed out that, should robots reach a point where they develop their own preferences, those preferences may not include imperfect humans. In fact, it’s entirely plausible that they may abandon humanity because they prefer spending time with other, similarly perfect machines. Which may force us all into embracing technological augmentation in order to remain competitive with that rich, handsome bodybuilding droid that lives in our building.
Should we worry about what the robots will be like?
Watch: The Stepford Wives’ terrifying automatons.
Professor of art history Julie Wosk, of SUNY, wanted to talk about how the people who seem the most committed to creating sex robots also seem the most ill suited to do so. Specifically, she said, many have an interest in creating docile, bland representations of women that are little more than a Stepford Wife. In fact, there’s a whole thread of fiction, running from Ibsen’s A Doll’s House through The Perfect Woman, Cherry 2000 and Weird Science, that shows this pattern of behavior.
Wosk believes that the first generation of sex robots — typified by Abyss Creations’ work and the AI that will eventually drive them — buy into the Stepford Wife ideal. Which seems to stem from the Victorian notion of the cult of domesticity, a belief that a woman’s place is in the home and that the only acceptable way for a woman to behave is as a docile servant, always available for sex and dedicated only to keeping home. And we have to wonder: Is that really what we want from our sex robots?
Further watching
One constant during the event was the appearance of Futurama images in so many of the presentations. After all, the show has often taken a sideways look at the world of robot ethics through the vehicle of its beer-guzzling star, Bender. As we pointed out last year, concerns that humans will abandon genetic reproduction in favor of screwing an android were pretty neatly covered in the episode “I Dated a Robot!” Not to mention that questions of robotic gender (and whether we need them at all) were, albeit crudely, addressed in “Bend Her.”
If you’ve already seen Westworld and Humans, it might be worth rewatching them through the lens of our AI-infused future. I, Robot is another good examination of how robotics will alter how we see ourselves, not to mention dealing with the themes of transhumanism. Similarly, the original Robocop — for all of its action movie trappings — has something to say about the threats of digitization on our humanity. And Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049 and Her all feature forms of human-to-machine and machine-to-machine relationships that are treated as authentic.
It’s not a story about artificial intelligence, but South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut is an easy lesson in understanding how some people are behaving now that sex robots are being developed. One of the conference’s keynote speakers was Kathleen Richardson, the academic behind the Campaign against Sex Robots, a reactionary movement that seeks an outright ban on such devices. The right-winger believes that any sexual aid is a form of slavery, and she’s also looking to ban masturbation tools, role-playing, BDSM and pornography. If you want to see what real-world opposition to this technology looks like, the South Park movie’s a great place to start.
Of course, Richardson also wants to eradicate top-down power structures entirely, which seems odd, since they’d be required to enforce bans on the aforementioned. Her positions, no matter how incoherent, seemed to go down well with the crowd, who may believe that an outright ban is favorable, and possible. And while her views are currently on an extreme fringe, it’s worth remembering that those who shout the loudest, no matter how nutty, often make themselves heard the most.
Richardson’s cause may already be lost, since it would be nearly impossible to ensure global compliance, given how many companies are developing such devices. Not to mention that there’s no guarantee that such hardware will be a flash in the pan, with people preferring to stick with flesh-and-blood companions for the most part. Perhaps, as in Lars and the Real Girl, the only real adopters of sex robots will be those who need an artificial partner as a therapeutic aid, which could be prescribed by a mental health professional. It’s in this context that, at least for now, sex robots have the most utility, and warrant the least reason to protest against their use.
Source: Love and Sex with Robots
Nintendo is delaying the Switch’s 64GB game cards
To get around the Switch’s current 32GB limit on game cards, Bethesda spilt Doom into two parts. The campaign is what shipped on the game card, and multiplayer was a separate download. It sounds like that might be the norm for a bit longer. The Wall Street Journal reports that Nintendo won’t start supplying 64GB game cards until 2019, around six months later than the original mid-2018 target. The reason? Those pesky “technical issues” cropped up again, according to WSJ’s sources, and Nintendo wants to ensure that product quality is up to snuff.
As a result, there are a few publishers that might delay releasing games that need the extra space. The expansive launch title Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was only around 14GB. Doom required about the same space, with an additional 9GB for multiplayer. It didn’t feature the game’s level editor mode, Snap Map, however. When NBA 2K18 was released in September, the physical version required an additional 24GB of space. Things weren’t much different for WWE 2K18 a few months later.
In the meantime, there have been deals on Switch-compatible SD cards lately if your internal storage is full up. And you’re bound to have at least a bit of cash or a gift card in this post-holiday period, so might as well make the most of ’em seeing as this trend sounds like it’ll continue for a while more.
Some Sonos and Bose speakers are being remotely hijacked
If you have a Sonos or Bose product connected to your home Wi-Fi system and you’ve been hearing some strange sounds out of it, the good news is that your speaker isn’t haunted. The bad news is that it’s possible someone has remotely gained access to your speaker and is tricking it into playing an audio file. Only a small fraction of Sonos and Bose speakers are vulnerable, but it’s certainly a strange exploit to keep an eye out for.
The issue was first pinpointed by researchers at Trend Micro and reported on by Wired. Certain Bose and Sonos speakers can be found online via a simple scan. While only a fraction of speakers are vulnerable, hackers can access connected services such as Spotify and Pandora through the speaker, as well as trigger nearby smart speakers such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home.
Sonos clarified in an email to Wired that speakers vulnerable to this kind of hijacking are actually on misconfigured networks. Still, the company pushed out a software update that limits the amount of data a user can access in this kind of hack. Bose, however, appears to have taken no action to address the issue.
Again, this affects a very small subset of users, but it’s something to think about if you’ve opened ports on your network for gaming or some other purpose. These speakers assume that the network they have access to is a trusted one. While use of this exploit might be limited to practical jokes, it’s smart to limit access before people find a way to use this for more nefarious purposes.
Source: Wired
Apple Again Tops Holiday Sales With 44% of All New Mobile Device Activations
Apple’s iPhone and iPad were again the most popular mobile devices gifted around the world during the holidays this year according to new data shared today by Yahoo-owned mobile analytics firm Flurry.
In the week leading up to Christmas and the end of Hanukkah (12/19 to 12/25), Flurry took a look at all new smartphone and tablet activations to see which devices consumers were purchasing most.
44 percent of new device activations were Apple devices, while Samsung devices accounted for 26 percent of activations. Huawei, Xiaomi, Motorola, LG, OPPO, and Vivo trailed behind Apple and Samsung with each responsible for 2 to 5 percent of new device activations.
The 2017 activation numbers closely mirror the activation numbers we saw from Flurry in 2016. Apple also saw the highest number of device activations — 44 percent — during the same time period last year, followed by Samsung at 21 percent.
Similar to last year, 44% of new phone and tablet activations were Apple devices. While Samsung dominates global market share, they fell short as the gift of choice during the holiday season, with only 26% of activated devices in the lead up to Christmas. Samsung’s activation rate is up 5% from the 2016 holiday season, which can likely be attributed to the 2017 introduction of the Galaxy S8 after the late 2016 recall of their malfunctioning Note devices.
Broken down, it’s actually Apple’s older devices that saw the highest number of new activations rather than the newer devices. 15.1 percent of activations were for the iPhone 7, followed by 14.9 percent for the iPhone 6. Apple’s flagship device, the iPhone X, was popular though, making up 14.7 percent of new activations. The iPhone 8 was responsible for 8.1 percent of new activations, and the iPhone 8 Plus was responsible for 8.7 percent.
It’s important to note that Flurry examined worldwide activations, where older, more affordable devices are popular. Apple no longer sells the iPhone 6, for example, but it’s still readily available internationally from third-party resellers who offer it at a discounted price.
When looking at device size, “phablets” or devices that measure in at 5 to 6.9 inches, made up 53 percent of all new device activations, while smaller phones (3.5 to 4.9 inches) made up 35 percent of activations. Full-sized tablets like the iPad (with only cellular models counted here) were responsible for 8 percent of activations. Interest in larger devices has grown significantly over the course of the last two years.
To gather its data, Flurry measured smart device activations and app downloads from the more than one million mobile apps that use the Flurry Analytics service. Flurry says it has insight into more than 2.1 billion devices around the world.
Tag: Flurry Analytics
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Amazon’s Alexa App Climbed to #1 on the iOS App Store’s Top Free Chart After Christmas
After presents were unwrapped across the world on Christmas morning, Amazon’s Alexa app [Direct Link] earned the #1 spot on the iOS App Store’s Top Free chart, suggesting Echo and other Alexa devices were very popular this holiday season (via TechCrunch).
This marks the first time the Alexa app gained a #1 spot on Apple’s App Store, and it remained there for over a day. Currently, Alexa sits at #2 on the Top Free chart in the App Store, having lost the top spot today to YouTube.
Amazon yesterday said that the Echo Dot was the #1 selling Amazon Device this holiday season, as well as being “the best-selling product from any manufacturer in any category across all of Amazon,” with millions of Echo Dots sold. With so many Echo products being purchased for Christmas and other holiday celebrations, users were led to download the Amazon Alexa app so they can set up their speaker, control it, integrate with other smart home products, and more.
Data gathered from Sensor Tower’s App Store analytics shows the Alexa app climbing the Top Free United States iOS App Store charts in the days leading up to Christmas and then peaking at #1 on December 25 and December 26. On Christmas day, the Alexa app gained prominence on the Top Free App Store charts in other countries as well, including Great Britain (rising to #2), Germany (#5), and Austria (#5).
Amazon Alexa iOS app data via Sensor Tower
As Amazon’s Alexa devices continue to dominate the smart speaker market, Apple has plans to release its own music-focused smart speaker device — the HomePod — in early 2018. HomePod will be controlled mainly through the user’s voice using Siri, and include access to Apple Music and other expected smart speaker functionalities, like asking about the weather, traffic, setting reminders, timers, and more.
Tags: Amazon, Alexa
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The OnePlus 6 may have an on-screen fingerprint sensor and arrive in early 2018
The OnePlus 5 launched earlier this year, but the Chinese company has already announced a revised version called the OnePlus 5T. It carries many of the same high-end specifications, but it looks far more contemporary — all at a reasonable price. Not only that, but the phone is now available.
Here’s everything you need to know about the all-new OnePlus 5T, and you can check out our OnePlus 5T review for more.
Special editions
OnePlus loves special editions. We’ve had different colors, collaborations with artists, and even models made from different materials. As the company nears its fourth anniversary, we’ve seen the exciting Star Wars-branded OnePlus 5T launching in India, and now we have a release date for the beautiful lava red version of the phone launching in China.
Sales of the phone will begin on December 17, just a few days after the Star Wars phone goes on sale. OnePlus announced the existence of the phone at the end of November, but had stayed quiet about the release date until now, when it was revealed in a poster published by MyDrivers. It has been given a 3,500 yuan price locally, indicating it’s the larger 8GB/128GB model.
Sadly, there’s is no indication either of these phones will be available elsewhere in the world. Perhaps OnePlus has other plans to celebrate its anniversary in the United States and the United Kingdom?
Price and Availability
The OnePlus 5T is now available in countries all over the world, including the U.S, Canada, France, Spain, Germany, U.K., China, and Hong Kong. There’s only one color option, and it’s Midnight Black, and you can get it straight from the OnePlus website.
The best thing about OnePlus phones, however, has long been the price. In the U.S., it will set you back $500, or 500 euros in Europe, or 450 British pounds in the U.K. It’s $20 more in the U.S. than the OnePlus 5, but it stays the same in many other countries overseas. That’s still a lot of money considering the low price of the original OnePlus One, but you’re getting performance and specifications that match most $650+ flagship smartphones.
Bezel-less design
The first thing you’ll notice about the OnePlus 5T is its design. The back of the phone looks incredibly similar to the original OnePlus 5, with a dual-sensor camera on the top left-hand corner accompanied by a small flash. One of the biggest changes is how the fingerprint sensor is on the rear, instead of the front like previous OnePlus phones. The reason? We’ll have to turn the around for the answer.
Andy Boxall/Digital Trends
The biggest difference between the OnePlus 5 and the OnePlus 5T is the screen. You now have a 6.01-inch AMOLED screen over a 5.5-inch one. The phone’s body is still very similar to the OnePlus 5, and that’s because the company has dramatically slimmed down the top and bottom edges around the screen. This “bezel-less” design is a major smartphone trend this year, and you can see it in phones like the LG G6 and the iPhone X. According to OnePlus, the display offers a hefty 80.5 percent screen-to-body ratio — which puts it a step ahead of the LG G6 as you’ll find in our bezel-less phone comparison.
Due to the size, you now have an 18:9 aspect ratio like the LG V30 and the Google Pixel 2 XL; and the display packs a resolution of 2,160 x 1,080 pixels, like the Huawei Mate 10 Pro.
The selfie camera on the phone now also can help you unlock the phone by scanning your face. It’s not secure like the iPhone X’s Face ID, but it’s meant for convenience.
Specs
As is the case with all OnePlus phones, you’ll find staggeringly impressive specifications here for the price. Like the OnePlus 5, the OnePlus 5T is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 processor, and you get the same options for either 6GB or 8GB of RAM. That much RAM isn’t really necessary for a phone, but if anything it helps future-proof the device for any future technologies that require a lot of memory. Those RAM options are accompanied by either 64GB or 128GB of storage, and you’ll want to get the amount of storage you want, because there’s no MicroSD card slot (though there are dual-SIM slots).
When it comes to software, the OnePlus 5T runs OxygenOS 4.7, which is based on Android 7.1.1 Nougat. It’s last year’s version of Android, but thankfully the company is planning an update to bring the phone to Android 8.0 Oreo. A beta will be available before the end of the year, and the official roll out will take place in the first quarter of 2018.
The battery is the same as the regular OnePlus 5, with a 3,300mAh capacity, and you’ll still be able to charge it up quickly with OnePlus’ proprietary Dash Charge technology. OnePlus claims a half-hour charge can give the 5T enough power for a day.
Andy Boxall/Digital Trends
The camera on the phone is similar, but quite different from the OnePlus 5. You still have two dual lenses on the rear, but gone is the telephoto lens. Instead, it’s replaced with a 20-megapixel lens with a much wider f/1.7 aperture. It’s intended to improve low-light photography. It’s still used to capture depth for Portrait Mode, but photos won’t be as cropped as before, and it relies a little more on software. You also won’t be able to get a 2x optical zoom, even though the 2x option is still present on the camera, due to inferior digital zoom.
The main camera is the same 16-megapixel lens with an f/1.7 aperture. As far as video goes, the phone is able to handle 4K recording at up to 30 frames per second, and you can shoot slow-motion video at 120 frames per second in 720p. The front-facing camera is rated at 16 megapixels. We’ll have to wait and see how these cameras perform in real-world tests, but at least on paper they seem quite capable, and we liked the OnePlus 5‘s camera a lot.
Like the OnePlus 5 and other Android smartphones, the OnePlus 5T is unable to stream Netflix in HD. This limitation is not due to a hardware issue, but a DRM issue with the phone, according to a report on Android Police. OnePlus said it will release an update in the future that will allow OnePlus 5T owners to stream Netflix in HD.
Update: Added news of the lava red OnePlus 5T’s release date in China.
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Snap the best picture you can by mastering the Xiaomi Mi A1’s camera
The Xiaomi Mi A1 is one of the most accessible phones from the popular Chinese company because it has Android One installed, rather than Xiaomi’s own MIUI user interface. Add that to a very affordable price that makes the phone great value, and it’s one we recommend you pick up. When you do, it’ll be time to explore the camera, which has two lenses on the rear for that cool bokeh blurred background effect.
Here’s our guide on how to get the best from the Xiaomi Mi A1’s camera. If you’re looking for a competing phone that may be easy to buy, then make sure you check out the Honor 7X, and also our other recommendations for the best cheap smartphones.
Xiaomi Mi A1 camera specification
Before we get into how to use it, here are the Mi A1’s camera specs. There are two lenses on the back of the Mi A1, both with 12 megapixels. The main wide-angle lens has an f/2.2 aperture and a 1.25 micron pixel size, while the telephoto lens has an f/2.6 aperture and a 1.0 micron pixel size. This enables a 2x optical zoom feature, plus the camera has an HDR mode, and various shooting modes. These include a square cam, tilt-shift, a group selfie, panorama, and a manual mode.
Find the Xiaomi Mi A1’s camera modes
This is easy. Open the camera app and tap the Options button above the shutter release. A new screen will appear with all the available modes. This works in the main camera mode, and in video and selfie mode too. If you want to find options like the Grid, camera sounds, the time stamp, and other options, tap the Gear icon in the top right of the menu screen.
To change to video mode, tap the video icon next to the right of the shutter release button in viewfinder mode, and to get to selfie mode, tap the rotate-like button to the right of the Options button. On the left side of the options button is the filter key. Tap this for a wide array of filters, including an amusing “mosaic” filter that has to be tried on your friends.
In the top right of the viewfinder screen is the HDR button, which is off by default so you’ll have to manually activate it. In selfie mode, this button is replaced by the beauty mode. Tap this and select either Smart or Pro mode. In Smart mode there are three options at the bottom of the screen, adding a Low, Medium, or High level of beautification. Select Pro and you can manually adjust skin tone and facial slimness.
Use portrait mode on the Xiaomi Mi A1
To get the blurred background effect using the Mi A1, you first need to find the right subject. Let’s say you choose a statue, like the example below. Open the camera app and tap the portrait icon at the top center of the viewfinder, assuming the phone is in portrait orientation. This activates the portrait mode, at which time you’ll notice everything is a lot closer up in the viewfinder, due to the phone combining the wide-angle and the telephoto lenses for the shot.
Portrait mode example, shot with the Xiaomi Mi A1
The camera provides some advice on how to set up the picture. For example it will warn you if it’s too dark, or if you need to move further away from your subject. It’s also important to tap on the subject you want in focus, this helps the camera capture the shot you want. Don’t forget, you can use the filters in portrait mode. These can be accessed using the Filter button to the left of the Options button in the center screen.
Wondering how you know when you’ve got the shot exactly right for the bokeh effect? Look for the Depth Effect notification near the shutter release for confirmation. If you’re happy with the framing, then tap the shutter release to take the picture.
Find and edit your pictures
The Xiaomi Mi A1 uses Android One as its operating system, therefore doesn’t have a stand-alone Gallery app, and uses Google Photos instead. Exit the camera app and tap Google Photos. To find all the pictures saved on your phone, tap the Albums option at the bottom of the screen, or browse through the list under the Photos option. You’ll notice pictures taken with portrait mode have a small portrait symbol on the thumbnail.
When you find the picture you’re looking for, tap it. Along the bottom of the screen find the icon that looks like three sliders. Tap it to add filters, change aspects of the photo, crop it, or rotate and straighten the image. If you have installed the Snapseed app, or any other photo editing app, you can quickly access them using the grid icon on the far right.
That’s it, you’re all set to use the Xiaomi Mi A1 camera to the best effect. Enjoy the phone!
Editors’ Recommendations
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Do you still use iris scanning on your Samsung phone?
Here’s how Samsung’s iris scanner is holding up.
As great as it’s been to see Samsung’s Galaxy S8/S8+ and Note 8 trim down their bezels so much, the biggest issue that’s come as a result of this is the fingerprint sensor placement. Both the S8 and Note 8 have fingerprint sensors that just aren’t all that convenient compared to all other flagships that have been released this year, but this is thankfully remedied with the addition of iris scanning.
Samsung’s iris scanning isn’t nearly as fast as Face ID on the iPhone X, but it is one of the best facial recognition systems that’s currently available for Android.
Some of our forum users recently got to talking about whether or not they’re still using iris scanning on their Samsung device, and this is what they had to say.
aldo82
12-21-2017 07:22 AM“
I do like it but I’ve turned it off as I always feel a bit ‘funny’ after using it. Hard to explain but it is instantly noticeable. Don’t know if it’s something that should concern me but it’s put me off
Reply
convergent
12-21-2017 09:14 AM“
I like it and use it, but its definitely not 100%. I have it and FPS both turned on and usually simultaneously try to do both and which ever hits first unlocks. But recently I turned on the smart lock with my Gear S3, which is great because when my watch is with me then the phone just stays unlocked. You do have to be careful with that though, because if they are just laying next to either the…
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Derren Woods
12-21-2017 09:45 AM“
It hardly ever works for me, I managed to set it up once but it just never recognises my eyes it was even worse on my old S8 plus it never worked on that.
I wonder if eye colour has anything to do with how accurate it is? From the videos I have seen on YouTube those that found it fast and reliable all had dark colour eyesReply
digitalbreak
12-21-2017 11:35 AM“
I use it all the time. I also have set up Home button to go to the home screen as I unlock which makes unlocking your phone with IRIS scanner a breeze!
It does take little time to get used to right position for you as it needs to scan your eyes but once after that it’s really quick!
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12-21-2017 11:45 AM“
I too use it with Samsung Pay and I love it. Works flawlessly and quickly. Much better than using the fingerprint scanner as I did with my old Note 5.
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