Apple Seeds Fourth Beta of watchOS 4.3 to Developers With Portrait Nightstand Mode, iPhone Music Controls

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming watchOS 4.3 update to developers, two weeks after seeding the third beta and a little over two weeks after releasing watchOS 4.2.3, a minor update focusing on bug fixes.

Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the new watchOS beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General –> Software update.

To install the update, the Apple Watch needs to have at least 50 percent battery, it has to be placed on the charger, and it needs to be in range of the iPhone it’s paired to.

watchOS 4.3 introduces support for Nightstand mode in portrait orientation, a feature that was previously only available when the watch was placed in landscape orientation. There’s also a new charging animation when the Apple Watch is placed on the charger, a new app loading animation, your Activity data is now displayed on the Siri watch face, and the battery complication more accurately reports battery life.

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The watchOS 4.3 update also brings the return of a much-desired feature that allows music playing on the iPhone to be controlled using the Music app on the Apple Watch.

In prior versions of watchOS, starting with watchOS 4, the Music app could only be used to control music playing on the watch itself. With the tvOS 11.3 beta installed, there’s also an option to control music playing on the Apple TV with the watch.

Apple plans to release watchOS 4.3 to the public in the spring, and until then, it will be limited to developers. Apple offers public betas of tvOS, iOS, and macOS, but watchOS betas are not available for public beta testers because there’s no way to revert to an earlier version of watchOS once an update is installed.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 4Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)
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Biotech startup is creating genetically engineered ‘superblood’ to battle cancer

cgtoolbox / 123RF Stock Photo

Rubius Therapeutics, a biotech startup that is creating “superblood” to treat a range of conditions including cancer, has raised an extra $100 million to make its dream a reality. Previously, the company raised $120 million from investors, thereby bringing its total haul close to the one quarter of a billion dollars mark — all in less than one year.

Rubius is developing Red-Cell Therapeutics (RCT). These are genetically engineered, enucleated red cells which have been engineered to carry therapeutic proteins. Depending on the requirements, they can be loaded up with the necessary proteins to replace missing enzymes, kill tumors, and regulate the immune system for the battling of cancer and autoimmune diseases. They can then be transfused into patients to apply their healing powers.

A couple of things make the technology neat. For one thing, the fact that the cells have no nucleus means that they are not recognized by the immune system. Red blood cells are also transported all over the body, which will allow the “superblood” to reach whichever tissue or organ it needs to reach. Between these two abilities, the idea is that Rubius is creating an off-the-shelf solution that wouldn’t need to be personalized to each patient.

The extra $100 million in funding will help speed up the development of these genetically engineered red blood cells so that they can reach us, the end user, more rapidly.

“The addition of this funding further strengthens our foundation and enables us to accelerate the development of our first wave of RCT products that are targeting treatment of enzyme deficiencies, cancer, and autoimmune disease,” Torben Straight Nissen, president of Rubius Therapeutics, said in a statement. “We have assembled an extremely talented team of investors, leadership and advisers, which all share the long-term vision of bringing novel cellular therapies to patients.”

Here at Digital Trends, we’ve previously covered projects such as micro-scale robots which could be used as drug delivery systems inside the human body. The idea of being able to help treat diseases — potentially ranging from cancer to diabetes — using targeted drug delivery is certainly an exciting one. It’s great to see that investors clearly think so, too!

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‘Mind-reading’ A.I. produces a description of what you’re thinking about

Think that Google’s search algorithms are good at reading your mind? That’s nothing compared to a new artificial intelligence research project coming out of Japan, which can analyze a person’s brain scans and provide a written description of what they have been looking at.

To generate its captions, the artificial intelligence is given an fMRI brain scan image, taken while a person is looking at a picture. It then generates a written description of what they think the person was viewing. An illustration of the level of complexity it can offer is: “A dog is sitting on the floor in front of an open door” or “a group of people standing on the beach.” Both of those turn out to be absolutely accurate.

“We aim to understand how the brain represents information about the real world,” Ichiro Kobayashi, one of the researchers from Japan’s Ochanomizu University, told Digital Trends. “Toward such a goal, we demonstrated that our algorithm can model and read out perceptual contents in the form of sentences from human brain activity. To do this, we modified an existing network model that could generate sentences from images using a deep neural network, a model of visual system, followed by an RNN (recurrent neural network), a model that can generate sentences. Specifically, using our dataset of movies and movie-evoked brain activity, we trained a new model that could infer activation patterns of DNN from brain activity.”

Before you get worried about some dystopian future in which this technology is used as a supercharged lie detector, though, Kobayashi points out that it still a long way away from real-world deployment. “So far, there are not any real-world applications for this,” Kobayashi continued. “However, in the future, this technology might be a quantitative basis of a brain-machine interface.”

As a next step, Shinji Nishimoto, another researcher on the project, told Digital Trends that the team wants to use it to better understand how the brain processes information.

“We would like to understand how the brain works under naturalistic conditions,” Nishimoto said. “Toward such a goal, we are planning to investigate how various forms of information — vision, semantics, languages, impressions, etcetera — are encoded in the brain by modeling the relationship between our experiences and brain activity. We also aim to investigate how multimodal information is related to achieve semantic activities in the brain. In particular, we will work on generating descriptions about what a person thinks.”

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With a neat physics trick, this desk toy levitates water droplets in midair

Whether it is gravity-defying phone chargers or human-floating tractor beams, we’re suckers for levitating technologies. A new Kickstarter campaign therefore hits our sweet spot with an “executive novelty” (read: a high-priced desk toy) that levitates water droplets entirely for your viewing pleasure.

Called LeviZen, the retro-styled device itself is crafted out of high grade walnut wood and precision-machined aluminum with the necessary audio technology to float drops of liquid using high frequency sound waves not audible to regular ears. It also boasts some in-built LEDs to make sure the water droplets are properly illuminated so as to look their best. No, it doesn’t have any practical applications, but it certainly promises to be an attention-grabbing conversation starter.

Unlike the majority of levitating gadgets we’ve written about in the past, LeviZen doesn’t use magnetic levitation to achieve its effect, due to the fact that this would not work with a liquid like water. Instead, it opts for sound-based acoustic levitation, which adds an unusual element to a product that’s joining a crowded levitating marketplace.

“With LeviZen, we want to bring the ability to levitate liquids by acoustic levitation to the masses,” a spokesperson for Simplistyk told Digital Trends. “Acoustic levitation is a complicated phenomenon, but to explain it in simple words, it is achieved by having two inaudible sound sources facing each other and outputting the same frequency at each other, which causes the waves to collide and form a standing wave. [As a result], we get the stationary nodes with high amplitude waves above and under them. This causes water to be trapped in the node sections.”

As with any crowdfunding campaign, there are risks attached to backing LeviZen. If you do fancy adding an extra gadget to your home, though, you can pledge money for a unit on Kickstarter. The inventors have already more than doubled their $15,000 funding target, with more than 40 days still remaining on the clock as of this writing.

The price set for a single unit is $199, which includes the LeviZen Liquid Levitating Machine, a power adapter with both U.S. and international plugs, and a custom liquid dispenser. Shipping is set for July 2018.

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Flippy the burger-flipping robot is now working alongside humans at CaliBurger

The job of flipping burgers took a big step toward extinction this week as an autonomous robotic kitchen assistant called Flippy started work at a fast food outlet in California.

Designed and built by Miso Robotics, Flippy took up its position alongside human staff at Caliburger in Pasadena on Monday. Every day during the lunchtime shift, the robot will flip burger patties on the grill, remove them when they’re ready, and place them on buns whereupon a human worker will add the extras.

Billed as the world’s first burger-flipping robot, Flippy is essentially a six-axis robotic arm with a spatula on the end.

Clad in its own chef garb, Flippy can flip up to 300 burgers an hour, and, CaliBurger customers will be pleased to know, will cook each one “perfectly and consistently,” according to Miso Robotics.

It does so by using 3D, thermal, and regular cameras to monitor the burgers throughout the cooking process. As the patties cook, its human co-workers can keep track of the progress of each burger on a nearby display (below).

Miso Robotics

The robot’s technology also ensures that it knows when to switch from using a spatula for raw meat to one for cooked meat, a vital feature that no burger-flipping robot can be without if it’s to have a meaningful future in the fast food industry.

Taking its food hygiene skills to the max, the $60,000 robot can even clean spatulas while cooking, and wipe the surface of the grill with a scraper.

As Flippy made its debut at CaliBurger this week, David Zito, co-founder and chief executive officer of Miso Robotics, said the long-term aim is to “improve working conditions of chefs and line cooks with assistants, not replace them.”

Zito added: “Anyone who’s ever worked in a restaurant knows how hard the work is and the value of extra hands and that’s exactly what we built.”

CaliBurger is planning to install the robot in 50 more locations nationwide, an ambition boosted last month when the robotics project received $10 million of funding, taking Miso Robotics’ disclosed funding to $14 million.

The cash injection will also go toward developing new skills for Flippy so it can perform more functions in a fast food kitchen. When that happens, it might not be too long before we walk into a burger restaurant staffed entirely by Flippy bots. After all, we already have robots running hotels.

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DJI’s Mavic Pro drone has just dropped to its lowest-ever price

Dan Baker/Digital Trends

If you’re eyeing a DJI drone for your first quadcopter or looking at its Mavic models as a more portable alternative to your larger Phantom machine, you should know that the Mavic Pro is currently available on Amazon for $769 — that’s a price cut of $230, and is $30 cheaper than the recently released Mavic Air.

It’s the best price we’ve seen for the Pro since its release in 2016, and is likely to prove hard to resist for those who’ve been considering this particular DJI drone.

The deal bags you the machine itself, the remote controller, a battery and charger, a 16GB SD card, spare propellers, and three kinds of USB cables (Lightning, Micro USB, and USB-C).

There’s also the Fly More bundle priced at $1,078, marking a hefty price drop of $221. With this option you receive two extra batteries, extra propellers, a charging hub, car charger, a battery to power bank adapter, and a shoulder bag to throw it all in.

Digital Trends gave the foldable DJI Mavic Pro 4.5 out of a possible 5 stars in its in-depth hands-on review, praising it for its portable design, solid build, excellent range, and decent 4K camera. But as we mentioned at the top, DJI recently launched the Mavic Air for $799. It’s lighter and smaller than the Pro, and features better obstacle avoidance capabilities. The Pro, however, offers superior battery life of up to 27 minutes — that’s six minutes more than the Air.

If price and portability are your main concerns, the DJI range also includes the diminutive Spark, which is currently on offer for $339 down from $399, though as its price suggests, this particular model is less powerful, comes with fewer features, and sports a less impressive camera than its siblings.

The Mavic Pro price drop is likely to be in response to consumers turning their attention to the Mavic Air, which has gotten rave reviews since its launch at the end of January, 2018. It could also be coming ahead of an announcement of an updated version of the Mavic Pro, although it’s been suggested the launch of any follow-up might not be happening until at least June.

For more details on how the Pro rates alongside the Air, take a moment to check out Digital Trends’ specs breakdown.

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Pizza Hut’s reheated pizza-ordering shoes come with cool new feature … sort of

If you were lucky enough to get your cheese-smeared hands on a pair of Pizza Hut’s Pie Tops shoes last year, chances are you’re now well and truly welded to your sofa following endless deliveries of the popular food, each order placed via the fancy footwear’s built-in button.

It’s not clear if there was a clamor among the pizza-loving public for a more advanced design, but the company has gone ahead and launched one anyway. Sounding like a really bad movie sequel, Pie Tops II now features a second button on the other shoe, this one for pausing the TV while you answer the door to collect your piping-hot pizza.

The launch is part of an offbeat ad campaign to coincide with March Madness, with the pause button ensuring you’ll be able to watch the games in their entirety — unless you’re watching a live broadcast. The shoes are real and the new pause button really works, so long as you have a compatible DVR receiver, that is. Yes, we know you can simply press the pause button on your remote as well, but that’s not half as much fun as pressing a button on your shoe, right?

“This year, the Pie Tops II were created to showcase our focus on giving customers the best delivery experience while making sure that tournament fans can feed their pizza craving without missing a moment of the action,” said Zipporah Allen, Pizza Hut’s chief marketing officer, adding, “It’s called March Madness for a reason. We don’t want anyone to miss a play while answering the door to get their pizza.”

Just make sure you hit the right button when the doorbell rings or you’ll be getting another delivery a short while later.

As with the original design, the Pie Tops II shoes use Bluetooth to link the footwear to the Pie Tops app on your smartphone to ensure the order goes through smoothly.

The shoe now comes in two colors: red and “wheat,” though we think a slightly cheesier color would’ve been more fitting. It also has Pizza Hut branding on the side so that everyone knows your pizza outlet of choice. Other unique design features include “extreme marinara splash, cheese grater mesh, branded Pizza Hut lace tags, extra ‘cheese pull’ laces, and branded inner soles.”

If you’re already salivating at the thought of slipping into a pair of Pie Tops, you’re going to have to be very lucky. Pizza Hut is partnering with HBX.com to sell 50 pairs (price currently unknown) from March 19, and will also give away 50 pairs to social media influencers, with more offered as raffle prizes at the Final Four Fan Fest in San Antonio, Texas at the end of the month.

The company said it’s also planning to add smaller sizes for children, though we’re not sure of the wisdom of having a pizza-ordering button on the shoe of an eight-year-old kid. We trust Pizza Hut will incorporate safeguards.

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A smartphone user’s headphone buyer’s guide

Everything you ever wanted to know about buying a pair of headphones from someone who buys way too many pairs of headphones.

Almost everyone has a smartphone. We don’t all use them the same way, though. You might like to play games, or maybe you’re a news or social media junkie, or you just want a way to stay in touch with the people you know and a smartphone is perfect because they all have one, too. It’s pretty great when you think about it; these little gadgets can be anything for anyone.

One thing all of our phones have in common is that they have, for all intents and purposes, replaced the portable media player. The way we listen to our music has evolved and streaming services have replaced the USB cable for almost everyone. And no matter how you get the music on your phone, you need a pair of headphones to listen to it best. Don’t be that one guy on the bus who wants us all to hear those sweet Def Leppard tunes.

You’ll find plenty of places online that can recommend a great pair of headphones you can buy in any and every configuration. We have several of them here, too, and I admit listening to music and picking out the best pair is a great way to earn a living. You should definitely check them out before you buy any headphones at any price, but it’s also important to know a few other things, too. Let’s talk about how some headphones are going to work better for some phones so you know which of those highly recommended headphones are best for you.

Bluetooth vs. wired

There’s no better way to kick this off. Many new phones don’t have a 3.5mm headphone jack, but I’ll go out on a limb and say that more phones with one are in use than without. Samsung and LG still offer a headphone jack, and not everyone buys a new phone every year. And even if your phone doesn’t have a headphone jack you can still connect headphones through the USB or Lightning port. But should you?

Ignoring the economic benefit of having a regular headphone jack, for almost everyone the benefits of wireless headphones outweigh the drawbacks. Yes, you have to keep one more thing charged, but you no longer have a wire running down your neck. We’re mostly focused on how things sound here, though, and almost every pair of Bluetooth headphones you can buy is going to sound just great for listening to music or a movie or even talking on the phone.

I hate not having a headphone jack, but when it comes to sound quality it’s really not a big loss if you’re not using a V30.

There are three reasons for this. The first is that the music you’re streaming isn’t of a high enough quality for it to lose any because of the Bluetooth transfer. The HD codes used for Bluetooth in phones for the past few years can deliver higher quality audio than Spotify (or almost any streaming service) can deliver over the network. It’s not that Spotify is sending poor quality either — Bluetooth is just really good now.

The other two reasons Bluetooth will sound as good or better than a wired connection for most people has to do with the electronics involved. Music is stored and streamed in digital format, but headphones need it in an analog format to make the sound. Two dedicated parts do all the magic here: the DAC and the amp.

More: Does my phone have a DAC? Explaining DACs and Amps in smartphones today

Some phones, like the LG V30 or the HTC 10, have dedicated premium audio hardware on board. If you have a phone like this, then wired audio can sound better than Bluetooth provided you have a high-quality source. But most phones just use the audio hardware that’s included as part of the processor assembly. Bluetooth headphones have this same audio hardware built into them. The audio hardware on the chip that powers your phone is acceptable when it comes to quality, but it takes extra time and money to design things in a way that won’t degrade the quality because of electrical interference from all the other bits inside your phone.

A cheap DAC and amp in a phone won’t sound as good as the same cheap parts in a pair of Bluetooth headphones.

A phone maker can make this equipment sound really good, but most of the time the end result won’t sound as good as those same cheap white-label electronics when they are placed inside your headphones. These may sound like small details, but they can make all the difference. Simply put using an example we all know: a Galaxy S8 sounds pretty good using an average pair of earbuds and will sound just as good or better using an inexpensive pair of Bluetooth headphones. High-end headphones that support HD codecs will sound better.

And that’s enough words on the endless wired vs. wireless headphone debate.

What to look for in Bluetooth headphones

Bluetooth will sound just as good as wired most of the time, but if you want a pair of great sounding “premium” Bluetooth headphones you need to know a little bit about codecs.

A codec (short for coder-decoder) describes the software and hardware used to encode, compress, and decode audio data and some do a much better job of it than others do when it comes to things sounding like the original recording. There are three important ones for smartphone users, and you’ll want to make sure the headphones you buy support the right one(s).

• AAC: If you have an iPhone, getting a pair of headphones that supports the AAC codec over Bluetooth will mean you’re getting the best possible quality. If you don’t have an iPhone or never plan to listen through an iPhone, AAC means nothing for you.
• aptX: If you have a phone with a Qualcomm chip inside, your phone probably supports aptX. There are three flavors of aptX: “regular” aptX, aptX LL (for low latency), and aptX HD (for higher definition) and any of them sound really good when paired with headphones that support it. The LL and HD versions will also fall back on the regular version if it needs to, so a phone that supports aptX paired with headphones that say they support aptX HD will be able to send audio using the standard aptX codec and it will sound great.
• LDAC: The LDAC codec comes from Sony and is able to deliver audio at quality as good or better than even the best wired setup at it’s highest settings. It’s important because as of Android Oreo (8.0) LDAC is built into every Android phone. If your phone and your headphones support LDAC, things will sound great.

The trickiest part is knowing what codec(s) your phone and the headphones you’re looking at support. Almost every phone with a Qualcomm chip supports aptX and almost every pair of high-end Bluetooth headphones do, too. Sony’s high-end models support LDAC, and as mentioned every Android phone with Oreo does. AAC is harder to find in headphones, but every iPhone supports it.

This information is also listed on the packaging for headphones and in your phone’s manual, so be sure to take a look if you’re not sure or just ask online. Chances are someone else already looked and knows the answer.

Impedance

Bluetooth users get to sort through codecs, but wired headphone users also need to pay attention to one line on the spec sheet of any headphones: impedance.

If you’re not familiar with the word, you can think of impedance as resistance (which it is) and you’ll be fine. You don’t need to understand the nuances of impedance vs. “regular” resistance to know why it matters. Higher impedance headphones need a stronger amplifier to drive them and won’t be very loud or very clear with most phones if the impedance is too high.

Most headphones match up well with smartphone hardware but beware if you’re in the market for high-end gear.

None of this matters if you prefer earbuds. I don’t know of any earbuds that have an impedance of higher than 30 or so ohms, with most being much lower. That’s because earbuds were designed for portable players and most portable players don’t have a high-gain amp inside them. But if you’re buying a pair of over-the-ear headphones, especially expensive ones, you might want to check.

That doesn’t mean lower is better though. When the impedance is too low, the headphones will be louder (which can be a plus for some of us) and may sound distorted (which may also be a plus for some of us that are a bit weird). Look for a pair somewhere between 20 and 50 ohms impedance and your phone will be able to properly drive them. A little lower or higher can be OK, but remember that the higher the impedance is, the lower the volume will be. Get too far outside this range and things might be too quiet or too loud and distorted.

The LG V30

When it comes to headphones, the LG V30 gets its own category. It deserves one, and all of this applies to the V10 and V20, too.

Everything above about Bluetooth sounding as good as wired doesn’t apply to the V30, as even mediocre headphones can benefit from the superior DAC inside the phone. The source quality still matters though, and it’s really worth downloading some lossless audio to your SD card and hearing just how good it can sound if you have a V30.

When it comes to smartphone audio, LG is where it’s at. Hail to the king, baby.

The V30 has two internal sound devices. That doesn’t mean it has two separate sets of hardware, just two independent configurations. One configuration puts the phone into a high-impedance mode when you use a set of headphones that have a higher impedance.

This means two things — lower impedance headphones will be VERY LOUD using the high-impedance mode (there are ways to trick the phone using adapters) and may very well blow the speakers or the eardrum they are next to. But higher-impedance headphones are a real thing, and this lets them enjoy a bit of extra power so they have more volume and clarity than they would without it. Both modes still use the superior DAC and signal path; the only difference is in the amplifier gain.

You can trick the V30 into high-gain mode with an adapter. You can also blow your eardrums, or even worse, your headphones.

This makes a difference when you’re buying headphones. First of all, I don’t recommend you try any of the tricks to use high-gain with headphones that don’t need it. It’s bad for the headphones and your ears if you take things too loud. And you really don’t need to, because low-impedance headphones still sound great through the V30. But you might like the sound from high-impedance headphones better because it can be slightly different.

Any of the high-quality headphones you see recommended will sound better through the V30 than almost every other phone, but if you’re looking to spend a little more money and want to make it worth spending, you’ll need to listen yourself to decide if buying high impedance headphones are worth it. My personal recommendations:

• Sony MDR7506. I just love these headphones. They’re big and bulky and have a horrible coiled cord, but they sound beautifully flat. This lets you set the way things sound through your equalizer and you can adjust to find the sound you like. Consider these to be low-impedance (63 ohms) even though some models of V30 will think they are high-impedance because the cut-off point is right around 50-60 ohms. Just watch the volume and you’ll be fine.

See at Amazon

• Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO 250 Ohm. These high-gain headphones won’t sound very good with a lot of other audio players or home stereo equipment. They’re a bit screechy on the high-notes and boomy and echoey on the bass. But they match up really great with the V30’s Enhanced audio filter preset and you won’t have these issues. If you want to try high-impedance headphones without spending an arm and a leg, you can grab these for well under $200 from Amazon. Be ready to use the liberal return policy if you don’t like them.

I don’t recommend these with the V20, though. Those audio filters on the new Sabre DAC make all the difference.

See at Amazon

Frequency response

Headphones are a very personal thing and what sounds good to me may not sound good to you. But there is a way to measure how well things can sound at the very high and very low end of any music or movie audio track — the frequency response.

This is simply the limit of the hardware’s ability to create audio listed as a number. You’ll see it listed as a range and the lower number represents the lowest bass the headphones can recreate and the higher number represents the highest treble.

Ideally, you want to see a frequency response of 5 – 35,000 Hz (Hertz). That would mean the headphones are capable of reproducing every sound a human with perfect hearing can hear. Headphones with a frequency response that wide might be a little pricey, so a more reasonable limit is 15 – 24,000 Hz. and you’ll find a lot of headphones with that range of frequency response.

USB-C headphones

USB-C is a great way to send audio, but there are also a few things you need to be on the lookout for when buying a pair for your phone. The first one is that there aren’t a lot of choices out there, so if you were to go with Bluetooth this year and wait for the industry to catch up nobody would blame you.

The second is the active versus passive question — which does your phone support? Active USB audio means the phone is sending audio in its digital form and you need headphones or a dongle with a DAC and amplifier inside. Passive USB audio is a signal that’s been converted to analog inside the phone and the dongle or headphones need to not have a DAC and amp, or be capable of taking in an analog signal in some other capacity.

Smartphone manufacturers switched to USB-C audio before headphone manufacturers were ready.

On the phone side, it’s not too messy. Every Android phone supports Active dongles or headphones, and all you need to do is plug them in and they will be recognized correctly. Passive dongles or headphones are another story, and there are only a few phones that support a dongle or headphones without their own DAC and amp — Motorola being the most well-known example.

Headphones and adapters are messy. you would think the fact that there is a standalone DAC and amp inside would be something worth writing on the package or in a product description, but most of the time you won’t see it mentioned. My best advice is to ask online and get an answer before you spend any money.

More: USB-C audio: Everything you need to know

What do I use?

I’m one of those people. The ones who nitpick audio to death and spend too much time worrying about it and too much money on board equipment. I’m also in the position where I can use a lot of different phones with my favorite headphones of all types. I do tend to favor flat headphones with any adjustment coming from an on-board equalizer, so know that going in.

Anyways, here is the gear I use and paid for after trying a lot of different stuff:

• Earbuds. If you can get your hands on a pair of Samsung Level-IN earbuds (which are now discontinued), you should totally buy them. I don’t use earbuds very often because having anything inside my ears drives me batty, but I really like the way those sound. A recommendation that you can buy are Aukey’s Arc Earbuds. They’re comfortable as far as earbuds go (they are the behind the ear type), have a nice thick silicone-coated cable and sound pretty great.

See at Amazon

• Bluetooth. My colleagues would all recommend the Bose QuietComforts here, but I disagree. If you need noise-canceling above everything else they’re great, but if you don’t there’s a better (and much cheaper) option for my money — Ghostek’s SoDrop 2. They’re comfortable, sound great with any phone that supports aptX, and inexpensive (about $65). A friend turned me on to them after he bought a pair from an airport vending machine of all places and I bought my own pair to toss into my laptop bag.

See at Amazon

• Over-ear headphones. If you have an LG V30 (or V20 or V10 even), scroll up because there are better options for you. For everyone else, I have to recommend the Audio-Technica ATH-M40x. Some headphones will sound better on some phones, but I’ve found that these sounds really good on every phone I’ve tried. They’re 35 ohms, fully collapsable with a 360-degree swiveling cup, and have a detachable cord. They’re also fairly flat sounding (just a hint of extra bass) and are less than $100 so you won’t want to kick a puppy if you lose or break them. That’s exactly what I want from a pair of headphones and unless I have my V10 with me, I’ll have these.

See at Amazon

One final bit of advice here: I can’t tell you what sounds the best to you. Neither can anyone else on the internet or in real life. Buy your headphones from a vendor that will let you return them if you hate them! I either buy from Guitar Center because I can walk in and try them or from Amazon because I can send them right back. I have an unhealthy obsession with headphones, so let my mistakes and eventual epiphany help you out here.

Rock on!

Is the Galaxy S9 a good upgrade over the S8?

The Galaxy S9 is newer, but the S8 is still a champ.

When a new phone comes out, it can be easy to look at your current handset and feel the sudden urge to upgrade – even if it’s just a year or less old. For Galaxy S8 owners during MWC last week when Samsung announced the Galaxy S9 and S9+, a lot of you likely had that exact same feeling.

The Galaxy S9 brings a lot to the table, with some of its highlights being a physically changing aperture for its rear camera, blazing fast Snapdragon 845 processor, and a fingerprint sensor that’s now in a logical location.

For people rocking the Galaxy S7 or a phone that’s even older, upgrading to the Galaxy S9 just makes sense. However, what do you do if you’re using last year’s Galaxy S8? Here’s what some of our forum users had to say when asked if they’d be leaving the S8 for the S9.

JHStewart1023
03-04-2018 10:19 AM

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I am… I am kinda excited about the new camera features, and the new snapdragon chip personally… I wanted to preorder the 9 Plus this time around but I am getting the regular 9

Reply

NJ Fred
03-04-2018 11:01 AM

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No. I am done chasing the Holy Grail – – especially over minor improvements that amount to a handful of air when analyzed objectively. “Keeping Up with the Jones’s” gets ridiculously expensive after a while.

My S8+ meets my needs.

Reply

tuscanybay
03-04-2018 10:53 AM

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I have an S8 and will probably go with the S9
Plus this time for the full featured dual camera, and the longer battery life.

Reply

cindylike24
03-04-2018 03:59 PM

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I don’t think I’m going to upgrade to an S9 just yet. It doesn’t seem like there’s that much of a difference between the S8 and S9 (regular). I’m still happy with my S8. It fits nicely in my hands still meets the needs I have for a phone.

Reply

Now, we want to hear from you – If you’ve got a Galaxy S8, will you be upgrading to the Galaxy S9?

Join the conversation in the forums!

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+

• Hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+
• Galaxy S9 and S9+: Everything you need to know!
• Complete Galaxy S9 and S9+ specs
• Galaxy S9 vs. iPhone X: Metal and glass sandwiches
• Galaxy S9 vs. Google Pixel 2: Which should you buy?
• Join our Galaxy S9 forums

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Nokia 8 Sirocco, 7 Plus, and 6 join Android Enterprise Recommended

There are now 25 phones part of the initiative.

On February 21, Google formally introduced Android Enterprise Recommended – a new program that highlights the best Android phones for people in the business/enterprise space. It launched with 22 devices from a variety of manufacturers, and now it’s getting some extra love from Nokia.

The Nokia 8 was previously the only phone from HMD Global that was part of Android Enterprise Recommended, but now it’s being joined by the Nokia 8 Sirocco, Nokia 7 Plus, and Nokia 6.

All three of these new phones were just announced at MWC 2018, and their addition to Android Enterprise Recommended really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

One of the biggest requirements for the program is that OEMs need to push out security patches within 90 days of their initial release, and that should be a piece of cake considering that all of Nokia’s phones going forward are also part of Google’s Android One initiative.

While this move doesn’t mean much for regular consumers, it’s yet another sign of how dedicated HMD Global is to making the Nokia brand one of the go-to’s in the Android space for secure software, fast updates, and a clean user experience.

Nokia 8 Sirocco hands-on: Android One goes sexy and expensive