Dubai will begin digital license plate trial next month

Next month, Dubai will begin testing smart license plates, the BBC reports, and they’ll be able to contact emergency services in the event of a crash, communicate with other cars about traffic conditions and display an alert if it or the car it’s on are stolen. A trial will begin next month to try out the system, test for any technological issues arising because of the city’s hot, arid climate and figure out how best to roll out the devices in the future. Along with its communication features, the digital plate will also allow for users’ fines, parking fees and plate registration costs to be deducted automatically from their accounts. However, because the plates will be outfitted with a GPS and transmitters, they could trigger concerns over privacy and data security.

Dubai explores the use of new technology quite a bit. In the past, it has tested robot police officers, autonomous patrol cars and a flying taxi service. Last year, city officials announced plans to develop a tunnel that will scan Dubai International Airport visitors with dozens of facial recognition and iris scanning cameras.

The head of Dubai’s Vehicle Licensing Department at Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority said the price for these plates hasn’t been determined yet, but the project costs will be known once the trial wraps up in November.

Via: BBC

Fisher-Price’s wearable baby monitor is an unreliable rash machine

Spoiler alert: This does not end well for Fisher-Price.

For several months now I’ve been using the company’s Sproutling wearable “baby monitor.” And you’ll notice that’s in scarequotes, because it is definitely not a baby monitor. In fact, it’s really just a sleep tracker for your child (read: half a Fitbit), and a bad one at that. Even at half the price, the Sproutling wouldn’t be worth it. At the full $250 retail, it’s an insult.

The good

Credit where it’s due, the Sproutling isn’t a complete failure — I love the UFO-shaped “smart” charging base. Truth be told, though, it’s not really that “smart.” It’s basically just a wireless charger for the wearable that doubles as an app-controlled nightlight and sound machine. But it’s a really good sound machine. The ambient noise was a godsend for drowning out the rest of the noises in our small apartment. And seven times out of ten when my son woke up crying, putting on “Twinkle Twinkle” would lull him back to sleep.

You can choose from a sizable selection of classical tunes and lullabies like “Air on a G String,” “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and “Hush Little Baby.” Plus, a few generic “ambient” tunes and standard noise-machine sounds like white noise, thunderstorm and ocean waves. With a recent app update you can even choose playlists of songs and sounds and set a timer to turn off the machine after a period of time.

The night light is just as customizable. You can choose the color, set a timer and adjust the brightness (even cranked all the way up, it’s pretty dim). Because it only casts light upwards, it’s not going to stop you from tripping over toys on your way through the nursery, but it’s enough for changing a diaper in the dark.

In general the app is well designed and easy to navigate. And it’s incredibly simple to control all the various features and change your settings, even while you’re out and about. It means grandma and grandpa don’t have to install a new app just to babysit, but it also means you can mess with your brother-in-law by randomly turning on “Hush Little Baby” while he’s trying to feed a fussy child.

The bad

At the risk of being glib — literally everything else.

Let’s stay with the app for a bit. While a recent update has improved things somewhat, it’s still pretty buggy. It can be slow to respond, which, when you’re dealing with a screaming four-month-old at three o’clock in the morning is enough to make you throw your phone across the room.

It also has a tendency to log you out randomly. Again, first thing in the morning, when trying to change a diaper, the last thing you want to do is punch in a 13-character password on your phone just to stop the sound of gentle rain.

Things only get worse from here.

Arguably the most important feature of the Sproutling is its ability to alert you when your child falls asleep, wakes up, stirs or rolls over. None of these alerts ever went off with any predictability. Often notifications that my son fell asleep came in 15 minutes or more after the fact. And notifications that he woke up would arrive long after he was out of his bassinet and already getting his morning feeding.

As an experiment, my wife and I left the band on our son while he was with the babysitter. Over the course of the day, we got repeated notifications that he had woken up. I counted a grand total of 18. Strangely, my wife received even more — over 20. Somehow, despite tracking the same device, we didn’t get the same number of alerts. Things are even weirder when you consider that I got only three notifications that he had fallen asleep; my wife got six. Somehow my son woke up six times more often than he fell asleep.

We’ve long since given up on the band, yet we still receive the occasional notification that he’s fallen asleep even while it sits untouched next to the base in the diaper cart.

As a paranoid first-time parent, I was particularly interested in the roll-over notifications. I’ve been warned enough times about not letting a newborn sleep on their stomach. And I have a few friends whose kids started to roll over just days or weeks after coming home. Fisher-Price refers to these as “red alerts” which, other than the color of the screen in the app, are no different from any other notification. They don’t override do-not-disturb unless you specifically go into your phone’s settings to change it. There’s no special sound. An alarm doesn’t ring from the base station. Basically, if the kid rolls over and you’re not clutching your phone in anticipation, you might miss the alert. One morning I woke up to three notifications that my son had rolled over in his sleep — none of them were enough to wake me or my wife. Thankfully, it doesn’t appear he actually had rolled over.

The grander promise is that Fisher-Price will collect enough data to predict your child’s sleeping pattern. That seemed to work well enough. The predictions were never terribly far off — the device knew he would wake up around 8am most mornings, but they were also largely useless. Once my son settled into a predictable routine, I didn’t need an app to tell me he was going to wake up at 2am like clockwork to be fed.

The most confusing part of Sproutling, though, is the pile of untouched technology just sitting inside the base. The base has sensors to measure temperature, humidity and light levels, plus a microphone. The mic is supposedly completely disabled in firmware and does not capture, store or transmit audio. Fisher-Price says it’s using the other sensors to collect data it hopes will lead to better sleep prediction algorithms and new features.

It seems like it would be easy to put a temperature display in the app so parents could make sure the nursery wasn’t too cold, or give users the option to turn on the microphone and use Sproutling as a proper audio-only baby monitor. Those are some basic features that any “baby monitor” should have. Right now, though, it seems like there’s a whole bunch of tools collecting dust inside its translucent white shell.

The ugly

Now, I cannot lay the full blame at Fisher-Price’s feet. But, on at least three separate occasions he had pretty bad eczema outbreaks where the band rested. Cleaning the band, washing the sensor and alternating legs every night… it didn’t make a difference. After about three days of continuous use his skin would become red, scaly and irritated.

Being my son, he is prone to eczema outbreaks. I had it pretty bad when I was a baby too. But we’ve had little trouble keeping it in check everywhere else on his body. It’s only where the band was.

To make matters worse, the sensor itself left red rings on his calves. Even if the Sproutling delivered on its promise, it would have been cruel to subject my son to its side effects for extended periods of time.

Wrap-up

I’d gladly pay like $50 for a stand-alone Sproutling smart charger — it’s a simple, well-designed remote-controlled night light and sound machine. But the wearable fails to live up to any of its promises. You’d be better off spending that $250 on a proper video baby monitor (without WiFi, please) and a tricked-out sound machine.

Vimeo Launches macOS App Aimed at Final Cut Pro Users

Vimeo today announced a new “Vimeo for macOS” app that brings some of the service’s core functionalities to Mac computers, particularly aimed at creators using Apple’s Final Cut Pro video editing software. While users could already upload to Vimeo from Final Cut Pro, the company noted that its new Mac app gives Final Cut Pro users “more control over file formats and video codecs.”

Specifically, Vimeo will integrate with Final Cut Pro to export ProRes videos, manage uploads, share videos for team reviews or to post on the platform. Vimeo said users will also be able to upload multiple files at once, track upload progress in the Mac status bar, and more.

The company hopes that the Mac app will streamline creators’ workflows by simplifying the export and upload process.

– Export as ProRes and other advanced codecs from Final Cut Pro
– Upload directly to your Vimeo account
– Adjust the title, description, and privacy settings for your videos
– Get instant access to video links, video review pages, and embed codes
– Receive notifications about important video activity

And you can enjoy it all without going into your internet browser. Meaning you get the features you need most, right when and where you need them.

Once the new Vimeo app is installed users can connect to Final Cut Pro by restarting Apple’s app and looking for Vimeo in their share destinations. The company also mentioned that it plans to provide ongoing updates to the Mac app, and is open to feedback from the creator community.

Final Cut Pro updated yesterday with version 10.4.1, introducing the new ProRes RAW format. Apple said that this format combines the visual and workflow benefits of RAW video with the performance of ProRes, a lossy video compression format developed by the company for post-production. The update also added advanced closed captioning tools and enhanced export tools.

Vimeo for macOS launches a few months after the company announced support for high dynamic range videos on its apps for iPhone X, 2017 iPad Pro, and Apple TV 4K. Vimeo’s HDR videos support the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) format to keep file sizes at manageable levels, letting HDR video makers upload to Vimeo “in the highest color accuracy possible.”

Those interested can download Vimeo for macOS for free from the Mac App Store [Direct Link].

Tags: Final Cut Pro X, Vimeo
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Apple Working on TV Show Adapted From Isaac Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ Novels

Apple has inked a deal for a TV series adaption of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation science fiction novels, reports Deadline. The series, created by Skydance television, is in development for straight-to-series consideration.

Skydance last June scored the rights to Asimov’s estate, and since then, David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman, who will serve as executive producers and showrunners, have been working on developing a TV show based on the Foundation books. Goyer has previously worked on “The Dark Knight,” “Batman Begins,” Ghost Rider,” and more, while Friedman is known for “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” and “Emerald City.”

Foundation is Isaac Asimov’s most popular and well-known science fiction series, which includes titular novel Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation, along with additional books Foundation’s Edge and Foundation and Earth.

The series follows psychohistory expert and mathematician Hari Seldon who is able to predict the future. Seldon creates a group called the Foundation to preserve humanity’s collective knowledge ahead of the impending fall of the Galactic Empire. The novels span many years and cover the rise and fall of multiple empires, so it isn’t a simple undertaking to adapt it into a TV show.

Along with the Foundation-based TV show, Apple is working on several other science fiction shows, including a reboot of Steven Spielberg’s “Amazing Stories,” an untitled space drama developed by Ronald D. Moore, best known for the 2004 reboot of “Battlestar Galactica,” and an epic world-building drama called “See,” which is set in the future.

Apple has more than a dozen TV shows in development in total, and rumors have suggested we could see the first of these debut starting in 2019. For a full list of what Apple’s working on, make sure to check out the original content section of our Apple TV roundup.

Related Roundup: Apple TVBuyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Neutral)
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Instagram Launches New ‘Focus’ Feature for Portrait Mode-Style Photos

Instagram today announced the launch of a new “Focus” mode, which is designed to allow Instagram users to take portrait images with a softly blurred background.

The feature is available as a new option next to “Superzoom” when you open up the camera. It can be used with the front or rear-facing cameras, and Instagram says as soon as someone is in the shot, the person will stay in focus while the background becomes blurred. Focus mode only works with a person in the frame.

Focus mode can be used with either photos or videos, and it’s designed to be similar to the Portrait Mode feature available on Apple’s newer dual-lens devices. While Portrait Mode is a hardware-based feature available on the iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X, Instagram’s Focus mode is software based, making it available on a wider range of devices.

Instagram says Focus works on the iPhone SE, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, and “select Android devices.”

In addition to Focus, Instagram is also adding a new @mention sticker on iOS devices so you can use a sticker to tag your friends using the stories camera.

Both Focus and the new Mention sticker are available in the latest version of Instagram, which can be downloaded from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tag: Instagram
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Huawei P20 Pro review: The Galaxy S9 killer

40MP, the world’s first triple camera, 5X Hybrid Zoom, artificial intelligence in all the ways, and the most unique color on any smartphone ever. These are just some of the features Huawei is hoping will make you check out its new flagship, the Huawei P20 Pro.

This isn’t the first 40MP smartphone — Nokia had the 808 PureView and Lumia 1020 in 2012 and 2013, respectively — but this is the first time we’ve seen such numbers on an Android smartphone. We crowned last year’s Huawei flagship Mate 10 Pro as the best smartphone of 2017, but does the P20 Pro pick up where its sibling left off?

With the standards set by smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus and Google Pixel 2 XL, Huawei has a fight on its hands. Let’s find out how it stacks up in our full Huawei P20 Pro review.

Kris and I have both been using the Huawei P20 Pro for about two weeks since the phone was announced in Paris. The software is still in beta, and we’re running build number 8.1.0.106 (SP9C432), with the 1 March 2018 security patch. Above you’ll find the video review, where Kris mostly focuses on the camera, while in this written review, I’ve also expanded on other areas of the phone. Although we do have the P20 as well, this review focuses on the flagship P20 Pro, and references parts of the P20 experience where applicable.Show More

Design

The Huawei P20 Pro borrows several design cues from the iPhone X, with a vertical camera placement on the back and notch atop the screen. It stands out with three cameras and the unique twilight color, which awakens everyone’s inner wish for a real-life unicorn.

Whatever your palate, Huawei has a P20 color for you.

There are four or five colors depending on which model you choose, with the regular P20 coming in a champagne gold color that’s not available with the Pro. For the P20 Pro, Huawei offers black, a majestic midnight blue, and pink gold. The twilight color offers a new kind of color gradient — it actually shimmers in the light. The pink gold version also has a gradient, but its range is much more muted. Whatever your palate, Huawei probably has a P20 color for you.

Beneath the screen is Huawei’s fingerprint sensor, which is flat, wide, and allows you to unlock your phone while it’s laying face up on a table. I’m normally a bigger fan of Huawei’s rear-mounted fingerprint sensors thanks to their added support for summoning the notification shade, but the P20 Pro’s scanner is still fast and reliable and supports gesture controls for navigation.

The power and volume keys on the right offer nice feedback and the power button has a nice accent color. The bottom houses a speaker, microphone, and USB Type-C port. There’s no headphone jack, but an adapter comes in the box. I’m not an audiophile so I usually pick convenience over function, so I’m fine with Bluetooth audio. It’s the easiest solution and the P20 Pro works well enough in this regard.

The back of the P20 Pro in twilight is stunning. It’s my favorite smartphone color ever. Despite that, the glass back feels fragile, and I kept mine inside Huawei’s official black rubber silicon case — hiding the glorious color. The camera bump at the top left has a lot of sensors, though it hides them well. The laser for the autofocus is hidden inside the black bit in the middle of the main camera module. The flash also contains a color temperature module. It’s a clever design from Huawei, and gives the appearance of things happening by magic, which fits with how AI comes into play throughout the phone.

The P20 Pro brings a different design language to previous P-series devices, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It looks stunning, feels great in the hand and helps the phone establish an identity of its own.

Display

The P20 Pro offers a 6.1-inch AMOLED display with a rather awkward 18.7:9 aspect ratio. That extra 0.7 is due to the notch. Let’s get this out of the way: I’ve used the iPhone X for months and after a while, the notch just doesn’t matter. More phones are adopting the notch design, and you’ll have to get used to it eventually. If you really hate it, you can also turn it off on the P20 Pro, rounding the corners and turning off the extra pixels for a more standard-looking experience.

The P20 Pro’s got a great panel, offering the vibrant blacks and deep colors all AMOLED panels do. The biggest issue for me is the resolution. Like with the Mate 10 Pro, Huawei opted for a Full HD+ panel. Huawei CBG CEO Richard Yu has told us several times the company chooses Full HD+ over Quad HD+ due to battery life concerns, but there’s likely another reason.

Considering how the Mate 10 Pro also had a Full HD+ display, it seems Huawei saves a few features for its luxury flagship. On top of the better fingerprint sensor position, the Mate RS has a Quad HD+ AMOLED panel.

We put the P20 Pro through its paces in our testing lab and it’s bright — very bright. Its top brightness of 600 nits under bright lights bests the Galaxy S9 by 26 percent, which achieves just 475 nits. Most surprising, the LCD display on the P20 is actually 23 percent brighter than its Pro counterpart, albeit with a cooler display. The P20 Pro achieves a color temperature of 7,212 Kelvin. The P20 is 9 percent cooler at 7,841 Kelvin. After testing Samsung’s latest flagships, we found Huawei’s displays are set to be about 200K warmer than the Galaxy S9s.

Samsung is known for having the best displays, but the AMOLED panel on the P20 Pro is up there as one of the best on a smartphone. It’s a pleasure to use and ticks all the right boxes. The eye comfort mode works really well. Despite only being a Full HD+ display, it’s fantastic for anything you throw at it. As always, there’s a bevy of color-tuning options in the settings if you don’t like the look out of the box.

Performance

The P20 Pro is packed full of the hardware we’ve come to expect from a flagship Huawei device. It’s powered by HiSilicon’s Kirin 970 chipset and, like the Mate 10 Pro, has a lot of AI features thanks to the built-in NPU. It’s backed by 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, alongside the Mali-G72 MP12 which handles most tasks well. The GPU isn’t quite on par with the Adreno 630 in the Snapdragon 845 on the Galaxy S9, but it held its own in our testing. The regular P20 drops the RAM to 4GB, which doesn’t have too much effect on performance, at least according to the benchmark scores.

The P20 Pro beats the best flagships of 2017, including the Mate 10 Pro and OnePlus 5T, but the Galaxy S9 produces results from another world. A large part of this is likely to be the Snapdragon 845 CPU, as the Galaxy S9 results are on par with our initial testing on Qualcomm’s latest processor. The P20 Pro’s benchmark performance is great right now, but it’ll likely be bested many times in the coming months. A lot of devices are going to launch with the Snapdragon 845, so we’ll have to wait until Huawei’s next Mate device to see how good its 2018 performance can get.

These benchmarks show how good the performance of the Snapdragon 845 is. Like our initial benchmark scores, the Snapdragon 845 sets a new standard for AnTuTu performance. The Kirin 970 inside the P20 Pro is significantly better than the same processor inside the Mate 10 Pro (which scored 178466), but as a generation older, the Kirin 970 can’t keep up with the Snapdragon 845.

These two benchmarks show that while there is a gap between the performance scores of the Snapdragon 845 and the Kirin 970, it’s a smaller difference than it has been in previous years. In particular, the Mali G72 GPU inside the Kirin 970 is close to the performance of Qualcomm’s Adreno 630 GPU, and this is reflected in actual usage of both devices.

In day-to-day usage, the P20 Pro never misses a beat. The phone is fast regardless of what you throw at it. 6GB of RAM usually results in about 2.5GB to 3.5GB of free RAM at any given time. I’ve yet to see the phone stutter at all, even with a lot of apps running in the background. Huawei claims the AI allows it to remain fast over a longer period compared to other flagships, but we’ll need a longer time with the P20 Pro to confirm if this is true.

Hardware

Porsche Design Mate RS… in red!

The P20 Pro doesn’t have expandable storage. If 128GB isn’t enough for you, Huawei hopes you’ll spring for the Porsche Design Mate RS, which comes in 256GB and 512GB variants. The P20 Pro is IP67 certified, offering dust and water resistance up to 1 meter for 30 minutes. The regular P20 is only IP5X rated, so it’s splash proof, but doesn’t offer anywhere near the same level of durability and protection.

There’s no headphone jack, which may be a deal breaker for some users, but personally, I don’t mind. The phone comes with USB Type-C headphones in the box, which offer crisp sound but are otherwise unremarkable. There’s also a USB Type-C to 3.5mm adapter so you can use your existing headphones. If wireless headphones are more your preference, like me, there’s support for Sony’s LDAC codec and HWA 990 Kbps high-res audio over Bluetooth 4.2.

There are also stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support. These speakers are pretty good, and deliver loud volume without too much distortion. I find them a little louder than the Galaxy S9, though Huawei’s silicon case muffles audio a little. Dolby Atmos is a useful addition and offers a stereo-like effect during audio playback.

Like other Huawei phones, the P20 Pro comes in dual-SIM flavor. Dual-SIM functionality isn’t new to most smartphone ranges, and even the Galaxy S9+ has an optional dual-SIM variant. Unlike most others, you don’t need to get a different variant of the P20 Pro to get two SIM card slots. When you do have two SIM cards in play, both can access 4G LTE, and you can customize which is used for data and for calling.

Like previous Huawei devices, the P20 Pro allows you to disable the on-screen keys and use gestures on the fingerprint sensor to navigate if you prefer. A tap on the sensor takes you back a screen. Pressing and holding takes you straight to the home screen. A horizontal swipe launches the recent apps overview. Personally, I don’t like this and have stuck with the on-screen keys.

Huawei backs up the fingerprint sensor with its face unlock feature. It’s not as secure as Apple’s Face ID, so it can’t be used for payments and other secure transactions, but it’s lightning fast. In almost any condition, including pitch black, it unlocks your phone so fast that you don’t even see the lock screen. We tested it in the back of a moving taxi, in a dark room with little to no light, and in day-to-day usage, and it’s the best way to unlock your P20 Pro most of the time, assuming you’re OK with the heightened security risk. With direct sunlight behind you, however, the face unlock doesn’t work — just like Face ID on the iPhone X.

Battery

The P20 Pro has one major advantage over other 2018 flagships up its sleeve — a 4,000mAh battery. Most flagship devices come equipped with a battery ranging from 3,000 to 3,5000mAh battery. The P20 Pro brings the same battery capacity as the Mate 10 Pro, which we crowned as the best smartphone for battery life last year. It’s great to see a company not conform to battery capacity norms.

A large battery combined with Full HD+ resolution results in exceptional battery life on the Huawei P20 Pro.

Nirave

The battery life on the P20 Pro doesn’t disappoint. During nearly two weeks with the device, the battery lasted around two days on average, with around six to seven hours of screen-on time. During my flight back to San Francisco from the launch event in Paris, I used the phone as my Kindle device and reached San Francisco with over 50 percent battery left, after over 9 hours of solid screen-on time.

The testing numbers also reveal a similar story. Overall, the P20 Pro offers better battery life than any other device we’ve tested, including the Mate 10 Pro. Our Wi-Fi browsing test cycles the same set of webpages and drains the battery from 100 percent to 0 percent, with the display set at 200 nits brightness. The P20 Pro lasted 11 hours and 28 minutes, which is better than the P20 at 10 hours and 17 minutes, but not as good as the Mate 10 Pro which lasts for 13 hours straight.

In our video playback test — where we loop a 1080p video at 200 nits brightness — the P20 Pro lasted 12 hours and 21 minutes, while the regular P20 lasted for 10 hours and 20 minutes. The P20 Pro proves to be much better than the Mate 10 Pro and Galaxy S9 Plus here, which lasted for 10 hours and 40 minutes and 11 hours and 16 minutes, respectively. Interestingly, last year’s LG V30 also proves to be a champion here, lasting for 12 hours and 20 minutes.

Samsung phones are known for offering a ton of features, but battery life has always been a concern. The P20 Pro offers 11 percent more average battery life than the Galaxy S9 Plus, which is actually less than we expected, given the 12 percent larger battery and lower resolution display. Huawei has improved battery life with updates in the past, though — the Mate 10 Pro battery life got significantly better after its first update — so we’d expect the P20 Pro battery to improve with age.

Overall, the battery life is arguably the best we’ve seen from a flagship smartphone to-date. Whatever the task, the battery will easily last you a full day or two. For many users, it’ll last much longer. During our time with the P20 Pro, using the camera didn’t seem to have too large an effect on the battery as we spent three hours shooting with the phone in Paris with the display at full brightness and the battery only drained 18 percent.

The P20 Pro comes equipped with Huawei SuperCharge, which charges your phone to full in just 90 minutes. The P20 also has SuperCharge and is even more impressive, charging to full in just 72 minutes — faster than any smartphone we’ve tested. In 30 minutes, the P20 Pro charges to 54 percent, while the regular P20 charges to 65 percent. In 60 minutes, they charge to 87 percent and 95 percent respectively. By comparison, the Galaxy S9 Plus and S9 take 96 and 93 minutes respectively, despite both having 500mAh-smaller batteries than their P20 counterparts.

Camera

They say big numbers help sell phones. If that’s the case, Huawei has plenty of these to lean on in the P20 Pro’s camera. There’s the world’s first triple camera, a 40MP main sensor, 3X Optical Zoom, 5X Hybrid Zoom, 4D Predictive Focus, 102,400 maximum ISO, 2μm pixel size, 4-in-1 Hybrid Focus system, 960 frames per second slow-motion recording, and more. The camera also has Huawei’s new AI-assisted stabilization (AIS), which lets the P20 Pro take long-exposure shots without a tripod.

The three cameras combine to make an incredible trio that produce great shots in all conditions.

Each camera serves a different purpose. The main 40MP sensor captures rich color, the 20MP secondary monochrome sensor captures additional details, and the third 8MP telephoto lens is used for zoom and additional focal length.  They make for an incredible trio which produces great shots in all conditions. Kris goes into more depth on the make-up of the camera in the video review, and Adam has rounded up all the facts on Huawei’s triple camera in our walkthrough below.

The 40MP main sensor will be a draw for many users. I remember working retail when the Nokia 1020 was launched. I experienced first-hand how many customers came into the store asking for the phone with the 40MP camera. The P20 Pro’s camera will likely have the same effect for Huawei, at least outside the U.S. where it will appear on store shelves, but without the turn-off of Windows phone OS.

By default, the camera shoots images at 10MP, which is where the 2μm pixel size kicks in. The main camera actually has 1μm pixels, but by default, the P20 uses a process called pixel binning to combine the light information from four 1μm pixels into a larger 2μm super pixel.

• See the full-res photos

You can shoot at 40MP if you want, but remember, the smaller 1μm pixels are less sensitive to light, and you can’t zoom in, so you’ll only want to shoot at full-res in well-lit conditions where zooming isn’t necessary. By using pixel binning rather than just having 2μm pixels in the first place, the 40MP camera offers more versatility. As a result, you can take rich 40MP photos in great lighting, and still get excellent low light performance when lighting conditions aren’t as good.

The 20MP monochrome lens also has a part to play in the overall pictures, as it captures three times as much light information than the RGB sensor (because it has no color filters). The result is images with more detail, increased sensitivity to light and less noise in shadows. The P20 Pro combines the data from both sensors to capture vibrant, richly colored and nicely detailed pictures, regardless of the lighting conditions.

The third lens really sets the P20 Pro apart from other smartphones. It offers 3X optical zoom and captures about a ninth of the standard frame (so if you have the grid overlay on, you’ll always know what you’ll get at 3x). In darker conditions, the smaller f/2.4 aperture results in less light sensitivity though, so even when you’re zoomed in, the P20 Pro is still using all three cameras. Just cover the telephoto lens at 3x zoom to see it in action. There’s also a noticeable shift in the colors when switching between 1x and 3x zoom.

The P20 Pro also brings the world’s first 5X Hybrid Zoom, which combines the 3X Optical Zoom with additional detail from the main sensor to achieve a 5X Hybrid Lossless zoom. It’s fantastic. From graffiti on buildings in Paris to bottles of wine in a restaurant’s wine rack, the Hybrid zoom is a lot of fun to use. I’ve spent many moments zooming into pictures, and even when pixel peeping, the result is excellent.

Many companies have claimed lossless or hybrid zoom in the past, but the P20 Pro seems to be one of the first devices to actually deliver on this feature. The 5x images naturally aren’t as good as they would have been with 5X optical zoom, but they are very similar to the level of detail from the 3x. As Kris says, it’s nice to know you can digitally zoom in a bit and still maintain image quality. The P20 Pro lets you zoom in up to 10x digitally, but we wouldn’t recommend going past 5x if you still want crisp detail.

The telephoto lens is the only one that officially comes with OIS, but an iFixit teardown seems to show  OIS in all three lenses. Regardless, the P20 Pro also uses AIS across the board. It analyzes the frame and ditches small parts of the edges to keep everything stabilized. 4D focus also predicts where a subject is moving and keeps it in focus, so you have smooth overall footage with locked-on focus. To see how AIS compares to EIS used on the Pixel 2, check out the video review above.

Captured using a long exposure with night mode

AIS is responsible for what both Kris and I think is the biggest highlight on the P20 Pro camera: night mode. If you’ve tried to shoot a low-light, long-exposure shot by hand, you’ll know the resulting image is usually full of noise and image shake. AIS solves this by stabilizing the image long enough for you to capture a four-second handheld long exposure at night that’s crisp and blur-free. Add in the excellent low-light sensitivity and detail of all the sensors combined, and the results are simply amazing.

On the P20 Pro display, all these images look fantastic. It’s only when you begin pixel peeping on your computer that you start to see where the P20 Pro falls down. As Kris mentions in the video, however, this raises an important question: what constitutes a good photo? Is it the one that produces the most realistic colors, or the one that makes them pop the most? Is it the one that maintains detail at the expense of added noise, like the Pixel 2, or the one that looks great on your phone but like a painting up close?

Your answer will determine if the P20 Pro is the camera for you. If you want true-to-life images with more detail when you zoom in, the Pixel 2 is the better camera for you. But if you want images that look the best before you start crawling the pixels, the kind that will look better on social media, then the P20 Pro might be for you.

The P20 Pro’s 24MP selfie camera is definitely an example of more megapixels not really translating to better photos. Millions of pixels aren’t much good if the photo captured is soft. Even with all of Huawei’s effects turned off, selfies have a noticeable smoothness that shouldn’t be there. It is possible to take some good pictures with the P20 Pro’s front camera in good lighting, but the images are too soft and artificial for my tastes. With such a reflective rear panel, you’re better off just flipping the camera over and using the back as a mirror to take the perfect selfie!

The front and the rear camera both have a portrait mode, but both are a little hit or miss. Software-assisted bokeh couldn’t handle Kris’ wild hair (as most phones can’t). It faired a little better in my own test shots, but it’s not on par with the Pixel 2. However, the rear camera also comes with a feature only Huawei offers, which I got a lot of joy out of using on the P20 Pro and the Mate 10 Pro.

Slide all the way to the left in the camera and you’ll enter aperture mode, called wide aperture mode on past Huawei devices. The P20 Pro allows you to capture images using the main sensor, and adjust the focal point and aperture size both pre- and post-capture. This isn’t a new feature — The Galaxy S9’s live focus feature does it too — but the P20 Pro’s aperture mode allows you to change the aperture from f/0.95 to f/16.

Unlike the Pixel 2 and other devices which only offer one type of Portrait, the P20 Pro leaves the customization up to you. By default, it’s set to f/4 which produces a natural amount of bokeh like other devices. If you prefer more bokeh, you can change it to f/0.95. If you don’t like much or any bokeh in your photos, then the f/16 option is designed for you.

Aperture mode works well for selfies, as you can adjust the amount of bokeh in the shot, and if the cutout is all wrong, remove as much background blur as possible. Similarly, if you take a great picture and decide you’d prefer to have your focal point elsewhere, you can easily change it.

The P20 Pro is aided by the Kirin 970’s Neural Processing Unit (NPU), which helps with all of its AI features. These features are most apparent in the camera. Alongside the AIS which allows you to take excellent photos and video, there’s also automatic scene recognition.

The scene recognition can be good, but Kris and I both found it occasionally got in the way of taking excellent pictures. Once you get to know the AI’s attitude to photography, you can take advantage of the suggestions you like and ignore those you don’t. This is because Huawei now lets you deny automatic scene recognition changes as they pop up or you can disable AI assistance entirely.

Sometimes you’ll find yourself fighting with the AI, trying to take a regular shot while it keeps changing settings on you. For example, there are dedicated portrait and night modes in the camera, but the AI will automatically switch to portrait mode when it detects a human face in the frame or launch into night mode in the dark. Of course, this can be helpful, but if you don’t like fake bokeh or aren’t after a long exposure it can be annoying. One of the new scenes recognized in the P20 Pro is waterfalls, but the phone automatically tries to take a long exposure for that dreamy water effect, but this isn’t always the best way to capture it.

Once you understand which scenes the phone is good at tweaking, the results can be fantastic. The AI can automatically detect food, dogs, and cats (with separate modes for each of these pets), and it can boost colors to provide a more vibrant image. Similarly, the greenery mode really makes grass pop out of an image and the blue sky mode makes even dreary skies look nicer. It’s not the most accurate look, but it’s amazing on social media, which appears to be Huawei’s goal.

Personally, I liked it when it automatically switched to portrait and night mode, but Kris found it a nuisance as there are already dedicated modes for these. I also like it when it switches to greenery, food, or dog scenes. The results are usually much better for social media.

The P20 Pro is the first smartphone with the ability to shoot up to 102,400 ISO. This feels like a number that’s big for the sake of being big. A photo shot at that ISO would typically have enough grain to completely ruin the image, which is probably why you can’t select anything above ISO 3,200 in Pro mode.

During our briefing and the press conference, Huawei made a big deal about the P20 Pro’s 4D predictive tracking, which uses AI to predict where a moving subject is headed to maintain focus. In Huawei’s demo it worked well, and it mostly delivered in our testing. We found the autofocus struggled to stay locked on a moving subject like flowers blowing in the wind, which you can see in the video review. It’s not terrible, but it’s not as good as it was on stage either.

Another big AI camera feature is assisted framing, which helps non-photographers capture images with better composition by giving them various tips based on their photos. It doesn’t seem to work right now. There doesn’t appear to be an option in the settings for it and neither Kris nor I saw it pop up on its own at all. It’s more than likely coming in a future update. We’ve reached out to Huawei and will update when we have more information.

One thing that I do find a little strange about the P20 Pro camera is the location of HDR. By now, almost every smartphone offers an automatic HDR option, but Huawei insists on keeping this option hidden away in the modes menu. Night mode can act as an HDR replacement in certain shots — such as a high contrast shot with a bright light source — but it doesn’t work all the time. Instead, you need to open the HDR mode and there’s no way to make it automatic. We wish Huawei would change this.

There are a lot of other features still to touch on with the camera. The Ultra Snapshot mode launches the camera in 0.3 seconds from screen-off. Unfortunately, it only captures a 7MP image in 18:9 aspect ratio and there’s no way to change this in the settings. Since the image is taken so quickly, there’s no AI scene recognition either. Fortunately, you can change the function of the button shortcut in the settings menu, which I did. The camera is plenty fast enough once you launch it, and I’d rather have more control over my images, so I changed the shortcut to launch the camera without taking an image.

Huawei P20 Pro Camera samples:

The P20 Pro also captures 960 frames per second slow-motion video recording like other recent flagships. It’s a fun feature to use and it’s relatively easy to get the timing right — I struggled a little at first, as it happens almost instantly when you press the capture button — but it’s not as fun as the Galaxy S9 Plus. Samsung’s flagship brings an automatic slow-motion mode, so you don’t need to perfectly time the shutter, which makes taking slow-motion video a lot more fun.

Before the P20 Pro was announced, the rumors had me excited. Since the launch of the Nokia Lumia 1020, I and many others have been waiting for a replacement. Back then I wouldn’t have pegged Huawei as the company that would offer it, but the P20 Pro has the camera we’ve all been waiting for.

The P20 Pro is the flagship smartphone camera we’ve all been waiting for… It features all the hardware you could want in a camera and takes stunning photos.

Nirave

It features all the hardware you could want and gives you the tools to take visually stunning photos. The AI features get in the way a bit, but once you learn how to make it work for you, the results are amazing. The 5X hybrid zoom is a highlight, but the night mode has me wanting to go out and take pictures just to see what it produces.

You could give 40 people the same scene and they’d take 40 different pictures.

The phone is designed to allow you to take the photos you want, albeit with a focus on social media, sharing, and being visually appealing on a smartphone screen rather than blown up on a computer. The versatility of the camera sets it apart from the competition and no two P20 Pro pictures are the same. Indeed, with some training on the different modes, you could give 40 people the same scene and they’d take 40 different pictures.

Therein lies the problem though. While phones like the Galaxy S9 and iPhone X are designed to have no learning curve, there is one to the P20 Pro camera. If you’re not willing to invest time to truly understand it, it’s not the camera for you. If you are willing to learn how to use it, the results speak for themselves.

Software

The P20 Pro runs on Android 8.1 with Huawei’s EMUI 8.1 interface on top. Huawei’s interface has come a long way since the days of the P6, but it remains a polarizing experience — you either love it or hate it. Personally, EMUI is as functional as any other interface for me. It has some quirks, but it’s on par with any other OEM skin out there.

EMUI 8.1 brings the same packed feature set from EMUI 8 on the Mate 10 Pro, with a couple of small additions. Like the Mate 10 Pro, PC Mode works with nothing but a USB Type-C to HDMI cable and works well enough. I’ve yet to see a need for using your smartphone as a PC, and my constant travels make me the type of consumer Huawei is going after. That said, if you want an easy solution to using your smartphone as a PC, the P20 Pro’s Desktop Mode does the trick.

Oddly enough, the biggest new software feature on the P20 Pro is the ability to “turn off” the notch. We’ve touched on it above, but it’s a noteworthy feature that we hope comes to other Android smartphones.

Huawei’s face unlock is a software-based feature that proves, at least for unlocking your smartphone, you don’t need a lot of additional hardware for a great experience.

As part of EMUI 8.1, Huawei has also added six more automatically detected scenes in the camera, including fireworks, dogs, cats and waterfall. It also added NPU tricks to the album. We’ve not really been able to test this, but Huawei says it uses AI to give each photo an aesthetic score based on how pleasing it is, and displays larger thumbnails for the photos with the highest scores — all to make your gallery more appealing.

The P20 Pro also sees the launch of the Huawei AI Engine (HiAI), an open framework for developers to make use of the NPU’s AI features. In China, the company has worked with partners to add enhancements to the camera, like a vision recognition feature similar to Bixby Vision, automatic filters for photos, and a voice assistant. There are no plans to bring these features to other countries, but the engine is open to developers around the world.

Polarizing though it is, EMUI offers a ton of customization options, once you dig into the features. You can add options to the navigation, make use of tons of gesture controls and knuckle shortcuts, choose how you want to navigate your phone (using gestures or the default on-screen keys), customize the status bar, and more. I like the ability to display the network speed. It’s proven helpful when trying to troubleshoot my data while roaming. There’s also an always-on display option buried in the security settings.

If you’ve used a Samsung Galaxy device over the past few years, you’ll have likely experienced a similar feeling. The Samsung Experience — formerly known as TouchWiz — was polarizing at first, but with hundreds of millions of devices sold, it has become a mainstay. EMUI is somewhat similar. Personally, I have no issues with it, but chances are you already know how much of a deal breaker EMUI is for you.

Specs

Display	5.8-inch Huawei FullView IPS LCD 2,244 x 1,080 18.7:9 aspect ratio	6.1-inch Huawei FullView OLED 2,240 x 1,080 18.7:9 aspect ratio
Processor	Huawei Kirin 970 Octa-core CPU (4 Cortex A73 2.36GHz + 4 Cortex A53 1.8GHz) + NPU	Huawei Kirin 970 Octa-core CPU (4 Cortex A73 2.36GHz + 4 Cortex A53 1.8GHz) + NPU
GPU	Mali-G72 MP12	Mali-G72 MP12
RAM	4GB LPDDR4	6GB LPDDR4
Fingerprint Scanner	Front mounted	Front mounted
Storage	128GB	128GB
Cameras	Rear cameras: 12MP RGB f/1.8 + 20MP monochrome f/1.6 dual-LED flash, PDAF+CAF+Laser+Depth auto focus 4K video recording at 30fps Front camera: 24MP sensor with an f/2.0 aperture, fixed focus	Rear cameras: 40MP RGB f/1.8 + 20MP monochrome f/1.6 + 8MP telephoto f/2.4 with OIS dual-LED flash, PDAF+CAF+Laser+Depth auto focus, 3X optical zoom, 5X Hybrid Zoom, 4K video recording at 30fps Front camera: 24MP sensor with an f/2.0 aperture, fixed focus
Battery	3,400mAh Non-removable Huawei SuperCharge	4,000mAh Non-removable Huawei SuperCharge
IP rating	IP53	IP67
SIM	Dual SIM Primary SIM: 4G Secondary SIM: 2G/3G/4G	Dual SIM Primary SIM: 4G Secondary SIM: 2G/3G/4G
3.5mm headphone jack	No	No
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 2.4G, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac with Wi-Fi Direct support 4x4MIMO Cat 18 Bluetooth 4.2, support BLE support aptX/aptX HD and LDAC HD Audio USB Type-C NFC	Wi-Fi 2.4G, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac with Wi-Fi Direct support 4x4MIMO Cat 18 Bluetooth 4.2, support BLE support aptX/aptX HD and LDAC HD Audio USB Type-C NFC
Software	Android 8.1 Oreo EMUI 8.1	Android 8.1 Oreo EMUI 8.1
Colors	Twilight, Black, Midnight Blue, Champagne Gold, Pink Gold	Midnight Blue, Black, Pink Gold, Twilight
Dimensions and weight	149.1 x 70.8 x 7.65mm 165g	155.0 x 73.9 x 7.8mm 180g

Gallery

Huawei P20 Pro: The Galaxy S9 killer!

The P20 Pro is Huawei’s most ambitious smartphone to date, combining flagship features with an incredible camera. A number like 40MP is bound to get people interested, and the phone lives up to its billing as a photographic masterpiece, though it takes some getting used to, like any good DSLR.

The biggest Android competitor to the P20 Pro is the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus, and which you should buy depends mainly upon your preferences. If you want a phone that can take great photos without having to learn too much, the Galaxy S9 Plus is the way to go. If you want a phone to take great pictures in every condition, and you’re willing to put a little time into learning the many settings and options, the P20 Pro is for you.

The P20 Pro is the best Huawei smartphone ever made and is one of the best devices now. It has a sublime camera, outstanding battery life, a color unlike any other, and delivers a flagship experience surpassed by none.

Nirave

Both devices are flagship through and through, yet they feel very different. I’ve long been a fan of Samsung’s flagships, but the company has made great devices for many generations — the S9 Plus is just the latest. It has few noteworthy features, but it’s mainly more of the same. The P20 Pro is the best Huawei smartphone ever made and is one of the best devices now. It has a sublime camera, outstanding battery life, a color unlike any other. In short, it delivers a flagship experience surpassed by none.

What are your thoughts on the Huawei P20 Pro? Is the world’s first triple camera, with its 40MP main sensor, a big deal to you? What about the unique color or the excellent battery life? Let us know in the comments below!

Bust a move! A German robot dances to communicate with honeybees

Humans use tools like Google Maps to tell us the location of our nearest restaurant or supermarket, and very soon foraging bees might get a similarly high-tech helping hand. Researchers at Germany’s Free University of Berlin have developed the RoboBee robot, which shows the best foraging locations by mimicking a dance that bees employ to relay this information to one another.

“Honeybees communicate newly found food locations to nestmates via the bee ‘waggle dance,’ a series of motion patterns they perform in the darkness of the hive,” Tim Landgraf, a professor in the Dahlem Center for Machine Learning and Robotics, told Digital Trends. “Interested bees somehow decode the dance and know how to reach the new food place. To understand this process better we have built a robot that imitates the bee dance in its various components. Essentially, the robot is a bee-sized piece of soft sponge on a stick, moved by a plotter-like positioning system. It can perform the typical waggle dance motion, beat its wings and provide drops of food samples to interested bees.”

Landgraf notes that the idea of using a robot to communicate with bees had been discussed for decades. However, the Berlin-based researchers were the first to show that bees can successfully decode the robot’s message. Not all of the bees were interested in the robot, though. “This may be due to the robot being slightly off in terms of the way it reproduces dance-related cues, or it may produce unwanted stimuli that disturb the bees,” he continued. “One cause may also that our understanding of the bee dance is incomplete. Even natural dances have only a few followers.”

The researchers next plan to use the findings in another project called BeesBook, in which bees are tracked over the course of their entire lifespan. The hope is that this will allow greater understanding of bee behavior and enable the robot to be improved accordingly.

“Right now I am not thinking about commercializing,” Landgraf said. “Beekeepers don’t need robots to tell bees to pollinate their apple trees; they just put their hives on the plantation. However, the general idea of interfacing with living systems is worth investigating deeper. With or without robots, technology may help understand animal needs better, assess health status in an automatized fashion, enrich environments, and so on.”

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DJI’s pro-level gimbal controls create custom movement in milliseconds

DJI is aiming to help filmmakers master the gimbal with new control units that allow for smooth, custom camera movements. During the National Association of Broadcasters Show on Monday, April 9, DJI announced two new gimbal control systems, one an intuitive entry-level gimbal control solution, the DJI Force Pro, and the other a high-end solution for the most precise control, the DJI Master Wheels.

DJI’s Force Pro matches the movement of the operator on the devices different physical and screen-based controls to create smooth camera movements. DJI says that the Force Pro is designed so that even user with minimal gimbal experience can quickly learn how to control the camera using the Force Pro.

The Force Pro uses a built-in compass and Inertial Measurement Unit to create both precise and consistent camera movement. Those two components also help prevent gimbal drift, allowing the camera to remain fixed on a specific frame. The device’s dials control pan, roll, and tilt, while the on-screen controls allow for further options, including setting the speed for the movement on each axis. For reliability, the Force Pro has a dual frequency Wi-Fi system, along with a wired option.

While the Force Pro’s intuitive design and $1,200 price point may put the camera control system on the wishlist for serious enthusiasts, you’re more likely to only see the results of the DJI Master Wheels in a professional film rather than actually getting your hands on the camera control system that costs anywhere from $2,500 to $8,000.

As the name suggests, the Master Wheels gives professional camera operators the most control over the gimbal’s movement using control wheels. The modular system can be set up with as many as three wheels to control each axis along with threads to add accessories such as displays. Switches and dials help adjust factors of that motion like direction, speed, dampening, and smoothness.

Like the Force Pro, Master Wheels also uses a dual Wi-Fi at both 2.4 and 5.8 GHz — DJI says this allows the camera control system to respond in near real time, with about 10 milliseconds between the control movement and the gimbal’s response.

Both gimbal control systems are compatible with DJI’s own Ronin 2 and Ronin-S, along with some third-party gimbals. Pre-orders start on Tuesday, April 10, with the new controls on display during the NAB Show in Las Vegas this week.

Engineers want to 3D print stuff in space using recycled astronaut poop

Human waste is rarely as interesting — or as versatile — as it is in space. Earlier this year, we covered a NASA-funded research project which aims to turn astronaut excrement into an edible paste that is high in both protein and fat. Now, researchers from the University of Calgary have developed a way to use space poop as a crucial ingredient for 3D printing in the stars. The process could theoretically provide astronauts with an abundant source of material for making whatever plastic tools they need during their voyage. This could include possible future missions to Mars.

The University of Calgary’s pioneering technique involves the use of genetically engineered Escherichia coli bacteria to convert feces into a type of plastic known as polyhydroxybutyrate. The process starts with the waste being left for several days to increase its levels of volatile fatty acids (VFAs). A centrifugal and filtration process then extracts the VFAs from the waste solids, before the substance is moved into another fermentation tank containing the genetically engineered E.coli. With the use of a Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) 3D printer, it’s then possible to utilize the resulting plasting to print objects. Leftover solid waste products can reportedly be used to create radiation shields. We guess you should probably wash your hands once it’s done, though!

Going forward, the plan is for two of the students working on the project to test the plastic-making process in low gravity on Canda’s Falcon 20 aircraft in July. Since microgravity can only be simulated for a few minutes at a time, the experiment will only aim to extract nanosized plastic granules from the bacteria — rather than aiming to carry out the whole polyhydroxybutyrate extraction and 3D-printing process.

The team is also hoping to learn how to make different types of plastic. This will hopefully include different materials with varying strengths and flexibility levels, which could be used for a variety of space applications.

A paper describing the work, titled “Astroplastic: A start-to-finish process for polyhydroxybutyrate production from solid human waste using genetically engineered bacteria to address the challenges for future manned Mars missions,” is available to read online.

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Nuclear scientists at CERN discover color of antimatter, hope to learn much more

For the first time in history, researchers at CERN have been able to examine the spectral structure of an antimatter antihydrogen atom in full glorious color. The work promises to help reveal the similarities and, if any, substantial differences between hydrogen and its antimatter counterpart. The hydrogen atom is the best understood and measured atomic system in the universe, offering a uniquely useful source of exploration for researchers interested in antimatter. It is hoped that the work will help shed crucial light on the origins of the universe.

For their study, the CERN (formally known as the European Organization for Nuclear Research) researchers analyzed approximately 15,000 atoms of antihydrogen, and carried out a range of frequency measurements using lasers. The results are the most precise measures made concerning antihydrogen in 30 years of research.

Antimatter particles are theorized to have the same mass as their regular counterparts, but the opposite charge. Instead of possessing a negatively charged electron, that means they have a positively charged positron. Any other potential differences between regular matter and antimatter could help fill scientists in on some fundamental questions about matter’s status in the universe.

“That would have been a huge story if we had,” Professor Jeffrey Hangst, who worked on the project, told Digital Trends, regarding whether or not any differences have been discovered so far. “But we’re still not at the same level of precision that hydrogen has. We have a factor of about 500 to go before we can say that, within the limits of our current capabilities, … hydrogen and antihydrogen are the same. But this is nonetheless significant. We’re doing what matter scientists call spectroscopy: we’re measuring the shape and spectral line in antimatter for the first time. That’s huge for us.”

Hangst explained that there is no realistic chance of being able to extend the work to look at other types of antimatter atom. “That’s not in the realm of what we know to be possible today,” he said. “Antihelium, which would be the next heaviest atom, is completely out of reach. In a probabilistic sense, we could never make enough of it to hold it and carry out spectroscopy. We’re not seriously discussing this. Even something like an isotope of hydrogen is something we don’t think we have a good hope of doing.”

Nonetheless, there is plenty more work to be done in analyzing antihydrogen atoms. In particular, Hangst said the plan is to further improve the resolution at which they are currently able to analyze antihydrogen.

A paper describing the work was recently published in the journal Nature.

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