Squeeze up! The latest Skyrider airplane seat still looks really uncomfortable

Aviointeriors

As if flying in coach wasn’t already challenging enough, there’s a company out there that could make the experience even more of a squeeze if airlines end up buying its latest seat design.

The seat — no, let’s call it for what it is, a perch — is made by Italian firm Aviointeriors, and it means you’d be as good as standing for the duration of your flight if you ever leaned up against one.

The compact design would allow airlines to pack even more people onto their planes, enabling them to increase efficiency and maximize profits. If any passenger dares to buy a ticket for one, that is.

Made, we sincerely hope, for short-haul flights — very short-haul — “Skyrider 2.0” was unveiled at the recent Airliners Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany.

“What, you mean there was a version 1?” you may well ask. There most certainly was, and it came with less padding, so it’s great the company has made at least one positive enhancement regarding the design. But no, we still don’t fancy the idea of leaning back on one of these for more than, say, a few minutes.

If the thought of standing for an entire flight isn’t bad enough, then also consider that the perch in front would be so close that you’d feel like you were stuck inside a cubicle. With a bunch of other people.

The curious thing is, the Skyrider doesn’t appear on Aviointeriors’ website. You’ll see lovely seat designs for first class and business class, and even its economy seats don’t look too bad. So we’re wondering if it might soon add a “no class (at all)” section for the Skyrider, or perhaps the old favorite, “cattle class.”

But before you scoff and mutter, “It’ll never happen,” bear in mind that Airbus has also been looking into the idea of offering a similar kind of seating style to buyers of its aircraft. A couple of years back, a patent from the aerospace giant showed an even more hideous design than the Skyrider that appeared to involve bicycle saddles. And that’s it — no headrest, no legroom, and no seat-back display. Because there is no seat-back.

Airlines may have dollar signs flashing in their eyes at the prospect of fitting some of its aircraft with one of these space-saving designs, though in reality they may have trouble persuading travelers to park their butt on such a seat.

Though if the price was dirt cheap, could you be persuaded? And for how long could you fly on one of these?

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Vodafone rolls out a limited edition Galaxy S9 and S9+ for Formula 1 fans

Galaxy S9/S9+ Red Bull Ring edition is now up for sale on Vodafone Netherlands.

Samsung has teamed up with Red Bull Racing and Vodafone Netherlands to launch a limited edition Galaxy S9 and S9+ for Formula 1 fans. Dubbed the Red Bull Ring limited edition, the bundle includes a standard Galaxy S9/S9+ along with a custom case featuring the insignia of the team’s test track in Austria (Red Bull Ring). The bundle comes with custom packaging, and has exclusive Red Bull themes.

As spotted by GSMArena, the case has an NFC chip that automatically changes the system theme to the Red Bull one as soon as you attach it to the back of the phone. You also get Grand Prix images and videos via Dutch broadcaster Ziggo Sport, as well as detailed information on all the tracks in this year’s F1 calendar.

Aside from the software additions and the custom case, the phone is a standard Midnight Black variant of the Galaxy S9 or S9+. Either device is up for sale on Vodafone Netherlands, and it’s unlikely we’ll see them make their way to other markets.

If you’re interested, you can pick up the Galaxy S9 Red Bull Ring edition by paying €54 ($67) down and €48 ($60) toward monthly fees, which gets you 6GB of LTE data and unlimited calls and texts. The Galaxy S9+ Red Bull Ring edition, meanwhile, is available for €126 ($156) down and monthly instalments of €51 ($63). Both devices are up for grabs until April 27, so best act fast.

See at Vodafone

Huawei’s first 5G smartphone will make its debut in Q3 2019

Huawei’s upcoming 5G smartphone will feature the company’s own 5G modem.

Huawei has kicked off the 2018 edition of its global analyst summit in Shenzhen, with the Chinese manufacturer detailing plans for the next year. With 5G set to gain momentum next year, Huawei has announced that its first 5G-enabled smartphone will be making its debut in the latter half of 2019.

Given the timing of the launch, it’s not unlikely to expect that Huawei’s first 5G phone will be the Mate 30 (provided this year’s model is dubbed the Mate 20).

Big news:First @Huawei 5G smartphone with its own 5G chipset coming in 2H 2019. Which mostly points to the Mate series.#HAS2018 pic.twitter.com/8k5qThGEmp

— Neil Shah (@neiltwitz) April 17, 2018

Huawei further clarified that the device would be debuting sometime in Q3 2019, which lines up perfectly with previous Mate launches.

Now @Huawei is saying Q3 2019 for #5G handsets during Q&A which sounds more inline with expectations. #HAS2018

— Anshel Sag (@anshelsag) April 17, 2018

What’s notable about Huawei’s upcoming 5G phone is that it will use the company’s own 5G modem. Huawei unveiled its first 5G modem — the Balong 5G01 chip — back at Mobile World Congress, stating that it will be able to deliver a bandwidth of 2.3Gbps. The size of the Balong chipset suggests it will end up in mobile hotspots and self-driving cars rather than phones, but Huawei is also working on a 5G modem tailored for phones.

Huawei is essentially looking to be an end-to-end services provider for 5G, delivering network equipment to service providers while making 5G-ready hardware available to consumers. Huawei has faced a setback in the U.S. in recent months, but it doesn’t look like the move will affect the company in the long run.

Looking ahead, Huawei is predicting that there will be 1.1 billion 5G connections by 2025, along with 200 million 5G-connected cars. That’s an ambitious target, and it’ll be interesting to see what Huawei brings to the table with its first 5G-enabled phone.

Uber is sharing curbside data with cities

As part of Uber’s image redemption, the company has joined groups like, say, the International Association of Public Transport to improve relations with the public and civic administrations. And while the ride-hailing company has had poor relationships with some cities, now it will share some of its vast street-and-curbside data with civic governments, whose own road records can be split up or out-of-date.

This is more than travel distance data, which Uber started offering freely in January. Last week the company jumped on board the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) project SharedStreets, a data-sharing project that aims to help cities understand curb traffic and how to plan around it. For now, it’s volunteering information on Washington, DC’s roads.

There are promising applications of SharedStreets’ data — not least of which is establishing standards for curbs, traffic speeds, transit data and formats making it easier to share information between individuals and agencies, wrote Wired. Better still, it’s all in SharedStreets’ hands, a supposedly non-partisan third party that won’t favor either private companies or city agencies.

That may comfort the former to share their information with an intermediary, which can process and provide it to civic bodies, but SharedStreets isn’t the only curb data game in town. Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs introduced its own platform Coord, which offered a free sample of its services to help individuals and businesses.

Source: Wired

‘Kingdom Hearts III’ will feature retro games within the game

Kingdom Hearts’ long-awaited sequel comes with a surprise for anyone fond of those old LCD games from the ’80s. At the first official Kingdom Hearts Union χ convention, Square Enix has premiered a new Kingdom Hearts III trailer showing retro style games within the game based on classic Disney cartoons and 1980’s handheld consoles. You can start spending your time playing black-and-white virtual handhelds instead of the actual game once Sora gets the machine in Twilight Town. And, yes, you control a small black-and-white Sora!

According to KH Insider, which got the chance to play some of the demo, you’ll have over 20 titles to choose from within KH3. The classic Mickey cartoon-inspired ones include Giantland (wherein you’ll have to evade a giant throwing a fit), Musical Farmer (wherein you’ll have to catch eggs dropped into tubes) and Barnyard Battle (wherein you’ll have to whack enemies while standing on an anvil).

You can watch all those (and more) in action below:

7 ambitious DARPA projects that will help out the military of the future

Thanks to its multibillion dollar annual budget and access to some of the sharpest minds around, few research labs could dream of having the resources that DARPA enjoys.

Short for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA is the wing of the U.S. Department of Defense that’s responsible for developing emerging technologies for military use. With everything from brain implants to robo-suits, the agency trying is hardest to make future tech a 2018 reality — and to do it sooner than those who would seek to use that technology against the United States.

Here are seven of the most attention-grabbing DARPA research projects we know about. (And if these are the ones they’ve publicly announced, just think about the ones we don’t yet know of!)

Soft Exoskeletons

When people talk about the future of warfare they often discuss using technologies such as drones or robots as a replacement for human troops on the ground. The distinction doesn’t have to be quite so binary, though. Cutting edge technologies can also be used to “supercharge” troops by giving humans enhanced abilities, including faster speeds and greater strength.

Working with researchers from Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, DARPA’s Soft Exosuit is a lightweight skeleton frame for soldiers which can augment its wearer’s strength and endurance; using in-built sensors and a micro-computer to intelligently match the requirements of its user.

Implantable health trackers

Your body offers you all kinds of feedback about how you are faring when it comes to health. However, a DARPA project created in association with the U.S. Army Research Office promises to take this to the next level — courtesy of tissue-integrated biosensor technology.

The idea is to implant tiny soft hydrogel-based sensors under the skin, and use them to measure biomarkers related to oxygen, glucose, lactate, urea, and ion levels. These sensors could stay in the body for up to two years, and read out information direct to connected devices like smartphones. A consumer-facing version of the same technology could one day help individuals manage chronic diseases such as diabetes.

Self-guiding bullets

A sniper bullet that changes trajectory after its been fired sounds totally like the stuff of science fiction. However, it describes a real life project being carried out by DARPA which could soon nullify misfiring problems related to weather conditions, wind or plain old shooter errors.

EXACTO ammunition uses an in-built guidance system to keep it on target. Sadly, the whole “secret government project” thing means that specifics about how the guidance system works are classified.

Submarine-hunting drone

DARPA

When you think of a drone, you probably picture the kind of unmanned aerial quadcopter that Amazon could one day use to deliver packages. DARPA has different ideas, though. It has created a 140-ton autonomous drone boat with the goal of tracking enemy submarines. It could also be used for detecting mines in the open ocean.

DARPA’s Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel can continuously operate for 60-90 days with no human intervention necessary. Following successful sea trials, the “Sea Hunter” prototype is now being further developed under the banner of the Office of Naval Research.

Giant airships

Talking of giant vehicles, DARPA’s Walrus project set out to create an airship able to haul a payload of 500-1,000 tons (around 1-2 million pounds) up to 12,000 nautical miles in less than a week. Such a vehicle would be immensely useful for quickly deploying large numbers of troops, complete with all their gear and other equipment.

Sadly, the Walrus project seems like it will never get off the ground. But DARPA continues to investigate various Hybrid Ultra Large Aircraft (HULA) initiatives.

Robot insect spies

Years of exposure to spy movies has likely led our enemies to be suspicious of suave tuxedo-wearing types eavesdropping in the background. You know what could get around that? Cyborg insect spies.

A variety of different insects have been explored as part of the HI-MEMS program, including flying moth implants and beetles. Using implants, researchers have shown that it’s possible to stimulate insect brains and control them in flight. Eventually such insects could be used in the field to gain access to areas not easily reachable by humans or robots.

Brain-computer interface

Elon Musk may be interested in building high speed brain-computer interfaces, but even he’s not got the resources at his disposal that DARPA has. Working with various organizations as part of its Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program, DARPA wants to develop “an implantable system able to provide precision communication between the brain and the digital world.”

The idea behind the project is to find ways of converting the chemical and electrical signals of the brain into machine readable data, and vice versa. The end result could mean a neural link that lets the human brain tap into video feeds or, on the other end, allows computers to see exactly what we are seeing at any moment.

T-Mobile fined $40 million because it played fake ringtones and lies to rural users about call quality

Unlike the Uncarrier.

The FCC has fined T-Mobile $40 million for faking connections to rural customers in Wisconsin, according to a release. It also inserted fake ring tones into those calls to make it seem like they were connecting and failing, even though no one was on the other end of the call to pick up.

The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau opened an investigation following rural carrier and consumer complaints that T-Mobile callers were unable to reach consumers served by three rural carriers in Wisconsin. Although T-Mobile reported to the FCC that the problems had been “resolved,” the Commission continued to receive complaints that calls were failing.

In addition, call completion complaints filed directly with T-Mobile showed patterns of problems with call delivery to consumers in at least seven other rural areas. The investigation also revealed T-Mobile’s practice of injecting false ring tones into certain calls. T-Mobile reported that it had done so on hundreds of millions of calls and admitted that its actions violated the Commission’s prohibition of injecting false ring tones on any calls.

What’s the big deal? T-Mobile has typically had poor connectivity in rural parts of the U.S., owing to a shortage of available low-band spectrum. While the 600MHz auction has resolved the spectrum crunch, it’s still rolling out.

This fine stems from years of malfeasance and taints the company’s reputation as a straight-shooting, honest carrier.

Nokia 7 Plus vs. OnePlus 5T: A close contest

The OnePlus 5T still offers the best specs in this segment, but the Nokia 7 Plus has a better camera and outstanding battery life.

HMD Global revived the Nokia brand last year, primarily focusing on the budget segment. After a relatively quiet start, the Finnish manufacturer saw increased momentum in the fourth quarter of 2017, where it managed to sell 4.4 million phones, outpacing the likes of OnePlus, HTC, and Google.

HMD is adopting a more aggressive strategy for 2018, with the company rolling out a slew of handsets aimed at various price points. The most interesting of the new additions is the Nokia 7 Plus, which is the first phone — and the only one thus far — from the manufacturer to feature an 18:9 panel.

There’s a lot to like in the Nokia 7 Plus: it is powered by the Snapdragon 660, offers dual cameras at the back, and has a 3800mAh battery. The camera part is particularly interesting, as it is using the same sensor arrangement as the Pixel 2 XL for the primary camera. In fact, the phone itself is akin to a Pixel 2 Lite as it were, based on the overall design and the specs on offer.

Meanwhile, the OnePlus 5T is on its way out, with the phone on sale for just five months. The OnePlus 6 is scheduled to make its debut imminently, and while its predecessor isn’t available in most countries, it is still up for sale in India, the company’s largest market. India is also a key market for HMD as the Nokia name still carries a lot of weight here.

With the Nokia 7 Plus set to go on sale later this month for ₹25,999 ($400) and the OnePlus 5T retailing for ₹32,999 ($505), there isn’t much to separate the two phones in terms of pricing. It’s time to find out if the Nokia 7 Plus can hold its own in this category and take the fight to the OnePlus 5T.

Nokia 7 Plus vs. OnePlus 5T: Specs

Where they’re both equal

OnePlus’ insistence on a clean software experience with OxygenOS allowed it to stand out in this category, and HMD Global is going one step further by partnering with Google on Android One. All HMD phones going forward will run Android One out of the box, as the Finnish manufacturer commits to Google’s vision of pure Android.

OxygenOS is one of the best skins around because of its clean interface interspersed with OnePlus’ own tweaks — such as face unlock and gestures — and although HMD also has a clean interface, it is missing the customizations that give OnePlus phones an edge.

Both phones also have a headphone jack, and there’s no water resistance or wireless charging.

What the Nokia 7 Plus does better

The OnePlus 5T has a fairly utilitarian design that sees a unibody aluminum chassis with antenna lines at the top and bottom of the device. There’s not a whole lot to get excited about on the design front, but the limited edition Lava Red color variant definitely makes the phone stand out. That’s the case with the Sandstone White/Star Wars option as well.

Meanwhile, the Nokia 7 Plus has much more flair. The copper accents at the front along with the inserts at the back and the midframe make the phone stand out, and the ceramic coating at the back makes it easier to hold than the OnePlus 5T.

The Nokia 7 Plus is built like a tank.

Although both phones have widely varying designs, the unifying factor is the build quality. Both phones have top-notch build quality, and you get the feeling that they’re built to last from the moment you pick up either device. That’s particularly true of the Nokia 7 Plus, which is machined out of series 6000 aluminum — this phone is built like a tank.

And while HMD doesn’t officially list the weight of the device, it doesn’t feel significantly heavier than the OnePlus 5T.

If there’s one area that HMD excelled at last year, it’s rolling out updates. The company ensured it rolled out monthly security patches and platform updates to its portfolio of devices — often beating the Pixels to monthly patches. It doesn’t look like that will change this year. If anything, partnering with Google over Android One will allow HMD to offer updates at the same time as the Pixels. If you care about timely updates, there isn’t another phone out there that can come close to the Nokia 7 Plus in this category.

The Nokia 7 Plus wins out in two key areas: camera and battery life. With hardware being largely commoditized, it’s often the camera that serves as the differentiator in this category. And on that front, the Nokia 7 Plus has the edge over the OnePlus 5T. The 12MP primary camera takes stunning photos in daylight conditions, and is just as capable in low-light scenarios.

Nokia 7 Plus on the left, OnePlus 5T on the right.

The Nokia 7 Plus takes photos with accurate colors, whereas the OnePlus 5T tends to oversaturate images. Low-light photos taken on the Nokia 7 Plus have much more detail to them as well. It’ll be interesting to see what the OnePlus 6 offers on the camera front, but for now the Nokia 7 Plus is the outright winner in this category.

The Nokia 7 Plus also destroys the OnePlus 5T when it comes to battery life — the 3800mAh battery manages to easily deliver two days’ worth of usage from a full charge. And yes, it has an FM radio, just like Nokia phones of old.

What the OnePlus 5T does better

The OnePlus 5T continues to be a performance monster. The hardware on offer combined with the uncluttered OxygenOS interface makes the OnePlus 5T one of the fastest phones in the market today. The 6.01-inch AMOLED panel is also marginally better than the IPS LCD display on the Nokia 7 Plus. You get much more vibrant colors, excellent contrast levels, and the OnePlus 5T is calibrated to the DCI-P3 color profile.

The OnePlus 5T has a more vibrant display, and the hardware is a cut above the Nokia 7 Plus.

The OnePlus 5T also has UFS 2.1 storage, whereas the Nokia 7 Plus is using an older eMMC 5.1 storage module. Without getting into the technicalities, the eMMC standard uses a half-duplex system — wherein it can undertake either a read or write operation, but not both at once — whereas UFS can handle read and write tasks simultaneously.

As such, UFS storage modules can hit a higher bandwidth, and are ideally suited for multi-tasking use cases. There isn’t a noticeable difference when it comes to day-to-day usage between both standards, but if you’re installing a lot of apps and trying to use the phone at the same time, you will see a few stutters on the Nokia 7 Plus, but not on the OnePlus 5T.

Which should you buy? Nokia 7 Plus

This is an easy one to answer as the OnePlus 5T is no longer on sale in most parts of the world. The phone is still up for purchase in India — OnePlus’ largest global market — but it’s clear that potential customers are now waiting to see what’s on offer with the OnePlus 6.

Sure, the Nokia 7 Plus doesn’t match the OnePlus 5T in terms of sheer performance, but it does offer a lag-free software experience that’s a delight to use. And crucially, it has a camera that beats out the OnePlus 5T, and it delivers much better battery life.

The Nokia 7 Plus is set to go on sale in India from April 30, with pre-orders kicking off on April 20, and is slated to hit the UK on May 2. HMD’s strategy of offering phones across various price points will allow the brand to get more momentum in 2018, particularly in markets like India.

The main downside is U.S. availability — although HMD has stated that a few of its devices would make its way Stateside, there’s no indication yet if the Nokia 7 Plus is on that list. That’s a shame, because the Nokia 7 Plus has all the ingredients to be one of the best phones in the $400 segment.

See at Amazon UK

Pete Lau shares the first camera samples taken with the OnePlus 6

OnePlus CEO gives us an early look at the camera capabilities of the OnePlus 6.

The OnePlus 6 hype machine is in full swing, with the Chinese manufacturer teasing new details about its upcoming flagship on a daily basis now. We saw yesterday that the phone will be the first OnePlus device to offer water resistance, and just a few hours later OnePlus CEO Pete Lau shared the first camera samples taken with the device on Weibo.

The photos give us a preview of the OnePlus 6’s camera capabilities, and the metadata suggests the device will sport a 16MP primary camera. The photos were taken at Stanford, and certainly look impressive.

With the teasers coming in thick and fast, it’s likely OnePlus will officially unveil its upcoming flagship in a matter of weeks. The phone will sport a Snapdragon 845 and come with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, along with a new “refined” form factor.

What do you make of the first set of images taken with the OnePlus 6?

Google’s latest do-it-yourself AI kits include everything you need

Google’s AIY kits have been helpful for do-it-yourselfers who want to explore AI concepts like computer vision, but they weren’t really meant for newcomers when you had to supply your own Raspberry Pi and other must-haves. It’ll be much easier to get started from now on: Google has released updated AIY Vision and AIY Voice kits that include what you need to get started. Both include a Raspberry Pi Zero WH board and a pre-provisioned SD card, while the Vision Kit also throws in a Raspberry Pi Camera v2. You won’t be going on extra shopping trips (or downloading software) just to get the ball rolling.

At the same time, Google is promising more help when you’re ready to get cracking. A companion Android app helps with setting up your kit, and the AIY website itself has been revamped with clearer instructions aimed at younger creators. The kits should now be better-suited to STEM students, not just tinkerers willing to dive in feet-first.

Both the Vision ($90) and Voice ($50) packs are reaching Target’s online and retail stores in April, and they’ll be available through other stores around the globe. That’s definitely a price hike, but it’s also a realistic price hike — you’re now paying for everything up front. In that sense, they’re kinder to parents and anyone else who might not always read the fine print.

Source: Google Developers, AIY Projects, Google Play