That bleeding vegetarian burger from Impossible Foods is now FDA-approved

There are two distinct roads to go down when creating a veggie burger. Option one: Create a burger that no one would ever mistake for meat, with hopes of helping vegetarians feel included during cookouts and barbecues without offending their sensibilities. Option two: Create a burger that is so realistic that it’s probably better suited for carnivores, or for vegetarians who really, really wish they still ate meat. Option two was once the road less traveled, but when the Impossible Burger came along, everything changed. The company created a vegetarian burger that “bleeds” just like a real, juicy, half-pounder does, and now, the Food and Drug Administration has decided that it’s totally, 100 percent safe.

This week, the FDA determined that the key ingredient in Impossible Foods’ “bleeding” veggie burger poses no risk to human health, and is “generally recognized as safe.” The nutrient that causes the bleeding effect is heme — it’s an iron-rich compound that occurs naturally in all living things. And as it turns out, it’s the reason that the Impossible Burger turns impossibly blood-red when it’s cooked.

The stamp of approval comes as a relief for Impossible Foods, but by no means a surprise. After all, the folks at the Bill Gates-funded startup have done plenty of in-house research to guarantee the safety of their product, and the burger’s widespread popularity at fast-food chains like White Castle and airlines like Air New Zealand made it seem quite clear that its veggie-meat was safe for consumption. But last year, when Impossible Foods volunteered information about its burger to the FDA, the agency said that the data they received was not enough to “establish the safety” of heme.

Of course, this was enough to send the internet into a tizzy, prompting concerns that bleeding vegetarian burgers were simply too unnatural, and therefore, unsafe to eat.

But now that the FDA has reversed its position, it seems that the coast is clear for Impossible Foods and its next mission.

“We would have been kicking ourself in the foot if we hadn’t already done the research and proven that this was safe,” company CEO Pat Brown told Business Insider. “But it’s great news.”

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Feast your eyes on the world’s most detailed image of a fruit fly brain

The common fruit flies has never been as interesting as it is now, thanks to work coming out of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland. Using a technique known as high-speed electron microscopy, scientists there have carried out the most detailed fruit fly brain imaging in history — and the results are both impressive and pretty darn fascinating.

The experimental neurobiologists’ work involved taking 21 million nanoscale-resolution images of the brain of a fruit fly in order to record all 100,000 nerve cells that it contains. The rainbow-colored images produced don’t just look pretty, but also lay the groundwork for future research that will establish exactly which neurons talk to one another in the fly’s brain. With plenty left to discover about how brains work, this could turn out to be revolutionary.

“At 100,000 neurons, the fruit fly’s brain is the biggest that has been imaged at this resolution to date,” Davi Bock, a neurobiologist at Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus, told Digital Trends. “We can now trace the neuronal connections making up any circuit of interest in the fly’s brain. These ‘wiring diagrams’ can then be complemented by very powerful genetic tools providing molecular, physiological, and functional data about the neurons in the circuit.”

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

As Bock notes, being able to analyze a brain with this level of completeness and high resolution can reveal new insights. For example, the team is particularly interested in the neurons which help create memories. By looking at the neurons which send messages to a part of the brain called the mushroom body, which aids with learning and memory, the researchers discovered a whole new type of neuron that plays a role in this area. They theorize that these cells could help to integrate various types of sensory information.

Such discoveries may ultimately teach us more about human brains, too. “Over and over again, principles discovered in the fruit fly have been found to hold true in a wide range of organisms, including humans,” Bock continued. “This is likely to be true of brain circuits as well.”

Next up, Bock said that the team hopes to apply “emerging automated segmentation algorithms” which can help accelerate tracing these brain circuits. They will also continue to explore the functions associated with the mushroom body.

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

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PayPal no longer the only payment system for eBay – Apple Pay is coming soon

PayPal no longer has a monopoly on eBay payment systems. The online retailer is officially exploring other options, and soon, you’ll be able to buy home appliances, clothes, or even cars on eBay using Apple Pay. The announcement comes a few months after eBay revealed that it would be managing the end-to-end payments flow on its own platform in an effort to improve the buying and selling process on the site, and come early fall, buyers should be able to use Apple Pay to purchase items from participating sellers. Apple Pay will be an option on both Apple iOS and Safari, and both the eBay mobile app and mobile web.

“Apple Pay is one of the most ubiquitous forms of payments and provides users with an easy, fast and secure way to pay,” said Steve Fisher, senior vice president of payments at eBay. “Offering Apple Pay as a form of payment on eBay is the first step in providing more choice and flexibility in payment options to our tens of millions of buyers.”

Throughout 2019, eBay will continue to offer additional payment options, and by 2021, the retail behemoth expects to have transitioned most of its Marketplace customers to a new and (hopefully) improved payments experience.

“Managing the end-to-end payments experience on eBay’s Marketplace is a key initiative for the company. As we expand our new payments experience over the coming months, we look forward to offering our global customers many other forms of payments on our platform,” Fisher continued.

Initially, a small group of Marketplace customers will be privy to the first part of Apple Pay’s rollout, so don’t expect Apple Pay to be ubiquitous across eBay quite yet. That said, the company is certainly hoping to onboard a growing number of customers in the near future, and Apple Pay is likely just the first of many payment options. The benefit of an integrated platform are numerous — for one thing, eBay customers won’t have to sign into another service just to check out, and the availability of numerous payment processors will likely mean lower processing charges.

Additionally, eBay will be working alongside Square’s financing service thanks to a partnership with Square Capital. Under the new agreement, eBay sellers can apply for loans of between $500 and $100,000 in order to help their business. This option, for now, will only be available to select U.S. customers.

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Remember the Y2K scare? Japan is facing a similar date-related tech crisis

If you’re in your mid-20s or older, chances are that you remember the Y2K scare, the year 2000-era menace which promised to make even nu metal seem benign by comparison. In the end, the so-called “Millennium bug” did very little damage, thanks to programmer-led interventions. Jump forward 18 years, however, and Japan has its own impending millennium bug-style problem — and it’s threatening to hit systems in April next year when the current emperor departs.

Having been emperor of Japan since 1989, current emperor Akihito has remained in power throughout much of the rise of personal computing to its current omnipresent status. The problem, it transpires, is that the Japanese calendar is based on era names which coincide with the rule of its emperors. Software using the Japanese-style calendar has to be adapted to work with new era names, but for this software to be changed and tested, the new era name has to be known in advance. The problem? The Japanese government hasn’t announced it yet, and won’t do so for cultural reasons — since announcing the new era name before Emperor Akihito steps down would disrespect him by putting the focus instead on his son, Prince Naruhito, who will take over.

“Several sectors could face troubles like the postal service, transportation ticket vending machine, and banks,” Anne-Léonore Dardenne, an expert in Japanese domestic and international affairs, told Digital Trends. “For example, the record of tax payments could be problematic, as well as the printing of the Jūminhyō, a registry of current residential addresses maintained by local governments. It might also be impossible to withdraw money from ATMs. The Japanese calendar is used in almost every official document. For political reasons or cultural reasons, the government, public agencies, and financial institutions all use this calendar.”

Microsoft addressed the potential problems in a recent blog post, aimed at Japanese customers. “The magnitude of this event on computing systems using the Japanese calendar may be similar to the Y2K event with the Gregorian Calendar,” the post read. “For the Y2K event, there was world-wide recognition of the upcoming change, resulting in governments and software vendors beginning to work on solutions for that problem several years before 1 Jan 2000.”

Dardenne said that most Japanese companies working with overseas partners or employing foreigners are already using the Western-style calendar, so they shouldn’t be affected by the name change. “The effects outside Japan should not be felt,” she added. However, she did warn of the risks of scam artists seizing on the opportunity to try and flog new computers or software to vulnerable parties, or to try and steal banking information by pretending to be bankers, and telling them that their old passwords are no longer valid.

Remember the Y2K scare? Japan is facing a similar date-related tech crisis

If you’re in your mid-20s or older, chances are that you remember the Y2K scare, the year 2000-era menace which promised to make even nu metal seem benign by comparison. In the end, the so-called “Millennium bug” did very little damage, thanks to programmer-led interventions. Jump forward 18 years, however, and Japan has its own impending millennium bug-style problem — and it’s threatening to hit systems in April next year when the current emperor departs.

Having been emperor of Japan since 1989, current emperor Akihito has remained in power throughout much of the rise of personal computing to its current omnipresent status. The problem, it transpires, is that the Japanese calendar is based on era names which coincide with the rule of its emperors. Software using the Japanese-style calendar has to be adapted to work with new era names, but for this software to be changed and tested, the new era name has to be known in advance. The problem? The Japanese government hasn’t announced it yet, and won’t do so for cultural reasons — since announcing the new era name before Emperor Akihito steps down would disrespect him by putting the focus instead on his son, Prince Naruhito, who will take over.

“Several sectors could face troubles like the postal service, transportation ticket vending machine, and banks,” Anne-Léonore Dardenne, an expert in Japanese domestic and international affairs, told Digital Trends. “For example, the record of tax payments could be problematic, as well as the printing of the Jūminhyō, a registry of current residential addresses maintained by local governments. It might also be impossible to withdraw money from ATMs. The Japanese calendar is used in almost every official document. For political reasons or cultural reasons, the government, public agencies, and financial institutions all use this calendar.”

Microsoft addressed the potential problems in a recent blog post, aimed at Japanese customers. “The magnitude of this event on computing systems using the Japanese calendar may be similar to the Y2K event with the Gregorian Calendar,” the post read. “For the Y2K event, there was world-wide recognition of the upcoming change, resulting in governments and software vendors beginning to work on solutions for that problem several years before 1 Jan 2000.”

Dardenne said that most Japanese companies working with overseas partners or employing foreigners are already using the Western-style calendar, so they shouldn’t be affected by the name change. “The effects outside Japan should not be felt,” she added. However, she did warn of the risks of scam artists seizing on the opportunity to try and flog new computers or software to vulnerable parties, or to try and steal banking information by pretending to be bankers, and telling them that their old passwords are no longer valid.

Leak shows Intel’s 9th-gen Core i7 desktop CPU won’t have hyper-threading

A supposed leak listed on an unsecure Chinese forum (now removed) suggests that Intel will not provide hyper-threading technology on its ninth-generation Core i7-9700K processor. This news is notable because it would be Intel’s first Core i7 part in recent history served up without hyper-threading. Does the company plan on dropping this technology on all future ninth-generation chips without the Core i9 label?

If you’re not sure what hyper-threading is all about, here’s a watered-down explanation. A thread is simply an ordered sequence, or stream, of instructions delivered to the processor. By default, a single physical CPU core can handle one stream, thus if you have a four-core processor, it can handle four lanes of instructions simultaneously. Hyper-threading means the operating system sees twice the core count, sending eight streams of instruction to a four-core chip (two streams per physical core).

Intel first introduced hyper-threading in early 2002 in its Xeon processors for servers followed by Pentium 4 desktop processors later that year. According to Intel, hyper-threading increases processor throughput thus improving its overall performance. You can essentially do more without bogging down the CPU.

Of course, the Core i7-9700K processor leak may be completely bogus. Before it was pulled from the Chinese forum, the chip listed as an eight-core, eight-thread chip, with a base speed of 3.6GHz and a maximum speed of 4.9GHz. It was originally presumed to be Intel’s successor to the current Core i7-8700K six-core, twelve-thread desktop CPU.

That said, here’s what we’ve seen regarding Intel’s upcoming ninth-generation desktop CPUs. Note that all three supposedly have a power draw of 95 watts:

Keep in mind that these three chips will not be based on Intel’s ninth-generation “Ice Lake” design, but a refresh of its eighth-generation Coffee Lake-S architecture for desktop processors. These three chips will supposedly arrive in early August alongside a new motherboard chipset, Z390, supporting the CPUs. Also note that Intel introduced its first batch of eighth-generation processors – based on a refined seventh-generation “Kaby Lake” design – in the same release window last year.

The timing doesn’t appear unusual given that AMD is on its second generation of Ryzen desktop processors packing eight cores for the mainstream market. The latest batch includes the Ryzen 7 2700X and Ryzen 7 2700 chips with eight cores and sixteen threads, and the Ryzen 5 2600X and Ryzen 5 2600 chips with six cores and twelve threads. Intel is definitely in dire need of an eight-core solution targeting the mainstream market.

Based on the chart above, Intel appears to be locking its hyper-threading technology to the “premium” Core i9 brand although that may not be the official case at all. But of the three, Intel’s Core i9 part is the only chip with double the thread count. What will be interesting to see are the prices compared to AMD’s current generation of eight-core Ryzen desktop CPUs. Perhaps the removal of hyper-threading in the Core i7 part is a means for keeping the price competitive with AMD’s current Ryzen chips.

Blendtec blenders, Philips Hue lights, Klipsch 5.1 home theater systems, and more are all discounted today

Whether you’re looking for new tech gear or household items, we’ve got you covered.

We found plenty of great deals today that include big discounts on the Blendtec Classic blender, a variety of Philips Hue lights, popular Roombas and more! Most of these prices will be gone when the day ends, so don’t miss your chance to save big!

View the rest of the deals

If you want to know about the deals as soon as they are happening, you’ll want to follow Thrifter on Twitter, and sign up for the newsletter, because missing out on a great deal stinks!

Best Gamepad For Samsung Gear VR in 2018

• Best overall
• Best for portability
• Best value

Best overall

SteelSeries Stratus XL

See at Amazon

The folks at SteelSeries have a long history of quality controllers for mobile platforms, and the Stratus XL kicks that up a notch. Instead of focusing on portability and pocketability like the other controllers in this product line, SteelSeries focused on comfort and capability which makes it an incredible choice for the Samsung Gear VR. It has all the quality of a major console controller, with great battery life and a $40 price tag to match.

It pairs instantly to your Samsung phone and works with dozens of Gear VR games right out of the box. Stratus XL is an all around quality gamepad, with a layout that is easy to remember when you eyes are in VR.

Bottom line: If you want the best overall gamepad for your Gear VR, SteelSeries is where you want to be.

One more thing: This version of the controller only comes in black. If you see a white version of this controller, it’s the iOS-only version and won’t work with the Gear VR.

Why the SteelSeries Stratus XL is the best

Everything you need in a gamepad you’ll be using without your eyes.

While the Samsung Gear VR comes with its own Controller now, there are plenty of VR games you play on this headset which require or are enhanced by a good ol’ fashioned gamepad. It’s just not as enjoyable to play Minecraft with a motion controller, which is why Samsung continues to support games and gamers who prefer this gameplay mechanic.

Three things matter most when it comes to a VR-friendly gamepad — comfort, battery life, and durability. SteelSeries has checked all three boxes with the Stratus XL. This is an Xbox-esque gamepad that looks and feels familiar with a button layout you will quickly become comfortable with despite not being able to look down at it while in VR. This gamepad will easily survive the occasional drop when you are spooked in VR thanks to its rugged plastic design, and the use of standard thumbsticks means the chances of breaking them on a drop is unlikely. On average this controller will get you through 30 hours of constant use, which means the only way you’re charging this controller once a week is if you are really and truly invested in VR Minecraft. If you do run out of power in the middle of a game, the use of a microUSB port means just about everything can charge this controller quickly.

Best for portability

Moga Hero Power

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Having an Xbox-style gamepad is great for familiarity, but the Gear VR is a portable virtual reality platform and it makes sense that you’d want the gamepad to be equally as portable. That means it stows in a bag easily, and doesn’t take up a ton of space. Moga’s Hero Power gamepad offers this exact experience, with buttons and joysticks nearly flush with the casing and shorter palm grips that flow in line with the rest of the body. This gamepad also doubles as a more traditional phone gamepad with its foldable phone clip, which is pretty sweet when you consider it’ll only set you back $20!

Bottom line: If you value portability above all, Moga Hero Power is what you want.

Best value

Beboncool controller

See at Amazon

It’s portable, it’s plasticky, and at $25 it’s way cheaper than most other Bluetooth gamepads that play nice with the Gear VR. Beboncool makes a bunch of gamepads for tablets and phones alike, but this smaller controller is perfect for portable Gear VR gameplay. The battery is rated for 12 hours of constant gameplay, but the auto-off feature ensures you’ll only be using power when you’re actually playing.

Bottom line: If you want a better Gear VR gameplay experience without spending a ton, Beboncool has you covered.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for console-class gaming on your Gear VR, SteelSeries is where you want to spend your money. There’s always a place for portability, though, and Moga has what you need if you’re on the go. If all you really want is an affordable gamepad to save you from constantly tapping the side of the Gear VR while playing your games, Beboncool is a great gamepad at a reasonable price.

Best overall

SteelSeries Stratus XL

See at Amazon

The folks at SteelSeries have a long history of quality controllers for mobile platforms, and the Stratus XL kicks that up a notch. Instead of focusing on portability and pocketability like the other controllers in this product line, SteelSeries focused on comfort and capability which makes it an incredible choice for the Samsung Gear VR. It has all the quality of a major console controller, with great battery life and a $45 price tag to match.

It pairs instantly to your Samsung phone and works with dozens of Gear VR games right out of the box. Stratus XL is an all around quality gamepad, with a layout that is easy to remember when you eyes are in VR.

Bottom line: If you want the best overall gamepad for your Gear VR, SteelSeries is where you want to be.

One more thing: This version of the controller only comes in black. If you see a white version of this controller, it’s the iOS-only version and won’t work with the Gear VR.

Updated July 2018: The Steelseries Stratus XL is still the best Bluetooth gamepad for the Samsung Gear VR.

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No Man’s Sky NEXT: Everything you need to know

A once-troubled space exploration game redeems itself with an impressive update.

No Man’s Sky was one of the weirdest launches of 2016. Hello Games originally announced a space exploration title that sounded quite compelling. There were promises of procedurally-generated worlds, ones that were so expansive that you might play for hours and hours without seeing a single soul in a supposedly shared multiplayer world.

But what we actually got was nothing like what we were promised. Call it lofty ambitions, unrealistic expectations, or flat-out lying, but multiple players did manage to stumble across some of the same exact planets in the game world within a very short amount of time, and when they attempted to coordinate a meetup, it came to light that there actually was no multiplayer.

That didn’t totally doom the game. It still did its other things — base-building, ship-fixing, exploration, and surviving the various planets’ inhabitants — quite well, but it wasn’t the game we were promised. It wasn’t the game that merited the sort of hype it got. (And believe you me, the hype went through the stratosphere.)

It’s 2018 now, and No Man’s Sky NEXT aims to make it all right with the biggest update we’ve seen yet. Here’s everything you need to know about it.

What is No Man’s Sky NEXT?

No Man’s Sky NEXT is a free expansion for the original 2016 game, meaning you won’t need to buy anything to experience what it has to offer if you already owned it. It figures to be the biggest update in the game’s rocky history.

Some platforms (Xbox One) will be treated to No Man’s Sky for the very first time with this release. But even for those on PlayStation 4 and PC who have played or been able to play the game for a couple of years now, it’s being treated as a glorious rebirth. It’s finally shaping up to be the game it should have been at launch.

The biggest part of that rebirth is the addition of true multiplayer gameplay. This was one of the main selling points of the game originally and it hurt when we found out it wasn’t actually ready in time. There are other changes ahead, too.

All of this is in addition to the stuff we’ve gotten in the other three big updates since launch. Hello Games has done an admirable job working to right their wrongs, and with No Man’s Sky NEXT they can finally boast something of completeness.

What’s changing?

While multiplayer is the biggest draw, there are tons of other great changes in line for those willing to give this game another chance. Here’s everything that’s new in No Man’s Sky NEXT.

Play with friends

Simply put, you can actually play with other people now. Not only can you run into others in the game world as originally promised, but you can even load in with your buddies to tackle the game’s various challenges.

Teaming up with friends will obviously make the space exploration aspect more enjoyable, but there’s also the benefit of having others to watch your back against the various threats. The native wildlife of these planets can still be troublesome, and now you have the potential for hostile human players to make your time in No Man’s Sky more than just sightseeing expeditions.

Friends can build together and use each other’s facilities, they can fight and fly with each other as they hop from one planet to the next, and you can even race through the cosmos with the ability to create custom race tracks and trails to share with others online. And now you’ll be able to customize your character to help you stand out from all the other souls tending to their daily errands.

Build more bases

Base-building will be more critical than ever in No Man’s Sky thanks to the advent of multiplayer, and it was important for Hello Games to expand that aspect. You can now build your base anywhere on any planet instead of the restrictive system we had before thanks to a terraforming device. It’ll allow you to shape and bend the terrain to your will as you look to carve out that perfect spot for your next base. This opens up a world of possibilities and adds another incentive to further your exploration efforts.

Once you decide where to build you’ll find that your possibilities have opened way up. There are hundreds of new base parts to choose from, and you’ll be able to build much bigger bases than before. Plus, you’ll be able to build more than one base instead of being restricted to one planet.

You and your friends can effectively build a mini colony of sorts, and because all of this base building will require more materials the game incidentally finds itself with a more meaningful in-game economy.

Command your fleet

Your freighter is more important as you can now assemble and command your own fleet of up to 50 frigates. You can upgrade these ships and send them out into the world to do your bidding, whether that’s watching your back on an exploration run or finding resources on a planet to collect.

The freighters themselves will be getting more customization options, and when you and your friends feel like getting ‘er done, you can now tackle new multiplayer missions together to earn some scratch from the Galactic Commission Station.

Breathtaking visuals

One area No Man’s Sky never struggled with was beauty, and it’ll look even better with the arrival of NEXT. Hello Games has completely overhauled the game’s visual engine, with improved terrain variation (yes, there are more mountains and hills now, thank the stars), better ground texture, and more realistic water and clouds. Space fauna looks dreamy. Creatures have a far more lifelike presence than. Buildings, NPCs, and ships have more detail than ever before. Planets can now have rings. And general space just looks a lot more epic.

You can take the breathtaking new visuals in with an all-new perspective, too. Players can now choose to play the game entirely in first or third person. That goes for both inside the ship and on the ground.

What’s next?

With No Man’s Sky NEXT, the game could cease getting feature support today and still be in a fantastic spot, but Hello Games apparently has plans for even more down the line. While we’re not sure we’ll ever get another update as big as NEXT — the team now wants to focus on smaller, but more frequent updates — any new content will be icing on what has grown into a very delicious-looking cake.

It’ll begin with free weekly in-game events that’ll reward the community for reaching milestones and working together. There’s also a new website called the Galactic Atlas that offers an overview of the everchanging world of No Man’s Sky, including a collection of points of interest voted on by the community.

Sean Murray — head honcho at Hello Games — feels the company has successfully let its hard work speak for itself, and now’s the time to reopen a line of communication with both the longtime and new members of the community (it had been soured early on due to the controversy). Feedback will continue to shape No Man’s Sky development from here on out, and the team plans to be more vocal than ever now that the game has reached a point of solidity.

Play it today

No Man’s Sky NEXT is launching as a free update on both PlayStation 4 and PC today, with Xbox One owners also getting their first crack at actually owning the game. Be sure to check for updates throughout the day to ensure you get it downloaded. If you don’t yet have it, Amazon will get you sorted away with a purchase as low as $23.

See at Amazon

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Samsung Galaxy Note 9 rumors: Release date, specs, price, and features!

Here’s everything we know about the Galaxy Note 9!

Now more than ever, Samsung’s Galaxy S+ phones are becoming eerily similar to the Note series. The Note used to be Samsung’s way of touting all of the latest and greatest tech it had to offer, and while this is still the case, the same can be said for this year’s Galaxy S9+.

Samsung needs more than just the S Pen to make the Note 9 stand out from its own phones and the rest of the competition, and luckily, all signs are pointing to something exciting for this year’s release. Here’s what we know so far!

July 24, 2018 — A leaked image shows off the Note 9 in three colors

Another day, another leak from Evan Blass. Last week, we saw the front and back of the blue Galaxy Note 9, but with today’s leaked image we see the phone in three colors — black, blue, and brown.

It looks like the blue Note 9 will be the only model with the yellow S Pen teased in Samsung’s official event invite. The other two will have color-matched S Pens, all of which look fantastic.

July 17, 2018 — A new render shows the Note 9 once again

We already have a pretty good idea as to what the Galaxy Note 9 will look like, but thanks to a new render, the picture’s now clearer than ever before.

Evan Blass took to Twitter today with the above photo. It shows the Note 9 in a blue paint job with a blue and yellow S Pen to accompany it, and the combo looks downright fantastic.

July 16, 2018 — Galaxy Note 9 spotted out in the wild with Samsung’s CEO

Not too long after DJ Koh spilled some beans about the Note 9’s S Pen features, he’s back in the news once more as he was recently spotted using the phone during the media event mentioned below.

Koh can be seen using the Note 9 in the above photo, and while most of the device is hidden, we can confirm that it is, in fact, the Note 9 due to the placement of the rear camera and fingerprint sensor.

What will the Galaxy Note 9 look like?

Quick answer — a lot like the Note 8.

We’ve seen one collection of renders for the Note 9 so far (pictured above), and save for the fingerprint sensor being moved below the rear camera sensor, the phone’s shaping up to be nearly identical to last year’s model.

As such, we can expect a large Infinity Display with slim bezels, an all-glass back, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Samsung’s event teaser suggests that we’ll get at least one bright yellow color option, but I’m still crossing my fingers the Galaxy S9’s Burgundy Red gets a wide release on the Note 9 🤞.

What specs can we look forward to?

Samsung’s Galaxy Note phones are always home to some of the best specs around, and the Note 9 shouldn’t be any different.

Based on the current rumor mill and what we’ve seen from other 2018 flagships, here’s what we think we’ll see this year.

What’s going on with the S Pen?

The S Pen has always been one of the biggest draws to the Galaxy Note phones, and this year with the Note 9, we’re expecting Samsung to give the accessory one of the biggest updates we’ve seen in years.

One of the biggest changes this time around is that the Note 9 S Pen is rumored to come with Bluetooth. On one hand, this means the S Pen will need to have a battery and be charged somehow. Although we can’t confirm this, it’s likely Samsung will design a system that allows the S Pen to charge up while it’s inside the Note 9.

On a more exciting note, Bluetooth could allow for the S Pen to be useful even when it’s not in direct contact with the Note 9. Its button could act as a camera shutter, slide-show clicker, give you better alerts when it’s away from your phone, and more.

There have also been hints at some sort of gaming-specific features, but it’s unclear how exactly these will pan out.

When will the Galaxy Note 9 be released?

The Galaxy Note 9 will be announced on August 9, 2018, at an Unpacked event in New York City.

We can expect retail availability to come in a 1-2 week time frame after the announcement, if any previous launches are any indication.

How much will the Galaxy Note 9 cost?

Pricing for the Note series has steadily been going up each year, as has the majority of the smartphone industry.

The Galaxy Note 8 costs $950 unlocked, and I’d expect the Note 9 to cost either the same or slightly more. Apple proved with the iPhone X that people aren’t afraid to shell out $1000+ for a new smartphone, and I don’t consider it to be out of the question for Samsung to follow suit with the Note 9 – especially if it adopts newer technologies like an in-display fingerprint sensor.

Samsung Galaxy S9 & S9+: Everything you need to know!

Samsung Galaxy Note 9

• Samsung Galaxy Note 9 rumors: Release date, specs, price, and features!
• Is it best to buy the Galaxy S9 or wait for the Note 9?
• Do you plan on upgrading to the Note 9?
• Galaxy Note 8 review
• Join our Galaxy Note 9 forums

Updated: July 23, 2018: Added a new section for the Note 9’s S Pen.