White Night review – minimalist and bare, yet highly unsettling

I don’t know about you but I am a big fan of film noir. These movies rely on the subtle interplay between light and shadows to create an eerie, oppressive atmosphere that for me remains unmatched by today’s mystery thrillers and horrors.

Well, the developers of this game I’ve been playing for the past week have tried to port this unique ambiance to Android. Called simply White Night, this is a classic survival horror with a pretty intriguing story attached to it.

It’s available for download from the Google Play Store for $4.99.

Impressions

As you enter the black-and-white universe of White Night, you can’t help being drawn in by this unique monochromatic aesthetic which lays the ground for an eerie adventure.

The opening sequence which displays the credits for minutes on end reminds me of Twin Peaks. I couldn’t help but feel like Dale Cooper on his way to a God-forsaken town where something horrible had happened. The beautiful yet sinister music makes the scene even more striking.

A bit about the story

White Night is set in the 1930s during the Great Depression and the narrative is part murder mystery and part supernatural ghost story.

You step into the shoes of a nameless man who while driving on a deserted road, tries to avoid a young woman standing in the middle of the road. He crashes his car and unable to find the body of the victim, limps towards a spooky mansion to look for help. The house appears to be deserted at first, but as the main character will quickly find out that’s not exactly the case.

You’ll soon start exploring the darkness that is engulfing you, and stumble upon locked doors with mysterious seals engraved on them, pieces of a journal and lots of memories. The story is indeed a treat for those who love to solve enigmas. Who lived here? Why is this house abandoned? Did something bad happen here? All these are questions you need to answer.

Gameplay

Osome Studios, the developer behind the game did a spectacular job at creating a unique atmosphere just by using simple yet contrasting black and white graphics. Yet they didn’t pay the same attention to gameplay.

First and foremost, the controls and camera angles are really frustrating. Playing a point and click adventure on a mobile device was never a rewarding experience for me and the same goes for White Night.

Movement in the game was a real pain. I often found my taps on the screen did not correlate with the hero’s moves. This was in part, due to the fact that it’s quite difficult to make out the obstacles blocking your path since most have to explore in the near-absence of light. But the controls themselves brought plenty of painful moments to the experience.

See anything?

Once you’re inside the mansion, you can start collecting matchsticks, which are your only sources of light for most of the game. Yikes! But they burn out pretty quickly, so you’ll always have to keep an eye out for more. Because you don’t want to be caught in the dark for too long.

Darkness is the villain of this game

White Night isn’t the kind of game which has monsters jumping at you from behind. Instead, it uses darkness itself as the main villain. Fail to light a match quickly enough and you’ll be dead in an instant. Then you’ll start back from the last saving point.

The game’s fixed camera angles are another issue. While they do offer a cinematic Hitchcock-like experience, they don’t allow you to get a great sense of your surroundings and make some stuff hard to view or access. Basically, most of the time you can’t really see what you’re doing. Which is quite annoying in a game where you’re supposed to find and click on things to solve puzzles.

On the bright side, the ghostly apparitions in the game are very well executed. They are fuzzy, flickering creatures that seem to be in a state of agony that will bring chills up your spine.

Our character can catch a glimpse of them through the darkness, and man do they look frightening. Even on a mobile phone!

The puzzles in the game aren’t super complicated. And when you find yourself stuck, you can always turn for hints in the in-game newspaper, which is actually more of a journal. This has spared me a few times from roaming aimlessly throughout the house.

Conclusion

White Night excels at being an atmospheric mystery/horror game. It’s built on a good story, which at a time could have been a bit more original, but that’s just an idea. I’m deep in the horror genre, so perhaps I am a bit too familiar with its motifs and themes.

Sure, it’s not perfect and there’s a lot of room for improvement starting with the controls. The use of fixed camera angles could also be adapted to provide a more fluid exploration experience. But in my eyes, the black and white graphics, as well as the excellent soundtrack and voice acting redeem this game. I have to say: if you love horror games you shouldn’t miss White Night.

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Honor Play review: Flagship specs on a budget

Huawei recently became the second largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. On top of that, it just made it into the top five smartphone manufacturers in India, carried by the success of its phones and that of its sub-brand, Honor.

Honor’s new phone, the Honor Play, is aimed at power users and gamers on a mid-range budget, packing in top-of-the-line specifications. It doesn’t have the high-refresh rate display or fancy liquid cooling system of other gaming phones, but it’s got the company’s new GPU Turbo technology, which promises an enhanced visual experience while gaming.

I’ve played (sorry, not sorry) with the Honor Play for a couple of weeks. For the specs it packs, its crazy this phone comes for less than $350. But is it really any good?

This is our full Honor Play review.

For the purpose of this review, I took the higher spec’d Indian variant of the Honor Play – the one with 6GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage – for a spin.Show More

Design

Honor Play is a gift for anyone still against manufacturers’ obsession with glass-backed phones. Personally, I think devices like the Honor 9 Lite and Honor 10 look very attractive, even if they attract a lot of fingerprints and smudges. I also like the Honor Play, even though the company played it safe here.

The unibody aluminum construction with a matte finish, makes for a premium looking smartphone. The antenna lines are etched right on the curves, giving the back a clean and seamless look. The vertical Honor branding we’ve seen on recent Huawei phones looks chic as well.

The Honor Play sports a large 6.3-inch display, but the 19.5:9 aspect ratio, curved edges, and rounded corners make for a very ergonomic phone. There’s a considerable chin at the bottom and it’s not completely without bezels though.

With its large battery, Honor did well keeping the thickness of the phone (7.5mm) in check. Of course, the vertically aligned dual camera at the back adds a slight bump.

Overall, the Honor Play has a very smooth and minimalist look. The build quality is solid and quite reassuring, though there’s nothing in the design to suggest it is a gaming phone.

Display

The Honor Play manages to cram in a large 6.3-inch Full HD+ IPS LCD display with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and an 83 percent screen-to-body ratio. Yes, there’s a notch, but you can turn it off in display settings if you’ve still not warmed up to the increasingly ubiquitous trend.

The display is quite vibrant, though a tad oversaturated, and the colors look rich. If you’re not a fan of the vivid colors, you can dial them down to more natural tones in the display settings. You can also pull down the resolution to HD+ to conserve battery.

The viewing angles are decent enough, but a slight tint creeps in at wider tangents. Also, while the brightness is appropriate, the display is quite reflective and it’s hard to use in direct sunlight.

Performance

It’s remarkable the Honor Play packs in Huawei’s flagship Kirin 970 processor, with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of UFS 2.1 storage at its price.

The phone’s performance is top notch. Even with several apps running in the background, including Asphalt 9 Legends and several open tabs in Chrome, it holds up quite well. The company did well optimizing the hardware for EMUI — a benefit of owning all pieces of the puzzle. The overall smoothness and reliability in everyday usage is quite apparent. Throw anything at the Honor Play, and it won’t break a sweat. There’s also a 4GB variant (with the same internal storage) of the device, which should also be good enough for most people.

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The Honor Play is the company’s first smartphone to run GPU Turbo. It’s an integrated hardware-software graphics processing acceleration technology that reconstructs the traditional graphics processing framework at the lower layer system, greatly improving the efficiency of GPU graphics processing and user gaming experience.

According to Honor, the feature improves graphics processing efficiency by 60 percent and reduces energy consumption by 30 percent on the Play. It’s hard to test the company’s claims since I don’t have an Honor Play “without” GPU Turbo. However, without qualitative numbers to report, playing PUBG Mobile with the highest graphics settings was a breeze.

Right now, GPU Turbo only supports PUBG Mobile and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. Honor will announce more titles in the future, but until then it’s a pretty limited feature. Honor is also apparently working on integrating this technology with EMUI, which could be very interesting.

The Honor Play packs in 3,750mAh battery, and even after heavy usage through the day, I ended up with 10-15 percent battery left at the end of the day. Most moderate users will likely be able to squeeze more than a day and a half out of the battery, which is pretty good. The phone also supports fast charging, with a bundled 18W charger. Considering all the Honor Play’s horsepower, battery life like this is pretty great.

Hardware

The Honor Play sports a mono speaker. It’s pretty loud and the audio performance is actually quite good, but the lack of stereo speakers is surprising, considering the gaming focus. Then again, you don’t reach this price by throwing in everything you can.

It packs in a hybrid tray, for either two nano-SIMs or a nano-SIM and a microSD card. Both the phone’s 4GB and 6GB RAM variants only come with 64GB of storage, so you might want to gauge your requirement if you plan to use two SIMs.

Camera

Like with other Huawei and Honor smartphones powered by the Kirin 970 processor, the camera on the Honor Play has a bunch of AI features using the SoC’s dedicated NPU, like real-time scene detection.

In most cases, AI tends to oversaturate the photos, so if you prefer more natural looking colors, you may want to toggle off the AI. Turning it off is easy and better for most shots, which is a shame. I think Honor missed a beat here with the execution of the Play’s AI capabilities.

The dual camera on the back is a mixed bag. It’s got a 16MP f/2.2 primary lens and a 2MP f/2.4 second sensor for capturing depth information. There’s also a single LED flash and phase-detection auto-focus.

In good lighting conditions, the photos are good enough. The camera captures a good amount of detail, the noise levels are low, and the color reproduction is pretty good. In less than ideal conditions it struggles because of the smaller aperture. Since there’s no optical image stabilization (OIS), you may need to use the AI mode, which enables artificial intelligence stabilization (AIS), Honor’s implementation of electronic image stabilization (EIS).

Despite the average camera performance, the phone has a very capable Portrait mode. The separation and edge detection is pretty good, and you can control the bokeh, even after taking the picture.

The front camera comes with a 16-megapixel resolution and a f/2.0 aperture that offers well-balanced selfies in good light conditions with good contrast and colors.

Honor Play doesn’t have an impressive camera but its results should work for social media. If the camera is your top priority, you should look elsewhere. That said, the camera app is quite snappy and it has a ton of features. If only the AI features worked well too.

Software

The Honor Play runs EMUI 8.2, the latest iteration of Huawei’s proprietary UI layer over Android 8.1 Oreo.

While custom skins are a matter of preference, EMUI is a feature-packed one offering nifty features like being able to toggle the app drawer and customize phone’s the home screen and animations. The universal search on swipe down is quite handy as well.

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The only bad thing about the Honor Play’s software is its bloatware. It comes with a bunch of random games we could frankly do without. PUBG Mobile isn’t even pre-installed, and it’s one of the few games showcasing the phone’s new technology.

The company did well tying its processor and software together, and EMUI runs very smoothly. It will be a delight for most users, except the vocal minority that prefers stock Android experience. In my experience with other Honor phones in the past, the EMUI doesn’t slow down after a few months, which is pretty impressive, though less talked about.

Specifications

Display	6.3-inch Full HD+ (2340 x 1080) IPS LCD 19.5:9 aspect ratio 2.5D curved glass display
Processor	Octa-Core Kirin 970 (4 x 2.4 GHz A73+ 4 x 1.8 GHz A53) 10nm Mali-G72 MP12 GPU NPU GPU Turbo
RAM	4GB/6GB LPDDR4X
Storage	64GB (UFS 2.1) Expandable up to 256GB with microSD
Cameras	Rear cameras: Primary: 16MP with LED flash, f/2.2 aperture, PDAF Secondary: 2MP secondary camera with f/2.4 aperture Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) Front camera: 16MP, f/2.0 aperture
Battery	3,750mAh
Software	Android 8.1 with EMUI 8.2
Dimensions and weight	157.91×74.27×7.84mm 176g

Gallery

Pricing and final thoughts

At 23,999 rupees ($329) in India, Honor has broken the lower threshold of packing in flagship-grade internals for less than $350. However, the 4GB variant at only 19,999 rupees ($286) is an even better deal. The Honor Play’s price alone makes it one of the best mid-range options out there.

Buy now from Amazon India
Check it out on HiHonor.com

The pricing and the specifications sheet alone make Honor Play a top option on the table.

Of course, there’s more to a smartphone than just its spec sheet. This phone performs as good as any flagship phone out there and looks quite brilliant as well. However, the camera could’ve definitely been better.

The Honor Play is a solid phone for most users — not just gamers. If GPU Turbo catches game developers’ fancy and Huawei can manage to bring support for more titles, all the better.

Honor is offering a formidable mid-range smartphone at a great value. It’s got a little something for everybody, except the shutterbugs.

Next: Pocophone F1 review: Can’t argue with a Snapdragon 845 for $300

Want a future-proof degree? Head to Colorado for asteroid mining

Are you a high schooler wondering what career to pursue that won’t be gobbled up by robots in the next few years? Are you an engineering grad, economist, physicist, or policy analyst looking to become an expert in a new, but fast-developing discipline? If so, the Colorado School of Mines has the perfect answer for you: You should totally take up space mining.

No, we’re not kidding. While the idea of extracting water, minerals or even metals from an asteroid sounds like the stuff of far-future science-fiction, it’s likely to actually happen in the coming decades — and Colorado School of Mines’ newly launched “Space Resources” course will help you get in on the ground floor.

“Space Resources is an area that includes identifying the resources there are in space, and working out how to collect, extract and utilize them,” Dr. Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Center for Space Resources and Research Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Colorado School of Mines, told Digital Trends.

Students on the course can earn post-baccalaureate certificates, master’s degrees, and doctoral degrees through the interdisciplinary program. It will cover the responsible exploration, extraction, and use of resources on the moon, Mars, asteroids, and even further afield locations. The courses will include guest speakers from a variety of mining and aerospace companies.

“I would compare this to aviation,” Abbud-Madrid continued. “The first academic programs started just a few years after the Wright brothers [pioneered the first airplanes]. People realized quickly that this was no longer just the field of daredevils and people looking for entertainment; it was going to become very important. The same thing happened with academic aerospace programs shortly after the launch of Sputnik. Even though going to the moon looked far away, there was a realization that this would happen. Universities have to be ahead of the curve so they can start preparing people to enter [new] fields.”

While the first year’s course officially kicked off this week, it’s never too early to start thinking about next year. Could 2019 be the year you start your new career as an asteroid mining student? The decision is in your hands.

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Everything you need to know about the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2000 series

After months of speculation, Nvidia finally revealed its next-generation graphics architecture at Gamescom, with CEO Jensen Huang hailing it as the greatest advancement in its GPU technologies since CUDA cores were introduced in the GTX 8 series in 2006. It adds new technologies that bring about lighting techniques thought to still be years away from being practically possible and overhauls Nvidia’s now-classic reference cooler design. But all of it does come at a price.

The new-generation graphics cards are an order of magnitude more expensive than their predecessors, even factoring in recent pricing problems faced by graphics card buyers all over the world. Are all of the new exciting features of the RTX 2000 series worth it?

The cards

Nvidia had three cards to show off and announce the details of at Gamescom: The RTX 2070, RTX 2080, and RTX 2080 Ti. That was somewhat of a surprise, as with generations past, Nvidia has staggered the showcase and release of these cards over a longer period of time. Where the 10-series saw the 1080 release first, followed by the 1070 a month later, and the 1080 Ti a year after that, the 2000 series will see the 2080 and 2080 Ti go on sale on (“or around”) September 20, while the 2070 has a rough release date of October.

These cards have a couple of different prices for each, with Huang claiming that third-party reference cards (that aren’t overclocked or given custom cooling solutions) would be cheaper and slightly lower-clocked than Founders Edition cards. The Nvidia FE GPUs will launch at $1,200 for the RTX 2080 Ti, $800 for the RTX 2080, and $600 for the RTX 2070. Reference designs will be noticeably cheaper at $1,000, $700, and $500 respectively, but that is still much more expensive than previous generation cards have been. Equivalent 10-series GPUs debuted at $200-$300 less.

Typically we would expect more mid-range cards at more reasonable prices to debut a couple of months after the flagship GPUs. A hypothetical RTX 2060 and RTX 2050 could show up before the end of the year, but Nvidia has yet to make any official announcement to such an effect.

The raw numbers aren’t as big as you might think

Although the majority of the Nvidia Gamescom conference was taken up by the discussion of new technologies supported by the new-generation graphics cards, arguably the information gamers and hardware enthusiasts are most interested in are the numbers. Nvidia followed up the presentation a few days later with a slide, showing that in actual gameplay performance, the RTX 2080 performs at around 1.5 times the speed of the GTX 1080. Nvidia used a multitude of last-gen games as examples, including Epic Infiltrator, Wolfenstein II, and Shadow of War.

Here are the specifications of what we’re looking at:

RTX 2080 Ti
RTX 2080
RTX 2070
GTX 1080 Ti

GTX 1080
GTX 1070

CUDA cores:
4,352
2,944
2,304
3,584
2,560
1,920

Base speed:
1,350MHz
1,515MHz
1,410MHz
1,480MHz
1,607MHz
1,506MHz

Boost speed:
1,545MHz
1,710MHz
1,620MHz
1,582MHz
1,733MHz
1,683MHz

Memory

11GB GDDR6
8GB GDDR6
8GB GDDR6
11GB GDDR5X
8GB GDDR5X
8GB GDDR5

Memory speed:
14Gbps
14Gbps
14Gbps
11Gbps
10Gbps
8Gbps

Memory interface:
352-bit
256-bit
256-bit
352-bit
256-bit
256-bit

Memory bandwidth:
616GB/s
448GB/s
448GB/s
484GB/s
352GB/s
256 GB/s

Power:
250 watts
215 watts
185 watts
250 watts
180 watts
150 watts

Note: Nvidia’s Founders Edition models will launch with slightly higher price tags, power requirements, and clock speeds than the reference models which will, in turn, be overclocked and tweaked by third-parties.

There are a number of interesting inter-generational changes at play here. The CUDA cores have increased by similar sort of numbers — although not percentages — as between the 9oo series and the 1000 series graphics cards, which should equate to a noticeable, if not significant increase in general performance. Clock speeds have actually come down, which isn’t wholly surprising, but when shown in conjunction with an increase in power draw is a little more so. It could be that those RT and Tensor cores require some juice of their own.

GDDR6 memory provides a solid bump in speed and bandwidth for the 2000-series, bringing both the 2080 and 2070 almost in line with the GTX 1080 Ti, though not quite.

The biggest takeaway from these numbers though is that for all of the talk of ray tracing advancements and clever AI processing capabilities, the RTX 2000 series looks much more like a typical graphics generational leap. We won’t know for sure what that equates to until we get our hands on the hardware in a few weeks time, but it could mean that we’re looking at a much more conservative overall performance increase, rather than the “10-times” numbers that Huang repeated ad nauseam during his presentation with an emphasis on ray tracing.

Ray tracing and AI

While the number of traditional CUDA cores in the new graphics cards have increased across the board, the more exciting achievement of this new-generation, we’re told, is the addition of dedicated hardware for ray tracing and AI. The Turing architecture includes RT cores which use clever tricks to accelerate ray tracing to make it possible to produce realistic lighting and reflections within games without much of an overhead.

Those RT cores will run alongside Turing’s Tensor cores, which utilize AI “trained by supercomputers” to fill in the blanks using a technique known as denoising — effectively a new form of advanced anti-aliasing. Huang also discussed the possibility of foveated rendering, which could help make virtual reality titles much less hardware-intensive by focusing the processing power where the gamer is looking and rendering everything in their peripherals at a lower detail level.

These new technologies at the heart of the 2000-series architecture mean that certain games will be able to leverage real-time reflections and advanced anti-aliasing techniques like never before. Demonstrations at Gamescom showed us explosions which would typically not be visible to the player, being rendered and reflected in materials like a car door or a character’s eyeball, which are visible.

It’s beautiful stuff. Ray tracing has often been considered by many as the end-goal of digital visuals, effectively rendering real light rays within a scene. Nvidia made it clear during its demonstration that its new cards are much better at handling that sort of rendering than any card that has come before it. The RTX 2070, was said to be faster than the Titan XP. At ray tracing.

But as with every generation of graphics cards that have come before it, that one metric is not the only one we measure graphics cards by.

Ports, noise and cooling

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While the hardware inside the 2000-series cards has changed, the exterior has received a major overhaul too. After decades of single fan, reference graphics cards, Nvidia has added a second to its design. It’s created a much more insular blower set up, no doubt to ensure that temperatures remain consistent with the higher-power requirements of the new RTX series graphics cards.

We’re assured by Huang though, that this also nets much quieter graphics cards too. Even when fully overclocked, we’re told that temperatures stay consistent and noise at a comfortable level. Proving such claims will require more than showing off an unpowered card on stage, but better cooling for reference cards will be a welcome addition for those who don’t want to wait for the third-party alternatives.

At the back end where you’ll connect up your display, the 2000-series offers a few port options. Alongside more typical DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0b connectors, there’s also a VirtualLink, a USB-C-shaped port that is designed to provide power and video to virtual reality headsets. Although none of the major ones support that feature just yet, it could mean a cut down on cables and cable size for VR in the future.

Is the performance worth the price?

As exciting as all of the above features and specification improvements are, they must be taken in the context of cost. The RTX 2000 series cards are the most expensive new Nvidia GPUs have been at launch in a long time and by quite a margin. The RTX 2080 Ti will cost $1,200 for the Founders Edition and no less than $1,000 from third parties. The 2080 is priced at $800 and $700 respectively, while the 2070 will be $600 and $500.

That’s a lot of money, especially for what should be a mid-range card in the 2070. With its much closer specifications to the RTX 2080 though, Nvidia may be looking to price that card as more of a high-end offering, with more affordable GPUs, like a potential 2060 and 2050 coming later.

Ray tracing is unlikely to be adopted heavily by developers until there is a large enough number of RTX-capable cards out there and we still don’t really know how capable other GPUs like the 10-series or AMD Vega and RX cards will be at handling it themselves. It may be that those cards still compete with the 2000-series in games without ray tracing, which will be the majority for years to come.

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• Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 20 Series starts at $500 and features real-time ray tracing
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This CO2-sucking rock takes eons to form naturally. Now we can grow it in weeks

Could lab-grown magnesite help fight back against climate change? That’s what a new research project carried out by investigators from Trent University, in Ontario, Canada and The University of British Columbia suggests. Magnesite, a.k.a. magnesium carbonate, is capable of sucking up carbon dioxide (CO2) at an impressive rate, with one metric ton of magnesite capturing half as much CO2. Unfortunately, it can take thousands of years to grow — reduced to just 72 days using the new process.

“Although many technologies for sequestering CO2 have been shown to work, the challenge is finding ways to do this economically and at a large scale,” Ian Power, an environmental geoscientist at Trent University, told Digital Trends. “Magnesite can form at high temperatures — say, in industrial reactors — but high temperatures means greater energy input, and that would likely mean higher cost. We demonstrated that it is possible to accelerate the formation of magnesite, at room temperature, from hundreds to thousands of years [down to just] tens of days.”

The reason it is so important to sequester CO2 is because, even with the amount of greenhouse gases which have been pumped into the environment, the climate will continue to get warmer — even if we were to stop all emissions immediately. As a result, what is needed is a way to get back some of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere.

The room temperature process pioneered by the researchers used microspheres made of polystyrene as a catalyst to trigger the reaction process, helping the magnesite to form. These microspheres weren’t changed by the production of magnesite, meaning that they could be reused.

Given that the world currently emits around 40 billion tonnes of CO2 per year, a whole lot of this material would be needed for this to have a noticeable impact — but being able to produce it more rapidly is definitely a good start. Next, the researchers want to work on ways to scale up the process.

“Our study was at the laboratory scale,” Power continued. “We demonstrated a very novel approach to forming magnesite. We [now] want to better understand the fundamental science even better, and possibly [also] explore how bacteria could be used to form magnesite. Bacteria can have similar cell walls as the polystyrene microspheres we used in our experiments, and have been shown to mediate carbonate formation.”

A paper describing the work was recently published in the journal Crystal Growth & Design. Powers’ co-authors on the project included Paul Kenward, Gregory Dipple, and Mati Raudsepp from the University of British Columbia.

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UL Benchmarks’ 3DMark TimeSpy may support Nvidia’s RTX 20 Series this October

UL Benchmarks is reportedly working on a new version of 3DMark TimeSpy targeting Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 20 graphics card family. Although there’s no official announcement to back the report, the benchmark will support the real-time ray tracing features embedded in Nvidia’s Turing-based RTX GPUs. The new benchmark will supposedly arrive around the time Microsoft’s October 2018 Update lands for Windows 10.

To bring you up to speed, Futuremark became a part of Underwriters Laboratories, or simply UL, in 2014. The partnership would bring a higher stream of revenue along with UL’s marketing resources, quality assurance and lab facilities. Futuremark then changed its name to UL Benchmarks in April to better integrate into the parent company’s highly valued brand and “explore new opportunities for benchmarking and related services.”

Meanwhile, Nvidia introduced a new family of graphics cards on Monday that supports real-time ray tracing: The GeForce RTX 20 Series. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang spent the entire press conference discussing the new family’s ray tracing capabilities, such as talking about how one card performs more GigaRays per second than the previous generation. Huang even admitted that you now need to take a different approach in reporting performance numbers.

Right now, there is no real way to gauge how these cards perform off-stage. A recent video of the $1,000 GeForce RTX 2080 Ti running Shadow of the Tomb Raider even stirred some controversy because it was running the game between 30 and 70 frames per second at a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution while ray tracing was turned on. The developers fired back, saying ray tracing support is a work in progress.

Ray tracing is an important step in bringing photo-realistic visuals to gaming. Hollywood uses ray tracing to render the CGI movies we love today, but the technique requires loads of expensive processing power and time to render each frame. Getting a single consumer-based graphics card to fully support ray tracing in real time will take another 10 years of research and development, so Nvidia created a “shortcut” for the PC gamers of 2018.

The GeForce RTX 20 Series includes cores dedicated to ray tracing, but also cores dedicated to artificial intelligence. What the RT Cores can’t render in real time are “filled” by the Tensor Cores to complete each frame. Based on Nvidia’s presentation, neural networks will create this necessary data that will be included in drivers and made accessible to these artificial intelligence-dedicated cores.

Again, there is currently no benchmark to fully test this process on Nvidia’s new graphics chips. A representative for UL said a new version of 3DMark TimeSpy would “align with the launch of Redstone 5,” which is Microsoft’s code name for Windows 10 1809, aka the October 2018 Update. So far there’s no confirmed release date for Redstone 5.

Meanwhile, Nvidia’s RTX 2080 arrives on September 20 for a starting price of $800 along with the RTX 2080 Ti with a starting price of $1,000. The RTX 2070 will follow sometime thereafter with a starting price of $500 while Nvidia didn’t mention the RTX 2060 during Monday’s presentation. Rumor points to October 30 as the RTX 2060’s potential release date.

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• Here’s how to watch Nvidia’s GeForce event at Gamescom
• Nvidia’s new GPUs look amazing, but that doesn’t mean you should buy one

A.I. makes Nvidia’s RTX 2080 twice as powerful as the GTX 1080

New performance details are trickling out about Nvidia’s newest offering, the RTX 2080, and the consumer graphics card is as powerful as Nvidia’s claims, which bodes well for gamers. Even if you’re planning on sticking with current titles — those that don’t support the ray tracing capabilities that are a hallmark of the new RTX chips — you’ll still see some sizable performance gains compared to the older GTX 1080 chips, with Nvidia claiming a 50 percent improvement for many titles.

“Games like PUBG, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Hitman 2, Wolfenstein II, and Shadow of War will be around 50 percent faster on an RTX 2080 at 4K resolution,” The Verge reported. “Nvidia also claims 4K running at 60 fps is now possible with the RTX 2080 in games like Call of Duty WW2, Destiny 2, Far Cry 5, and Battlefield 1.”

Even greater performance improvements can be seen when developers enable Deep Learning Super-Sampling, also known as DLSS, which uses the Tensor Cores in the new Turing architecture to render objects using A.I. and deep learning. When enabled, Nvidia claims that games will see between a 75 to 100 percent improvement compared to the GTX 1080, meaning that the RTX 2080 has up to twice the performance of the GTX card.

“As you can see, NVIDIA is claiming a roughly a 40-60 percent performance uplift for a Turing-based GeForce RTX 2080 versus the GTX 1080 right out of the gate, and that’s with DLSS disabled,” Hot Hardware wrote. “Flip on DLSS in a compatible game engine, however, and that performance lift jumps up to over 2x in some cases, like the Infiltrator demo and Final Fantasy, while offering similar image quality. Though smaller, other games still get a sizeable performance boost as well.”

“We saw DLSS in action and a Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti was able to render Epic Infiltrator at a steady 85 frames per second (fps),” TechRadar confirmed. “Right next to the Turing rig was a Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti-powered system that struggled to keep the same experience running near 45 fps with temporal anti-aliasing and supersampling turned on.

Traditionally, the rendering of scenes in a game relies on the GPU’s hardware and memory. DLSS renders a scene by using inferencing and shifts the heavy workload to A.I. This frees up the GPU’s resources for other tasks.

“Powered by Turing’s Tensor Cores, which perform lightning-fast deep neural network processing, GeForce RTX GPUs also support Deep Learning Super-Sampling (DLSS), a technology that applies deep learning and A.I. to rendering techniques, resulting in crisp, smooth edges on rendered objects in games,” Nvidia said of the technique.

Nvidia states that developers can send in the game code, and Nvidia will use its DGX supercomputer to build DLSS into the game code at no charge. The finalized code will be sent back to developers.

Although we’re starting to see prices dropping for the GeForce GTX 1080, these performance gains may be worth giving the RTX 2080 a second look. In the future, games that take advantage of ray tracing and DLSS will benefit most from Nvidia’s new GPU architecture.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Nvidia’s Turing chip reinvents computer graphics (but not for gaming)
• Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 20 Series starts at $500 and features real-time ray tracing
• Nvidia’s new GPUs look amazing, but that doesn’t mean you should buy one
• Everything you need to know about the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2000 series
• ‘Tomb Raider’ devs respond to RTX 2080 Ti, ray tracing performance concerns

Researchers put A.I. inside a camera lens to compute ‘at the speed of light’

Stanford

The camera is the eye for many automated devices and the computer is the brain — but researchers at Stanford University recently combined the two in an attempt to make smart cameras more compact. A team of graduate students recently created an artificially intelligent camera that doesn’t need a large, separate computer to process all the data — because it’s built into the optics itself.

Current object recognition technology uses A.I. on a separate computer to run the images or footage through algorithms to identify objects. As the Stanford researchers explain, driverless cars have a large computer in the trunk in order to recognize when a pedestrian steps out in front of the car’s path. Those computers are big, require lots of energy and are often slow.

The team of Stanford researchers behind the AI camera. Stanford

The researchers instead worked to build the A.I. directly into the camera, both to create smaller systems as well as faster ones. The camera has two layers — the first is called an optical computer. As light passes through the camera, the built-in computer pre-processes that data. The optical computer filters out unnecessary data, reducing the number of necessary calculations. The second layer is a traditional computer and imaging sensor that handles the remaining calculations. The science behind the A.I. camera is complex, but the result could lead to significant advances for devices with built-in cameras like self-driving cars and drones.

By processing the scene as the light hits the camera instead of after the fact, the researchers said they were able to create a camera that didn’t require input power, reducing the typically intense computing power required for object recognition A.I. “We’ve outsourced some of the math of artificial intelligence into the optics,” graduate student Julie Chang said.

Gordon Wetzstein, the assistant professor that led the research, says that moving the computing to the optics allows for much faster data processing, along with reducing the computing required. “Millions of calculations are circumvented and it all happens at the speed of light,” he said.

While one of the goals is to reduce the size of different devices, the research hasn’t quite reached that point yet. The camera takes up a lab bench, but the researchers suggest that further research will help the concept to decrease in size, eventually making the AI camera small enough for more portable devices. The team suggests several different potential uses, from autonomous cameras and drones to handheld medical imaging. The processing at the speed of light could be a big advantage in self-driving cars that rely on cameras to see and avoid potential collisions.

The device’s size suggests the technology needs some time to mature before actually being integrated into actual products, but the research takes a significant step forward for artificially intelligent cameras. The team recently published the full research in Nature’s Scientific Reports.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Stanford A.I. can realistically score computer animations just by watching them
• This A.I. goes against the grain, cleans noisy images with a single shot
• From picking to pollinating, agribots are pushing farming into the future
• Huawei P20 Pro camera guide
• Like a vice principal in the sky, this A.I. spots fights before they happen

These are the best Galaxy S9 screen protectors

Keep your Galaxy S9 display safe and scratch-free

With every unboxing of the Samsung Galaxy S9 comes the inevitable debate of the best way to keep this beautiful (and expensive) phone safe. Some people are content with just “being careful” with their phone to avoid scuffs and cracks, but the rest of us know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Protecting the curved display of the Galaxy S9 is no easy task — tempered glass offers the best protection but a PET film can generally flex around the edges of curved displays better. There’s also a price difference, so there’s a lot to consider when you’re buying.

Whether you prefer tempered glass or a flexible film, these are the best screen protectors for the Samsung Galaxy S9.

• Whitestone Dome Glass
• Zagg InvisibleShield Glass Curve Elite
• amFilm Tempered Glass Screen Protector
• Spigen NeoFlex Screen Protector (2-pack)
• IQShield Case Friendly Film Screen Protector (2-pack)

Whitestone Dome Glass

Our Favorite

$49.99 at Amazon

The big selling feature for this wet install screen protector is its unique curing process, which uses UV light. It’s by no means cheap, but it’s one that you can trust to apply well, hold well to the edges of your screen, and protect it with its life.

The Whitestone Dome Glass proven to be a very popular screen protector and is currently on sale for $45, down from $60. Check out this review and installation guide to get an idea of how this tempered glass screen protector uniquely adheres like no other screen protector you’ve seen before. If the worst case scenario has already occurred and your screen is cracked, think of this as a second chance screen before dropping hundreds of dollars on a proper replacement screen.

With a UV light packaged to complete the curing process, this is a pricier option than other screen protectors out there, but based on video review and reviews on Amazon it’s an early favorite. I guess time will tell how well the Whitestone Dome Glass holds up in real-life use.

amFilm Tempered Glass Screen Protector

Easy to Install

$11.99 at Amazon

Whereas the Whitestone Dome Glass might require the most complicated installation process, amFilm has tried to simplify the process by providing an installation guide so you can line up the perfect fit. This simpler screen protector also comes with a more-wallet-friendly price.

amFilm’s offering is a curved tempered glass screen protector that adheres to the phone using a silicone gel along the edges and a dot matrix along the majority of the display. amFilm says if you properly install this phone you will get a perfect fit with no clicking, no rainbow effect, and a strong adhesion that won’t peel up. This is a case-friendly option that can be yours for just $12.

Spigen NeoFlex screen protector (2-pack)

Best for Cases

$8.99 at Amazon

Spigen always makes great cases, so they’re the natural choice for making case-friendly screen protectors. They might not be tempered glass, but they’re far easier to apply and you can a two-pack for less than ten bucks!

Just make sure you watch the installation video.

If you’ve got the patience to take the time for a film screen protector with a wet installation, you should be more than satisfied with this two-pack of reliable screen protectors. Because it’s a flexible film, the NeoFlex can offer full protection for your screen without affecting the touch responsiveness.

Spigen provides a comprehensive installation video that actually recommends installing the screen protector with your phone in a case to help line things up on the first shot. Didn’t get it quite right? Just peel it back off and try again.

It will take 12 hours for the screen protector to fully adhere so make sure you give it enough time and watch the blemishes and bubbles work their way out. Get this two-pack from Amazon for just $9.

IQShield Case Friendly Film Screen Protector (2-pack)

Thinnest Option

$7.85 at Amazon

The IQShield is a paper-thin screen protector that you will hardly notice after a clean installation and won’t peel up no matter how bulky or rugged a case you use it with.

IQShield offers a two-pack of plastic film screen protectors that have been fine-tuned to be completely compatible just about any case you throw at it. That’s in part due to these being PET film screen protectors rather than tempered glass.

These screen protectors have an oleophobic coating to help prevent fingerprints and smudges and are easy to install. Get your two-pack of case-friendly screen protectors from IQShield for just $8.

Where do you land on the screen protector debate?

Are screen protectors and cases a must-buy for any new phone you own or do you prefer the naked look and feel? Have you had hands-on experience with a screen protector that others should know about? Let us know in the comments!

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+

• Galaxy S9 and S9+: Everything you need to know!
• Galaxy S9 review: A great phone for the masses
• Complete Galaxy S9 and S9+ specs
• Galaxy S9 vs. Galaxy S8: Should you upgrade?
• Join our Galaxy S9 forums

Verizon
AT&T
T-Mobile
Sprint
Amazon

Update August 2018: We’ve updated pricing information for our picks, and removed the Zagg screen protector due to an increased number of poor reviews citing application and premature cracking problems.

These are the best Galaxy S9 cases!

Find a sleek and stylish case to keep your S9 protected.

The Samsung Galaxy S9 is another outstanding device and a popular option for those upgrading in 2018. With its sleek all-glass design, you’re probably going to want to keep it protected with a quality case. There’s a ton of options out there to fit your protection needs and personal tastes.

Here are the best cases we’ve found for the Galaxy S9. We’ll be updating this article as more awesome options become available.

• Samsung S-View Cover
• Samsung Hyperknit Cover
• Samsung Alcantara Cover
• Spigen Rugged Armor case
• Otterbox Commuter Series
• RhinoShield CrashGuard bumper
• Lifeproof SLAM case
• Maxboost mSnap Perfect Fit case
• Speck Presidio case
• BodyGuardz Ace Fly clear case
• Spigen Rugged Armor case
• VRS Design Clear Slim case
• Caseology Legion Series case
• Ringke Fusion Clear Case
• SUPCASE Unicorn Beetle Series case
• dbrand skins

Samsung S-View Cover

OEM Option

The S-View case is a folio-style flip case that features a clear cover for the screen to keep it protected from scratches while also letting you see notifications and accept calls with a swipe. It can also be folded up as a hands-free stand.

You’ll drop big money on this one — Samsung lists the S-View case at $30.

See at Amazon

Samsung Hyperknit Cover

Custom Finish

Google seemed to start the fabric case trend, but we’re happy to see Samsung also embracing it.

Made of woven nylon, this case looks brilliant in red with a nice, soft finish. With extra protection in the corner and clean cutouts around the camera and fingerprint sensor on the back, you’ll love the functional and stylish design on display here. You can get yours for just $20.

See at Amazon

Everyone’s going to want to see your brand new phone, so why not add a bit of extra flash while keeping it safe?

The Galaxy S9 and its Hyperknit case are a match made in heaven

Samsung Alcantara Cover

Most Stylish

The Alcantara case won us over with the Note 8, so we’re pretty happy to see it offered by Samsung for the S9. Made of Alcantara, a lightweight material that’s rugged and durable while keeping a slim form factor, you’ll get a stylish and grippy case that won’t add much bulk to the phone. It’s not yet available to buy but would be worth keeping an eye out for.

You can get this stylish case for $50 direct from Samsung or for $27 on Amazon.

See at Amazon

First-party accessories are always on the more expensive side, so they really need to offer customers something unique. Samsung’s Alcantara covers have been recent standouts, offering a combination of sound protection and a cozy finish for your Galaxy devices.

Samsung’s Alcantara case is the most luxurious way to protect your Galaxy S9 or S9+

Spigen Rugged Armor case

Sleek and rugged

Spigen makes some outstanding smartphone accessories, and the Rugged Armor style is always a popular offering.

This case features a slim one-piece case made of flexible TPU that helps to absorb impacts with little pockets of air in the corners to help protect your phone when dropped.
Get yours for just $12. Also available for the Galaxy S9+.

See at Amazon

With a matte black finish and carbon fiber accents in the top and back it’s got a stylish look that isn’t bulky or distracting. All the ports and buttons are accessible and the case is also screen protector compatible. It’s a sleek case that offers a great value, too.

RhinoShield CrashGuard bumper

Minimal Option

This is a really well-designed bumper that’s rugged and shock absorbing in the corners and along phone’s edges — exactly where you need it most. It’s quick and easy to install and lets you still fully show off the design of your phone.

You can get this minimalist case solution for just $25.

See at Amazon

Bumper cases are a bit of a rarity these days, but this one is the real deal. If you would really prefer not to put a bulky case on your phone but still want some added peace of mind for those rare times where your phone slips out of your hand, consider the CrashGuard bumper from RhinoShield.

OtterBox Commuter Series

Mid-Range Protection

We recommend the Commuter series case which is a pocket-friendly case that still delivers the rugged protection you’ve come to expect from an OtterBox case. It’s got one big cutout on the back for the camera and fingerprint sensor and includes port covers to keep dirt out. You can get yours for just $20 from Amazon.

See at Amazon

Few names are as synonymous with phone cases as OtterBox. They’re built a reputation as a trusted brand by designing rugged cases and backing their products with superior customer service. We’ve highlighted the Commuter Series here, but OtterBox has over 10 different case styles available for the Galaxy S9 which you can check out on their site.

Lifeproof SLAM case

Drop-Proof

Lifeproof cases typically offer protection from dirt and snow, but the SLAM case focuses exclusively on drop protection. Lifeproof says this case can survive drops from up to two meters (6.5 ft) thanks to the reinforced bumpers. It’s also got a rugged backplate that’s clear to show off the phone’s design and also compatible with wireless charging. While it’s not quite as Lifeproof as you’d expect, it’s also not as expensive as other Lifeproof cases at only $50. Plus, it looks pretty cool with the black and neon green, don’t you think?

See at Lifeproof

When you’re dropping over $700 on a brand new phone, you want to protect it from everything life might throw at it, especially if you spend a lot of time outside.

Looking for the classic FRE Lifeproof case? You can get the supreme Lifeproof case for a whopping $89. It’s real pricy, and probably more than we could justifiably recommend to the average user, but if you want one you can buy it straight from the source.

Maxboost mSnap Perfect Fit

Best Fit

The mSnap case has cutouts on the corners just to be able to slide over the phone — and even that takes some force to get it on and off. It just shows you how strong this case is. Once you do get it on, your phone’s protected — there’s even a good little lip around the front so you can put the GS9 face-down on a table without scratching it. The case has a soft-touch coating that gives it just enough grip to hold comfortably but not so much that it snags on pockets. The mSnap comes in four colors, and starts at just $6.

See at Amazon

The Galaxy S9 deserves protection, but we don’t always want to give up the thin and sleek Galaxy S9 design to get it. That’s why the Maxboost mSnap case is so great. It has an extremely hard and tough plastic exterior that doesn’t flex or bend, and that means it can take all of the bumps and scrapes of daily life. But at the same time, those properties also let it be incredibly thin.

Speck Presidio

Simplest Design

Speck has a full line of cases available for the Galaxy S9, but we’ll focus on the Presidio case here because it’s a great place to start. It’s got a simple design with smart features where it counts like double protection in the corners and a slim profile that’s compatible with wireless charging. It’s been drop tested up to 10 feet and the matte finish is scratch resistant so it shouldn’t show wear. Get this classic looking case for just $40.

See at Amazon

This is just one of the many case styles Speck offers, so check them all out if you want something with a bit more flair.

BodyGuardz Ace Fly clear case

Keep it Clear

Looking to show off your Galaxy S9 without leaving it prone to drop damage? BodyGuardz offers a clear case they say is built using the same impact gel used in padding and helmet technology for athletes. Whether or not that marketing talk sways you, the Ace Fly clear case is a reliable clear case for $35. BodyGuardz backs their products with a lifetime warranty and you have a 30-day money back guarantee so if you don’t love it you can simply return it.

See at Amazon

These cases are also compatible with the Pure Arc Tempered Glass screen protector, so if you’ve used BodyGuardz screen protectors before and trust the brand, this would be a good combo to keep your Galaxy S9 fully protected right out of the box.

Spigen Rugged Armor case

Best Value

The Spigen Rugged Armor case is my go-to phone case. It’s a sleek, one-piece case that adds good protection to your phone without much bulk. Thin enough to not impede wireless charging, this is a great minimalist case that still offers rugged protection.

More importantly, it always comes in at a great price. At just $12, it’s one of the cheapest options currently available from a brand we trust.

See at Amazon

Spigen Liquid Crystal clear case

Make it Shine

Looking for a clear case option under $20? Spigen’s got you covered there, too. Just like the Rugged Armor case, the Liquid Crystal is slim and pocket-friendly. Made of flexible TPU, it’s easy to slip on and will provide quality protection while still letting you show off your phone’s design.

You can get the Liquid Crystal for just $9.99 or add a funky print or some sparkles starting at $11.99.

See at Amazon

VRS Design Clear Slim case

Slim Option

These clear cases from VRS Design basically offer it all. It’s a clear case that shows off the body of the Galaxy S9 with a shockproof bumper available in the exact color to match your device. Better still, these cases are thin enough to be fully compatible with wireless charging. Make sure you get the right color for your phone to complete the look. You can get this case for just $14 on Amazon.

See at Amazon

Caseology Legion Series case

Dual-layer protection

Check out the rugged Legion series case from Caseology. It features a layer of flexible a shock-absorbing TPU with an outer layer of polycarbonate. You’re protected from hard bumps and scratches, as well as shocks and drops. All the buttons are covered, but the coverings provide great tactile feedback, and your ports are completely accessible. You have your choice of black, violet, burgundy or midnight blue which all look stylish and fun. You can grab one from Amazon for around $16.

See at Amazon

Ringke Fusion Clear Case

Fan Favorite

The best way to protect your phone from drop damage is to not drop your phone. The latest Fusion clear case from Ringke includes a handy wrist strap built into the case.

Whether or not you want to use the wrist strap is up to you, but it’s a thoughtful addition to a consistently stellar case style. Available as a clear case or with a Orchid Purple or Smoky Black bumper accent, you can get this case for just $11 on Amazon.

See at Amazon

SUPCASE Unicorn Beetle Series case

Old Standby

The Unicorn Beetle case is one of those phone cases that people buy with every new device. It’s got that classic rugged design with ridges to help with grip and it includes a built-in screen protector to keep your S9 in pristine condition.

Port plugs keep dust and pocket lint out of your charging port and headphone jack, and it also comes with an optional belt-clip holster. Rugged enough to keep your phone protected and yet thin enough to work with wireless charging, get your Unicorn Beetle Series case starting at just $13.

See at Amazon

dbrand Skins

Skin It to Win It

Dbrand Skins are a consistently popular option for phone enthusiasts who want to customize the look of their phone without adding any bulk. They of course offer an awesome level of customization for creating a skin for your Galaxy S9.

You can pick between nine different texture styles for the back, the minimal bezels on the top and bottom of the display, and even around the camera sensor! You can mix and match and create your dream skin. Didn’t get the phone color you wanted? Make it your own with dbrand!

See at dbrand

Updated August 2018: Updated pricing and formatting. There are some great deals to be had this month on Galaxy S9 cases from Samsung and down on through our entire list!

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+

• Galaxy S9 and S9+: Everything you need to know!
• Galaxy S9 review: A great phone for the masses
• Complete Galaxy S9 and S9+ specs
• Galaxy S9 vs. Galaxy S8: Should you upgrade?
• Join our Galaxy S9 forums

Verizon
AT&T
T-Mobile
Sprint
Amazon