CRISPR halts fatal genetic disease in dogs, could soon do the same in humans

CRISPR gene editing can be used for all manner of applications, from creating more efficient crops or heat-resistant cattle to coding GIFS into DNA. Now, scientists from the University of Texas Southwestern have showcased another potentially transformative use case for the technology: Using CRISPR to halt the progress of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in dogs. One day, it could potentially do the same in humans, too.

DMD is the most common fatal genetic disease in children. The result of a mutation that limits the production of muscle-function protein dystrophin, it affects roughly 1 in 3,500 male births worldwide. Children who suffer with DMD often die as a result of their hearts lacking enough strength to pump, or their diaphragm being too weak to breathe. Patients also wind up in wheelchairs as the result of muscular degeneration. No effective treatment currently exists for human patients.

In their demonstration, the UT Southwestern scientists were able to use a single-cut gene-editing technique to restore the dystrophin in muscle and heart tissue by a massive 92 percent. According to experts, a 15 percent threshold could be enough to significantly help patients.

Previously, the researchers showed that it was possible to correct DMD mutations in both mice and human cells. However, in this latest breakthrough, they demonstrated that it is possible to employ this strategy in dogs, by far the largest mammals this has been applied to. Four dogs were involved in the study, all of which shared the same genetic mutation seen in DMD patients. The CRISPR gene-editing components were delivered through a harmless virus, after which it proceeded to carry out the successful gene-editing work.

More work will need to be done before this technique can be carried over to human patients in the form of a clinical trial, but that is the eventual goal. To reach this objective, the UT Southwestern team behind the research — run by regenerative science expert Dr. Eric Olson — has licensed the technology to a biotechnology company called Exonics Therapeutics. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before this work is saving lives around the world.

A paper describing the research was recently published in the journal Science.

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Samsung is beefing up Bixby by opening it up to third-party apps

Kārlis Dambrāns/Flickr

In a crowded field of voice assistants dominated by Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google Assistant, it’s easy to forget about Samsung’s Bixby. The South Korean manufacturer is ready to start playing catch-up, and its first step toward making up for the lost ground is to open Bixby up to third-party developers. Starting later this year, it will be possible for developers to integrate Bixby into other apps and services, according to CNBC.

Bixby, which is embedded in the latest line of Samsung smartphones and the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Home smart speaker announced earlier this year, will get the ability to work with third-party programs before the end of the year. The update is expected at the Samsung Developer Conference, set to kick off in San Francisco on November 7. That release will include a software developer kit (SDK), as well as an application programming interface (API) for developers to make use of.

The move marks Samsung’s latest attempt to differentiate itself from its competition, which has left the company in the dust thus far. Bixby holds just 6.2 percent of the market when it comes to smart assistants, according to a report earlier this year from Business Insider. The same report shows Apple dominating with nearly 46 percent of the market, and Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa making up the majority of the remaining share.

By opening up Bixby to third-party developers, Samsung is borrowing a page from Amazon’s playbook. The company has allowed developers to create apps—called “skills“—for Alexa. The popular voice assistant now has more than 30,000 skills available — though the majority of them, 62 percent, have few installs and no reviews according to research conducted by voicebot.ai. There is limited third-party support for Apple’s Siri.

Samsung certainly has the install base to make up for lost ground if it can make Bixby a legitimate force in the voice assistant game. The company accounts for 20 percent of all smartphones sold worldwide, the largest share held by an individual vendor, according to Statista.com. However, the company has been losing ground as it falls behind in features and has an increasing number of competitors offering similar products at comparable prices. Boosting Bixby may be its best hope at winning back some of its lost customers and adding new ones as the use of smart assistants continues to grow.

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Outlook for Windows gets simplified single-row ribbon in UI makeover

Outlook for Windows will soon be getting a makeover with a Simplified Ribbon interface that will help with emails and scheduling, and users who are registered testers of the Office Insider program will be among the first to see the user interface, or UI, changes this month with the Coming Soon feature pane. Based on user feedback, Microsoft will incorporate these changes to Monthly Channel customers in the future, but unfortunately, the updated UI won’t be available for Office 2019 for Windows.

“Over the last two years we’ve been talking, concepting, and co-creating with customers and are now ready to introduce an exciting number of updates that simplify the user experience, while keeping with the familiarity of Outlook,” Microsoft said in a blog post detailing the new changes. “These updates are aimed at making it easier for you to get things done and focus on what matters with a customizable experience that keeps you in control.”

At the center of this update is a Simplified Ribbon, which Microsoft describes as both customizable and adaptable. Instead of the three-row ribbon that we see today, the new ribbon occupies just a single row of buttons that can be personalized to fit your needs and workflow, and the interface is based on a similar Fluent Design overhaul that Microsoft announced for other Office products earlier this summer. Users can pin and customize the buttons that show up on the Simplified Ribbon. The new ribbon will also scale to fit different window sizes, and you’ll also be able to switch back to the old UI or expand the buttons if you need to.

For corporate users who rely on Outlook to manage their work email, Microsoft also made changes to both the message list and reading pane to help you get to the important stuff. “For example, names are bolded and flagged messages stand out with a yellow background,” Microsoft said. “And with a little more padding and text treatment to create a clearer visual hierarchy, scanning your inbox is easier, and focusing on important messages is easier than ever.”

Email subjects are now more prominently displayed in the reading pane, and response actions are now context sensitive. If you’re dealing with an email, for example, you’ll see the Reply button, but if Outlook for Windows detects a calendar invitation, it will display the Accept button instead. Group folders will also be more accessible with this update.

If you’re composing a more detailed email response, you can reply in a pop-out window, which comes with a simplified ribbon with tools for formatting your message.

Outlook also gains contextual awareness when scheduling meetings, making it easier and smarter to add required and optional attendees, and to find available meeting rooms. By choosing the meeting time first, Outlook will then search for available conference rooms based on the meeting’s time parameters.

To make these new changes more accessible, Microsoft is also introducing a Coming Soon panel, which details all the changes coming on the horizon and allows users to experience new features prior to a broader release. Depending on your IT policy, Coming Soon may be disabled.

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The best all-in-one computers of 2018

Surface Studio Microsoft

All-in-one computers provide everything your average consumer might need in a single package, nixing the need for a standalone desktop in favor of a monitor-endowed piece of PC hardware. They come in an array of styles, offering everything from 1080p touchscreens and 5K resolution to robust sound and high-end Intel Core processors, each of which typically comes bundled with a keyboard and mouse.

Most target the premium market with a sleek, streamlined design, yet recent market offerings continue to push the boundaries of what a budget-based PC is capable of. Consumers pay for this style and convenience with performance, and while the best all-in-ones don’t pack the processors or video cards some enthusiasts demand, they’re efficient enough for most everyday tasks.

If you’re more interested in traditional desktops, these are the best all-round PCs available right now, and here’s a list of the best gaming PCs.

HP Envy 34 Curved ($1,750+)

Building on the pedigree of its all-in-one predecessors, HP has built a desk-defining system with the HP Envy 34 Curved. It has an enormous stand and an even bigger display, but that’s because it not only is designed to offer great performance and visuals, but be an aesthetically domineering piece of equipment. It’s all you need on your desk for work, entertainment, and play.

Internal hardware options include an eighth-generation Core i5-8400T or i7-8700T CPU paired up with as much as 16GB of DDR4 memory. Graphics include an Nvidia 950M or GTX 1050 and the up to 2TB of storage space can be made up of hard drives or SSDs, with an option for enhancement using Intel’s Optane memory.

As impressive as the hardware inside the Envy 34 Curved is though, the outside is so much more extravagant. The ultrawide, quad HD display has a resolution of 3,440 x 1,440 and thanks to its IPS panel, offers fantastic colors and a 178-degree viewing angle. There are heaps of ports on the base, as well as built in high-quality Bang and Olufsen speakers, and wireless charging support for mobile devices.

Buy one now from:

HP

Microsoft Surface Studio ($3,000+)

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Microsoft may be a newcomer to the all-in-one market, but that hasn’t stopped the Redmond giant from making a splash with the high-end Surface Studio. Its massive and beautiful 28-inch PixelSense display boasts an enormous 4,500 x 3,000 resolution. It’s one of the best displays we’ve set eyes on, easily claiming the top spot among touchscreens.

You’ll find your choice of sixth generation Intel Core i5 or Core i7 CPUs inside, plus either the GTX 965M or GTX 980M. We didn’t find the hybrid drive inside to our liking, but it’s still better than a pure HDD — and it’s the only option, so you’re stuck with it. Starting at $3,000, the Studio is targeted at designers, graphic artists, and animators, but will draw the eye of everyone who walks by.

Buy one now from:

Microsoft

Apple iMac with Retina 5K display ($2,000+)

Apple’s 27-inch, Retina display iMac offered the first 5K display in the world. The stunning, 5,120 × 2,880 screen delivers crystal-clear images and sharp text, while boasting powerful internal specs in the form of a quad-core, 3.5GHz Intel Core i5 CPU and 8GB of RAM. Moreover, the all-in-one maintains the stylish design with which we’ve all grown accustomed, reveling in a gap-less front panel and rounded corners that compliment the glass-and-aluminum build. The on board Radeon Pro 575 graphics chip can’t really handle games at full 5K, but it’s sufficient for many at 1440p.

If you have deeper pockets though, you could always opt for the iMac Pro which improves the internal hardware to as much as an 18-core Intel Xeon W CPU, up to 128GB of RAM, and an AMD Vega 64 graphics card for astounding performance. It is $5,000 though, making it a bit of the reach of most potential all-in-one buyers.

Buy one now from:

Apple Amazon

Dell XPS 27 Touch ($1,500+)

The XPS 27 Touch is among the best Windows-based AiO we’ve ever laid eyes on. The plastic backside may feel a bit flimsy compared to most premium machines, but the 4K touchscreen gleams with detail and reclines to better accommodate tapping and swiping on a 27-inch screen. that’s powered by a seventh-generation Intel core i5 or i7 CPU, with up to 64GB of RAM, and as much as a terabyte of SSD storage space.

Graphics options are a little more limited, with a choice of either on board Intel HD graphics, or an AMD RX 570. That’s enough for a little off-hours gaming, but you would really struggle with anything but the lowest settings in most modern games.

Buy one now from:

Amazon Dell

Asus Zen AIO ZN242GD ($1,000+)

The Asus Zen AIO ZN242GD might have a mouthful of a name, but the system itself is finely tuned, finely balanced, and packed with fine hardware. Starting at $1,000, prospective buyers have the option of Core i5 or Core i7 CPUs and up to 32GB of RAM. That general computing power is paired up with an Nvidia GTX 1050 graphics card which offers passable gaming performance for off-hours fun, as well as the ability to accelerate some 3D application.

Arguably the system’s most impressive feature though is its footprint. Eschewing the large stands of some of its contemporaries, the wine-stem-like frame of the Zen AIO takes up very little desk space, meaning you can use it on even quite diminutive surfaces without it taking over. At just 24-inches, this isn’t the largest all-in-one out there, but at 1080p resolution and with thin bezels it’s a good fit for a compact, but great-looking system.

Buy one now from:

Best Buy Amazon

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To make the web safer, Google says URLs must die

Can the web exist without internet addresses? And if so, how do you navigate to where you need to be? These are some of the controversial questions that Google is asking as it tries to make the World Wide Web a safer place for all netizens.

While the idea of abandoning web addresses may seem radical for a company that has built its business on indexing the numerous web pages and their unique web addresses in order to rank them whenever a user searches for a specific term, if Google is successful in making the internet a safer, more trustworthy place, users and advertisers may place even greater trust in its search results.

The problem with URLs is that they’re difficult to understand, and hackers prey on this confusion to launch malicious sites, initiate phishing attacks, disseminate false information, or spread malicious software. A recent McAfee report suggests that cyberattacks cost the world $600 billion last year, and the number of attacks are rising.

“So we want to move toward a place where web identity is understandable by everyone — they know who they’re talking to when they’re using a website and they can reason about whether they can trust them,’” said Chrome engineering manager Adrienne Porter Felt in an interview with Wired. “But this will mean big changes in how and when Chrome displays URLs. We want to challenge how URLs should be displayed and question it as we’re figuring out the right way to convey identity.”

The link between web identity and URLs has become less relevant in recent years with the rise of URL shorteners. These shorteners obscure long web addresses with an easy to remember and easy to share URL, but may also make it easier for hackers to mask illegitimate sites. At one point, Google also operated its own URL shortening program, but it announced earlier this year that it was replacing the service with Firebase Dynamic Links. These dynamic links send users to any place within an Android, iOS, or web app, making it easier to share specific content.

At this point, Google doesn’t know what a web without addresses will look like. In 2014, Google experimented with an origin chip in Chrome. The short-lived feature displayed just the main domain name of a website, but clicking on the search box revealed the full web address. Most recently, Google tried to make the web safer by alerting users whenever they visited an insecure site, notifying them that the web address they’re visiting doesn’t use the HTTPS standard.

Google admits that its still still trying to understand how people use URLs. So far, the Chrome team hasn’t revealed what proposals it’s considering for what a URL-less web would resemble, and Porter Felt said that her colleagues are divided on a solution, which will be revealed by fall or spring. Google must balance security and convenience, making it easy for people to share links across multiple devices.

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Experience virtual 3D surround sound with this slim $170 Yamaha Sound Bar

Stream tunes directly to this sound bar via Bluetooth.

Yamaha’s YAS-108 Sound Bar features built-in subwoofers with Bluetooth capability, and right now you can snag one for your own home at just $169.95 via Amazon. Regularly priced at $200, this discount marks the lowest price ever for this sound bar and also the first time it’s ever seen a major discount since its release earlier this year.

This slim sound bar is packed with dual subwoofers, DTS Virtual:X for virtual 3D surround sound, Bluetooth streaming which can switch between two connected devices easily, along with 4K pass-through, HDMI, Optical, and AUX ports. Its built-in gyroscope optimizes its audio based on how your sound bar is sitting and there are also keyholes to make wall-mounting the product simple.

See at Amazon

Skype Introduces Call Recording Feature for Mac and iOS

Microsoft today announced that it has added call recording functionality to the latest version of Skype available on Mac and iOS.

Skype says that the new call recording feature is cloud-based, with Skype informing every participant in a given call that a call is being recorded.

Call recording for video chats includes everyone’s video and screens that are shared during the call, with the call available to be saved and shared for the next 30 days. There is no way to record the audio portion of a video chat without also recording the video.

On both mobile and desktop, call recording can be initiated by clicking or tapping on the “+” icon at the bottom of the screen and then selecting “Start recording.” Once call recording has been initiated, participants will see a mobile banner letting them know that a recording is in progress.

Call recording is available in the current version of Skype, which can be downloaded from the Skype website on the Mac or the App Store on iOS. [Direct Link]

Tags: Skype, Microsoft
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Huawei MediaPad M5 Pro Review

We’re now well into the second half of 2018 and a question has nagged at me all year: do we really need tablets anymore?

Phone displays are getting bigger and bigger and we now routinely see phone displays that span more than 6-inches. That’s pretty crazy considering just a few short years ago we reveled at a 4.5-inch display, even wondering if it was too big.

So, as the devices in our pockets get bigger, faster, and stronger, why do we need tablets? Aren’t phones good enough now to take care of all of our needs?

To answer this question, I reached out to Huawei, asking to take a look at the MediaPad M5 Pro. The 10.8-inch tablet is widely viewed as one of the best on the market today. If there’s anything that can make the case for tablets as a whole, this is the one to do it.

Just a note before we go on. There are three versions of the MediaPad M5 available today. An 8.4-inch MediaPad M5, a 10.8-inch MediaPad M5, and a 10.8-inch MediaPad M5 Pro. The 8.4-inch and 10.8-inch devices are available today for $320 and $360 respectively. The 10.8 Pro is $450.

The biggest difference between the 10.8-inch models is that the Pro comes with support for the M-Pen (Huawei’s stylus), where the non-Pro model does not. Both models can connect to a keyboard dock via Pogo pins on the rear of the device, but one was not available for this review.

For purposes of this review, we are reviewing the 10.8 Pro version with M-Pen included.

Hardware and design

The MediaPad M5 Pro is a good looking device, but further inspection leaves us feeling… unimpressed. Sure, it looks just fine. It’s classy and non-offensive but there’s nothing to write home about here. You won’t find yourself feeling awkward about pulling it out during the bus ride to work or on the plane after take off. You will feel just fine about taking notes on it during a business meeting or relaxing with it on the couch.

But, there’s just no wow there. It feels very plain to look at. The metal back offers almost no design flair at all besides Huawei and Harmon Kardon logos. The top houses a rather large camera bump and the Pogo pins at the bottom are flanked by two large speaker grills– two more line the top too. Yep, that’s four speakers (we’ll touch on them later).

Read More: Honor View10 Review: The budget flagship king?

The right side of the device finds the volume rocker and power button. These are wonderfully clicky buttons and Huawei did a good job of placement here. Most people hold larger tablets in landscape and they’re placed perfectly for that. If you hold your tablet vertically, they’re a little awkward but we found no real issue. No matter where you place the buttons, there’s always going to be someone with an issue. We’re just happy with how high quality they are.

Just below the buttons are a microSD card tray and a USB type-C port. Some of our friends who we let play with the tablet remarked that this was an odd place for the charging port, but once we pointed out that the tablet supports keyboards that attach to the Pogo pins, they understood the placement.

Unfortunately, the microSD card tray is just a single card slot. We’d have loved to see 4G LTE support on these tablets, but those have been reserved for markets across the ocean. Huawei seemingly targeted this specific tablet at those who want to get a little work done and we think cellular connectivity could’ve gone a long way for that set of folks.

The front sees a similarly barren layout. The right side of the device houses a fantastic fingerprint reader and the bottom presents a Huawei logo shining back at us. That’s about it. Our Champagne Gold and White version looks just fine, but we found the darker colors of other models to be a bit more appealing.

Back to that fingerprint scanner– we’re in love. Not only is this thing fast, accurate, and in a great spot, but it supports fingerprint gestures too. We routinely used it as our home button, but you can also head into the settings to set up back and multitasking gestures too. We did run into some accidental home button presses here, but nothing we were overly annoyed at.

The display is big, bright, and beautiful. It’s an IPS LCD display that has a 2560 x 1600 resolution. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s a 16:10 aspect ratio. We love aspect ratio as most widescreen media clocks in at a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Media looks absolutely fantastic here. While colors and blacks don’t look quite as good as on AMOLED displays, we were pleased nonetheless. Max brightness was more than enough to provide a clear picture on sunny days and we found colors to be pleasingly warm. This isn’t the most accurate display in the world, but it does look damn good.

Flanking the display are decently sized bezels. As we watch bezels grow smaller and smaller on our phones, we’re glad Huawei stuck with this chunky monkey. The bezels are small enough to look nice while providing enough grip. This is always going to be a two-handed device (and the slippery back provides no help in that area), but we always were able to comfortably reach our thumbs to the middle of the tablet to type and press buttons while playing games.

Huawei pulled off a solid, if not uninspiring, feat here. The device, on first inspect, feels a bit bland and forgettable, but after spending time with it, it becomes clear that the MediaPad M5 Pro is more than the sum of its parts.

Performance

If you’re going to charge as much as some cheaper laptops for your tablet, performance has to be top notch. We’re happy to report that we have no issues here and were quite surprised in some instances.

The MediaPad M5 Pro has a HiSilicon Kirin 960 CPU, 4 GB of RAM, and 64 GB of space. Huawei made the decision to release its flagship tablet without its flagship processor inside. It’s a puzzling decision on paper. But, once you use the MediaPad M5 for a while, you see why. We’re under the assumption that it costs less for Huawei to pump out the Kirin 960 chips today and there’s almost no loss in performance.

Read more: Honor 7S review: good looking, but so very slow

During our time with the tablet, we saw no hiccups. This thing is blazingly fast in most tasks and we found even in larger games, we were more than happy with the performance. Sure, loading times could have been better in some places, but this isn’t a $1,000 flagship phone. It costs less than half that, although you might not know it.

It feels like 4 GB of RAM is now the lowest Android OEMs can get away in flagship devices– both phones and tablets. We didn’t have any problems necessarily with the MediaPad M5 knocking recent apps out of memory, but we know things could’ve been better here with more RAM. We hope Huawei will consider upping the ante in the next refresh of these devices if it wants to continue to convince people to drop their laptop for this little powerhouse.

One area where we had zero issues is battery life. The MediaPad M5 Pro has a 7,500 mAh battery that supports quick charging. We got between eight and nine hours of screen on time with the tablet and took us about four hours to fill it back up in our completely unscientific tests.

In phone reviews, we normally consider four to five hours the standard. Anything less and we’ll point out poor battery life. Anything more and you get some praise. Tablets are a little bit different. We’re not using our tablets as much in a given day or for the same tasks. For this reason, we found ourselves going four to five days between charges on the MediaPad M5 Pro. This is fantastic.

Again, Huawei has obviously targetted a segment of the population that wants to get some work done without investing in an ultrabook or lugging around a cheaper laptop. Even if you were to work a full day while on battery power, we think you’d have no problems getting that last email to your boss in at the end of the day. We’re very impressed.

Software

The MediaPad M5 Pro comes with Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box. It has Huawei’s own EMUI 8.0 on top.

If you don’t have any experience with Huawei’s skin, just know that it’s pretty heavy. Huawei obviously has its own vision of how Android should look and they go to great lengths to achieve that goal. There is literally no part of the operating system that is untouched. Whether that is a positive or a negative is up to you.

Read more: Huawei Mate 10 Pro review

Huawei has worked to add small but noticeable upgrades to the Android OS. It gives you much more control over how your display looks and acts, strict background and permission controls, strong controls for how apps are able to bug you, and many more.

Where Huawei can fall down a little bit is not playing to the strengths of having a large screen. Besides some menus that have dual pane menus and allowing two apps to be run side-by-side, Huawei hasn’t done a lot here to maximize its potential. There’s a beautiful 10.8-inch display here, but sometimes it feels like I’m just using a big phone.

One of the ways that Huawei has tried to reach that potential is with the included M-Pen. The active stylus is a very nice addition and the software allows you to write as you normally would with a pen or pencil. I found that Huawei was almost always able to make out what my sloppy handwriting was trying to convey. While this isn’t a more efficient way of dictation than a computer keyboard, it is far better than trying to type on a screen or on a cramped tablet keyboard (just a reminder: we don’t have the Pro’s keyboard so we can’t comment on that specific keyboard’s typing comfort).

As of the writing of this review, our review unit hasn’t received an update in quite a while. We’re still resting on the May security patch. And hey, we didn’t assume that we’d get monthly updates, only Google and Essential do so, but we wouldn’t mind seeing more than three or four a year.

The MediaPad M5 Pro is one of the only large display tablets that comes with Oreo out of the box. That’s a huge positive, but we wonder how long it’ll stay that way. More tablets are being released all the time and it only makes sense they’d come with Oreo as well. With Android 9.0 Pie’s release, we also wonder how long it’ll take the Pro to get an update.

Conclusion

So, what did we learn? Do you need a tablet in 2018? Do they really make sense anymore?

For me, I think they do continue to make sense. Outside of all of the productivity advantages of the MediaPad M5, this thing is just fun to use. It has four speakers, that even though they shoot the wrong way, are fantastic. I’d take these Harmon Kardon-tuned speakers on most laptops any day of the week. It also had a display that matches or exceeds the quality of what you can find on laptops at a similar price. If you want a bigger screen to watch YouTube, Netflix, or Hulu on, I’d highly suggest the MediaPad M5 Pro.

I also see quite a few benefits of using the MediaPad M5 Pro instead of a laptop for productivity. Yes, you are going to deal with a smaller screen and therefore a smaller keyboard. But, the MediaPad is also only 1.1 lbs and small enough to fit in almost any bag or purse. It’s highly portable, very powerful due to all of the productivity apps in the Play Store, and supports both a first party keyboard and stylus. That’s pretty powerful.

My only big fault with here is that I feel like Huawei didn’t do enough to make use of the big display. Apple had been plagued by this for years with its iPad Pro lineup. It recently introduced more features to make that big display even more powerful.

Read more: HUAWEI Watch 2 Classic Review

Huawei could do more too. We do know that when connecting it to its first-party keyboard, the tablet gives users an option to enter a desktop mode that allows free-floating windows and reminds us a lot of a Windows 10 desktop. Since we weren’t able to use this feature, we can’t comment on it too much besides giving Huawei praise for including it. Some users reported that not all apps are available in this desktop mode (the Play Store being among them) so we’d like to see this ironed out before calling the MediaPad M5 Pro a full ultrabook or Chromebook replacement.

But overall, we feel as though the MediaPad M5 Pro is more than the sum of its parts. It doesn’t have the most powerful processor, the most ram, storage, or the biggest battery. The software isn’t the cleanest or most feature-packed, but we loved every moment with the Huawei MediaPad M5 Pro. From getting some work done to watching way too many Casey Neistat videos on YouTube, it was a pleasure to use.

Samsung Rumored to Debut First Foldable Smartphone This Year

Samsung is still on track to unveil its first foldable smartphone later in 2018, Samsung Mobile CEO DJ Koh told CNBC.

According to Koh, it is “time to deliver” on a foldable device after Samsung research revealed that there is consumer interest in such a device.

A smartphone concept with bendable display from Samsung
Samsung first announced its plans for a smartphone with a bendable display in September 2017, and at the time, Koh said that the device would be positioned as a Galaxy Note. Given that Samsung has already announced this year’s Galaxy Note 9, it’s likely the new foldable smartphone will feature its own branding and will be sold alongside the Galaxy Note and S lines.

Koh declined to share details on how a folding screen might work, but at IFA last week, he said that Samsung is trying to work out the details on differentiating it from a tablet design.

“You can use most of the uses … on foldable status. But when you need to browse or see something, then you may need to unfold it. But even unfolded, what kind of benefit does that give compared to the tablet? If the unfolded experience is the same as the tablet, why would they (consumers) buy it?”

“So every device, every feature, every innovation should have a meaningful message to our end customer. So when the end customer uses it, (they think) ‘wow, this is the reason Samsung made it’.”

Rumors suggest that the device Samsung is working on does not include a hinge and will instead be one single screen that is able to fold in half.

The device is said to be about seven inches diagonally, roughly the size of a small tablet, but it can be folded in half like a wallet. When folded, the exterior of the phone is said to offer a small display bar on the front and cameras in the back, with an all-screen design when opened up.

Foldable phones are coming! 👏

This is BOE foldable display demo (5.99″ FHD+) pic.twitter.com/abPxWBCe2y

— Ben Geskin (@VenyaGeskin1) September 4, 2018

Koh told CNBC that details on the device could be unveiled at this year’s Samsung Developer Conference, set to be held in November in San Francisco, but he did not offer up details on when it might go on sale. He did, however, say that while the development process was “complicated,” Samsung has “nearly concluded” it.

Previous information has suggested Samsung is actually aiming to launch the device early in 2019, targeting specific markets like gamers. If initial interest is strong, Samsung is said to be planning for a broader commercial debut during the second half of 2019.

Samsung is aiming to be the first company to come out with a foldable screen, beating other companies like Apple to the new design. Rumors have suggested that Apple is perhaps experimenting with an iPhone with a foldable display.

A 2017 rumor, for example, suggested Apple is working on an iPhone with a foldable display alongside LG Display, and a Merrill Lynch analyst recently predicted Apple will introduce a foldable iPhone in 2020.

LG’s foldable display concept
There continues to be no concrete evidence that Apple is pursuing a foldable iPhone, but the company has filed for several patents related to foldable iPhone displays.

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Hate dental checkups? This app lets you check your smile by snapping a few selfies

Between finding the time for an appointment and possessing a totally logical fear of drills, surely no-one enjoys going to the dentist. Imagine how much easier life would be if getting your dental checkup was as simple as taking a few mouth-based selfies (“mouthies?”) and sending them off for a remote evaluation by a real dentist in your area.

That’s the pitch behind the company Toothpic, whose new app is trying to help the more than half of Americans who haven’t been to see the dentist in the last year. And, hopefully, to save them some dental pain down the road.

“We have a network of hundreds of dentists across all 50 states that make themselves available to review these cases,” Mark Moore, founder and CEO of Toothpic, told Digital Trends. “These dentists can identify a surprising amount from images, just like they would when looking directly into a patient’s mouth from their chairs. Dentists regularly observe cavities, gum disease, crooked or over-crowded teeth, stain, calculus build-up, cracked teeth, missing teeth, impacted wisdom teeth, infections, the range of oral hygiene from poor to excellent — as well as a whole host of other conditions.”

According to Moore, the quality of image which can be taken with modern smartphones is comparable to the images captured in dental offices. This has been borne out in a number of previous studies.

Moore said that the idea for Toothpic came to him after he suffered damage to his gums and, rather than go for a dentistry appointment, snapped a quick photo and sent it to his dentist father. While there was a degree of embarrassment in Mark Moore being the son of a dentist who nonetheless skipped out on appointments, his dad was able to use the photos to give him an idea of what treatment to seek and how much this would cost. He even recommended a good dentist he knew nearby.

While we can’t all send photos to Mr. Moore, Sr., Toothpic is based around a similar concept. Users answer a few questions, and are then guided through a photo-taking process. (Best results come from getting another person to take them for you.) After you submit the images, a licensed dentist then reviews them and contacts you with a report within 24 hours. What could be easier than that?

Toothpic is available to download on both the Google Play and iOS App Store.

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