Apple, government contractors were hacked using tiny Chinese chips, report says

NEW COVER: The Big Hack

China used a tiny chip in a huge hack that infiltrated Apple and Amazon https://t.co/GVLBnWaaue pic.twitter.com/4aNdEwPzAF

— Businessweek (@BW) October 4, 2018

Apple, Amazon, and government contractors were all hacked by China, according to a report from Bloomberg Business Week. Though no consumer data is thought to have been stolen, China allegedly leveraged tiny microchips as part of the hack, which targeted trade secrets and other intellectual property of American companies.

The chips used in the alleged attack were the size of a pencil head, and were reportedly added to Supermicro server motherboards purchased and used by Amazon Web Services and Apple. This moved past typical software-based hacks, as the chips had networking, memory, and processing power, and looked like signal-conditioning couplers.

“In Supermicro, China’s spies appear to have found a perfect conduit for what U.S. officials now describe as the most significant supply chain attack known to have been carried out against American companies,” the original report explains.

Apple is officially denying the report and any claims that it worked with the FBI on an investigation in 2015.  In a statement, the company said it never found the chips and believes in being transparent.

“On this, we can be very clear: Apple has never found malicious chips, ‘hardware manipulations’ or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server. Apple never had any contact with the FBI or any other agency about such an incident. We are not aware of any investigation by the FBI, nor are our contacts in law enforcement,” Apple said.

Amazon had a similar tone, saying it “found no evidence to support claims of malicious chips or hardware modifications.” The company also denies notifying authorities and notes that is “untrue that [Amazon] knew about a supply chain compromise, an issue with malicious chips, or hardware modifications.”

Supermicro also denies being involved, and says it was unaware of any government investigation. Supermicro, which is a small server component manufacturer in China, instead echoed claims about defending cybersecurity: “Supermicro doesn’t design or manufacture networking chips or the associated firmware and we, as well as other leading server/storage companies, procure them from the same leading networking companies.”

According to the report, the chips were apparently inserted at some point in the production chain by operatives from the People’s Liberation Army, better known as the armed forces of the People’s Republic of China. This could lead to companies shifting manufacturing out of China, doubling down on concerns over the Trump administration’s trade tariffs and their effect on the supply chain of computer and other electronic components.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Microsoft stops a Russian attempt at hacking 2018 midterm elections
• Researchers hack John McAfee’s ‘unhackable’ Bitfi cryptocurrency wallet
• Idaho prisoners hack $225,000 in credits from JPay computer tablets
• Hacked Chrome extension disguised as legitimate version steals logins
• U.S. set to charge North Korean spy with Sony hack and WannaCry cyberattack

Samsung Chromebook Plus V2 review

Research Center:

Samsung Chromebook Plus V2

Samsung is one of the more successful Chromebook makers, with a popular line of Chrome OS notebooks including one of our favorites, the Chromebook Pro. That lineup includes a close cousin of the Pro, the Chromebook Plus, which was recently updated to utilize a faster Intel CPU compared to the previous version’s ARM processor.

We looked at the $500 Chromebook Plus V2, a 2-in-1 that comes equipped with a 12.2-inch IPS display, a Celeron 3965Y, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of eMMC storage. That’s a common Chromebook configuration with a price point that straddles the fence between budget and premium territories.

There’s a new wave of more innovative and higher-end Chromebooks coming soon, putting the Chromebook Plus V2 in an unenviable competitive position. Does it have any standout features that give it an edge?

Solidly built but a little boring, really

The Chromebook Plus V2 looks a lot like its more premium sibling, the Chromebook Pro, but it doesn’t boast quite the same level of material quality. Its lid is aluminum, but Samsung constructed the keyboard deck and bottom with a slightly flexible plastic. It’s plenty solid, but you can spend just a little more money for something like the HP Chromebook x2 and enjoy a more granite-like solidity.

Aesthetically, the Chromebook Plus V2 is also rather old-school, fitting better with the first couple of Chromebook generations than the newer machines arriving soon. Again, the HP Chromebook x2 is a far more fetch notebook, as is the very expensive Google Pixelbook. The Chromebook Plus V2 isn’t bad looking, but it’s also rather boring in its dark gray color scheme.

The Plus V2 is a 360-degree 2-in-1, meaning that the display flips all the way around to work as a slightly thick tablet. That gives it four modes in total, including clamshell, multimedia, tent, and tablet, and the Chromebook Plus V2’s hinge is up to the task. The hinge is smooth as you swivel the display but firm enough to hold it in place with only a little wobble, including when you use the pen to tap on the display.

The keys have a pleasant and soft snappiness to them, but they’re a bit shallow and do bottom out.

Regarding its size, the Chromebook Plus V2 once again plants itself in “good but not great” territory. It’s around 0.70 inches thick, which isn’t nearly as svelte as the Chromebook Pro’s 0.55 inches, and it’s a relatively heavy 2.93 pounds compared to its sibling’s 2.38 pounds. The bezels are rather large at the top and bottom, making the notebook’s overall dimensions larger even though it sports a slightly smaller display.

And compared to the Chromebook x2’s tablet portion that’s only 0.33 inches thin and 1.62 pounds, the Chromebook Plus V2 makes for a chunky slate indeed.

One area where Samsung’s pseudo-budget Chromebook stands out in a positive sense is in its connectivity. You get two USB-C ports supporting data, display, and charging, along with a USB-A 3.0 port for legacy devices and a microSD slot for storage expansion. Of course, there’s the usual 2×2 MU-MIMO 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 radios, and a 3.5mm combo audio jack.

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

Mundane input options work well enough, but they don’t differentiate

The Chromebook Plus V2 utilizes a typical island keyboard with black chiclet keys and white lettering. It’s not backlit, which seems to be a theme among Chromebooks — neither the similar keyboard on the Chromebook Pro nor the superior version on the Chromebook x2 are backlit — and it’s also a little cramped. The relatively small keys have a pleasant if soft snappiness to them, but they’re a bit shallow and they do bottom out a tad too quickly.

The Plus V2’s display is in the upper echelon for such an affordable notebook.

The touchpad is functional but a little small. It swipes and multitouches without complaint, which is something we can’t quite say about the touch display. We found that to be a little finicky, sometimes responding to a light tap as if we were pressing and holding, giving us extraneous right-clicks when we least needed them.

The Samsung pen worked well, though. It’s the usual small Samsung affair that slides into a slot on the side of the notebook, and we tended to find it slightly less than natural compared to the larger pens provided by the Pixelbook and the Chromebook x2. It was responsive, however, and it was fine for taking quick screen snippets and jotting down short notes. And it’s included, which is a plus compared to many Windows 2-in-1s like Microsoft’s Surface Pro.

A very good display for the money

The Chromebook Plus V2 has a 12.2-inch IPS display in an unusual 16:10 aspect ratio at 1,920 x 1,200 resolution. It’s just slightly taller than the usual 16:9 Chromebook display, although not as tall as the 3:2 ratio on the Chromebook x2, Chromebook Pro, and Pixelbook. The only difference you’ll likely notice is some minor letterboxing in video.

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

As far as colors go, the display is clearly in the upper echelon for such an affordable notebook. We can’t test it with our colorimeter, but it appears as colorful and accurate as notebooks that cost twice as much or more. Contrast seems good as well, with black text standing out nicely against a white background.

Our only complaint is with gamma, which seems to be a bit low and thus video is brighter than it should be. The effect isn’t significant, and so Netflix is still enjoyable on the Chromebook Plus V2, but it’s something to keep in mind.

Samsung Chromebook Plus V2 Compared To

Asus Chromebook Flip C101PA

Acer Chromebook 14 CB3-431-C5FM

Acer Chromebook R 11

Toshiba Chromebook 2 CB35-C3350

Lenovo Ideapad 100S Chromebook

Dell Chromebook 11 Touch

Toshiba Chromebook 2

Lenovo Yoga 11e Chromebook

Lenovo N20p Chromebook

Samsung Chromebook 2

Acer C720P-2600

HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook

Acer C7 Chromebook

Samsung Chromebook Series 3

Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook

Audio quality is just average, though. The two small speakers on the bottom of the 2-in-1 are good enough for the occasional YouTube video, with decent mids and highs and the usual complete lack of bass. But, you’ll want external speakers or headphones for music or a better movie and TV show experience.

Performance that’s falling behind the curve

Samsung swapped out a slower ARM processor for an Intel Celeron 3965Y in the second version of the Chromebook Plus. If this were a Windows 10 machine, then we’d be thoroughly unimpressed with the exchange, but this is Chrome OS. Google’s lightweight operating system just doesn’t place the same demands as does Microsoft’s more feature-complete version.

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

Nevertheless, we can’t give the Chromebook Plus V2 very high marks, particularly compared with the Chromebook Pro and Chromebook x2. Both of those notebooks use a much faster Intel Core m3 processor, the Samsung a 6th-gen version and the HP a 7th-gen. In both cases, these slightly premium Chromebooks are significantly faster than the Plus V2.

Whether we’re running a bunch of tabs in Chrome or a few Android apps, the Chromebook Plus V2 feels sluggish in ways that slightly more expensive Chromebooks do not. It’s not actually slow, mind you, it’s just that with too many tabs and apps open, you’ll start noticing some annoying delays that make you want to limit how you use the 2-in-1.

With too many tabs and apps open, you’ll start noticing some delays that make you want to limit how you use the 2-in-1.

Chrome OS doesn’t support our usual benchmark suite, and so it’s hard to quantify its performance. But we ran the Android version of Geekbench 4 and scored 2,107 in the single-core and 3,646 in the multi-core tests. That’s well behind the 3,441 and 6,685 scored by the Chromebook x2, but it’s also faster than the 1,559 and 4,884 managed by the Acer Chromebook 15‘s Pentium N4200.

We also ran the Speedometer 2.0 web benchmark, and the Chromebook Plus V2 scored 43.19. That’s a little better than half as well as the Chromebook x2’s 75.1. Compared to a Windows 10 notebook, the Asus ZenBook S with a Core i7-8550U that scored 72.1, the Chromebook Plus V2 shows off its budget nature.

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

If you’re looking for some light gaming, then note that the usual casual Chrome OS and Android games ran well on the Chromebook Plus V2. While the majority of games performed well, the most demanding action games were a bit of a stretch. Asphalt 8, for example, was playable but somewhat choppy at times.

Leave the AC adapter at home

There are 39 watt-hours of battery capacity packed away inside the Chromebook Plus V2’s smaller chassis. That’s not a lot in general, but Chrome OS devices usually get great battery life, and the Celeron processor isn’t all that demanding.

We weren’t that surprised, then, when the Chromebook Plus V2 proved itself to be an all-day performer away from a plug. To begin with, it scored a strong four and a half hours on our most demanding Basemark web benchmark test, right in line with the HP Chromebook x2’s excellent score. Only a handful of notebooks are as good or better.

On our web browsing benchmark, the Chromebook Plus V2 managed around seven and a half hours, a good but not great result that’s around two hours less than the HP. And in our video test that plays an Avengers trailer until the battery runs out, the Plus V2 ran for just under nine hours compared to the Chromebook Pro’s almost 10 hours.

Overall, you’re likely to get through your obligatory eight-hour workday without needing to plug in. Gaming will reduce that score, of course, as will running too many apps that stress the CPU. But if you mostly work in Chrome, then you’ll find the Chromebook Plus V2 to be an all-day productivity machine.

Our Take

The Chromebook Plus V2 sits in a weird place in today’s Chromebook market. It’s not really a budget option at $500, and it’s not faster or particularly better-built than the typical Chromebook. And with some many more exciting Chromebook alternatives looming, the Chromebook Plus V2 is likely to be left behind.

Is there a better alternative?

You can spend just $100 more and score Samsung’s own Chromebook Pro. That’s a significantly faster machine with a more productivity form-factor, and that makes it a more viable choice. The same goes for the HP Chromebook x2, which is also faster, longer-lasting, better-built and only $100 more.

The Google Pixelbook is another good option, albeit a more expensive one. It’s a better-looking 360-degree convertible 2-in-1 with class-leading build quality, and it’s in another dimension when it comes to performance.

If you want a Windows 10 machine and hanker for a 2-in-1, then, of course, you have several great options to consider. The Microsoft Surface Pro is just one among many, and you’ll pay for the privilege of a faster and more robust detachable tablet at $800 for a Core m3 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a faster 128GB PCIe solid-state drive (SSD). The $130 Type Cover keyboard and $100 Surface Pen are extra, though, so budget for those as well.

How long will it last?

The Chromebook Plus V2 is well made for the money, and will likely last for a few years. It’s a bit behind in the CPU department, though, and it might become too sluggish for comfortable use as Chrome OS continues to progress. The one-year warranty is the industry standard.

Should you buy it?

No. There’s just no compelling reason to choose the Chromebook Plus V2 over its closest competitors. Do yourself a favor and spend the extra $100 on the Samsung Chromebook Pro or the HP Chromebook x2.

Which size Samsung Galaxy Watch should you buy?

We’re a virtual company made up of tech experts from across the globe. We live and breathe smartphones, and that means we also have wearables paired with them.

Galaxy Watch 42mm

Fits most wrists

$329 at Amazon

Pros

• Fits a wide range of wrist sizes comfortably.
• Comes in both black and rose gold colors.

Cons

• Battery life isn’t great, especially with an always-on watch face.

Samsung managed to get every possible smartwatch feature into a relatively compact package with the 42mm Galaxy Watch. It does everything the larger version does, including optional LTE, but comes up short on battery life if you push it hard.

Galaxy Watch 46mm

Battery champ

$349 at Amazon

Pros

• True multi-day battery life no matter what.
• A little more display to look at.

Cons

• Only comes in one color.
• Too large for many wrists.

The 46mm Galaxy Watch is very much a successor to the Gear S3 Frontier in that it can do everything you want, for multiple days, without charging. The massive battery and same basic specs as the smaller watch give it impressive longevity no matter how you use it.

Samsung has a Galaxy Watch marketing message of “same watch, two sizes” and that’s actually true. There are just a couple of subtle differences to explore here.

What’s the difference?

We’re going to focus on the few differences below, but the important thing to do know is there are only a few differences — most of the experience is the same for either one. Both watches have the same processor, memory, storage, software, and capabilities. They can both track daily activity and fitness with GPS, have heart rate monitoring and have optional LTE connections.

Even the areas where they’re slightly different are merely marginal changes. The displays are the same quality and resolution (360×360), with just a 0.1-inch size difference, and have the same rotating bezel for interaction. Both watches have removable straps that are compatible with any standard watch band, the only difference is the size: 20 vs. 22mm.

The price difference is negligible. The larger version is just $20 more, so unless every dollar matters, you should decide based on the other factors instead.

How big of a watch can you handle?

Choosing which size of Galaxy Watch is right for you has to start with knowing how big of a watch you — or more importantly, your wrist — can handle. The 46mm Galaxy Watch is big, particularly if you aren’t used to wearing large mechanical watches. This is a pretty big case size, but it’s also combined with a 13mm thickness that makes it tough to fit on smaller wrists. If at all possible, go try on the different sizes in a store before buying — you may be surprised by just how large the 46mm is.

If you’re worried at all about size, you’ll need to just go with the 42mm. It doesn’t seem like that 4mm would make a big difference, but it really does. It’s still a bit large for people with small wrists, but it’s doable — whereas the 46mm can be downright too large for some people to wear. The 42mm also comes in two different color choices, black and rose gold, which kind of acknowledges that women with smaller wrists would prefer the 42mm model anyway.

Battery life matters

If size isn’t a concern for you, then the battery life is probably important. This one isn’t really a contest: the Galaxy Watch 46mm has a much larger battery and notably longer battery life as a result. You can get multiple days of battery life out of the 42mm model, but you have to be careful and change some settings to accomplish it — the 46mm can give you multi-day battery life no matter what.

If you aren’t interested in tracking your sleep and will be charging your watch every night as a result, then this really isn’t an issue — even the 42mm can last a full day with every feature turned on. But tracking sleep adds extra stress on the battery and cuts down on charging time, so you’ll have to turn off the always-on watch face in order to make it multiple days. The 46mm can do multiple days, including sleep tracking and an always-on watch face.

Galaxy Watch 42mm

Fits all wrists

Best choice based on compatibility.

$329 at Amazon

The 42mm Galaxy Watch does everything the 46mm does, except it does it for a shorter time between charges. It’ll fit men’s and women’s wrists, and comes in both black and rose gold for more style options. It’s the best all-around choice.

Galaxy Watch 46mm

Battery champ

Multi-day battery life.

$349 at Amazon

The 46mm Galaxy Watch is all about one thing: battery life. You won’t have to think about recharging every day, no matter what you do. Unfortunately, it’s too big for many people to wear comfortably and with every style of clothing, and only comes in one color.

Standing desk converters, gaming monitors, and more are discounted today

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

There’s never a shortage of deals available, but sorting through all of them can be difficult at times. We’ve handpicked all the best tech, and everyday essentials discounts that you can take advantage of right now and brought them to one central location. From Viotek’s budget gaming monitors to Sharpie permanent markers, these are today’s best deals.

Tech Deals

View the rest of the deals

Everyday Essentials

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

Every PlayStation 4 game we’d like to see support cross-platform gameplay

Come on in and get hype with us!

Now that PlayStation has finally caved and started to allow cross-platform gameplay with Fortnite, we’re all wondering what’s next. With all the multi-player online games, there’s plenty that we wish we could play with our Xbox friends. Here are some of our top choices for what we would like to see support cross-platform gameplay!

• Call of Duty: Black OPs 4
• Fallout 76
• Elder Scrolls Online
• Minecraft
• Final Fantasy XIV
• Monster Hunter World
• FIFA 19

Call of Duty: Black OPs 4

With a new Call of Duty making its debut, we all want to play with as many people as we possibly can. Nothing quite like shooting your friends in their virtual heads to pass the time, right? We all want to experience the new weapons, skins, and maps with all of our friends, so why not Xbox too?

See at Amazon

Fallout 76

They say the world stopped when Fallout 76 was announced. Okay, maybe not as if there was an atom bomb dropped on us, but still. There is hardly a person I’ve met who isn’t excited for the new MMO that will be Fallout 76… except maybe all of my Xbox friends who found out they wouldn’t be able to play with me since they pre-ordered it for the PlayStation. While I own a PlayStation, I chose to not pre-order there so that I would have as many cross-platform friends as I possibly could.

See at Amazon

Elder Scrolls Online

Scratch the itch for fantasy that we’re all craving and play some Elder Scrolls Online. Here you can grind your levels, defeat dungeons and take on massive bosses with your friends. The PlayStation version of this game is compatible with those on the PC, even allowing you to play your account on a PC, but your Xbox friends have been left in the dust. Maybe not for good, though. Since Sony let up on their rules with Fortnite there’s a small chance they’ll do so across the other games. Maybe even as a blanket rule!

See at Amazon

Minecraft

Playing Minecraft online takes me back to the days of watching RoosterTeeth create wild puzzles and games for themselves to play in their servers. There is hardly anything cooler for your Minecraft experience than downloading a seed that’s filled with a whole lot of adventure and taking your friends for a wild ride. This is definitely one of the titles I hope PlayStation will also allow cross-platform gameplay for.

See at Amazon

Final Fantasy XIV

The Final Fantasy series originally started as a single player game that took you 13523 hours and 12 discs to complete. Now, with Final Fantasy XIV, it’s one download and a whole lot of patches. But, it’s an MMO of one of our favorite titles that now we can enjoy with friends. Like, the real kind of enjoyment. Not the “sit next to me and watch me play” kind of enjoyment.

See at Amazon

Monster Hunter World

Tame your monsters so you can train them to defeat other monsters. In the multiplayer option, you and 3 other friends join forces to fight against a giant monstrosity of a monster. Of course, you can play with fewer people, but that won’t make the quests any easier. This challenging, and gorgeous game has stolen our hearts and we want to play with our Xbox friends too, dangit!

See at Amazon

FIFA 19

This game has one of the largest player bases out of them all. With so many sports fans, (who are also video game fans) Fifa is hard to keep on the shelves at every new release. Keeping that in mind, I’m surprised it wasn’t one of the first games that gained cross-platform compatibility. With the numbers looking like that I would have announced cross-platform at the same time of Fortnite if I were Sony.

See at Amazon

What are you looking for in cross-platform?

Was your favorite multiplayer game not mentioned below? Tell me all about it in the comment section!

PlayStation 4

• PS4 vs. PS4 Slim vs. PS4 Pro: Which should you buy?
• PlayStation VR Review
• Playing PS4 games through your phone is awesome

Amazon

MrMobile’s Nokia 7.1 hands-on: An affordable eyeful for the US midrange

If you live anywhere but the United States, the Nokia 7.1 isn’t likely to turn your head – we’ve seen the broad strokes of this design before in the Europe and India markets. But for American phone buyers, who probably haven’t even thought of the name “Nokia” in years, the 7.1 might raise a few eyebrows. For $349, you get a stunning glass-on-aluminum build; Zeiss optics in the “Bothie”-capable camera; and the pure freshness of Android One with guaranteed updates for two years. Of course, you also get a Snapdragon 636 and the decidedly ugly combination of a big notch and a big chin – so the 7.1 ain’t gonna be for everyone.

Intrigued? I spent an afternoon snapping Bothies with the Nokia 7.1 in NYC alongside my Android Central cohort Hayato Huseman, so click on through to the hands-on video above for an early look at the phone! Then check out Android Central’s own hands-on right here, and be sure you’re subscribed to theMrMobile on YouTube so you don’t miss the full review when it lands later in the season!

Stay social, my friends

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MrMobile on the LG V40: Five reasons to buy it – and 900 to hold off

On paper, the LG V40 is the phone I’ve always wanted LG to make. Standard, ultrawide and telephoto cameras on the back plus narrow- and wide-angle options up front makes for a penta-camera powerhouse that seemed predestined for my pocket. But then two things happened: I used the phone in the real world for a week … and LG released its official pricing. When I factor in my own inconsistent experience with the spectre of spending $900 on the LG V40, I come away with the conclusion that most folks should wait until the inevitable price drop before pulling the trigger on this one.

I say “most folks” because there is one exception: if you’re a devoted mobile videographer with a real need for the versatility only five cameras can provide, you should take advantage of LG’s pre-order deal, which will net you a DJI Osmo Mobile 2 gimbal and a 256GB MicroSD – a combined value of over $250. That’s a fantastic deal and it makes all the sense in the world for the vloggers that LG is targeting with the V40.

Hit up my 7-day review in the video above, and if you’re looking for a different take, check out Andrew Martonik’s slightly more forgiving V40 review right here on Android Central!

Stay social, my friends

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• The Web
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• Facebook
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• Instagram

Kotlin moving to Google Cloud Platform

Kotlin is the darling language for Android devs, and now it’s moving into the Cloud.

Android developers love Kotlin. Google can tell us that 27% of the top 1,000 Android apps are built using Kotlin or that developers who are using it have a 97% satisfaction rate and that’s great.

But we’ve also had developers tell us in person that they not only love it, but it’s also changed how much time they need to spend doing the “boring” part of building an app. That gives them more time to do things like polish the user experience or add small details that make a great app stand out.

Kotlin helps make the tedious parts of building Android apps fewer and farther between.

When a one-man dev team can see the same benefit as a big player, that means a thing is pretty darn good. Part of what makes Kotlin work so well for writing Android apps is Google’s support. Google treats Kotlin as a primary (“First class” in its own words) language in Android Studio and all the official Android developers’ documentation. This includes examples and tutorials as well as code camps and even a complete — and free — Udacity course. If you know how to code in Java, you’ll be up and running with Kotlin in no time.

After seeing the success of Kotlin for Android development, Google is moving it to the cloud with the Kotlin on Google Cloud Platform portal.

Going beyond Android, we are happy to announce that the Google Cloud Platform team is launching a dedicated Kotlin portal today. This will help developers more easily find resources related to Kotlin on Google Cloud. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to use Kotlin, whether it’s on mobile or in the Cloud.

Like Kotlin on the Android platform, Google is offering a complete SDK for Google Cloud and tutorials to guide you through doing things like building a backend for your app or using Kotlin to deploy Google App Engine. It also promises a full set of APIs and code libraries for Kotlin on Google Cloud Platform to help make moving a project from another language to Kotlin or building a new Kotlin project from scratch easier and worth doing.

Programming languages and developer tools to use them don’t really mean much to end-users like ourselves. But they do make life easier for the developers when they’re done right. Google looks to be learning from mistakes it sees in its own past as well as the things Apple and Microsoft are doing that could be improved and it’s partnership with JetBrains to establish the Kotlin Foundation is one way it wants to fix them.

For us, it all just means better apps. Who doesn’t love better apps?

Record your travels with Anker’s 1080p Roav DashCam S1 for $72

Capture every twist and turn in the road.

The Roav DashCam S1 by Anker is currently on sale at Amazon for $71.99 when you enter promo code ROAVS1BB during checkout. Today’s discount brings the dashcam down to its lowest price yet; until the end of last month, it had been selling consistently at $110.

The DashCam S1 is capable of recording at 60fps in 1080p resolution, clear enough to show any vehicles speeding past you. It’s equipped with a high-sensitivity Sony Starvis sensor for balanced, detailed nighttime recordings along with a gravity sensor which will automatically activate the camera and begin recording if your car is ever bumped. It also features built-in Wi-Fi, GPS logging and the ability to record four lanes of traffic at once. Using the Roav app, you can manage your recordings, replay parts of your journey, and share your videos to social media websites.

With your purchase, you’ll also receive a two-port car charger to power the camera (which can also keep your phone charged simultaneously), two 3M sticker mounts to help adhere the camera to your windshield, and a 32GB microSD card to store all your footage. A one-year warranty is included as well.

See at Amazon

How to use Oculus Go in airplane mode

If you’re trying to take your Oculus Go with you on a plane you’re probably looking for the safest way to use your device in flight. Well, look no further. Here at Android Central, we specialize in answering all the tech-related questions you have, so read on below to see how to get your Oculus Go into airplane mode!

Products used in this guide

• Amazon: Oculus Go Headset ($199)

How to turn off your W-iFi settings

Select Wi-Fi under the settings tab of the menu bar.

Press the On and Off switch under “Wi-Fi” to turn your Wi-Fi off.

Alternatively, you can go to See All unfer the settings tab of the menu bar.

Press the Wi-Fi On/Off button.

Since you can’t turn off your Bluetooth settings on the device itself it’s impossible to go “full” airplane mode with the Oculus Go headset. Instead, put your phone (that your Oculus Go is connected to) into Airplane mode and you’ll be just fine.

Our top equipment picks

When it comes to portable virtual reality, the Oculus Go is definitely the headset that has my vote. With the amazing resolution and all of the games it has available, it’s hard to not want one for yourself.

Standalone Virtual Reality

Oculus Go

$199 at Amazon

Revolutionizing virtual reality

With two different options of memory, you can go for the 32GB for $199, or the 64GB for $50 more. The Oculus Go is a completely portable headset to bring all your favorite VR games and experiences wherever you want.

Most of us have wanted to try out virtual reality for the longest time. While other headsets like the PlayStation VR are phenomenal, they all require a console (or a computer) to run them. So, what if you don’t have a PlayStation 4, or a decent computer? Well, that’s where the Oculus Go comes in. The only thing you need to set it up is your phone, and after that, it’s a completely standalone headset. This means you can play it on your couch, the back of a car, or even on an airplane!