MIT is building a new $1 billion college dedicated to all things A.I.

You would expect one of the United States’ premier tech universities to be on the very forefront of artificial intelligence (A.I.) research — and that’s exactly what the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has demonstrated with a massive $1 billion planned investment. The impressive cash lump sum will go toward creating a new college of computing that is intended to offer the best possible education to future machine learning experts.

“As computing reshapes our world, MIT intends to help make sure it does so for the good of all,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif said in a statement. “The MIT Schwarzman College of Computing will constitute both a global center for computing research and education, and an intellectual foundry for powerful new A.I. tools. Just as important, the college will equip students and researchers in any discipline to use computing and A.I. to advance their disciplines and vice-versa, as well as to think critically about the human impact of their work.”

What makes the new center so exciting is that it will not just look to churn out single-discipline artificial intelligence graduates, but work to integrate machine learning into other fields — whether that’s history, politics, chemistry, or anything else. In his comments, Reif referred to the goal of educating “bilinguals,” referring to people who know about A.I. in addition to another discipline. This is a crucial step because, as even a cursory overview of the most exciting current A.I. projects will reveal, it’s the intersection of different fields where the really exciting stuff happens.

So far, around two-thirds of the $1 billion sum has been raised. About $350 million comes from private equity firm Blackstone CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman, who the college will be named after. In all, the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing will reportedly create 50 new faculty positions, half of which will focus on computer science. The other half will be appointed by the college and other MIT departments. The college will offer its first program starting in the fall semester of 2019. It will then move into its own dedicated space in 2022.

We’d advise you to get applying as soon as possible!

Editors’ Recommendations

• Machine learning? Neural networks? Here’s your guide to the many flavors of A.I.
• By studying patient data, A.I. can limit toxicity in cancer treatment
• Just like an eagle, this autonomous glider can fly on thermal currents
• Replaced by robots: 10 jobs that could be hit hard by the A.I. revolution
• Smart Reply not smart enough? Desktop Gmail users can soon opt out

Remove photo bombs, other unwanted objects with Photoshop’s new Content-Aware Fill

Previous

Next

1 of 2

Before Hillary Grigonis / Digital Trends

After Hillary Grigonis / Digital Trends

Removing an object in a photograph is one of Photoshop’s most valuable tricks, but the task often requires a bit of finesse and a lot of time to master. To make it less time-consuming for users Adobe is relying more on artificial intelligence — making those disappearing objects feel a bit more like magic than a headache. Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 launched on October 15 with a newly redesigned tool called Content-Aware Fill, powered by Adobe’s A.I., called Sensei .

Content-Aware Fill isn’t an entirely new feature, but the earlier version didn’t always get the fix right and there wasn’t a way for photo editors to actually correct what the computer was getting wrong. The new Content-Aware Fill mixes A.I. and good old-fashioned human intelligence, allowing you to fix the software’s goofs. Besides removing objects, the tool can also be used to add in a missing piece, as Adobe demonstrated using a butterfly’s broken wing. We used Content-Aware Fill to remove the damaged areas on the leaf in the image above, and a tree branch photo-bombing the image below (click to switch between before and after images). Here’s how we did it.

1. Select the object

Previous

Next

1 of 2

Hillary Grigonis / Digital Trends

Hillary Grigonis / Digital Trends

With the photo open inside Photoshop, select the object that you want to remove. (Alternately, you can also select a gap or hole that you want to fill). You can use any selection tool, but the lasso tool (the third tool in the lefthand toolbar) is often fastest for selecting odd shapes. You don’t have to be exact with the selection — in fact, it’s probably better if you get a small portion of the background in the selection instead of selecting along the exact edges.

2. Open the Content-Aware Fill tool

With the object still selected, open Photoshop’s new Content-Aware Fill tool, which opens in a new window. Go to Edit > Content-Aware Fill.

Note: To use the new version of the Content-Aware Fill tool, make sure you’ve updated to the latest version of Photoshop CC. If you’re looking for the old tool though, you can still find it under Edit > Fill, then selecting Content-Aware from the drop-down menu in the pop-up. Know that the previous version of the tool leaves out several features, and if Photoshop doesn’t automatically get it right, you’re stuck with it unless you undo.

3. Sample the area of the image you would like to repeat

Previous

Next

1 of 2

Hillary Grigonis / Digital Trends

Hillary Grigonis / Digital Trends

Once the Content-Aware Fill window opens, you’ll see your photo with some green on parts of the image. (Don’t see green? Make sure the “Show Sampling Area” option is checked.) The green area indicates the reference area, or what you want Photoshop to sample from, to fill in the gaps where an object was removed. Photoshop will use whatever pixels inside that green reference area. By adjusting the reference area to include more, or less, of the image, you tell Photoshop what parts of the image to duplicate to fill that gap.

Once you open the tool, Photoshop has already selected what it thinks is a good area to sample from, but this is where the tool allows you to adjust those automatic errors.

To the right of that green-filled image, Adobe shows you a preview of the results as you make adjustments. Occasionally, this preview will look great from the start and you won’t need to apply any further adjustments.

If that preview isn’t accurate, you can adjust the sampling area to add some human intervention to that A.I. To make sure Photoshop is filling the gap with the right information, use the brush tool on the left. Select the + icon in the top toolbar if you want to add to the selection, and the – icon to erase from the selection. Next to the + and – icons, you can also change the brush size for faster or more precise work. Turn the parts of the image that you want Photoshop to sample from, to green; un-paint if you don’t want it included. For example, when we wanted to remove a branch sticking out into the sky, we turned the sky green and left the ground and the area around the branch blank (see example image above). Had we included the ground information, Photoshop would fill the area of the branch incorrectly.

If you’re having a hard time seeing the selection, you can change the color of the sampling and opacity under the sampling options on the right.

4. To add to the selection, use the lasso tool (optional)

If your original selection wasn’t quite accurate or you want to add to it, you can use the lasso tool on the left to select another area in the image or to expand the boundaries of the earlier section. Both sections are sampled from the same area, so if you want to eliminate two objects but you need to fill them with two different fills, it’s best to follow the Content-Aware Fill steps twice — once for each object to remove. If, on the other hand, you’re filling the gap with the same information, you can fill both gaps in the same process.

5. Fine-tune the results

Hillary Grigonis / Digital Trends

Besides using the brush tool to tell Photoshop what parts of the images to use and what parts to disregard, the new Content-Aware Fill tool also allows for a few more customizations inside the Fill Settings option on the far-right column (or wherever you’ve dragged it to).

Color adaptation allows Photoshop to make gradual color and contrast changes to help the fill better match the surroundings. The default settings work pretty well, but if the colors aren’t making a smooth transition you can adjust that via the Color Adaption drop-down option.

Sometimes, you want to remove an object but don’t have an exact reference point in the image — it’s not the right size, flipped the wrong way, or tilted the wrong way. The Scale, Mirror, and Rotation Adaptation tools can help. These tools tell Photoshop how to resize, tilt, or flip the reference point to fill the gap.

If you need to make that sample larger or smaller to fill the gap, check the box for Scale. If the sampled content needs to rotate to create a seamless fill, select one of the different intensities in the Rotation Adaptation menu, based on whether the fill needs to rotate just a bit or a lot.

Checking the Mirror option will flip the reference section (the green-painted section) horizontally to better fill in that gap. The mirror option is handy for filling a gap in a symmetrical object when you don’t have a reference area that matches. For example, to patch a hole in the leaf image above, the only place to take a sample is from the opposite side, but the lines on the opposite side are going in a different direction. By using the Mirror and Rotation options, Photoshop can fill the gap with the lines in the leaf pointing in the right direction. Note, however, that this tool only works for a horizontal flip.

Finally, check your output settings from the drop-down menu. You can choose to export that fill to a new layer, which will allow you to continue refining the adjustment, or you can export right to the background (which allows you to edit the image as a whole, but can’t work further with that gap you filled). Exporting to a duplicate layer will create two layers — one with the original, and one with the Content-Aware Fill adjustment applied to the image.

Once you are happy with the results in the preview, click OK. You’ll be taken back to the main Photoshop work area, where you can continue to make adjustments to the image.

Hillary Grigonis / Digital Trends

Content-Aware Fill is one of several different ways to remove objects from photos. For example, in the leaf image in this tutorial, after using the Content-Aware Fill on the largest blemishes on the leaf, the healing brush tool made quick work of the smaller spots. Content-Aware Fill is best for larger objects, while the healing brush works well on smaller blemishes like removing acne. Photoshop’s new Content-Aware Fill tool isn’t perfect (it had a hard time fixing a power line running through trees, for example) — but it makes quick work of removing many different types of objects in Photoshop.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Photoshop makes objects disappear with revamped Content-Aware Fill
• You can finally throw away your PC; Photoshop is coming to the iPad
• Adobe Premiere Pro uses A.I. to streamline audio cleanup and other tedious tasks
• PaintShop Pro 2019 is more well-rounded with 360 compatibility, speed boost
• The best free photo-editing software

Congratulations Palm, you’ve launched the stupidest product of the year

Brenda Stolyar/Digital Trends

Stop looking everyone, the stupidest product of the year has arrived. It’s the Palm (2018), a device that should never have got past the point of conception, and certainly never have actually been made. It’s so baffling, even those that made it don’t know what it’s for. However, heads were nodded, budgets allotted, boxes were ticked, and production lines were fired into life. And now it has been vomited into the world.

All those present at the time looked at it, and had absolutely no idea on what to do with it. A marketing exec, keen to make their mark, blurted: “I know, how about a phone … that you use instead of your phone?” Genius. Tie it into the whole digital wellbeing obsession, push it towards the hand-wringers so concerned about being present in the moment, and it would be a sure-fire hit.

Deliberately annoying

If Palm had stopped there, it would have just been a stupid product. But it didn’t. It ran with the idea, fleshing it out into something so utterly laughable, we’re still not sure they’re actually serious. It’s a short-sighted product with a marketing campaign built around it, to excuse the fact someone pressed the Go button on the production line, and now some of the money spent making it has to be recouped.

You’re probably thinking it’s not that bad, right? No, misguided ones, it’s worse. Let’s say you bizarrely really are looking for another phone to help you stop using your phone so much. How does Palm intend to do this? This is my favorite part. According to Digital Trends writer Brenda Stolyar, who spoke to Palm and wrote our hands-on with the device, “The creators believe its small screen will put you off from wanting to use the Palm for long periods of time.”

It’s called the Palm. It’s also made by Palm, kind of. So it’s the Palm Palm?

Read that one more time. This phone has been deliberately engineered to be annoying to use. Thinking that takes a special kind of genius. It’s not for active outdoor-types who don’t want to damage their expensive phone because it’s made of glass, so it’s going to break if you drop it. Don’t worry about the IP68 rating either, because that’s not exactly uncommon, and is found on phones that haven’t been specifically designed to irritate you.

Ill-conceived

You can make calls, send messages, upload all your contacts, take pictures, and download and install any Android app you like. That’s called a smartphone, and is no different from the one you already own, just smaller and more infuriating. If it didn’t run apps, or take photos, or do anything else that sucks our time, then maybe a case could be made for it lowering use. Instead, the only cursory feature vaguely related to lowering phone use is a jazzed-up Do Not Disturb mode, that every other phone already has.

Palm itself seems to know how foolish it looks, and appears to be backing away from the whole, “disconnect from technology,” aspect. In an interview with Bloomberg, Palm Ventures co-founder Howard Nuk says the tiny phone is actually for when you don’t want to carry a big phone around, but want to remain connected. Confused messaging is rarely the sign of a well-conceived product.

Completely senseless

What if you’re a masochist, want your daily life to be filled with pain, and plan to buy one? Not so fast. It has to sync up with your main phone so it’s not really made to be used on its own, has to come from Verizon, and you need to use the proprietary Verizon Message+ app. That, along with the pathetic eight hours of battery life, will certainly make me want to use the Palm 2018 less, if nothing else.

Absolutely no-one, until now, has thought about releasing a secondary smartphone to help reduce primary smartphone use.

Astonishingly, we’re not finished. As madness set in at Palm when the horror of what it had created was unfolding, someone came up with the idea of making a sleeve that holds the phone and you wear on your arm. You can go out and buy one of these cases already, because cyclists and runners sometimes use them. What you won’t do is go out and buy another phone at the same time.

Brenda Stolyar/Digital Trends

We’re going to have to stop, as it’s almost too much. But we’ve got to mention the name. It’s called the Palm. It’s also made by Palm, kind of. So it’s the Palm Palm? Did anyone not on day release have anything to do with this product? Clearly not when coming up with the price, as it’s $350. Or if you’re really committed, a two year contract is available. And committed is exactly what you should be.

Just buy a smartwatch

We’ll concede that reducing smartphone use is a worthy endeavor. Apple and Google, Facebook, Huawei, and others all have software solutions to help you do so. Absolutely no-one, until now, has once thought about releasing a secondary smartphone to help reduce primary smartphone use. Why? Because it’s beyond witless. In the same way that buying a second, small phone to take out with you when your large phone is too large. The Palm Palm (2018) is the product the rolling eyes emoji was created to represent.

You either want to step away from your phone, or you don’t.

Perhaps the software options to cut down on scrolling through Instagram don’t appeal. Interestingly there’s a product that already does what the Palm aims to do, and in a more attractive, more sensible, and far less ridiculous fashion.

It’s called a smartwatch, and you can buy one for less than half the price of the Palm, you won’t have to sign your life away to Verizon, and you won’t have to explain why you’re using it to everyone you meet. If you want autonomy, there’s the cellular Apple Watch Series 4, and a handful of cellular Wear OS watches too.

There’s genuine mileage in using a smartwatch to minimize smartphone use, if it truly bothers you. You’re still connected, but in a less intrusive manner. No, you probably won’t be able to perform complex tasks, but that’s the point. You either want to step away from your phone, or you don’t. Whatever your reasons, buying another phone will never, ever lower your smartphone use, and no-one who buys a big, expensive phone needs to buy a smaller second one.

Whatever the plan is, you’re way too early for April Fool’s Day, Palm.

The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not reflect the beliefs of Digital Trends.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Palm (2018) hands-on review
• How to take a screenshot on a Galaxy S9 and other Android phones
• Palm (2018): Everything you need to know
• The best smartphones of 2018
• MIT’s creepy-crawly robot can help monitor your health

The best YouTube channels for sports lovers

yobro10/123RF

Further reading

Best YouTube channels you’ve never heard of

How to create a YouTube channel

Biggest YouTube channels in existence

No matter what your hobbies are, you can find a YouTube channel dedicated to them, and if you’re a sports fan, you’ve got a ton of channels to choose from. There are so many sports channels, in fact, that you might have trouble finding some that are actually worth your time. Here are some of the best sports channels on YouTube, whether you’re looking for incredible highlights, expert commentary, or just funny skits.

BBallBreakdown

For in-depth, strategy-oriented discussion of basketball, BBallBreakdown is one of the best channels around. Host Coach Nick tackles a variety of topics, both timeless and timely. In one video, he examines why the 2017-18 Oklahoma City Thunder — fresh off trading for star players Paul George and Carmelo Anthony — were struggling to succeed despite having three stars (hint: Carmelo set weak screens and jacked up a bunch of terrible shots). Coach Nick makes extensive use of footage to help bolster his arguments, so viewers can see what he is describing in real time. The channel is also a good place to learn basketball history, with interviews with NBA legends and short videos about important events and players of days long past.

The Ringer

Founded by longtime ESPN writer and notorious Boston sports homer Bill Simmons, The Ringer is a site dedicated to covering both sports and pop culture. The site also produces a robust volume of videos and podcasts, which conveniently assembled on The Ringer’s YouTube channel. Sports fans will find a variety of videos, including video analysis of specific basketball players, humorous explainers for a host of NFL concepts, and “table reads,” in which pro athletes recreate scenes from famous movies. The Ringer staff tend to keep a casual tone, but the videos are generally well-produced.

Joseph Vincent

Joseph Vincent makes “mini-documentaries” about various athletes, chopping and splicing various bits of archival footage and audio to create remarkable short films. His video Dawn of the G.O.A.T., for example, compiles footage and commentary from Tom Brady’s college career, when Brady had to claw his way up the depth charts at Michigan to become the starting quarterback, fending off competition from younger athlete Drew Henson along the way. It’s enough to make even an ardent Patriots hater tear up a little and a testament to Vincent’s talent. His documentaries span a variety of sports and eras, too, including basketball, football, and even Muhammad Ali’s fight against Joe Frazier in Manila.

Bleacher Report

As one of the many sports sites to explode in popularity over the last decade, Bleacher Report produces a lot of video content, and while the quality varies, some of it is quite good. B/R covers all the major sports, and viewers will find recent highlights for basketball, football, soccer, and other sports with minimal editing (no obnoxious soundtracks here). Fans can also find video of the Simms & Lefkoe podcast on the B/R channel, but the crown jewel is undoubtedly Game of Zones, an animated series that mashes up news of the NBA season with Game of Thrones. At five seasons and counting, it’s a hilarious treat for even casual basketball fans, and since the drama in the NBA never ceases, the writers probably won’t run out of material any time soon.

Bundesliga

Professional leagues can be awfully stingy with footage of games; more of them should follow the example of Bundesliga, the premier German soccer league, which maintains a YouTube channel swollen with highlights, explainers, and the occasional bout of comedy. The videos all have a high level of polish, but Bundesliga isn’t afraid to let a little personality shine through. If you follow Bundesliga, this channel is a feast of good content; if you don’t, stop missing out on some of the best soccer in the world!

ESPN

Although ESPN has stumbled a few times as audiences increasingly flock away from cable to online entertainment, the sports network remains a titan in the industry, and home to some great sports media talents. In addition to highlights from various major league sports, ESPN’s channel includes clips from the Stephen A. Smith Show, The Jump with Rachel Nichols, and more.

Editors’ Recommendations

• The best free movies on YouTube
• How to download YouTube videos
• FuboTV: Everything die-hard sports fans need to know
• ‘FIFA 19’ review
• The best podcasts of 2018

This gadget lets you sleep on airplanes without snuggling a stranger

Ever drift off on a long flight, only to realize once you fell asleep, your head lolled to one side until it was resting on the shoulder of the stranger next to you? An odd Kickstarter gadget is vying to help travelers sleep comfortably on airplanes without snuggling with a stranger. The Napup Fly+ is a mix between a personal travel pillow, a sleep mask, and a pair of headphones all rolled into one without that head loll. It’s pretty much a “hug for your face,” Napup CEO and founder Ben Cohen-Gazit says.

The Napup Fly is an “in-flight personal sleep system,” says the New York-based company Napup. The sleep system attaches to the back of the headrest and surrounds your head on both sides, with a forehead strap at the front. The result is an ergonomic way to sleep while sitting upright on a plane, the company says.

Head flops aren’t the only way the odd gadget tries to create a sleep environment on a crowded airplane. The front of the Napup Fly also has a sleep mask to block out light. The sides of the more advanced Napup+ have a sound system built in with a 0.35mm headphone jack, replacing the noise of the airplane with your music.

NapUp

“Napup Fly is a  unique, ergonomic, supportive and stable sleep system that makes flights comfortable and pleasant. Napup Fly is the first product in the market that combines comfort with a stable yet non-restraining solution for napping on board,” Cohen-Gazit says. “I’m happy to introduce travelers to the first enhanced in-flight sleep solution. Napup Fly is like a hug for your face.”

When not in use, the Napup Fly folds up for tucking in a carry-on.

Napup launched four years ago with an idea for a car seat strap designed to keep kids’ heads from bobbing around after falling asleep in the car. The Napup Fly is the company’s first Kickstarter.

If the project is successful and hits $30,000 by November 30, early backers could get the Napup Fly for about $35 and the Napup Fly+ with headphones for $49. The company expects delivery around April 2019.

Editors’ Recommendations

• The best sleeping pads
• Flying could feel more like going to the movies with VR headsets and headphones
• Sick of black? Ethnotek’s Raja camera bag lets you customize designs on a whim
• The best camping gifts
• Acer OJO 500 Windows Mixed Reality headset lets you straddle real, virtual worlds

Diving into Adobe’s cloud-based, edit-anywhere video app, Premiere Rush CC

Adobe has officially announced Adobe Premiere Rush CC, a cloud-first, cross-platform video editing app for Windows, MacOS, and iOS (with Android soon to follow).

The app, which is free to download and try, is Adobe’s next step toward its ongoing efforts to move creativity to the cloud and make content and creation accessible across devices, with an extra emphasis on sharing it across social media.

Ahead of the announcement on stage at Adobe MAX 2018, we were able to take it for a spin. Below are some of our thoughts on Adobe’s first iteration of Adobe Premiere Rush CC — essentially a distilled cloud-centric version of its more robust video editing program, Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

The first thing that stuck out with Adobe Premiere Rush CC was its onboarding process. Adobe has done a fantastic job creating a means of familiarizing users with the app. Using stock footage and onscreen prompts, Adobe walks through the process of creating a project, importing footage, editing footage, and sharing.

Even if you’re familiar with Adobe’s other Creative Clouds app, the onboarding process is a great starting point. If you get the gist of it though, there is an easy out to skip the intro.

Once familiarized with the app, it’s just a matter of getting content into a project to edit. Importing media — videos, photos, and audio — is as simple as selecting it from the provided media browser. Content can be added from local storage, such as on your computer’s hard drive or an external hard drive, as well as from cloud services, including Adobe’s Creative Cloud and Apple’s iCloud Drive.

Importing went quick on both an iPhone XS and first-generation iPad Pro, even with large 4K video files. Once content is imported into Adobe Premiere Rush CC, you can start editing while it seamlessly syncs in the background to your Creative Cloud account. This made it easy to keep the focus on editing, with the confidence that the content would be accessible on other devices should we choose to edit elsewhere.

As for the available editing tools, Adobe provides almost everything you could ask for in a consumer-centric app: multi-timeline video and audio editing, title screens, transitions, presets, basic color adjustment tools, audio processing, and transform tools.

As to be expected for a consumer app, none of the controls offer the fine-tuned adjustments you’d find in Adobe’s professional Premiere Pro CC app. There are only three transitions to choose from, there’s no key-framing for edits and effects, and overall, it’d be nice to see a few more options and capabilities throughout the editing and settings modules. However, you can open Premiere Rush CC files in Premiere Pro CC, which means pro users can start a project in Rush and fine-tune it later in Premiere Pro.

That said, for a 1.0 product, it’s incredibly proficient for what it is. We used it on a MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and iPhone XS, and on each device, the same tools were available and the content never seemed to struggle to render in real time, even when multiple effects were added.

If you’ve ever used Adobe Premiere Pro, you’ll know how difficult it can be to export content. Adobe Premiere Rush CC manages to take away all of the unnecessary commotion and keep it simple.

Adobe is promoting Premiere Rush as a video editor designed for social media, so there are multiple means of sharing your content online. At launch, it offers support for YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or Adobe’s Behance, as well as Twitter, Vimeo, and Snapchat. Having these integrations out of the gate means you won’t have to worry about saving files on various devices and uploading them one-by-one — you can post all your content straight from the app with minimal effort.

Wrapping up, Adobe Premiere Rush CC is a brilliant dilution of the most important features from Adobe’s full-fledged video editing app, Adobe Premiere Pro. On both desktop and mobile the app feels snappy and responsive. The interface takes a little getting used to, especially if you haven’t used Adobe’s other cross-platform CC apps, but the onboarding process does a great job to lower the barrier to entry.

Put simply, Adobe Premiere Rush CC is to Adobe Premiere Pro CC what Adobe Lightroom CC is to Adobe Lightroom Classic CC. It’s a great mobile-first app that seamlessly keeps your content across devices and makes it easy to create and share content across social on the go without all of the unnecessary fluff.

Adobe Premiere Rush is available on Windows, MacOS, and iOS, however there are system requirements you’ll need to meet. The Android version is due out in 2019. While it’s free to download and try, you will be limited to exporting three projects before you have to shell out some money.

Adobe Premiere Rush CC is available for $10 per month to individuals, $20 per month to teams, and $30 per month to enterprise customers. It’s also available to Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers with the All Apps, Student, and Premiere Pro CC single app plans. It includes 100GB of Creative Cloud storage space with the option to upgrade up to 10TB of cloud storage.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Adobe MAX 2018: What it is, why it matters, and what to expect
• Adobe’s Premiere Rush is a video-editing app designed for social media projects
• Adobe’s next big software secret? An augmented reality tool called Project Aero
• You can finally throw away your PC; Photoshop is coming to the iPad
• With Premiere Elements’ new A.I. editor, you may finally finish that video project

Huawei and Leica’s monochrome lens is dead, so we celebrate its life

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

While both the Huawei Mate 20 and the Mate 20 Pro have three camera lenses, none of them shoot only in monochrome, marking the end of a fantastic era for smartphone photography. Ever since Huawei first partnered with camera experts Leica, a monochrome lens has sat alongside the regular camera lens, giving us the wonderful ability to shoot photos in pure, unadulterated black and white. On the Mate 20 series, this lens has been replaced by an ultra-wide camera lens, and while we’re excited for the creative possibilities, the monochrome lens will be missed.

For many people, me included, smartphones have been our entry into the world of photography. While we may have experimented with regular cameras in the past, any untapped photographic talent or burgeoning love will have only manifested because of the phone in our pocket. This means the phone’s camera features will have prompted experimentation, and influenced growth. Hyperbole? No, because that’s what the monochrome lens on the Huawei P9, Huawei P10, Mate 10 Pro, the Mate RS, and P20 Pro did for me, and why I wanted to write what could be called an obituary.

However, like all the best obituaries, it will really be a celebration.

Monochrome and me

My first monochrome photo taken with the Huawei P10 was snapped on February 25, 2017. Two days after, a professional photographer taught me a little about how to capture beautiful shots in black and white. That session resulted in a former member of the DT Mobile team taking what I consider to be one of the best photos of me in existence, and it’s in black and white.

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

Despite dabbling with the mode on the Huawei P9, this was the start of my love affair with the Huawei’s monochrome camera.

Since then, a Huawei camera phone with a monochrome lens has accompanied me on many trips, and my favorites pictures taken are often those taken in black and white. In China, it captured the super modern buildings in stark detail, while the neon in Las Vegas seemed to shine more brightly. The Grand Canyon looked like the surface of the Moon, the sharp lines of Wall Street were emphasized even more, and the Louvre in Paris took on a magical look. From a late night whisky bar in London, to a nighttime photo tour of Frankfurt, a unique atmosphere was always captured, or created, photographing in black and white.

On a photo tour of Frankfurt, photographer Bobby Anwar was a teaching a group about how to take low-light photos, and monochrome was heavily featured. A life-long Leica fan, Anwar commented at the time how the monochrome lens made Huawei’s camera phones stand out. Seeing what was possible at the time was so influential personally, and it became a running joke that if I was taking a photo, there was a good chance it was a monochrome shot.

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

I’m not saying monochrome worked everywhere, at all times. For every monochrome photo, a color one was usually taken at the same time, because the atmosphere changed with each one — and that was its appeal. For me, stripping away the color sometimes revealed more about the scene than keeping it in, and made me want to try it out, just to see what the end result would be like. It sparked creativity in an organic, immensely satisfying way.

I’m not the only one. Digital Trends’ photography writer Daven Mathies used the P20 Pro on a visit to Leica’s headquarters, and wrote, “We enjoyed the monochrome mode so much that we probably used it for well over half of the photos we made on the trip.”

Monochrome, and Leica

The photographers among you will already know the appeal of black and white photos, and most of us will know the many famous, striking images — especially portraits — that have been published in black and white over the years. This is not an article about the history, influence, or impact of monochrome photography. It is a celebration of Huawei and Leica bringing a true monochrome lens to a smartphone.

Leica and black and white photography are synonymous with each other, to the point it produces a digital, black-and-white-only camera. Those classic black and white portraits we’re all familiar with? Many will have been taken with a Leica camera. Through my own personal love of using it, I can easily see how it has sparked the creativity of all those master photographers.

Huawei clearly put its trust in Leica rather than push for an alternative feature that’s more headline friendly.

It also illustrated the close working relationship between Leica and Huawei. While there are technical reasons for including the lens, it’s not essential, and Huawei clearly put its trust in Leica rather than push for an alternative feature that’s more headline friendly. It was right to, as the pair created what is one of the best smartphone cameras we’ve ever used.

However, change was afoot at Huawei. The monochrome photo mode, once an easily accessed feature, was becoming less important with every new version  of the software, eventually resulting in the mode being hidden in a submenu. It still worked as usual, and could even shoot in aperture mode for spectacular bokeh-style photos. But you wouldn’t stumble across it. You had to go looking.

What happened?

Leica and Huawei have a long-term partnership and as we’ve mentioned, monochrome is an important part of the company’s products. On Huawei phones it’s not just there as a feature, the monochrome lens worked in conjunction with the rest of the camera system to gather visual data and enhance its photos. Why has the monochrome lens been removed from the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro? Huawei told Digital Trends the feature simply wasn’t used much, and that it can now collect more image data, and crucially better data, from the other lenses. The monochrome lens had outlived its usefulness. Swapping it out for an ultra-wide lens makes sense.

It’s the end, but not entirely. Dig into the camera app on the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro and you’ll still find a monochrome mode, only this time it enables a filter, just like the black and white mode on every other smartphone camera out there. Huawei promises us that Leica has tuned the filter exactly to its liking, and there is very little difference between the filter and a dedicated lens. We believe this, and find it highly unlikely that Leica would put its name in a substandard monochrome filter.

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

But it’s not quite the same. Put a shot taken with the P20 Pro’s monochrome lens alongside a black and white filter shot taken with another phone, and although the differences are slight, they are there. It mostly has to do with crispness, depth, and pin-sharp contrast. Plus, there’s knowing you’re not taking a picture with a filter. It’s the real thing. Sweeteners make your tea taste sweet, but there’s no substitute for dropping in a real cube of actual sugar.

It’s the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one. Shooting monochrome photos with the P20 Pro, the P10, Mate RS, and the Mate 10 Pro has genuinely changed my appreciation of photography. All the pictures you see in this article are ones I’ve taken. They’re not masterpieces, but they do represent the amount of enjoyment this one feature brought.

I’m sorry to see it go, but excited for the future. Ultimately, if Leica approves of its new monochrome filter on the Mate 20, I’m sure I will too.

The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not reflect the beliefs of Digital Trends.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Huawei Mate 20, Pro, and X: Everything you need to know
• Huawei Mate 20 Pro hands-on review
• Huawei Mate 20 hands-on review
• The Huawei P20: Here’s everything you need to know
• Huawei is not-so-subtly trolling Friday’s iPhone launch

The Kindle Paperwhite is waterproof, so now you can read it in the tub

We live in a world of iPads and Galaxy tablets, but that doesn’t mean that the good old ebook reader doesn’t have a place. In fact, Amazon, known for its Kindle lineup of ebook readers, announced a new addition — a reimagined version of the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. The new device offers many of the best features of the more expensive Kindle Oasis.

The new device boasts a number of advantages over the original Kindle Paperwhite. For starters, the device is now finally waterproof with a rating of IPX8, meaning you can read by the pool or at the beach without having to worry about getting the Paperwhite wet. The device also has an improved 6-inch display, with a 300 pixel-per-inch resolution that delivers what Amazon calls “crisp, laser-quality text.”

Hardware isn’t the only thing that’s different about the Kindle Paperwhite. Amazon has also updated its software a little, giving the homepage a refresh to make it easier to find books you may be interested in reading based on your previous reading habits. You’ll also get some interesting stats about how much you read and the types of things you read, and you’ll be able to customize things like fonts, boldness, and more.

Of course, while this is a device for those that enjoy reading you don’t technically have to read on the Kindle Paperwhite. There’s also support for Audible audiobooks, and the device has Bluetooth support so you can connect your Bluetooth headphones or speakers.

There are some downsides to this device versus others. For example, some like the idea of physical buttons for turning pages, and you won’t get that as a feature on the Kindle Paperwhite. It also doesn’t have USB-C — which is a little disappointing in 2018.

Still, that doesn’t take away from the fact that the Kindle Paperwhite looks to be one of the better options for ebook readers in 2018. The device comes at $130 for the 8GB Wi-Fi model, but you can also shell out $160 for the 32GB model, or $250 for the 32GB model with 3G connectivity — though then you will need to add the device to your data plan. You can get the device for yourself straight from Amazon.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Amazon slashes prices on Fire TVs, Kindles, and Fire Tablets
• End of the Voyage: Amazon stops selling its $200 Kindle
• Kobo’s upcoming ebook reader is bigger, lighter, and not afraid of water
• Amazon’s Prime Book Box is now available to all Prime members in the U.S.
• Here’s all the best gear and gadgetry you can snag for $100 or less

Verizon’s buy one, get one offer is the best deal on the new Google Pixel 3

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Mobile hardware is getting better and better, but when it comes to flagship smartphones, it doesn’t seem to be getting any cheaper. The latest flagships from Apple and Samsung are in fact among the most expensive devices we’ve ever seen, with prices for the Galaxy Note 9 and iPhone X starting at $1,000 (the newer iPhone XS is even more expensive at $1,100).

But if it’s time for a new phone, then these flagships really are the best that money can buy. If you’re in the market for a new smartphone and you want one of the latest and greatest – without shelling out a grand or more – then the new Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL are fantastic options.

Our review team sang high praise for the Google Pixel 3 and its larger sibling, the Pixel 3 XL.  The highlights of both designs were their great build quality, beautiful OLED displays, great performance, and intuitive software, with the phones’ new Google A.I. being a particularly impressive feature.

Deals are typically scarce when it comes to new devices, as you’d expect from something that’s just been released and hasn’t even shipped yet. You can still score a deal, however, if you take advantage of pre-order bonuses like Verizon’s “buy one, get one” offer, which is by far the best deal going for the Google Pixel 3 right now.

Google’s partnership with Verizon means that this is the only one of the main carriers you can use with the Pixel 3, but if you’re a Verizon customer or are looking to switch, then this BOGO offer lets you score a free 64GB Pixel 3 when you pre-order either the Google Pixel 3 or Pixel 3 XL – effectively an $800 discount. This offer requires you to add a new line of service to your plan for at least one of the phones, and you’ll have to buy both up-front with the $800 rebate coming in the form of bill credits over 24 months.

If you really want the Google Pixel 3, but simply can’t justify buying two phones to get a discount, then you also have a second option. Best Buy is offering a free $100 gift card with the pre-order of a new Pixel 3 or Pixel 3 XL – not a mind-blowing deal, but not bad considering the Pixel is already the cheapest of the new flagships to hit the market this fall even without any discounts. Note that you’ll still need to activate it through Verizon, though.

Verizon

Best Buy

Looking for more great stuff? Find smartphone deals, iPhone deals, and more on our curated deals page, and be sure to follow us on Twitter for regular updates.

We strive to help our readers find the best deals on quality products and services, and choose what we cover carefully and independently. If you find a better price for a product listed here, or want to suggest one of your own, email us at dealsteam@digitaltrends.com.Digital Trends may earn commission on products purchased through our links, which supports the work we do for our readers.

Editors’ Recommendations

• The best Pixel 3 XL cases to keep your notch in one piece
• Here’s how to buy the new Google Pixel 3 and Google Pixel 3 XL
• The Google Daydream View, one of the best VR headsets, is now on sale for $30
• The best Pixel 3 cases and covers
• Pixel 3 XL vs. Pixel 2 XL vs. Pixel XL: Which XL is best for you?

Why doesn’t PlayStation Classic come with an AC adapter?

Best answer: The PlayStation classic doesn’t have an AC adapter to keep the cost of the console down. It’s really the only thing to cut.

Best Buy Pre-order: PlayStation Classic ($99)

They need to keep the price below $99

The PlayStation Console is a beautiful thing. With 20 built-in games, two controllers, and a console that’s 45 percent smaller than the original, it’s a retro money-making machine. But to actually compete with Nintendo’s SNES and NES Classics, Sony needs to keep the cost as low as possible and that means sacrifices.

They have managed to create what looks to be a really well-designed replica of the original PlayStation with quality materials, so there aren’t savings to be made there. The only place to save is on the cables or the AC adapter and, rightly in my eyes, they chose the AC adapter.

Everybody has an AC adapter

In these days of disposable consumerism and in a country where cellphone is king, AC adapters are not hard to find. With over 95 percent of all Americans and 68 million Japanese people owning smartphones, and those people updating their smartphones every 25 months, it’s easy to work out that the average person, if they bought a smartphone in the past few years, would have at least some USB-A AC adapters floating around their house. Not all of these will work with the PlayStation Classic, but there’s a good chance they will. Plus, if they don’t yoiu can find a working one just about anywhere for really cheap.

All you need is for one you own to be capable of outputting five volts and one amp. To put that into perspective, my Pixel 2 XL charger can output a maximum of five volts and two amps. Even the cheap ones you get at the service stations can output the required power.

You can grab an AC adapter from Amazon

For as little as $7 you can grab a standard five volts, one amp wall charger that will connect to your PlayStation Classic. You don’t even need to buy the cable separately, since that comes supplied in the box.

I would recommend this wall charger from Anker if you are looking to purchase a new one.

Our pick

Anker wall charger

$15 at Amazon

Dual sockets for your Classic and phone

This Anker wall charger is more than powerful enough to run your Playstation Classic and has room to charge your cell phone too.

The Console

PlayStation Classic

$99 at Best Buy

Retro fun for all the family

The PlayStation Classic is set to be one of the best selling consoles of this holiday season. Pre-order yours while you can.