DJI Phantom 4 Pro Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

DJI Phantom 4 Pro

DJI

With the Phantom 4 Pro, DJI takes a big step toward having a crashproof camera drone.

Up till now, obstacle avoidance systems on camera drones, including the Phantom 4’s, only really helped prevent head-on collisions. Fly backward or sideways toward a building, tree, car or person and you are on your own to stop a crash.

The Phantom 4 Pro has both front and rear visual sensors that can detect obstacles up to 98 feet or 30 meters away. Sensors on its belly can help avoid landing on uneven ground or water, while infrared sensing systems on both sides allows the drone to figure out where it is within a space, recognizing obstacles up to 23 feet or 7 meters away. The top of the drone is the only side left unprotected.

The Phantom 4 Pro has cameras on back to prevent rear collisions.

DJI

The camera has a 1-inch 20-megapixel sensor with 11.6 stops of dynamic range, aperture control (f2.8-f11) and a mechanical shutter. The latter will help with motion artifacts like Jell-O effect, skewed lines and warped-looking propellers, while the larger image sensor should significantly improve image quality. The camera also boasts a maximum resolution of 4K at 60 frames per second with a very high bit rate of 100Mbps.

Also, with the Pro, you’ll have the option to end the need for a mobile device to see what you’re shooting. DJI will offer a Pro Plus version with a superbright display attached its controller. With the new remote, you’ll also be able to flip your radio frequency between 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz and it has built-in GPS, an SD card slot and a mini-HDMI port.

The Phantom 4 Pro is available with a controller with an attached touchscreen.

DJI

DJI added a couple new flight modes made possible by the obstacle avoidance. One increases the system’s accuracy so it can fly through narrow environments such as through doorways or windows. ActiveTrack, the drone’s subject tracking mode, can now handle following a subject’s profile by flying sideways or backward in Spotlight mode. And its TapFly mode, which lets you tap a location on screen to automatically fly to, will now work backward and you can rotate the drone or tilt the camera without changing its path.

The drone also has an enhanced Return-to-Home mode that will guide it home from up to 984 feet away (300 meters) and avoid obstacles along the way. Also, DJI says within a minute of the Pro losing its GPS signal, it will automatically return to the last connected position and hover as it waits for your next command.

The DJI Phantom 4 Pro will start shipping this month and can be ordered now for $1,500 with a standard controller or with the high-luminance display controller for $1,800.

DJI Inspire 2 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

DJI Inspire 2

DJI

DJI’s ready-to-fly professional camera drone, the Inspire 1, has for the most part gone unchallenged since it launched two years ago. Compared to the company’s Phantom line and new Mavic Pro, though, its tech is showing its age. That changes now.

The Inspire 2 looks essentially the same as the first-gen model, but this time it’s made from magnesium-aluminum alloy, which DJI says increases stiffness while reducing weight. You might have noticed in the picture above that it has dual sensors in front for obstacle avoidance (there’s a set on the bottom as well), but it also has infrared sensors on top of the aircraft to help keep you from crashing when flying in enclosed spaces.

Dual batteries provide up to 27 minutes of flight time as well as redundancy just in case one of the batteries fails in flight. The battery system is also self-heating, so you won’t lose performance even in temperatures down to -4 degrees Fahrenheit. And with optional high-altitude propellers, you’ll be able to fly it up to 16,404 feet above sea level (5 km).

The Inspire 2 features interchangeable cameras.

DJI

Like the original, the Inspire 2 has an interchangeable camera mount so you can swap cameras for your needs. With the launch, DJI introduced the Zenmuse X4S and X5S cameras. The former features a 1-inch 20-megapixel sensor with an f2.8 24mm lens (35mm equivalent) and a mechanical shutter. The latter is an interchangeable lens camera with a 20-megapixel micro four thirds sensor.

One of the key benefits of the Inspire is the capability to have both a pilot and a camera operator work simultaneously with separate master and slave controllers. On the Inspire 1 this requires the pilot to navigate using the live video from the camera, which might not always be pointed forward. The Inspire 2 adds a second first-person-view camera giving the pilot the best view for flying, while allowing the camera operator to set the ideal shot.

DJI

Other important features include:

• New CineCore 2.0 embedded image processing system
• Captures 5.2K-resolution video at 4.2Gbps for Adobe CinemaDNG raw videos
• Supported formats include Adobe CinemaDNG, Apple ProRes 422 HQ (5.2K, 4K) and ProRes 4444 XQ (4K), H.264 and H.265
• Records 4K-resolution video in H.264 and H.265 with a bit rate up to 100Mbps
• Streams video at broadcast standards of 1080i50/720p60
• New propulsion system reaches 50 mph (kph) in 4 seconds
• Top speed of 67 mph (108 kph)
• Ascends at up to 23 feet per second (7 m/s) and descends at up to 30 feet per second (9 m/s)
• New master and slave controller range extends to 328 feet and users can switch between 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz frequencies
• Optional DJI Crystalsky high-brightness IPS monitors available in 5.5-inch and 7.85-inch sizes which reduce video transmission latency and have dual microSD Card slots for backups, transfers and playback.

The DJI Inspire 2 is $3,000 and starts shipping in January (approximately AU$4,000 and £2,400). You can also pick it up as a combo with the Zenmuse X5S, CinemaDNG and Apple ProRes license key for $6,200, but DJI will lop $200 off if you order before January 1, 2017, and it will ship in December.

Netgear Arlo Go Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Netgear’s $450 Arlo Go Mobile HD Security Camera relies on 3G and LTE networks when you’re sans Wi-Fi.

Netgear

If you’d like to monitor a cabin, a campsite — any remote location — that doesn’t get a reliable Wi-Fi connection, Netgear might have the product for you. The networking company’s line of DIY home security devices is expanding today with the launch of the $450 US-only Arlo Go Mobile HD Security Camera.

Arlo Go, which is expected to hit stores in the United States in early 2017, isn’t much of a design departure from the original Arlo cams or the next-gen Arlo Pro cams. Coated in the same weatherproofed indoor/outdoor white plastic finish, Arlo Go also has a lot of the same features as its predecessors.

Here’s a list of the basics:

• HD resolution: Arlo Go has 720p 24/7 high-definition live streaming

  

  Drag
  Close

  

  Security camera buying guide

  Home security can be confusing, but we’re here to help you find a DIY camera that suits your needs.

  by Megan Wollerton

• Alerts — when Arlo Go detects either motion or sound, you should get an alert or an email
• Battery-powered: Like Arlo Pro, Arlo Go uses rechargeable batteries
• Two-way talk: A built-in mic and speaker should let app users intercom with anyone near the camera
• Cloud storage: Netgear saves 7 days of event-based clips for free (other options are available for a fee)
• Local storage: An included microSD card slot allows for backup recording
• Night vision: Even in low-light conditions, you should still be able to monitor clearly

But Arlo Go diverges from Netgear’s other offerings via compatibility with AT&T’s 3G and LTE wireless networks. In theory, then, you should have mobile access “anywhere in the AT&T nationwide coverage area,” or so Netgear’s official press release claims. Of course, data plans are available as an add-on feature, so you’ll have to pay for a subscription to use this option.

Note: Arlo Go doesn’t work over Wi-Fi at all, so you need to be sure you want to go exclusively with a cellular plan before you buy.

Cameras, cameras everywhere:

• This 4G LTE security camera can survive a Wi-Fi outage
• Netgear’s Arlo Pro camera gives rechargeable batteries a go
• Netgear’s Arlo defies typical security camera limitations
• Netgear’s reliable Arlo Q camera simplifies DIY home security
• Flir FX can go anywhere you go

I’m intrigued by this product, but Netgear certainly isn’t the first company to announce a mobile-enabled product. Startup Canary, makers of the Canary Smart Home Security Device, introduced the Canary Flex back in September. A $199 indoor/outdoor Wi-Fi camera that’s also compatible with an optional Verizon cellular LTE mount, Canary Flex seems to offer roughly the same functionality for less money up front.

As with every product we cover, we’ll just have to get a couple of review units in to compare Arlo Go and Canary Flex side-by-side and see for ourselves. Loyalty to either AT&T or Verizon might help a lot of customers make this decision easily, though.

In the meantime, have a look at some other outdoor security cameras we’ve written about.

19 outdoor cameras that take home security…
See full gallery

1 – 4 of 20

Next
Prev

Vinci Smart Hearable Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

The Vinci Smart Hearable.

Josh Miller/CNET

No, you can’t see it while you’re wearing them. Yes, it looks really dumb.

But how many headphones let you ask Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant to play your favorite song?

How many can measure your heart rate, and adjust your tunes accordingly? Or play music from Spotify or SoundCloud over a built-in cellular connection?

Or offer 16GB of on-board storage, so you don’t need to carry your phone to have your MP3s and FLACs?

And how many gimmicky headphones actually sound good?

A built-in 3G cellular radio is compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile in the US.

Josh Miller/CNET

This is the Vinci Smart Hearable. It’s a Kickstarter project with some pretty lofty goals: The creators want to use its MediaTek processor and sensors to anticipate the music you’ll want to hear, let you ask for all sorts of things with your voice, take hands-free calls and even read your text messages aloud.

They also want to use the Vinci’s twin microphones to create binaural 3D audio recordings, so you can close your eyes, spin in a circle, and aurally feel just like you’re in a place you’ve been before.

With a proximity sensor, they’ll automatically pause the music when you take them off your head, and resume when you put them on.

Josh Miller/CNET

But again, those are all fairly lofty goals. Presently, the Vinci 1.0 is just a pair of flashy headphones that actually sound pretty damn good, with a remarkable amount of bass — but also a little too much clamping force (ouch they’re tight) and far too little battery life (I used them for 2 hours and they were dead the next day).

The touchscreen really does work to summon Alexa and ask for songs, as well as play, pause, skip (swipe) and favorite songs (double-tap). But most of the time it’s just turning you into a big walking music visualizer while constantly draining the battery. Lots of features, like wirelessly pairing to my phone, were MIA — though there’s a physical headphone jack as well.

That’s version 1.0. The company says V1.5, the one that’ll tentatively start shipping to Kickstarter backers in March, should offer 7 hours of continuous playback even with the screen on and a more comfortable fit, plus a whole list of features you can find at the company’s Kickstarter page. They’re offering the first few hundred units for just $99 a pop (about £80 or AU$130).

Personally, I’d wait. Based on my experience, there’s an awful lot Vinci needs to add and fix, so a March release date seems ambitious at best. (I wouldn’t be surprised if Vinci ships without many of the fancier features it’s promising. And bear in mind the data may not work if you’re not in the US.)

But I’ve gotta be honest: Even $200, the suggested retail price, is downright reasonable for a pair of great-sounding wireless headphones. If Vinci can fit a personal assistant, fitness tracker and a few more smarts inside, I might just have to buy one.

June Intelligent Oven review – CNET

The Good The $1,495 June Intelligent Oven is a countertop convection oven with a built-in camera that recognizes a limited number of foods and cooks them automatically. The camera is accurate most of the time, and the oven cooks food consistently well.

The Bad That price will turn off a lot of folks. The oven also has a hard time cooking basic foods, such as evenly toasting bread or heating up a PopTart.

The Bottom Line This is a fun product for the bad cook with money to spare. All others should hold off until we have more players in the smart oven game, when prices should fall.

Visit manufacturer site for details.

A few strips of bacon cook in the June oven.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Imagine that a phone and a toaster oven got a little frisky and had a baby. The result would be the June Intelligent Oven, a countertop appliance that looks like a microwave, cooks like an oven and thinks like a computer. Lots of features make the June stand out — its built-in camera, an internal processor that rivals what you’d find in a phone, software that can recognize more than 20 foods and automatically cook them for you. Its price is just as jaw-dropping — $1,495 (about £1,200 or AU$2,000, though it’s currently US-only). That can buy you a couple of good full-size ranges if you know where to look.

For the most part, the June delivers on its promises to recognize commonly cooked foods (think broccoli and chicken breasts) and automate cooking. It accurately recognized 19 out of the 22 foods I tested, and the dishes I ended up with were often pretty damn tasty. And the June’s accompanying iPhone app turns the novelty of live-streaming your food into a useful way to keep an eye on your meal.

So is the June oven poised to be the next microwave? Not quite. Though the June takes good care of your dishes when it’s time to cook them, it’s not so much help when it comes to the prep work. You still have to chop, dice, season and slice before you get your food near the June. When you use the oven’s food recognition feature, it gives you two options of what food it thinks you put in the oven rather than zeroing in on the exact dish you slid inside. And even if you just want to throw in a PopTart, the June had the most trouble in my tests with convenience items that needed to be toasted.

The June Intelligent Oven thinks it’s smarter…
See full gallery

1 – 5 of 8

Next
Prev

Faults aside, the June is an impressive product because of the technology it’s introducing to the kitchen. I can see food recognition software eventually included in refrigerators, cabinets and full-sized ovens to create a smart kitchen in which appliances keep track of your food, recommend recipes and remind you what to pick up at the grocery store without much work on your part.

As it exists now, the June won’t change your life. Its size limits it from fully replacing your range, and its price limits access to this technology (the company will, however, offer financing). And the oven still needs to study up on some basic tasks, like heating a toaster strudel. But the June will make cooking a little easier for early adopters who want an appliance with the power of a phone.

Buy this oven if you have a disdain for cooking, a taste for good food, some spare spending money, and the patience to wait for June to work out this oven’s kinks and build a more robust catalog of foods it can recognize. Otherwise, most of us can pass on this smart oven until more companies join this category and bring the price down.

The June oven is comparable in size to the microwave you probably have at home.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Power in a subtle design

June, the company that makes the oven of the same name, was founded by two tech industry vets: CEO Matt Van Horn, who co-founded Zimride (now Lyft), and CTO Nikhil Bhogal, who previously worked at Apple. The Silicon Valley background is evident when you look at the guts of the June oven. The appliance runs on an Nvidia Tegra processor, which companies commonly use in mobile devices. It connects to your home’s Wi-Fi so you can control the June remotely from your iOS device and see a live stream of your food as it cooks. A high-definition camera built into the top of the oven makes the live stream possible.

Two convections fans in the back of the June oven circulate hot air for better cooking.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

The June’s design hides the nuts and bolts well. At 22 by 13 by 18 inches, June takes up about the same amount of space as a microwave. The 5-inch, touchscreen control panel is right on the oven’s door, a feature that helps keep the unit at a manageable size without cutting into the 1-cubic-foot cooking space inside. Though the touchscreen is as intuitive to use as a phone, June includes a knob on the door that you can also use to make selections on the screen. The rounded edges and simple finish also add a nice touch. (Note: The review unit I received from June was a “late prototype.” The ovens that will ship to customers will have a slightly different cosmetic finish, the company says.)

The June has some serious cooking chops. Six carbon-fiber heating elements bake and broil food, and two convection fans are built into the back wall of the oven to circulate hot air and cook food more evenly. A built-in scale lets you sit food directly on top of the unit to see its weight on the control panel. You can use the June as you would any other countertop oven to bake, broil, roast and toast without needing the app handy. And the June is about as easy to clean as a regular toaster oven — there’s even a crumb tray that’s easy to remove and wipe down.

2016 Ford Focus RS review – Roadshow

Nov 2016

The Good Superb handling and power mixed with remarkable practicality.

The Bad Ride quality leaves a little to be desired when just cruising.

The Bottom Line For this money, you won’t find a better hot hatch in the US.

Finally, this one’s for us. Ford has been making hotted-up versions of its compact cars for decades, teasing American buyers with machines like the Escort RS and RS Cosworth. They were fast, they were affordable and none of them were available in the US.

That changes now. This is the $36,000 Focus RS, the fastest RS ever to wear a blue oval on the nose and perhaps the hottest of hot hatches on the market today. It’s fast, no doubt about that, but what about the rest? Let’s dive in and find out.

Powering around the track

The Focus RS feels remarkably planted on the track.

Nick Miotke/Roadshow

The heart of the Focus RS is a 2.3-liter inline four-cylinder engine making a nicely symmetrical 350 horsepower and 350 pound-feet of torque. Also symmetrical? How that power gets through the ground. After a trip through a six-speed manual transmission (there’s no auto or DCT available on Focus), the torque is routed to all four wheels via an advanced AWD system.

A central differential directs more power to the rear wheels than the front, providing a lively feel, while clutch-type differentials at either end vector torque from left to right as well. In other words, the car can send its power where it wants to ensure great handling.

When flirting with the limit the car is just as responsive to adjustments made with your right foot as those made with your hands on the wheel.

On the road, and even more so on the track, this results in a car that reacts differently than what you might be expecting — at least, it was certainly different from what I was expecting. I’ve spent a lot of time driving Subarus and Audis and other AWD powerhouses, and of course the prevailing trend is to understeer wide when pushed.

The Focus RS, however, has an eager, direct response when driven hard. Yes, it too will wallow in understeer if you get into the corner too hot, but it’s never of the terminal sort. Simple, light corrections get the nose headed in the right direction, and when flirting with the limit the car is just as responsive to adjustments made with your right foot as those made with your hands on the wheel.

This is helped by a suspension that’s well stiffer than even the Focus ST, with two-way adaptive dampers situated on all four corners. On their standard stiffness the car is, indeed, quite stiff. Toggle into track mode and they get even more resistant to movement, adding even more sharpness to the feel of the car.

Yes, this is a tall hatchback and with a fair bit of body roll through the corners, but the feel is still legitimately, remarkably good.

Drift mode

For those times when you want to feel less planted, enter Drift Mode!

Nick Miotke/Roadshow

I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention the Focus RS’s Drift Mode, though I confess I think it’s more of a gimmick than a good way for Ford’s engineers to spend their time. That said, there is a bit of a method to their madness.

Set the car in drift mode and disable the traction control and the car does feel immediately different — different, but in a decidedly bad way. The suspension moves to its softest setting, so the RS flops about more than usual, and power sent to the rear wheels is set to maximum. This results in a car that feels very, very unstable: perfect for drifting.

Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (13-inch, 2016) review – CNET

The Good The inventive Touch Bar streamlines work and saves clicks, and Apple has improved almost every part of the thinner, lighter MacBook Pro, including a larger touchpad, faster components and a flatter keyboard. iPhone’s Touch ID is handy on the Mac, too.

The Bad You’re paying a hefty premium for the Touch Bar, which supports only a limited handful of Apple apps for now. The USB-C-only ports mean carrying a bag full of dongles. The lack of high-end graphics or huge RAM options in the 13-inch model may frustrate photo and video professionals.

The Bottom Line Apple’s smart, useful Touch Bar makes it well worth splurging on the step-up version of the streamlined 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Apple’s taking big swings with the new MacBook Pro. Some land square, some miss their mark. Altogether, this is a beautiful, powerful machine that almost everyone will want, but consider the trade-offs carefully.

This MacBook Pro is thinner and lighter than its predecessor, with a flattened keyboard and expanded touchpad. It has a newer selection of Intel processors, faster flash storage and a brighter Retina screen. The new MacBook Pro has also dropped all its legacy ports for Thunderbolt 3-powered USB-C — a controversial move that requires you to buy a truckload of dongles, but also a move that many high-end Windows laptops are following. Apple even threw in the pleasing and very useful TouchID fingerprint sensor, imported almost whole-hog from the iPhone and iPad.

But you know all that already. What you really want to learn about is the new MacBook Pro’s headline feature: the Touch Bar, a tiny 1cm tall touchscreen that replaces the function key row on the top of new Pro’s keyboard, and also jacks up the price for this high-end machine.

View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET

We’ve already extensively covered the basics on the new 13- and 15-inch Pros, which were unveiled at Apple’s headquarters on October 27 and are available for sale as of early November. That includes our exclusive early hands-on with the new MacBook Pro, as well as our review of the entry-level 2016 MacBook Pro model (which keeps its traditional function key row, and doesn’t include TouchID). Start with both of those stories if you want an exhaustive overview of the design changes, component upgrades and port-related compromises of this MacBook Pro — which is essentially the 10th anniversary edition of the original 2006 MacBook Pro.

More on the MacBook Pro

• Apple’s amazing strip show reinvents the laptop keyboard
• Apple MacBook Pro (no Touch Bar) review: The Retina MacBook Air you’ve always wanted
• Does the Mac still matter?
• Jony Ive talks about putting the Apple ‘touch’ on the MacBook Pro
• The Mac and iPad aren’t merging. Get over it

Here, however, we’re focusing on that Touch Bar. How does it work? Is it useful? Can it replace the iPad-like touchscreen Mac we’re not likely to get in the foreseeable future, according to our recent exclusive interviews with Apple execs?

View full gallery

The new MacBook Pro (on the left) is thinner than the previous design.

Sarah Tew/CNET

I’ve lived with the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar for almost two weeks. Here’s what I learned.

A tiny slice of iPad on your MacBook

The Touch Bar is a long, skinny OLED touchscreen that sits above the keyboard, replacing the traditional F1-F12 keys, as well as the escape key and power button. On the far right end of the Touch Bar is a fingerprint reader, similar to the one found on the iPhone, which enables Touch ID and Apple Pay for secure system log-ins and online payments.

By default, the Touch Bar displays system tools, including screen brightness and volume control. But when using select apps (for now mostly Apple-created apps such as Safari, but more third-party support is on the way), new contextual commands appear on the Touch Bar, and the system tools roll up into a condensed version on the right side of the strip. You can still access volume and brightness controls, but to get the full default list of commands back, you’ll have to tap on a small arrow to expand it (which also hides the contextual commands for the app you’re currently using).

View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET

Having spent some serious hands-on time with the Touch Bar version of the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, and testing its capabilities with a wide range of apps, it feels like a tool that can enhance your computing experience, but won’t revolutionize it. It does less than a full touchscreen might, but Apple has found a way to use it to cut down on keystrokes, streamline tasks and add additional levels of fine control.

I almost immediately started find little things it did better than traditional keyboard and touchpad input

Some who’ve seen the Touch Bar only from afar call it a gimmick, but I almost immediately started finding little things it did better than traditional keyboard and touchpad input, and after a very short time I was using a handful of these Touch Bar functions instinctively, without even thinking about it.

If you spend a bit of time trying it out in different apps, you’ll end up with maybe a half-dozen or so shortcuts you love the Touch Bar for, while your computing experience remains otherwise unchanged.

That makes it harder to justify as an expensive add-on to the new MacBook Pro line. The least expensive Touch Bar system is the one reviewed here, at $1,799 (£1,749 or AU$2,699). That’s a $300 jump over the more mainstream $1,499 entry level MacBook Pro (£1,449 or AU$2,199), which lacks the Touch Bar. But in addition to the Touch Bar, this version also has a faster processor (a 2.9GHz Intel Core i5, versus a 2.0GHz Core i5), marginally better integrated Intel graphics (Iris 550 versus Iris 540), and it doubles the number of included USB-C Thunderbolt ports to four. So at least you’re getting more for your $300 than just the Touch Bar.

View full gallery

The new MacBook Pro has a shallower butterfly keyboard.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Previously, the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro cost $1,299 (£1,249 or AU$1,999), but that model had half the storage of these new ones, only 128GB. Note that if you’re kicking yourself for missing out on the older Pro (which was excellent in its own right), with its lower starting price and wider variety of ports, Apple is still selling a single 13-inch and single 15-inch 2015-era configuration, at least for now.

Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (13-inch)

One bar, many versions

The Touch Bar is is filled with possibilities, but like the branching menus within menus it’s supposed to replace, some of its functions can remain buried under additional taps and swipes, depending on which apps you use it with. There’s only so much one can fit into a 2,170×60 display.

Actual instructions for how to use the Touch Bar are sparse. Instead, it’s up to you to eyeball the new buttons that pop up contextually in each supported application and figure out how to use them. In most cases, it’s presented logically, but some on-screen buttons have layers within them, and navigating deeper in and then moving back out isn’t always intuitive (as in the case of Photos, Apple’s photo organizing and tweaking app). In other cases, the Touch Bar buttons are a perfect distillation of the most important functions in an app (such as Safari or Messages), and easy to pick up and use immeidately.

View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET

Each Touch Bar series of commands has its own visual and organizational language. That’s easy enough to translate when only Apple-created programs are supported, but we’ll have to wait and see how other software makers handle the Touch Bar. Windows PC makers have struggled for years with how to properly present proprietary software interfaces, asking consumers to learn and relearn new behaviors for apps they may already be familiar with, or for programs and features that may disappear or change radically in the next version.

Adobe is one company you really want to watch in this space. A key partner for Touch Bar support, Photoshop will add Touch Bar controls later this year. It’ll be very interesting to see what they do, and if long-time Photoshop users take to it. That’s especially important because Adobe is a master of extreme usability and platform continuity. (As an example, I took a single-semester Photoshop tutorial course as a college undergrad way back in the 1990s. All these years later, and through countless versions of Photoshop, and I can still sit down in front of the latest iteration of the software and have a basic idea of what I’m doing.)

View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET

Microsoft has also pledged to add Touch Bar support for Office. But until those companies and others deliver, it’s all about Apple’s in-house apps, including Mail, Messages, iTunes and Safari. I found the Touch Bar added something useful to each of these, but that’s predicated on actually using those apps. If you prefer Spotify to iTunes, or Chrome to Safari, there’s not much the Touch Bar can do for you from within those apps, besides the basic system functions previously mapped to the Function key row, such a volume controls.

One interesting comparison to make is to Microsoft’s new Surface Dial. That physical control knob works on many Windows PCs, but is specifically designed with the Surface Studio desktop in mind, and it covers a lot of the same ground as the Touch Bar. Both the Bar and Dial offer easier access to specific menu items in select apps. Like the Touch Bar, the Dial provides basic system functions, including volume controls, when not in a supported app.

Both are very early in their development, and both call out for wider app support (neither has a Photoshop-specific set of controls yet). For illustrators and animators, I can see the real appeal of the Surface Dial and its big, analog-feeling wheel. For more efficient general computing, so far I find that Apple’s Touch Bar is the more immediately useful of the two ideas.

First steps

The initial thing you’ll want to do with the Touch Bar is set up Touch ID. That uses Apple’s custom T1 security chip, which is built into the system, and the fingerprint reader that sits on the far right side of the Touch Bar. Setup is similar to an iPhone, with repeated fingertaps on the sensor recording fingerprint data. Unlike an iPhone and iPad, Macs support multiple user profiles, so each person using the machine can set up fingerprint access to their profile.

View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET

User switching via fingerprint is especially impressive, and nearly instantaneous. I set up a “CNET” profile linked to one finger and a personal profile linked to a different finger. Just by placing each finger in turn on the Touch ID and clicking down (it’s both a fingerprint sensor and a physical button), the profiles switched on the fly.

After setting up the fingerprint access, which can also be used for Apple Pay purchases from supported merchants, you might also want to change the default lineup of buttons available on the Touch Bar. That menu is a little hard to find, tucked away in System Preferences under Keyboard > Customize Control Strip (oddly, it’s called Control Strip here, and not Touch Bar).

View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET

From that menu, new buttons can be dragged down to the bottom of the screen, where they’ll appear on the Touch Bar, and from there, can be moved left and right. For example, I swapped out the Launch Pad button for a Show Desktop button. The default setup is the logical choice for most, but customization options are always welcome.

Here’s how the Touch Bar works in a few key apps:

W Labs by Whirlpool Corporation Zera Food Recycler Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Hi, I’m Megan, and I’m a grocery store junkie. See, I love food, so when I happen across a fruit I’ve never seen or a hard-to-find vegetable, I tend to snatch it up and ask questions later. Flash-forward a week and I’ve likely devoured a lot of what I bought, but those forgotten Japanese eggplants are well past prime. What to do?

Well, I could get better about meal planning, but in the meantime I have two main options: chuck the leftovers in a garbage bag bound for a landfill or toss them in a compost pile to make fertilizer. The first option is fast and convenient. The second option can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to over a year; the compost-to-fertilizer time frame can vary a lot depending on the size of the pile and your level of active involvement with it.

W Labs, the arm of Whirlpool Corporation tasked with designing, developing and manufacturing small-batch products on the quirkier side of the spectrum, has found a clever, albeit pricey, alternative to composting. The $1,199 W Labs by Whirlpool Corporation Zera Food Recycler claims to turn your food waste into fertilizer in just 24 hours.

Whirlpool’s food recycler makes composting…
See full gallery

1 – 4 of 11

Next
Prev

The basics

The W Labs/Whirlpool team visited the CNET Smart Home here in Louisville, Kentucky earlier this month for an in-person demo of Zera. For now, Zera is just a prototype, but W Labs and Whirlpool Corporation plan to launch an Indiegogo campaign in early January. Depending on the success of that project, Zera will make its way to the broader market.

W Labs has set its earliest “Early Bird” pricing tier for Indiegogo backers at $699 — a significant discount on that $1,199 MSRP. Previous W Labs products include the Vessi beer fermenter and the Swash “clothes refresher.”

Similar to GE’s FirstBuild, the Michigan-based W Labs seems like a research and development fan’s paradise, a place where employees brainstorm ideas and rely on the adjacent microfactory to test concepts and produce functional prototypes. Zera is simply the latest W Labs creation, one that’s being officially unveiled at CES 2017 — fortunately, we got an exclusive early look.

First impressions

Chris Monroe/CNET

Zera looks like a very classy extra-tall kitchen garbage can with an integrated touch display and a related app (the software was still in development during our demo, but expect to be able to start and stop a Zera cycle remotely — no third-party smart-home integrations are currently in the works).

Zera’s exterior has a white finish and a plasticky bamboo-effect sliding top lid that gives you access to a garbage-disposal-looking interior compartment. Below that you’ll find a second, slide-out compartment — this is where you’ll get your fertilizer post-cycle.

The idea is that you’ll plug the included power cord into a nearby outlet and leave Zera as a 24-7 fixture in your kitchen. This device does looks pretty sleek, but it’s also on the large side and not every kitchen layout will have a reasonable spot to permanently stick a Zera. It worked out pretty well in the CNET Smart Home kitchen lined up with the large center island, but some folks will have to get creative with placement.

Giving Zera a go

Zera is designed to hold up to 8 pounds of food, which according to Whirlpool is the rough equivalent to the amount of waste a typical family of four creates in a week. The idea is that you’ll use Zera like a receptacle over that week — tossing in apple cores, onion skins, moldy bread and whatever is left on your plate after a meal.

Every time you throw in something new and slide the lid closed, Zera is supposed to sense it and initiate a 2-minute process to push the food to the bottom of the main reservoir. This is supposed to help make room for more food to come, but it also serves as an initial step to prepare the food for “recycling” later on. I got to see this in action during the demo — you can hear it, but it wasn’t as loud as my dishwasher at home.

When you’re ready to begin a cycle, simply hold the start button on Zera itself (or use the app, once that’s up and running). I got to try this myself after tossing in whole apples, carrots, cheese, broccoli, dinner rolls, coffee grounds, tuna salad, cottage cheese — all sorts of stuff. We didn’t run a whole cycle, but I did briefly get to experience how a production-model Zera should work. Like those 2-minute preliminary runs, the main cycle was pretty quiet, although I don’t know if it gets louder at different periods throughout.

Chris Monroe/CNET

The tech involved

Chris Monroe/CNET

Aside from the obvious convenience of an in-kitchen composter, Zera is also decked out with tech that reduces a weeks-long process to anywhere from 16 to 24 hours. The team told me it primarily uses heat and airflow to accomplish this. But there is one other component — a small paper baggie containing coconut husks that have been transformed into uniform little pellets that look like rabbit food. Coconut shells have been used in gardening to supplement mulch for years, as they help retain water and their fiber contributes nutrients to fertilizer. It’s the same idea here, but W Labs will sell manufactured four-packs for $12 a pop. Toss in a bag (really, just throw in the whole thing unopened) before you start a cycle and then you’re ready to go.

W Labs said the coconut husks aren’t absolutely essential to this process, but that “the quality of the homemade fertilizer will decrease” without them. Buy them or not — it’s really up to you.

W Labs brought Zera-made fertilizer to the demo so I could see exactly what the finished product should look like. For every 8 pounds of food waste, Zera makes about 2 pounds of fertilizer that’s ready to be stored or to go straight to your next gardening project. A representative from W Labs listed off a variety of flowers and vegetables the team had already grown using Zera fertilizer.

Related links:

• What’s happening at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show?
• Whirlpool brews up a beer machine for Indiegogo backers
• Whirlpool Swash review: Pseudo-dry cleaning at home

Big picture

Whether you’re deeply concerned about your food ending up in a landfill — or you simply want to re-purpose those leftovers into food for your garden, Zera presents a seriously smart alternative to traditional composting. But $1,199 is a huge amount to spend, especially when you can buy standard, outdoor composting bins and related accessories for well under 100 bucks. At the same time, there’s a huge convenience factor here that might make the price worthwhile for some.

And, if you get in on the action early, you can snatch one up for $699 — a solid discount for early backers. We’ve already requested a review unit, too, so we’ll be running our own cycles to see just how fast Zera works, as well as spending time testing out the companion app.