Keep an eye on this: Big changes are coming for Sling TV

We’ve got the full coverage at CordCutters.com, but here’s the gist, for those who use Sling TV on Apple TV or Android TV or whatever crazy device you’ve got rigged up to your TV:

• The price of the basic Sling Orange plan is increasing to $25 a month. Boo.
• But Sling is giving non-subscribers a whole bunch of free shows even if they don’t pay. Yay!
• But that part is only available on Roku devices starting today. Oh.
• But it’ll come to other devices later. Which is why it matters to you. Gotcha.
• Also, there are new a-la-carte channels available, and pay-per-view events — even if you’re not a Sling customer. Just pay separately. OK, that’s kind of cool.

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LG Display to Supply Apple With 2-4 Million OLED Panels for This Year’s ‘iPhone X Plus’

Apple’s multi-billion dollar investment in LG Display to start supplying OLED technology is close to bearing fruit, reports the South China Morning Post. According to the paper’s sources, the Korean firm is almost ready to become Apple’s second supplier for OLED screens, allowing Apple to reduce its reliance on Samsung, currently the sole manufacturer of the panels in iPhone X models.

The first OLED screens from LG Display will be used in one model of the new iPhones slated for release this year, the people said. LG Display wants to supply all the screens for that Apple model, though it is not clear it can yet achieve that, one of the people said. The shipment is subject to two layers of approval, the first of which is expected around July, the people said.

Previous rumors have suggested LG will be the supplier for this year’s 6.5-inch “iPhone X Plus”. The sources in today’s report claim LG Display will initially supply between 2 million and 4 million units, as it continues to work on ramping up capacity. While those figures are small relative to Apple’s sales, the sources note that they would help Apple gain leverage in price negotiations with Samsung as it looks to eventually switch to OLED-only production for iPhone.

In April, The Wall Street Journal claimed that mass production challenges had caused LG to fall behind the schedule it had agreed with Apple. As a result, opinions within Apple were said to be divided on whether LG Display would be in a position to complement Samsung as a second source of OLED displays for the upcoming iPhones. However, analysts at investment firm Susquehanna estimated that LG will supply as much as 20 percent of OLED displays for the 2018 lineup.

Apart from the “iPhone X Plus”, Apple is expected to release two other iPhone models in 2018: a second generation iPhone X and a low-cost, 6.1-inch option with a similar full-face display as seen on the iPhone X, but with LCD rather than an OLED display.

Last month, South Korea’s ET News reported that Apple’s transition to a full OLED iPhone lineup will be complete in 2019. However, analysts immediately cast doubt on that claim, arguing that the switch would be too early and effectively remove the chance for a “low-cost” iPhone model like the LCD version believed to be coming this year. The same view is also supported by today’s report:

The latest move does not indicate Apple is aiming for adoption of OLED screens for all of its iPhones next year and it is more about diversifying its suppliers, one of the people said.

According to The Investor, Apple is investing 3 trillion won ($2.67 billion) in LG’s OLED production for smartphones. LG is said to be building a production line dedicated to iPhone orders only, as part of its agreement with Apple.

Related Roundups: iPhone X, 2018 iPhonesTags: Samsung, LG DisplayBuyer’s Guide: iPhone X (Neutral)
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Vivo Nex hands-on: Welcome to the all-screen future

The day many of us have been waiting for has finally arrived. A truly bezel-free smartphone is here! Sort of. Many have tried and many have failed, with the much-maligned notch emerging as the compromised offspring of those failed attempts to rid the smartphone of bezels. The Vivo Nex is the closest to a truly bezel-free smartphone we’ve seen come to market. It has very few compromises and no notch.

The phone fuses the in-display fingerprint scanner demo shown at CES 2018 and the drool-worthy Apex concept phone’s front-facing camera from MWC 2018, and we got to go hands on with it.

Unfortunately, the phone everyone wants — with a look long promised by science fiction — not everyone will be able to get. The Vivo Nex is currently only slated for a Chinese release. It may come to other select markets in time, but a truly global release isn’t likely. Given Huawei and ZTE’s woes in the U.S., one can hardly blame Vivo for focusing on more friendly markets. Selling units isn’t Vivo’s main focus here though; demonstrating truly cutting-edge technology is.

Science fiction has long promised us that smartphones of the future would look like the Vivo Nex.

If U.S. hostility to Chinese smartphones means the first bezel-free device you buy isn’t made by Vivo, that’s perfectly fine. Vivo says the Nex is more about taking a step into the industry’s future than it is about being number one. To that end, Vivo senior vice president Alex Feng says he hopes the Nex gets the industry to “continue pondering ‘what’s next?’ in this mobile experience journey.”

For what it’s worth, I wish everyone would have a chance to buy the Vivo Nex, because it truly feels like a momentous turning point. It feels somehow unfair that not everyone will get to experience such a significant device.

As with most smartphones these days, it all starts with the screen. As bezels have shrunk, so too have the defining features on the front of most phones. The Vivo Nex features a 6.59-inch Super AMOLED panel with a 19.3:9 aspect ratio and Full HD+ resolution (1,080 x 2,316, 338ppi). As with most other OLED panels, it offers deep blacks and colors that pop. There’s also an always-on display option for showing missed calls and message notifications.

The Vivo Nex does away with the bezel above the display, only keeping a very slight chin at the bottom. In case you’re interested, the bezels measure 1.71 mm on the sides, 2.16mm on top and 5mm below the display. Because the Vivo Nex pushes the boundaries with a 91.24 percent screen-to-body ratio, there’s no room for the usual array of sensors, cameras and speakers you’d find on a traditionally-proportioned smartphone. Those have now moved under the glass or inside the device’s body.

The earpiece speaker has been removed altogether. Vivo’s Screen SoundCasting technology now use the display itself as a speaker. Vivo says this not only releases the Nex from the burden of a top bezel but also adds “more powerful bass and softer, smoother treble.” From what I could hear at the noisy launch event it sounded fine, but we’ll give it some more rigorous testing in the full Vivo Nex review. The rest of the Nex’s audio comes from a single bottom-firing speaker. There’s also a 3.5mm headphone port up top, in case you were worried.

The earpiece speaker and fingerprint scanner live under the display glass while the front-facing camera slides up from the top of the Vivo Nex only when needed.

The in-display fingerprint scanner is the other Big Deal in the Vivo Nex. While the Vivo X21 UD and Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS also featured such a scanner, Vivo was the first to demo the tech back at CES 2018. The tech is now in its third generation, and while it won’t offer device unlocking quite as quick as a modern capacitive finger scanner, the slight delay you’ll experience will be far outweighed by the simple satisfaction of unlocking your phone through the screen. According to Vivo, the new scanner provides a 10 percent speed increase, 50 percent higher accuracy and a 30 percent lower fake recognition rate than the under-glass scanners in previous devices.

The front-facing camera is hidden in the upper frame of the phone, popping up when you launch the front-facing camera. It’s a novel and, perhaps counterintuitively, kind of “obvious” solution to the bezel-free problem. Like Oppo’s rotating camera on the Oppo N1 or a plastic cover to obscure the webcam on your laptop, sometimes a simple solution is best. That said, I totally understand the misgivings many have aired over making the operation of your front-facing camera dependent on a piece of mechanical tech that could fail.

The camera mechanism has undergone extensive testing and can be raised and lowered 50,000 times and withstand up to 45kg of thrust force when extended.

To address the “failure question,” Vivo assures me that the front-facing camera can push up to 500g in repeated trials and its micro-stepping motor, independent drive ICs and control algorithms allow the camera to move with absolute precision. With a special buffer structure design, the camera has also undergone reliability tests such as drop resistance and dust resistance tests. According to Vivo, the camera can be raised and lowered repeatedly up to 50,000 times and withstand up to 45kg of thrust force when extended. Only time will tell what the failure rate of the camera elevator will be in real-world usage.

Speaking of cameras, the Vivo Nex has a dual camera setup on the back. The camera has a 12MP f/1.8 sensor with 1.4-micron pixel size and both optical image stabilization and electronic image stabilization. The secondary camera on the back is a 5MP f/2.4 lens and the front-facing camera is an 8MP f/2.0 shooter. We didn’t have time for usable test shots at the launch event, but we can tell you shutter lag is a thing here. Stay tuned for a full gallery of images.

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Vivo Nex specs: More than meets the eye

The Vivo Nex may have two very eye-catching features – that elevating front-facing camera mechanism and an all-screen display – but the rest of the Vivo Nex specs are just as impressive as you could …

Vivo Nex announced: Full-screen powerhouse

Hate the notch? You’ll love the new Vivo Nex. There’s no cutout at the top, yet its bezels are still tantalizingly thin. It may look like a prop from a sci-fi movie, but it’s a …

The camera app offers a range of aspect ratios and shutter triggers (including touch, voice, and a palm gesture). You can also reassign a long press of the volume down button to quickly launch the camera when the screen is off. If the last camera you were using was the front-facing one, the lens will slide up instantly while the camera app launches. There’s a full manual mode, HDR, portrait mode, and Live Photos. The front-facing camera only shoots 1080p video, but the main camera shoots 4K.

The Vivo Nex’s glass back features a nice diffracting pattern beneath the glass which creates rainbow colors in the right light. Despite the glass, the Nex lacks wireless charging, an IP rating, or NFC for contactless payment systems like Google Pay. The omission of any or all of these might be a dealbreaker for some.

As far as the rest of the phone goes though, there are no compromises. The Vivo Nex packs in the Snapdragon 845 with Qualcomm’s AI Engine and the Adreno 630 GPU, 8GB of RAM, variants with 128 or 256GB of internal storage, a 4,000mAh battery with fast charging and Android 8.1 Oreo underneath Vivo’s FunTouch 4.0 software layer.

The software experience on most Chinese phones won’t appeal to most westerners, but a quick dip into the pool of alternate Android launchers will manage to cure some of what ails you. We’ll dive deeper into what the software offers in the full Vivo Nex review, but most of what you’d expect from an Android device is present and accounted for, it’s simply presented in a less palatable fashion than, say, the Pixel 2.

There’s a dedicated AI button on the left for summoning Vivo’s Jovi Intelligent Voice Assistant. You can change what the button does in the settings, but only to the image recognizer, voice assistant, or nothing — there’s no option for switching it to your virtual assistant of choice. There’s also a ton of AI-this and AI-that, primarily in the camera. Most of this will probably not appeal and often doesn’t rely all that heavily on AI at all. We’ll cover that further in the review too.

Out of the box, the Vivo Nex has gesture navigation turned on. Swipe up from one of three spots on the bottom of the screen to go back, go home or open recent apps. You can also turn on on-screen nav buttons if you prefer. Vivo also lets you rearrange the order to put the back button (or back gesture) on the left side where it belongs. If you opt for gesture navigation and would like a visual cue, you can choose between horizontal lines or small dots. You can remove everything from the bottom of the screen once you’re used to it.

The Vivo Nex will be available in China (and possibly other select markets in future). It’s priced at 4998 yuan (~$780) for the 256GB version, while the 128GB version will cost 4498 yuan (~$702).

Like its screen-to-body ratio, the Vivo Nex comes very close to doing everything but falls slightly short. Even in my brief time with it, I noticed a few things that will niggle some people. Camera lag, a slow(ish) fingerprint scanner, bloatware, as well as the lack of an IP rating, NFC, and wireless charging are all worth noting. In all honesty, those absences are relatively minor, and frequently don’t appear on “normal” phones with big bezels and regularly placed fingerprint scanners.

Where the Nex fails, it more than makes up for in the sheer coolness, the novelty, the audacity of what it promises.

In some ways, the Vivo Nex shouldn’t be considered a normal phone and shouldn’t be judged by the same standards. It goes somewhere no one else has gone before and it does so surprisingly well. However, it’s also a phone in the real world, affected by things like price, availability, update reliability, feature set and so on. It’s a first-gen product, to be sure, and as such we should expect a few things to not be quite perfect. Perhaps this is why Vivo is more interested in showcasing tech with the Nex than it is in taking the world by storm.

The Nex more than makes up for its problems in sheer coolness, novelty, and the audacity of what it promises. We are literally on the brink of smartphones with all their traditional front-facing components and sensors hidden out of sight or underneath the display. The Vivo Nex, even its name, points to a time so tantalizingly close we can almost touch it, even though it still hasn’t fully arrived.

YouTube delights multitaskers by offering picture-in-picture to lots more users

Up to now, you could only make use of YouTube’s picture-in-picture mode if you were paying for its subscription-based Red service (now Premium and Music). But, following recent testing, the Google-owned company has just opened it up to non-subscribers, too.

The nifty feature lets you minimize a video so you can do stuff on other apps, whether surfing the web, browsing your Instagram feed, or checking your Facebook page.

But take note — there are some limitations with it. First, your device needs to be running Android 8.0 Oreo or above, and you need to be based in the U.S.

Also, according to its Help page, it won’t work for music content without a Premium subscription. So if you want to listen to tracks from YouTube while you do other stuff on your smartphone, you’ll need to fork out $12 a month for the privilege. And content creators can, if they wish, prevent their videos from being minimized, so don’t get too frustrated if you can’t switch to picture-in-picture mode with some of your selections.

To use the feature, you’ll first need to enable the option in YouTube’s Settings page. To do so, tap your profile icon top right, then hit Settings, then General. Look for “picture-in-picture” and hit the button beside it (if you don’t see it, it means the rollout hasn’t reached you yet).

Next, hit play on your chosen video, and tap the home button to enable picture-in-picture. Now try opening other apps on your device and pushing the small video picture around the display to place it where you want. Tap the video twice to return it to full size on its YouTube page, or close it by hitting the “x” button at the top right of the miniature player or by swiping it off the bottom of the display.

Given the attention YouTube has been giving to picture-in-picture functionality across various platforms of late, it may not be too long before it turns up for iPhone users. YouTube on iOS currently lets you minimize the video within the app so you can browse other videos, but stops playing if you try to open a different app.

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How to Divide Your Apple Watch Workouts into Segments

Using the Segments feature in the Apple Watch Workout app is a great way to track changes in exercise intensity over the course of a workout. It can also help you find out which activities in a mixed session push your body the most.

If your regular running route includes a hilly section, for example, using segments to indicate where it begins and/or ends lets you review how much time it takes to complete compared to the rest of your workout.

Or maybe you use your Apple Watch to track gym sessions that include various high-intensity strength training or mixed cardio exercises. Marking a new segment every time you move to another piece of equipment or perform a different exercise will give you a better idea of how effective each activity is at burning calories.

How to Mark a Segment During a Workout

Launch the Workout app on your Apple Watch.
Choose a workout type to track from the list, then go ahead and start your workout.

To divide your workout into two segments, simply raise your wrist and double-tap on the screen. The time elapsed becomes Segment 1 of your workout, while the remaining time becomes Segment 2.
To create a third segment in your workout, just double-tap on the screen again. Repeat this action as many times as you want.

How to View Segment Metrics on Your iPhone

Launch the Activity app on your iPhone.
Tap the Workouts tab.

Select the workout in which you recorded segments.
In the workout summary screen, locate the Segments section just above the heart rate graph, and tap the chevron alongside it to reveal your numbered segments with stats for duration and calories burned.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 4, watchOS 5Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)
Discuss this article in our forums

BBC ‘Sounds’ app features its 18 national radio stations and lots of podcasts

While you may know the BBC for its TV hits from over the years (Monty Python, Doctor Who, Ricky Gervais’ The Office, Sherlock, and Peaky Blinders among them), the broadcasting giant actually began life as a radio station back in 1922.

True to its roots, it continues to pump out masses of audio-only content on a daily basis, with 18 national radio stations and 40 local ones covering a range of genres from music and comedy to sports and news. About 10 years ago, it launched its online iPlayer platform for both TV and radio, spinning off the latter for an iPlayer Radio app in 2012. More recently, it doubled down on its podcast efforts for a more convenient listening experience.

Whereas the TV version of iPlayer is restricted to viewers in the U.K., almost all of its radio output is available worldwide. Even better, it’s free to use and free of ads.

With streaming services such as Spotify gaining in popularity in recent years, the BBC has been working on a new app that mirrors some of the functionality of these widely used services.

The result is BBC Sounds, a new app for iOS and Android that brings together its live broadcasts and podcasts while offering various ways to surface content of interest.

Introducing the first version of #BBCSounds, our new audio app: https://t.co/otjhcrNDhI pic.twitter.com/PqhaSQNBQ3

— BBC (@AboutTheBBC) June 26, 2018

Features include a scroll dial for quick access to all of the BBC’s national stations, or you can tap All Stations to jump to any of the local offerings.

You can easily pick up from where you left off with Continue Listening, explore hand-picked collections of podcasts and on-demand music shows to match your mood, and discover new audio via the Recommended For You section.

Of course, you can also browse numerous categories, among them technology, crime, science, hip hop, and classical.

You can quickly add any individual episode or clip to My List for listening to later, subscribe to any podcast or program, and get a personalized feed of the latest episodes in My Sounds.

“BBC Sounds brings together our live and on-demand radio, music, and podcasts into a single personalized app,” said Dan Taylor-Watt, head of BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds.

He added: “Every user’s experience of BBC Sounds will be unique as it’s designed to learn from your listening habits, providing one-tap access to the latest episodes of your favorite BBC podcasts and radio shows and introducing you to new audio you wouldn’t otherwise have discovered from the 80,000 (yes, really) hours available.”

BBC Sounds is expected to replace iPlayer Radio over time.

If you fancy exploring the BBC’s radio offerings via the web, you can access the site here.

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• How to download podcasts and listen to them on Android or iOS

These fake Android apps steal your money when you aren’t looking

If you thought you were immune from hackers when downloading “legit” Android apps from Google Play, then think again. The McAfee Mobile Research team recently discovered a new campaign where at least 15 apps were “re-packaged” to secretly sign up for premium paid services in the background. The list includes Qrcode Scanner, Cut Ringtones 2018, and Despacito Ringtone. 

The campaign is run by the AsiaHitGroup Gang who first appeared in late 2016 to target victims primarily in Thailand and Malaysia. The group used a fake app installer called Sonvpay.A that, for a price, pretended to install popular apps delivered outside Google Play. But it secretly subscribed at least 20,000 victims to paid services in the background by sending SMS messages to premium-rate numbers.

But that was only the beginning.

The group then moved on to bigger bucks through Google Play during November 2017 in its second campaign targeting Thailand, Malaysia and Russia. They modified the fake installer, now called Sonvpay.B, to serve as full-fledged familiar-but-fake apps listed on Google’s storefront. For this campaign, Sonvpay relied on IP address geolocation to identify the victims’ country of origin. The campaign also used the same SMS method while adding WAP billing — aka direct billing to a mobile carrier — to secretly subscribe victims to premium services. 

The group’s third campaign began in January 2018 targeting devices accessing Google Play in Malaysia and Kazakhstan. Instead of creating fake apps, the group bundled legitimate Android apps with Sonvpay.C, which uses silent background push notifications to secretly subscribe victims to premium paid services. The apps themselves don’t pose any kind of threat outside wanting permission to access SMS messages. In fact, they act completely normal. 

“The subscription operates primarily via WAP billing, which does not require sending SMS messages to premium-rate numbers,” McAfee’s Carlos Castillo reports. “Instead it requires only that users employ the mobile network to access a specific website and automatically click on a button to initiate the subscription process.” 

After you install one of these apps, the Sonvpay component receives commands to sign onto premium paid services through push notifications that the device owner never sees. These services are billed directly to the mobile carrier. Even more, there’s a fake “update” component where if the device owner agrees to the update, Sonvpay.C will subscribe to premium services. Even if the user doesn’t agree, the services may show up on the mobile carrier’s bill anyway depending on the command sent through the push notification. 

The problem with carrier billing and this type of fraudulent charge is that it’s typically not discovered until the victim receives a monthly statement. These charges are typically subscription-based as well, so victims must figure out how to unsubscribe from the premium service.

When McAfee’s team discovered Qrcode Scanner, Cut Ringtone 2018 and Despacito Ringtone loaded with the Sonvpay.C component, they promptly alerted Google and saw the apps disappear from Google Play. Despacito for Ringtone appeared several days later, once again laced with Sonvpay.C, but was quickly nuked by Google.

Unfortunately, the AsiaHitGroup Gang will likely return for a fourth campaign. 

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Intel May Lose Apple Modem Business to MediaTek

Apple may choose to use modems manufactured by MediaTek instead of modems from Intel in future iPhones, according to an investor’s note from Northland analyst Gus Richard that was shared by Bloomberg.

Little detail was included in the note, but Richard believes Apple could be planning to shift its modem business away from Intel. The accuracy of that prediction is questionable, however, and there’s no clear timeline on when Apple might be planning to make the shift. Presumably this would impact 2019 iPhones, as deals for 2018 iPhones are established.

For many years, Apple relied solely on Qualcomm chips, but added Intel as a manufacturer a couple years ago. Current iPhones use LTE chips from both Qualcomm and Intel, but Apple is embroiled in a lawsuit with Qualcomm and is rumored to be aiming to ditch Qualcomm chips, too.

Given the sheer number of iPhones Apple produces each year, it’s not clear if Apple could rely on MediaTek as sole supplier for its LTE chips, so the conflicting rumors of Apple cutting ties with both Intel and Qualcomm are somewhat confusing.

Apple is developing its own modem chips to reduce its reliance on both Intel and Qualcomm, but it will need to continue to use third-party chips until its in-house solution is ready to be deployed in iOS devices.

Current rumors suggest Intel will supply approximately 70 percent of LTE chips set to be used in the 2018 lineup, with the rest of the chips continuing to come from Qualcomm.

Apple is also moving away from Intel chips in its Mac lineup, with rumors suggesting the company is developing its own custom Mac chips that could be deployed as early as 2020.

Tag: Intel
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Blackberry Key2 tips and tricks

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

More on the Blackberry Key2

Blackberry Key2 Review

Blackberry Key 2: Everything you need to know

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Less than six months after TCL released the Blackberry Motion, the smartphone giant is back with its latest offering, the Blackberry Key2. Reminiscent of last year’s Blackberry KeyOne, the Key2 packs a physical keyboard as well as upgraded specs for 2018.

While the Key2 runs on Android 8.0 Oreo, its been heavily modified to include Blackberry’s suite of privacy and productivity apps. Here are a few of our favorite Blackberry Key2 tips and tricks to get you acquainted with your new smartphone.

How to use Blackberry Hub

Blackberry Hub acts a universal inbox for all of your communications. Text messages, emails, call logs, and even some messages from third-party apps are all sorted sequentially in Blackberry Hub. Setting up Blackberry Hub is easy: Simply tap on the hamburger menu icon in the app and tap the + icon next to accounts.

Once Blackberry Hub is set up you can customize it to display and prioritize certain accounts. To create a custom view, open Blackberry Hub and tap on the hamburger menu icon. Select Add View and enter a view name. Select your preferred radio boxes for accounts and filters.

If you want to identify messages from different accounts even quicker you can color text by account. Open Blackberry Hub and select the hamburger menu icon. Tap Settings > Text Messages > Account Color and select the desired text color. Repeat the same series of steps for each account.

How to use Privacy Shade

Want to keep wandering eyes from reading your display? BlackBerry’s Privacy Shade has you covered. Privacy Shade blocks out everything on your screen except for a small viewing area that you can move and adjust.

There are two ways to enable Privacy Shade. The first way is to add it to your Quick Settings drop-down menu. Use two fingers to swipe down from the top of the display and select the pencil icon on the bottom menu bar. Scroll down to the Drag to add tiles section and drag the Privacy Shade icon into the active Quick Settings menu area. You can now enable Privacy Shade by tapping on the corresponding icon in the Quick Settings menu.

If you’d prefer to use a gesture to enable Privacy Shade, go to Settings > Shortcuts & gestures and toggle on the option for Three-Finger Privacy Shade. You can now swipe down from the top of the display with three fingers to quickly turn on Privacy Shade.

Once you have Privacy Shade enabled, you can make adjustments to suit your needs. If you’d like a larger area of exposed text, simply double tap on the eye icon. For adjustments to shape and opacity, tap the overflow (three-dots) icon within the Privacy Shade. Finally, when you’re ready to exit the feature, just tap the arrow icon.

How to use the Redactor

In addition to Privacy Shade, Blackberry also offers a feature called Redactor. The feature allows you to quickly redact personal information from any website or document that displays on your screen.

The easiest way to access Redactor is from the Quick Settings menu. Simply use two fingers to swipe down from the top of the display and tap on the pencil icon. Go to Drag to add tiles and find the Redactor icon; simply drag the icon up to the active Quick Settings menu area to add. Now accessing Redactor is as easy as tapping on its icon from the Quick Settings menu.

Once Redactor mode is enabled you’ll see a new menu bar at the bottom of the screen. The leftmost finger icon allows you to change the size and shape of the redaction tool. The back arrow icon allows you to undo your most recent redaction, while the share icon lets you share your redacted document. The gear icon lets you watch a brief tutorial or add a persistent notification. The rightmost arrow icon exits out of Redactor.

How to map the Convenience Key

In addition to custom productivity software, the Blackberry Key2 also has a custom hardware feature to make your life easier. The Convenience Key, located below the power button, allows you to quickly access apps and functions on your Blackberry Key2 with the touch of a button.

There are several different profiles for the Convenience Key. To set up the default profile, go to Settings > Shortcuts & gestures and select Convenience key. Tap the Add new shortcut icon and select the appropriate app. Repeat this process until you have three apps selected. Once you have your Convenience Key apps selected you can tap the key from any screen to select from your chosen apps.

There are also three additional profiles that can be enabled: A car profile, meeting profile, and home profile. To enable each profile, tap on its icon and toggle on the corresponding slider. You can then add custom apps for each profile.

How to use Locker

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

One of our favorite Blackberry software features is an app called Locker. With Locker, you can easily store private information and apps in a secure area on your phone.

To use Locker, just tap on the Locker app. The first time you open Locker you’ll need to set up a password to access the app. Once open you can tap the + icon to add photos, documents, and apps. Since Locker creates a separate instance of any app you add, the data associated with it will not be visible from the primary app. You can also use Firefox Focus inside Locker for a secure browsing session that blocks ads and other content that can track you online.

While you can take private photos directly from the Locker app, Blackberry also provides a shortcut that will let you store your images to Locker directly from the camera. Simply open the camera and tap the fingerprint sensor instead of the shutter button; your photo will be automatically moved to your private Google Photos folder in Locker.

How to conserve your battery with Power Center

Power Center allows you to customize how individual apps perform on the Blackberry Key2. You can select from one of three power saving modes: Performance, Balanced, and Energy saving. To add apps simply open the Power Center app and tap Apps and games. Tap the + icon, select the app you wish to use and toggle on the slider. From here you can select your chosen power saving mode.

In addition to setting power profiles for each app, Power Center also allows you to make changes to the OS that will save battery. From the Power Center app, you can turn off apps that open automatically in the background, dim the screen, turn off location mode, and shorten the length of time until your display turns off.

Finally, Power Center gives you the option to turn on battery saver automatically when your battery is running low. Open the Power Center app, select Turn on battery saver automatically > Change settings and toggle on the Battery saver slider.

How to use the Productivity Tab

While the Blackberry Key2 has dozens of special software features, the Productivity Tab is one of our favorites. Productivity Tab allows you to quickly access common Blackberry apps like the calendar, email, tasks, and contacts, as well as custom widgets by swiping on the home screen.

When you initially set up your phone, the Productivity Tab will automatically be enabled. However, you can make adjustments to it to fit your preferences. To customize the look of the Productivity Tab simply open the app and tap the gear icon to open the Settings menu. From here you can easily make adjustments to the placement, height, and opacity of the home screen icon.

If you want to customize the tabs in Productivity Tabs, open the app and tap the gear icon. Scroll down to Content Settings and select Choose your tabs or Reorder tabs. In Choose your tabs you can remove unwanted tabs or widgets, while Reorder tabs allows you to change tab order.

Finally, if you want to add a widget to your Productivity Tab just open the app and select the gear icon. Tap Choose your tabs and select one of the Widgets options. Return to the Main Productivity Tab menu and you will see a widgets tab below the other Blackberry tabs. Tap the widget icon followed by the plus key to add a widget.

How to add keyboard shortcuts

Sure the physical keyboard on the Blackberry Key2 makes typing long emails a pleasure, but did you know there are a ton of hidden features you can access directly from it? In fact, keyboard features are so robust on the Key2 that we’ve created an entire tips and tricks post just to cover them, but we’re going to show you how to set up keyboard shortcuts to get started.

There are two types of keyboard shortcuts. The first, the long press method, can only be used from the Home screen. To use this method, simply long press on the key you want to map and wait for the shortcuts menu to appear. Once the menu appears you can select from common tasks or tap the Open app icon to select a particular app.

In addition to long tap shortcuts, the Blackberry Key2 now has a Speed Key that allows you to open shortcuts from any screen. To map a shortcut with Speed Key, simply tap the Speed Key and chosen shortcut key at the same time and wait for the shortcuts menu to appear. Once it appears you can select from one of the common tasks or tap the Open app icon to map a particular app to the key.

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Scientists may soon be able to treat autism with CRISPR gene editing

CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing is capable of some pretty impressive feats, from creating more efficient crops to malaria-resistant mosquitoes. Now researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and other institutes have discovered another potentially life-altering application: Editing out the genetic traits commonly associated with autism. While it’s so far been demonstrated on mice only, it raises the possibility of revolutionizing autism treatment for millions of people around the world.

“This study shows the first time demonstration of the rescue autistic symptoms using gene editing in autism mouse model,” Hye Young Lee, an assistant professor of cellular and integrative physiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, told Digital Trends. “On the top of that, we used nonviral way to deliver to do it, which supports the potential therapeutic treatment for brain disorders.”

The work involved injecting the CRISPR complex into a specific brain region in mice, via special nanoparticles. This so-called “striatum” brain region is known to mediate the forming of habits, including the repetitive behaviors often seen with autism spectrum disorder (ASD.) The Cas9 disabled a specific receptor gene, which resulted in the dampening of exaggerated signaling between cells, thereby reducing repetitive behavior. In the case of mice, this meant a 30 percent decrease in compulsive digging and 70 percent drop in jumping, both of these behaviors associated with autistic behavior.

As another important development in the study, researchers discovered a way to ship the CRISPR particles long distances (in this case from Berkeley to San Antonio, Texas), as well as manufacturing them in a reproducible manner. This eliminates a key bottleneck affecting many projects involving nanotechnologies.

Could a similar treatment to this one day be used in humans? “Not right away, but it can be used for human treatment once we make sure it is safe to use, and once it is tested in bigger animals than mice,” Lee said. In the future, the researchers think it might also be possible to inject these particles into the central nervous system by way of the spinal cord, rather than having to inject them directly into the brain.

A paper describing the work was recently published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.

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