Even with the Pixel 3 on the horizon, the Pixel 2 is still worth getting

The AC forums sure do love the Pixel 2 🤗

In less than four months, Google is expected to announce the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL. The rumors and leaks we’ve seen so far are pointing towards devices with dual front-facing cameras, much slimmer bezels, and all-glass designs.

There’s already a lot of hype and excitement surrounding Google’s third generation of Android phones, but even so, the Pixel 2 series is still holding up incredibly well.

One user in the Android Central forums asked if it was still worth picking up a Pixel 2 this late in 2018, and the response from the community was a resounding “YES!”

Morty2264
06-14-2018 10:57 PM

“

I would still recommend the Pixel 2 line today. Great software and form factors, excellent camera, and you can’t beat the smoothness of stock Android.

However, like the user above me stated, only you can make that decision for yourself. 🙂 Let us know what you decide!

Reply

Eggmundo
06-15-2018 02:19 AM

“

Definitely still worth either the 2 or 2XL if you find one at a great price (even back in December I got mine for only £529).

Reply

Ry
06-15-2018 06:03 PM

“

Even when the Pixel 3 comes out, I think it will still be worth it to get a Pixel 2 XL.

Reply

Mr Segundus
06-16-2018 08:01 AM

“

I think so. I just picked up a black and white Pixel 2 XL yesterday even though I know the Pixel 3 XL will be out in like 4 months. Quick security updates and great software + the best cameras still on a smartphone = no brainer there. The battery life on this device is so much better than the battery life on my S9+.

Reply

What do you think? Would you still get a Pixel 2 knowing the Pixel 3 is right around the corner?

Join the conversation in the forums!

Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

• Pixel 2 FAQ: Everything you need to know!
• Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL review: The new standard
• Google Pixel 2 specs
• Google Pixel 2 vs. Pixel 2 XL: What’s the difference?
• Join our Pixel 2 forums

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How to Change a File Type’s Default App in macOS

Each document that you have on your Mac is associated with a default application which macOS uses to open the file whenever you double-click on its icon in Finder.

Sometimes you may have a legitimate reason for changing which app your Mac automatically launches when you open a common file type – when a newly installed app assumes control of it, or when you want to open AVI video files in VLC instead of QuickTime, for instance. The following steps show you how to do just that.

In a Finder window, right-click (or Ctrl-click) the file whose default launch app you want to change.
From the contextual menu, select Open With -> Other….

A new navigation window will appear for you to select an alternative app to open the selected file. In our example, we’re selecting the VLC media player app.

Tick the checkbox next to Always Open With to ensure your selection applies in future to all files with the same extension (AVI files, in our case). If you don’t see the checkbox, click the Options button at the lower left of the window and it should appear.
Click Open.If the app that you want to use to open the file type is greyed out, it’s because macOS doesn’t think there’s a valid association between the two. In most cases this is correct, but you can still override it by changing the Recommended Applications view to All Applications using the Enable: dropdown menu.

There’s another way you can change a file type’s associated app in macOS: Right-click (or Ctrl-click) on the file in a Finder window and select Get Info.

In the information dialog that appears, you should see the Open with: section immediately below the Comments: section (click the chevron buttons to expand individual sections). Select Other… in the drop-down menu of apps to select one not already in the list, and then click Change All… to apply the association to all files with the same extension.

Related Roundups: macOS High Sierra, macOS Mojave
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Adobe Scan App’s Latest AI Feature Converts Business Cards into Phone Contacts

Adobe Scan, Adobe’s document scanning app, was updated today with a new feature that lets users capture business cards and convert them into phone contacts.

AI enhancements courtesy of Adobe’s Sensei machine learning platform enable the app to recognize a business card when placed in view of the phone’s built-in camera. Once the card is recognized, the app presents a “Save Contact” button to the user.

Tapping the new option captures the information on the business card including the name, company, phone number, email address, and any image, and automatically imports it into the user’s contacts.

Adobe’s Sensei AI also gets to work on the original scan of the business card, automatically correcting for shadows, perspective distortion, and even cropping out any fingers holding the card in the captured image.

Along with the AI-focused update to Adobe Scan, Adobe also announced some new PDF creation tools today for Microsoft Office 365.

New shortcuts in the ribbon of Microsoft’s Word, Excel, and PowerPoint web apps let users convert documents into PDFs (and vice versa) with optional password protection. Likewise, Adobe PDF archiving, conversion, and distribution tools are also now available from within OneDrive and SharePoint.

Adobe Scan can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Tags: Adobe, Office 365
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DroneCatcher upgrade lets this net-gun security drone stay in the sky

The popularity of hobby drones has led to an uptick in flights in restricted areas such as airports, prisons, and even government facilities.

It’s a headache for those responsible for the security of such places, though a growing number of startups have been developing technology aimed at keeping these locations free from the unauthorized flight incursions.

Dutch firm Delft Dynamics, for example, has been working on its DroneCatcher quadcopter for several years, launching its first model in 2017.

The machine uses radar, vision, and acoustic sensors to detect a rogue copter in the air. Once its trackers have locked on to the aircraft, the DroneCatcher operator can shoot a net from up to 20 meters away to disable it. Capturing it this way prevents the drone from crashing to the ground where vital evidence could be lost, and instead enables the DroneCatcher to bring the machine back to base in one piece.

The team has recently updated DroneCatcher, as per New Atlas, adding a power-giving cord from the ground so the machine can stay hovering pretty much around the clock.

At a place like an airport where even the shortest flight disruption can cost large amounts of money, every second counts — you only have to see how a single drone incursion at London’s busy Gatwick Airport last year caused untold chaos as multiple flights had to be diverted.

With the tethered DroneCatcher already fully powered and in the air, the machine can be guided toward its target the moment it’s identified. As it does so, the power cord automatically disconnects from the quadcopter so it can fly as far as it needs to before tackling the rogue drone.

Once the DroneCatcher begins flying sans cord, it can stay in the air for up to 30 minutes, which should be ample time for it to take down its prey.

There are plenty of different ways for airport and prison operators to tackle unauthorized drone flights. So far we’ve seen everything from bazooka-like bad boys and anti-drone “death rays” to drone shields and highly trained birds of prey.

Delft Dynamics‘ DroneCatcher isn’t the first drone we’ve seen that uses a net to capture illegally flown drones. Back in 2015, Japanese police unveiled a slightly different design that uses an open net dangling beneath it. Rather than shoot it at its target, this particular contraption has to chase down the rogue drone to ensnare it in the net. Though the system may seem rather crude, it looks effective enough in the demonstration video. But it clearly needs a skilled pilot to make the catch.

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• There is a good reason why this drone flies near aircraft
• This bird-inspired morphing drone can slim down to fit through tight spaces

U.S. Senate rebukes Trump, reimposes sanctions on ZTE

ZTE’s woes continue as the U.S. Senate rolls out a new bill that prohibits the manufacturer from doing business with U.S. firms.

It’s a turbulent time for ZTE. The U.S. government issued a Denial Order against the company back in April, essentially prohibiting the Chinese manufacturer from buying hardware components from the likes of Qualcomm or Intel. The order effectively killed ZTE’s smartphone business as it prevented Google from certifying the manufacturer’s phones.

It looked like there may be a resolution a few weeks ago, as Donald Trump revealed that he was working with China’s president Xi Jinping to revoke the ban. Last week, ZTE finalized a deal with the Commerce Department that would see the Chinese company pay a $1 billion fine in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

The U.S. Senate has now taken matters into its own hands, and has included an amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act that once again places sanctions on ZTE. The bill passed the Senate floor with an overwhelming majority, but it still has to go through the House before it ends up on Trump’s desk to be signed into law.

Notably, the House version of the bill doesn’t include the amendments prohibiting ZTE from doing business in the U.S., so it remains to be seen whether the final bill will have those provisions intact.

Adobe Scan now now automatically turn business cards into phone contacts

Adobe

Artificial intelligence could soon make manually typing up information off a business card a thing of the past. Adobe Scan, the smartphone scanning app, can now recognize business cards and automatically import them into the contacts on a smartphone. Adobe announced the AI-focused update to Adobe Scan on June 19, which also brings new PDF creation tools into Microsoft Office 365.

Adobe Scan uses Sensei to import contacts

After taking a photo of a business card with Adobe Scan’s built-in camera, Adobe’s Sensei A.I. automatically corrects for shadows and perspective distortion. Adobe says the app can even recognize and crop out a finger holding onto one edge.

With the image converted into something that looks more like it came from an actual scanner, Adobe Scan moves to the next step of text recognition. Sensei is smart enough to tell a business card apart from other documents and when a business card is detected, the app adds a “save to contacts” button. Tapping that option will send the information, including name, phone number, company name, and email address, into a new contact on the user’s smartphone. 

The 1-year-old app already boasts 10 million downloads, and business card recognition is simply the latest in a series of a new A.I.-based features that Adobe has introduced to Scan recently.

Microsoft 365 gains new PDF tools

Coming in the month of the 25th anniversary of Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Office users will notice a new ribbon inside the software family following an update to Adobe Document Cloud. That new shortcut adds Adobe Acrobat original PDF tools. Users can now use the Adobe PDF option in the top menu ribbon to create a PDF, including the option to add an e-signature.

The ongoing Microsoft and Adobe partnership also brings options to create and edit PDFs inside SharePoint and OneDrive. The reverse is also true for both programs — PDFs can be converted into Word, Excel, PowerPoint or .rft files from SharePoint and OneDrive.

Toady’s announcements also include updates to Adobe Sign for business, including a new user interface with the tool inside Microsoft Dynamics. Adobe Sign also sees updates to help companies comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and is now authorized by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program as an e-sign tool.

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Apple Pay Launches in Poland

Apple Pay today launched in Poland, according to reports from several MacRumors readers who are living in the country and Polish Apple site ThinkApple. iPhone, iPad, and Mac users in Poland are now able to add eligible cards to the Wallet app for use with Apple Pay.

Image via MacRumors reader Kornel
According to Apple, the following banks support Apple Pay in Poland:

• BGZ BNP Paribas
• Bank Zachodni WBK
• Alior Bank
• Raiffeisen Polbank
• Nest Bank
• mBank
• Bank Pekao
• Getin Bank

Visa and Mastercards from the above listed banks will work with Apple Pay, and several MacRumors readers have been able to successfully add their cards to their iPhones.

Apple CEO Tim Cook first promised to expand Apple Pay to Poland during Apple’s earnings call covering the second fiscal quarter of 2018. At the time, he also said Apple Pay would come to Ukraine and Norway, with the payments service yet to launch in the latter country.

Following the launch of Apple Pay in Poland, Apple Pay is available in more than 20 markets, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, France, Russia, China, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Taiwan, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, UAE, Brazil, and Ukraine.

Apple Pay in stores is available on the iPhone 6 and later and all Apple Watch models. Apple Pay on the web and in apps is available on the iPhone 6 and later along with the iPad Air 2, iPad mini 3, iPad mini 4, all iPad Pro models, and Macs with Touch ID or an accompanying iPhone or Apple Watch.

Related Roundup: Apple PayTag: Poland
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macOS ‘Quick Look’ Bug Can Leak Encrypted Data Through Thumbnail Caches

A long-standing bug in macOS’s Quick Look feature has the potential to expose sensitive user files like photo thumbnails and the text of documents, even on encrypted drives, according to security researchers.

Details on the Quick Look flaw were shared earlier this month by security researcher Wojciech Regula and over the weekend on security researcher Patrick Wardle’s blog (via The Hacker News).

Image via Wojciech Regula
Quick Look in macOS is a convenient Finder feature that’s designed to present a zoomed-in view when you press the space bar on a photo or document that’s selected.

To provide this preview functionality, Quick Look creates an unencrypted thumbnail database where thumbnails of files are kept, with the database storing file previews from a Mac’s storage and any attached USB drives whenever a folder is opened. These thumbnails, which provide previews of content on an encrypted drive, can be accessed by someone with the technical know how and there’s no automatic cache clearing that deletes them. As Regula explains:

It means that all photos that you have previewed using space (or Quicklook cached them independently) are stored in that directory as a miniature and its path. They stay there even if you delete these files or if you have previewed them in encrypted HDD or TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt container.

This is an issue that’s existed for at least eight years and concerns have been raised about it in the past, but Apple has made no changes in macOS to address it. “The fact that behavior is still present in the latest version of macOS, and (though potentially having serious privacy implications), is not widely known by Mac users, warrants additional discussion,” writes Wardle.

As Wardle points out, this information is valuable in law enforcement investigations, but most users are not going to be happy to learn that their Mac records file paths and thumbnails of documents from every storage device that’s been attached to it.

For a forensics investigation or surveillance implant, this information could prove invaluable. Imagine having a historic record of the USB devices, files on the devices, and even thumbnails of the files…all stored persistently in an unencrypted database, long after the USB devices have been removed (and perhaps destroyed). For users, the question is: “Do you really want your Mac recording the file paths and ‘previews’ thumbnails of the files on any/all USB sticks that you’ve ever inserted into your Mac?” Me thinks not…

It’s worth noting that if the main drive on the Mac is encrypted, the Quick Look cache that’s created is too. Wardle says that data “may be safe” on a machine that’s powered off, but on a Mac that’s running, even if encrypted containers are unmounted, the caching feature can reveal their contents.

“In other words, the increased security encrypted containers were thought to provide, may be completely undermined by QuickLook,” writes Wardle.

Wardle recommends that users concerned about unencrypted data storage clear the Quick Look cache manually whenever a container is unmounted, with instructions for this available on Wardle’s website. It’s also worth checking out Wardle’s site for full details on the Quick Look bug.
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Apple Fined $9 Million for Misleading Some Australian Customers Over ‘Error 53’ Device Repairs

The Australian government today fined Apple $9 million for misleading some customers into believing they could not have their iOS devices fixed by Apple if they had been previously repaired by a third-party repair shop, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

Today’s ruling comes after the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) launched an investigation into Apple after the ACCC received complaints over “error 53,” issues.

Error 53, widely publicized in 2016, caused some iPhone 6 users who had the Home buttons on their iPhones fixed by a non-Apple technician using non-original parts to see their iPhones bricked following a software update.

When the error code first surfaced, Apple said that error 53 was a protective security feature meant to prevent “malicious” third-party components from potentially compromising a user’s iPhone, but after public outcry, Apple released a software update restoring functionality to bricked iPhones. Following the software update to unbrick iPhones, Apple claimed that the error 53 issue was meant to be a factory test and never should have impacted consumer devices.

Amid error 53 investigations led by the ACCC, Apple admitted that between February 2015 and February 2016, at least 275 Australian customers had been told in store or over the phone that they could not have their iPad or iPhone fixed if it had been repaired by a third party, such as in the error 53 situation.

Apple’s refusal to provide repairs to Australian customers who had previous repairs done by third-party shops violates Australian Consumer Law, according to an Australian Federal Court.

When it learned of the ACCC’s investigation, Apple launched an outreach program that has compensated approximately 5,000 consumers who were affected by error 53. Apple’s Australian arm is also improving staff training to make sure its stores comply fully with Australian Consumer Law, and Apple will now provide new devices as replacements instead of refurbished devices if a customer requests one.

In the United States, Apple was hit with a lawsuit over error 53, but it was dismissed after the company restored full iPhone functionality through a software update and reimbursed customers who had paid for out-of-warranty device replacements.

Tags: Australia, Error 53
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Is the Australian bee the key to better outdoor gear?

Courtesy of Louise Docker via Flickr

Over the past few years there has been a significant push within the outdoor industry to design products that are better for the environment without sacrificing performance. Some companies, like Columbia Sportswear and Jack Wolfskin, have taken to using recycled fabrics, while also looking for ways to reduce the amount of water consumed during production. Others — such as Fjällräven — are focusing on removing harmful chemicals like fluorocarbons from their fibers too. But soon, a company called Humble Bee might show these gear manufacturers a completely new way to approach the challenges the come with protecting nature, by actually finding ways to mimic it instead.

Humble Bee is a New Zealand-based biotech startup that is focused on studying the habits of the Australian bee in an effort to find ways of improving the products we use while also eliminating our reliance on plastics and harmful chemicals. While versatile, cheap to produce, and durable, these martial can take thousands of years to decompose, leaving a long and lasting impact on the environment. Instead, the company is looking to nature to provide us with viable options that can offer the same level of performance we’ve come to expect from plastics, but in a form that is biodegradable and less destructive to the environment.

The Australian bee has been of particular interest to Humble Bee because it creates a nesting material that resembles a type of naturally occurring plastic in many ways. This “bioplastic” is not only waterproof, but it is also resistant to heat — including flames — and can repel most chemicals, too. If a method for mass producing the substance could be found, it might serve as a true replacement for a variety of types of plastics, including those used to create outdoor gear. The fibers could be used to create a waterproof jacket or build a better tent.

Veronica Harwood-Stevenson, the founder of Humble Bee, won the Bright Ideas Challenge sponsored by the Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency and immediately invested the prize money into researching her idea. Her work showed that there is a great deal of promise in mimicking the materials created by the Australian bee, although the next challenge involves finding ways to mass-produce it on a scale large enough to have an impact on the outdoor industry.

“Outdoor apparel is definitely what we’re most interested in because of the chemicals being used and because chances are, if you like the environment, you don’t want the products you enjoy to be screwing up the environment,” Harwood-Stevenson told The Sydney Morning Herald.

Chemicals are often added to outdoor gear products to add a waterproof or dirt-resistant finish. Being able to re-create the bee’s natural fibers could eliminate the need for those chemicals, while also creating a material that is much more biodegradable at the same time. That solves a host of challenges that gear manufacturers face when creating more environmentally friendly products. Humble Bee still has some challenges to overcome before that can happen, but it is making progress toward those goals.

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