Police get dead man’s finger 3D-printed to unlock his phone
Michigan State University professor Anil Jain’s work focuses on how to make biometric signifiers like facial recognition as difficult to hack into as possible. But when police approached him to break into someone’s phone, they didn’t want backdoor access around security measures — they wanted him to 3D-print a dead man’s finger to get into his smartphone.
According to Fusion, the ongoing investigation prevented Jain from sharing specific details, but the digest version is that the police suspect foul play and the dead man’s phone might provide clues to his suspected killer. Since the police happened to have taken his fingerprints when he was alive (he’d been previously arrested), they gave them to Jain to make 3D-printed versions of all ten digits.
But since touch sensors are capacitive and require living skin to disrupt the electrical surface, Jain covered the mock fingers with a thin layer of metallic particles to trick the phone. That’s the theory, anyway: Jain and his PhD student still have a few weeks to refine the printed digits before they hand them off to the police.
While using a dead person’s fingerprint to break into their own phone sidesteps the hassle of forcing phone makers to allow access, it’s also legally uncertain. In this case, though, the subject is neither the criminal suspect nor alive to dispute police action.
“The Fifth Amendment protects against self-incrimination. Here, the fingerprints are of the deceased victim, not the murder suspect. Obviously, the victim is not at risk of incrimination,” security and law researcher Bryan Choi told Fusion.
But for living suspects, a legal standard hasn’t been set to decide whether police can force folks to unlock their own phones using their fingerprints. One Los Angeles court just required a suspect in an FBI case to open her device that way back in May, but it’s still unclear whether such legal force violates a person’s Fifth Amendment right not to self-incriminate. Doing so could be interpreted as equivalent to testifying.
Source: Fusion
Edward Snowden designed an iPhone case to prevent wireless snooping
Edward Snowden is still trying to combat smartphone radio surveillance three years after spilling the NSA’s secrets. With help from hacker Andrew “Bunnie” Huang, Snowden presented on Thursday designs at the MIT Media Lab for a case-like add-on device that monitors electrical signals sent to an iPhone’s internal antennas.
It looks like an external battery case with a small mono-color screen and is being described as an “introspection engine.” The device’s tiny probe wires have to attach to test points on the iPhone’s circuit board, which are accessible through the SIM card slot. The phone has two antennas that give off electrical signals and they’re used by its radios, including GPS and Bluetooth.
The probe wires read the radio’s electric signals, and by doing so the modified phone warns you when these signals transmit information when they’re meant to be off. You’ll instantly receive alert messages or even an audible alarm, and the phone can even shut off automatically. The intention here is to allow reporters to carry their phones into hostile foreign countries without revealing their locations to government-funded adversaries. They’ll still be able to record video and audio while their iPhone’s radio signals are disabled.
However, the device is still nothing more than a design for now. Snowden and Huang are hoping to build a prototype over the next year, and eventually start offering these modified iPhones to journalists.
Via: Wired
Moto Z and Z Force Droid review: The risks are mostly worth it
Ever since the original Moto X came out, I’ve been fascinated by Motorola. We saw one of the biggest, oldest brands in communications take a long, hard look at where it’s been and chart a thoughtful path forward. Flash forward a few years (and a few Moto Xs) and wouldn’t you know it? Motorola started to lose some of its voltage when it came to its flagship phones. Don’t get me wrong, the Moto X Pure Edition was a fantastic device, but in hindsight it’s not hard to see that it was more of the same.
While we might still see a new Moto X this year, Motorola decided to try something different. We now have two different modular flagship smartphones, the superthin Moto Z Droid ($624) and the sturdier Moto Z Force Droid ($720). Some might bristle that both are exclusive to Verizon and aren’t yet slated for an international launch (I sure did), but there’s no two ways about it: These are still the most exciting Motorola phones in a long time.
Note: For the sake of brevity, I’m not going to bother calling these things “Droid Editions” for the rest of the review.
Hardware
At 5.2mm thick, the Moto Z is the thinnest flagship phone I’ve ever used, and it’s just stunning. In fact, when it comes to design, the Moto Z couldn’t be any more different from the flagship Moto Xs that came before it — the friendly curves and sloping back are gone, leaving us with something more angular and elegant. Think of it as the lightweight Lamborghini to the Moto X Pure’s friendly VW Beetle. If I’m honest, I was concerned that a phone this thin would feel insubstantial, but Motorola dodged that issue too. Aside from the pane of Gorilla Glass covering its 5.5-inch, quad HD AMOLED display, the Z’s body is crafted entirely of metal, lending it a crucial air of rigidity. Fair warning, though: Our review units came in a two-tone black and gray finish that both looks lovely and acts like a fingerprint-and-schmutz magnet.
All that said, this phone certainly isn’t for everyone. Some people I’ve shown the phone to (here’s looking at you, Devindra) think the Moto Z is too skinny to feel comfortable in-hand. More important, you can’t build a phone this thin without making a few compromises. Motorola could only squeeze a relatively modest 2,600mAh battery into the Z’s body. The 13-megapixel camera juts out from the back in a circular hump. And the most divisive change? The phone’s slim frame meant Motorola had to ax the headphone jack. Motorola is convinced it’s on the right side of history with this move, but in the short term, you’re stuck buying either a pair of USB Type-C headphones or using an adapter that comes in the box.
I’ll delve more into the audio quality a little later, but right off the bat, the change presents some tricky issues to tangle with. Let’s say you’re a klutz like me: You’re probably going to lose that dongle before long. And if you’re listening to music through wired headphones, you can’t charge the phone at the same time. Inconvenient at best; counterproductive at worst.
Motorola is so sure of this decision that the Z’s cousin, the Moto Z Force, lacks the headphone jack as well, even though its thicker body could definitely have accommodated one. Throughout my week of testing, I’ve been looking at the Z Force as the Moto Z for everyone else: It has the same new look, paired with a bigger 3,500mAh battery and Motorola’s Shattershield design to keep you from cracking your screen. Throw in an improved 21-megapixel rear camera and we have a package that more than makes up for Z Force’s heftier dimensions. If owning an incredibly thin smartphone isn’t high on your list of priorities, you’re probably better off looking at this version of the Z instead. It’s just too bad neither of these phones are waterproof: They’re nano-coated to resist splashes, but that’s it.
Despite their differences, the slim Moto Z and the sturdy Z Force share some powerful silicon. Thrumming away inside both devices is a quad-core Snapdragon 820 chip paired with 4GB of RAM and an Adreno 530 GPU — just like almost every other flagship Android phone released this year. The similarities don’t end there, either: Both sport an excellent fingerprint reader beneath the screen, either 32GB or 64GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot for as much as 2TB of extra space, and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. A trio of tiny volume buttons and a sleep/wake key poke out of both phones’ right side, and on the bottom is a solitary USB Type-C socket for power, data transfers and audio.
Both devices are showcases for Motorola’s impeccable workmanship, but they’re made even more interesting by the array of golden contacts on their backs. Those 16 points make up what the company calls its Moto Mod connector, which allows power and data to flow between the phone and optional accessories that magnetically latch to the phones’ backs. The first batch includes a tiny projector, battery case and a JBL speaker, and they add a lot to the Moto Z/Z Force formula, so I’ll be sure to dig deeper on these in just a moment. For now, just know this: Motorola’s approach to modularity is the most elegant you’ll find on the market right now.
Display and sound
Both Moto Z phones feature 5.5-inch AMOLED displays running at 2,560 x 1,440 resolution, and they’re pretty great. In addition to very accommodating viewing angles, you’ll get the usual punchy colors that come with AMOLED screens. If they’re a little too punchy for your liking, though, you can hop into the device’s settings and poke around: The “Vibrant” color mode is enabled by default, but there’s also a “Standard” option that attempts to render colors more realistically. I’ve come to prefer the slightly oversaturated look you’ll see by default, but hey, it’s nice to have choices.
It’s also worth noting that these displays don’t look identical. My Moto Z’s panel seems a little more high-contrast than the Z Force’s screen, and I’m willing to bet that’s because of the Z Force’s Shattershield construction. In case you never owned a Droid Turbo 2, here’s the skinny: Above the AMOLED panel itself, there’s a redundant touch-sensing layer and two protective lenses, all meant to keep the screen from breaking if the Z Force takes a tumble. I reluctantly treated this thing like a jerk throughout my week of testing, dropping it on concrete for laughs and lobbing it onto my desk from across the room. The damage? A couple nicks on the screen and some scuffs on the phone’s aluminum edge. Shattershield is a welcome feature indeed, but it’s important to remember that it doesn’t make the Moto Z Force invincible.
Both phones also have a single speaker above the screen, nestled in the same place as the earpiece. It’s a far cry from the stereo setups we’ve seen in other smartphones, but you know what? The Z/Z Force’s speakers consistently churned out crisp (if not terribly loud) audio. It’s not a surprise, really: Lots of companies sort of phone it in when it comes to speaker quality, and it’s clear Motorola would like you to buy one of JBL’s sweet speaker Mods.
Now, about that pesky headphone issue. I’ve used the included USB Type-C dongle with several pairs of cans and in-ears, and it doesn’t seem to affect audio quality at all when playing high-quality tunes saved on Spotify. If anything, my biggest gripes were logistical: When I didn’t keep the dongle attached to headphones, it got lost in the depths of my backpack. When I did keep it attached, it sometimes made the cord long enough to be cumbersome when jamming everything into my pocket (especially when those headphones had an L-plug).
Are these huge issues? No, not really (and if you’re a Bluetooth headphone person, basically none of these gripes apply). Still, these sticking points aren’t going away for a while, so keep that in mind before you buy.
Camera
Let’s be honest: Motorola isn’t exactly known as a leader in photography. That’s why the company’s work this year is so surprising: We now have two Motorola phones with seriously good cameras. If the normal Moto Z is your thing, you’ll get a 13-megapixel main camera with a f/1.8 aperture lens and a laser autofocus module. My expectations were set needlessly low. As it turns out, the Z’s camera takes bright, nicely detailed shots with vivid colors almost across the board. It does stumble a bit in low light, where you’ll plenty of grain and soft edges, but really, what smartphone doesn’t? The Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are still better all-around performers, but for once, Motorola has done well to close the gap.
Meanwhile, the Moto Z Force’s camera does a slightly better job of capturing fine detail, which really isn’t surprising — it’s a 21-megapixel sensor, after all. What is surprising is how tight the image-quality race can be sometimes. For a while, the Moto Z seemed a little better at rendering accurate colors, but then photos with the Z Force started coming out a little better. Then back. Then forth. You get my drift. What makes this whole thing even stranger is that the Moto Z Force was occasionally slower to focus on subjects than the Z, despite having phase-detection autofocus in addition to a laser-autofocus module. A quick tap or two is all it takes to set it right, but that’s still a little odd. It’s the Z Force’s low-light performance that clinches the deal here: It’s not quite Galaxy S7-level, but it’s closer than I dared dream.
Despite some curious performance quirks, I’d ultimately go with the Z Force as my shooter of choice — it’s as good a camera as Motorola has ever made, even if the underlying software needs some extra polish. Still, the standard Moto Z is no slouch.
Beyond the intricacies of their sensors, the Z and Z Force camera experiences have a lot in common. They share a 5-megapixel, wide-angle camera for selfies that does a generally lovely job of capturing those fleeting moments of vanity. Speaking of vanity, there’s also a new Beauty Mode that irons out the wrinkles and blemishes that might mar one’s selfies. I wouldn’t be at all shocked if this was a feature that parent company Lenovo insisted on; these sorts of cosmetic enhancements have popped up, and continue to pop up, in Lenovo smartphones.
It’s too bad it doesn’t work very well. I snapped selfies at both ends of the Beauty mode spectrum and neither did much for my looks. This year, Motorola also added a Professional Mode that allows for more granular control over your photos. Once enabled, you’ll get full control over ISO, white balance, shutter speed and exposure — change any of those settings and you’ll get a live update on your display. Just maybe don’t go too crazy with them. I managed to crash the camera app a few times doing that.
Moto Mods
Of course, the story of the Moto Z and Z Force extend beyond the devices themselves. Motorola has a vision centered on accessories that snap onto the phone with magnets. Not only is this less annoying than LG’s attempt with the G5 — it’s simpler and cleaner too. Motorola has also said that these first-generation Moto Mods will work with next year’s model as well, though the company isn’t promising anything beyond that.
First up: Motorola’s Insta-Share projector. When fully charged, the projector will run for about an hour on its own before using the battery in your phone. Stick it far enough away from a wall and you can get a picture that’s about 70 inches diagonal, a pretty big jump from the clunker of a TV I bought on sale years ago. Your environment needs to be superdark, and it can be tough to get the focus right, but once everything came together, I had a bit of a “wow” moment I didn’t see coming. There are, however, two potential issues to keep in mind. First, the speakers baked into the projector aren’t great, so you’ll want an external set if you’re really after something resembling a movie-theater experience. Second, it’ll set you back $299. If you’ve got money to burn, then by all means, go for it, but for most, it won’t be worth it.
Compared with that, the $79 JBL speaker Mod seems way more modest. I probably pissed off a few people in the office by cranking it up all the way, which can be almost unpleasantly loud depending on the kind of music you’re listening to. It lasts about 10 hours on a charge, and the speaker burns through that juice before switching to the phone’s battery for power. Alas, the audio doesn’t sound as meaty as I imagined; it seems to do better with podcasts and songs with lots of action in the mid and high range. Here’s my issue, though: You could get a portable Bluetooth speaker that sounds better (and works with any smartphone) for around the same price. Either way, you’d have to carry around a second piece of hardware. On the plus side, though, it has a kickstand to prop up the phone — a helpful touch when you’re watching videos.
Really, though, the best Moto Mod is a battery back that basically doubles the Moto Z’s battery life while still managing to feel like a natural extension of the phone. If you buy a Moto Z, this needs to go with it.
By building the Moto Mod connector and inking deals with companies like JBL, Motorola is admitting that we can’t always have everything we want in one single device. The beauty of Motorola’s design, though, means the things we add to the Moto Z feel like seamless parts of the device itself. It’s still early days for the Moto Mods program, and the only way to ensure it goes anywhere is to buy this stuff. Hopefully, enough people invest in this new ecosystem of hardware to keep it alive. It would be a shame to see such an elegant solution flounder.
(Side note: if you’ve got a brilliant idea for a Moto Mod of your own, Motorola is opening up its developer program in August — $125 gets you a hardware-development kit for bread-boarding and hashing out initial designs.)
Software
Motorola is well known for releasing smartphones that run very clean, almost stock versions of Android… unless those smartphones are Verizon exclusives like these. The broad strokes of Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow are still there, and for the most part, Motorola seemed happy to leave well enough alone; the most notable visual tweak is a dark theme applied to the familiar Marshmallow menus and app launcher.
Still, Verizon’s influence is undeniable. There’s a separate-but-optional setup process to get started with Verizon’s cloud upon first boot, and lots of preloaded software I never touched. I’m talking VZ Navigator, VZ Protect, Message+, Caller Name ID and a cloud app, not to mention NFL Mobile, Slacker, Audible and a ton of derivative games. You can delete some of them, but the rest need to be disabled in the settings and I couldn’t so this fast enough.
Curiously, the Motorola-made apps that used to come preloaded on the company’s Verizon-bound phones aren’t here anymore. If you want Loop and Zap (which let you keep tabs on loved ones and share content with people nearby, respectively), you’ll have to get them from the Play Store. I love it when companies stop trying to force apps of dubious value on us — HTC recently did this too — but Verizon pushed enough bloatware that Motorola’s cleanliness almost went unnoticed.
On the plus side, Motorola’s thoughtful software tricks are all still here. The sensors on the Z’s face can still detect your hands as they approach, and they’ll light up part of the display to show you the time and your notifications. Like before, you can double-twist your wrist to launch the camera, and a double karate chop turns on the flashlight. As it happens, Motorola added a new gesture this year: If you swipe up from the bottom of the display, the on-screen view will shrink so you can reach the notification shade without having to reposition your hand.
The Moto Z siblings are great at listening for your voice commands, too. Once you’ve trained them to listen to your activation phrase (mine is the dull “OK, Moto Z”), the phones will wake up and take requests like a proper assistant. That might not sound like a high bar to clear — after all, virtual assistants have come a long way since the earliest days of Siri and Google Now — but Motorola was one of the first companies to go big on phones that always listened, and they’re still very good at making them.
Performance
We can keep this part simple: The Moto Z and Z Force are damned fast. Is that really any surprise? Both run with the same high-end Snapdragon silicon as most other flagship Android phones I’ve played with this year, and they’ve all been really fast too. As always, my week of testing included all the usual, frenzied multitasking for work, along with loads of Real Racing 3, Mortal Kombat X, Hearthstone and Pokémon Go when the news died down. Try as I might — and trust me, I tried — the Moto Z and Z Force handled all of my trials with gusto. (They do get noticeably warm when you starting to push them, though.) Ultimately, now that premium smartphones like the Moto Z and its ilk all fall into the same performance range, the details that make these devices different are more important than ever.
| AndEBench Pro | 16,678 | 16,455 | 14,168 | 16,673 |
| Vellamo 3.0 | 5,613 | 5,727 | 4,285 | 4,876 |
| 3DMark IS Unlimited | 29,117 | 28,964 | 28,529 | 26,747 |
| GFXBench 3.0 1080p Manhattan Offscreen (fps) | 49 | 49 | 45 | 48 |
| CF-Bench | 45,803 | 44,977 | 51,227 | 49,891 |
| SunSpider 1.0.2: Android devices tested in Chrome; lower scores are better. |
Consider batteries, for instance. Thanks to its slim body, Motorola fitted the Moto Z with a 2,600mAh cell. Not bad, but definitely not great. I’ll admit, even though I’ve used smartphones with similar specs and battery sizes before, I went into this review expecting the worst. Thankfully, that was unwarranted. On days of heavy use, the Z would get me through the work day but give up the ghost not long after. That works out to about 11 hours of pretty continuous use, though you can stretch that up to about a day and a half if you’re a very, very cautious user. In our standard Engadget rundown test (looping a video with the screen brightness set to 50 percent and WiFi connected), the Moto Z lasted about just north of 10 hours. That’s on par with the LG G5 and HTC 10.
This means the Moto Z’s battery will probably cut it for most people, but anyone on the fence should consider the next step up. As you’d expect, the Moto Z Force blew its skinny sibling out of the water. I routinely got two full days of use out of its larger 3,500mAh battery, and got closer to three days over a particularly quiet weekend. Not bad at all. And in our rundown test, the Z Force looped the same sample video for 14 hours and 12 minutes, just 18 minutes less than Samsung’s Galaxy S7 Edge.
The competition
I probably sound like a broken record saying this, but there’s really never been a better time to buy a top-tier Android phone. While some are better suited to certain situations than others, there really isn’t a bad choice among them. Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are waterproof and still lead the pack in camera performance, though you’ll have to deal with the (much improved!) TouchWiz interface that’s layered on top of Android Marshmallow. The HTC 10’s fit and finish is first-rate, and it handles media better out of the box: It’ll tune your music for your preferences and headphones, for one, and it’s the first Android phone to officially support Apple’s AirPlay streaming standard. Meanwhile, if you’re shopping for flagship power on a budget, the reasonably priced OnePlus 3 brings the speed for a fraction of what the Moto Z and Z Force cost.
But if we’re looking at the Moto Z and Z Force as modular phones, first and foremost, the only real comparison this year is LG’s G5. The broad strokes are similar — Snapdragon 820, 4GB of RAM, a circle of “Friend” accessories — but the Moto Z’s elegant execution gives those two phones a clear edge. Just look at LG’s setup: modules connect to the bottom of the G5, requiring you to remove the phone’s battery, attach it to the new module, stick that whole thing back into the phone and power it up. At best, it’s an annoyance. On the plus side, though, you’ll be able to swap batteries willy-nilly, and you have a really neat dual-camera setup to play with.
Wrap-up
I have to give Motorola credit for doing what LG couldn’t: building modular smartphones that are convenient, cool and worth using. It doesn’t hurt, either, that the Moto Z and Z Force are two of the best-made devices in Motorola’s history, and that they can go toe-to-toe with any other flagship Android phone out there. These devices represent Motorola at the top of its phone-making game.
It’s a shame, then, that some curious decisions have kept me from loving the Z and Z Force more fully. Part of it is the lack of a headphone jack. Maybe I’m old-school, but I can’t be the only one who misses it. Part of it, too, is that some of the Mods are of dubious value. Worse, only a certain chunk of people — Verizon customers — can buy these phones. Ultimately, though, the strength of the Moto Z line and the potential of Moto Mods outweigh the few cons. If you’re a Verizon customer on the hunt for a powerful smartphone, pay attention to these two. (And if you’re a klutz, pay closer attention to the Z Force.) The rest of us will just have to hang in there — Motorola can’t let phones this good stay exclusive for too long.
Tinder Social is a new feature for finding friends to hang with
You already meet potential love matches on Tinder. Why not use the app for making new friends to go and hang out with? That’s what the company hopes you’ll do with the launch of Tinder Social, a new feature that lets users create groups to make connections and hang out together.
Tinder Social came about after a test in Australia that proved a glut of the app’s users have been looking for a feature to aid in planning out their night, their hangouts, and ways to meet new people for concerts and other friendly excursions aside from romantic encounters.
When using the feature, Tinder users can “unlock” Tinder Social to create a group of 1-3 friends with a sole focus, like attending a movie or hitting up a bar. The group access can be turned on or off at any time. When users swipe right on a group they like, the groups will combine and offer up a group chat for planning the event.
The feature is available in the US, UK and select other areas around the world. Need a group to go out Pokemon training with? This could become your go-to solution if you’re a hardcore Tinder user. It’s important to note, however, this isn’t the first app to allow its users to find friends rather than lovers. Dating app Bumble is attempting the same thing with its BumbleBuzz feature.
Alcatel’s Idol 4S bundle is an affordable way to try out VR
This is the year of virtual reality. With the most eagerly anticipated headsets finally becoming available and many content makers creating VR material, 2016 marks the year the medium is started to go mainstream. Alcatel is looking to make it easier to embrace virtual reality by bundling a headset with its latest flagship, all for an impressively low price of $399 ($350 if you preorder). As the first phone to ship with its own VR Goggles, the Idol 4S already stands out for its value. It also has some respectable specs in its own right, including a Quad HD display, two-way speakers and sharp 16-megapixel camera. It’s even got a glossy new makeover. But hitting that price means Alcatel had to make some trade-offs, with the most notable being the CPU. Still, it’s a good phone for those who can live with middling performance.
Hardware
Props to Alcatel for its effort, and for generally succeeding in upping its style game. While last year’s Idol 3 had an unexciting, unassuming look, the 4S is the slick, dressed-up sibling. Its glass-covered body and shiny metal edges are a step up from its predecessor’s bland plastic back. But that style is strongly reminiscent of the Galaxy S6. Sartorially, Alcatel isn’t pushing any envelopes here; it’s still playing catch-up.
There’s nothing new about the Idol 4S’s flat, blocky frame and its 5.5-inch AMOLED display. Even its charging port on the bottom edge is of the older micro-USB variety, as opposed to USB Type-C.
Still, that doesn’t mean the Idol 4S isn’t a handsome handset. Just watch out: That glass covering is a heck of a fingerprint magnet. You’ll need to wipe it down frequently to keep the phone looking pristine.
I also wish Alcatel had gone with physical or capacitive navigation buttons below the Idol 4S’s screen, instead of relying on the software keys in Android. Those digital buttons take up a row of display space, and disappear whenever I play a game or full-screen video.
On the right side sits a round silver button that Alcatel calls the “boom key.” You’ll also find a circular fingerprint sensor etched into the Idol 4S’s rear, right under the camera. This placement is designed to be easy for your finger to reach while the phone is in use, but it’s not the easiest to find by touch, because the area isn’t depressed like it is on other phones.
VR box
When you first open the Idol 4S packaging, you’ll find a white rectangular box with a silver circle on the bottom. Press that, and you can pull apart the whole setup. The top half is the headset, which at first blush looks nearly identical to Samsung’s Gear VR, while the bottom half is a case that contains accessories.
The Idol 4S VR Goggles (yes, that’s the official name) differs from the Gear VR in a few ways. Alcatel placed its controls on the bottom of the viewer, as opposed to on the right edge like Samsung. The Idol 4S also comes with an extra headpiece to help the headset sit more comfortably on your head.
Most important, Alcatel’s system is based on Google’s Cardboard, whereas Samsung’s is the result of a collaboration with Oculus. Those who have never used the Gear VR probably won’t notice the difference in quality, but since I’ve spent a good deal of time with both, it’s clear to me that the Alcatel viewer is not as immersive. I’ve never noticed pixels when using the Gear VR, but a few minutes into a 360-degree video on the Idol 4S VR Goggles I started spotting the fine dots.
Otherwise, the headset, which is spongy around the eyes, feels light and comfortable enough to wear for extended periods. If you wear glasses, putting the goggles on may be a hassle, but it’s not much more difficult than with other setups.
Alcatel provides a VR launcher app that serves as your gateway to compatible content. With it, you get a basic navigation menu with seven tiles floating in a horizontal row over a starry backdrop. These icons let you see games, regular pictures and videos, 360-degree images and videos, a tutorial and Littlstar.
The latter is a third-party provider of VR video content from channels such as ABC News, Discovery VR, Showtime and other independent brands. Its offerings are mostly short, entertaining clips that occasionally look suspiciously like promotional material for those brands’ upcoming shows. In the week that I’ve had the Idol 4S, though, the Littlstar library doesn’t appear to have been updated with new stuff. But to be fair, neither Alcatel nor LIttlstar promises frequent additions to the selections.
Thankfully, Littlstar isn’t the only way to get good VR content on the Idol 4S. You can also go into the VR store app or find more media through Google’s own apps for Cardboard section. Unfortunately, the Idol 4S isn’t certified for Google’s Daydream mobile VR platform yet, so it might not be forward-compatible with upcoming media. Still, for the price, the Idol 4S Goggles and the basic content Alcatel offers is an easy and accessible way to dip your toe into virtual reality.
Display and sound
Just like its predecessor, the Idol 4S has a bright panel that’s easy to see even in direct sunlight. Its 5.5-inch Quad HD AMOLED display is vibrant and sharp, which makes watching Netflix and playing games more immersive. Colors looked more saturated than I’m used to on my iPhone 6s screen. Even though I did eventually start noticing pixelation in VR content when looking through the viewer, high-res videos generally appeared crisp on the phone itself.
One other novelty in the Idol 4S is its dual JBL-certified speakers that pump out sound through both the front and back of the device. This prevents muffling of the audio when you put your phone down on a surface, and worked surprisingly well on both an office table and my bed. I noticed slightly clearer echo when the phone was face up rather than down, but the difference isn’t noticeable unless you go looking for it like I did.
The Idol 4S’s speakers were also satisfyingly loud, and I never had to struggle to hear it at top volume. The included Waves MaxxAudio app lets you change sound profiles for specific situations such as Music, Movie or General. You can also customize the output of bass, treble and revive, but, in general, I left these settings alone.
Software
Like any respectable phone being launched this year, the Idol 4S ships with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. The company said an update to Android Nougat is on its way, although it hasn’t given a timeframe yet.
As is its habit, Alcatel has skinned the otherwise stock OS with the company’s own icons for apps such as Messages, Dialer, Camera and Contacts. This cartoonish look won’t be for everyone, but it’s simple enough to resolve with a theme download.
A new feature for the Idol line is the aforementioned Boom key on the device’s right side. Pressing this in specific apps launch specialized tasks, such as activating photo collages in the Gallery, volume and bass boost in a music player, enhanced surround sound in a video playback and improved voice quality and loudness during a call. These are preset in the software, and you can’t change them or add more, but you can customize what pressing (or double pressing) the Boom key does when the phone screen is off and on.
The in-app Boom functions are hit or miss: I didn’t ever need photo collage mode when viewing my Gallery, but I found the volume boosts very handy. I also liked being able to open a specific app of my choice with one press while the screen is on.
Thankfully. not much bloatware comes loaded on the Idol 4S. In addition to the VR apps mentioned earlier, Alcatel also includes its fun Music app that has a Mix mode for turntable-style DJ-ing on the go. You’ll also get useful titles such as Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp, and the just-tolerable NextRadio and Swiftkey.
Camera
The Idol 4S’s 16-megapixel rear camera took decent shots that weren’t superexciting, but what did impress me was the HDR mode. First of all, turning on HDR may make snapping a pic a tad slower, but it made pictures significantly more colorful and vibrant, while retaining an impressive amount of detail. If you’re shooting a landscape and want some extra oomph, I’d recommend enabling HDR to really bring out all the hues.
Outdoor shots aside, the Idol 4S was also adept at capturing scenes inside buildings. In these situations, however, white balance can be a bit finicky. Alcatel lets you adjust this in manual mode, and you’ll also find options for Panorama, Slow Motion and Micro Video (a la Apple’s Live Photos).
In addition, you get a “Fyuse” mode for taking 360-degree panoramic videos, which you can view as a picture. It’s a little difficult to use, and that’s after a software update Alcatel issued with bug fixes. The camera often had trouble detecting the direction I was moving in and failed to record the video. When it did work, the resulting Fyuse video is basically a video that you can play by dragging on your screen or moving your phone in the corresponding direction.
In low light, the Idol 4S struggled to get a steady shot. Turning on the flash will help get clearer pictures, but it added a yellowish green hue. Until a software fix is issued, don’t expect many great photos at night.
Selfies are decent once you turn down the portrait enhancement to avoid looking muddy and fake. Unlike many other phones with so-called selfie flashes, the Idol 4S actually has a separate bulb next to the front camera to light up your portrait, instead of using the phone’s display. This selfie flash was strong enough to light up my shirt in addition to my face, while still keeping the accurate colors intact.
Performance and battery life
As an iPhone 6s owner and a reviewer of high-end devices, I’m used to blazing speeds and have little tolerance for lag. As such, I was expecting the Idol 4S with its midrange Snapdragon 652 chip to be noticeably slower than I’m accustomed to. I was pleasantly surprised, then, when the Idol 4S held up well under my torture test, during which I had AZ Screen Recorder capturing my Pokémon Go battles with a handful of other apps open.
The resulting video was smooth and had no dropped frames, while my in-game experience was close to (just slightly slower than) what I see on my iPhone without a screen recorder running. I did encounter the occasional stutter and pause, and the phone struggled when I tried to run two games concurrently with the screen recording, crashing when a Hangouts message arrived. Not the best for someone in the middle of an intense high-stakes battle for Pokéstop territory.
More-expensive phones fared better than the Idol 4S on synthetic benchmarks in general, especially when it came to graphics. But the OnePlus 3 stands out, beating the Idol 4S on all but one test despite costing the same.
Moto G4
AndEBench
9,742
13,841
16,371
16,159
Vellamo 3.0
4,831
5,202
2,819
2,762
3DMark IS Unlimited
18,051
30,058
9,851
9,841
GFXBench 3.0 Manhattan Offscreen (fps)
15
48
6.6
6.6
CF-Bench
75,760
41,653
60,998
61,030
Still, the Idol 4S’s performance is impressive for a phone that is using a slower chip than the top-of-the-line Snapdragon 820 that all the high-powered flagships are packing.
The Idol 4S’s 3,000mAh battery provided ample power to last through the day. It lasted 10 hours and 41 minutes on our battery test, which involves looping an HD video at 50 percent brightness. That’s nearly an hour longer than what we saw on the OnePlus 3, although it pales in comparison to the Moto G4’s 12-hour-and-30-minute runtime.
When you run out of juice, recharging is swift, thanks to support for Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 standard. Within 15 minutes of plugging the device in, I saw the power level go up to 33 percent. By the time an hour had passed, the phone was back up to 84 percent.
The competition
With a retail price of $399, the Idol 4S goes up directly against the OnePlus 3 and ZTE Axon 7. Although we’ve yet to review the Axon, its Snapdragon 820 chip with 4GB of RAM, Quad HD AMOLED display and sexy frame already make it seem like the more promising phone for power users. Plus, ZTE says the phone will be compliant with Google’s Daydream mobile VR platform by the fall, making it a worthy consideration for virtual reality fans.
We really liked the OnePlus 3’s performance, handsome build and clean Android-based system with bonus features. It even has a USB Type-C charging port, which will delight early adopters who have already made the switch to the reversible cable. However, the OnePlus 3 has a less-sharp 1080p screen and didn’t last as long as the Idol 4S on our battery test.
If you’re looking for an even cheaper phone than the Idol 4S, Moto’s new G4 and G4 Plus pack plenty of power and more stamina for a low starting price of $200. The G4 Plus also offers better low-light camera performance than the Idol. But the trade-off is a more basic design and lower-resolution screen.
All that considered, no other company has started shipping a VR headset in and as the box of its smartphone, which leaves Alcatel with its unique proposition: Come for the aggressively priced bundle, stay for the intro to VR. And in the meantime, you may discover that the Idol 4S itself is a perfectly adequate phone.
Wrap-up
The Idol 4S is not the sort of fancy handset you’re likely to brag about to your friends, but you’ll definitely want to show off the VR bundle. The 4S may not be the fastest phone around, but its combination of rich display, superb speakers, long-lasting battery and decent cameras make up for the shortfall in speed. Alcatel needs to improve the main camera’s low-light capabilities, as well as build out more extensive library of VR content, potentially through Daydream.
Ultimately, you can’t argue against good value. The truth is, if you order the Idol 4S for $350 before Aug. 3rd, it is the best deal on the market. Miss that deadline, and you’ll have to be more invested in VR than the average buyer, but not so keen that you need a top-notch experience. The Idol 4S’s success will depend on the size of that crowd, and its ability to keep that group engaged.
Qualcomm is selling more chips for high-end smartphones
Qualcomm shipped more Snapdragon chips this quarter than even it expected, and for that reason (and others), made more money. It reported sales of 201 million high-end chips, beating its estimates by at least 6 million. As a result, it raked in sales of $6.04 billion, up 3.6 percent from last year. Not coincidentally, Samsung also reported a very good quarter earlier this month, selling 15 million Galaxy S7/S7 Edge models. The company is, of course, back to using Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chips (which it actually builds itself), after it stopped with the Galaxy S6.
Though Qualcomm’s revenue bump was small, its net income is up 22 percent over last quarter to $1.44 billion. That can also be attributed, in part, to improved sales of its more profitable high-end chips. However, another big reason is that the company is licensing more of its chipsets and technology to China-based OEMs like Huawei, Xiaomi and ZTE, it said. Overall, Qualcomm’s licensees sold $62.6 billion worth of devices.
The immediate future of the company looks good, though there could be a few dark clouds. Samung is going to release it’s much-leaked Galaxy Note 7 shortly, a smartphone that’s expected to have Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 821 CPU in the US, Europe and other markets. That CPU, which gives about a 10 percent performance bump over the 820 model, will likely also appear in upcoming Nexus phones and other important models. However, Apple could switch from Qualcomm to Intel modems on its next model, and as it sold some 231 million phones last year, that could impact the chip company’s bottom line.
Source: Qualcomm (1), (2)
iOS 10 warns when your Lightning port gets wet
Many mobile devices are water-resistant (some more than others), but they’ll rarely tell you when there’s a less-than-obvious danger. You might not find out that you’ve soaked something important until a gadget doesn’t work. Apple appears to have a solution, though: recent betas for iOS 10 will serve a warning when there’s liquid detected in your device’s Lightning port. Ideally, this gives you time to pull an accessory (and dry out your gear) before there’s any real damage.
So far, the feature is only known to work with newer iPhones like the 6s, 6s Plus and SE. We’ve reached out to Apple for confirmation of the feature and will let you know if it has something to say. With that said, it’s not at all shocking that Apple would go this route. It’s helpful to both the company and customers: you might rescue your device when there’s a close call, while Apple spends less time and money on repairs.
[Thanks, Kristy]
Source: Reddit (1), (2), EverythingApplePro (YouTube)
Facebook Live now lets you hide comments, stream for longer
If you’ve been waiting for Facebook Live to offer bigger, longer broadcasts, this is your week. The social network just announced updates for its broadccasting platform that will allow longer, full screen videos with less distractions. Soon, the company says that all users will be able to broadcast for as long as four hours per session, more than doubling the length they could stream without sacrificing VOD archives.
Facebook is also enabling a “video-only” mode that hides viewer comments and reactions. Swiping right will clear the screen for a distraction-free broadcast, temporarily removing viewer interaction from the equation. Finally, the update will enable broadcasters to go live in full screen — but this feature varies by OS: iOS will be able to broadcast in ful lscreen from both portrait and landscape mode, but Android users will have to wait for an update for the latter orientation.
These features will be rolling out to select users soon, and general users over the coming weeks.
Gorilla Glass 5 will save your phone from even bigger falls
It’s been about two years since version four of Corning’s ubiquitous protective glass rolled out, and Gorilla Glass now protects some 4.5 billion devices across the planet. So, you can probably thank Corning if your phone has ever survived a tumble onto the sidewalk. This fall, Corning will start protecting new devices with its toughest version of Gorilla Glass yet. According to the company’s own lab tests, a Gorilla Glass 5 smartphone screen will survive a 1.6-meter drop (about 5 feet, 4 inches) on its face around 80 percent of the time.
“We recently did a survey, and it’s fairly obvious that everyone drops their phone. We find that the average height is over a meter high,” Corning’s Senior VP Jim Steiner explained to TechCrunch. “Based on our internal data on drop events, our data shows that Gorilla Glass 5 outperforms 4 by 1.8-times.”
On the other hand, the latest version is about on-par with version four in terms of scratch resistance. (Which the company tests by putting the phone in a purse, and then tossing the purse in a tumbler barrel.) The new glass is already commercially available and the company expects it to start showing up on retail devices later this quarter.
Finally, for the masochists out there, Corning has put together a cringe-inducing sizzle reel of scratches and drop tests. Be warned, the video is not safe for klutzes:
‘Dots & Co.’ is a meditative puzzle game that should be on your phone
Mobile puzzle game Two Dots (from developer Dots) did a ton of things right when it was released in 2014. The game took a simple mechanic — matching two or more dots of the same color — and added a bunch of great power-ups, varying goals, constant content updates, new mechanics as you progress and a great visual style. It was a huge improvement over the original Dots and was one of the best examples of a free-to-play game that doesn’t nickel-and-dime you to death. It’s easy to play and succeed in the game without ever spending a dollar, if that’s what you want to do.
After releasing more than 700 Two Dots levels, the game’s developer is ready to unveil the next evolution in the series: Dots & Co. is out today for iOS and Android. If you’ve played earlier Dots games, the new one will feel pleasantly familiar: Your job is still to connect same-colored dots, and making a square will clear all of that color off the board. Each level has an objective to be accomplished in limited moves (clear a certain number of specific colored dots, or break all of the “ice” on the board, for example), and you’ll still get up to three stars based on how many points you get. The new game is not the radical change that we saw between the initial Dots and Two Dots. But Dots & Co. is still a fresh and refined experience that introduces a bunch of new gameplay features, and that is definitely a good thing.
The most noticeable change is the new “companions” that help you in each level. Fortunately, these helpers are very subtle. You’ll see them at the top of your screen as you play through a level — a big penguin or eskimo smiling down on you as you play through the level. Throughout the playing field are companion dots; clearing those helps fill up an energy bar at the top of the screen. When it’s full, your companion drops a special move in the screen to help you progress.
This changes the way you play the game in pretty significant ways. In Two Dots, my main focus was on making color-clearing squares to jump-start my progress if I was having a tough time with a level. Now, you can either try and make squares or link together companion dots to get a boost. I’ve only unlocked two companions in the time I’ve played thus far, but I’m looking forward to finding more to see their different abilities.
Probably the other biggest change is to the game’s economy. Instead of starting with five lives that slowly regenerate after you’ve lost them, you use “energy” to start a level. Your meter goes to 15, and each level drops your level by three points. Finishing a level regenerates energy — but you’ll only get all three energy points back if you “ace” the level and get three stars. So even if you keep successfully finishing levels, you’ll run out of energy unless you consistently get three stars, something that could be tough as the difficulty ramps up.
If you want, you can replenish your energy using tokens, but those tokens need to be bought using real-life money unfortunately. The game starts you with 25, and you can use them to replenish your energy fully, give your companion a power-up at the beginning of a level or get some extra moves if you fail to complete a level. Two Dots similarly charged real money for power-ups, but the game also introduced ways to get freebies from time to time; I’m hoping that Dots & Co. does the same at some point. But the company did confirm that, at least for now, you’ll need cash to buy those tokens.
Fortunately, the new companions and their ever-present special moves help keep the game feeling balanced and fair. I haven’t played for long, but the levels haven’t gotten unfair or cruel thus far — if anything, I’m hungering for a bit more of a challenge. Based on Two Dots, I’m sure the game will get much harder as the levels pass. But the Dots team has lots of experience designing fair and fun free-to-play experiences, and that appears to be the case with Dots & Co. as well.
Crucially, Dots & Co. retails the excellent, unique atmosphere and mood of the previous game. It’s one of the least stressful puzzle games out there, with gorgeous graphics and an extremely chill soundtrack. It looks unique and feels like it’s been put together with more care and love than just about any other mobile game out there. Given the entry price (free, if you haven’t been paying attention), it’s absolutely worth a download. And given the many updates Two Dots received (and will continue to receive), you should get plenty of play time out of its sequel. Dots & Co. is out today for iOS and Android — you can download it now from the App Store or Google Play.
Source: iTunes Store, Google Play
AIVAnet 