HP's MB Chronowing smartwatch is more watch than gadget

Earlier this year, HP announced a collaboration with fashion designer Michael Bastian for a new smartwatch that would appeal to more than just nerds. Online retailer Gilt will selling the new watch this coming Friday and The Wall Street Journal has gotten a first look at the device.

According to the Journal, the MB Chronowing will be available with leather, rubber, or nylon straps for $349, or with a crocodile strap and sapphire-glass crystal for a heftier $649. Neither version looks like a typical smartwatch - the MB Chronowing wouldn't look out of place in a glass case full of traditional chronometer-style watches. It's 44mm diameter makes it a pretty large watch, and its chunky bezel recalls Tag Hueur more than Dieter Rams Braun.

The watch doesn't have a touchscreen and instead relies on a black and white LCD for notifications. It doesn't track your step count or have a microphone for voice commands. Bastian's approach to a smartwatch seems to be more in line with what Meta Watch is doing with the M1 than what Apple or Google are doing with their platforms. In addition to an LCD display, the MB Chronowing includes a clock dial for reading the time. The battery is said to last up to seven days between charges and the watch will work with both Android and iOS devices.

Image courtesy of The Wall Street Journal

There are two camps in the smartwatch world: the ones that pack many features as possible into a wrist computer, and those that approach the smartwatch from the perspective of a traditional watch maker. Michael Bastian's watch falls firmly in that second camp, so it likely won't appeal to those lusting after a Moto 360 or Apple Watch. But if you want a nice watch that happens to also alert you to new messages or emails, the MB Chronowing could be an appealing choice.

Amazon's Grand Design in Devices

Amazon introduces new gadgets the way a guerrilla army prepares for attack: unsteadily at first, and then with unexpected ferocity.

The company usually begins by putting out feelers to test the market. In 2007, it started selling its first e-reader, the Kindle, a device that went for $399 and was as ugly as a naked mole rat. But Jeff Bezos, Amazon 's chief executive, is known for patience and a willingness to experiment.

At some point, because Amazon's data showed that Kindle owners purchased more Kindle books than they did print books, the company began selling the e-readers at cost, expecting to make a profit on e-book sales.

That set in motion a path to domination. Today, with its latest high-end reader, the Voyage, offering a display that looks just as good as a hardcover, Amazon has vanquished just about every competing e-reader, and the Kindle has become the most triumphant and menacing brand in publishing.

Amazon now looks to be preparing a full-scale ground invasion of the rest of the gadget landscape. In addition to a new Kindle reader, this year the company entered two new device categories, and it expanded the rest of its hardware lineup.

Yet its strategy appears puzzling, with a lineup of tablets and other devices that sound fantastic in theory, but often fall short of greatness in real-world use.

Amazon now makes four different kinds of devices. There are dedicated e-readers, multipurpose tablets and, starting this year, a TV streaming device and a smartphone, the Fire Phone. Just this week, Amazon introduced another streaming machine, the Fire TV Stick, a $39 gadget that is the size of a USB stick and promises to turn your television into an Amazon-powered video service.

When you count each variation of each device, you find that Amazon, the ostensible retailer, makes more hardware products than Google does, and almost as much stuff as Apple.

Spending time with its devices, as I did recently, offers a peek into Amazon's otherwise opaque soul. The hardware shows off Amazon's strengths in the continuing tech war between it and Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft. Among these strengths: Like a true retailer, Amazon appreciates the attractiveness of clever pricing strategies, and of giving customers devices that feel expensive, but aren't. Amazon, more than most rivals, also understands the value of packaging customer service with its hardware. Its high-end tablets include Mayday, a system that instantly summons a live video call with an agent who can answer most of your how-to questions - which is one of the best features on any device by any company.

But Amazon's devices also highlight its deep weaknesses. The company seems congenitally blind to the charms of hardware and software design, and it has not yet managed to attract enough partners, including app developers, to expand the utility of its devices. It was the lack of apps, among other flaws, that doomed the Fire Phone, the device Amazon began selling with tremendous fanfare in July. Amazon disclosed last week that it was sitting on $83 million in unsold Fire Phones, and would be taking a $170 million write-down on that program.

These shortcomings strain the case for Amazon's devices. If you are mostly interested in entertainment, and if you are looking for a good deal, it could be a good idea to take a chance on Amazon's ecosystem, especially its tablets. As I wrote last February, Amazon remains the best place online to buy books, movies, music and other media, because content from Amazon works seamlessly across different kinds of devices. Amazon's tablets are also attractive if you are in the market for low-priced devices for your children.

But if you are looking for more - more flexibility and utility in your gadgets, better design, and primarily assurance that your device will work with whatever great new hardware or software that comes along next - look elsewhere.

Consider the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9, the svelte machine that sits at the head of Amazon's tablet lineup. The HDX has three main strengths: It's very thin, it's two ounces lighter than Apple's new iPad Air 2, and it has a brilliant screen. This year Amazon blessed the HDX 8.9 with a faster processor than was available in last year's model, better graphics capabilities and a surround-sound system made by Dolby. At $379, the HDX is also $120 cheaper than Apple's latest large-screen iPad. Amazon also makes a seven-inch HDX that it sells for $179, but that device remains unchanged from last year's model.

On paper, the HDX 8.9 sounds like a great deal. But using it is kind of meh. The HDX sure is thin and light, but because it is made out of a plasticky magnesium alloy - rather than the brushed aluminum of the iPad - it feels a bit rubbery and cheap. More than that, it's undistinguished, a generic black slab. It looks more like a tablet designed by a minimalist robot than one thought up by a human.

But the biggest problem is what to do with this device. As they become squeezed in our lives between bigger phones and better laptops, tablets have lately been suffering an identity crisis; there doesn't seem to be much to do on a high-powered tablet that you couldn't do better on a phone or computer. That problem plagues Apple's new iPads, but it's even more pronounced on a tablet like the HDX, which does not have a great bank of the latest apps to give it extra utility. As a result I mostly found myself watching Amazon's streaming movies and surfing the Web. In this way, the HDX 8.9 compares unfavorably with last year's Apple iPad Air, which is now on sale for $399 - $20 more than the HDX, but worth the price in access to a great deal more apps.

Amazon's lower-end Kindle tablets offer a much more compelling case. The company makes six-inch and seven-inch Fire HD tablets that start at $99 and $139; for $50 more, either size comes in a ' kid's edition,' which includes a cute rubber case, a one-year subscription to Amazon's selection of children's movies and TV shows, and a two-year, no-questions-asked replacement guarantee. There's that clever pricing strategy.

Like the HDX, the Fire HDs are boxy and appear generic, and they do not have access to the latest apps. But for that price, it's hard to quibble with form over function. For people whose only interest in tablets is to consume media, these tablets are great deals. They are pretty speedy, they have passable interfaces, and if you are into watching TV shows and playing games, they sure get the job done.

What is Amazon's endgame with all these devices? Mr. Bezos has always said that his mission, with hardware, is to delight users with devices that are priced fairly. The devices also contribute to Mr. Bezos's famous 'flywheel,' the virtuous cycle by which greater customer satisfaction leads to more sellers in his store, which leads to more products, greater efficiencies, lower prices and, in turn, more customers.

'Everything is about getting that flywheel spinning, and it isn't necessarily about building a big and successful tablet business of their own,' said Benedict Evans, an analyst who works at the investment firm Andreessen Horowitz and has studied Amazon closely. 'Whether they actually drive meaningful commerce isn't entirely clear, but Amazon is rigorously focused on data, so if they're doing it, you can trust that there must be data that justifies it.'

And if this year's devices don't take off, you can bet that Mr. Bezos will try a slightly different tack next year.

Correction: October 29, 2014

Amazon Kindle Voyage, a High-End E-Reader That Beats Hardcovers

A Credit Card Terminal That Takes Apps

Last year, Osama Bedier-then the head of Google Wallet -decided he was on the wrong side of the payments business.

Bedier's new company, Poynt, has a new kind of credit-card terminal. The sleek-looking, $299 touch-screen gadget accepts cards with embedded chips-which will soon be widespread-as well as digital payments, and can run apps for things like customer loyalty programs and sales analytics. Poynt unveiled the device on Wednesday and plans to ship it to merchants in early 2015.

Google's digital payment app, Google Wallet, offers consumers a number of payment-related features, including a quick way to pay at stores by tapping a phone that contains a near-field communication (NFC) chip. Although adoption of Google Wallet has been slow, NFC technology is gaining in popularity, and that is likely to accelerate with the introduction of a similar system from Apple, called Apple Pay (see ' With Apple Pay, Forget Cash, Just Pull Out Your Phone ').

Meanwhile, the U.S.'s major credit-card companies are mandating a shift to more secure credit cards that eschew the familiar magnetic strip for a chip that uses a unique string of numbers for each transaction (a standard known as EMV, which stands for 'Europay, Mastercard, and Visa' for the card companies that first backed the technology).

This change, which has already occurred in other parts of the world and aims to staunch the kinds of security breaches that have occurred at major retailers like Target, Neiman Marcus, and Home Depot, means that U.S. merchants must upgrade millions of credit-card terminals to accept the new cards by October 2015 or face liability for any fraudulent transactions.

Bedier, a former PayPal executive who came to Google in 2011, saw an opportunity to switch his focus from the gadgets we can use to make payments to the ones used to handle the transactions: credit-card terminals and cash registers.

'No matter how great the value proposition, you can't force people to install new technology if it's a 'nice to have,'' Bedier says. 'People only change technology when they have to.'

Poynt's terminal is dominated by two touch screens that meet at an angle-a seven-inch display that a store employee will use to ring up sales and a 4.3-inch display facing the opposite direction that a customer will peer at to see details of the transaction and sign their approval. The apex of the device houses a slot for dipping a credit card, and there's a built-in receipt printer that will spit out paper from an opening below the customer touch screen.

The Poynt device, Bedier says, is meant to accept all kinds of payments that may become increasingly popular in the coming years. It accepts payments via NFC (used by services such as Google Wallet and Apple's new Apple Pay) and QR code. It includes Bluetooth as well.

Bedier showed me how it works during an interview conducted via Skype video. The Poynt terminal he used said 'Welcome to Main St. Bakery' on the customer screen, and showed a few different payment options. Merchants could use the screen for ads or store specials when not taking payments, Bedier says.

Bedier had a colleague come and make a purchase using Apple Pay on an iPhone: Bedier typed in the amount due and the colleague tapped the terminal with his iPhone while placing his finger on the iPhone's home button-which on newer models is also a fingerprint reader-to validate his identity.

The Poynt terminal weighs a little over a pound and contains a wireless modem and eight-hour rechargeable battery, which means it could be carried around a store or restaurant if needed. It will come with three apps, including a cash register app and an app that lets merchants pick out insights about their sales, such as what's selling best and worst.

In addition to convincing merchants to pay $299 for the device (Bedier contends this is about what they'd pay for one of the new card terminals anyway), Poynt will have to get developers interested. Bedier says the company won't make money from sales of the device itself, or a cut of payment fees. Instead, it plans to take a cut of revenue from sales of apps that will run on the device.

This means Poynt is largely dependent on the success of developer apps for its survival. On Wednesday, it showed off its first steps toward corralling developers by naming six partners including Intuit, Vend, and Kabbage, and releasing a software development kit in hopes of attracting other developers, too.

Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones review (Wii U): A better bastard

Released on Thursday, Oct 30 2014

Curve Studios has been making a name for itself as of late primarily by porting the games of other indie developers to new consoles, so it is exciting to see the studio return to one of its own creations with Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones.

The first game, Stealth Inc: A Clone in the Dark - previously known as Stealth Bastard - introduced players to PTI, a toy company which tests its products by sending a legion of goggle-wearing clones though a series of death traps.

While players could eventually unlock these toy gadgets to replay levels in new ways, none of the levels were designed specifically for them so gadgets came off as more of an afterthought.

With Stealth Inc 2, Curve Studios has taken a broader look at PTI's toy line, mechanically picking up where the first game left off and bringing gadgets to the forefront in a big way.

But to explain why gadgets are now so important, it's worth touching on a major change in how Stealth Inc 2 is structured compared to its predecessor.

Using multiple gadgets in concert with each other to get across an enemy-filled hallway is incredibly rewarding, making the overworld almost more fun to explore than completing the test chambers. The game still consists of a series of test chamber levels, but now those test chambers are spread across a sprawling factory facility for you to explore.

This overworld map is split into six regions, with the test chambers in each region all revolving around a specific gadget.

These challenge levels are brilliantly designed, seamlessly blending these new tools into the original game's vision of fast-paced stealth action.

For those unfamiliar with the first Stealth Inc, the core of the game revolves around precision timing while avoiding an enemy's line of sight. This means smartly using platforms in the environment and shadows to evade detection while triggering switches and hacking terminals in order to reach the level's exit.

The action is fast, so there is a lot of trial and error involved, but each failed attempt acts as a lesson for how to proceed better the next time. Combined with the game's instant respawn times and generous checkpoints, it mitigates frustration by ensuring that you will get to use those lessons you learned right away.

The addition of gadgets breathes new life into those core mechanics, with some of the game's more inventive highlights coming from tools such as a portable light in a series of pitch black levels and a cloning tool that challenges you to manipulate two characters at the same time.

There are some difficulty hiccups and spikes along the way, but nothing that can't be solved by taking a step back from the game and returning to the puzzle later.

Where Stealth Inc 2 really shines is in the fact that after completing the boss test chamber in each region you then unlock that region's gadget to use while exploring the rest of the facility.

Unlike the test chambers, there is no time limit while running around the facility, giving you free reign to explore at your leisure. There is a lot to explore too, with a massive overworld map filled with hidden test chambers to discover, costume pieces to dress your goggled hero up in and new shortcuts you can access with each new gadget you unlock.

And while test chambers are strictly designed around a single gadget, the overworld is far more open to experimenting with multiple tools at once. You can still only equip a single gadget at a time, but you can switch between them instantly with the Wii U GamePad's touchscreen or holding the X button to pause time as you cycle between them.

Using multiple gadgets in concert with each other to get across an enemy-filled hallway is incredibly rewarding, making the overworld almost more fun to explore than completing the test chambers.

Stealth Inc 2 also features a unique co-operative mode, where one player controls the goggled hero with a Wii remote and nunchuck while their partner assists from the Wii U GamePad.

The GamePad player can't control a character directly, but they can draw on the screen to offer hints or highlight paths for the other player to follow, as well as activate special tools like hologram and sound decoys to distract enemies.

When playing co-operatively the game will also make some enemies only visible to the GamePad player, who must tap and hold the stylus on an enemy for them to appear on the television.

It requires a lot of coordination and communication between the two players to be successful, which can get frustrating with the game's often fast pace, but if you have a friend around it is definitely at least worth giving a try.

Capping off Stealth Inc 2 is a robust level editor, with the ability to upload your level creations to a community server or play on anyone else's custom levels.

Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones improves on the first game in every way. The level editor is a bit intimidating, to be honest, without much in the way of explanation for how all of its tools function and menus that aren't as easy to navigate as they could be.

However, just from looking at some of the early creations others have made it is clear that the level editor has a lot of power behind it. Already on the servers players have created their own boss levels, morphing labyrinths and levels that offer new challenges with the game's wonderful gadgets.

Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones improves on the first game in every way. Test chambers incorporate gadgets for fun and clever puzzles while the sprawling Metroidvania-style map gives a chance to really experiment with your abilities while you explore.

Stealth Inc 2 is a remarkably well-crafted and well-paced platformer, and one of the most welcome surprises to arrive on the Wii U this year.

Eva Is The First Wearable Couples' Vibrator (video/NSFW)

Kristie Bertucci is an L.A.-based writer, who can't live without her MacBook Pro. When she's not writing, she's either reading or shopping (online, of course) and loves lazy days so she can catch up on her DVR-recorded shows and movies. She's definitely a Mac girl, she loves music and is currently on a mission to to have an insane and enviable iTunes library.

PhotoMath Does Your Math Homework

Kristie Bertucci is an L.A.-based writer, who can't live without her MacBook Pro. When she's not writing, she's either reading or shopping (online, of course) and loves lazy days so she can catch up on her DVR-recorded shows and movies. She's definitely a Mac girl, she loves music and is currently on a mission to to have an insane and enviable iTunes library.

Castle Review: “Meme Is Murder”

This cyber-themed episode really should have been in Season One or Two. A serial killer using an Instagram-like service called Snappamatic to get revenge, because he was bullied isn't exactly 'modern.' It's like the writers just discovered photo sharing and 3D printers and wanted to show off these cool, 'new' technologies, but instead ended up looking like the out of touch, older relative who is still amazed by CDs.

Every technological reveal in this episode is played with wide-eyed amazement. You mean someone can be anonymous on the Internet? Wow! A machine that make objects from a digital file? You don't say! It's weird, because Castle usually has super cyber sleuth Tory doing some pretty insane, cutting edge stuff, but in this episode Castle is blown away by a portable 3D printer. Considering he's a rich, gadget-obsessed nerd, does anyone out there think Rick didn't already have a 3D printer at home?

Then we get to the plot, itself. The bullied kid who becomes a killer is unfortunately a fact of life in the modern world, as time and time again the perpetrators of school shootings are revealed to be kids who were relentlessly bullied and finally 'snapped.' But a bullied kid who becomes a genius serial killer struck me as a little absurd. A school shooting spree is one thing, but a systematic, technologically advanced campaign of revenge against spoiled cyber celebs-the police and tech entrepreneur was pushing it, for me. That said, I'm not a psychologist and I'm not saying it won't or can't happen. Just that, as a viewer, it seemed farfetched.

When it became clear that killer Adam Lane was murdering people not only for revenge, but also to create a legacy for himself-an online legend that will live forever-the wheels really came off this bus. While yes, Beckett's interrogation worked, Lane's selfish motive was entirely built on a semi-myth about the Internet. He would have a legacy! His crimes would live forever, etc., etc. Well, sort of.

While it's damn near impossible to scrub oneself from the Web to any degree of completion, the constant stream of new, shiny things to look at means that the general public has the memory span of a goldfish. Combine that with whatever scrubbing law enforcement is able to do, and Lane would likely become just another sad Wikipedia entry.

I also had a problem with using a bullied kid as the model psychopath in an episode of entertainment, without including anything about the potential costs of bullying. Hell, even a PSA at the end of the episode would have been nice. I'm not suggesting some preachy 'a very special episode of Castle/after school special' kind of a thing, but bullying is clearly a serious problem, and it's irresponsible not to address the issue.

This was also pretty much a single plot episode. Very little family, nothing about Ryan or Espo's lives, and nothing about Castle's disappearance. Not that I expected anything about the latter. I think the writers are going to let that one sit for a while.

Overall, this played like the 'last episode before November Sweeps' that it was. Safe, simple and somewhat dull. Filler, really. It's more than likely, an episode no one will ever watch again.

Some Thoughts:

* I love David Marciano and am always happy to see him. * Based on the next episode preview, it looks like the Caskett wedding is finally going to happen, and I hope this isn't just another tease. With the 'Castle is thrust into a world where he and Beckett have never met' storyline for the next episode, the door is open for an imaginary wedding. * I hope not, because the dude ranch/Wild Wild West honeymoon, looks like fun!

Mark Rabinowitz is a Nashville-based freelance writer, film producer, and regular contributor to Paste. He is the co-founder of Indiewire.com and a former film critic for CNN.com. He worships at the shrine of swine. Praise the lard. You can follow him on Twitter.

Three tips for a smoother Apple Pay experience

Apple Pay is already easy enough to use, but with a few tips you can tailor the experience to fit your needs.

Jason Cipriani/CNET

Apple Pay is arguably the most straight-forward mobile payment solution we've seen thus far. Tim Cook announced it has seen over 1 million users activate a card on the service in the first 72 hours -- more than the number of users who signed up for all similar services combined.

Yet with its ease of use, and simplistic approach, there are a few tips and settings you should know about.

Selecting a card at checkout

There are two ways to pay with Apple Pay at an NFC terminal. The first is to tap your phone to the terminal with your finger on the Touch ID button. Leaving your finger in place causes your default card to be used to process the payment.

The second method allows you to tap your phone to the terminal, without your finger on the Touch ID button, which brings up a list of the cards you've added to your Apple Pay account. You can then select the card you want to use for the transaction, place your finger on the Touch ID button and complete your purchase.

Transaction details Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

Apple Pay isn't just a form of payment within physical retail stores. Developers can add Apply Pay to iOS apps, making it possible to order a ride through Uber, or a new case for your iPad Air 2 in the Apple Store app using your fingerprint.

In order to save yourself some time with your first in-app Apple Pay purchase, add your billing and shipping info to your account.

Launch the Settings app. Find and select Passbook & Apple Pay. Fill out the fields under the Transaction Defaults section. Disable Alerts Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

Some service providers offer instantaneous alerts when an Apple Pay transaction goes through. Though, for those who don't want to receive an alert for each transaction, they can be a tad annoying. Luckily you can disable alerts on a card-by-card basis.

Launch the Settings app. Find and select Passbook & Apple Pay. Select the card you want to disable alerts for. Move the Card Notifications switch to the Off position.

Remember, you will need to independently setup each device you use Apple Pay on. Since Apple stores your payment information in the 'secure enclave,' it doesn't sync between your devices as your Passbook Passes do.

Foreo Luna is the Ultimate Gadget for Exfoliating: Review

If you aren't familiar with the brand Foreo... then you better start paying attention. The company is shaking up the skincare industry with unique beauty gadgets that will make your skin glisten and feel renewed. But the company doesn't just want women's skin to look good - but men's too. To that effect, the Luna is their flagship anti-aging and facial cleaning system. This device challenges stalwart brands like Clarisonic Mia or Olay Pro X.

One of the most standout features of the Foreo Luna is the design. It is easy to hold and smoothly glides across your face. It has T-Sonic pulsations that power the silicone bristles that sweep away the blackheads in those pesky pores. The Luna also manages to get deep into the pores and leaves your face feeling clean after 1 minute of use. The key is to use it in conjunction with whatever cleanser you're currently using. I paired the Luna with the ClarityMD, a cleanser that already leaves your face feeling clean and refreshed. Combine that with the Luna, and my face has taken on a whole new dimension.

You can cycle through several different speeds on the Luna that work best for you. Each one provides a different sensation on your skin. The Luna I used was for Sensitive/Normal skin. My face always felt smooth after using it, and didn't exhibit any redness.

After several days of using the device, in the morning and then at night, I could see the difference in my skin. My pores looked smaller and I had this lovely glow. I also didn't need to charge it very often either - it has lasted so far a month on a single charge. So go ahead and dump your washcloth... this is all you need to wash your face ever again.

Verdict

There are so many exfoliating devices on the market now, many of which cost a fraction of the price of the Foreo Luna. However, many of them require you to replace the pads after several uses, and quite honestly they do not compare in quality, design, and function. For $199 you are not only getting a unique beauty device, but a lifelong friend for your face. We conclude that the Luna is a must for your everyday skincare management.

The Foreo Luna is available for $199 and is available for Ultra-Sensitive Skin, Sensitive /Normal Skin, and Combination Skin types.

'Skylanders' Trap Team Games Review: Given High Credits On Perfecting The ...

'Skylanders' Trap Team Games Review: Given High Credits On Perfecting The Formula Making It More Eye-Catching 'Skylanders' Trap Team Games Review: Given High Credits On Perfecting The Formula Making It More Eye-Catching

The 'Skylanders' fans are not only keeping their eyes and attention to the new games, also they want to be able to get and collect a new line of collectible figures. Every 'Skylanders' instalment offers new collectible characters and this practice, even continues with the Skylanders: Trap Team. They keep on making a trend with the launch of the outsized, translucent plastic weapon-wielding 'Trap Master' characters. But what makes this collection even more exciting, is that the villains are the real stars of the game. Unlike other collectibles, the new figures are as striking as its villains.

The developers of the 'Skylanders succeeded' in making all the four major console releases of the game equally exciting and thrilling. Unlike other series, the thrill drops with every new series. The developers made an excellent investment in making equilibrium between the standalone escapades and the 'collect 'em all' demand of the franchise's chief attraction, Digital Trends reported. It is the players' capacity to buy, colorful, sculptured figures that can be brought to life in every game.

The developers of the 'Skylanders' should be given high credits on perfecting the hard to pin down formula which makes the franchise's newest instalment 'Skylanders: Trap Team' more eye-catching. The adventures provided in the past are also somewhat similar to the 'Trap Team' where players are placed in the 'Post Master' role. This is the world defender of Skylands as well as the gatekeeper between the Skylander's toy characters and their active, in-game corresponding items.

Players will love it that as an alternative to fighting the diabolical franchise machinations of villains Kaos, the 'Trap Team' gives the players the responsibility of protecting and saving Skylands from a group of even more diabolical bad characters that are Cloudcracker Prison runaways.

'The Skylanders: Trap Team' holds truth to its name. This newest instalment of 'Skylanders' offers the players the ability to 'trap' enemies with the use of the 'Traptanium.' This is a transparent plastic piece that can be slotted into a portal gadget and play as the foes throughout the game. There is no reason in this world for you to ignore or refuse to check what this new sequel is all about.

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iPhone 6 Plus Review: Almost Too Much of a Good Thing - NDTV

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The iPhone 6 Plus breaks a lot of the rules and defies a lot of the logic that Apple has stuck to for a number of years. It's a copycat device, it chases a market that the company did not create for itself, it introduces fragmentation in a previously restrained product lineup, and it doesn't immediately give you the sense that you need to own one. In short, it's the most un-Apple-like Apple product we've seen in a very, very long time.

The famously selective company (many would call it arrogant) repeatedly dismissed and even ridiculed the idea of outsized smartphones for many years; defying industry trends and sticking with a smaller shape that was easy to use in one hand despite an obvious shift in the market. In the past, Apple has been defined by its refusal to participate in such 'bubble' markets and has instead created its own - it suffered endless criticism for being the only PC manufacturer to never have offered a netbook, but then proceeded to destroy that entire product category by introducing the iPad and defining the future of touch-first portable devices.

Now, that philosophy seems to have been discarded completely. Apple has done a 180 and is now chasing a market created by one of its fiercest rivals. The iPhone 6 Plus is many years late to the phablet party - Apple couches this by saying it only makes moves when it knows it's ready with something truly brilliant, but it isn't hard to see this as a very reactionary product. In fact, this is one of the rare Apple products that will be defined by its competitors. Apple seems confident that the iPhone 6 Plus will work against the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, LG G3 ( Review | Photos) and others in this size class. Let's see if that holds true, or if Apple will come out of this battle looking like a sore loser.

Look and Feel

The iPhone 6 Plus is pretty much identical to the iPhone 6 in terms of styling and proportions, but is of course larger. It's significantly bigger than the iPhone 5s and absolutely towers over the 4S and earlier models - anyone who has used an iPhone before will be a little thrown by its sheer size. It's just awkward; like a teenager who's had a sudden growth spurt. It fits in a trouser pocket but you'll always feel it there when walking around.

Competitors in the Android space have moved to on-screen controls and minimal bezels - the idea being that all attention should be focused on the screen. That isn't the case here - there's a lot of space both above and below the screen, necessitated by the physical Home button with its integrated Touch ID sensor.

What does work for the iPhone 6 Plus is how it feels. Apple hasn't in any way reduced the amount of attention it pays to physical, material and construction quality. The curved aluminium sides and rounded corners are a departure from the iPhone 5- and 4-series, and feel better in the hand. The glass front extends right to the edges and is also curved to meet the aluminium frame - this makes it one of the most comfortable phones to hold up to your ear, but leaves us slightly worried about potential shattering if the phone is ever dropped.

The iPhone 6 Plus is also amazingly thin. It isn't all that light, but the weight is very nicely balanced. The power button has been moved to the right edge, which is another touch pioneered by competitors. Everything else is the same as before - volume and mute controls on the left, SIM card tray on the right, and headset socket, Lightning port and speaker cutout on the bottom.

Around the sides and back, you'll see plastic lines framing the top and bottom of the phone, which are necessary to let the various antennas work through the metal body. This is the only part of the device that looks a little ugly - not such a huge crime, but disappointing by Apple standards. Also on the back is the now-famous protruding camera, which isn't as prominent as it is on the regular-sized iPhone 6. We felt it catch on things in our pocket once or twice, but otherwise it was a non-issue.

Specifications

Apple doesn't say much about the exact specifications of its new A8 processor, other than the fact that it's 64-bit and works alongside a dedicated motion co-processor (the M8) so that sensor input can be processed constantly without wasting power. Benchmark apps report that the CPU has two cores, and speculation online pins the speed at 1.4GHz. Apple prefers talking about power efficiency, and we know that despite the transistor count increasing to two billion, the 20nm manufacturing process brings about significant improvements to battery life. In terms of CPU specifications alone, the A8 pales in comparison to Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 800 series. There's 1GB of RAM, which, again, is well below the 3GB standard of modern Android flagships. We'll just have to let the benchmark tests decide how much difference these things make.

The iPhone 6 Plus is defined by its screen, though again we're dealing with specs that seem inferior to the competition. The 'Retina HD' display has a resolution of 1080x1920 pixels, which was standard for other, smaller flagship phones over a year ago, and has made its way down to quite a few budget models as well now. We've seen better in terms of sharpness, but we are still impressed with the iPhone 6 Plus in terms of colour accuracy, brightness and vibrancy.

Apple continues its stubborn refusal to allow storage expansion. The 16GB model costs Rs. 62,500 which is not a small amount by any standard, but you'll still be constrained in terms of apps, games, music, movies, photos and recorded videos. It's ridiculous to have a huge screen, powerful processor and brilliant camera but not be able to do anything with them. You'll have to shell out at least another Rs. 9,000 for the 64GB model which makes at least some amount of sense. Of all the ways in which Apple should have emulated its competition, we can't think of a more tragic missed opportunity.

New to the iPhone 6 generation is a barometer which allows the M8 co-processor to detect changes in elevation and better track physical activity. There's also NFC, though it works only with the Apple Pay system has only just launched in the US and is not available anywhere else yet. Wi-Fi has been updated to the faster ac standard and more LTE bands are supported (the variant sold here also works with the Indian 2300MHz band).

Software and the big screen

Once again, Samsung's Galaxy Note series jumps to mind as the obvious point of comparison, thanks to features that let you run apps side by side, trigger commands with a stylus, multitask, and do dozens of other handy little things. Samsung could even be accused of going overboard, but the fact is that it recognises how many different things you can do with a big, powerful Android device. LG, Sony, HTC and others aren't far behind either.

Apple, on the other hand, has barely made any modifications to iOS to take advantage of the big screen. Certain apps can display an iPad-style sidebar in landscape mode, and the landscape keyboard has a few extra shortcut keys on either side. That's about it - everything else is simply iOS as we already know it, just a whole lot bigger. Apps which haven't been optimised look quite comical, but even the OS seems to be uncomfortable in its new role. There's far too much white space in some places, and things are too big in others.

For the sake of consistency across products, Apple has decided not to add functionality or change the layout of things such as the Control Centre and Music app. There isn't even an extra numerical row on the keyboard (though third-party solutions are now available). Within many apps, there is more content where it can be accommodated. You can see multiple columns in the App Store, Safari's Reader View is a lot more useful, and most apps can be used in either portrait or landscape mode even if that isn't possible on regular-sized iPhones.

Most of the best software touches are thanks to iOS 8, and are not exclusive to the iPhone 6 Plus. These include app extensions for better multitasking and sharing, Notification Centre widgets for information at a glance, iTunes account family sharing, the Health app for tracking physical activity and nutrition, and plenty of other little tweaks and improvements that all iOS users can enjoy.

The one concession is Reachability - a new gesture that cleverly pulls everything on screen about halfway down for a few moments so you can reach buttons or links without stretching your thumbs too much. You have to lightly double-tap the Touch ID sensor to trigger it. It isn't always quicker or more practical than simply reaching out a finger, since you're balancing this phone in two hands all the time anyway.

Third-party apps are a mixed bag - those that have been updated are all right, but older ones just look ridiculous. Most games look great and videos of course benefit the most. Ebooks in flexible formats and even static PDF pages are a lot easier to handle. Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Garage Band and iMovie are all easier, and in some ways more rewarding, to use.

It seems as though there's a lot of missed opportunity here, and we wouldn't be surprised to see Apple venture further out of its comfort zone in the future. Much like basic functionality was added to the original iPhone over the course of several years, Apple might be taking a cautious approach and easing in to things in this new product category.

Still, that doesn't help anyone who is considering buying an iPhone 6 Plus here and now. iOS is by nature more restricted than Android, and the gulf now feels a lot worse. Put simply, Android options have an edge in terms of functionality, while the big iPhone is pretty much just a big iPhone.

Camera

iPhones have always had good cameras, and Apple has prided itself on improving quality each year even if the resolution stays static. The emphasis this time is on video - continuous stabilisation and autofocus are new, and slow-mo can now be switched between 120fps and 240fps. Apple also promises quicker autofocus locking, improved colour accuracy and low-light performance. The iPhone 6 Plus stands apart from its smaller sibling in that it supports optical image stabilisation - the lens actively moves to compensate for slight vibrations and shaky hands.

Apple has never given users much control over camera settings, but that has changed a little with the iPhone 6 generation and iOS 8. There are more controls on screen than ever before, and others are less obvious. You can tap and hold to lock the focus, but exposure can still be adjusted independently by tapping a slider that appears. There's very little to say about the app - you might prefer third-party alternatives if you like having lots of controls at your disposal.

(Click to see full size)

The size and shape of the iPhone 6 Plus make it comfortable to hold while taking photos. The thick screen borders give you enough space to put your thumbs while framing shots. We enjoyed playing with the slow-mo and time lapse modes but, predictably, our results weren't anywhere near as impressive as Apple's demo videos.

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Surprisingly, Apple hasn't bothered supporting 4K video - it probably doesn't believe users should want such functionality and has never allowed users to choose between image and video size options. This puts Apple firmly behind its competitors, and is especially disappointing since Apple has used 4K video to show off the capabilities and screens of its recent Macs. Anyway, it's unlikely that you'd be able to record much 4K video on anything less than the 128GB model.

(Click to see full size)

Image quality really did impress us. We were very pleased with the iPhone 6 Plus's camera in low light as well as daylight. Subjects consistently looked natural and details were excellent, with low noise. Subtle textures and colour gradients came out without suffering too much compression. On some occasions, we did feel that the 8-megapixel resolution prevented us from resizing and cropping images in ways we might have liked. For most people though, photos are only ever going to be seen as-is on a phone, tablet or PC screen.

(Click to see full size)

Performance

The iPhone 6 Plus's specifications might not look competitive on paper, but the real world is a different story altogether. This phone is screamingly fast and it doesn't have any problem keeping up with Android flagships. The UI is fluid, apps load quickly, and performance is pretty much never a problem. We tried a few games such as Asphalt 8 and Infinity Blade II and were very pleased with the results. Graphics look incredible - we tried the Zen Garden demo which takes advantage of Apple's new Metal API for graphics, and were impressed yet again.

Benchmark scores were mostly good - 3DMark's Ice Storm and Ice Storm Extreme tests were both maxed out, and we got a score of 18,101 in Ice Storm Unlimited which is just a little higher than what the Sony Xperia Z3 ( Review | Photos) managed, but lower than the HTC One (M8)'s score. Another graphics benchmark, GFXbench, returned a very good score of 40.9fps. SunSpider posted an extraordinarily low time of 366.1ms. The iOS version of AnTuTu gave us a shockingly good score - 49,353 - but it shouldn't be compared directly to the results of Android phones, and in fact the app wasn't optimised and detected the screen resolution as 640x1136 which makes us slightly discount this result.

Videos play well although sound is a little underwhelming. It's loud and doesn't distort, but is also quite lifeless. We were much happier with sound through a headset than through the single mono speaker on the iPhone's bottom - it's high time Apple did something about this.

The screen is phenomenal at any angle. It can get really bright and there's no problem using it outdoors in the middle of the day. All in all, we can't blame Apple for choosing 1080x1920 over something higher - the problems with screen scaling are all to do with software, not the screen itself.

Battery life was also on the high side. We managed to play our test video in a loop for 11 hours, 4 minutes before the phone shut itself down automatically. This means it should be possible to get more than a full day's use out of this phone, including a bit of gaming.

Verdict

There are plenty of people who will love the iPhone 6 Plus because they've always wanted a larger iPhone. There are also those who have never understood big phones and will not find any reason to if they use this one. Apple is in someone else's shadow for the first time, and it shows - the vision just isn't as clear as it should be. There's a lot that needs to be done, especially in terms of software, to make this product more useful. It might take Apple a while to get it right, in which case we might as well wait for next year's inevitable refresh.

For most people, it will be hard to decide between the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus. Price is definitely a factor, but the two are nearly identical in every way other than physical size. You don't lose any bragging rights by choosing the iPhone 6, which is still a lot bigger than its predecessors. You really don't have to jump all the way up to the big model just to get the best one. We strongly suggest trying both at a retail store to see which is more comfortable.

If you really want to get good use out of an iPhone 6 Plus, we'd recommend paying more up front for at least the 64GB version. If you have basic needs but like the idea of a big phone that's easier to hold and type on, 16GB will do. In either case, there are plenty of options on the Android side of the fence - Samsung, for example, caters to the former group with its Galaxy Note series and to the latter with its Galaxy Grand series, and both are a lot less expensive.

So what is the appeal of Apple's first giant phone after all is considered? It's a great device if you're looking to replace your handheld gaming console, video camera, tablet and smartphone with a single unit, and in that sense, it's a more attractive product than the iPhone 6. However, you don't always want to carry all those things around, and the iPhone 6 Plus will make you feel as though you're doing exactly that.

Apple iPhone 6 Plus in pictures

More Details About the Futuristic Unicycles in the New OK Go Music Video

Posted by Ray | 27 Oct 2014 | Comments (0)

In Casey Neistat's review of Google Glass, the filmmaker likens the wearable device to another much-lampooned gadget of a previous generation: Indeed, the Segway endures in pop culture, if only as a cautionary tale. Dean Kamen's much-hyped invention effectively poisoned the well for the personal mobility industry as a whole; short of the comfort and convenience of, say, the hoverchairs in Wall-E, this category will likely remain stigmatized as solutions looking for a problem. (Although a recent Kickstarter project may portend Disney's increasingly rotund future for the human race, task-oriented assistive devices may be the growth area for the time being.)

The use case that we didn't foresee: the ever-popular music video. Today sees the debut of yet another carefully choreographed performance from none other than OK Go, who have long since made the transition from run-of-the-(tread)mill rock band to viral video soundtrackers, writing generically catchy power-pop earworms solely in service of their increasingly over-the-top cinematic efforts. But even more impressive than OK Go's harmonies is their use of props and optical illusions; for their latest effort, 'I Won't Let You Down'-the second single from their new full-length, Hungry Ghosts, following the forced-perspective trompe l'oeils of ' The Writing's On the Wall'-the foursome saddle up on Honda UNI-CUBS, a stool-sized monowheel vehicle (more on that below).

I won't reveal the grand finale, but quasi-spoiler alert: At about 1:03, it becomes apparent that the entire video-a continuously shot long take as in their previous vids-was filmed with a UAV, which is also pretty impressive (props to Multi-Copter Pilot Kenji Yasuda). Let's just say they've come a long way from those treadmills...

Is it jiust me, or do both the 2011 original (at right) and newer β model look like penguins?

As for the diminutive EV itself, the UNI-CUB β debuted about a year ago, the second generation of the experimental vehicle, which incorporates stabilization technology from the Japanese automaker's ASIMO bipedal robot and debuted in 2009 in a previous incarnation as the figure-eight-shaped U3-X. As these things go, Honda generously provided the UNI-CUBs, which are currently at the pilot program stage with no word on production plans. Seeing as frontman Damina Kulash reportedly took stunt driving lessons for OK Go's Chevy-sponsored video, I can't help but wonder about the learning curve for the UNI-CUBs; one reviewer claims that it is by far the easiest vehicle he has ever 'driven': 'From the moment it moved with my 85 kg weight aboard, I realized the UNI-CUB β nano-EV offered something very close to a direct vehicle-brain-interface, with only 'intention' required to move in a certain direction or speed.'

Naturally, the OK GO video may well pique wider interest in Honda's unicycle-like device, which weighs in at 25kg (52lbs), offers a top speed of 4 mph and a range of four miles. Contrary to the OK Go video, the UNI-CUB is intended for indoor use only, and Gizmag's Mike Hanlon notes that:

I will be very interested to see how this technology works with the aged and mobility-impaired-operating it requires no more strength than being able to sit upright, so it might well turn out to be a killer app for the elderly. Hat-tip to It's Nice That; previously: White Knuckles'; 'This Too Shall Pass'; 'Needing/Getting' These technologies obviously have application in other personal mobility devices too, and since the experience, I have been envisioning many new compact mobility solutions, from monocycle wheelchairs through to sports machinery.

​Mother Review: A Doll That Tracks Your Family's Every Move

Mothers are responsible for the welfare of their children. This is something we assume is true and something that guides the behavior of women with kids. They are watchful. They are worried. They set boundaries: Go to bed at such-and-such hour. Eat a balanced breakfast. Follow these rules.

Being an adult is great because you can stay up as late as you want and eat chocolate for breakfast and make up your own rules and generally live free or die hard, but being an adult also sucks because life is hard and sometimes it's easier to be told what to do. That's where Mother, a home and family monitoring program with an objectively creepy name, comes in. You can set it up to record and analyze your behavior, and of your family.

Mother records and analyzes daily life activities, from exercising to sleeping to how often we watch TV, by carrying little self-contained sensors around. It's an impressive system, though it is far less like a real mother than it is like a genderless panoptic self-surveillance gadget. Which makes sense, because it is.

Big Momma's House Is High Tech

The Mother is a sleek system that looks like it was designed by someone who has serious feelings about fonts (and, uh, rather traditionalist thinking about parental roles). Everything seems deliberate, right down to the expensive-feeling matte packaging.

The main device, called Mother, plugs into your router with an Ethernet port and turns itself into a little transmitter. It looks like a cross between a Russian nesting doll and a sex toy, and when you turn it on it has two unblinking eyes and a little red mouth. It is cold and odd, yet weirdly comforting, and people kept picking it up and examining it when they came over to my house. It doesn't make any noise, just watches you steadily.

Look at that weird little mouth.

The Mother comes with four sensors, called Cookies. They're little colorful plastic sticks, about two inches long. You insert button batteries in them, which are included in the package. The batteries are designed to last for a year. They're easy to snap together. This is what the sensors look like:

You can't tell, but you can use sticky tack to make the sensor stay put.

You can use up to 24 sensors per Mother, though the pack comes with 4. To activate these sensors, you need to log in to Sen.se (yes, that's a website) and register your Mother and cookies. Once registered, the cookies work as chameleonic sensors that adapt to the tasks you assign them. If you are walking with them, they measure your steps. If you sleep with them, they measure your sleep pattern. If you attach them to an object, they can tell if you've moved it. All of the data is collected and analyzed by Sen.se, and the cookies hold up to 10 days of data. So you only need to bring them back to Mother every so often.

Your Mother comes with a birth name. Mine was 'Elicia Beula.'

I changed it to 'Alicia Florrick' because The Good Wife rules. You can pick out the color of the Mother's eyes from a palette of pastels. Unfortunately, none matched the velvety brown hue of Julianna Margulies' eyes, so I went with purple because purple is the best color.

After you've set up your cookies and fiddled around with your Mother's birth name, you download an app called Pocket Mother. This is going to be your main alert system. You tap each cookie to give it a new name, just like the Mother, and to register it.

One the cookies were registered, it was app-picking time.

Mother Knows Data, If Not Best

You can connect your cookies to a variety of apps on the Sen.se website. You can monitor how many times the doors in your home are opened. You can monitor how much you walk, how much you sleep, how much you drink coffee, how long you brush your teeth - as long as you have a cookie for each function. Upcoming apps will let you monitor your plants, your water intake, and how frequently you open the fridge.

Here's what part of the list of app options looks like:

Some of the tasks are obviously designed for a family; for instance, there's an app to check who is home, and whether an object (like an off-limits Xbox or expensive vase) gets moved. For some of the functions, you just set the cookie in place (like for sleeping). But for others, you have to stick them to stuff. I used sticky-tack when that happened, though there are also little dongles included in the Mother kit.

As an adult I generally don't need to keep tabs on my partner this way, but for parents testing a new babysitter or parents who just want another way to make sure their kids stay put, this makes sense. (Probably why the device is called Mother and not Childless Life Partner, though the Sen.se website warns that Mother is not a toy and should be kept out of reach of children.)

For my own purposes I decided to monitor how much I walked, and how much I slept. I also used one Cookie to set an alert to take my birth control so that Mother would be the only mother in my apartment for a while longer, and then I used my last cookie to create sound effects, so I could get my prank on.

Like

You can reset and rename your cookies as much as you want, which is convenient if you want to play around with different apps.

Overall, the quality of the analysis for different tasks is high. The step counter seemed accurate (when you actually carry a sensor around with you, more on that in a moment) and it made me realize that I really need to go for walks more. I wouldn't buy this over a wearable fitness tracker if that was the only type of sensor I wanted, but it worked.

The medicine reminder was very helpful. It's easy to set an alarm to take medication and then just shut it off without actually taking the medication. Because my sensor was attached to the bottom of my birth control packet, it knew whether I'd actually picked it up or not and sent reminders to make sure I didn't forget. I got a push notification through the Mother app, but you can get reminders sent through SMS or email, or you can get a call.

For the sound effect thing, I hid that cookie under a bottle of whiskey so that when my partner went to pour himself a drink he'd get startled and I would laugh. I even showed my friend the sensor and told her about the plan and we waited until he got home and when he announced that he was making himself a whiskey drink we looked at each other and smiled and it was about to be a glorious Friday prank but then, guess WHAT, he lifted up the whiskey and the sensor didn't make a peep. Turns out I forgot to finish setting the sound effect up, my bad. The sound effect is actually awesome.

On the Sen.se website you can pick which sound you want to scare people with from a bunch of pleasingly onomatopoetic choices like 'TooOOoot' 'Dzoing' and 'Kling Klong.' I chose 'Dzoing' because I'm not an idiot. If I wanted to entertain/terrify a child, this would be my favorite cookie.

Overall, the variety of tasks the little cookies worked with was impressive, and Sen.se analyzes and presents data in a visually appealing and accessible way. Plus, Mother was fun to use once I got over being slightly creeped out.

No Like

To keep track of your movements for the walking app, you need to carry around a cookie in your pocket or in your backpack. This is annoying. It won't work if you put it in a handheld purse, and there's no way to attach it to your wrist. That's a pretty glaring design flaw, because most workout clothes don't have pockets, so it's awkward to take the Cookie to the gym or for a run. I tried to tuck it against the elastic waistband of my workout shorts, and it fell out when I went running outside. Sen.se recommends that you use its keychain string to attach it to your keys, but I generally just leave my keys in my mailbox when I go running (please don't rob me) so that wasn't much help.

A day later I forgot to put the cookie back in my pants at all and so it was sitting in my workout shorts in the closet. Mother logged me as having clocked a mere 38 steps.

As I mentioned before, you get sticky tack and a few other options included in your kit to affix your cookies to stuff, but for the step-counter, nothing makes a ton of sense. They really need to make a wristlet or something more convenient.

At least the step-counter was accurate, when it was on my person (it told me the length of my strides, which is cool). My sleeping monitor was way off. I share a bed, but it's a queen and I had the cookie under my mattress as it instructs you to do if you share a bed, so it wasn't getting messed up because of that- it regularly said I got out of bed a lot later or earlier than I did. One night it said I woke up at 3:55 AM (I think I must've gone up to pee?) but it didn't re-set itself.

Another night it logged me as sleeping way later than I did and appears to have registered that I was out of bed only when I came back in my room to make my bed. So the sleep monitor isn't very precise, and is probably really easy to trick if you're a kid avoiding bedtime.

ALSO this is a complaint about the marketing, not the product, but the whole concept behind Mother is kinda degrading to actual mothers. The slogan is seriously 'She's like a mom, only better.' Nah man. This genderless anthropomorphized cylinder is not like a mom at all. It's like a servant and Big Brother combined more than it's like a mom. My REAL mom had magic ninja ears when it came to me rising in the middle of the night to sneak out of my room, which is just one of the ways Mother paled in comparison to the real thing.

Should I Buy It?

Mother has a pretty, quirky design, and the flexible array of trackable tasks is appealing. I can see it being used by some polite young Danish family. If you are a member of a polite young Danish family you might like it. And if you have $300 to spend, because that's how much Mother costs. And if you want to buy an extra set of cookies, that will set you back another $150, so this mama ain't cheap.

If you're really into the whole quantified life thing, the array of apps might make it worth your money, though Sen.se really needs to turn one of the cookies into a wearable to make the step-counting and fitness monitoring feasible.

For now, I'd hold off on bringing Mother home to roost. There are smartphone apps that measure your sleep and steps that are more accurate. The ecosystem has potential, but I don't think it's there yet.

Mother is definitely aimed at families with children, so I'm not exactly the target demo. I'll tell you this, though: If I was a mother, I'd want the Mother to be more accurate, and I'd be worried that my kids would just lose/mess with the cookies. I'd also be annoyed that this has such a dumbass name.

Apple iMac with Retina 5K display review

Well would you look at that

Every once in a while, a gadget completely resets the curve. Once I started wearing good, expensive headphones, I suddenly couldn't even tolerate Apple's EarPods anymore. When I first grabbed my friend's BlackBerry because I needed to answer an email, I knew instantly I wasn't going back to texting with T9. I drove an Audi and never looked at my Saturn the same way again. Remember the first time you used a capacitive touchscreen, threw your 56k modem out the window and switched to broadband, or switched from standard-def TV to 1080p?

It only took about ten minutes of using Apple's new iMac with Retina display to make me wonder how I'm ever supposed to go back. Back to a world where pixels are visible on any screen, even one this big. Back to only having enough screen space to do two things at a time. Back to dropped frames, spinning wheels, and waiting for files to copy from one place to another.

For $2,499 and up, this is Apple's newest desktop: it's designed for photographers and videographers and anyone who wants to look at their computer a little differently. As Apple has placed its mainstream focus on laptops and tablets, its desktops have become the province of professionals, and they have become quickly and remarkably more powerful machines. The iMac with Retina display, a monster of a consumer desktop, falls right in line.

Personally, I don't really have use for one. I bought an iMac four months ago, and it works just fine. I write and use the internet for a living. But all it took was ten minutes - now I'm trying desperately to find a reason to upgrade.

If Apple had its way, the iMac would just be a slab of glass you prop up on your desk. It's not quite there, of course, but it's close. It's been close for two years. The iMac with Retina display looks just like last year's model, which looks just like the previous year's model: its silver aluminum shell slims to 5mm thick on the edges, and bulges in the back to accommodate the many parts that make this machine go. Everything is hidden here: there's a Thunderbolt 2 port, four USB 3 slots, an SD card slot, a headphone jack, and an Ethernet port, all on the back-right side of the iMac. It's powered by a single, brick-free cable, which threads through the round hole in the base. I like the layout and the clean design afforded by the port location, though it forever annoys me not having a more accessible headphone jack.

Apple didn't change the iMac's design, and it didn't really need to

The iMac with Retina display weighs 21 pounds, and it's eight inches deep including the base. Of course, none of that matters; this is a desktop machine, made to be placed somewhere and left there. As long as you have room for its 25.6 inches across and 20.3 inches tall, this machine will look good and fit right anywhere. Apple clearly feels it's figured out the designs for its Macs; none have changed materially in a couple of years. And it's hard to really have a problem with that.

But let's get back to that slab of glass. The 27-inch screen on the iMac with Retina display is, in a word, awesome. I just don't mean that it's very good - I mean it is genuinely awe-inspiring. It's the kind of screen you look at and your jaw drops. You look at it and you don't want to look away. It's the kind of screen that makes my tweets look somehow more impressive by virtue of sheer, spectacular clarity.

The display measures 5,120 pixels wide by 2,880 pixels tall. That's 14.7 million pixels, 218 per inch. It's seven times as many pixels as your 1080p TV (which is probably also much larger), nearly three times as many as the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. Neither of those comparisons is actually useful, of course; nor is telling you that the iMac with Retina display has 150 times as many pixels as the Moto 360. The point is simply this: the iMac with Retina display has a lot of pixels, and there's a lot you can do with all those pixels.

By default, the iMac displays at a resolution of 2560 x 1440. Apple uses a calculation it calls 'points' to determine how things look on the display; points represent physical distance, so at the default resolution you're seeing everything at exactly the same size you'd see it on a lower-res iMac. The difference is that where the non-Retina iMac displays only one pixel per point, the Retina display shows a square of four; that's four times as much detail, four times as many opportunities to create sharper edges and cleaner lines. (Apple's been doing this on iOS devices for years, to make everything look the same no matter which iPhone you own.) That's why text looks incredible on the Retina iMac, why I love reading on this computer in a way I never have on the iMac I bought just a few months ago, why Bioshock Infinite, at the same settings and resolution as my iMac, looks much cleaner and crisper. More pixels makes everything look the same, only better.

What are you going to do with all those pixels?

You can change the setting, if you're so inclined, and actually use all 14.7 million pixels on the iMac at its native resolution. At that point, everything is outrageously small (though still shockingly readable), and you can fit a legitimately hilarious number of things onto your screen at once.

I left it at the default setting - there's already plenty of space on a 27-inch screen, and it's in the middle ground that the iMac is most impressive anyway. If you're editing 4K video, the iMac's content awareness means you'll be able to see the footage pixel-for-pixel and still have your editing toolbars around it in crystal clarity. Likewise, a gigantic photo gives you incredible detail and all your sliders without having to flip in and out of full-screen. Really, anytime you have insanely high-res content, this screen shines.

Trouble is, there's not a lot of that content yet. There are a lot of iMac users who aren't editing a lot of video; they're using the iMac as the family computer, for Netflix and YouTube and gaming, for running their nail salon or real estate business. Netflix doesn't stream its 4K content to PCs, so you're stuck with fuzzy, soft movies. Even YouTube's 4K videos are obviously compressed and mushy. It's not that it's worse than on any other computer, of course, only that the contrast with the rest of the experience is much more stark. If you're sitting at TV distance, a living room away, anything on the screen looks great, but if you're at a desk with the iMac you'll notice when the content can't keep up.

It takes high-end power to keep 14.7 million pixels running - expensive power

It'll take a little while for developers, content providers, and ( ahem) Netflix to get up to speed, but soon enough everything will good on the iMac's Retina display. Already, things that look good, look great. Apple reconfigured the display's underlying tech to make it faster and improve viewing angles, and it was worth it: colors are gorgeous and vivid and accurate, viewing angles are impossibly wide. It's a little too reflective and can be too bright on my eyes in a dark room, but it's flat-out the best computer monitor I've ever used.

Actually, I should mention one thing: you can't use this remarkable display as a secondary computer monitor. It requires so much horsepower to keep 14.7 million pixels active that you can't use the iMac's display as a secondary display for any other device. Dell's own 5K display may be more expensive and not even come with a computer inside, but if all you want is a monitor, that's the one to get.

It really does take a lot of power to keep this display churning. I've been using the absolute top-of-the-line Retina iMac, the one you spec out on the website just to see how much it costs. (The answer: $4,399.00.) My review unit has a 4.0GHz Intel Core i7 processor, AMD's Radeon R9 M295X graphics with 4GB of video memory, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB solid-state drive. That is a ludicrous amount of power, and the iMac acts like it. It's fast and usable in any situation, from gaming to video editing to just opening as many YouTube videos as I possibly could.

But even with all this horsepower, I get the occasional sense I'm right at the threshold of what the iMac with Retina display can handle. For all it can do, for all the seamless editing in Premiere and 60 frames-per-second gaming, I still see videos stutter when I scroll fast in a Safari window. I still occasionally get the dreaded beach ball as something loads. Some of this is certainly software, but it feels very much as if I'm making complete use of what the iMac with Retina display can do.

If you're buying the base model retina iMac, consider what you'll use it for

This is hardly new: when Apple adds a Retina display to one of its devices, it often takes a year of revision and optimization before the combination feels right. Intel's upcoming Broadwell processors (which have been delayed, and which I can't help but think were supposed to be in this device) will help too. I'd feel no worry or anxiety about buying the high-end iMac right now, which is I suspect the one most professional photographers and video editors - the folks who most need what the iMac with Retina display offers - will be shopping for anyway. If you're looking at the base model, on the other hand - 3.5GHz Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, 1TB Fusion Drive, $2,499 - you'll want to tread carefully. There's no way to upgrade anything but the RAM, either, so make sure you know what you're getting. Maybe see if you can surreptitiously load some 4K video and a game onto one of the display models at the Apple store.

The iMac is explicitly designed for people who work with video; that's who Tim Cook talked about at the launch event, it's who's featured on Apple's website and in its marketing. Luckily, The Verge's video team mostly uses iMacs for their editing and everyday work, so I dropped a Retina iMac onto the desk of Director John Lagomarsino to see how he felt about the upgrade.

John Lagomarsino: I had the chance to edit our iPad Air 2 review on this machine, using the new iMac and Adobe Premiere. It's fast: there was zero lag or delay in playing back 1080p footage on a timeline, even with a moderate number of real-time color effects in play. Scrubbing through a timeline is extremely responsive, probably thanks to our review unit's 1TB solid-state drive. I was particularly impressed with Premiere's ability to immediately begin reverse playback on the timeline, something which other Macs in our office, including the Retina MacBook Pro, seem to struggle with. It's quite nice to work with HD video with this monitor; a normal-sized playback window can contain native pixel-for-pixel 1080p content, with plenty of room for additional panels and timelines. This may not be necessary for editing, but it certainly makes cutting more enjoyable.

But solid 1080p performance in Premiere is pretty much a given these days. So I imported a few 5K RED Epic files to see how the machine fared. In the native RED codec, playback on the timeline at full or one-half quality was fairly choppy, even when the media resided on the internal SSD. When the footage was converted to ProRes 422, Premiere was able to play back at full 5K, fullscreen, without any noticeable stutters or delays (and boy, does 5K footage look incredible on this screen).

After Effects was similarly zippy. Warp Stabilizer, 3D tracking, and motion blur all processed and rendered very quickly on this iMac. I'm not sure how much of that has to do with the graphics card versus the CPU, but something about this combination made After Effects really move. I should also say that during all this processing, the iMac remained, for all intents and purposes, silent. Even under a full CPU load, I couldn't hear the fans spin up over the minimal ambient background noise in the room. Likewise, the back of the machine didn't seem to become all that hot to the touch during renders.

That said, I'd be curious to try the base model of this iMac for video work. While our unit was certainly very fast, I wasn't quite as blown away by its performance as I was by the new Mac Pro. With a weaker configuration than our very expensive review model, I'm not sure the 5K display would be enough of a draw to get me to sacrifice any power.

DP: Most people I know who buy iMacs tend to keep them for longer than your average computer. Given that, if you're in the market for a new iMac today and you can afford this one, you should absolutely buy the iMac with Retina display. There's no question whatsoever that Retina is the future of the iMac, that developers will continue to up-res and support these gorgeous new displays. The iMac with Retina display is the rare gadget that will actually get better over time, as there are more things to do more beautifully.

For virtually every purpose, this machine is excellent: it's powerful and attractive and well-suited to almost any task. Most importantly, it's a genuine pleasure to use. The screen is so big, so deep, so vivid, that I find myself eschewing phone or tablet more than ever in favor of sitting down in front of this remarkable 27-inch display.

Retina is the future of the iMac, make no mistake

This screen will be everything you need a year from now. Two years from now. Ten. But the iMac's performance, especially the base model, might not be. When the content and the games do catch up to the iMac's resolution, it's going to have to work hard to process it all, and I don't know how much more headroom there is in the base iMac with Retina display. If your computer needs include Safari and Spotify and Twitter and Office, then buy away. Everything you do will look better than it ever has. But if you need more than that, and you can wait another year, you'll almost certainly benefit from another year of Apple learning how to power a display this good.

One piece of advice, though: if you don't want to buy an iMac with Retina display, don't use one. Don't even look at one. Because as soon as you do you'll wonder how you're ever supposed to look at anything that came before.

Photography by Sean O'Kane

Samsung Galaxy S6 VS. Samsung Galaxy S5 Plus Features, Specs, Hardware ...

Samsung Galaxy S6 VS. Samsung Galaxy S5 Plus Features, Specs, Hardware: A Comprehensive Comparison and Review Samsung Galaxy S6 VS. Samsung Galaxy S5 Plus Features, Specs, Price, Hardware: A Comprehensive Comparison and Review

Largest smartphone manufacturer Samsung has provided the ultimate solution from low budget to high-end smartphones. After the controversial Galaxy Alpha series, Samsung is expected to launch Galaxy Note Edge but the surprise list may expand as the company is going through the remake of S series smartphone with Galaxy S5 Plus and Galaxy S6.

Galaxy S5 Plus is expected to be framed with 5.1-inch display size that will allow 1080 x 1920 pixels resolution where Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen will demonstrate the display. The pixel density is up lifted to 432 pixels per inch. Samsung might push to 5.2-inch display size with the Galaxy S6 gadget but it is rumored to be blessed with 4K display screen. But in a short interval, this revolutionary innovation will be very challenging for Samsung engineers to cope up with the new display if this rumor comes true. However, there is great potential that the device will contain 1440 x 2560 pixels resolution with an ultra HD display,

Samsung latest Galaxy Note 4 represented a 16MP rear camera sensor and this trend extends with Galaxy S5 Plus too. Galaxy S5 Plus carries 16MP rear camera sensor while front camera sensor is a bit frustrating for the selfie freaks. The front camera contains 2MP sensor with HD video recording facility.

On the other hand, not much has been revealed about the Galaxy S6 smartphone but it will carry better camera than its predecessor S5. The Galaxy S5 has 16MP rear camera but the successor is expected to come with 20MP rear camera sensor. However, camera features will also get update as S5 was accused of poor image quality in low light. The low light performance and better optical image stabilization will be included in the S6 smartphone.

The Galaxy S5 Plus is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chipset with Quad-Core 2.5GHz processor and Adreno 430 GPU set. The hardware segment of Galaxy S6 is not confirmed but most probably, it will substitute the current S5 hardware components with updated versions.

S5 Plus will operate on Android 4.4.2KitKat while Galaxy S6 will run on unreleased Android 5.0 (Lollypop). The price tag will be pushed from $900(Galaxy S5) to $1000 for the updates in Galaxy S6 and this device is expected to release in the Mobile World Congress (MWC) that will take place in May 2-5 2015.

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