(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is blocking Singapore-based Broadcom’s takeover of U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm on national security grounds.
The White House says Trump is taking the action on the recommendation of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews foreign purchases of U.S. entities. Broadcom made an unsolicited bid last year to take over Qualcomm, which has been met by shareholder skepticism and regulatory scrutiny on security and antitrust grounds.
Broadcom is in the process of moving its legal headquarters from Singapore to the U.S., with the company planning on finishing the move by April 3, 2018. Trump hosted Broadcom CEO Hock E. Tan in the White House last year as he announced the move, and the company had hoped that would help it skirt the national security review.
The good: Excellent screen, gorgeous lightweight design, great keyboard, fast performance The bad: Awkward webcam placement, Battery life is solid but not impressive Who it’s for: Those who value portability, a comfortable keyboard, and a sharp screen above all else
If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. That’s the motto Dell seems to be living by with its newest incarnation of the XPS 13. And I’m glad it did.
Dell’s refreshed XPS 13, announced in January and starting at $999, is a modest but appreciated update that brings enhancements in all the right places. The Infinity Display that Dell introduced on the original model is now even slimmer this time around (23% smaller compared to the previous generation), allowing Dell to squeeze a 13.3-inch screen into a frame that would usually fit an 11-inch laptop. The laptop itself is also thinner and lighter than its predecessor, making it 24% smaller overall. It runs on Intel’s eighth generation processors.
The most immediately noticeable change is in the XPS 13’s look and feel. While the overall design remains the same, the company tweaked just enough to make the 2018 version feel fresh while retaining what I liked about the older models. This year’s iteration comes in a new rose gold color option with a stunning white woven glass fiber interior. (Seriously, just looking at this thing made me want to touch it.) I usually shy away from buying anything colored white, whether it’s a pair of pants or a laptop, because I know the slightest amount of dirt or dust is going to show immediately. I never had that issue on the XPS 13. In fact, I thought it was less prone to stains than the burgundy Alcantara keyboard deck on Microsoft’s Surface Laptop, which smudges easily. My only hangup about the XPS 13’s design is the webcam’s location underneath the screen, which makes it hard to find an angle that’s not awkward or unflattering when video chatting.
The 3840 x 2160 resolution 4K UHD display on my XPS 13 review unit was predictably gorgeous, as should be the case on a laptop that prides itself on its screen. Colors seemed to pop off the display, the detail was rich, and text looked crisp. The viewing angles are wide enough to comfortably watch videos with multiple people huddled around the laptop. That being said, the Microsoft Surface Laptop’s 2256 x 1504 PixelSense screen and the 12-inch Apple MacBook’s 2304 x 1440 Retina display were about equally impressive, with the XPS outshining them in very few circumstances. The downside is that touch functionality isn’t included by default in the XPS 13 base model, as it is on Microsoft’s Surface Laptop.
A laptop’s good looks and excellent screen don’t matter much if you can’t stand typing on it. Luckily, the XPS 13 has one of the best keyboards I’ve used on a mainstream laptop. There’s no stiffness to it, and the key travel is deep enough to provide a comfortable level of feedback as you type. I preferred it over the Surface Laptop’s (also very good) keyboard, which felt slightly mushy compared to the XPS 13’s. Anyone who has ever used a poor touchpad that’s slow and sluggish will appreciate the XPS 13’s smoothness, although I did find myself noodling around in the settings to dial down the sensitivity.
If you’re looking for a solid general purpose laptop, the Dell XPS 13 should offer more than enough power for daily tasks. Whether I was encoding video or browsing the web, the eighth generation Intel Core i7-powered XPS 13 never grew uncomfortably warm. That’s probably because Dell put considerable amount of effort into the XPS 13’s cooling system, doubling the number of heat pipes and fans. The company also covered some areas of the pipes with Gore thermal insulation to dissipate heat and keep the processor cool when it’s working hard.
That said, I did notice some heat coming from the hinge that connects the display to the keyboard deck while I was using the touchscreen, but it never got close to becoming alarmingly warm. When I stress-tested the XPS 13 by launching 12 tabs in the Edge browser, opening three tabs in Chrome, and running a full hardware system scan with a few other apps operating in the background, the fans grew a bit loud and Chrome lagged slightly. Still, performance seemed unaffected otherwise. Don’t buy the XPS 13 if you’re primarily interested in PC gaming, as it couldn’t run The Witcher 3 at a playable frame rate. But it can run casual games and even other less demanding major titles like BioShock Infinite just fine. Besides, the XPS 13 isn’t meant to be a gaming rig — Dell has its Alienware line for that.
As is usually the case with most of today’s premium laptops, the Dell XPS 13 can last for the duration of the workday. I was able to get roughly seven hours out of it when I used the XPS as my primary work computer, which was satisfactory but nothing special. It’s worth noting that my configuration has a power-hungry 4K display, so other models will likely last noticeably longer.
If you’re a current Mac owner and you’re used to answering and sending text messages on your laptop, I have good news and bad news. First, the good news: Dell now has its own program that lets you connect your phone to your PC to do just that. If you’re an Android user, you’ll also be able to access apps on your phone and notifications on the PC through Dell Mobile Connect. The bad news: It’s not as seamless as Apple’s iMessage integration between iPhones and Macs. To text your iPhone contacts from the Dell XPS 13, you need to have your phone unlocked with Dell’s companion app running. That’s because the XPS 13 wirelessly communicates with your iPhone via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Direct, whereas Apple’s iMessage service works across desktop and mobile platforms through the cloud. Once you sign into your Mac with the iCloud password you use on your iPhone, you don’t have to think about anything else.
The new Dell XPS 13 is a great option for users who want a simple general purpose laptop that’s thin and light and has an excellent screen. If portability is your top concern and you don’t want to shell out $1,299 for the entry level 12-inch MacBook, which runs on older processors but has more memory and storage than the base $999 XPS 13, Dell’s new laptop is certainly worth considering.
It’s rare for a laptop to stand out in the way that the XPS does for being just that — a no frills but superb laptop. Whereas other device makers hope to differentiate their products by claiming to offer the thinnest notebook in the world or by trying to make them operate more like phones or tablets, Dell’s XPS is a no-nonsense workhorse. It’s not the perfect laptop for everyone: Some will want more power and graphics performance, some will want more flexibility, some will need more battery life. But one thing is for sure: Dell will have to pry this machine out of my hands to get it back.
There’s no direct flight from Dubai to Detroit. So when the three co-founders of Dubai-based Derq, a traffic-safety startup, need to get to the carmaking capital of the U.S., they take a connecting flight on Air France through Paris or on Emirates through Boston. That typically means a four-leg, 32-hour round-trip for at least one of them once a month.
It would be unthinkable for the startup, which uses artificial intelligence to predict and prevent car accidents, not to have a presence in the Motor City. So after securing a $1.5 million round of funding in October, the company opened a satellite office in Detroit. But although two of Derq’s three co-founders were educated in the U.S., they aren’t interested in basing their whole operation there. After all, Dubai’s government is offering perks to startups that are just too good to give up. Co-founder Georges Aoude, who earned a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from MIT in 2011, reels off the reasons: government support, access to roads to test Derq’s technology and “an affordable place to launch and incubate.”
Derq is on the receiving end of a deliberate push by the Dubai government in recent years to turn the emirate into a living laboratory for nascent technology. In 2016, its hereditary leader Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, also Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, set a goal that 25% of alltransportationin the UAE be autonomous by 2030. In 2017, Dubai—one of seven emirates that make up the UAE—vowed that within three years it would have the world’s first government powered by blockchain, the technology underlying cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. And at the World Government Summit in Dubai in February, Sheik Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Dubai’s crown prince, launched 26 government-led projects under the 10x initiative, which aims to make its eponymous capital city the world’s most innovative within a decade.
The strategy reflects the emirate’s desire for soft power as it seeks to turn itself into a hub for global innovation. But it’s also a test of whether a benign autocracy like Dubai can usher in the next wave of technology—AI—by decree, and if so, what that means for more open, democratic countries that are also trying to incubate technologies intended to reshape the world.
It can feel as if Dubai is constructing the set of a science-fiction movie. Based on the prototypes it has unveiled in recent months, autonomous robocops may someday patrol the Dubai Mall as flying taxis whisk passengers above the gridlock-prone Sheikh Zayed Road. Self-driving buslike pods might drop commuters directly at their doorsteps. At the main airport, a system of hidden cameras disguised as a virtual aquarium tunnel may in the near future scan passengers’ faces and irises as they gawk at digital fish.
These aren’t just futuristic follies intended to look good on press releases. There’s real money behind such ideas. In 2016, Sheik Mohammed put up $270 million for the Dubai-based -Future Endowment Fund, which invests in -innovation. Its Accelerators program accepts startups on the basis of their proposed solutions to government concerns. The Dubai police department, for instance, asked Accelerator applicants to “utilize artificial intelligence … to provide statistics that may support the decision-making process or allow for faster response to emergency situations.”
A leadership reshuffle in October reinforced the government’s commitment as Sheik Mohammed appointed 27-year-old Omar bin Sultan al-Olama as the UAE’s Minister of Artificial Intelligence, creating what is thought to be the world’s first such Cabinet position. “With AI, we cannot afford to be reactive. We must be proactive,” al-Olama tells TIME. “That’s the goal of government: to be proactive and do something about it today.”
The push to attract tech startups and investors to Dubai is consistent with Sheik Mohammed’s reorienting of the emirate’s economy away from dependence on oil revenue after taking over in 2006. The early years of that effort resulted in what Dubai is best known for today: fantastical skyscrapers, ultra-luxury tourist accommodations and global trade. It seems to have paid off; while the price of oil has dropped 37% since 2013, the Dubai stock market is up 155%, according to Bloomberg data from January. Oil once made up about 50% of Dubai’s gross domestic product. Now it accounts for less than 1% of it.
The initial stage changed the face of Dubai as vast infrastructure and commercial projects were built. Now the next stage aims to create an urban environment where flying cabs and robot cops are everyday sights. If the govern-ment intends to construct a thriving playpen for technological guinea pigs, the people who live there are—by one measure—receptive to it. An Accenture study last year found that three-fourths of UAE residents are ready to adopt AI-powered devices and services, compared with a world average of 62%.
It’s not as if they have much choice. The UAE’s leadership may be benevolent, but it is authoritarian. The state ranks 147th out of 167 countries on the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index. Political parties are outlawed, and the rulers’ word is absolute. And democracy matters when it comes to technological advancement, argues Loren Graham, an MIT professor emeritus in the history of science. Innovation has historically flourished in open, democratic societies not least because they have legal systems that are not subject to political whims, he says. Disruptive technology can ignite courtroom squabbles, and more repressive societies can’t always guarantee a level legal playing field—plus there’s the risk that a sitting ruler could see an entrepreneur with enough success and wealth as “an implicit, if not explicit, challenge,” Graham says.
Officials in Dubai brush off any suggestion that their type of government has any effect on how the gadgets and AI tested on its roadways and in its airspace are developed and deployed. Dubai is investing in technology that serves the people, says al-Olama. “His Highness Sheik Mohammed says the main goal of government is happiness,” he says. “He made my mandate that, yes, we need to be AI-ready, but in a way that makes people happier.”
Dubai is at least attempting to attract firms and investors from around the world—unlike China, whose autocratic leadership has pursued AI dominance through homegrown technology while laying down hurdles for foreign entrants like Silicon Valley giants Facebook and Google. “Dubai is in an amazing position to welcome great ideas from all over the world,” says Khalfan Juma Belhoul, CEO of the Dubai Future Foundation, touting its proposed “country in residence” program that will help other nations develop new technologies. The type of government behind the initiatives “absolutely” does not matter, he says.
Christopher Davidson, a Middle East politics professor at the U.K.’s Durham University, says Sheik Mohammed’s ability to get his plans “done fast” has been instrumental in diversifying Dubai’s economy. The biggest risk factor is long-term stability, he says. “If we have a ruling family, the weak element is who comes next,” says Davidson. “Can we be sure the next man on top is as good at this as the current one?”
Derq co-founder Amer Abufadel states his view more bluntly. “Probably not being a democracy sometimes helps,” he says. “There’s one decision-maker who says, ‘We want to push forward,’ and everybody follows. There’s little room for debate. Once the leader says it, it needs to happen.”
That top-down approach sounds very much like a corporation, but a lack of democratic oversight can lead to corruption and cronyism. While the UAE ranks relatively high on countries that successfully resist graft—it’s No. 21 on Transparency International’s ranking of 180 nations—its model of governance may at some point turn into a hindrance. In Saudi Arabia, for example, questions about transparency have slowed the initial public offering of a 5% stake in state-controlled Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer. Although the unprecedented IPO is key to the kingdom’s economic diversification plan, it has yet to happen two years after being unveiled.
And there’s another question for creators themselves: If the unelected rulers of the UAE do gain dominance in AI, are entrepreneurs confident that these world-altering technological advances will be used for fair and egalitarian purposes? Right now, Derq’s co-founders are focused on more immediate issues, like the best route from Dubai to Detroit. They joke that if they get enough business in Detroit, maybe airlines will start flying there directly. They laugh at the suggestion, but who knows? The Dubai government is, after all, the owner of the airline Emirates.
Valve co-founder and president Gabe Newell says the company is returning to shipping out video games.
“Artifact is the first of several games that are going to be coming from us, so that’s sort of good news. Hurray! Valve is going to start shipping games again,” Newell said, according to IGN.
Valve, which has focused on its existing games and Steam’s software and VR and controller hardware, has not released a new standalone game since Dota 2 back in 2013. The news was delivered alongside a presentation for the Dota 2-themed card game Artifact, PC Gamer reported.
The announcement also sparked fan theories that Valve would release sequels for some of its most popular games including the Half-Life, Left 4 Dead and Portal franchises.
Valve just announced they are going to be shipping games again. I know people want Half Life 3 and Left 4 Dead 3 but all I can think about… Portal 3, when?
However, such sequel theories, especially that of Half-Life, have long been speculated without any developments or announcement to support it.
Newell noted that the move was influenced by Nintendo’s ability to work on hardware and new games.
“We’ve always been a little bit jealous of companies like Nintendo,” Newell said, according to PC Gamer. “When Miyamoto is sitting down thinking about the next version of Zelda or Mario he’s thinking what is the controller going to look like, what sort of graphics and other capabilities, and he can introduce new capabilities like motion input because he controls both of those things.”
Samsung’s latest pair of iPhone rivals, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, hit stores on March 16. And this year it’s all about the camera: Samsung’s new phones have a mechanical dual aperture that can adjust depending on the lighting and a new Super Slo-mo feature that automatically creates GIFs from your footage.
But it’s not just about what’s new. If you’re switching from an Apple iPhone, there are plenty of more subtle features that have existed on Samsung phones and other Android devices for years that may be worth paying attention to.
After spending more than a week using the Galaxy S9+ instead of the iPhone X, here are five features that stood out to me that Apple’s smartphone is missing.
The screen on Samsung’s smartphones can show information like the time, date, battery level, and notification icons even when the display is turned off — essentially allowing it to double as a bedside clock. I loved being able to just glance over at my phone without picking it up to check whether or not I had any new text messages or to see if I should plug in my phone before leaving the office.
The Galaxy S9 feature was particularly helpful coming from the iPhone X, which I usually have to pick up to unlock since it doesn’t have a fingerprint sensor. Previous Samsung phone models, such as the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S7, as well as other Android phones like the Google Pixel 2, also have this always-on display feature.
More flexibility
There are three Galaxy S9 features in particular that gave me more flexibility in terms of how I use my phone: the fingerprint sensor, the microSD card slot, and the headphone jack. I wasn’t forced to type in a passcode if I didn’t want to use facial recognition, and I could use any pair of wired headphones without remembering to bring an adapter with me all the time. Plus, knowing I had the option to add extra storage by purchasing a microSD card, many of which cost less than $100 depending on the size, eased any anxiety I might have about running out of space.
Although the iPhone X’s Face ID works most of the time, I still find myself occasionally typing in my passcode on Apple’s smartphone. It’s in these circumstances that I wish the iPhone X also had a fingerprint scanner on its back like the Galaxy S9 and other Android phones. (I now find myself instinctively reaching for it on the iPhone X). The Galaxy S9’s fingerprint sensor is located at a more natural location compared to previous versions — underneath the camera rather than alongside it — which made it easy to get to my home screen almost immediately since my finger naturally aligns with the sensor. I often found this to be smoother than making sure the S9’s camera lined up with my eyes properly for facial recognition.
Because the Galaxy S9 has a 3.5mm headphone jack, I didn’t have to worry about keeping track of a small accessory to continue using the headphones I already own when listening to music. Newer iPhones and many recent Android phones don’t have a headphone jack, meaning you’ll have to use the included dongle to attach your current wired headphones to the device. Otherwise, your choices include using the earbuds that come bundled with your device or switching to wireless Bluetooth headphones.
As with many other Android phones, you can also choose to add more storage to the Galaxy S9 by purchasing a microSD card, which may be useful for those who download a lot of full-length movies or frequently shoot 4K video on their phones. It’s possible to find microSD cards on Amazon that add 128GB to your phone for about $40-$45, whereas with an iPhone you’re stuck with the same amount of storage you paid for on day one.
Low-light camera
The iPhone X’s top-notch camera is tough to beat, and in most cases I found that it captures sharper details and more accurate colors than Samsung’s phone. But when it comes to shooting in the dark, Samsung wins. Nearly every time I captured photos in dim environments, the Galaxy S9+ was able to grab a cleaner and clearer shot than the iPhone X. That’s thanks in part to the S9’s improved camera, which can now adjust its aperture to f/1.5 or f/2.4 depending on the lighting.
Check out the photos below to see how the S9+ compares to the iPhone X and its Galaxy S8 predecessor.
Samsung Galaxy S9+
Lisa EadiciccoA photo taken with the Galaxy S9+ in low light conditions.
Apple iPhone X
Lisa EadiciccoA photo taken with the iPhone X in low light conditions.
Samsung Galaxy S8
Lisa EadiciccoA photo taken with the Galaxy S8 in low light conditions.
New smartphones from Samsung, Apple, Google, and LG all have nearly borderless displays that occupy almost the entire face of the device. But Samsung’s new phones, as well as the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8, are different in that their displays ever so slightly curve over the phones’ left and right edges. This gives the devices a more elegant look and makes the illusion that there’s no frame around the screen feel more convincing.
Plus, the Galaxy S9 doesn’t have a “notch” at the top of the screen for its camera and facial recognition sensors, a design choice that some techpundits and fans criticizedApple for.
Multi-tasking
As I imagine is the case for many people, I use my phone for just about everything when I’m not at work: Getting directions, taking notes, sending emails, browsing Facebook and so on. That means I spend a lot of time switching between apps, especially if I’m trying to copy and paste material from my notes or a web browser into an email.
While I love the simplicity of iOS, Android phones are generally much better at helping you juggle several tasks at once. Samsung’s smartphones have long offered the ability to open more than one app on screen at at a time, and that’s no different with the Galaxy S9. Just tap the recent apps button and press the multi-window symbol in the app’s title bar to launch it in split screen mode. Apple has made an effort to bring better multitasking to the iPad through features like Slide Over and Split View in recent years, but we have yet to see these capabilities come to the iPhone.
Nintendo fans had plenty to be excited about in 2017 with the release of games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. Now in 2018, Nintendo plans to update more of its popular franchises with Splatoon 2 and a Nintendo Switch version of Super Smash Bros. In addition, the company announced Thursday at its Nintendo Direct event, it’s bringing a remastered version of Dark Souls to the console.
There’s no official name for the new Super Smash Bros. installment yet, but a teaser video clip showed mainstays like Mario and Link from The Legend of Zelda series, as well as newcomers such as the Inklings from Splatoon. Inklings, the human-squid hybrids that can transform to swim through pools of ink, have never been featured in a Super Smash Bros. game before. The new title will be coming later this year
If history is any indication, the new entry in the fighting game series is bound to be a hit on the Switch. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U was the console’s fourth most popular game, while Super Smash Bros. Brawl was the Wii’s eighth best-selling title, coming just after games like Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wii Play, Mario Kart, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii.
Super Smash Bros. is small part of the roster Nintendo has planned for the Switch in 2018. The company also announced a handful of previously released games that will be making their way to the Switch, such as South Park: The Fractured But Whole, which arrives on April 24, Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, which launches on July 10, and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker., which will be available starting July 13. Dark Souls will land on May 25, and a remake of action adventure game Okami HD will be released this summer.
Nintendo also divulged details on Mario Tennis Aces, such as the different gameplay modes and features players can expect. In a video demo, Nintendo showcased the types of shots players will be able to dish out on the court, including a powerful Zone shot. With this technique, players can pinpoint certain areas on the court using motion controls and target their opponents to damage their tennis racket. The game launches for the Switch on June 22.
The announcements come after a successful first year for the Switch. In January, the company said that the Switch was the fastest-selling home game console ever in the U.S., with 4.8 million units sold in 10 months. Check out the full video above for more details on the newly revealed games coming to the Switch in 2018.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump plans to meet with video game industry representatives as he considers responses to gun violence after the Florida school shooting that killed 17 people.
The White House says attendees at Thursday’s meeting include representatives of the Entertainment Software Association, the Entertainment Software Rating Board and the Parents Television Council. Others represent the Media Research Center, a video game distributor, a software company, along with the author of a book linking mass killings to violent video games.
Florida’s Republican Sen. Marco Rubio is among the lawmakers expected to attend.
Trump has repeatedly referenced the violence in movies and video games during his public comments about guns and school safety since last month’s Florida shooting. Decades of research have failed to find such a link.
The good: Gorgeous design, Colorful screen, Long battery life, Excellent camera with helpful smart features like real-time translation The bad: AR Emoji feels gimmicky, Camera isn’t always as good as that of the iPhone X Who should buy: Android fans looking for a fantastic screen, long battery life, and a pretty good camera
Here’s a challenge: Pick out the Samsung Galaxy S9+ from a lineup that also includes the Galaxy S8+ and Galaxy Note 8. I’ll bet you can’t.
Samsung’s latest pair of flagship phones, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, bring modest improvements dressed in the same outfit as last year’s Galaxy S8. The two devices start shipping on March 16 for $719.99 (Galaxy S9) and $839.99 (Galaxy S9+). If you’ve used Samsung’s other recent smartphones, there’s a lot that will feel familiar about the Galaxy S9 and S9+.
Both devices have the same eye-popping Super AMOLED screen that covers nearly the entire face of the phone, which Samsung first debuted on the Galaxy S8, S8+ and Note 8. The S9’s display resolution is also the same as last year’s model, and both new phones have retained the standard headphone jack for connecting wired headphones — a rare find on today’s smartphones.
As usual, the biggest changes between the two new flagships comes down to screen size, with the Galaxy S9+ including a 6.2-inch display and the S9 featuring a 5.8-inch screen. The bigger version, which I’ve been using for this review, also as a dual camera, whereas the S9 only has one. (The Plus model also has a larger battery and slightly more memory).
So what exactly is different about the Samsung Galaxy S9 compared to the Galaxy S8? The camera, for starters. Samsung added a dual mechanical aperture that switches between f/1.5 and f/2.4 depending on the lighting, whereas the Galaxy S8’s camera has an f/1.7 aperture.
The Galaxy S9 is certainly capable of taking crisp, colorful photos, but unfortunately for Samsung so are rival smartphones. When comparing the Galaxy S9+’s camera to that of the Apple iPhone X and Google Pixel 2 XL, I found that the iPhone X’s camera was generally best when it came to detail and color accuracy. Colors sometimes looked too bright or washed out in the S9’s photos, as shown in the photo of a flower bouquet below. But I did prefer the S9’s photo over the Pixel 2 XL’s. Google’s phone seemed to have a bluish tint that’s noticeable when looking at the white flowers.
Samsung Galaxy S9
Lisa EadiciccoA photo taken on Samsung’s Galaxy S9
Apple iPhone X
Lisa EadiciccoA photo taken with the iPhone X
Google Pixel 2 XL
Lisa EadiciccoA photo taken on Google’s Pixel 2 XL
Samsung lived up to its claim of offering impressive low-light performance on the Galaxy S9. It was able to capture a better shot in a completely dark room compared to both the iPhone X and Pixel 2 XL, although all three phones were able to produce a decent image with little noise. The photos aren’t exactly the same since I couldn’t get my kitten to sit still for that long, but you’ll notice that the stripes in his fur are more visible in the S9’s photo, whereas his coat blends into the couch in the other images.
Samsung Galaxy S9
Lisa EadiciccoAn example of how the Galaxy S9’s camera shoots in low light.
Apple iPhone X
Lisa EadiciccoAn example of how the iPhone X’s camera shoots in low light.
Google Pixel 2 XL
Lisa EadiciccoAn example of how the Google Pixel 2 XL’s camera performs in low light.
The Galaxy S9+s Live Focus mode, which sharpens the subject in the foreground against a blurred background, performed much better than the Pixel 2 XL’s Portrait Mode, but wasn’t quite as detailed as the iPhone X’s photo. You’ll notice that Samsung’s camera softens some of the details in the stone sculpture that are more clearly visible in the iPhone X’s image.
Samsung Galaxy S9
Lisa EadiciccoA photo taken on Samsung’s Galaxy S9
Apple iPhone X
Lisa EadiciccoA photo taken on Apple’s iPhone X
Google Pixel 2 XL
Lisa EadiciccoA photo taken on Google’s Pixel 2 XL
Where the Galaxy S9+’s camera succeeds over its rivals without question, however, is in its Super Slow-mo feature. Samsung’s new phone can shoot slow-mo footage at 960 frames per second, compared to the iPhone X’s 240 frames/second maximum. Take a look at the GIFs below to see the difference. (Note: The GIFs below may not reflect actual video quality. They are solely meant to show the differences in speed).
Samsung Galaxy S9
Lisa EadiciccoThe Samsung Galaxy S9’s slow motion feature
Apple iPhone X
Lisa EadiciccoThe iPhone X’s slow motion video mode
Google Pixel 2 XL
Lisa EadiciccoThe Google Pixel 2 XL’s slow motion video feature
The Galaxy S9+’s Super Slow-mo mode also has an auto shooting option that starts recording whenever it senses movement within a certain area. This worked decently in my experience, but I preferred shooting manually since it struggled with detecting certain types of movement, like running water or falling snow. The best part about Super Slow-mo mode is the bite-sized GIFs created from your footage, which are much easier to share than a full video file. The camera also applies certain effects to the clip, such as looping it or playing it in reverse:
Lisa
It’s not just the main camera that’s learned some new tricks. The Galaxy S9 uses its front-facing camera and facial scanning sensors to make 3-D animated emojis meant to look like real people, in a feature Samsung calls AR Emoji. Once you’ve created an AR Emoji, you can record a message that mimics your facial expressions and share it, or choose from a selection of pre-made animated stickers based on your creation. It’s like a strange mashup of Apple’s Animoji feature on the iPhone X and Bitmoji, except the result doesn’t look anything like you. (At least that was my experience with it. Nothing about the shape or features of my AR Emoji’s face even remotely resembled mine.) That being said, the facial tracking worked pretty well — whenever I blinked, squinted, or opened my mouth, my on-screen avatar did likewise. But that didn’t make up for the fact that my AR Emoji looked too awkward to actually send to anyone:
Lisa EadiciccoThe Galaxy S9’s AR Emoji
The Galaxy S9’s camera and front-facing sensors are far more helpful for other tasks, like security authentication. Samsung has long offered the ability to unlock your phone by looking at it, starting with the Galaxy Note 7 back in 2016. But for its newest flagships, Samsung is combining its facial recognition and iris scanning features into one verification method called Intelligent Scan (users can opt to use just one of these biometric methods if they want). Samsung’s Intelligent Scan works decently, but I still found myself occasionally reaching for the fingerprint sensor. Thankfully, the fingerprint scanner is now located in a much easier-to-reach spot below the camera, rather than alongside it.
What’s more exciting, though, is the way Samsung’s camera is becoming smarter about processing the information it sees. Bixby, Samsung’s virtual helper, has learned a few new camera-related tricks. My favorite by far was the real-time translation feature. Just fire up the camera app, press the Bixby Vision button, make sure the camera is set on the T symbol for translation, and point your phone at foreign language text. When the text is translated, Bixby will overlay it on top of whatever you’re looking at. If you’re trying to translate text on a road sign, for example, it almost looks like the words on the sign have magically changed when looking through your smartphone’s viewfinder. This is Bixby’s coolest feature by far, and it generally worked well. It’s best used for translating objects like signs and posters, as I noticed it sometimes jumbled text when translating denser mediums like books and magazines.
You can also point the camera at food to get calorie information, which can be faster than Googling nutritional details — at least when it works properly. Bixby’s makeup feature, which makes it possible to virtually try on lipstick, blush, and eyeshadow by looking through the selfie camera, can also be helpful for deciding which colors might fit your face. The eyeshadow looked surprisingly real, and certain colors of the lipsticks also looked genuine, while others appeared artificial.
The Galaxy S9 shines in other areas too, particularly when it comes to battery life, audio, and display quality. Both phones now have stereo speakers, a boost from last year’s model. The Galaxy S9 sounded more boisterous and clearer than the iPhone X and Google Pixel 2 XL during my testing, but you’ll still get better sound from a dedicated speaker. Samsung’s 2960 x 1440 resolution display, meanwhile, is just as stunning on the Galaxy S9 as it was on the Galaxy S8. Colors sometimes looked richer and more punchy on the S9+’s screen compared to the iPhone X, but I also noticed that the S9+ had a subtle blue tint to it compared to Apple’s smartphone. That’s likely because the iPhone X uses Apple’s TrueTone technology, which adjusts the screen’s white balance to match the lighting in your environment.
The S9+’s battery life is more than enough to get you through a full day. I generally had somewhere between 55 and 65% of my battery left by the time I went to sleep, but that will likely vary depending on how you use your phone. I used the Galaxy S9+ as my primary personal phone over the course of this review period, which meant I most frequently used it for tasks such as emailing, texting, browsing the web and social media, and taking photos.
The Galaxy S9 may not be the most exciting upgrade to come from Samsung, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. The Galaxy S8 was already an excellent phone, so it makes sense that Samsung would leave the overall design untouched and focus squarely on the camera. Samsung hits and misses in that regard, with impressive features, like Super Slow-mo and Bixby Vision, along with underwhelming efforts, like AR Emoji. While the Galaxy S9’s camera didn’t always provide the best image quality in all of the situations I tested it in, it was pretty darn close.
Taken together, the Galaxy S9’s updates suggest that the most innovative changes coming to your smartphone will likely appear in the camera from here on out, whether it’s through new augmented reality features or advanced facial scanning. Considering there isn’t much that’s changed compared to last year’s model, the Galaxy S9 and S9+ are both top-notch choices for Android fans in the market for a new smartphone. But if you already have a Galaxy S8, you probably don’t need to bother upgrading just yet.
It’s about 3:30 p.m. on a Wednesday in February, and some 700,000 people are anxiously waiting for Scott Rogowsky to show up. As the minutes tick by, their anticipation lights up their smartphone screens at an increasingly frantic pace. But Rogowsky is hunched over a laptop in SoHo cramming for the upcoming HQ Trivia game he’s about to host. (By the time he gets to it, about a million players will have logged on.) He’s quiet and focused until he isn’t: “What did Dr. Robotnik do?” he asks incredulously, referring to the fictional villain from the Sonic the Hedgehog video-game series.
The typical preshow routine for Rogowsky, one of the hosts of the wildly popular HQ Trivia, isn’t usually so rushed. For the uninitiated, HQ Trivia is a live game show that people can play and watch via a mobile app. The free game doles out a cash prize for all contestants who correctly answer 12 questions in a row, but players are given only 10 seconds to answer. The money pot usually fluctuates somewhere around $2,000, though it has been as high as $50,000. The prize is split evenly among all the winners, leaving some champions with just a few dollars and luckier victors with thousands, depending on how many winners they’re sharing it with. HQ games usually air like clockwork at 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. E.T. on weekdays, but today the producers added a surprise double feature in the afternoon slot.
The formula is working: since its August 2017 launch, HQ has grown at a breakneck pace, reaching a record high of 2.18 million concurrent players on March 4, up from 2 million on Feb. 4. In the app’s success many see the perfection of interactive television or an antidote to the atomized media world created by streaming television and apps. Others see it as a preview of the dystopian nightmare those things ensure. Either way, a lot of people are dropping everything they’re doing at 3 p.m. daily to join in.
Despite the massive buzz and consider- able controversy the young startup has generated, much about HQ remains a secret. How will it turn a profit? TBD. How will it avoid the fate of flash-in-the-pan app fads? Not yet clear. What’s certain is that HQ has perfected a formula for getting people to regularly tune in. And that recipe begins with how the show’s staff writes and presents its trivia.
HQ Trivia is the brainchild of Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll, who previously co-created the social video app Vine and sold it to Twitter in 2012 for a reported $30 million. HQ shares some of Vine’s chief characteristics: it takes a well-established medium—then it was funny video clips, now it’s trivia—miniaturizes it and makes it feel natural on a phone. (Not to mention, it became an overnight hit with users.) The result is a game that sometimes feels haphazard and chaotic. Its video streams could regularly freeze Rogowsky and the other four hosts in awkward frames. And sometimes players get glitched out of finishing a round. It’s all wildly addictive.
Eric Ryan Anderson for TIMEScott Rogowsky, host of trivia app HQ.
HQ Trivia’s habit-forming hook boils down to the questions, which can range from mind-numbingly easy (Which of these is NOT part of Disney’s Magic Kingdom? Answer: Cleveland) to the esoteric and obscure (The height difference between the current World’s Tallest & Shortest Living Men is roughly how much? Answer: 6 ft. 0 in.). These wild swings between reward and disappointment make playing HQ almost feel like gambling, minus the monetary risk, since the game is entirely free to play. Each time you beat your high score and make it to a new question, you’ve come closer to winning the next round. Theoretically, anyway.
Turns out, the questions are engineered that way. Yusupov and head writer Jesse Thompson have a growing team of writers and researchers following a surprisingly well-honed process. (Rogowsky and HQ’s head of content, Nick Gallo, wrote most of the questions themselves during the app’s early days.) Writers focus on specific categories when coming up with questions, which regularly change based on what’s happening in the world. If the category is “home life,” for example, a writer may be asked to come up with questions about taxes, getting married or pregnancy. These prompts are then stored away for future shows in no particular order, giving HQ’s showrunners a bank to choose from when assembling quizzes. Fact checkers now verify every question added to the stockpile before it ends up in a show’s lineup.
In order to reach that stage, questions must meet HQ’s rigid guidelines, which “have become the bible” for how the team writes, according to Yusupov. “I think there are 50 different filters that each writer needs to go through to get a perfect question,”says Thompson. Such criteria is why you likely won’t get questions that involve solving math equations or that hone in on heavy subjects like death or violence. Thompson mentioned disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein as an example of a topic that’s been in the news but wouldn’t fit within HQ’s criteria of keeping things upbeat. “When you’re focused on this thing, your thoughts are racing,” says Thompson of the app. “And we want to keep the focus right there. We don’t want players to go to dark places.”
Other guidelines limit how long questions can be and how they’re phrased in order to avoid hiccups and mispronunciations on air. “If we’re writing stuff that trips up the hosts, it’s bad,” says Thompson. “You see it once in a while, when we get something that’s too ambitious and someone doesn’t quite nail it, and it throws off the flow.”
More challenging than coming up with questions can be inventing fake answers that are indisputably wrong yet clever enough to fool most of the audience. “In my first month of writing questions, I would dip into that gray area of, it’s not wrong but people are debating it,” Thompson says. One method for avoiding this, he says, is to approach the process by coming up with the solution before the problem. As an example, Thompson cited a recent question that asked players to pick the correct name for a square with rounded corners, which he recently discovered is called a squircle. “So I was like, ‘O.K., now I just have to come up with one ridiculous-sounding thing and then one that sounds kind of normal,” he says. “And pretty much everyone picked the normal-sounding one.”
Occasionally, writers will come up with a question that knocks out the majority of players, referred to by hosts and players as a “savage question.” Sometimes what turns out to have been a savage question shocks the game’s creators just as much as it does players. “It’s very revealing about what people do now, and what people won’t know,” says Yusupov. “Who would have thought that people didn’t know ivory comes from elks and not rhinos?” Even Rogowsky, who sometimes plays the game when he’s not hosting, says he has never won a single game of HQ.
The opening and closing monologues that happen at the beginning and end of each show are also scripted by both the writers and the hosts. Thompson tells me some writers specifically focus on the “frills,” which is HQ lingo for the banter and factoids between each question. Most of the time, the hosts stick to the script. “Scott will read, like, 50% of what the writers have written,” says Thompson. “And he’ll improv the rest. But he’s an improv comedian, and we can’t expect other people to do that.”
Frills are especially important when something goes wrong during a broadcast, which has been a fairly common occurrence in the show’s short history. When there’s a technical hitch, HQ hosts must vamp for the audience until the issue is fixed. “I should come in with something prepared, like a backup for when things go down,” Rogowsky says. “I’ve toyed with the idea of bringing in a copy of The Great Gatsby,” presumably to read out loud. Yet it’s in these unscripted moments that Rogowsky feels the most comfortable on air. He likens it to making small talk in an elevator that’s stuck between floors. “In a weird way, I sort of relish it, because it’s a chance for me to have pure fun with the audience,” he says. “These dark corners of my mind now get exposed on HQ because those synapses fire in a very strange way when you’re talking to a camera for 15 minutes.”
That length—15 minutes—is intentional too. The creators decided to make the game 12 questions long, because it amounts to about 15 minutes when you account for each 10-second question and the frills in between. All of which is just long enough to keep people hooked without boring them. “We want to own time slots,” Yusupov says. “What I’m seeing is that people are developing habits around HQ in the same way that they would develop habits around their favorite TV shows.”
Whether the habit will stick is an open question. Yusupov has a track record of founding fleeting apps that shine bright and fade quickly. Vine helped launch the careers of new age Internet celebrities like Nash Grier and Logan Paul, but Twitter shut it down in 2017 as rival social apps began offering similar features. And for an app that’s half a year old, HQ has found itself embroiled in its fair share of scandals, the most notable of which occurred in early February. When it was reported that HQ was raising money from Founders Fund, the venture-capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel (who helped fund the lawsuit that eventually shut down popular news site Gawker), the phrase #DeleteHQ circulated on Twitter. In December, Recode reported that HQ Trivia’s founders were having trouble securing funding because some investors were concerned about Kroll’s behavior during his tenure at Twitter. Yusupov says he isn’t worried about fans abandoning the app and defends his decision to work with Founders Fund’s Cyan Banister, who is leading a $15 million investment in the company. “She believes in our vision, and we share the same philosophies around emerging technologies,” he says.
Back at HQ Trivia’s scrappy headquarters, that vision seems pretty clear. A styling station is positioned in the corner near a glowing HQ sign where host Sharon Carpenter is reviewing the script for the upcoming game she’ll be hosting for U.K. players as a stylist brushes makeup over her face. A giant black board that extends from the floor to nearly the ceiling is covered in multicolored sticky notes that signify which host is scheduled to present the quiz on a given day. HQ Trivia may dominate the 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. time slots for millions of smartphone owners, but Yusupov has grander ambitions. “I think we can expand to a new schedule and have people shift their behaviors around these shared moments,” he says. Minutes after HQ notified users about the surprise game I witnessed, hundreds of thousands have logged on — even though another game ended just a few minutes prior. “Everyone came back,”Yusupov announces, as if the unscheduled game was a test he wasn’t sure he’d pass but is glad he did. Much like his users, Yusupov is relishing a surprise win— and eagerly awaiting the next one.
It’s a modern-day horror story: a 2-year-old child input an incorrect passcode on an iPhone so many times that the device became locked for 47 years, rendering it utterly useless to its formerly digitally-connected owner.
That’s the scenario now facing a Shanghai mother identified only as Ms. Lu by Chinese news reports, whose toddler unfortunately took the time allotted to watch “educational videos” on the phone and instead began the process of disabling the device for, basically, forever.
According to a news report, Ms. Lu waited for two months to see if the situation would improve — but the phone remained locked. “I couldn’t really wait for 47 years and tell my grandchild it was your father’s mistake,” she reportedly said. The alternative mode of accessing the phone is to wipe it with a factory reset. (This is why you should always backup all your data.)
iPhones can become locked with six failed attempts at inputting a passcode on the lock screen, and the amount of time for which the phone is locked can compound with ongoing attempts to break in. So for all the parents out there: maybe be careful letting your kid loose on your phone, assuming you want to still be able to use it when they’re done, of course.
scenz kuch esa haen 