Dell is apparently bringing back the bigger-screened XPS 17, as spotted in a leaked product roadmap reportedly found by Tweakers.
Dell's XPS lineup of laptops has stood out for years as a high bar for other laptops to aim at, with the XPS 13 and XPS 15 series consistently among the best laptops on the market.
Today, it's been the better part of a decade since we've seen a Dell XPS 17 laptop. Dell's focus with the XPS line has seemed to be on a blend of portability, performance and design. Of course, 17-inch laptops in the past have been among the least portable laptops, with huge screens flanked by large bezels and considerable weight.
That formula for laptop design has been changing, though, and a future Dell XPS 17 laptop could likely use Dell's InfinityEdge display style to fit a 17-inch display into the form factor of past 15-inch laptops.
More details from the leak
For the XPS 17, the product roadmap leak shows a launch in July of 2020. So, it'll be a long time before we see whether that pans out.
However the XPS 17 isn't alone in the leak. Alongside it, there's a new XPS 15 2019 model slated for a July 2019 launch, which could give us some indication of the validity of this leak. That model also appears to be listed with an 8-core Intel Coffee Lake processor (CPU).
Two new XPS 13 models are also listed, with what seems to be a Intel Comet Lake CPU in the earlier model slated for a September launch and an Intel Ice Lake CPU in the model with a February 2019 launch.
While basic updates to the XPS 15 and XPS 13 line are reasonable to expect, including updates for the XPS 13 2-in-1, one interesting extra in the leak is mention of an XPS Dual Screen lined up for October 2020.
There are no details on what processor will power it, and there's only room for speculation at this point on what it could look like. With the productivity focus of XPS machines, a typical laptop design paired with some kind of slide-out secondary display is feasible, though a design we've really only seen in prototypes like the Razer Project Valkyrie.
The design could also be something like the Lenovo Yoga Book C930, but the idea of offering only a digital keyboard on a productivity-minded machine seems implausible. With any luck, future leaks will give us some more hints.
Vodafone has revealed that it found security flaws in equipment provided by Chinese hardware maker Huawei to its Italian business in 2011 and 2012.
The world's second largest mobile operator said that it had found security vulnerabilities in two products though both incidents were quickly resolved by the Chinese firm.
Huawei has faced increased scrutiny as the US has told its allies not to use its technology over concerns of Chinese spying. Back in January, Vodafone paused the deployment of the firm's equipment in its core networks as it waits for Western governments to give the Chinese company full security clearance.
The British government is still deciding what role Huawei's equipment will play in a future 5G network but it plans to announce its final decision in the next month.
A government report released in March criticized the company for failing to fix long-standing security issues. British security officials said that they had found “several hundred vulnerabilities and issues” with Huawei's equipment in 2018.
Security flaws
The software vulnerabilities discovered by Vodafone in 2011 and 2012 were promptly fixed by Huawei and the telecom said that it had found no evidence of any unauthorized access.
A spokesperson for the company provided more details on the vulnerabilities, saying:
“The issues were identified by independent security testing, initiated by Vodafone as part of our routine security measures, and fixed at the time by Huawei.”
According to Vodafone, the vulnerabilities arose from the use of Telnet which is a protocol used by vendors to perform diagnostic functions. Telnet allows equipment manufacturers to communicate with their products after they have been deployed.
Finally, after years of being in development, we know when Hideo Kojima's upcoming title Death Stranding will release and we also know a little bit more about what to expect from the game...kind of...probably as much as we ever will.
As the game's November release date approaches Kojima has been taking advantage of events like Gamescom and Tokyo Games Show to steadily release more information about the game and show us more footage. But with Kojima, nothing is simple.
While we have now seen more gameplay footage, more trailers and learned of further confirmed features which has cleared up some of our confusion, there's still a part of us that's not entirely sure of what to expect from Death Stranding. We're not actually sure we'll have a real handle on it until we can play it in its entirety.
So while fans try to work out what to expect from Kojima's latest offering, let this article guide you through everything there is to know about Death Stranding so far.
[Update: The Death Stranding launch trailer is here. Watch almost 8 minutes of footage for yourself below.]
Image credit: Kojima Productions
Cut to the chase
What is it? It’s the debut title from Hideo Kojima’s new studio Kojima Studios.
When can I play it? November 8, 2019
What can I play it on?Sony PS4 (PC at a later date)
Death Stranding trailers and screenshots
It's almost time for Death Stranding's release date and that means all the pre-launch announcements are coming to an end. The final trailer before we get to play the game for ourselves is here and it stands at just under 8 minutes.
A word of warning before you press play: this launch trailer has a fair few story details so if you don't want to know anything ahead of playing the game it might be best to look away (although if you're on an information-heavy page like this we imagine that's maybe not too much of a concern for you).
Kojima made an appearance at Tokyo Games Show in 2019 and brought with him the longest chunk of Death Stranding gameplay footage we've seen so far. At just under an hour, this footage gives us a good look at how the game will play.
Death Stranding trailers are becoming increasingly focused and two released on August 19 at Gamescom 2019 brought the enigmatic infants into closer view.
The trailers revealed a new character that is the mother to an infant who was born still, and so its soul exists in a mirror plane to the real world, the world of the dead. Then, some of the characters in this world have managed to manipulate and navigate this world with actual stillborn infants connected across planes with still mothers ... we think.
It's wild stuff that borderlines on taboo – and it features Guillermo Del Toro, too.
Finally, Kojima revealed gameplay of Death Stranding, which detailed a character interacting with a character modeled after Geoff Keighley (who is literally in the game now). Then, he fell off a cliff onto the baby resting in its artificial womb on the character's chest ... unscathed. We have no idea.
Prior to Gamescom, Kojima gave us a two minute look at a brand new character: Heartman. Played by Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn, this character's heart stops every 21 minutes. Each time his heart stops he dies for around 3 minutes and enters the world of the dead before being revived by a defibrillator strapped to his chest and returned to the land of the living.
The most revealing Death Stranding trailer dropped on May 29, announcing the game's release date and attempting to shed some light on the storyline.
Check it out below:
The Tokyo Game Show 2018 trailer revealed voice-acting veteran Troy Baker has joined the cast as the mysterious villain The Man in the Golden Mask.
E3 2018 brought Death Stranding gameplay to our eyes and left our minds somewhat confused.
Before E3 2018, Death Stranding featured at the Game Awards 2017. Coming in at nearly eight minutes long, this isn't a quick watch and unfortunately it doesn't answer many of the questions we have about the game (actually we think we have more).
Watch it for yourself below:
The reveal trailer that was shown at E3 in 2016 may have been more than 3 minutes long, but it didn’t reveal much about the game at all other than that it would star The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus.
A second even longer and 4K trailer was shown at The Game Awards at the end of 2016. This trailer starred Hannibal’s Mads Mikkelsen and Guillermo Del Toro and although it didn’t give us any more of an idea of what the game will actually even be about (in fact leaving us more confused than we were before) it did send expectations soaring.
Death Stranding release date
Death Stranding will release for PS4 on November 8 2019. However, the game will not release on PC until "early summer 2020".
Death Stranding is available to pre-order now from the PlayStation Store. The standard digital edition will cost you £54.99 / $59.99 / AU$99.95, while the deluxe digital edition costs £64.99 / $79.99 / AU$114.95.
Image credit: Kojima Productions
Death Stranding news and features
Death Stranding is officially coming to PC in 2020 After months of speculation, it’s been officially announced that Death Stranding is coming to PC – and it will arrive on gaming computers “early summer of 2020”.
London Event PlayStation UK has announced that it will be holding a Death Stranding event in London and that Hideo Kojima himself will be in attendance. Called The Death Stranding Experience, the event will be non-ticketed and will take place on November 2 between 10am and 7pm with the chance to meet Kojima between 11.30am and 1.30pm.
For those who cannot make the initial day when Kojima is attending, further Death Stranding Experiences will be available on November 3, 8, 9 and 10 from 10.30am until 6pm.
What exactly will happen during The Death Stranding Experience is currently unclear and we've heard little other than that it will be a “unique experience that draws on the environments of the game.” For those not entirely sure what Kojima's game will be about, this is probably a good opportunity to get a better idea. Naturally, there will also be opportunities to purchase official merchandise.
It seems likely that this is part of Kojima's World Stranding Tour which is happening in the run up to the game's release on November 8. Before London, Kojima will be visiting Paris and afterwards he will be touring around Berlin, New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Taipei and Singapore.
Tokyo Games Show Hideo Kojima and Death Stranding made an appearance at Tokyo Games Show; quite a long one as well. The creator took to the stage to show off almost an hour of gameplay footage which is the longest look at the game yet. From what we could see from the footage, there's a lot of walking in Death Stranding though it's mercifully broken up by some vehicles and, of course, some combat with enemies. As Reedus' character Sam, players will pull their cargo across the game world, struggling as it gets heavier. As players walk they'll need to contend with the little things like replacing their worn out boots and they'll be able to pick up cargo dropped by other players in their playthroughs.
Another round of footage was shown at the close of the show which gave us a glimpse of the game's Safe House, a more intimate place in the game world where time will be spent between missions. The Safe House is a place where you can hang out as Sam and mess around with selfies, customise your gear, plan your next move, take a shower and, er, eat some bugs.
Kojima also took some interviews during the show and in one particular interview he admitted that the game won't get "really fun" until players get around halfway through it. According to Kojima the game will have a slow start and "there is no explanation or anything". The reason for this is, in part, to make the game more accessible to every kind of player which has been a key concern for Kojima.
Accessible difficulty settings According to a tweet by Kojima, Death Stranding will have a "very easy" mode (via GamesRadar). This is one for movie fans who are interested in the game's leading actors but aren't really interested in playing the game. Kojima is known for his long cinematic cutscenes so this isn't an entirely inexplicable move for Death Stranding.
Gamescom 2019 We knew Hideo Kojima was going to make an appearance at Gamescom: Opening Night Live to premiere new footage from Death Stranding, but it was probably too hopeful of us to think his appearance would be straightforward. Kojima just doesn't roll like that.
While the gaming auteur certainly tried to explain Death Stranding, and in particular the baby we see Norman Reedus carrying about, it still manged to be a convoluted affair.
We kind of have a better idea about what Death Stranding's Bridge Babies are about thanks to a couple of new trailers.
It seems like Bridge Babies (or BBs) are babies who are born on "the other side" (aka stillborn). However they remain attached to their mothers via some sort of supernatural umbilical cord, which means they exist in a kind of mirror plane to the real world - ethereal, but still 'connected' to their mothers.
The babies then seem to be used to allow people in the real world, like Norman Reedus' character Sam, to see BTs (supernatural, shadowy creatures). So Sam attaches a device to him that acts like a mother's womb, so the BB thinks it's still in there.
It seems Sam needs to keep his BB calm and happy because they're "unpredictable" and can possibly fail. It seems like Sam will die if the BB dies. So essentially you're a delivery man and a surrogate mother...
After the two trailers on BBs, Kojima revealed gameplay of Death Stranding which started with Sam urinating to empty his "tank". The pee also caused a mushroom to grow a bit. We can only assume there's a survival mechanic that means you need to drink, eat and pee. We assume...
Next, the trailer detailed Sam interacting with a character modeled after Game Awards founder Geoff Keighley (who is literally in the game now). Sam delivers a package and then a new strand is uncovered, showing more of the map. Then, he fell off a cliff face-down into the ground, flat on the baby resting in its artificial womb on the character's chest, which was... unscathed. We have no idea.
The baby then start crying and Sam has to rock it to calm it down.
The new trailers didn't shed a whole lot of light on Death Stranding but it seems the babies are technically dead and create a link to another world, allowing Sam (and anyone attached to BBs) to see the shadowy BT figures. Maybe? Who knows.
Keanu Reeves was almost cast in Death Stranding During a panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima revealed that Reeves was initially recommended for a main role in the game. However, Kojima decided to go with Hannibal's Mads Mikkelsen instead.
"I originally was recommended Keanu Reeves but I wanted Mads," Kojima explained during the panel, according to Twitter user Kalai Chik.
Check out the tweet below:
Release date revealed in trailer According to the latest Death Stranding trailer, the game will release on November 8, 2019. The trailer is pretty odd and includes scenes such as Norman Reedus' Sam traversing open-world grasslands on a motorbike, Mads Mikkelsen leading an army of undead soldiers and more jar babies.
Kojima has stated the game centers around 'connection' Following the release of the new Death Stranding trailer, Kojima tweeted an image which states what he believes the game is about and what its key themes are.
Check the tweet out below:
Death Stranding's pre-order page is live now Death Stranding's pre-order page is now up on the PS Store, showing off a bunch of pre-order bonus content.
Check out all the items below:
Image credit: Sony
Tribeca Film Festival We learnt a few new tidbits at the Tribeca Film Festival, which hosted a panel discussion with Hideo Kojima and Norman Reedus. Much of it was about how immersed Reedus was with development, with his entire face and body (tattoos and all) having been scanned into the game.
“In Death Stranding I’m trying to put every aspect [of Norman] in there,” Kojima said through his interpreter, “and you will see his … everything, in the game,” he finished, suggestively, cracking up the crowd. By the end of the game, he says, you’ll “love Norman”.
Non-branching narrative Kojima also stated there would be some painful choices to make in the game, though followed up by saying the player wouldn't really be able to influence the story through their decisions. Sounds like some different cutscenes or dialogue options, though not much in the way of affecting plot.
Online features
One of the biggest teases at Tribeca was the recurring mention of online features, though Kojima avoided talking directly about what this would look like in the game: "You're connecting the game, and everyone is playing it together, and you'll be connected, everyone will be connected together as well." Maybe a way to communicate or leave notes for other players, in the vein of Dark Souls?
Image credit: TechRadar
Troy Baker is a villain Veteran voice-actor Troy Baker (who voices Joel in The Last of Us series) stars in Death Stranding as the enigmatic antagonist The Man in the Golden Mask. Baker was introduced in a teaser trailer shown during Tokyo Game Show, with his skull-masked character summoning a black tar-like demon to take on Norman Reedus' character.
E3 2018 E3 brought a brand new trailer, few answers and even more questions. The trailer for the game had the most revealing description we've seen yet, stating the game is about Sam ‘Porter’ Bridges, a delivery man who must journey across a vast world so that he can “reunite the shattered world one step at a time.”
We also got look at two more famous faces who will make an appearance in the game – Léa Seydoux and Lindsay Wagner.
Something edgy Back in 2015 Kojima starting giving hints around the game's tone and star-studded voice cast in an interview with IGN. According to Kojima his first title with Sony is going to be “slightly more edgy”, as while he wants “to create something that’s what people expect” he also wants to bring “something new that people haven’t seen before.”
We do know that Kojima is planning to do something different with the game’s mechanics, most notably around the concept of dying and involving the baby that has appeared in every trailer. Kojima said in the interview that the mechanics of Death Stranding were inspired by a Japanese short story.
Image credit: Kojima Productions
In the story it’s stated that the first tool mankind creates is a stick for protection, but that the second tool mankind created was a rope to keep things close and secure. “Most of your tools in action games are sticks,” Kojima explained, “You punch or you shoot or you kick. The communication is always through these 'sticks.' In [Death Stranding], I want people to be connected not through sticks, but through what would be the equivalent of ropes… But of course you will be able to use the sticks too.”
Unfortunately we haven’t seen any gameplay that would give us a better insight into how this rope approach will actually work.
A mystery to its own devs At a Q and A session at the E3 Coliseum in 2017, Kojima himself said that his own team didn't understand the game: "I started explaining a year ago to the team what I wanted to make. No one got it!"
Before this, the game's star Mads Mikkelsen admitted he "got lost" when Kojima tried to explain the game's plot to him.
Sporadic details Though Kojima has been coy, he’s given some nice teases into what we can expect from Death Stranding in terms of tone and gameplay modes.
We know the game will run on the Decima engine which was created by Horizon: Zero Dawn developers, Guerilla Games. Kojima praised this engine during PSX 2016 as being an excellent engine for creating open world games, something that Horizon: Zero Dawn’s reception suggests has an element of truth to it.
Though its unsettling trailers suggest otherwise, Kojima has said that Death Stranding won’t be as dark as some fans are expecting. It’s certainly not a horror game, he told Glixel, and it would have comedic moments which isn’t entirely surprising considering the overarching tone of the Metal Gear series.
An impressive cast We already knew Death Stranding had some big names attached to it including Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen . But now we know they'll be joined by writer and actress Emily O'Brien and the voice of video games, Troy Baker.
O'Brien posted a picture to Instagram which showed her alongside Baker and Reedus, with a caption stating "Honored to be working alongside these two fine lads on [Hideo Kojima's] new project Death Stranding."
While Baker is well known for his starring roles in video games such as The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite, O'Brien has had roles on both TV and in games, featuring in Telltale's Guardian's of the Galaxy and Batman: The Enemy Within as well as Rock in a Hard Place.
Players won't die In an interview with IGN, Hideo Kojima was slightly more open with details than he usually is. The strange underwater sequence from the 2017 Game Awards trailer for example? That's apparently a kind of purgatory where players will go and freely explore when they die in the game, though Kojima notes that "death will never pull you out of the game."
The game apparently explores the themes of life and death and it's for this reason that Kojima would like to explore the traditional death mechanic in games and let players know that in-game death isn't the end for them when it happens.
In this underwater area, he explains, “you're not dead or alive. It's the equivalent of that screen that says 'Continue?' and a counter ticking down towards zero.” When players decide they're ready to leave and return to the game world, they won't be returned to a point before their death. Instead the game acknowledges their defeat and coming back to life is more of a reincarnation than a respawn.
There's a weird time rain During the trailer shown at the 2017 Game Awards, fans noticed there's a strange kind of rain that has an effect on time. In makes plants grow and wilt and makes human bodies age and degenerate when it touches them. The rain is apparently called Timefall and it has a big role to play in the game's story.
When you buy a smartphone it'll likely have a plastic, glass or metal body, but in the future you might not get these options – instead, your handset could be made of a new custom polymer.
Researchers at MIT recently unveiled a new polymer material, after several years working on it, that could have a big impact on what future smartphones, and other tech products, are made of.
What new features will the iPhone 11 bring to the table?
The most important feature in the custom polymer is that instead of containing heat, like the back of your smartphone will do when the device heats up, the material will conduct it much more efficiently. This means a phone will be able to cool much easier, and won't heat up as much when used intensively.
On top of that the researchers have spent a long time working on an efficient and cheap manufacturing process. The material would be a lot cheaper to produce than the glass and metal of premium phones, and manufacturers could reduce costs by embracing it.
The material is also significantly thinner than your typical handset case, so future phones could be a little thinner – but they could also be a little more delicate too, depending on how strong the polymer is.
At the moment the custom polymer isn't ready for commercial use, so even if manufacturers do choose to use it in their phones (which there's no guarantee of), it'll be a while until we see phones made up of it.
With the best free Adobe Illustrator alternatives, you can create and edit vector graphics cost-free. These are a great choice if you're new to designing with vector graphics. Unlike raster graphics, they use mathematical expressions to draw the lines, shapes and colours. This means they’re infinitely scalable, so you can blow them up to the size of a billboard with no unsightly pixelation.
While it’s true that Adobe Illustrator is the industry-standard software for creating and editing vector graphics, you’re committing to an expensive Creative Cloud subscription. It’s not always the most cost-effective solution for many. Thankfully, it's not the only choice. There are many Adobe Illustrator alternatives out there that are free.
However, not all Adobe Illustrator alternatives are created equal – some only support a few file formats, while others are bundled with unwanted extra software. Still, vector graphics are the best choice for a number of design and illustration tasks, such as creating icons, logos, diagrams, charts, posters and website graphics. So we've put all the most popular free Illustrator alternatives to the test and picked the very best.
Open source vector graphics package Inkscape is staggeringly powerful, and is the best free Adobe Illustrator alternative for pro and semi-pro illustrators, graphic designers and web designers.
As well as the standard drawing and shape tools, Inkscape boasts a special spirals tool, a tool to create patterns and arrangements of clones, advanced object manipulation options, multiple filters (including bevels, textures, overlays and more), and some nifty fill settings. In short, there’s very little Illustrator can do that Inkscape can’t.
Because it's open source, it’s not only free to use but if you have the technical know-how you can even edit it and incorporate it into other software. And new features are being added all the time; the latest version brings mesh gradients, improved SVG2 and CSS3 support and new path effects to the party.
So what’s the catch? Some users have complained that it performs slowly, although that does seem to depend on what device and operating system you’re using. The best thing to do is just download it and give it a quick try; there's nothing to lose.
Boxy SVG is a free tool for creating scalable vector graphic files that runs as an extension in Google Chrome. It comes with a good range of basic tools, including pens, bezier curves, text, basic shapes, stroke and fill, layers, ability to add type, groups, transforms and paths.
The main selling point for Boxy SVG is the utter simplicity of its UI. It makes a virtue of paring down the experience of creating vector graphics to a fairly minimal set of options. These essentially restrict you to the kind of things that the SVG format is good at. As a result, it’s fast, easier to pick up than Illustrator, and the files it creates are clean and efficient.
As well as importing and exporting files in SVG and SVGZ format, you can also use Boxy SVG to import and export JPEGs and PNGs. Wonderfully convenient.
Vecteezy is another free in-browser Adobe Illustrator alternative (the developer earns a crust selling premium illustrations, and its customers include the BBC, Amazon, McDonald's and Dell).
You can import and edit SVG files, or create your own designs from scratch. There's a selection of shapes and ready-made clipart to choose from, and a huge array of typefaces for text-based designs.
Vecteezy also includes a pen tool for drawing freehand shapes and editing existing paths, plus a simple color-picker. It's all refreshingly simple to use, and even brand new users will grasp the fundamentals within a few minutes.
There are just a couple of points to be aware of: you'll need to create an account or log in using Facebook in order to save your work, and if you open a particularly large file, Vecteezy warns you that doing so might cause your browser to freeze. This is a risk with any similar web app though, and we appreciate Vecteezy being so up-front about it.
Vectr is a free in-browser Adobe Illustrator alternative. It was originally available as a desktop application for offline use as well, but this has now been discontinued.
Don't let that put you off, though; Vectr is intuitive to use, with a shallow learning curve. “Design software shouldn’t bring people a sense of struggle, yet that’s exactly how the troublesome design software we grew up on made us feel,” says its developer, who has created this pared-back vector editor with accessibility in mind.
While it lacks many of the advanced features of Illustrator, then, it’s got all the tools you need for basic vector editing - shapes, text, multiple layers and like - and what it does, it does very well. You can save all work you create in Vectr online, or export it in PNG, JPG, or SVG file formats.
Vectr is a great choice for beginners, or just anyone needing to create a simple graphic with the minimum of fuss.
If your prime reason for wanting a vector graphics editor is to create SVG files for websites, then SVG-Edit may be all you need. You can use this free vector software within your web browser to create SVG images and edit existing ones.
SVG-Edit works in any modern browser, and offers a basic set of vector editing features including hand-drawing tools, shape tools, text tools and path tools. The tool is open source, which means that new features are being added all the time by contributing developers.
It’s built on HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript with no server-side functionality, so if you wish you can download and modify the code to make your own version.
Sick of Facebook spying on your conversations, Apple pretending to care about security, Alexa employees laughing at the things you say, and Google collecting data from your email? The Librem One suite may be a good security defense for your smartphone.
Apple TV Plus, the new video streaming service from Apple, launched in 2019 with a strong (but small) lineup of star-studded shows.
Apple certainly put the hard work in before its streaming service launched. It brought on board some of the best writers, actors and directors in Hollywood, including Steven Spielberg and Jennifer Aniston, to create new TV shows. Although some have fallen a little short on expectations and failed to rake in the viewers, like Jason Momoa's See, others have landed well, like Aniston's The Morning Show.
With this focus on new and original content, it certainly seems like Apple TV Plus could give Netflix a run for its money – a service that has a good back catalogue of movies and TV shows but really shines with its Originals.
So, how does the Apple TV Plus streaming service differ from Netflix? And could it truly pose a threat to the most popular streaming platform in the world? Read on for our take on Apple’s first foray into the world of TV and movie streaming.
Aside from being the most popular streaming service in the world, Netflix has become something of a cultural icon, even inspiring its own lexicon – we all know what it means to ‘Netflix and chill’ (if you don’t, ask an appropriate adult), and most people have been on an uncontrollable ‘Netflix binge’.
With a wide-reaching mix of original and licensed shows and movies, Netflix’s huge variety of content, as well as its ease of use, has given birth to the cult of binge-watching.
Apple, on the other hand, will have some way to go if it’s to unseat Netflix from its throne with Apple TV Plus, its new ad-free subscription service.
However, with a host of exclusive programs with some very famous faces attached, Apple could potentially rival Netflix's Originals – if it can match Netflix's prodigious output that is.
Apple has promised it will release "new additions every month", but it hasn't confirmed how much new content will be coming each month. Given the rather small lineup so far, we expect we may only see handful arrive each month. But that could all change in 2020.
Image credit: TechRadar
Apple TV Plus vs Netflix: pricing
Apple TV Plus costs $4.99 per month / £4.99 ( AU$7), vastly undercutting Netflix – and a subscription can be shared by up to six family members.
What's more, a one-year subscription to the service will come free with new iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Apple TVs.
Having recently upped its prices, the cheapest Netflix plan is currently $9 / £5.99 / AU$9.99, while its HD Standard plan (the most popular) costs $13 / £7.99 / AU$13.99. For fans of Ultra HD streaming, the 4K Premium plan is available for $16 / £9.99 / AU$17.99. So both pretty competitive, but a little more than the Disney Plus price.
Image credit: Pexels
Apple TV Plus vs Netflix: availability
Apple TV Plus is merged with the new and improved Apple TV app, which in turn is coming to a wide range of smart TVs in May, as well as to set-top boxes and streaming sticks from rival companies like Roku and Amazon.
The Apple TV app is also available on a number of smart TVs – in ranges by Samsung, Sony, LG, and Vizio – in addition to Apple's own set-top box and streaming player, the Apple TV.
This means Apple TV Plus isn't restricted to Apple TV devices – and moving the app onto rival devices is a risky move by Apple, as it could reduce the number of consumers buying into Apple TV hardware. We're wondering if Apple is looking to phase out this hardware in order to focus on the improved Apple TV app.
You can also access it on iOS and Mac products, too – though not their Android or Windows equivalents (for now).
Given those restrictions so far, it's difficult to see how it could prove a true rival to Netflix, which is available on a wider range of devices and operating systems.
Netflix is available to use on a huge range of devices, which will also synchronize with each other – this means you can start watching a show on your desktop browser, pause it, and pick up in the exact same place when logging back in on your big-screen TV.
Depending on which subscription package you opt for, you can watch Netflix on up to four screens at one time.
As well as your computer, gaming console, and built-in TV applications there are Android and iOS apps, as well as a whole suite of set-top streaming boxes that will give you access to Netflix's video library.
The new Apple TV interface (Image credit: Apple)
Apple TV Plus vs Netflix: features and user interface
One of the best things about Netflix is how it tailors its content to you, with its recommendation algorithm learning your preferences as you watch. As a result, it’s then able to adjust how content is positioned on your home screen, recommending shows and movies you may like based on your watching habits.
Another reason for Netflix’s popularity is its intuitive user interface, which makes it easy to navigate shows and films you’ve saved to your ‘list’, as well as making it easy to search by genre, director, actor and more.
The redesigned Apple TV app looks rather attractive and means Apple TV Plus works in a similar way to Netflix.
Apple TV Plus essentially functions as a subset of this app, with a rolling banner on the Watch Now tab, beneath the rows for ‘Up Next’ and ‘What to Watch’.
It certainly takes pride of place compared to the other media showcased on the platform – of course, Apple would rather you watch its own shows than the stuff it’s licensing – though we’d rather there was a dedicated tab at the top of the app for easy navigation.
At the top of the screen there are categories like 'Movies' and 'Sports', where you can choose where you get your content, from a variety of 'Apple Channels'.
You may want to watch drama shows via Hulu and get sports from your cable provider – these are part of Apple's 'Channels', which exist separately from Apple TV Plus (i.e. you'll need to buy a subscription to each provider or platform should you want to watch its content).
Image credit: Netflix
On the technological side of things, Netflix's dynamically-scaling streams mean you don't need to choose the quality level you want to watch at. If your bandwidth is low it will deliver just the standard definition versions, but if you've got the hardware and the capacity it will go all the way up to 4K Ultra HD resolutions if available.
Apple supports both 4K and HDR streaming, and helpfully lists that information on each show page – unlike Netflix, which waits until you’re watching an episode to tell you.
Beyond higher resolutions, Netflix also allows you to download selected shows and movies for offline viewing. Downloads stay in your library for 30 days at a time, and will automatically expire at that time – even if it's on a device that isn't connected to the internet.
Steve Carrell, Reese Witherspoon, and Jennifer Anniston present their new show at the Apple event (Image credit: TechRadar)
Apple TV Plus vs Netflix: content
Netflix has a huge range of exclusives, originals and classics to get stuck into, and is fast becoming a respected distributor of original movies and TV series, with Netflix Original Roma taking the award for Best Cinematography, Best Director, and Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars in 2019 and The Irishman being nominated for even more in early 2020 awards season.
The best-known Netflix Originals series include Orange Is The New Black, Bojack Horseman, Stranger Things, Daredevil, Maniac, and House of Cards. But there are lots of new ones too, like Lost in Space and The Witcher.
It's these shows that Apple wants to rival with its own original programming through Apple TV Plus.
Notable titles include The Morning Show, Jason Momoa epic See, Sesame Street spin-off Helpsters, teen fantasy Ghostwriters, Hailee Steinfeld’s Emily Dickinson biopic, and NASA drama For All Mankind. There’s enough to flick through in a few evenings, but if only one of these shows takes your fancy, there’s not much else keeping your subscribed past the seven-day free trial.
Suffice to say that it’s a small launch offering, with Apple having focused in on a few titles rather than seek to get breadth of content while compromising on quality across the board.
While these shows may sound great, it doesn't look like Apple will be able to match the sheer volume of content on offer from Netflix at launch – and there's a big, gaping film-shaped hole in the new streaming service. However, if Apple does release new content every month as it says it will, and gets some original or syndicated movies onto the platform, it could soon catch up.
Big Bird and Cody at the Apple Keynote (Image credit: TechRadar)
Of course, it’s not only about original content; a huge part of Netflix’s success rides on the enormous variety of syndicated content it puts out, ranging from gritty thrillers like Breaking Bad to an extensive range of kids shows and movies.
Apple TV Plus, on the other hand, won't offer any licensed content at all. For now, you'll still have to buy those shows a la carte through iTunes or via your terrestrial cable app in Apple TV Channels.
Takeaway
Right now, Apple TV Plus doesn't pose a real threat to Netflix. It lacks the syndicated content and (for now) has a sparse programming roster. Although this good change as more and more content is added to Apple Plus, it probably won't be catching up any time soon.
However, in the long-term Apple TV Plus could prove a problem for Netflix in terms of quality; Apple has a strong lineup of famous creatives behind its original programming, and a real focus on high-quality content.
Of course Netflix also puts an emphasis on quality, as its Oscar success with Roma shows, but we all know there are also some truly terrible films and shows on the platform, and we doubt Apple will want to follow suit in that respect.
The cost is a huge point of differentiation between Apple TV Plus and Netflix, with Apple undercutting Netflix by nearly $4. But that would make sense given the lack of content available on Apple TV Plus in comparison.
It may still be early days for Apple TV Plus, but right now Netflix rules supreme. The usual Apple strategy, of bringing out the best version of a product after it’s had a chance to study the market and iterate in a stylish way, hasn’t quite translated to its content offering here, and it’s hard to recommend the service on the basis of any individual shows.
If you don't fancy Netflix or Apple TV Plus, check out our Disney Plus review instead
Chromium-based Edge users have apparently been hit by a fresh glitch when using Google services – in this case, the online word processor Google Docs.
Some folks running the preview of Microsoft’s revamped Edge browser who have popped over to Google Docs have been confronted by an error message informing them: “The version of the browser you are using is no longer supported.”
The message also advises switching to a supported browser, and to rub salt into the wound, one of those supported is Microsoft Edge (the original version of the browser exclusive to Windows 10).
There are a few things to note here, though. Firstly, as Reddit users who got the message point out, it doesn’t actually affect your ability to use Google Docs – at least not outwardly. You can (reportedly) simply carry on as normal, although there is a possibility that other users may run into problems elsewhere.
As Ghacks reports, this is seemingly a mirror of the incident that happened with Google Meet last week, whereby the messaging service stopped working with Chromium-based Edge. This was due to user-agent sniffing, which detects the browser being used, and because the new (still in preview) Edge isn’t whitelisted – after a recent change to user-agent details – it got blocked.
And by all accounts this is the same thing happening with Google Docs, and so nothing to really worry about – merely a temporary hiccup. Although the two incidents coming back-to-back has (inevitably) caused a certain amount of conspiracy-related chatter to break out on the net.
No malice
Still, this clearly isn’t a purposely malicious move – after all, Google Docs supports the original Edge browser anyway, as noted – but it has raised some eyebrows in terms of these mistakes coming closely together, and the efficiency of Google’s responses.
As Ghacks further observes, Mozilla has complained in the past about mistakes caused by Google which have disrupted its Firefox browser, and the slow resolution to some of those issues.
Of course, Microsoft’s new version of Edge is in a different situation anyway, being in the Chromium fold – but what happens if the new Edge suddenly starts gaining some major adoption and user numbers after its official release?
Naturally, only fringe elements are going to stray into conspiracy theories which touch on the realms of potential sabotage, but if Edge starts to look like it might threaten Chrome with its popularity – and Microsoft’s browser has already made a promisingly positive first impression with many users – the more cynical would argue that Google won’t really have much incentive to prioritize helping to sort out issues with what could become a major rival.
If nothing else, we have to remember that the whole reason Microsoft chose to shift Edge to Chromium is to benefit from much better compatibility with websites, and better overall reliability – and these early glitches give pause for thought as to the reality of how the stability of Chromium-based Edge will play out down the line.
If you want to splurge on an Apple Watch, but don't want to pay full price, then you'll want to check out this killer deal from Walmart. You can get the refurbished Apple Watch Series 3 on sale for only $179. That's a $100 price cut for the series 3 smartwatch that features GPS technology.
The Apple Watch 3 is a health-focused smartwatch that offers heart rate monitoring and the ability to track activities, calories burned and popular workouts. The smartwatch features GPS technology so can you track distance on runs or hikes to see how far you've gone. The series 3 is waterproof and has an impressive battery life of up to 18 hours. You'll also get the basic smartwatch features with the series 3 such as the ability to stream music, send messages, make calls and receive notifications.
This particular Apple Watch deal is certified refurbished, which is why you're getting the $100 discount. Walmart's certified refurbished products are tested and inspected to function and appear like new products and include all original accessories.
If you're interested in the latest model Apple Watch, Best Buy has the rarely-discounted refurbished Apple Watch Series 4 on sale for $449.99. This is the best price we've seen for the Series 4 smartwatch that features GPS technology and LTE connectivity.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has passed an inflection point and is slated to bring trillions of dollars of investment return, on a timescale shorter than we think, said an industry expert.
Sam Blatteis, CEO of The MENA Catalysts and former Google Government Affairs head for the Gulf countries, told TechRadar Middle East in an exclusive interview that AI is forecasted to drive 95 percent of all customer interactions by 2025 and AI is the fuel to develop Emirati non-oil industries such as healthcare, transportation, education, critical infrastructure, economic development and customer service.
The UAE has the strategic need, leadership vision, confidence in AI, deep resources and a manageable population to shift to the vanguard of the government AI arena, Blatteis said.
“AI could have a world of impact in government public-facing services, for instance in call centres. Trained call centre representatives for social services are in short supply and costly to train. These are ripe for automation. Government bodies here have already rolled out machine-learning-based “chatbots” to automate and, theoretically, improve customer service,” he said.
Moreover, he said that AI can develop better parole screening questions and has the potential to make government substantially more efficient and citizen-friendly. However, that there is an open debate about the impact of AI.
Is AI a threat?
On one hand, he said the AI sceptics question how much of the hype on AI is “reality”, “feasible” or a “threat”. It’s healthy to approach with a certain sense of humility; he said and added that the 20th century saw scores of situations where technology was exploited in some of the darkest moments in modern history.
On the other hand, he said that there are those that believe the disruptive potential of AI will have nothing less than the social impact of the Industrial Revolution, Henry Ford’s assembly line, the invention of flight and the internet.
“Many believe that there may not be a single technology on track to shape our world more in the next 50 years, than AI,” he said.
Since March 2017, 18 governments globally have released multi-million dollar (or in some cases, multi-billion-dollar) AI plans — with the budgets, authorities and headcount to back them up.
Ten other governments have announced their intention to release a strategy before 2019’s close, with more likely to follow suit and this is the first time that governments around the world have almost simultaneously released national plans to develop the same technology, including the UAE.
Ethical concerns over business interests
Despite AI being the new buzzword in the industry, there have been debates about whether companies should prioritise ethical concerns over business interests to have trust and transparency in AI.
In many fields from nuclear tech to bioengineering, he said that humanity often builds tools that “we discover can harm us, and only afterwards, set out to develop the safety measures to protect the public. This time has to be different. Technology governance will become one of the defining themes of the next five years,” Blatteis said.
“Whatever new laws there are in the future here, have to respect the hazards of powerful technology, foster technology development, and unleash its (AI’s) economic and public policy rewards,” he said.
The other big debate is the loss of jobs due to automation and robots.Regarding this, he said that almost half of the UAE’s workplace activities are susceptible to automation but throughout history, a technology commonly creates more, and better-paying, jobs than it destroys.
At the Tribeca Film Festival last week, Hideo Kojima fans arrived in force, hoping for new footage or spoilers for his mysterious new game Death Stranding. Out of hundreds of waiting fans, many arrived wearing Kojima Productions shirts or carrying Metal Gear merch for the gaming auteur to sign. Kojima ended up rushing across the red carpet, while Walking Dead star Norman Reedus posed for selfies and signed one fan’s NES Metal Gear cartridge.
Unfortunately, it turned out Kojima had no new footage of Death Stranding to show that night, though he did hint that gamers could expect some new footage in a month or so - we’re guessing at E3 2019. But lack of trailer aside, moderator Geoff Knightley of Game Awards fame managed to wring plenty of intriguing information about the upcoming title out of Kojima and Reedus.
Here are the most intriguing details we gleaned from the panel about what to expect from this bizarre PS4 title.
You play as both Sam and Norman Reedus...
Norman Reedus spent two days having his whole body scanned into the game (Image credit: TechRadar)
We knew from E3 that you play as delivery man Sam ‘Porter’ Bridges. But Kojima revealed that you’re also playing as Norman Reedus himself.
A huge cinephile, Kojima said that Reedus’ previous filmography will influence the character you’ll play in Death Stranding. While he liked how Daryl’s side-character badassery stole the show in Walking Dead, he also enjoyed how “sexy and cute” Norman was in Boondock Saints, and his black humor as the host of reality show 'Ride with Norman Reedus'.
“In Death Stranding I’m trying to put every aspect [of Norman] in there,” Kojima said through his interpreter, “and you will see his … everything, in the game,” he finished, suggestively, cracking up the crowd. By the end of the game, he says, you’ll “love Norman”.
“So, they’ll play as me?” Reedus recalled asking Kojima for clarification. “No, they’ll be you,” Kojima replied.
Metal Gear Solid always had meta elements to its stories, from Psycho Mantis judging your player stats and favorite Gamecube games in Twin Snakes to the AIs telling Raiden to sit further back from the television in Sons of Liberty. It’s unsurprising that Kojima’s first game with total narrative control would play back into the idea of Sam/Norman being separate from the player that controls him.
“You’ll see Norman as Sam in the game, and you’ll see his acting, and you’ll enjoy that,” Kojima promised. “You have to become Norman when you play. And Norman says a lot of things that you’ll probably feel, playing as Norman. So he’s Norman and Sam as the same time.”
To fully capture Reedus for the game, Kojima spent two straight days scanning Reedus’ body and facial expressions for the game. Later, when Reedus got a new tattoo, Kojima insisted that they rescan to insert the tattoo into the game. And he joked that if Reedus got a tattoo after the game comes out, he’d sell it as a DLC skin.
Reedus, who joked that he came from the “waka-waka-waka generation”, said that he thinks it’s important to make Sam feel like a real person, compared to an empty avatar you control.
...and as a camera?
Kojima finished off his confusing Sam/Norman explanation with a hint about another section of the game, where you’re not playing as either.
“If you go somewhere in the game, you won’t be controlling Norman or Sam. You’ll just be controlling the camera, and you’ll see Sam/Norman, and if you look at him he might do something like wink at you.”
Lots of AAA games have a photo mode now, where you can take a shot of the protagonist amidst the beautiful scenery. Unsurprisingly, Kojima took this concept and inserted it into DS as a meta game mechanic.
We know he did something similar with the classic concept of the “Continue” screen after death in a video game. In a 2017 IGN interview, he explained that an underwater sequence in a 2017 trailer for Death Starnding was actually a “purgatory” that your dead Norman Reedus must be reincarnated from to return to the game world.
A story about connections
Thematically, Metal Gear went far beyond secret clone agents fighting giant mechas. The series touches on everything from the dangers of genetic modification to the merits of denuclearization to the exploitation of soldiers for political gain.
We still don’t know why Norman Reedus is wandering a post-apocalyptic world with a baby inside his throat. But, Kojima revealed the themes that he hopes gamers will take away from Death Stranding: connectivity (or disconnect) from the world and the people around us.
“There are so many things happening in the real world - in America, in Europe - everything is actually connected by internet, but we’re kind of not connected the way we want to be,” Kojima said. "I'm putting that in a metaphor in the game. The player will have to reconnect the world in the game. You're very alone, in solitude, but you're trying to connect.”
To complicate things, he also suggested that connection isn’t always the answer. As an example, he claimed that a person might be jealous of a happy couple, but then go on a date and realize he was happier on his own. Knowing when to disconnect from persons or things that don’t inspire happiness also, apparently, plays into the themes of the story.
Whatever your decisions, it’s sure to be intentionally political and controversial. Kojima says he envisions Death Stranding’s story taking place in the “near future”, as the result of the “tensions and divisions” in the world today.
He also predicts that the story will "make people cry". So you'd best be prepared for an emotional, intellectual roller coaster.
An open world, but a non-branching narrative
Open-world games present a challenge for large gaming studios, let alone indie developers like Kojima Productions. You need to tell a cohesive story while also letting players do whatever they want; create a convincingly large environment with enough activities inside of it that it doesn’t feel empty; and ensure those activities aren’t repetitive or buggy.
Kojima admitted this has been a challenge during the panel. Game narratives, he claimed, used to be like a highway: gamers could ride in any lane or go backwards, but the world’s parameters were set and narrow. Now, gamers can exit the highway and drive on other roads at any time.
For Death Stranding, Kojima's solution seems to be to offer the illusion of choice to gamers.
Kojima hinted that the game will offer players with painful, tear-inducing choices. But when Knightley asked if this meant that players could influence the story via their choices - think Mass Effect or Dragon Age - he firmly shut down the idea, saying he has one narrative in mind.
Reedus did suggest that his acting did vary based on potential choices the player might make. But it almost seems like these choices ultimately won't effect the overall story for one gamer versus another.
Potential online features
Could Death Stranding have online features? (Image credit: TechRadar)
Fairly early on, we learned that Kojima planned to include some elements of online co-op in Death Stranding, with player two playing as a female protagonist. But based on last week’s comments, there may be far more to it than just that. Kojima claims that he “threw in a really new idea".
"You're connecting the game, and everyone is playing it together, and you'll be connected, everyone will be connected together as well," Kojima teased.
"And I can't say anything because Sony will be very unhappy. I don't want to be disconnected to Sony," he finished, to laughs from the crowd.
Despite Death Stranding being single-player, it sounds like you’ll need Playstation Plus to get the most out of it. But what is Kojima’s supposedly unique idea? Players dropping into other players’ worlds happens in games as varied as Forza Horizon 4 and Dark Souls. MMOs’ very foundation is connectivity with other gamers. So we admit to being stumped about what exactly he has planned that Sony wants kept mysterious for now.
How Death Stranding came to be
A bromance for the ages (Image credit: TechRadar)
After Konami forced Kojima out and cancelled Silent Hills, Kojima decided that he wanted to start his own independent game studio. He also decided that he wanted to design his next gaming protagonist with Norman Reedus specifically in mind.
Only problem was, he had no concept art to show or staff to begin working on pre-production; only his words and ideas. So Kojima invited Norman Reedus out for sushi and talked about his Death Stranding ideas for two hours. At the end of his pitch, Kojima asked Reedus if he wanted to star in the game, and he immediately said yes.
This was thanks to Oscar winner and Silent Hills collaborator Guillermo del Toro, who has great respect for Kojima and told Reedus to “do whatever [Hideo] wants".
Reedus gushed to the audience about Kojima’s directing style, saying that he has an “infectious enthusiasm” for his work, an inherent “honesty” to his filmmaking, and a respectful desire to collaborate and improvise ideas with him rather than control his every move, as other Hollywood directors have done in the past.
Because of the MGS series’ meticulous attention to detail, Kojima has obtained the reputation of a perfectionist; he denied this during the panel, however. He “daydreams” the outline for his games’ stories, but he needs dialogue with others to truly flesh out the details. "I like a lot of things live," Kojima explained. "I want to really do a collaboration."
He says that he can never go back to the way things used to be, when he only worked with voice actors and scripted games alone in his room. He wants his experience directing actual scenes with Hollywood actors like Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen and Léa Seydoux to be the norm going forward.
Though one thin certainly hasn’t changed from the old days of Metal Gear Solid 4: Kojima admitted that “of course there are a lot of long cutscenes” in Death Stranding.
The future of Kojima Productions: a Netflix partnership?
Brie Larson in Unicorn Store (Image credit: Netflix)
During the Q&A, one fan asked if Kojima ever planned on directing a movie of his own. Sadly for his admirers, it doesn’t look like that’ll ever happen - at least not in the traditional sense.
“I really wanna shoot movies too,” he answered, “but I don’t have time. I’ve received many offers, [but] I really want to create games until I die.”
He continued on to express his interest in creating content for streaming platforms like Netflix or Amazon Prime. “Everything is there right now, and I think there will be games there sooner or later.” He predicts that games and films will become “closer” from a structural standpoint, and wants to “challenge” bridging that gap.
Netflix has already begun releasing interactive 'Choose Your Own Adventure' experiences like Bandersnatch. One can only imagine what the king of gaming cutscenes could do with his own branching FMV experience.
In an interview with Nikkei Business (found by Variety), Kojima said that with the advent of 5G and the Google Stadia gaming streaming service, he’s excited about the possibilities they represent for his future games. “There’s one big thing I have in mind related to streaming as well,” he said, but “I can’t say anything more as I don’t want to spoil though.”
One thing’s for certain: the only thing Kojima loves more than thinking up bold new ideas is keeping those ideas top secret and tantalizing us with enigmatic hints.
The best PS4 Pro deals for when Death Stranding finally comes out!
Neuromorphic hardware has been around for a while but is finally gaining traction and is beginning to be applied in exciting new ways.
“It’s AI technology on a chip which uses pattern recognition technology and will be the next disruptive technology. It has the architecture similar to the neurons of the human brain,” Pierre Brunswick, CEO of NeuroMem Technologies, told TechRadar Middle East at the Ai Everything event taking place at the Dubai World Trade Centre.
Neuromorphic is critical for the fourth industrial revolution and works how human neurons work, he said. It can benefit sectors such as security, smart cities, home building, automation, autonomous driving, IoT, medical, drones and biometric.
“When you listen to music in the morning, you don’t need to open a computer to know the singer. You do pattern recognition. Pattern recognition is what we do in our neurons. The chip does exactly what our neurons are matching,” he said.
Four pillars of AI
According to Brunswick, AI has four pillars - deep learning, reinforcement learning, edge computing and neuromorphic hardware.
Reinforcement learning is the opposite of deep learning, which means learning from the mistakes and by itself. For the last five to six years, He said that a lot of spending is focused only on deep learning.
“There is no way AI can only be [about] deep learning. The winner will be the one who will be first on all the four pillars. AI is everywhere. If the journey for developing AI into the business is long, you have to embark early.” he said.
Will robots have human intelligence?
In the last 25 years, NeuroMem has sold its IP technology to quite a few companies, including Intel.
“We are an evangelist and help companies develop proof of concepts faster. Our technology is so critical as it uses low power, non-stop learning and anomaly detection in milliseconds. We believe that if we come closer to the human neurons, we have come closer to the truth,” said Brunswick.
However, he believes that hardware cannot replicate the human brain and robots cannot have human intelligence- but that could change in the future.
“We can easily make up to one billion neurons with neuromorphic chips but the human brain has 10 billion neurons. Each neuron in the brain simulates 1,000s of synapses, the electricity going from the brain to give action. We can come close to what the neurons are doing but we are far away from copying the human brain. The goal is not to replace humans but to make our lives easier and better,” he said.
It's all about ethics
In the present, companies are collecting data, understanding it and treating it much better than any humans according to Brunswick.
“We are creating petabytes of data and if we don’t put in place a really good AI platform to extract what needs to be extracted from the data, it would be a nightmare. On top of that, we need to put ethics on whatever we do and it is critical.
“The biggest bacteria or the destroyer of the planet are humans. This is why governments need to put a protocol to protect humans.” He added that ethics are very important and will be the centre of everything.
Computing power is essential to AI; he said and added that neuromorphic hardware enables new applications at the edge computing.
Pedestrian deaths in car accidents have hit record levels, but potentially lifesaving driver assistance tech is often seen as ‘nice to have’ rather than essential.
According to a new report by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA), the number of pedestrian deaths in the US increased by 35% between 2008 and 2017. Despite that, driver assistance features like lane-keeping and collision detection are typically listed as optional extras alongside luxuries like leather steering wheels and heated seats.
I think the biggest challenge is really one about education. These technologies are a little tricky to describe
Jack Weast, Intel Mobileye
Some automakers are pushing to make the roads safer for pedestrians (Volvo, for example, is pushing driver assistance particularly hard, and earlier this year announced a new system that will monitor your behavior at the wheel, and intervene if you seem to be distracted or drunk), but they are the exception. For the most part, protecting pedestrians seems to rank alongside metallic paint and a towbar.
We asked Jack Weast, vice president of autonomous vehicle standards and senior principal engineer at Intel Mobileye, why the advanced safety features that could save pedestrians’ lives aren’t more common – particularly in fleet vehicles like trucks, taxis and buses.
Selfish or scared?
Mobileye is a system that helps drivers avoid collisions – with motorists or pedestrians – using inexpensive cameras, usually fitted behind the rear-view mirror. It can issue warnings if you’re drifting out of your lane, you’re about to hit the car in front, or you’re close to hitting a pedestrian. In recent years, the system has also been able to intervene by performing an emergency stop, or turning the wheel if your lane discipline has slipped.
Mobileye can be built into new production vehicles or retrofitted to existing ones, and although it’s mostly used by businesses and local authorities for fleets, you could have it fitted to your own car if you wanted.
“I'm not a psychologist, but people will pay for things that make them safer, but for others perhaps they’re a little selfish,” Weast says. “I think the biggest challenge is really one about education. These technologies are a little tricky to describe. What’s a lane departure warning? Or what’s an FCW? That’s a forward collision warning.
“The techy nature, sometimes, of how the technology is described, makes it difficult for regular folks to understand what it is, and why it would benefit them. And then I think you have automakers concerned that OK, if I add a couple hundred dollars extra cost and I've got to make up that cost, how do I explain the technology?”
“We are starting to see though globally, as data comes out really that it shows remarkable and incredible improvements in safety, governments are realizing that this can't be an optional technology. We've got to start making this a required technology.”
Weast notes that carmakers in the EU will soon have be legally required to install some kind of driver assistance system, and those in the US have voluntarily committed to making it a baseline feature.
“I think in the next three four years, we're going to go from 10% or 20% percent of cars in the lot having this technology to near 100%,” he says. “It's just going to take some time due to the lag of product development.”
Winning trust
There’s also the issue of trust, which is proving a major sticking point for many self-driving car manufacturers. Ford is experimenting with warning lights to communicate with pedestrians, and Jaguar Land Rover has even tried fitting autonomous pods with googly eyes that let people know they’ve been seen. However, these are something of a shortcut; they don’t address the reason why pedestrians mistrust autonomous vehicles in the first place.
People want to know, why is the car doing what it's doing? What is it seeing? Why did it behave that way?
Jack Weast, Intel Mobileye
Intel has spent time researching trust, vehicles and automation using people from all walks of life. It’s found that while people are initially skeptical of driver assistance systems, disliking the idea of a car that can take control out of their hands, once they’ve actually tried it, they quickly come round to the idea.
“We think one of the reasons why people don't trust the technology is because they don't understand it,” says Weast. “The industry too often are saying, ‘Well, trust me. It's a proprietary black box and I can't tell you how it works. It's magic. We figured out the one AI model to rule them all, and it's just going to be amazing.’"
Jaguar Land Rover has experimented with autonomous pods that make eye-contact with pedestrians (Image credit: Jaguar Land Rover)
“People in their lives, especially non-technical people, aren’t comfortable with that. People want to know, why is the car doing what it's doing? What is it seeing? Why did it behave that way? When accidents happen, what does the automated vehicle do? Why and when?
“This level of transparency, we think, is really important to establishing trust not only with consumers, but also regulators. So we can say ‘This vehicle that we’d like to deploy widely, here's why we believe it's safe. Let's open it up and let's see how it works and why it works.’”
Intel’s research found several ‘tension points’ – contradictions between what drivers think they want from assistance technology, and what is actually practical in reality. For example, they might think they want all the information possible about what the car is ‘seeing’ and how it’s making its choices, but when presented with that, they find it overwhelming.
“So on one hand they want all the information, on the other hand they get annoyed with it very quickly,” says Weast. “Trying to sort through these psychological tensions, I think, is an important challenge for the industry. And we plan to do more research on that going forward, and share and publish that you know across the industry so that we can break that trust barrier.”
Safety vs usefulness
It's not just the public, though; Intel also needs to win the trust of businesses and governments (which will be weighing up the advantages of advanced driver assistance against the cost), as well as regulators.
Weast says that predictability is one of the biggest factors there – consistent behavior regardless of the vehicle involved.
"We think safety is something that should not be proprietary," he says. "Whether your automated vehicle successfully gets to your destination or not, whether it can drive in the rain or not, whether it can drive in the snow or not, whether it can make unprotected left turns or it has to take a longer route because it can only make right turns, whether you can watch movies or work or have an espresso machine in the car – those are all awesome areas for differentiation, and why you would choose one brand or service over the other.
"But our belief is for industry to gain trust with consumers and trust with regulators, all of those vehicles should be equally safe, and not be crashing into things or people along the way while they're trying to get you to where you want to go. We think of that as an excellent area for industry standardization, so we can have a common definition of what it means to drive safely."
It's all about striking a balance between safety and utility. As Weast notes, the safest automated vehicle is one that never leaves the garage, and the safest human driver is one who never leaves the couch. You can't eliminate 100% of risk if you still want a useful car.
The Energizer Power Max P18K Pop, an Energizer phone with a massive 18,000mAh battery, has finally finished ringing its death knell, after a wildly unsuccessful Indiegogo campaign saw it receive only 1% of the required funding.
The massive handset was shown off at MWC 2019 in February, and launched on Indiegogo in late March. However it doesn't seem like many people were taken with the Energizer-branded phone – the crowdfunding window is now closed, and the device only ended up raising $15,000 / £11,000, with 11 backers.
Avenir Telecom, who licenses the Energizer name for use on smartphones, set the crowdfunding goal at a whopping $1.2 million / £920,000, and at $599 / £461 for an individual phone, the company would need to ship 2,000 of the handsets to reach the goal.
There were also savings for multi-buy pledges, which seem to be what the few backers chose to fund, so in reality Energizer likely anticipated shipping 2,500 or 3,000 phones. Now, however, it looks like the Energizer Power Max P18K Pop will never see the light of day
Why did the Energizer phone fail?
We've already written an in-depth analysis of why no-one funded the Energizer phone, but to put it simply, there's a very limited audience for a phone the size and weight of a brick.
Despite some pretty intriguing and novel features, like the dual-sensor pop-up camera and the massive battery, we just couldn't see anyone choosing to spend their money on the Energizer Power Max P18K Pop, especially when other great phones exist for the same price.
At the end of the day, the Energizer phone was just a novelty – one with a long, confusing name too.
