TVs used to be little more than small square boxes. Now they’re large rectangles – probably flat, though maybe even curved – but what comes next? The year’s biggest TV trade shows are always packed with prototypes that seek to define what the future holds, though very few of the (often wacky) showpieces ever make it to the production line. 

So how could TVs change in look or function in the next decade? We spoke to a number of top industry analysts – and cast our minds back to trade shows of years gone by – to gauge what the next-gen TVs of tomorrow could look like, and what they’ll do differently to the TV displays of today.

“My guess is that TV as furniture becomes more important – if you are really going to move to even larger screens then they have to be less obtrusive,” says Paul Gray, Research Director, Consumer Devices at independent analyst and consultancy firm Omdia. 

Gray’s own take on a future kind of TV is a plastic display that can be unrolled and put on a wall like wallpaper. “I think that if it was cheap enough, a display that only lasted two years would be conceivable – like replacing a light bulb in the old days – but it’s a total rethink from where we are,” he says.

• These are the best 65-inch 4K TVs you can buy

Deloitte predicts that by 2030 it will be possible to get a third of the price off a TV in exchange for the authorisation to share viewers’ watching habits, and that TVs will get impressively big.

“A decade from now people will continue to seek-out high production value content, and will still want to watch this on large screens, up to 100 inches in size,” says Paul Lee, global head of technology, media and telecommunications research at Deloitte.

“Living rooms will be designed to accommodate ever larger screens, and more households will be able to afford larger TV sets as manufacturers will offer a cheaper price for the authorisation to share people’s viewing habits with advertisers. Many will have accepted the trade-off for their data in order to get a better quality screen.”

A re-think of what a TV should do, look like and behave is always on the cards if the last CES 2020 was anything to go by, with the major TV brands unveiling everything from rollable and rotating sets to modular and super-massive displays.

What sticks and what gets forgotten is never known too far in advance, but either way we’re entering an era of ‘personalised viewing’ writ large. For now, here are six next-gen TV designs that could pave the way for the future of television.

1. LG's rollable OLED TV

Likely to cost US$60,000 and reported to go on sale during 2020, LG Display has been touting its rollable OLED TV for a while now. 

The big new trick with this 2020 version is that it unfurls from the ceiling, which is effectively saying that, yes, everyone really wants a big-screen home cinema … but not a projector. “It’s 2019’s gimmick warmed up,” says Omdia analyst Paul Gray, who rightly suggests that you could buy a Porsche Cayman for roughly the same price instead.

Read our hands-on LG Signature Series OLED R review

2. Samsung Sero TV

Everyone’s embracing vertical video, so why not swivel a TV like a smartphone? We can think of dozens of reasons why not, but Samsung’s TV engineers nevertheless think that people might want a TV that rotates. Cue the Samsung Sero – the name translates as ‘vertical’ in Korean’ – a concept TV unveiled at CES 2020.

Its ability to change in orientation from landscape to portrait at the touch of a button (or by re-orientating a synced Samsung Note 10) is Sero’s special skill. “Vertical video is by definition handheld, quick, and a snack,” says Gray, referring to vertical video’s usual use for very short videos. Aiming at $1,600 / £1,230 / AU$2,300 TV at TikTok-obsessed Gen Z’s might sound a bit odd, but Sero does at least boast a built-in 60W, 4.1 surround sound system. 

Read our hands on Samsung Sero TV review

3. Sony's super-size Crystal LED TV

Everyone wants a bigger TV, but 790-inches? Firmly in video wall territory, here’s a TV that you can buy like you would a laptop, specifying the size and resolution depending on room size and budget … though you’ll need plenty of both. 

Sony's Crystal LED display – which has ultra-fine micro-LEDs inside that are 100 times smaller than on your average LED TV – demands a big space. It’s sold as a full HD resolution 110-inch screen, a 4K version in 220-inch, an 8K resolution 440-inch, and as a whopping 16K resolution 790-inch ultra-monster screen. 

As a bonus, the Crystal LED TVs reach 100 cd/m2 brightness, 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, refresh in 120 frames per second, and have a viewing angle of 180 degrees. Sadly, they cost over US$5 million. 

Read more about 2020 Sony TVs

4. Looking Glass Factory holographic TV

Holograms, yes. Just like you always wanted. The trouble with holograms is that you have to have something to project light onto; thin air is no good. Cue Looking Glass Factory’s extra special holographic 32-inch TV. 

Debuted at CES 2020, it achieves volumetric, stereoscopic 3D-dimensional holograms in 8K resolution by placing a second glass screen in front of the first. As well as 33.2 million pixels, it’s also got a 45-element light field display, so a bunch of people can get a 3D image from virtually anywhere in front of it, and even get a different view from 45 separate positions. It flashes up those images at 60 frames per second. 

5. TCL’s 8K Vidrian Mini-LED TV

This one’s all about picture quality, but have you ever heard of Mini-LED TV tech? Everyone in tech knows that LED and QLED are not as impressive, picture quality-wise, as LG’s OLED technology, so there’s a push among the (non-LG) TV manufacturers to come-up with something similar, but more affordable. 

Cue Mini-LED – a technology that replaces LED clusters in a display with thousands of tiny backlights in the glass substrate of the panel, each of which can be individually controlled. The end result is a wider contrast ratio and deeper blacks. 

For now, it’s all about Chinese TV maker TCL. At CES 2020, TCL unveiled an 8K resolution Mini-LED TV concept called Vidrian that combines Quantum Dot tech with LCD tech and boasts 25,000 micro-metre LED backlights. 

6. LG's bendable video walls

If we all want bigger, flatter TVs, and ultra-detailed 16K resolution is already possible, then perhaps it’s video walls that are the future of the TV. 

At CES 2020, LG Displays – already touting its standard video walls – debuted a bendable OLED TV concept designed to upgrade the in-flight experiences for first class airplane passengers. 

These OLED video walls, made of a series of 65-inch bendable OLED displays installed on the wall of a plane, were accompanied by transparent plastic ‘POLED’ screens to use as cabin dividers. Tiled TVs – with each tile offering different content to different viewers – could be the future of TV in a busy home… but we also might not want it.

“I’m not big on the tiled screen concept – it’s horribly distracting, and what do you do about the audio?” says Gray. “Personalised viewing is definitely the trend, but this is the wrong way to do it.” LG Display says its airline cabin concept is about creating more openness in the narrow space of an enclosed space, but if you’re after that kind of thing, the transparent Airbus Concept Cabin is just as arresting. 

Read more about 2020 LG TVs

• What are the best TVs, bar none?

Is your home entertainment system pumping out maximum quality audio? Unless your equipment boasts HDMI 2.1 and Enhanced Audio Return Channel (eARC), it’s not. 

Standard ARC has been around a while, connecting your TV and hi-fi equipment into one, seamless and less cable-heavy entertainment system. However, now comes eARC to take audio to the next level.

Find out all about ARC and eARC, why you will one day demand the latter, and what of the best TVs and audio equipment on sale in 2020 are set to feature eARC in our in-depth guide below.

What is ARC?

Audio Return Channel (ARC) is a type of audio transmission that links up your speaker output to your television controls, meaning you don't need a separate remote or interface to manage the volume.

Sure, HDMI cables already carry audio from Blu-ray players, games consoles and set-top boxes into a TV. But with ARC, they can also send audio in reverse, from a TV into an external speaker or soundbar, without having to attach a separate audio cable. 

Ready to remove one more remote from your already way-too-complicated home entertainment setup? Here's how to do it.

 Why do we need ARC? 

ARC is an often ignored protocol sitting at the heart of almost all home entertainment products, and understanding ARC is all about knowing your ‘upstream’ from your ‘downstream’. 

The first thing to know is that, as a feature of the HDMI spec, ARC enables a TV to send audio signals upstream to a connected soundbar, a one-box home theater, or an AV receiver. It does this by first forming a 'handshake' between the TV and the audio device, creating a two-way street for information.

By sending audio both ways, ARC does away with the need for optical audio cables (also called S/PDIF), cutting down on pointless clutter that likely already causes you a headache at home. Put simply, ARC is a cable-killer. 

• Amped up about better audio? These are the best soundbars available today

Is my TV ARC-compatible? 

Probably. Although you do have to have a TV with a special ARC-ready HDMI slot, almost all TVs have had such a thing for years. 

To find it, look at your TV’s string of HDMI slots, and you’ll see that at least one has a small reference to ARC next to it.

A spokesperson for HDMI Licensing told TechRadar that, “An ARC-enabled TV can either send or receive audio via HDMI, upstream or downstream, depending on system set-up and user preferences.”

Usually it’s automatic: use the ARC-ready HDMI slot on a TV and you will automatically be able to send audio to any soundbar with an HDMI input.

There’s no delay, either. Lip-sync functionality was introduced in HDMI 1.3 to ensure that audio stays perfectly matched to video. All HDMI standards since have automatically compensated for any processor delays whether the audio is traveling upstream or downstream.

What is eARC?

What's the difference between ARC and eARC? 

The next version of ARC, Enhanced ARC (eARC) is about vastly increasing the bandwidth for an expected surge in audio data. eARC can handle more advanced audio formats and higher audio quality, being able to cope with 32 channels of audio, and even eight-channel 24-bit/192kHz uncompressed 38Mbps data streams. So eARC supports Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. 

That means the surround sound we listen to is being substantially upgraded. 

Whether you’re listening through a 5.1 system with separate speakers, a soundbar, or via headphones, more immersive and nuanced audio is coming. So ARC is evolving into eARC to handle it in the new HDMI 2.1 specification. 

HDMI Licensing also told us that “eARC simplifies connectivity, provides greater ease of use, and supports the most advanced audio formats and highest audio quality.”

• We saw 1917 with Dolby Atmos surround sound – and it was mind-blowing

What is HDMI 2.1?

HDMI 2.1 is the latest update to HDMI, which is all about higher video resolutions and refresh rates. As well as being built to handle the next generation of video – 8K resolution at 120 frames per second (HDMI 2.0 only handles 8K at 30fps), HDMI 2.1-ready TVs, Blu-ray players and games consoles will be able to handle higher frame rates up to 120fps even for 4K video. 

HDMI 2.1 cables’ bandwidth will be upgraded from being able to handle just 18 Gbps to a whopping 48Gbps. Ancient HDMI cables may struggle with that kind of data rate, but any new HDMI cable is fine.

What TVs, AV receivers and soundbars in 2020 are including eARC?

Not as many as hoped. HDMI 2.1 certified products – all of which support eARC – were due to go on sale in 2020, but at the time of writing, coronavirus has blown a hole in everyone’s plans, with many initial shipments and review units delayed. 

There is some good news, though: every new LG TV launched in 2020 has HDMI 2.1-certified HDMI slots, and therefore automatically supports eARC. Elsewhere, it’s patchy: Samsung’s flagship Q950TS TV has four HDMI slots, but only one is HDMI 2.1-certified. Two of Sony’s new LCD TV ranges for 2020 will feature HDMI 2.1 – the 8K Z8H (Z8H) and the 4K X900H (XH90) ranges. Panasonic 2020 TVs won’t include HDMI 2.1, but will feature eARC via HDMI 2.0-certified HDMI slots. 

Confused? It seems that some features of HDMI 2.1 – including eARC, but also ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) and VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) – can be delivered as a workaround on HDMI 2.0-certified equipment. So some 2020 and even 2019 TVs, AV receivers and soundbars have had firmware updates to make those features live. However, do check what each manufacturer is or isn’t supporting before you buy. 

eARC-capable audio equipment – crucial if you want to indulge in eARC switching in a home cinema set-up – is more common, with firmware updates already available from the likes of Sony, Only, Pioneer and Integra for recent AV receivers and soundbars.

What is Variable Refresh Rate (VRR)? 

The HDMI 2.1 specification also includes some exciting, but relatively unknown features that could quickly go mainstream. Variable Refresh Rates (VRR) enables a TV to show a dynamic refresh rate synced to the content, usually ranging from 30Hz through 144Hz. 

“I think this is going to be very important this year – there were a lot of demos at CES 2020,” says Paul Gray, Research Director (Consumer Devices) at independent analyst and consultancy firm Omdia. “A lot of internet content is in really weird frame rates like 73Hz, so it’s not just gaming that will benefit.” So expect more TVs to handle YouTube and web-sourced content much better. 

What is Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM)? 

Another little-discussed part of HDMI 2.1 is Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), which is all about creating a new and much improved ‘game mode’ for TVs. It allows the TV to set the ideal latency (the delay when you refresh a web page – or stream a game) to create smooth, lag-free viewing and interactivity. It can degrade the image slightly, so ALLM is not designed for movies (even streamed movies), but it’s destined to bring a more fluid feel to gaming – especially with the launch of the next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles – and even video conferencing too.

For now, eARC is an emerging standard, but very soon we’re sure to see it dominate home entertainment. 

• Here are the best gaming TVs
• Find out about what the PS5's next-gen audio tech means for you
• Want better home audio? Here are the best Dolby Atmos speakers

Your smartphone comes from China, a country where ‘phone commerce’ via a messaging app is commonplace. It’s the home of Huawei, Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent and Xaomi, and it’s home to massive investments in AI, 5G, self-driving cars, robotics, electric vehicles and even missions to Mars. Here are just a few ways that an increasingly high-tech China is creeping ahead of the rest of the world.

1. A 'super-app'

China has a population of 1.4 billion people. About 1.1 billion of those use WeChat. Take that in for a moment. Globally, Facebook has 2.4 billion users. WhatsApp has 300 million. In China, WeChat (called Wēixìn in Mandarin, which translates as 'micro-message’) – essentially a messaging service owned by tech giant (and the world’s fifth-largest company) Tencent – is how people interact with … everything and everyone.

As well as social media, WeChat works as a mobile payment app, with all retailers – including buses and metros in China – scanning a QR code on the app to make the transactions. It can be used to book flights and hotels just as easily as buying food from a supermarket or even a street vendor. WeChat balance is now the primary way to pay and receive money in China. Who needs banks?

It does have a rival – Alibaba’s Alipay – but with a 79% market penetration in China, WeChat has been called China’s ‘digital life force’, but it’s push to become popular globally has nevertheless failed. It seems destined to be only the fifth-most used app in the world, after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger … but it’s way ahead of all of them in what is can do.

China moves fast. We’ve all heard the tales of how fast its construction companies work, notably the building in 2015 of a 57-storey skyscraper in 19 working days. But it’s China’s other mega-tech projects that stand out. Take its bullet trains. Japan is still thought of by many as the home of the bullet train with its famous Shinkansen, but over the last 15 years China Railway High-speed (CRH) has constructed a much more extensive network, and makes its own Fuxing-class bullet trains.

Now the world’s longest high speed railway network, China’s bullet trains travel between 155–217 mph. Land at Shanghai’s Pudong Airport and you can even sample the future of ultra-high-speed trail on the Shanghai Maglev, a magnetic levitation train that reaches a top speed of 267 mph.

China has plenty of other mega-tech projects. There’s the Three Gorges Dam, a hydroelectric gravity dam that spans the Yangtze River and it fuels the world's largest power station. Also the Aizhai Suspension Bridge, the world's highest and longest suspension bridge, and the 16-mile Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge that hits makes land at two artificial islands on its way. And don’t forget the Shanghai Tower, the world's second-tallest building at 2,073 ft., and the Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), the largest single-dish radio telescope for astronomy in the world.

What’s more, China’s ‘Belt and Road’ initiative is seeing it invest US$6 trillion in big construction projects – such as highways, ports and airports – in its neighboring countries.

3. 5G networks and AI

How is 5G working out for you so far? After a flurry of advertising in 2019 around various network launches, the fuss has died down. Why? 5G doesn’t really exist in the UK and the US outside of city centres, that’s why. Cue China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, which have brought forward their plans to offer high-speed connectivity.

Not surprisingly, China is getting one of the world's largest 5G deployments. 5G is already available to in 50 cities in China, and 130,000 5G base stations are about to go live. What’s more, China is also home to two thirds of global investment into artificial intelligence (AI), recently replacing the US. When it comes to cutting-edge technology, it’s all about China.

4. Dockless bike-sharing

Thousands of cities around the world now have bike-sharing schemes. You get the app, sign-up, pick-up a bike from a rack, use it, and return it. Easy. So why is China going down a more high-tech route?

The latest craze is for dockless bike hire, which removes the need for physical central hub and instead uses virtual mapping, Bluetooth and GPS-driven geofencing to keep track of where they are. Mobike in Shanghai – which has about 1.5 million dockless bikes – has an app that tells riders where they can and cannot park their bikes when they’re done with them. If they leave them in random places, an alarm goes off on the bike, and they receive a text message warning. The spread of 5G is only going to help schemes like this.

5. Electric vehicles

No one is saying China is an eco-friendly country. It’s got a bad reputation for pollution and it uses half of the world’s concrete. However, it’s already the largest market for battery-powered cars in the world, being both the largest manufacturer and buyer of electric vehicles.

It makes almost all of the world's electric buses. In short, the electric vehicle revolution is already underway, and China is owning it. Your first electric car? It will probably be from China.

6. Ambitious space program

China now launches more rockets each year than any other nation, and although western media is routinely dismissive of it, the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) – China’s NASA – is definitely going places.

It doesn’t have the budget of NASA, but in 2019 it landed a spacecraft and lunar rover on the far side of the moon, with stunning scientific return. Not even NASA can do that. If all goes to plan in 2020, the CNSA will launch its Chang’e-5 mission to scoop-up some moon rock and launch it back to Earth. Then it will launch an all-new space station. Finally, it will send its Huoxing mission to Mars.

What’s more, that’s all being done with massive space rockets designed and built solely in China. Further proof, if any was needed, that when it comes to technology, China is creeping ahead of much of the world.

• Seven bizarre gadgets to expect at CES 2020

New phones. Urgh. New TVs. Whatever. A surfboard that flies? That’s more like it, CES! Far beyond the corporate keynotes, the meaningless slogans and the press events about nothing in particular are stacks of weird and wonderful gadgets. Here are just a few that will be shown-off at CES 2020 from January 7-10. Viva Las Vegas!

Waydoo Flyer ‘flying surfboard’

 Why go to a gym when you can go ‘e-foiling’? Built on the concept of an foilboard/hydrofoil – kind of half surfboard, half electric propulsion jet ski with a propeller below the water – the Waydoo Flyer (US$6,495/UK£4,964/AUS$9,456) has a wireless Bluetooth hand-held controller for steering and toggling between five different speeds (up to 28mph maximum). With a slip-resistant, textured carbon fibre build, it’s got a 6,000W battery and keeps going for 75 minutes on one full battery charge.

Booth 26834, LVCC, South Hall 2

www.waydoo.io

Caremitou ‘e-health house’ for cats

Your cat is getting fat, it hates going to the vet, and you’re done with trying to collect its wee for analysis (cat owners will know what we mean). Cue Caremitou, a ‘connected’ litter box from France-based NovandSat SAS that weighs your cat, records how many times it visits the litter box, and even takes urine samples. Much of that is done with Bluetooth and a smartphone app, of course, but it’s the latter feature that’s Caremitou’s real trick.

It’s got two two litter boxes, one green, one blue. When you need to catch your cat’s wee for analysis by a vet, you just remove the green one. The blue one collects it, and analyses it, allowing you to keep track of your cat’s various illnesses. The app even links with your vet for follow-ups and results. Caremitou has already won a CES Innovation Award 2020.

Booth 50215, Hall G, Sands Expo

www.caremitou.com

Hide smart AC outlet

Are light switches a thing of the past in your home since Philips Hue and Alexa? Engineering company Italy Innovazioni thinks it’s now time for the electric socket to get a makeover after about 120 years of looking terrible.

Debuting in the US for the first time at CES 2020, Hide is an AC outlet with a secure cover that makes plugs and sockets less of an eyesore. To that end each one is recessed into the wall slightly. However, there’s much more to Hide than aesthetics. At CES 2020, Hide will also be presenting its Home Automation & AI project, with working prototypes of smart covers with an embedded CCTV camera, fragrance diffuser, phone induction charger and, of course, Google Assistant and Alexa.

Booth 52722, ITALIA Pavilion, Eureka Park, Sands Expo, Level 1

www.hidesmartsocket.com

 Redison Senstroke drum pads 

Kids who take up drumming are annoying, and unless they become as famous as Phil Collins then what’s the point? There is now a solution. Drum roll please…

Senstroke (US$175/UK£133/AUS$255) is a smartphone-enabled virtual drum kit that works by attaching sensors to a couple of drumsticks. Great for practising drummers, travelling drummers, and anyone within earshot of them, Senstroke enables a drummer to hit anything. Noise-wise, a cushion is best, but anything works … even real drums. As well as replicating the noise of drums, the app also records what you’re playing for use in any MIDI-compatible songwriting software.

Booth 50819, Hall G, Sands Expo

www.redison.com

Air Selfie AIR PIX

There’s a new decade starting, and it’s got no room for selfie sticks. Cue selfie drones. The smallest and affordable aerial camera so far, Air Selfie AIR PIX (US$100/UK£76/AUS$146) comes fresh from winning a 2019 CE Week ‘Best in Show’ award. This tiny 52g device, which is smaller than an iPhone X, has turbo fan propellers to lift-off to 20m, enough for in-app control of selfies.

Photos are in 12 megapixel resolution and it takes full HD 1080p videos at 30fps using its 70-degree field of view wide-angle lens. It’s got five flight modes; manual, autonomous auto-fly, 360-degree autonomous, app-free auto-fly for flights (when not using a smartphone) and gesture control.

However, the flight time between charges is six minutes, so it’s best used sparingly. AirSelfie AIR PIX comes with a carrying case and a built-in 8GB MicroSD card.

Booth #42370, Sands Expo

www.airselfiecamera.com

Livall Helmetphone BH51M Neo

A new flagship helmet for cyclists and e-scooter riders, Livall’s Helmetphone BH51M Neo (US$169/UK£129/AUS$246) combines visibility with hands-free connectivity. It’s based upon the previous BH51M, but for better night riding it adds automatic front and rear LED brake lights. They’re activated by built-in gravity acceleration. It’s also got wireless left and right turn signals.

Other features include fall detection alert, voice navigation, stereo speakers, one-click to answer, indicator signals, smart lighting, anti-loss alarm, auto-off, SOS alarm, walkie talkie, and more. It will be available in graphite black and sandstone gray.

Booth #44513, Hall D, Sands

wwww.livall.co.uk

BassMe wearable subwoofer

Bass is all about feeling. The human brain finds rhythm most easily in low-frequency tones. So if bass music is close to your heart, why not bring it physically closer? That’s what the 310g, 26W BassMe does, a ‘personal’ subwoofer that’s just won a CES Innovation Award 2020 before the event has even begun.

Designed to overcome the limitations of bass through headphones, BassMe is a soft-touch contraption that sits on the chest and takes bass straight to the body. It connects to a headset via Bluetooth or audio jack, sits on the right shoulder and places at the centre of the chest at the sternum, essentially using the wearer’s ribcage as a soundboard for the six hours that it works between recharges.

Backward-compatible to any headset and any source of music, BassMe is designed for games consoles, VR gaming, smartphones and tablets, and home cinema. In fact, it’s already available in some cinemas in the south of France.

Booth 50215, Hall G, Sands Expo

www.bassme.fr

• CES 2020: what you can expect to see at the world’s biggest tech event

Trying to find the best 360 camera for you? Well, you've come to the right place. If, like Aerosmith, you don’t want to miss a thing, these cameras are exactly what you need: each of the models in this list is capable of capturing footage in full 360-degrees. 

Most work by using multiple camera modules – usually two wide-angle lenses back-to-back – to capture footage which can then be digitally combined into a fully spherical video or, more usefully, into a standard two-dimensional video weaved together from frames that you've chosen after the fact.

That said, there are plenty of differences between them. Features to consider include automatic stitching (which saves you the hassle of manually aligning multiple captures), image stabilization, live-streaming and resolution, which in some cases goes up to 8K (see the Kandao QooCam 8K below). It’s worth remembering, though, that even a relatively high resolution won’t necessarily result in detailed images: because pixels are stretched over a 360-degree frame, the small part you’re viewing might well be less than Full HD.

Also look at cropping functionality, which allows you to extract a standard ‘flat’ video from the 360-degree footage you’ve captured. This means you can shoot everything that’s going on and select your area of focus when you're back home – particularly useful for fast-moving and unpredictable subjects, such as safari animals of extreme sports enthusiasts.

The relevance of other features, such as GPS, Wi-Fi and slow-mo modes, will depend on what and how you like to record. Helpfully, we’ve accounted for all of this in our list of the best 360 cameras. Some are the latest and greatest models, while others are a little older but priced very competitively. And don’t forget that our widgets always display the latest and best deals too.

Best 360 cameras 2020 at a glance:

1. Insta360 One X
2. GoPro Max
3. Kandao QooCam 8K
4. Insta360 Evo
5. Insta360 One R
6. HumanEye Vuze XR
7. GoPro Fusion
8. Insta360 One
9. Ricoh Theta V
10. Garmin Virb 360

Best 360 camera 2020:

Producing great video is about two things; capturing all of the action, and slick editing. What if you could do both with an action camera and an app? With dual fisheye lenses and some unique time and perspective-manipulation special effects, the One X is our current pick for the title of best 360 camera.

What we love about the One X isn't its 360 tricks at all, but how easy it is to produce a great-looking regular widescreen video. Kudos in particular to the silky smooth image stabilization, which all goes to make it a tempting proposition for semi-pro videographers looking for some unique special effects on-the-fly. 

• Read our in-depth Insta360 One X review

If you're looking to shoot immersive videos of sporting escapades or outdoor adventures, then the GoPro Max is the best 360 camera option around. Unlike the Insta360 One X, it's waterproof down to five meters without needing a case, and the editing workflow is slick and simple. If you want to turn your 360-degree video into a traditional 2D film – which is one of the main benefits of 360 cams – the app's OverCapture software lets you do this easily, as long as your happy with the final footage being in Full HD. The Max also amps up many of the features seen on the GoPro Hero 8 Black, including superior HyperSmooth stabilization and 360-degree TimeWarp sequences. The slightly sub-par 2D video footage (which is the result of it being converted from a fish-eye images) means the Max falls short of being the ultimate GoPro for both 360 and standard footage. But it's a fantastic option for anyone who wants to shoot action sequences in every direction without the hassle of deciding where to point their action camera, then edit it together quickly later.

• Read our in-depth GoPro Max review

Numbers never tell the whole story, but 8K is a seriously impressive figure in a consumer 360 camera's spec sheet. Qoocam’s 360 heavyweight outguns all of the competition on resolution, with a pair of 20MP CMOS sensors that work together to capture 8K footage at 30fps and 4K video at up to 200fps. 

Not only can it create VR-grade video out of the box, but it’s also the first non-pro model from which 360 footage can be cropped down to widescreen format without a big drop in resolution. It packs impressive SuperSteady image stabilization, too, as well as a class-leading 2.4-inch OLED touchscreen for easy control and framing. For both stills and video, dynamic range is excellent, as is color and contrast. 

Downsides? There are limited video modes and the partner app is pretty basic, though there’s a handy express mode which downscales footage for mobile editing. There’s also no escaping the relative heft of the Qoocam 8K, or its lack of waterproofing. All the same, provided you can stomach its price tag, its video quality is unrivaled in the 360 market. Once you try 8K, there’s no going back.

• Read our in-depth Kandao QooCam 8K review

It might not have the elegant, pocket-friendly design of Insta360’s One X, but the Evo is a more flexible form of 360-degree camera. One minute it can function as a standard 360-degree camera with back-to-back fisheye lenses capturing everything around it in decent 5.7K resolution. The next moment, thanks to its hinged design, both lenses will be sitting side by side facing the same direction, allowing them to capture 3D VR content with a 180-degree field-of-view. You’ll really need an Oculus or similar VR headset to appreciate the latter, however – and for most people the One X probably makes more sense.

• Read our in-depth Insta360 Evo review

The headline feature of the Insta360 One R is its modular design. Comprised of three blocks – battery, controls and camera – the lens section can be switched to suit your situation. Besides a 1-inch sensor module, the dual-lens element is seriously exciting: capable of capturing 360-degree footage in 5.7K at 30fps, it transforms the Insta360 One R from action cam to capable 360 cam. Stabilization is excellent, as is the stitching, with only a slight flutter if your crop covers the border between sources. Like the GoPro Max, sharpness drops at the edge of each lens, but results in bright conditions are good, with decent detail and limited noise. The same can’t be said in low light, where software processing issues arise, with lots of juddering and blurred frames. Editing 360-degree video means selecting and dragging one of five fields of view in the app, which is slightly limiting but ultimately quick, while optional subject-tracking delivers a professional look with minimal effort. It's not quite as slick as the GoPro Max, but it's cheaper, offers a unique modular approach and delivers solid 360-degree footage. With a few software fixes, the Insta360 One R could be a real 360 success.

• Read our in-depth Insta360 One R review

Thanks to its pop-out lenses, the Vuze XR is able to record both 360-degree and 3D VR videos. It’s a clever design and physically well implemented here thanks to the solidity of the hinge mechanism and springs. With the option to shoot video at 5.7K resolution, the camera’s image quality isn’t bad either. Unfortunately, the limited mobile app’s lack of editing features and the slightly janky nature of the desktop app make doing anything with your footage and photos more of a chore than it should be – and while the Vuze XR may have been the first camera to offer this two-pronged approach, it’s outperformed by the slightly slicker Insta360 Evo that followed closely in its wake.

• Read our in-depth HumanEyes Vuze XR review

GoPro’s highly innovative camera has enjoyed a significant price drop since its launch, making it worth considering if you can't stretch to the newer GoPro Max. The Fusion can capture 360-degree video in 5.2K resolution at 30fps (or 3K at 60fps) which is great, but its real trick was the introduction of the OverCapture mode. Like the GoPro Max and Insta360 One X, this lets you film in 360 degrees then create a standard 16:9 video from the footage. Add GPS, a compass, accelerometer, gyroscope, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3D audio, and compatibility with existing GoPro mounts, and the waterproof (to a depth of 5m) Fusion is a powerful camera for the price. The newer GoPro Max brings a front-facing screen, a more compact design, six microphones (rather than four) and better image stabilization. The Fusion's last software update was also over a year ago, if these issues don't bother you then it's definitely worth considering if you need a waterproof 360-degree camera.

• Read our in-depth GoPro Fusion review

No one in their right mind thinks 360° video is going to take over from regular video. Why else would the Insta360 One include FreeCapture, a mode that allows users to film in 360° before transforming the results into a traditional 16:9 aspect ratio? It's a little like the feature on the similarly 4K-capable GoPro Fusion, although that's where the comparison pretty much ends. A reliable 4K 360° camera for video and stills, the Insta360 One proffers another advanced tool in the shape of Bullet Time, a fast frame-rate slow-mo mode that, rather bizarrely, requires users to wave the camera rapidly around them on… a piece of string. It's odd, but effective – the slow-mo effect you can add this footage looks like something out of The Matrix. It comes with a tripod thread for remote shooting, too. 

It was Ricoh that put 360° video creation into the mainstream with its Theta S a few years ago, but for all the brilliance of its form factor, it produced barely 25 minutes of rather soft video on one charge. The souped-up follow-up looks the same, but is capable of 4K video recording, 4K live streaming, and even records 360° spatial audio thanks to its four microphones – and for 80 minutes. Android-based and Qualcomm Snapdragon 625-powered, the Theta V vastly increases the ISO and has both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so can be operated remotely via an app. Thankfully, it retains the standard tripod thread its forbear had. 

It might be known mostly for its sat navs and sports watches, but Garmin has produced a whopping-good 360 camera. The feature that catches the eye on the VIRB 360 is its ability to capture in maximum 5.7K resolution, and there's a very simple reason for that awkward figure: 4K doesn't cover a 360 landscape well. Better yet, you can now stitch 5.7K footage using Garmin's free VIRB Edit software. Its four microphones produce wraparound sound, too, while waterproofing, GPS, a gyroscope and an accelerometer give it a notable Garmin feel (it collects data about your adventures as you go, which you can overlay onto your 360 videos).

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Japan is bracing itself for a super typhoon this weekend that some are calling the most powerful storm in the world. It’s causing havoc at the Rugby World Cup and Japanese Grand Prix despite not yet making land.

A coming violent typhoon is a time for fear and anxiety, but from next year an event like Super Typhoon Hagibis could be a great opportunity. New technology is coming online that won’t deflect powerful typhoons, but instead milk their incredible energy.

Could a new kind of ‘typhoon turbine’ be about to solve Japan’s energy crisis?

What is Super Typhoon Hagibis?

‘Typhoon’ and ’hurricane’ are simply local names for the same thing: tropical cyclones. Arriving in the wake of September’s Typhoon Faxai, which hit Tokyo and killed three people, Super Typhoon Hagibis is three times stronger and now a Category Five hurricane-force typhoon. It’s also bound for the capital.

Expected to be the worst typhoon since Typhoon Ida, which left 1,269 dead in 1958, Typhoon Hagibis surprised meteorologists this week in taking only 18 hours to reach ‘super typhoon’ status, hence the name; hagibis means speed in Filipino. Heavy rain, gale-force winds, high waves, storm surges and flooding are likely from its 270 kmph/168 mph winds. You can follow its progress here.

Why do we need to capture energy from typhoons?

Could a typhoon’s incredible energy be harnessed to power the homes of Japan’s 127 million people? It’s potentially a massive prize; in any one year tropical cyclones represent energy equivalent to about half the world-wide electrical generating capacity.

Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism estimates that the energy of one large typhoon is equivalent to about 50 years of Japan's total power generation. Cue Magnus VAWT, which from 2020 could begin to capture the energy from Japan’s frequent typhoons – even a Category Five typhoon like Hagibis.

What is Magnus VAWT?

The product of a Japanese start-up called Challenergy, technology called the Magnus Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) could make use of those damaging winds. Instead of the traditional propellers found on regular wind turbines, Magnus VAWT has a rotating cylinders that power a vertical-axis generator. It relies on the ‘Magnus effect’, a phenomenon that explains why air curves when passing by a spinning object. A Magnus VAWT turbine consequently has three vertical cylinders that rotate around a vertical axis to generate power. It’s already been tested in Nanjo City in Okinawa, Japan, where it withstood wind speeds of 225kph/140mph.

Although they’re don’t appear to be as efficient as regular wind turbines, if Magnus VAWT turbines can capture even some of the kinetic energy from a typhoon, that won’t matter.

What's wrong with traditional wind turbines?

Regular wind turbines have propellers. They work fine in most scenarios, but during typhoons they can be dangerous and the propellers can break. Consequently, they’re often switched off when a typhoon is approaching. It’s one of the reasons why wind power hasn’t caught on in Japan, though the mountainous terrain is also a factor.

While global wind power capacity is now more important than the nuclear power industry, Japan has very few wind turbines and the Japanese government is aiming for it to account for a mere 1.7% of electricity production by 2030.

Can't we just make stronger wind turbines?

GE Renewable Energy is working on stronger wind turbines specifically for the typhoon zone. However, its current product, the 4.2-117, can withstand 205 kmph/128 mph winds. That wouldn’t be enough to cope with Super Typhoon Hagibis.

Why this innovation is timely in Japan

Magnus VAWT is a timely innovation, and not just because of Japan’s ongoing typhoons. Ever since the Tōhoku earthquake and 15-metre tsunami in 2011 and the resulting accident at Fukushima, Japan has turned its back on nuclear power and dreams of a carbon-free hydrogen society.

It’s possible that Magnus VAWT turbines could harness the energy of a typhoon to power the electrolysis of seawater, which splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, thereby generating hydrogen gas. Such electrolysis using solar power was achieved earlier this year.

Could Magnus VAWT be used all over the globe?

Japan, the Philippines and China are the most obvious places to begin with. They’re both regularly hit by tropical cyclones that form in the western Pacific Ocean between May and October.

First up for Magnux VAWT turbines is the Philippines, where Challenergy will build its typhoon-proof turbines on some of the country’s 7,000 remote, energy-poor islands that often take direct hits from typhoons, so until now have held off on installing wind turbines.

Like any wind turbine, the amount of energy a Magnus VORT turbine can produce depends on its size. With one eye on small, remote island communities to prove its technology, Challenergy intends to produce 50 small Magnus turbines, each with 10 kilowatts of capacity, in 2020.

In its early years, the tech’s potential to bring power to non-electrified areas in emerging countries is at least as important as its typhoon-proof design; Magnus VAWT turbines will have to prove themselves at small scale before they can be used en masse in Japan.

However, if these new turbines catch on and begin to tap the energy of typhoons, there could be an issue with energy storage. Someone call Elon Musk…

• Britain has gone a whole week without coal power for the first time since 1882

There was a time when Japanese brands dominated tech and everything was ‘made in Japan’. As a country it gradually became synonymous with incredible innovation: the Walkman, games consoles, the plasma TV. Then China happened, and everything changed.

Now it’s time to take a trip back to Tokyo. With the world’s third highest GDP and more money being invested in ‘J-startups’ than at any time for a decade, Japan’s tech scene is now producing some of the most innovative ideas of all… though some of them are pretty weird.

From AI, robotics and even a private moon rover to ‘smart art’ and a surprisingly number of human-animal gadgets, here’s a sample of the startups coming out of Japan right now.

1. Langualess Inupathy dog mood sensor

A strap-on dog mood sensor that hopefully won’t annoy your dog

Is your dog happy? They may be man's best friend, but human-dog communication has not improved for centuries. Basically we’re terrible at reading dogs’ body language, so we need a gadget to do it for us.

The Inupathy wearable device uses HRV (heart rate variability) – it continually takes your dog’s pulse – and uses analysis to give you feedback on its mood as flashing colors on the back of the harness. Everything from happy and alert to concerned and stressed is covered, though there’s no color for ‘annoyed by harness’. Before you ask, it’s too big for cats.

2. Mui Pillar Memories smart art system

Measuring the height of your kids. On some digital wood

Peaceful digital living. That’s what Kyoto-based Internet of Things design startup mui Lab is trying to do with its ‘calm’ devices, the latest of which is a multimedia re-think of the family tradition of marking the growth of a child on a wall at home.

The concept model ‘hashira no kioku’ (height marking in wood) is a ‘smart art system’ that connects a wood column – actually a well-disguised touch-sensitive smart screen – and a Wacom digital pen via the cloud. After you mark your child's height using the pen, the system displays the exact measurement on the wood-screen and saves those measurements. It does the same for siblings. Well, it’s a conversation-starter…

3. ispace HAKUTO-R

The world’s first private lunar exploration program

Can Japan become a ‘moon country’? Space industry startup ispace, a private lunar robotic exploration company in Tokyo, has plans to put a lunar rover on the moon. One of the five finalists in the Google Lunar XPRIZE, ispace wants to be able to provide a vehicle for private companies so that the moon can be brought into the Earth's economic system.

The HAKUTO-R program currently involves a mission to orbit the moon in 2021 and a moon landing in 2023 for the world’s smallest and lightest planetary exploration rover, which can detect surrounding obstacles using its sophisticated camera system.

Read more about ispace

4. Pixie Dust Technologies Holographic Whisper

A speaker that gets right to the point

If you’ve never had the pleasure of listening to ultrasonic speakers, you’re in for a treat. A circular speaker like any other, the Holographic Whisper from Pixie Dust Technologies is all about directional audio that can only be heard by one person in a room who's standing in exactly the right position.

Holographic Whisper’s audible sound sources are generated in the air by high amplitude ultrasonic waves, creating a very tight beam of sound that’s focused in one small area. It could have uses in public places.

5. Yukai Qooboo cushion

Why not relax by tickling a headless robot cat?

You want a pet. You can't have a pet. So what do you do? Designed for people living in small apartments, ostensibly in Tokyo, and for those with pet allergies, Qoobo (US$165/UK£133) is a robotic cushion with a cat-like tail that makes realistic moves in response to being touched. If you caress it the tail waves gently, and if you rub Qooboo, its tail swings playfully.

Yukai also makes the equally bizarre NecoMimi, a headband with fake cat ears that moves in sync with the user’s brain waves. Essential stuff.

6. Unipos

Give your colleagues a digital pat on the back

Ever get the feeling that your happy, helpful disposition and hard work is going unnoticed? Standing for ‘unified positivity’, Unipos is a platform designed to build a culture of recognition in the workplace. Each person in a company gives feedback on everyone else essentially to express their gratitude for big or small tasks.

With 280 partners and 40,000+ active users across the world, the Unipos system is all about expanding beyond ‘key performance indicators’ in the workplace to embrace the everyday contributions by employees that previously went under the radar.

7. XPAND Code for smart cities

A barcode for football scarves? QR codes, be worried

QR codes that open URLs when you point your phone’s camera at them are clever, but ugly and geographically limited. They’re increasingly found on lampposts, train platforms, bus stops and billboards, but XPAND Code is an attempt to scale them up for the smart city and, at the same time, give them a makeover.

A new kind of virtual signage, the tech has a slim horizontal form that tries not to disrupt its surroundings. Best of all, instead of needing to be within 10cm of a QR code, you could get information from up to 200 metres away from an XPAND Code.

8. Triple W Dfree toilet timing predicting device

Is it time to go?

The world is getting old. In a rapidly ageing society like Japan a lot of innovative technology is now being created to serve the needs of the elderly, like Dfree (US$445/UK£355), a device designed to alleviate incontinence.

A small ultrasound sensor that sits on the bladder, it constantly detects its size, and before the bladder gets full it sends an alert to the wearer’s phone telling them it’s time to go to the toilet. A predictive wearable device, DFree is already used by over 2,000 people in Japan.

9. mui Lab smart home control panel

Ditch the smartphone. Get wood

Want to know the weather? Touch a tree. This novel smart home control panel is a slab of real wood that’s connected to the internet. It’s paired to your phone and your smart home, and can filter-through messages, play music, tell you the weather – anything a phone can do – but, crucially, it only displays information when you touch it.

“Smartphones are always displaying information and disturbing us, forcing us to adapt to them,” says Akikio Moriguchi at mui Lab. “This is the opposite to a smartphone.”

10. Yukai BOCCO emo responsive robot

A robot-phone for toddlers

Kids have smartphones from a really early age these days, what about toddlers and preschoolers? Give them a robot, obviously. “BOCCO Emo (US$149/£120) was created for parents and kids who are too young to use a smartphone,” says Clement Bastide, Marketing Manager, Yukai Engineering, Tokyo. “If your kid is at home and you want to check up on them you can send them a message on a smartphone and the robot will speak out loud what you write.”

The idea is that the kid can then just press the robot’s nose to send you a voice message back. It also works with smart home devices; parents can receive a message from a smart door lock if a door is left open.

• IFA 2019: 10 insane innovations from the backrooms in Berlin

Berlin’s massive tech exhibition IFA was dominated by the big brands’ unveiling of phones and giant TVs, but beyond the headlines are hundreds of eye-catching new ideas. Is a digital teasmade insane? Possibly. How about a wearable air purifier, a ‘digestive tracker’ and a Wi-Fi hotspot with a camera? Or maybe you would like your next child to be pointing a camera at you from its crib?

What seems odd today is next week’s normal, and many of the ideas that first get floated at IFA can go on to become, or to inspire, the next generation of must-have gear and gadgets. Here’s our pick of this year’s most intriguingly odd new tech on show at IFA 2019.

1. FoodMarble AIRE Personal Digestive Tracker

Take a deep breath. Now exhale. Yeah, you shouldn’t have eaten that. A pocket-sized breath-tester, FoodMarble’s AIRE figures out what foods you are unable to digest. The first-ever ‘personal digestive tracker’, AIRE caters for the one-in-eight people that eat food not compatible with their digestive system, something that can cause irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

“Users log food, sleep, stress, sleep and symptoms in the app and take regular breath tests throughout the day,” says Aonghus Shortt, CEO of FoodMarble. “Each breath test measures the level of fermentation in your gut, which indicates how well a certain food is being digested. Our users come to us because they are tired of guessing what foods are triggering digestive problems for them.” Yuck.

FoodMarble AIRE is on sale now for £149 (about $180 / AU$270).

2. Samsung AirDresser

Samsung has gone a bit mad. Its tortuously long press conference saw the unveiling of the AirDresser, a ‘personal garment solution’ that, er, releases powerful jets of air to de-dust and sanitize clothes. Now that’s solving a problem that no-one thought they had.

For those who need to ‘refresh and revitalise’ their clothes or are sick of spending so much time at the dry cleaners, the wardrobe-shaped AirDresser emits ‘jet steam’ from a vent on the floor to remove bacteria (?) and a heat pump to dry them out and remove smells. Yup. It comes in the ‘Crystal Mirror’ color, which makes it look a bit like a fridge. It’s presumably designed for smoggy cities in Asia because Samsung also talked-up a ‘wind-free’ air purifier. Samsung solving the big problems?

3. Aalto Explorer FIND-X 3 Underwater Drone

The ocean covers nearly 70% of the Earth, yet 95% of it remains a mystery. So why don’t we discover it… together? Finland-based Aalto has developed the world’s first underwater expedition platform where anyone can sign-up and enjoy – via a virtual reality headset – live streaming video in real-time from the bottom of the world’s oceans.

The vehicle plumbing the depths on various expeditions will be the new Aalto Explorer FIND-X 3, a remote operated vehicle – yup, a drone – fitted with a 360° camera, with a 4G (and, soon, 5G) equipped floating mobile above, tethered via an umbilical cord. The ‘passenger’ sees what FIND-X 3 sees via a web browser or phone. It’s all currently at the prototype stage.

4. Barisieur Tea and Coffee Brewing Alarm Clock

Are you old enough to remember the teasmade? The automatic tea-maker-meets-alarm clock, popular in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s, hasn’t been seen for decades, and yet its stylish return at IFA 2019 instantly seems inevitable.

Mind you, the Barisieur is a far higher grade beast than the analog brewers of yesteryear. It makes both coffee and loose leaf tea using a stainless steel reusable filter, with water brewing in 3.5 minutes using induction tech, to reach 94°C. It uses infrared to detect if milk is present, and if it is, it cools it to 3-8°C. The Barisieur also includes drawers for coffee, tea, sugar and spoons.

And if anyone was under the illusion that this is a new kind of teasmade, it’s really only a digital makeover; the Barisieur gives the caffeine addict options to wakeup with a cuppa ready to drink, or it can be delayed by five, 10 or 15 minutes after the alarm. Available in black or white, Barisieur costs £345 (about $420 / AU$620) and is on sale now.

5. Véritable Connect Smart Garden

In the UK and worried about Brexit's impact on fresh food? Probably not, but why risk it when this (ironically) French-made ‘smart garden’ from Véritable can help you grown your own aromatic herbs, edible flowers and baby vegetables all year round?

Promising to create the perfect growing conditions for the organic seeds of sweet basil, curly parsley, chives and cherry tomatoes, it includes in the box (as well as organic soil), Véritable Connect is completely autonomous.

The unit provides plants with automated light, irrigation and nutrients, and an app lets you know when the water tank is empty (that happens every three weeks). All you’ve got to do is harvest and gobble it all up. Véritable Connect costs £245 (about $300 / AU$440).

6. Babeyes Baby’s POV Camera

What does the world – and what do we – look like from a baby’s point of view? It’s something that most of us have never thought of. Or, at least, we’ve never thought we needed to record for posterity. That was until Babeyes came along with the tagline ‘babies' first memories forever’.

Essentially a  first-person camera for babies, a small camera is hidden in a teddy bear-shaped badge that pins to a baby grow. It then records any motion it detects in full HD 1080p quality and once its contents have been transferred to a computer, software looks for faces and shows only those clips. So although it sounds like it’s about the baby, it’s actually about showing the parents footage of themselves. Scary stuff. It costs $139 (about £110 / AU$200).

7. Airvida C1 Wearable Air Purifier

If Babeyes is essentially a gadget for parents rather than children, here’s one that’s all about the kids. The world’s only (obviously) wearable air purifier designed specifically for children aged three to 10 years old, Airvida’s C1 generates 2,000,000 negative ions per cubic centimeter every 0.6 seconds around a baby’s face. That’s 100 times more than 'natural forest ion concentration' according to the makers, which of course makes perfect sense.

It’s supposed to reduce the pollen, airborne allergies and allergens that a baby may breathe in, though isn’t that just going to make for a sickly child? It might seem intrusive, but it only weighs 22g.

8. bONE Tech IceBRKR Ski Goggles

It’s another wacky proposition. Here are some ski goggles that let you listen to music, and even chat with your mates anywhere on the slopes up to a mile away without having anything in your ears.

There are two slabs of tech behind bONE Tech’s IceBrkr ski googles. The first is bone conduction, which does away with the need for in-earphones. Instead, vibrations in your ski helmet send low-frequency sounds into the inner ear directly through jawbones. That’s something AfterShokz has been doing for a few years. The technique’s advantage is that you can also hear what’s going on around you, which is crucial when you’re on the slopes.

The second secret is Bluetooth 5.0 MESH, which lets you create an intercom with up to 17 other people within a mile that also have devices using the same tech. That sounds great for staying in touch, something that’s very tricky in large ski resorts. It’s on Kickstarter now for around $100 / £80 / AU$140.

9. Capsulier REVO Coffee Packaging Machine

Love good coffee, but hate evil coffee capsules? Hugely convenient and massively wasteful, coffee capsules that go into espresso machines go into landfill. You’re also tied to buying one brand of capsules, often at great expense. So why not just make your own?

This capsule packaging gadget makes custom-blend coffee capsules in minutes, pops easily into espresso machines, and creates any kind of blend a coffee-lover can dream of. Capsulier uses stainless steel capsules that can be used ad infinitum. Expect to see a finished version of the REVO in mid-2020.

10. Welt Smart Belt

As tech zones go, wrists are so passé. Sure, we all tried and loved (and then quickly got bored of) a Fitbit around our wrists, but then retreated to using fitness apps on smartphones that just can’t be reliable. So what about this for a convenient half-way house? Made in South Korea, the micro USB-charged Welt is a belt that tracks the size of your waist as it expands and contracts, uses a pedometer to track your activity – just like a Fitbit – and also takes account of how much you’re eating. It then tells you want/what not to do via a phone app.

• IFA 2019 is Europe's biggest tech show, and the TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new TVs, phones, laptops, wearables and other devices as they're announced.

The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup is over, and the England (and Wales) team won it. Just. In the end it came down to the greater number of boundaries scored by England in the final against New Zealand, but throughout the tournament it was technology that proved decisive.

Unlike football, where Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology has taken an age to catch on, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has been tech-savvy for years. 

From HawkEye and Hotspot to Batcam and Spidercam, here are all the gadgets, the tech and the innovations that helped the umpires make the right call and the broadcasters bring the action alive. Howzat?! 

1. STATSports trackers 

During the World Cup the India National Cricket Team signed-up with UK sports technology company STATSports, whose wearable performance-monitoring tech is already used by Manchester United, Liverpool, Roma, Tottenham Hotspur and the Brazilian national football team. 

Their wearable device is essentially a fitness tracker built into a base-layer vest that’s loaded with sensors that measure distance, speed, acceleration, deceleration, high-speed running, and the dynamic stress load of each player. 

It means better monitoring of the cardio stresses on bowlers, who can tire quickly, as well as the rotations of batters’ ankle and knee joints. For us mere mortals, STATSports sells its GPS performance tracker.

2. HotSpot

Part of the umpire’s Decision Review System (DRS), HotSpot is all about leg before wicket (lbw). 

The planting of a pad in front of the incoming ball to stop it hitting the wicket is the oldest trick in the book, but for the umpire, it can be desperately hard to judge whether contact was made with the batsman’s pad or bat, or both – if it’s bat and then pad, he can also be caught out. 

Cue centuries of arguments until the arrival in 2006 of HotSpot, a tracking system that constitutes two SLX-Hawk infrared cameras that measures heat from friction to produce a frame showing the precise points of contact of the ball.

3. State-of-the-art TV coverage

You’d think that to cover 48 matches across 11 different venues would require some streamlined TV production plans. Not a bit of it. London-based Sunset+Vine, global production partner of the ICC, used a mobile outside broadcast unit, five technical teams, four production teams, 24 commentators, and 32 cameras to cover each match. 

That included drones, super slow-mo, eight ultra-motion Hawk-Eye cameras, Buggy Cams, front and reverse view Stump Cams and Spidercam. A 15-second graphic countdown clock to DRS was shown on screen and in the ground. 

However, there was one thing conspicuous by its absence from the World Cup: Ultra HD, which isn’t a big thing in India, by far cricket’s largest market for TV. 

4. Hawk-Eye LBW detection system

Another part of DRS is Hawk-Eye, a tool that’s long been a default part of cricket broadcasts across the globe. 

Comprising six cameras, three at each end of the ground, Hawk-Eye essentially tracks the ball and predicts its path. If the ball is determined to have been heading for the stumps when a batsman’s pad got in the way, it’s lbw. 

Hawk-Eye has been provided by host broadcasters at major cricket matches since 2001, and at ICC events since 2008, when it became part of the DRS.

5. TRACAB Optical Player Tracking

Already used in the Premier League, German Bundesliga and Spanish La Liga, as well as major international UEFA and FIFA tournaments, and Major League Baseball, it was about time ChyronHego’s TRACAB made its way into cricket. 

An advanced camera-based player and ball tracking system adopted by the graphics provider AE, this ICC-commissioned specialised version of TRACAB for live cricket shows viewers the exact field position of players as well as a range of data points, including running speed and distances covered.

6. Hawk-Eye UltraEdge

A sound-detection based system that’s part of Hawk-Eye and DRS is UltraEdge. Aimed at helping the umpire better judge lbw decisions, UltraEdge comprises stump microphones that clearly differentiate between the sounds created by different sources, specifically the bat, pads and clothing of the batsman. 

What makes it different from the rival Snickometer technology is that UltraEdge uses ultra-slow-motion cameras, so the audio and visuals can be synced. 

With that information, the umpire can decide whether a batsman has nicked the ball (‘caught an edge’) or not.

7. Batcam

This UK-based live drone filming and broadcasting company supplied three machines to all the Cricket World Cup venues: BatcamFLY and BatcamDRIVE. BatcamFLY is a drone equipped with a 360-degree camera that can produce an eye-line shot before racing up to 400ft for an atmospheric overview/skyline shot. 

A remote-controlled 10x zoom camera on wheels, Batcam DRIVE produced those low tracking shots of batsmen leaving the pitch. Traveling at up to 30mph and equipped with automatic collision avoidance, this rugged 80cm-high buggy is remote controlled and has GPS tracking. 

It was used primarily to get ground-level replay shots from behind the wicket-keeper.

8. Spidercam

Every time a new batsmen came into bat during the Cricket World Cup, Spidercam swooped down over them. 

It proved pivotal; installed at every ground during the World Cup, Spidercam’s smooth aerial sweeps and angles were made even more pivotal to the viewing experience by their hosting of innovative augmented reality (AR) overlays. 

Spidercam’s shots formed the environment for pop-up AR graphics of key players, and even the trophy itself placed in the middle of the ground.

9. Piero graphics analysis system

Making its debut at the World Cup was Piero, a package of 3D graphics to help pundits analyze and explain sports events. 

In use for 15 years on the UK's BBC soccer show Match of the Day, Piero is all about generating visual views of the field from any angle, and allowing pundits to manipulate players and draw lines. 

It works by stitching together several camera feeds, and operates in conjunction with the CricViz data analysis and score predictor.

10. 360-degree replays

For the first time at a Cricket World Cup, broadcast coverage involved the production of 360-degree replays. Provided by Piero, using software that allows multiple camera feeds to be stitched together to create wraparound video, 360-degree video replays of matches were made available online on ICC TV.

It may be a game that's a few centuries old and full of quaint rules and traditions, but when it comes to technology there are few sports as cutting-edge as cricket. Now, about that lack of Ultra HD…

• The Ashes 2019: how to livestream every England vs Australia game

5G is here, but if you think it’s all about ultra-quick downloads and web pages that are faster to load, you’re only half-right. New 5G cells will be able to transfer not just more data, more quickly, but they’ll also communicate instantly.

A real-time internet is coming, which means a real-time cloud, and the creation of a new class of electronics that can exchange data and information fast enough to make near-instant decisions. 

Cue driverless cars, drones, trains and much more besides. A tactile internet where touch becomes as important as what you see or hear. A new era of electronics where wearables, smart fabrics, and connected-everything is possible. The Internet of Things (IoT) in full bloom, but also a new, real-time economy based on an industrial-scale IoT.

None of these things will happen overnight. 5G will take years and years to significantly spread beyond 5G hotspots in urban areas. 5G won’t be egalitarian either; select urbanites (and businesses) will have it first, while everyone else will only experience it occasionally. It will be years until we all use it regularly.

However, we do know that 5G, when it happens, and if it sticks (i.e. it if makes telecoms companies significant profits), is going to be about a great deal more than just 1Gbps speed for smartphones. Here are 5 things about 5G more important than the speed: 

1. Better quality voice calls

WhatsApp is convenient, and it’s free, but there’s another reason that more and more of us are using the messaging app to make voice calls. 

Voice calls made over WhatsApp – and any voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) service like Skype or Zoom – are much, much clearer than on the phone network. High definition voice wasn’t a priority for the designers of 3G and 4G networks, but with 5G, you can expect all voice calls and video calls to contain speech that’s clearer, sharper and altogether more realistic.

It’s about time. And it’s set to go further than simply HD with so-called Voice over 5G (Vo5G), which looks set to be an integral part of other 5G services, such as video calling, telepresence, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).

2. More capacity

5G is just as much about capacity, as it is about speed.

An important part of the 5G spec if what’s known as mMTC (massive Machine Type Communications). The result of this kind of communication is something incredible; up to a million connected devices per square kilometer. 

Why does that matter? Take a sports stadium. Put yourself in a crowd of 50,000 and, right now, you cannot get a phone signal. Want to find out other scores at half-time? Or send a text during a match? Forget it. 

However, with 5G, not only will anyone at a major event be able to get online, livestream video, and make calls, but a lot more tech will be enabled in the stadium itself. 

Why bother with those big screens, and even scoreboards, at either end of the stadium when the organizers could just make it available for anyone in the stadium to stream on their phone or tablet? It’s even possible that spectators could don a camera and livestream what they can see, in HD, to anyone at home… perhaps even in 360 degrees to anyone with a VR headset.

Away from stadiums, t 5G could be beneficial in busy places where live updates are be useful, such as in airports and train stations – bringing us better connectivity on the move.

3. Platooning

A key part of the 5G specification is URLLC (Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communications), which allows for reliable, instant communications between the network and devices. 

This is what makes the era of driverless cars a very real possibility, by allowing vehicles to communicate their exact speed and position with each other in real-time. 

Known as Cellular-V2X (C-V2X), it could eventually lead to something called platooning, which will get traffic moving faster. Groups of vehicles in a connected platoon will be able to drive with a one-second gap between each vehicle, automatically matching each other’s speed and braking. The reaction time for braking could be reduced to zero.

Platooning will basically mean the vehicle at the front of the group will dictate the speed. Although it could affect all driving, the tech’s main use is for now being talked-up for trucks and haulage, not only to make goods transport more efficient, but also to reduce carbon emissions. 

“Platooning has the potential to improve traffic flows on highways and to decrease the environmental impact of transport,” says Gunnar Tornmalm, head of Predevelopment, Systems Development at Scania, who adds that drag accounts for 25% of a truck’s fuel consumption. 

“However, the technology will only reach markets broadly if vehicles from more than one brand can find each other,” he adds. A format war is never far away, is it? 

4. Mobile broadcasting

You can already broadcast VR 360-degree video on Facebook, but the quality is pretty poor. It's the same story for breaking news footage, which is presently done in low resolution. 

News-gathering, live sports, and events need to catch up to the 4K era, then go way beyond to 8K, AR and VR. Could 5G transform broadcasting? 

AT&T and LiveU have just begun working to bring 5G to LiveU's HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) portable broadcast units. They’re going to test the real-world impact and performance enhancements 5G technology can have on live broadcast video production using LiveU HEVC portable broadcast units. 

This is about broadcasters taking advantage of 5G’s higher speeds and lower latency in the field. “We see 5G as a critical advancement for the broadcast industry disrupting the way breaking news, live sports, and other live events are produced,” says Avi Cohen, chief operations officer and co-founder, LiveU.

“We anticipate the technology will bring more capabilities to our customers such as multiple channels of audio, multi-camera productions from a single portable transmission solution, 4K streaming, and high-quality video return.”

5. Human health

While 5G is always talked-up by positive changes, there will always be some negatives. 

Perhaps the biggest worry is a potential problem with health – cancer, to be precise – from the installation of many more antennas in urban areas to create 5G networks. 

In November 2018, over 180 scientists called for an independent task force to pause the rollout of 5G networks amid concerns about “potential hazards for human health”. 

The big worry is an increase in exposure to radio-frequency electromagnetic fields, which we’re already subjected to with existing mobile phone networks and Wi-Fi routers. 

“The telecoms industry is trying to rollout technology that might have very real, unintended harmful consequences... the consequences for the health of humans, plants and animals are not discussed at all,” said Dr L Harrell, Professor of Oncology at Örebro University in Sweden. There is some evidence fueling their concerns, so expect this debate to drag on and on. 

5G Uncovered, in association with Samsung, brings you everything you need to know about the next wave of connectivity - not just how fast it's going to be, but in just how many ways it's going to change your life. Our 5G Uncovered hub is carefully curated to show everything there is to know about the next generation of connection.   

• How 5G could make your home smarter

What happened to 5G? Once an exciting story about technological progress that was all about doing things faster on our phones, the next generation of mobile connectivity has now become intertwined with international geopolitics.

So what has 5G got to do with the superpowers? And how, exactly, could it be used by governments and the military?

5G: why is it a geopolitical issue?

It’s all about two of the dominant superpowers in the world, China and the USA. Although there are plenty of companies from around the world that are building 5G mobile networks (Nokia, Samsung, Ericsson, to name but three), a seriously big player across the world is Huawei. 

It’s a completely different business to selling smartphones, but it’s the same China-based company. Huawei is involved in the construction of 5G networks around the globe. 

However, the Trump Administration says it sees Huawei-made network equipment as a national security threat because Huawei is allegedly entangled with the Chinese state. 

Does the Chinese government have a backdoor into Huawei-made network gear, and could it conduct secret surveillance through Huawei-built 5G networks? Could a country’s 5G network be completely switched-off in the event of a war? No-one really know the answers, but it’s also become terribly confused with the current trade spat between China and the USA, so it’s not clear what governments actually believe and what’s just fuel for the ongoing negotiations .

5G as critical infrastructure

However, one thing is very clear: the 5G network is already being regarded as critical infrastructure worth protecting before it’s even been built. 

Just the speed and depth of its adoption could shape the competition for 21st-century dominance between the USA and China. If it’s going to be that important, it’s understandable that no country would want their telecoms systems and its ‘Internet of Things’ (read: airplanes, the electrical grid, dams, self-driving cars… everything) open to a remote attack by an enemy – although that’s arguably a very paranoid take on it all. 

After all, if we’re talking about all China-made hardware being suspect, isn't the ever-popular iPhone built in China (along with almost every other piece of tech hardware)? 

Moreover, any 5G network’s vulnerability in the event of a war – perceived or otherwise – is magnified because of how 5G is expected to revolutionize militaries across the world. Here’s how 5G could affect the military. 

5G and hypersonic weapons

With a super-fast network able to exchange data in real-time over vast areas, 5G could have a role to play in something that’s long been talked about in the military: hypersonic weapons. 

Now being developed by Russia, China, the USA and France, seemingly for 2022, hypersonic weapons will travel at Mach 5 – five times the speed of sound – and will cover a mile per second. 

They will also fly at very high altitudes and on unpredictable flight paths, easily skirting existing missile defense systems. Intercepting them is therefore very difficult, but so is guiding them. 

Where 5G comes in, is in hypersonic defense systems. An aircraft carrier, a military base, or even a city, is going to have less than a minute to react to an incoming hypersonic missile. 

In short, incredible amounts of artificial intelligence-powered real-time data processing on targets and trajectories are going to be required to stand any chance of defending against hypersonic weapons. Cue 5G. 

5G and the ‘smart’ military base

The high frequency, short wavelength ‘millimeter-wave’ spectrum that allows the 1Gbps+ speeds over 5G has obvious military potential. 

It’s short-range only, so perfect for enabling smart military bases and command posts. Think millimeter wave-powered cameras and motion sensor-enabled tech around the perimeter of military bases, enabling command posts and vehicles to communicate with each other in real-time. 

“Not having to worry about a lower range is okay,” said Gary Martin, the US Army’s former Program Executive Office Command Control and Communications–Tactical (PEO C3T) to Signal Magazine. “In some cases, you don’t want the signal to propagate too far because the enemy can detect it.” 

That’s another bonus; 5G’s short-range millimeter wave signals don’t travel far.

5G and the ‘battle network’

Speed is everything on the battlefield, and 5G’s lower latency and higher capacity will enable armies to share more data, such as real-time maps and photos of battlefield scenarios, as well as computer simulations. 

“5G’s true potential will be in its impact on the battle network of the future,” reads a recent report from the US Defense Innovation Board. “That network will increasingly include a large number of cheaper, more connected, and more resilient systems to function in a rapidly evolving battlefield.” 

5G will also combine fragmented networks into a single network “to promote improved situational awareness and decision-making,” as well as logistics and maintenance.

Though millimeter wave tech would only be available on the battlefield in geographically restricted areas close to likely portable 5G base stations, an important, but mostly ignored part of the 5G specification is a low frequency, long wavelength connection.

 It doesn’t carry anything like the amount of data being talked-up for 5G, but eventually this sub-6Ghz technology will become an integral way of communicating across huge areas. Offering far less bandwidth, but working across much larger areas, sub-6 frequencies are already used extensively by the military.

5G and ‘battlefield wearables’

An overlooked part of 5G’s capabilities is mMTC (massive Machine Type Communications), which will enable up to a million connected devices per square kilometer. 

All of which can be fitted with sensors that collect and share data across a 5G network. Strap a smartwatch and bunch of biometric wearables to a soldier and their vital statistics – geographical position, heart-rate, blood pressure, and fatigue – can be shared. 

Eventually we could be talking some kind of connected Google Glass-type augmented reality devices similar to what pilots already use, but with real-time data streaming in. 

Either way, information about what’s going on in the battlefield is going to change utterly with 5G.

5G, drones and artificial intelligence

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – AKA drones – are already used by the military. However, they don’t transmit and share real-time 4K video and other data across command-and-control centers, and units in the battlefield. 

With 5G comes 4K video, object recognition, faster data processing and artificial intelligence (a good example is Project Maven), which will help reconnaissance missions and giving army units information on what they’re about to come up against. 5G could also help in more accurately and intelligently targeting weapons.

5G Uncovered, in association with Samsung, brings you everything you need to know about the next wave of connectivity - not just how fast it's going to be, but in just how many ways it's going to change your life. Our 5G Uncovered hub is carefully curated to show everything there is to know about the next generation of connection.   

• 10 things 5G can do, that 4G can't

Expensive, expendable rockets are history. Humanity's future is to take its heavy industry into space to protect Earth, and travel to space safely, reliably and affordably. That's what Blue Origin is all about.

What was once a secretive research company now has proven rocket launch systems and advanced plans to take commercial paying payloads and space tourists into space. Open for business, rapidly growing and quickly gaining commercial contracts, is Blue Origin on course to become the next Amazon.com of space?

What is Blue Origin and who owns it?

Blue Origin is an aerospace manufacturer founded in 2000 that's 100% privately funded by the richest man in the world. Jeff Bezos is the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, and owner of The Washington Post newspaper, and so far most of the accomplishments by Blue Origin have been funded by his own personal investment. According to the New York Times he sells $1 billion (about £800 million, AU$1.4 billion) of his own Amazon stock each year to finance Blue Origin.

Jeff Bezos got divorced from his wife MacKenzie in early 2019 and he was granted all of her interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, so there are no ownership issues.

Besides, Blue Origin is now rapidly gaining commercial contracts, so will be less dependent on the private investment of Bezos in the future. It’s also quickly expanding.

Where is Blue Origin based?

Blue Origin has a new HQ and R&D facility in Kent, Washington. However, its engineers oversee launches from a private suborbital launch and engine test site on Bezos' ranch just north of Van Horn, West Texas. However, it's now constructing an orbital launch facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, with a rocket construction facility close by, and a $200 million (about £150, AU$300) rocket engine production facility in Huntsville, Alabama.

In April 2019 a deal was signed with NASA to allow Blue Origin to test its BE-3U and BE-4 liquefied natural gas rocket engines at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center also in Huntsville. The 300-foot-tall, vertical firing test stand 4670 was used by NASA in the 1960s to test the massive Saturn V rockets that took the Apollo spacecraft to the moon, as well as engines for the space shuttle.

A commitment by the US Air Force to use its super-rocket of the future called New Glenn (see below) means Blue Origin is looking into building a launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Blue Origin is going large and getting big, though it's got some way to go to reach the size of SpaceX.

What are Blue Origin's long-term goals?

Blue Origin's motto is gradatim ferociter, Latin for 'step by step, ferociously', but a clue to the company's long-term goals is in its name. The point of Blue Origin is to develop "technologies to enable human access to space at a dramatically lower cost and increased reliability," though Bezos has always been very clear that he doesn't think humanity should abandon Earth to go looking for a better home. Instead, he wants to see millions of people living and working in space, getting heavy industry and power generation off Earth, so that Earth can be preserved. 

“We can harvest resources from asteroids, from Near-Earth Objects, and harvest solar energy from a much broader surface area – and continue to do amazing things,” he said in 2017. The alternative, he said, was an era of stasis and stagnation on Earth, where we are forced to control the population and limit energy usage per capita.

“I don’t think stasis is compatible with freedom or liberty, and I sure as hell think it’s going to be a very boring world – I want my grandchildren’s grandchildren to be in a world of pioneering, exploration and expansion throughout the solar system.”

Blue Origin is also interested in moon missions and is involved with the Moon Race project to boost the movement around Moon exploration.

Its first lunar lander, Blue Moon, was unveiled at an event in May 2019. The lander will come in two variations: one capable of carrying a 3.6 metric ton payload, and another able to carry 6.5 metric tons (the latter of which will be rated to carry people).

Blue Moon will be carried aboard the New Glenn rocket (see below), and its descent engine will be powered by liquid hydrogen, which Blue Origin ultimately hopes could be harvested from the moon's polar ice using electrolysis.

Blue Origin’s reusable New Shepard suborbital system

Blue Origin is a rocket-making company, and for now, it makes rockets that can reach space, but not orbit the Earth. That makes them ideal to take astronauts and research payloads past the internationally recognised boundary of space

A 60-foot. reusable sub-orbital rocket, New Shepard (named after Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American to go to space) is powered by a BE-3PM rocket engine. First flown in April 2015, New Shepard launches from a conventional launchpad, and a 12 ft. diameter crew capsule detaches and travels past the Kármán Line (62 miles/100km). It then parachutes back to Earth to be refurbished and reused.

Blue Origin and human spaceflight

It's important to appreciate that Blue Origin, as well as SpaceX and even Virgin Galactic, are not specifically space tourism companies, but it's probably going to be a good way to raise revenue for their bigger, off-planet ambitions.

So far Blue Origin has only sent 'Mannequin Skywalker' into space in New Shepard, but it has big and advanced plans for human spaceflight. In fact, its crew capsule is custom-made for observing Earth, with 43x29-inch windows alongside six reclining leather chairs.

Blue Origin now looks to be close to going live on space tourism after 10 missions, including a successful escape test in July 2018, when it fired the crew capsule escape motor at the highest altitude ever.

What will Blue Origin astronauts experience?

The 11-minute Blue Origin trip to the edge of space is going to be something akin to what Apollo astronauts experienced in the 1960s and 1970s on their missions to the moon. Six paying passengers will sit in the crew capsule on top of a New Shepard rocket. After a vertical launch, the engines will burn for two-and-a-half minutes and reach three times the speed of sound before the rockets and crew capsule detach from one another.

Those six passengers will keep going until they reach space, where they will enjoy three minutes of weightlessness while looking at the curvature of the Earth from space. They will then plummet to Earth before parachutes unfurl to take them slowly and safely back to the surface.

Blue Origin's Apollo-like vertical take-off, short-duration spaceflight trips makes it drastically different from what space tourists will experience with Virgin Galactic.

Does Blue Origin have any commercial contracts?

Yes – and they're coming in fast. After a long period as a secretive, privately funded research company with only a few small development contracts from NASA, Blue Origin is fully now out in the open, pitching for and winning large commercial contracts in the rocket launch business. That's a big deal for a company that needs to rapidly grow if it's going to achieve its goal of dramatically lowering launch costs.

In January 2019 it also worked under ‪NASA's Flight Opportunities program, taking a cabin full of ‪NASA payloads to space on its New Shepard mission (NS-10). In August 2018 Blue Origin signed a $10 million (about £8 million, AU$14 million) contract with NASA on developing a system for landing on the moon. Blue Origin will work on cryogenic liquid propulsion for a lunar lander-scaled integrated propulsion system; it could eventually mean a Blue Origin moon landing.

Blue Origin has also snagged a $500 million (about £400 million, AU$700 million) contract to develop its next-generation New Glenn rocket for the US Air Force. And in a further boost for development costs, two of its BE-4 rocket engines, now being designed for New Glenn, have been selected to power United Launch Alliance’s upcoming Vulcan rocket, due to fly in 2021.

Blue Origin's New Glenn orbital rocket

This is the big one designed to take people and payloads into orbit – and it’s already helping Blue Origin challenge the likes of SpaceX. A heavy-lift rocket due in 2021, the US$2.5 billion New Glenn (named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, in 1962) will be a reusable rocket powered by seven BE-4 engines. With a combined thrust of nearly four million pounds, Blue Origin claims that New Glenn will carry twice as much cargo into space as any other launch provider in the market.

Despite it not even existing yet, the space industry is clearly interested. In January 2019 it was announced that New Glenn rockets will be used to launch Telesat’s broadband internet satellites into space, which will involve multiple rocket launches, while in October 2018 the US Air Force committed to using it (and Vulcan) for national security space (NSS) missions. Blue Origin also has launch deals with OneWeb, Eutelsat and muSpace on its books.

What's next for Blue Origin?

Though human spaceflight may soon begin on its New Shepard vehicle, the space race will truly begin when New Glenn starts flying. It's already a new era for Blue Origin. Now on the cusp of offering human spaceflight trips, getting more involved with NASA, and with money in the bank to expand and develop the next generation of heavy-lift orbital rockets, Blue Origin is ready to go places.

• SpaceX: everything you need to know

If you're only here because you want to cut the cord and stop the rich, monopolistic cable overlords from siphoning your hard-earned money every month, I only have one thing to say to you: you've come to the right place.

Look, we believe that paying for great TV shows and movies shouldn't cost more than your groceries, and that there's no better way to save some green every month than ripping that money-sucking cord out of the wall and delivering that long-winded "you're fired" speech to the cable company.

We're here to help you make that next buying decision the best one possible by ranking the three best set-top boxes in two categories – for 4K TVs and for Full HD TVs – and tell you which one will best fit your home entertainment center.

So how did we narrow down the field? We looked at the amount of content available on the system - not only the number of apps available, but the quality, too – as well as its feature-set, usability and potential to grow in the coming year. The competition is fiercer than ever in 2018 as the big guns battle for supremacy, but there’s now a capable streamer for every budget. 

The best streaming boxes for 4K TVs

If you've recently upgraded to a 4K TV, it's a safe bet that you want a streaming box that can give you every one of those 3840x2160 pixels. You're in luck, because most of the major streamers have released 4K upgrades of late. However, so numerous are they that some excellent 4K streaming boxes have been squeezed out of our top three. The super-talented Google Chromecast Ultra just misses out on the podium, as do the Nvidia Shield TV and even the Xbox One S. However, it's clear that our remaining trio are the best streaming boxes for 4K and HDR content.

Okay, so Android users may not be invited to its 4K party, but there's no denying that Apple's waiting game has paid off. Yes, it's locked to the Apple ecosystem, but iPhone users will love the tvOS operating system, which looks nothing short of sublime. It packs in the pixels and looks sharper than ever, while a souped-up A10X processor means navigation and app loading is fast.

Whether you go for the 32GB or 64GB storage versions, every streaming app you can think of is here, with one glaring omission; there's no Amazon Prime Video. However, we do like the 4K HDR ‘room’ within its iTunes movies app, which makes it easier to discover hi-res video content. Dolby Vision is a real asset that few other streaming devices support right now (with Dolby Atmos to follow, we've been told), just as impressive is universal search and the addition of Apple Music, the later of which which makes Apple TV a competent jukebox as well as a top-tier movie streamer. And the integration of the proprietary Apple HomeKit smart home tech could be a feature to watch. Our only criticism is that Siri makes too many mistakes.

Read the full review: Apple TV 4K (2017)

Why buy a box when a dongle will do? In a move that makes the impressive Roku Premiere+ obsolete, this streaming stick has two incredible advantages; every app you could ever want, plus an improved 802.11ac Wi-Fi antenna that increases the range by four times. That double-act should give the Roku Streaming Stick+ an easy win, and yet we two have two issues with this diminutive dongle. Try as it does, a few niggling issues like slow pop-in time and lack of Dolby support prevent it from winning top accolades.

Also unwelcome is a proprietary power cable, but this Roku beats the Chromecast Ultra by shipping with a remote that has a microphone built-in for voice search (U.S. only), and dedicated media buttons for Netflix and in the U.S., Sling, Hulu and PlayStation Vue. Also in Roku OS 8 is Amazon Video, Amazon Music, YouTube, Spotify, Deezer, VEVO, SiriusXM and TuneIn and in the U.S., Vudu, PS Vue, Pandora, Crackle and Hulu. U.S. users also get a free network of films and TV shows the company has licensed from studios like Columbia and Paramount amid a dizzying 5,000+ streaming channels. Tiny reservations aside, this peerlessly egalitarian approach to streaming make this a hugely impressive and good value product.

Read the full review: Roku Streaming Stick+ (2017)

If you are already on the Amazon train with a Prime account and plenty of Amazon Echo units dotted around the house, then the Amazon Fire TV (2017) will slot into your home with ease.

Despite being one of the core apps of the streaming age, getting Amazon Video is not easy. It's not available on Apple TV or Google's Chromecast products, but Amazon Fire TV devices are much more than merely workarounds to the giant retailer's own video content. 

A discrete box of media tricks that can sit unobtrusively in your home, the latest Amazon Fire TV device is smaller than ever and incredibly easy to install and use. Redesigned as a dongle that plugs directly into your TV's HDMI slot, it does require a separate power connection. However, it also comes with an excellent remote control that allows you to use Alexa voice commands to control playback, which is a boon to anyone who has embraced the Amazon Echo range of smart speakers. The interface itself is similar to Apple TV, and includes a host of Fire TV apps – including Amazon Video, obviously – as well as Netflix. However, the flipside of Amazon Prime Video not being available on other streamers is that Google's YouTube is not available on this device.

4K HDR content, though sparse, looks great, though performance depends on the strength of your Wi-Fi network. Dolby Atmos support is welcome, too, but barely visible. Minor niggles aside, we enthusiastically recommend this latest Fire TV. 

Read the full review: Amazon Fire TV (2017)

• Best OLED TVs: Our pick of the best OLED televisions you can buy today

If you're yet to invest in a 4K TV, streaming devices dealing in 4K, HDR and Dolby Vision/Atmos are way over-specified for your needs. So swerve the high prices of the 4K streamers and head for the bargain basement, where you will find some excellent value streamers dealing in all the same content, only in fewer pixels. It also comes with miniaturisation; any search for a Full HD 1080p streamer quickly turns into a 'best dongle' dogfight. 

Google is almost giving away its flagship streaming device. In fact, the Chromecast is the most insanely obvious device you should consider if you have a Full HD 1080p TV… and don’t subscribe to Amazon Prime Video. One of the easiest ways of getting video streams onto any TV, this puck plugs into an HDMI port on the rear of your TV, is powered by micro-USB, and is controlled by a smartphone.

No remote control, then. Or even a user interface. However, it's devilishly easy to use; fire-up the compatible app (which now has an effective universal search function) on any smartphone, and tap the 'Cast' button to immediately have content streamed to the big screen. Easy. Whatever's on your phone, or available via apps on your phone, can be streamed to your TV. That makes it very different from the way its main competitors work, and it outperforms Amazon Fire TV devices thanks to its new-and-improved 802.11ac Wi-Fi antenna.

There are thousands of apps that come with the Cast button built in, from Netflix, HBO Now, Spotify, NFL Sunday Ticket, Tidal and Twitch here in the US to Sainsbury's Movies and TV, Blinkbox, BT Sport, NowTV, Napster and, of course, BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport in the UK. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

However, there is one small problem; if you are an Amazon Prime subscriber you won't be able to watch the service on Google's streaming stick – Amazon's mobile app doesn't support Google Cast functionality.

Read the full review: Google Chromecast

Amazon’s Fire TV Stick isn’t meant to be the company’s top-of-the-line streamer, but just because you’re buying a budget streaming stick that doesn’t mean you should accept a sluggish interface and meager apps. A stick designed to plug directly into an HDMI port on the back of your TV, the Amazon Fire TV Stick's user interface – including its Alexa voice search via an Alexa Voice Remote – is snappy and fast, and it allows access to most of the apps you’d need on a regular basis.

That would be Amazon Video and Netflix. With those two apps, it’s almost flawless, and if you just watch Amazon or Netflix content, then the interface is a dream. It’s quick, voice search works well, and it’s easy to find what you want to watch. However, venture into more niche streaming services and the stick’s functionality is much more basic, offering merely a portal to each app’s own interface rather than functionality of its own. The foundations are here for a solid streaming device, but it’s a little too inconsistent to be the perfect budget streamer. Oh, and it's not got access to YouTube, thanks to a corporate spat between Amazon and Google.

Read the full review: Amazon Fire TV Stick

If you use an iPhone and don't have a 4K TV, the older Apple TV from 2015 will do you just fine. It's all about Apple; you'll be shown the latest hits on the iTunes Movie and TV show storefronts, as well as be directed towards Music for all your audio needs. It can be slightly overwhelming if you're not used to Apple's lush, content-rich financial minefield, but anyone who's used an iPhone or iTunes in the past few years will be able to navigate around (though the finicky remote doesn't help).

However, find the epicenter of the new Apple TV, the App Store, and you'll enter a world of streaming video apps (HBO Now, Showtime Anytime, Netflix and Hulu are all here), and many of the top US sports apps including MLB.tv, NHL GameCenter Live, NBA.com League Pass and Watch ESPN.

OK, so it's expensive for a streamer that doesn't deal in anything above Full HD 1080p, and besides, it concentrates mostly on Apple's own video stores to find content. However, taken on its own merits, it's a good – if aging – streaming video player that's perfect for iPhone owners with a Full HD 1080p TV who want to stream and indulge in a little AirPlay awesomeness.

Read the full review: Apple TV

• Best movies on Netflix UK – 150 films to choose from

Download a 4K movie in three seconds! That’s the headline feature of 5G according to the lazy mainstream media, which is probably why the public aren’t yet as excited about 5G as they should be. 

So 5G isn’t about downloading movies quickly? No, though the focus on 5G’s incredible speeds is no surprise. After all, 5G networks will bring speeds of about 1gbps. 

Compare that to the 4G LTE networks we have in the UK right now that offer real-world speeds of about 20mbps; 5G will be 100 times faster, and in the long-term it’s expected to jump to up to 20gbps. 

However, this is just the eMBB (enhanced Mobile Broadband) feature of 5G, which is only a small part of the story.

To understand 5G, you need to know that 5G networks will be able to support up to a million devices per square kilometer thanks to massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC) and that they’ll also have Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communications (URLLC).

Jargon? Yes, but by being super-fast, super-dense and enabling real-time, latency-free communication, 5G will bring changes to the tech world we can only imagine. Luckily, we can imagine quite a lot already… besides, who still downloads movies?

• What is 5G? Everything you need to know

1. Ultra-fast wireless home broadband

Probably the most misunderstood aspect of 5G is that it’s only for smartphones and mobile gadgets. 

It’s really not. 5G is for the home.

Think of it as wireless fibre, with speeds that are almost as fast or, at least, fast enough for anything you might want to do online at home. In fact, some 5G trials in the US have concentrated almost solely on 5G-powered modems for homes; you place one in a window with a line-of-sight to a 5G mast, and with the help of a router it spreads ultra-fast 1gbps WiFi around your home. 

That being said, you shouldn't overlook the 5G-powered revolution coming to mobile video. 4G has made watching TV and YouTube on a smartphone possible, but let’s be honest, it’s often not much fun at all. Web pages that take an age to load, constantly buffering video, apps that freeze and photo uploads to Instagram that stall and splutter…4G can be a real headache.

So 5G will likely bring an instant and more reliable internet. That’s the theory, anyway. However, the advent of 5G is likely to kick-start a new era of real-time low-latency mobile gaming and/or more immersive virtual reality experiences that will try to make full use of the vast broadband capabilities (and probably buffer). The capabilities of tech are constantly being pushed, and 5G won’t change that. 

2. The ‘tactile internet’

5G’s URLLC feature is all about low latency. Latency is the time it takes for a communication to start, stop and then start again, which you can experience every time you try to load a webpage on a smartphone. 

On a 4G network it takes at least 40 milliseconds, but 5G promises to reduce that to just a single millisecond. Think about it; 5G could change everything we do online by making it instantaneous.

Cue the ‘tactile internet’. Defined as instant, interactive communications, the tactile internet could enable a revolution in industry, with robots able to receive instructions in real-time, essentially allowing them to collaborate on complex tasks.

In healthcare, surgeons could be able to see body scans and brain scans in real time, examine a patient remotely using a telepresence unit, and perhaps even remotely operate on patients using a surgical robot controlled across the internet.

3. Hi-Res Audio everywhere

Although a lot of the 5G talk is around video-based entertainment, a lot could change in the music world. After all, why persist with compressed MP3 and iTunes AAC files when hi-res uncompressed 24-bit/192kHz audio as FLAC, WAV and MQA music files are just as easy to stream over a 5G network? 

Hi-Res Audio (HRA) is lossless audio codec capable of reproducing the full range of sound from recordings that have been mastered from better-than-CD quality music sources. 

The massively increased bandwidth coming with 5G will likely popularize and normalize high-quality audio, which for now is a relatively small niche among audiophiles. 

It's growing though, with Tidal, Deezer and Qobuz already offering hi-res music, while Amazon is reportedly about to launch a hi-res audio streaming service. There’s also Spotify Hi-Fi that offers listeners lossless CD quality. Let’s just hope 5G phones come with unlimited data plans…

4. Mixed reality

Those planetarium-style smartphone apps that overlay a map of the stars and planets on the night sky are what the future looks like. 

No, not interstellar exploration, but 5G-powered instant overlays of real-time data on, well, everything. While those planetarium apps have all their data built-in and no need for real-time input and the augmented reality (AR) apps of the future are unknown, 5G could enable better navigation assistance, object recognition and even real-time face recognition on smartphones and smart glasses. 

Take another, even simpler example; you have a boiler that needs fixing, so instead of getting a heating engineer around, you talk to one via your smart glasses and they show you exactly which knobs to twiddle in real-time to diagnose and physically fix the problem. 

That’s going to be empowering. Everything from science, medicine, employee training and advertising could benefit from an explosion in AR overlays.

However, these rich, immersive ‘digital experiences’ will also spill over into virtual reality video, which could yet prove 5G’s ‘killer app’.

Real-time VR is presently not possible, but let’s be honest, how impressive really are VR headsets? They lack pixels – badly. Nothing looks real. What they need, of course, isn’t 4K, or even 8K, but probably 16K resolution, or multiple 4K video streams, and that’s what 5G could deliver. In real-time.

5. An internet of (many) things

A core 5G feature is mMTC, and that’s about density. It’s great news for sports fans. Never again will you sit in a packed stadium and be unable to use your phone.

That’s because 5G networks can support up to a million devices per square kilometer – but face-timing at the football is only one tiny aspect of what 5G will enable.

With that kind of support, the number of connected devices will explode. That Fitbit on your wrist? Why bother when you could have sensors all over your body – perhaps in clothes – that communicate with each other, and with the cloud via the 5G network, in real-time? 

Everything you own could be connected to the network, such as your backpack, the belongings inside, headsets, headphones, bikes, car…and family members. 

This could extend to industry as well, with companies’ assets, farm equipment, robots, and even tanks.

Another dimension of low latency is the real-time cloud. Instead of needing local processing power, devices like phones, wearables and laptops will link to the cloud for everything – files, data and artificial intelligence – perhaps only storing the absolute essential data on devices. 

That means smaller, lighter and essentially ‘dumb’ devices that are little more than conduits to the cloud.

5G Uncovered, in association with Samsung, brings you everything you need to know about the next wave of connectivity - not just how fast it's going to be, but in just how many ways it's going to change your life. Our 5G Uncovered hub is carefully curated to show everything there is to know about the next generation of connection.   

• Everything you need to know about the Internet of Things

Expensive, expendable rockets are history. Humanity's future is to take its heavy industry into space to protect Earth, and travel to space safely, reliably and affordably. That's what Blue Origin is all about.

What was once a secretive research company now has proven rocket launch systems and advanced plans to take commercial paying payloads and space tourists into space. Open for business, rapidly growing and quickly gaining commercial contracts, is Blue Origin on course to become the next Amazon.com of space?

What is Blue Origin and who owns it?

Blue Origin is an aerospace manufacturer founded in 2000 that's 100% privately funded by the richest man in the world. Jeff Bezos is the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, and owner of The Washington Post newspaper, and so far most of the accomplishments by Blue Origin have been funded by his own personal investment. According to the New York Times he sells $1 billion (about £800 million, AU$1.4 billion) of his own Amazon stock each year to finance Blue Origin.

Jeff Bezos got divorced from his wife MacKenzie in early 2019 and he was granted all of her interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, so there are no ownership issues.

Besides, Blue Origin is now rapidly gaining commercial contracts, so will be less dependent on the private investment of Bezos in the future. It’s also quickly expanding.

Where is Blue Origin based?

Blue Origin has a new HQ and R&D facility in Kent, Washington. However, its engineers oversee launches from a private suborbital launch and engine test site on Bezos' ranch just north of Van Horn, West Texas. However, it's now constructing an orbital launch facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, with a rocket construction facility close by, and a $200 million (about £150, AU$300) rocket engine production facility in Huntsville, Alabama.

In April 2019 a deal was signed with NASA to allow Blue Origin to test its BE-3U and BE-4 liquefied natural gas rocket engines at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center also in Huntsville. The 300-foot-tall, vertical firing test stand 4670 was used by NASA in the 1960s to test the massive Saturn V rockets that took the Apollo spacecraft to the moon, as well as engines for the space shuttle.

A commitment by the US Air Force to use its super-rocket of the future called New Glenn (see below) means Blue Origin is looking into building a launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Blue Origin is going large and getting big, though it's got some way to go to reach the size of SpaceX.

What are Blue Origin's long-term goals?

Blue Origin's motto is gradatim ferociter, Latin for "step by step, ferociously", but a clue to the company's long-term goals is in its name. The point of Blue Origin is to develop "technologies to enable human access to space at a dramatically lower cost and increased reliability," though Bezos has always been very clear that he doesn't think humanity should abandon Earth to go looking for a better home. Instead, he wants to see millions of people living and working in space, getting heavy industry and power generation off Earth, so that Earth can be preserved. 

“We can harvest resources from asteroids, from Near-Earth Objects, and harvest solar energy from a much broader surface area – and continue to do amazing things,” he said in 2017. The alternative, he said, was an era of stasis and stagnation on Earth, where we are forced to control the population and limit energy usage per capita.

“I don’t think stasis is compatible with freedom or liberty, and I sure as hell think it’s going to be a very boring world – I want my grandchildren’s grandchildren to be in a world of pioneering, exploration and expansion throughout the solar system.”

Blue Origin is also interested in moon missions and is involved with the Moon Race project to boost the movement around Moon exploration.

Blue Origin’s reusable New Shepard suborbital system

Blue Origin is a rocket-making company, and for now, it makes rockets that can reach space, but not orbit the Earth. That makes them ideal to take astronauts and research payloads past the internationally recognised boundary of space

A 60-foot. reusable sub-orbital rocket, New Shepard (named after Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American to go to space) is powered by a BE-3PM rocket engine. First flown in April 2015, New Shepard launches from a conventional launchpad, and a 12 ft. diameter crew capsule detaches and travels past the Kármán Line (62 miles/100km). It then parachutes back to Earth to be refurbished and reused.

Blue Origin and human spaceflight

It's important to appreciate that Blue Origin, as well as SpaceX and even Virgin Galactic, are not specifically space tourism companies, but it's probably going to be a good way to raise revenue for their bigger, off-planet ambitions.

So far Blue Origin has only sent 'Mannequin Skywalker' into space in New Shepard, but it has big and advanced plans for human spaceflight. In fact, its crew capsule is custom-made for observing Earth, with 43x29-inch windows alongside six reclining leather chairs.

Blue Origin now looks to be close to going live on space tourism after 10 missions, including a successful escape test in July 2018, when it fired the crew capsule escape motor at the highest altitude ever.

What will Blue Origin astronauts experience?

The 11-minute Blue Origin trip to the edge of space is going to be something akin to what Apollo astronauts experienced in the 1960s and 1970s on their missions to the moon. Six paying passengers will sit in the crew capsule on top of a New Shepard rocket. After a vertical launch, the engines will burn for two-and-a-half minutes and reach three times the speed of sound before the rockets and crew capsule detach from one another.

Those six passengers will keep going until they reach space, where they will enjoy three minutes of weightlessness while looking at the curvature of the Earth from space. They will then plummet to Earth before parachutes unfurl to take them slowly and safely back to the surface.

Blue Origin's Apollo-like vertical take-off, short-duration spaceflight trips makes it drastically different from what space tourists will experience with Virgin Galactic.

Does Blue Origin have any commercial contracts?

Yes – and they're coming in fast. After a long period as a secretive, privately funded research company with only a few small development contracts from NASA, Blue Origin is fully now out in the open, pitching for and winning large commercial contracts in the rocket launch business. That's a big deal for a company that needs to rapidly grow if it's going to achieve its goal of dramatically lowering launch costs.

In January 2019 it also worked under ‪NASA's Flight Opportunities program, taking a cabin full of ‪NASA payloads to space on its New Shepard mission (NS-10). In August 2018 Blue Origin signed a $10 million (about £8 million, AU$14 million) contract with NASA on developing a system for landing on the moon. Blue Origin will work on cryogenic liquid propulsion for a lunar lander-scaled integrated propulsion system; it could eventually mean a Blue Origin moon landing.

Blue Origin has also snagged a $500 million (about £400 million, AU$700 million) contract to develop its next-generation New Glenn rocket for the US Air Force. And in a further boost for development costs, two of its BE-4 rocket engines, now being designed for New Glenn, have been selected to power United Launch Alliance’s upcoming Vulcan rocket, due to fly in 2021.

Blue Origin's New Glenn orbital rocket

This is the big one designed to take people and payloads into orbit – and it’s already helping Blue Origin challenge the likes of SpaceX. A heavy-lift rocket due in 2021, the US$2.5 billion New Glenn (named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, in 1962) will be a reusable rocket powered by seven BE-4 engines. With a combined thrust of nearly four million pounds, Blue Origin claims that New Glenn will carry twice as much cargo into space as any other launch provider in the market.

Despite it not even existing yet, the space industry is clearly interested. In January 2019 it was announced that New Glenn rockets will be used to launch Telesat’s broadband internet satellites into space, which will involve multiple rocket launches, while in October 2018 the US Air Force committed to using it (and Vulcan) for national security space (NSS) missions. Blue Origin also has launch deals with OneWeb, Eutelsat and muSpace on its books.

What's next for Blue Origin?

Though human spaceflight may soon begin on its New Shepard vehicle, the space race will truly begin when New Glenn starts flying. It's already a new era for Blue Origin. Now on the cusp of offering human spaceflight trips, getting more involved with NASA, and with money in the bank to expand and develop the next generation of heavy-lift orbital rockets, Blue Origin is ready to go places.

• SpaceX: everything you need to know