Apple : The best 4K monitors 2017: the top Ultra HD monitors and displays |
- The best 4K monitors 2017: the top Ultra HD monitors and displays
- Nintendo Switch 2 might actually be a smaller, cheaper, stripped-down console
- Best all-in-one PCs 2017: top compact AIO desktops
- This Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus ‘official’ photo may be the real deal
- Didn’t buy a smartphone in 2018? First full-year decline shows you weren’t alone
- New 'collection' data dump contains 2.2bn usernames and passwords
- UK SMEs using technology to overcome their fears
- Microsoft Surface Pro 7: what we want to see
- Best secure drives 2019: top USB drives to protect your data
- One in five email attacks uses compromised accounts
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| The best 4K monitors 2017: the top Ultra HD monitors and displays Posted: 31 Jan 2019 01:20 PM PST For a while, the best 4K monitors were the golden ideal of computing, but these days, its available for basically anyone. Which is good, because these days everything is designed for ultra high definition displays, from operating systems to the best PC games. And, just like all the best monitors out there, they’re designed to provide users with a beautifully immersive – or productive – experience. With the new wave of affordable 4K monitors recently hitting the market, considerably cheaper than 4K TVs, they’re naturally all the rage right now. If you’re one of the many currently in the market for a 4K monitor to meet your PC gaming needs while still keeping within budget, we’re here to help you find the right one.
Dell’s P2715Q has often been name-dropped as one of the best 4K monitors in the market. With its sharpness, vivid colors, and ultra high resolution, it delivers excellent image quality for an affordable price no less. It also affords a range of features that rival its more expensive competitors. One such feature is its ergonomic stand for adjustable height and a screen you can pivot to your heart’s content. There’s also its 60Hz refresh rate as well as its gamut of ports. P2715Q is a strong contender for professionals and gamers alike.
LG UltraFine 4K might feel like David in a sea of Goliaths. Yet this monitor still screams Apple when it comes to functionality. The setup process is incredibly easy there’s not even a power button—you just plug the power adapter and then connect to your MacBook with the a single USB-C cable, which is for power, data, and display. It’s not without limitations, namely the absence of a Thunderbolt 3 port. However, it’s configured P3 color space renders a wider gamut of colors than other displays. Its small screen size coupled with Ultra-HD gives you extreme sharpness without sacrificing your deskspace.
Monoprice isn’t the most revered on the market, the brand makes some of the most affordable panels in the market. Its Ultra Slim Aluminum monitor, for one, is praised for is sleek, ultra thin bezel design and ultra wide viewing angles at 178°. Though limited in features – there are no built-in speakers, for example – its IPS panel allows for super sharp image display, the FreeSync technology reduces screen tearing, and the brand’s Pixel Perfect Guarantee gives it a vibrant color performance. Additionally, it supports more connectivity than its better-known competitors with the two DisplayPorts and two HDMI ports.
Those looking for a 4K monitor with crisp image quality and G-Sync’s smoothing, anti-tearing technology will certainly benefit from the Asus ROG PG27AQ. That is, if you’re willing to spend $900. It does have more than enough makings of a gaming panel: Asus’ Flicker-Free technology, a five-way joystick for on-screen display settings, a button for its built-in GamePlus technology, an ergonomic (LED-lit) stand, and six display modes. Still, for that price, you’re certainly allowed to expect more bounce for your once including a higher refresh rate and access to more image quality adjustments.
While 4K monitors are becoming more and more common, even without particularly powerful hardware, we still run into the kind of monitor that changes everything. The Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ is one of these. Asus has managed to craft a 4K gaming monitor with HDR and the kind of color support you see in professional displays – and render that all at 144Hz with G-Sync no less. There are only a few monitors out there that packs as many features as this Asus screen, and that’s why it’s one of the best 4K monitors. But, keep in mind, you’re going to have to pay for something this advanced – and we mean pay. Read the full review: Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ
If you’re looking for a 4K monitor for gaming, ViewSonic’s XG2700-4K is the perfect fit. It is not without quirks: the screen brightness could be higher, the red on black trim is an acquired taste, and it has no built-in speakers. On the other hand, you get amazing picture quality, quick response time, accurate color performance, multiple ports, and a versatile stand for multiple viewing angle options. Its most notable feature is AMD FreeSync to prevent tearing and ensure that your games are running smoothly. Of course, the picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture modes are also helpful because who doesn’t multitask nowadays.
Though IPS monitors offer better viewing angles and color reproduction, a TN monitor is better for competitive gaming with much faster response time, higher refresh rates, and affordability. This is how AOC’s U2879VF has a 1ms response time and a refresh rate of 144Hz all for a low, low price. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows however. If you can forgive the restricted viewing angles, the occasional flickering at 144Hz, the absence of a USB port, and the ho-hum color performance, this AMD FreeSync-enabled monitor is for you.
If you have an absolute beast of a gaming computer – think two Nvidia RTX 2080 Tis in SLI – and you need a monitor that can keep up, you might want to take a look at the Acer Predator X27. Not only is it a 27-inch 4K monitor with HDR, but it also has a refresh rate of a whopping 144 Hz. If you have the horsepower, you can play games in 4K competitively without losing an edge to the person playing in 1080p. But, as you may expect from a spec sheet like this, it’s very expensive – but if you need the tech, it’s definitely there. Read the full review: Acer Predator X27
You’ll need a bigger desk with 43UD79-B’s hefty, 42-inch screen. Unfortunately this bigger than life screen might also be darker around the edges and a sluggish refresh rage. However, this 4K monitor’s other features will more than make up for its flaws. The screen split software, for one, allows for a range of screen configurations. This, coupled with its four HDMI inputs, a DisplayPort 1.2a port, and a USC-C port, will let you effortlessly run multiple devices at once. Along with its true IPS screen, color-rich display, and FreeSync compatibility, you might just be getting a bargain.
Don’t let BenQ’s PD3200U’s 32-inch screen intimidate you. Although this might be the most expensive monitor here, it might just be the ticket if you’re looking for something very functional and you’ve got the dough to match. Due to its ultra-high resolution, the large screen size actually works to your advantage. It’s also fully adjustable so that you can swivel, tilt, and rotate the screen with very little effort. This one’s intended more for professionals with its CAD/CAM mode, 4ms response time, and KVM switch features. However, gamers will certainly appreciate its other features, if not its ho-hum, boxy design. Read the full review: BenQ PD3200U
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| Nintendo Switch 2 might actually be a smaller, cheaper, stripped-down console Posted: 31 Jan 2019 01:16 PM PST The next Nintendo Switch console may not be the new and improved version that many are clamoring for, but rather a shrinking or condensing of the current platform. That’s the latest from Japanese news outlet Nikkei, translated via Nintendo Everything. The outlet reports, citing sources both from hardware partners and game developers, that the console will be both ‘miniaturized’ to emphasize ‘portability’ and will “cut features” to become more affordable. It’s unknown specifically which features Nintendo plans to cut from this version of the Switch console, but there’s incentive for the company to make such a move. While just about everything is on the up for Nintendo financially, it's technically well short of its original goal of 20 million consoles sold in the fiscal year 2018 with a recent recasting down to 17 million. A more financially approachable console would certainly help drive more sales given the console’s popularity may be at odds a bit with its relatively un-Nintendo price. What does a stripped-down Switch look like?Sadly, with a cheaper Switch comes a Switch that’s thinner on the bone. Though Nikkei’s source have been quiet on the details, there are a few more obvious places where Nintendo can cut some fat. Nintendo could end up axing the docking features for this version, if it’s managed to integrate the display inputs into the USB-C interface and is willing to take the performance hit to a 720p maximum resolution. (The Nintendo Switch dock allows the console extra headroom to run games at 1080p resolution.) Of course, this feature could get stripped altogether regardless, though that would seriously betray the spirit of the console without some sort of spin-off rebranding. Most other features, including wireless communication, are pretty essential to the console, so here’s to hoping Nintendo wouldn’t need to slash off much more. But, if Nintendo was able to make the console more kid-friendly in terms of ruggedization as well, this Nintendo Switch version could be a hit. Better Nintendo Switch Online for dedicated fansWithin the same report, Nikkei has reported on a related rumor that Nintendo wants to launch an enhanced and pricier version of is Nintendo Switch Online service for “game enthusiasts willing to pay more,” Nintendo Everything translates. However, this issue of price in the translation has been disputed online, according to Ars Technica, specifically about whether the new and improved service will cost more or just become available as an update. Regardless, it’s unknown what Nintendo may think its hardcore fans need from the Switch Online service. Of course, we’re here to say “voice chat within the damn console, please?”
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| Best all-in-one PCs 2017: top compact AIO desktops Posted: 31 Jan 2019 01:15 PM PST The best all-in-one PCs, unlike conventional PCs, are desktop PCs with displays built-in. You’ll often find a mix of laptop and desktop components in an all-in-one PC, and while that does make it harder to dig in and upgrade to one of the best processors, there are definitely some advantages. One of the core advantages of the best all-in-one PCs is that they take up much less desk space than the best PCs usually do – as you don’t need to set aside room for a tower, a monitor and all the other assorted peripherals. Plus, there’s less of a mess of cables for people to trip over. This makes the best all-in-one PCs excellent choices for offices that want to maintain a sleek and professional look. It's no coincidence that all-in-one PCs are favored by professionals in the creative industry, especially the Surface Studio 2. On the flipside, the best all-in-one PCs are often the most affordable desktops that give users plenty of power and a decent screen paired together into one package. Below are the best all-in-ones PCs handpicked and regularly updated in traditional TechRadar fashion.
Back when the original Surface Studio hit the streets, it was a game changer for artists and content creators alike. And, even in 2019, the sequel still stands in a league of its own. The Surface Studio 2 doesn’t just feature the same gorgeous display and unique functionality, but it also ups the power significantly, making it a much more future-proof device. It’s still extraordinarily expensive, but if your use case is right for the Surface Studio 2, then, it’s hard to think of a better all-in-one PC. Read the full review: Surface Studio 2
The iMac Pro, more than any other computer on this list, is aimed squarely at professionals – and it has the hardware to back it up. Packed with up to an 18-core Intel Xeon processor and up to 128GB of RAM, there isn’t a single thing you could throw at the iMac Pro to slow it down. And, while it is, without a doubt, outrageously expensive – it doesn’t really matter. If you’re the type of person that needs this level of power (you know who you are) then the price is absolutely justified. Read the full review: iMac Pro
Resting atop an articulating stand, the Dell XPS 27 AIO comprises of a massive 4K Ultra HD touchscreen display with a whopping sextet of ear-numbing speakers. Not only is it attractive, but it’s also top-notch when it comes to delivering powerful specs. Whether you’re making your own beats or vibing out to someone else’s; watching films or editing them yourself, the Dell XPS 27 should be at the top of your list when shopping around for a new PC. Read the full review: Dell XPS 27 AIO
Not to be shown up by the 5K iMac or new Dell XPS AIO, HP has its own unique take on the all-in-one desktop. Though it also has all its components stored in its base like the Surface Studio, the HP Envy Curved All-in-One also adds in a booming speaker bar. Add in the ultra-wide curved screen and this is one of the best and most immersive PC for enjoying movies.
While Apple's iMac with Retina 5K display is one of the most impressive all-in-ones around, its price places it out of the reach of most people. However, if you're up for the expense there's no greater MacOS machine than this -- that is until the iMac Pro arrives. It comes with Apple's sharpest 27-inch 5K Retina display. Excellent build quality and hardy specs, also makes it a PC built to last, and a fine option for productivity work, watching movies or light gaming. Read the full review: Apple iMac with 5K Retina display
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| This Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus ‘official’ photo may be the real deal Posted: 31 Jan 2019 01:07 PM PST Forget all of the Samsung Galaxy S10 leaks based on concepts and schematics, and take a look at what appears to be the first 'official' Galaxy S10 Plus photo. It's said to be Samsung's Galaxy S10 Plus press render, one that backs up all of the major rumors we've heard previously, according to the leakers at 91mobiles. The front and back of the new phone represent a radical change from last year's S9 and S9 Plus. There's less bezel, more screen, new cameras, and a punch "don't call it a notch" hole.
Alleged Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus press render, front and back (Image Credit: 91mobiles) Big screen, lots of camerasThe S10 Plus is said to have large, curved 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display, the same size as the Galaxy Note 9 screen. The one on the Note 10 might be even bigger come August when it's expected to arrive. How? The front-facing camera – or in this case two front-facing cameras – are in a screen cut-out in the top right corner. In December, we saw Samsung's 5G phone prototype, or with what is likely an unfinished version of this idea. Samsung S10's expansive screen size in a small body is achieved by maximizing the screen-to-body ratio, without a need for the thinned-out top bezel to include room for the selfie cameras. So the actual phone shouldn't be much bigger than last year's handsets. Today's Galaxy S10 Plus photo leaks also clearly show the triple-lens rear camera on the back of the phone and doesn't show a rear fingerprint sensor. That's because we expect Samsung to use an ultrasonic in-screen fingerprint sensor embedded in the glass. When it comes to the trio of cameras, we're anticipating a regular, telephoto and new wide-angle lens with special effects. The iPhone 11 is rumored to have a similar setup. Of course, Apple isn't expected to launch its new iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Max until September, and the Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10 Plus, Galaxy Lite and foldable Samsung Galaxy X are supposed to at the company's Unpacked event on February 20. We'll be in San Francisco and London, reporting on the big Samsung launch event in person. Act surprised when it looks exactly like it does in this newly leaked photo.
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| Didn’t buy a smartphone in 2018? First full-year decline shows you weren’t alone Posted: 31 Jan 2019 12:35 PM PST Think Apple’s lower-than-expected iPhone revenue was worrisome? Multiple market research reports assert that global smartphone shipments had a full-year decline for the first time in 2018. Q4 2018 was the fifth straight quarter of declining smartphone shipments, rising to a 7% reduction in the latest quarter, according to Counterpoint Research’s report. It tagged the year-long decline in 2018 at 4%, dropping from 1.56 billion units shipped in 2017 to 1.49 billion this past year. Other market research firms claimed similar reductions between 4% and 6%. “Consumers held on to their devices longer due to the absence of groundbreaking innovations and higher prices of devices being offered by the OEMs,” Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research, noted in a press release announcing the report. This was the first year the highest-end devices broke the $999 highwater mark set by the iPhone X in 2017. Flagship phones crept up in price across the board, too. There are other reasons consumers held on to old phones, like continued security updates and OS upgrades to older devices. But some wounds were self-inflicted: Apple openly noted that its cheap battery replacement program (itself an apology for intentionally slowing older iOS devices) contributed to fewer iPhones sold than anticipated. And as Pathak said, the smartphone industry didn’t make great innovations in the last year. Manufacturers still tried to push sales with extra features like improved AI, triple-lens cameras (LG V40, Huawei Mate 20), full-screen displays, in-screen fingerprint scanners (OnePlus 6T) and other additions – but none drove sales as a must-have tech development. Other market research firms offered additional reasons for the downturn in their reports: Strategy Analytics also cited economic headwinds, while IHS noted political effects on sales, like the US-China trade dispute driving a patriotic fervor in the latter country for citizens to buy smartphones from Chinese manufacturers (Huawei, Xiaomi, etc). Lower smartphone shipments, shifting market shareAside from noting the reasons behind the shipment decline, the reports (from Counterpoint Research, Strategy Analytics and IHS) cited other changes from 2017 to 2018 - namely, market share. Samsung remains at the top with 19% of all smartphones shipped across the world, though its 318 million units shipped in 2017 dropped 8% to 291 million. Apple retains second place per these reports with 14% share and 206 million units sold, though third-place Huawei briefly claimed that spot last fall – but the real story is that Huawei rose from 10% market share in 2017 with 153 million units shipped to vie with Apple in 2018 at 14% market share by shipping 205 million units. Xiaomi at fourth in global market share (8%) upped their units shipped from 96 million to 121 million, a 26% increase. Oppo (120 million shipped) and vivo (102 million shipped) didn’t change their rankings at 8% and 7%, respectively. LG reportedly shipped fewer phones - from 55.9 million in 2017 to 41.2 million in 2018, a 26% reduction. LIkewise, Lenovo dropped from 49.9 million units in 2017 to 38.3 million last year, a 23% decline. Motorola stayed fairly consistent, shipping 39 million units over 2017’s 38 million. TCL-Alcatel dropped from 21 million phones shipped in 2017 down to 17 million last year, an 18% reduction. The big surprise at the lower end of the market share pie: HMD Global’s Nokia line shipped 15 million units last year, up from 5 million in 2017. The rest of the phones shipped saw a trend-reflected 22% drop in units shipped, from 429 million in 2017 to 336 million last year. Thus, the winners this year were those who retained their shipment numbers despite a less friendly consumer base. So...what about 2019?As always, it’s impossible to predict what will happen in 2019. But it’s hard to ignore that aforementioned contributing factors to last year’s lower shipments are still going strong - namely, lack of innovation. TechRadar went to CES and saw some promising phones, but no groundbreaking tech – and we’re including the Royole FlexPai, the first working foldable phone that you’ll have to pay dearly to own. Other manufacturers could prove us wrong on the concept, especially if they’ve developed something actually flat and neat, like Xiaomi’s alleged folding phone. Other developments coming this year aren’t exactly showstoppers: punch hole cameras and other notch-avoiding schemes, in-screen fingerprint sensors and incremental upgrades on phone specs. 5G is also coming. but there won't be much choice of compatible phones just yet. Perhaps something exciting will be revealed at MWC 2019 next month. Or perhaps other global developments will make markets more receptive - like a thawing between US and China, though that seems less likely after the US Department of Justice officially charged Huawei on 23 criminal counts. It's unclear what combination of factors would keep us from talking about 2019 the same way we're talking about 2018: a notable decline that may not be an anomaly.
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| New 'collection' data dump contains 2.2bn usernames and passwords Posted: 31 Jan 2019 12:09 PM PST Earlier this month, Have I Been Pwned's Troy Hunt brought attention to the largest ever online data dump containing 12,000 separate files and over 87GB of data containing 773m unique email addresses and 22m unique passwords. Hunt referred to the wealth of personal data he found on MEGA as Collection #1 and now Collection #2-5 has appeared online containing 2.2bn unique usernames and passwords along with 845GB of data and over 25bn records. Collection #2-5 contains almost three times as many unique records as Collection #1 and Phosphorous.io's founder Chris Rouland explained to Wired that more than 130 people are making the data available to download online. So far the data has been downloaded 1,000 times which means that the personal details Collection #2-5 contains will likely remain online indefinitely. Collection #2-5While the site Have I Been Pwned was a useful resource in discovering if your credentials had been leaked in Collection#1, the site has not yet been updated with the information from Collection #2-5. Instead users curious to know if their details have been leaked in the latest collection should check out Hasso Plattner's Info Leak Checker which contains details from 8bn accounts spanning 810 leaks. Much of the stolen information contained in Collection #2-5 is from previous data breaches that affected Yahoo, LinkedIn and Dropbox. However, these details could be utilized by hackers to launch credential stuffing attacks to compromise other accounts that use the same login details. Via Wired
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| UK SMEs using technology to overcome their fears Posted: 31 Jan 2019 11:06 AM PST UK SMEs feel positive about the economy and their strategies for the future despite facing a host of challenges in 2019 according to a new study from American Express conducted by Oxford Economics. The research, which is conducted annually among senior executives and decision-makers in SMEs across 15 countries, shows that UK SMES are remaining resilient even when faced with old and new business challenges. Of those surveyed, over two thirds (64%) forecast policy, legal and regulatory changes as the greatest threat to SMEs in 2019 followed by economic uncertainty surrounding Brexit and trade relationships. Cyber and data security is an emerging treat to UK businesses and 31 percent ranked it in their top three external business threats this year compared to only 11 percent last year. Revenue growth may be the most important long-term objective for UK SMEs but organisations have scaled down their profit projections for the year ahead showing they're more realistic about what they can achieve given the current climate. Continued growthSMEs plan to focus on productivity in 2019 with businesses predicting that increased productivity and operational efficiency will have the greatest impact on their financial performance over the next three years. To help realise these goals, UK SMEs plan to implement cost-saving programs (66%) and improve management decision making (59%) going forward. Organisations are also leveraging their small business advantages to drive growth and 60 percent believe they are now more likely to be a disruptor as opposed to being disrupted. This belief is reflected in their appetite for risk with 70 percent of UK SMEs saying they are willing to take big risks to gain big rewards. Executive Vice President of Global Commercial Services International at American Express, Jose Carvalho provided further insight on the findings of the study, saying: “Despite operating in turbulent times, and facing fresh challenges for the year ahead, the optimism and focused resilience shown by the country’s SMEs is encouraging. Our research shows that they are single minded in their approach to growth and 85% are assured about the strategies they have in place to meet their objectives. Although confident, our SMEs are far from complacent. They’re realistic in their attitudes towards revenue growth – and must now invest in improving cost savings and decision making to meet their productivity goals.”
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| Microsoft Surface Pro 7: what we want to see Posted: 31 Jan 2019 11:05 AM PST Over the last few years, Microsoft’s Surface Pro lineup has consistently pumped out some of the best Windows tablets and 2-in-1 laptops we’ve seen. But, when the Surface Pro 6 launched with few substantial changes, we started wondering when we could expect more meaningful improvements on the Surface formula. Cue the Surface Pro 7, which we’re starting to see all kinds of patents for coming out of the woodwork that can change how we use Microsoft’s tablets. With Intel’s Ice Lake processors launching this year, and with the rumors of a new USB-C magnetic charger in the works at Microsoft, the Surface Pro 7 may end up being one of the best Surface devices yet. But, because nothing has been confirmed, keep in mind that this is all rumors and educated speculation. Regardless, we will keep this article updated with all the latest news and rumors alongside our wishes, so you have an idea of what to expect. Cut to the chase
Surface Pro 7 release dateBecause the Surface Pro 6 essentially just came out, it’s unlikely that we’ll see the next one any time soon in 2019 much less this year at all. Both the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Pro 6 launched in October 2015 and 2018, respectively, but the Surface Pro 2017 launched in June of that year. Now, it’s possible that the Surface Pro 7 will launch in October 2019, but the release cadence for Surface Pro devices seems to be approximately every 16 to 18 months. So, it’s possible that we won’t see the Surface Pro 7 until June 2020. It’s possible that we’ll see the Surface Pro 7 as early as October 2019, if Microsoft wants to target that annualized release, but we wouldn’t hold our breath. Don’t worry, though, we’ll update this article just as soon as we hear any word – official or otherwise – on the Microsoft Surface Pro 7 release date.
Surface Pro 7 priceThe Surface Pro 6 launched at $899 (£879, AU$1,349) for the base model, but that marked an increase in price over the Surface Pro 2017, the base model of which was $799 (£799, AU$1,199). So, the pricing of the Surface Pro 7 could go one of two ways: another increase of $100, or it may just stay the same price – we doubt the price will drop again, though. If the price does go up by another $100, and start at $999 (about £770, AU$1,380), it’ll put the Surface Pro 7 in the same league as devices like the Dell XPS 13 and the HP Spectre x360 – not to mention the new iPad Pro. Much like anything else here, we won’t know the actual pricing of the Surface Pro 7 until Microsoft is ready to share it. But, we’ll update this article as soon as that happens.
What we want to seeBecause the Surface Pro 7 is so far out right now, it’s hard to predict what exactly will be in the next Surface device. However, with all the patents that Microsoft has filed recently – though they’re by no means any kind of confirmation – we have come up with a wishlist of updates we’d like to see. Blazing Speed If the Surface Pro 7 includes these new processors, you can expect much greater performance, while also getting improved battery life across the board. Thunderbolt 3, please Luckily, we have reason to believe that Microsoft will launch the Surface Pro 7 with Thunderbolt 3 support, or at the very least basic USB-C charging. Microsoft has patented a new magnetic charger with a USB-C input that would function like the current Surface charger. We’re truly not sure whether Surface Pro 7 will support Thunderbolt 3, as it depends upon Microsoft’s willingness to trade its proprietary technology for Thunderbolt 3, which it must pay Intel to license. An improved Type Cover And, we might have an idea of the next generation Type Cover will look like. Microsoft has patented a thinner Type Cover that should reduce the footprint of the device all around. It looks like Microsoft is planning on doing this by using a trackpad that’s built right into the printed circuit board. It would also use haptic feedback in the keys, to improve the tactile response of typing – which would be necessary on a thinner keyboard cover. It’s a bizarre move, but we’re nonetheless intrigued – if Microsoft can make the Type Cover slimmer without falling in the same trap as Apple’s Butterfly keyboards, it could change the game.
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| Best secure drives 2019: top USB drives to protect your data Posted: 31 Jan 2019 10:20 AM PST Whenever you carry important data around with you on a USB stick or external hard drive, you're running the risk of other people getting hold of it, either through physically stealing the drives, or leaving it somewhere public. In this guide to the best secure drives of 2019, we look at the top data storage devices that will allow you carry private data around with you, safe in the knowledge that if the device itself becomes compromised, your data will remain safe. The best secure drives will use either software or hardware encryption (or best of all, a combination of both), to stop other people accessing and viewing your data. Many of the best secure drives on this list will have ways to prevent access, such as a physical keypad, and will also come with rugged, tamper-proof, cases that can further protect your files.
We don't often get Indiegogo projects on our list but we're making an exception for the EyeDisk, which hails itself as the first unhackable USB flash drive. The concept is pretty simple; use your iris as your password rather than cumbersome passwords, making it much more secure. It is compatible with Windows and Mac but not Linux and you will have to run an app every time you plug it in a client. There's no password to log though, just your iris to be scanned and this takes a few seconds to be registered. It's not as rugged as other secure drives on this list, but it managed some very decent numbers on CrystalDiskMark (130MBps transfer rate on read and 84MBps on write) which means that it won't keep you long. At the time of writing, you can only pre-order it via Indiegogo, the crowdfunding platform, and it is scheduled for delivery from March 2019. With a starting price of $59 plus shipping for the 32GB version and $99 for the 128GB, it is reasonably priced.
The D300S was announced by Kingston and is an updated version of the D300, launched in 2016, with the suffix S standing for Serialised. It appears to be a standard USB drive, but with a more robust design. However, it's the price that really stands out. There is a reason why the D300S carries such a premium according to Kingston. The drive uses custom hardware for encryption (FIPS 140-2 Level 3 256-bit) and decryption which eliminates vulnerabilities associated with any process done on the host system. That chip and the rest of the hardware is sealed in a tamper evident epoxy material that hardened when it dried. It's also waterproof up to 120cm, and can survive knocks and drops as well
diskAshur's products are some of the best secure drives on the market, and the diskAshur Pro is the company's best external hard drive yet. The key selling point of the diskAshur Pro is its physical keypad that will only grant access to the data stored within upon entering a PIN number. Asides from the physical security (which extends to IP56 water and dust resistance and even a self-destruct feature), the diskAshur Pro also comes with some enviable encryption, sporting XTS-AES 256-bit real-time full disk hardware encryption and EDGE technology to offer even more levels of safety.
If you need to have small amounts of sensitive data being carried around, then the 3NX could well be a life saver. It brings advanced data protection features to a mainstream market thanks to its attractive low price ($59 for the 2GB/4GB model) and $189 for the 128GB one. What you do get is some military grade, enterprise-level features like FIPS 140-2 level 3, real time hardware-based encryption, a platform-agnostic setup and a rugged extruded aluminum enclosure. The data is encrypted using an onboard 10-digit keypad and is powered by an onboard battery.
The ultra-rugged Aegis Secure Key 3Z is designed to keep the data safe for people who regularly work outdoors or on the road, with a rubber exterior, which is IP58 protective against dust and water, safeguards a rugged aluminium build inside and out, meaning that there is no easy way to break into this device. Meanwhile, it also features a physical keypad for keeping your data safe and secure. It's pricey, but well worth the investment.
The Apricorn Aegis Secure Key comes with a full 10-key alphanumeric keypad with two function keys plus three status lights. It then slots into a hardened epoxy-potted rugged aluminum enclosure which makes it dust and waterproof; the device is also certified IP-58 and at 46g and 93mm long. It also features built-in hardware encryption (256-bit AES) which means that it is totally independent from the host client and OS-agnostic. No keyloggers and no BadUSB vulnerability. The Aegis Secure Key has received a FIPS 140-2 level 3 accreditation from NIST, the US-based National Institute of Standards and Technology, which oversees US government IT and computer security, which means this is one of the most secure drives you can buy.
The Kingston Ironkey D300 (IKD300/8GB) comes with software security that can make it a bit complicated and confusing to begin with (it will initially show up on your PC as a CD drive with 14.4MB capacity), but once you've configured it, which includes setting a password, you'll have a very secure drive. With its cap on, it is waterproof (up to 4ft) and dustproof and at 51g, feels solid. More importantly though, the more compelling protection happens inside the device itself. It is a FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified device with 256-bit AES hardware encryption. There is a hardware cryptographic module inside the device itself which means that the encryption and decryption is done on the drive rather than on the host PC, with digitally signed firmware which makes the D300 immune to the notorious BadUSB exploit.
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| One in five email attacks uses compromised accounts Posted: 31 Jan 2019 09:56 AM PST Account takeover-based (ATO) attacks now comprise 20 percent of all advanced email attacks according to new research from the email security and protection company Agari. The firm's recently published Q1 2018 Email Fraud & Identity Deception Trends report found that ATO attacks are rising in popularity among cybercriminals because they are more difficult to detect than traditional attacks and can bypass email filters since they are sent from a real sender's email account. Senior Director of Threat Research at Agari, Crane Hassold provided further insight on the treat posed by ATO attacks, saying: “Credential phishing was already a huge risk for organizations because of the potential for data breach, but now there is a new wave of account takeover attacks leveraging compromised accounts to commit additional fraud, which evade traditional email security controls. Business email compromise attacks are still very active, especially against C-suite targets.” Advanced email attacksAccording to Agari's Cyber Intelligence Division, brand impersonation remains the most common attack vector and this technique was used in 50 percent of advanced email attacks during Q4 2018 with cybercriminals impersonating Microsoft in 70 percent of these instances. Microsoft is often a target for credential phishing since attackers can use Office 365 accounts in subsequent ATO attacks. However, a different pattern was identified when it came to attacks against executive targets with 33 percent of advanced email attacks against C-level employees using display name deception to impersonate an individual. This tactic is also commonly used for business email compromise (BEC) attacks that frequently target an organisation's CFO. With the approach of tax season in the US, impersonation of the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) surged in the fourth quarter. The IRS was impersonated in nearly one in ten attacks which is up from less than one percent in the third quarter. W-2 scams occur quite often in the runup to tax season, as cybercriminals utilise phishing emails and social engineering to obtain a business' W-2 files which contain a wealth of sensitive information such as social security numbers, salaries and other confidential data that is used to commit tax fraud or identity theft.
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| Final Fantasy 7 remake: trailers, release date, news and features Posted: 31 Jan 2019 09:47 AM PST First released in 1997, Final Fantasy 7 immediately cemented its place as one of the best JRPG titles around and introduced an entire genre to millions of gamers globally. Due to the success of Final Fantasy 7 over 20 years ago (and the pleads from die hard fans), Square Enix is releasing a remake. Not only because that seems to be the done thing these days but also because it’s something fans genuinely seemed to want – when the Final Fantasy 7 remake was announced as being in the works at E3 2015, the news was raced straight to our nostalgia organ like a chocobo released from the stables. The path to release hasn’t been smooth for this game, though. After two years in development we’re still not entirely sure when we’ll see the Final Fantasy 7 Remake released. With news and rumors still churning around the great wide web but official information still pretty thin on the ground, we’ve gathered up everything we know has been confirmed and all the rumors right here for your perusal. [Update: Could the Final Fantasy 7 remake be heading to PS5? With no new release date information shared, and the game touted being massively ambitious, a new analyst report suggests it's possible.] Cut to the chase
Final Fantasy 7 trailer and screenshotsThe first trailer for the game was released upon the remake's announcement at E3 2015. The trailer is largely cinematic and you can watch it for yourself below: A further trailer this time featuring gameplay was revealed at PSX in 2015: Square Enix has also released a number of screenshots from the game which we've collected together below. Final Fantasy 7 release dateThe Final Fantasy 7 remake has had something of a troubled development, so unsurprisingly we still don’t have a solid release date. It's also very possible that the the game will end up having several release dates, as Square Enix has confirmed the game's story would be told episodically. The game has been in the works since 2014 but there have been few significant official updates since the E3 2015 reveal. In this time, development of the game has moved from external developer CyberConnect2 to Square Enix’s in-house team. Overhauls like this can cause big delays to a game’s progress but according to Square Enix's Naoki Hamaguchi the decision was made out of a desire to maintain “control quality as well as keeping the schedule stable.” Things may be further along than we think, however. In an interview with Famitsu, the game's director (Tetsuya Nomura) said that some parts of Final Fantasy 7 such as cutscenes are further along in development than the now-released Kingdom Hearts 3. This gives us hope that we may see the first portion of the Final Fantasy 7 remake at some point in 2019 still. Maybe. Perhaps. Something we do know is that the game will be available to PlayStation 4 players “first” as was promised at its E3 reveal. Saying “first” suggests this isn’t an outright exclusive and that the game will eventually come to Xbox One and PC. However, there was no indication as to how long the agreed exclusivity period would be. The recent timed exclusive Rise of the Tomb Raider ran for 11 months on the Xbox One before coming to the PS4, while Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 was exclusive to PS4 for just three months. Given this variation it's hard to say how long FFVII's timed exclusivity might last.
Final Fantasy 7 news and rumorsCould the release date be a long way off? The highly-anticipated Final Fantasy 7 remake may not have a confirmed release date just yet but it seems like a safe bet to say that we’re probably not going to see it within the next year. In fact, according to a recent report from The Lifestream (via Destructoid) we might not see it for another five years. Reports of turbulence in the games development emerged around a year ago and if they're true it's likely that they slowed progress somewhat. A recent behind-closed doors conversation between producer Yoshinori Kitase and development lead Naoki Hamaguchi suggests the game could be as far away as 2023. The conversation apparently took place at a recent Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary celebration event and a translated transcription has been uploaded by a Lifestream user. The conversation doesn’t give much solid information in terms of release date or progress but Kitase and Hamaguchi say that they want the Final Fantasy VII Remake to have launched before Final Fantasy’s 35th anniversary in 2023. Now, even if this conversation did take place the transcription makes it hard to read any kind of tone from this. It could very well be a joke in reference to the long development process that they also say is now running "smoothly." With no official comment from Square Enix on the matter we say take this with a pinch of salt for now. It's highly likely that we'll hear more about the game's progress and maybe a potential release window during Square Enix's E3 presentation this year. It’s a reconstruction, not a shot-for-shot remake The Final Fantasy 7 remake will follow the original game’s narrative and feature the iconic characters and locations that fans love. Considering it’s so beloved there’s a lot of pressure on Square Enix to not stray too far from the original source material but according to director Tetsuya Nomura it won’t be a completely direct recreation. In an interview with Wired, Nomura said “We're not intending for this to become a one-to-one remake, or just the original Final Fantasy VII with better graphics.” Nomura has said that he wants the remake to "apply to the current era" and "the current generation of players." He added the caveat that he doesn't "want to change it so much that it's unrecognizable" but it has to be offering something "fresh and new." To accommodate modern consoles and gamers, changes will naturally have to be made to the game both in terms of gameplay, mechanics and perhaps even to some elements of the story. For starters, early trailers show a game more akin to Final Fantasy XV mechanically, with fixed viewpoints and static backdrops swapped out for full-3D terrain, and a turn-based battle system removed in favour of a real-time action-orientated one.
It’s episodic A significant way the remake is going to differ from the original game is that its story will be told episodically. This is a detail that was confirmed back in December 2015. The reasoning behind the decision, according to series producer Yoshinori Kitase is that “a proper HD remake” just wouldn’t fit into one instalment and maintain the “same feeling of density of the original.” “We've seen everyone's comments and reactions to the news that Final Fantasy 7 remake will be a multi-part series and many have speculated correctly as to the reason why we have made this decision,” he said, “If we were to try to fit everything from the original into one remake instalment, we would have to cut various parts and create a condensed version of Final Fantasy 7. We knew none of you would have wanted that. “I hope that by explaining a little more about our design decisions that you can appreciate the size of this project and what we have planned for this remake. Going beyond the scale and depth of the world, narrative and gameplay from the original to deliver something that feels familiar yet new. As I said before, we like delivering surprises.” Each episode will apparently be its “own unique experience” but as yet we don’t know how many episodes there will be or how they’ll be structured in relation to the original story.
No more turn-based battles As mentioned above, a major element that’s changing from the original game is a move away from turn-based battles. In an interview with Famitsu, Nomura said that battles in the remake will be “action-based” rather than command-based. Nomura didn’t go into much more detail with regards to the game’s combat system but it’s widely expected that we’re going to see a formula more similar to Kingdom Hearts and FFXV. This would mean a more active and seamless style of battling involving party members whom the player will be able to switch between. Though the loss of turn-based combat will be mourned, a move towards a system like Kingdom Hearts will be more accessible to new players. A PS5 release? PS5 development kits are now said to be out in the wild, with Sony's first-party development teams working almost solely on titles for the as-yet-unannounced next-gen system. With the ambition on display here, could Square Enix be planning to shift Final Fantasy 7's remake to the next machine? For Sony, it'd be a system seller right out of the gates for the new console generation, and for the developers you'd imagine it'd offer more processing grunt and a little longer in terms of the development window. This is speculation at this point, but as the sun sets on the PS4, and titles like Final Fantasy 7's remake being no closer to even having a release date, it starts to seem like the looming next generation machines may be now what they're being aimed at.
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| 'AI could send us back to the stone age': In conversation with the End Of The World Posted: 31 Jan 2019 09:20 AM PST Our existence as a species is, in all likelihood, limited. Whether the downfall of the human race begins as a result of a devastating asteroid impact, a natural pandemic, or an all-out nuclear war, we are facing a number of risks to our future, ranging from the vastly remote to the almost inevitable. Global catastrophic events like these would, of course, be devastating for our species. Even if nuclear war obliterates 99% of the human race however, the surviving 1% could feasibly recover, and even thrive years down the line, with no lasting damage to our species' potential. There are some events that there's no coming back from though. No possibility of rebuilding, no recovery for the human race. These catastrophic events are known as existential risks – in other words, circumstances that would cause human extinction or drastically reduce our potential as a species. It’s these existential risks that form the basis of the new 10-part podcast called ‘The End of The World with Josh Clark’ who you may already know as the host of the Stuff You Should Know podcast (which recently became the first podcast to be downloaded 1 billion times). The new podcast sees Clark examining the different ways the world as we know it could come to an abrupt end – including a super intelligent AI taking over the world. Over the course of his research into existential risk, Clark spoke to experts in existential risk and AI, including Swedish philosopher and founder of the Future of Humanity Institute Nick Bostrom, philosopher and co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association David Pearce, and Oxford University philosopher Sebastian Farquhar. We spoke to him about the new podcast, and why he, and experts in the field of existential risk, think humanity’s advances in artificial intelligence technology could ultimately lead to our doom. What is existential risk?Some might say that there are enormous risks facing humanity right now. Man-made climate change is a prime example, which, if left unchecked could be “horrible for humanity”, Clark tells us. “It could set us back to the Stone Age or earlier”. Even this doesn’t qualify as an existential risk, as Clark explains, "we could conceivably, over the course of tens of thousands of years, rebuild humanity, probably faster than the first time, because we would still have some or all of that accumulated knowledge we didn't have the first time we developed civilization." With an existential risk, that's not the case. As Clark puts it, "there are no do-overs. That's it for humanity." It was philosopher Nick Bostrom that first put forward the idea that existential risk should be taken seriously. In a scholarly article published in the Journal of Evolution and Technology, he defines an existential risk as "one where an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential."
Clark explains that, in this scenario "even if we continue on as a species, we would never be able to get back to [humanity's development] at that point in history." While it can feel somewhat overwhelming to consider the ways that we could bring about our own demise, it feels more accessible when put through the lens of Clark's End Of The World podcast series. When we asked him why he took on such a formidable subject matter, he told us that, “the idea that humans could accidentally wipe ourselves out is just fascinating.” And perhaps the most fascinating of all the potential existential risks facing humanity today, is the one posed by a super intelligent AI taking over the world.
The Anki Vector is a companion toy robot that uses AI to learn The fundamentals of artificial intelligenceIn recent years, humanity has enjoyed a technological boom, with the advent of space travel, the birth of the internet, and huge leaps in the field of computing, changing the way we live immeasurably. As technology has become more advanced, a new type of existential risk has come to the fore: a super intelligent AI. Unravelling how artificial intelligence works is the first step in understanding how it could pose an existential risk to humanity. In the ‘Artificial Intelligence’ episode of the podcast, Clark starts by giving an example of a machine that is programmed to sort red balls from green balls. The technology that goes into a machine of this apparent simplicity is vastly more complicated than you would imagine. If programmed correctly, it can excel at sorting red balls from green balls, much like DeepBlue excels in the field of chess. As impressive as these machines are, however, they can only do one thing, and one thing only. Clarke explains that, “the goal of AI has never been to just build machines that can beat humans at chess”, instead, it is to “build a machine with general intelligence, like a human has." He continues, “to be good at chess and only chess is to be machine. To be good at chess, good at doing taxes, good at speaking Spanish, and good at picking out apple pie recipes, this begins to approach the ballpark of being human.” This is the key problem that early AI pioneers encountered in their research - how can the entirety of the human experience be taught to a machine? The answer lies in neural networks.
Sony's Aibo learns just like a real puppy thanks to AI Advances in AIEarly artificial intelligence created machines that excelled at one thing, but the recent development of neural networks has allowed the technology to flourish. By 2006, the internet had become a huge force in developing neural networks, thanks to the huge data repositories of Google Images and YouTube videos, for example. It's this recent explosion of data access that has allowed the field of neural networks to fully take off, meaning that the artificially intelligent machine of today no longer needs a human to supervise its training – it can train itself by incorporating and analyzing new data. Sounds convenient right? Well, although artificial intelligence works far better thanks to neural nets, the danger is that we don’t fully understand how they work. Clarke explains that “we can’t see inside the thought process of our AI", which could make the people that use AI technology nervous. A 2017 article by Technology Review described the neural network as a kind of "black box" – in other words, data goes in, the machine’s action comes out, and we have little understanding of the processes in between. Furthermore, if the use of neural networks means that artificial intelligence can easily self improve, and become more intelligent without our input, what’s to stop them outpacing humans? As Clark says "[AI] can self improve, it can learn to code. The seeds for a super intelligent AI are being sown” – and this, according to the likes of Nick Bostrom, poses an existential risk to humanity. In his article on existential risk for the Journal of Evolution and Technology, he says "When we create the first super intelligent entity, we might make a mistake and give it goals that lead it to annihilate humankind, assuming its enormous intellectual advantage gives it the power to do so."
SoftBank Robotics' AI-powered Nao is currently up to its 5th version, with more than 10,000 sold around the world. What are the risks posed by a super-intelligent AI?“Let an ultra-intelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man, however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultra-intelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind.” This is a quote from British mathematician I. J. Good, and one Clark refers to throughout the podcast and in our conversation, as a way of explaining how a super-intelligent AI could come to exist. He gives the example of an increasingly intelligent machine that has the ability to write code – it would have the potential to write better versions of itself, with the rate of improvement increasingly exponentially as it becomes better at doing just that. As Clark explains, "eventually you have an AI that is capable of writing an algorithm that exceeds any human's capability of doing that. At that point we enter what Good called the 'intelligence explosion'...and at that point, we are toast." Benevolence is a human traitSo why does this pose an existential risk? Clark asks us to imagine "an AI we created that has become super intelligent beyond our control." He continues, "If we hadn't already programmed what AI theorists call 'friendliness' into the AI, we would have no reason to think it would act in our best interests." Right now, artificial intelligence is being used to recommend movies on Netflix, conjure up our social media feeds, and translating our speech via apps like Google Translate. So, imagine Google Translate became super intelligent thanks to the self improvement capabilities provided by neural networks. "There's not really any inherent danger from a translator becoming super intelligent, because it would be really great at what it does" says Clark, rather "the danger would come from if it decided it needs stuff that we (humans) want for its own purposes." Maybe the super intelligent translation AI decides, that in order to self improve, it needs to take up more network space, or to destroy the rainforests in order to build more servers. Clark explains, in creating this podcast, he looked into research from the likes of Bostrom, who believes we would then "enter into a resource conflict with the most intelligent being in the universe – and we would probably lose that conflict", a sentiment echoed by the likes of Stephen Hawking and Microsoft researcher Eric Horvitz.
A little girl meets a robot in Osaka, Japan. In the journal article we mentioned previously, Bostrom provided a hypothetical scenario in which a super intelligent AI could pose an existential risk: "We tell [the AI] to solve a mathematical problem, and it complies by turning all the matter in the solar system into a giant calculating device, in the process killing the person who asked the question." So, the problem isn't that a super intelligent AI would be inherently evil – there is of course no such concept of good and evil in the world of machine learning. The problem is that an AI that can continually self improve to get better at what it is programmed to do wouldn't care if humans were unhappy with its methods of improving efficiency or accuracy. As Clarke puts it, the existential risk comes from "our failure to program friendliness into an AI that then goes on to become super intelligent."
Solutions to the AI problemSo what can be done? Clark admits that this is a "huge challenge", and the first step would be to "get researchers to admit that this is an actual real problem", explaining that many feel generalized intelligence is so far down the road that it's not worth planning for it being a threat. Secondly, we would need to "figure out how to program friendliness into AI", which will be an enormously difficult undertaking for AI researchers today and in the future. One problem that arises from teaching an AI morals and values, is deciding whose morals and values it should be taught – they are of course, not universal. Even if we can agree on a universal set of values to teach the AI, how would we go about explaining morality to a machine? Clark believes that humans generally "have a tendency not to get our point across very clearly" as it is.
Credit: Franck V via Unsplash Why should we bother planning for existential risk?If a super intelligent AI poses such a huge existential risk, why not just stop AI research in its tracks completely? Well, as much as it could represent the end of humanity, it could also be the "last invention we need ever make", as I. J. Good famously said. Clark tells us that, 'we're at a point in history, where we could create the greatest invention that humankind has ever [made], which is a super-intelligent AI that can take care of humans' every need for eternity. "The other fork in the road goes towards accidentally inventing a super-intelligent AI that takes over the world, and we become the chimpanzees of the 21st century." There's a lot we don't know about the route artificial intelligence will take, but Clark makes one thing clear: we absolutely need to begin taking the existential risk it poses seriously, otherwise we may just screw humanity out of ever achieving its true potential. Main image: Franck V via Unsplash This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Intel releases its monstrous 28-core processor for $2,999 Posted: 31 Jan 2019 09:17 AM PST After talking about its 28-core processor for what we feel like was forever, Intel is finally releasing the Xeon W-3175X. The new workstation processor packs 28-cores, 56-threads and a whopping $2,999 (about £2,280, AU$4,120) price tag. That’s quite the cost even compared to the most expensive HEDT chips, including the $1,979 (£1,919, AU$2,999) Intel Core i9-9980XE and $1,799 (£1,639, AU$2,679) AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX Of course, this is a much hardier enterprise-level CPU designed to take on the biggest workloads, such as creating and rendering media, film editing and 3D graphics rendering. Not only will the Intel Xeon W-3175X do the work, it’ll work faster than other chips, thanks to its 3.1GHz base frequency, 4.3GHz single-core Turbo clock and 38.5MB of L3 cache. Likewise, this chip's supporting Intel C621 chipset is meant for production system builds. The chipset brings support for up to 68 PCIe lanes (44 PCie 3.0) and six-channel DDR4-2666 memory, which will allow users to pair this processor with up to a gargantuan 512GB of RAM. While we don’t have any plans to review this workstation processor, as it's outside of our scope of consumer-class components coverage, you can read all about how this processor performs from our friends at Anandtech and Tom’s Hardware.
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| The best free website builder 2019 Posted: 31 Jan 2019 09:05 AM PST Creating a website used to be the domain (geddit?) of professional designers and coders, but thanks to free website builder applications, these days it's something anyone can tackle. The problem is that there are so many website creation applications and services vying for attention that it can be difficult to know which one to opt for – this is where we can help. We've collated the very best free website builders available, including a mixture of offline software and online tools. It's usually quicker, easier and more efficient to create and edit a site entirely online with a WYSIWYG editor, but if you want complete control over every aspect of your site's design and web hosting, you'll need a desktop-based free website builder. So whether you're looking to create a site for your business, a new blog, or you just fancy creating an online presence for yourself, here are the best free website builder services to help you out.
Wix makes it very easy to design a website, while giving experts plenty of power to customize elements if they need it Wix is a big-name website builder which offers a free plan, enabling you to have the run of this service without having to put your hand in your pocket. And you benefit from one of the most impressive website editors in the business. This editor can be run in ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) mode, which has a very basic interface to keep everything really simple and user-friendly. This is great for beginners, as you can create a basic site without even remotely breaking a sweat (a range of attractive templates are provided, as well). Those who want to get more involved with tweaking the design of their website can step up to the full Wix editor, which boasts powerful functionality, and the ability to really hone your website and get it looking just as you want. Visual previews of page elements make it easy to pick what you need for any particular part of a web page, too. Wix is so polished that putting together your site using the editor feels more like using a native application rather than a website builder, and it also sports excellent support for a diverse range of media, and quality customer support as well, even on the free plan. Powerful blogging functionality rounds things off nicely, and you’re getting a truly high quality offering with the free version of this website builder.
If you want to create a website as quickly as possible, look no further than Weebly. It's so easy to use, you'll have a great-looking site online in mere minutes Weebly offers you two ways to build your website. Both involve creating it online, and both are as quick and painless as possible. The simplest option is to use the basic editor builder which will guide you through a series of questions before automatically creating a site for you. There is scope for customization, but the focus here is really on fast results for anyone who is terrified of designing websites. A more hands-on approach is available if you decide to use the standard Editor. There are literally hundreds of stylish templates to choose from – and, yes, they are genuinely impressive – which you can tweak and tailor to your needs using a beautiful WYSIWYG editor. Despite being a cloud-based website builder, Weebly gives you a great degree of control over the look of your site and placement of page elements. You can also liven it up using additional features such as a newsletter and live chat. This power and flexibility make Weebly a top-notch website builder.
WordPress is the tool of choice for many blog owners. It takes a little getting used to, but once you've mastered it, you'll love its flexibility Causing a slight degree of confusion, there are actually two different versions of WordPress. The more complex variant can be downloaded from wordpress.org, and you will need to upload it to your own web space and install it using the automated online installer. You can then customize the templates and use add-ons to make the site your own. This is the route many bloggers go down, but there is a simpler option for people who don’t want the hassle of fiddling about with scripts and getting dirty with hardcore editing. The hosted version of WordPress lets you create your own site on wordpress.com. You can create everything from a blog or photo site, to a fully fledged online store, and there are a number of templates to choose from. Whether you're creating a static site, or a blog-style site with regularly updated content, the online editor is a joy to use and allows just about anyone to create an impressive, professional-looking site. The only downside is the limited range of plugins and templates compared with the desktop website builder.
WebSite X5 makes building a website on your desktop easy, with good-looking templates and an intuitive site builder Incomedia WebSite X5 normally sells for $19.99 (about £15/AU$27), but it's free to download for TechRadar readers. There is also a demo version that everyone can use for free. Unlike WordPress and Wix, WebSite X5 is a desktop website builder, which means you can work on your site offline and have more freedom to make your website look exactly the way you want. There's a range of ready-made templates to choose from, or you can create your own design from scratch. Next, build up your site map, showing the hierarchy of your pages and how they connect to one another – a feature you won't find in most web-based site builder apps. Once that's done, you're ready to start building your pages using Website X5's simple drag-and-drop interface, which includes tools for editing both rich text and photos. If you don't want to be tied down to an online site builder, WebSite X5 is the tool for you.
CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor isn't a WYSIWYG website builder, but it provides a live preview of your site as you create it CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor is one of a dying breed of web building programs that don't use a CMS (content management system). While not in the same league as the likes of Adobe Dreamweaver, Free HTML Editor packs quite a professional punch. With split screen code/preview views, it's possible to see the effect the changes you make have straight away. To help you get started quickly, there are a number of templates built into the program, and there are some very nice features such as tag and code suggestions as you type. For absolute beginners, the program might seem a little overwhelming to start with, but it's worth sticking with – assuming you have some HTML knowledge. There is one slight issue; a number of features, such as spell-checking and code optimization, are only included in the paid-for version of the program.
If you've used WordPress before, you might be interested in the power of Joomla. It's not as easy to use though, so beginners are better off sticking with a simpler option like Wix Joomla is a well-known name in the CMS world. It may not be as popular as WordPress, but it offers the same two options: build a site using the web app at launch.joomla.org and have it hosted on the company's servers, or download the software from joomla.org and host it yourself. If you choose the latter option, you'll notice that the interface is much less approachable than WordPress. It's not completely impenetrable, but there are lots of menus and options to work through and it doesn't feel quite as polished as WordPress. Joomla's online website builder is nearly as complex, but doesn't involve the same setup process, making it a better option for beginners. Its key selling point is a huge collection of themes and extensions, which provide endless ways to customize the way your site looks and works. You might also want to check out our other website hosting buying guides:
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| Today-only Amazon sale: Save up to 70% on Logitech PC and gaming accessories Posted: 31 Jan 2019 09:01 AM PST If you're in the market for gaming accessories, then today is your lucky day. Amazon is having a one-day sale on Logitech's top-rated PC gaming accessories and speakers. You can save up to 70% on gaming keyboards, headsets, mice and more, and save $200 on a Logitech surround sound speaker system. Shop the rest of Amazon's Logitech deals below and remember that the discounts are valid for today only. Logitech deals:
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| US and China take worldwide AI lead Posted: 31 Jan 2019 08:55 AM PST New research from the U.N. World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has revealed that China and the US are well ahead of the global competition in the race for AI dominance. According to the study, which analysed international patent filings, scientific publications and acquisitions, IBM has the largest AI patent portfolio with 8,920 patents putting the US tech giant ahead of Microsoft with 5,930 patents and a group of mostly Japanese tech conglomerates. China meanwhile accounted for 17 of the top 20 academic institutions working on patenting AI with a strong focus on deep learning. WIPO's Director General Francis Gurry explained how both countries have made significant progress in terms of AI development at a news conference, saying “The U.S. and China obviously have stolen a lead. They’re out in front in this area, in terms of numbers of applications, and in scientific publications.” Patents galoreDespite continued accusations that China has engaged in corporate espionage to seal intellectual property and other trade secrets, Gurry stressed that the country had embraced the global intellectual property system and highlighted how China has both the world's largest patent office and the highest number of domestic patent applications. After analysing international patent filings, scientific publications and other business activity related to AI, WIPO's study discovered that there have been as many patent applications for AI projects since 2013 as there were in the half century since the term was first used in the 1950s. Between 2013 and 2016, patent applications in machine learning grew on average by 28 percent. However, more recent data is currently unavailable due to an 18-month window before confidential patent applications are disclosed publicly. Additionally, the study found that deep learning overtook robotics in terms of patent applications filed with 118 in 2013 to 2,399 in 2016. Computer vision, used to guide self-driving cars, was the single most popular AI application. Via Reuters
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| Apple's touchscreen MacBook keyboard may be unlike anything we've seen Posted: 31 Jan 2019 08:38 AM PST It’s been rumored that Apple is working on a touchscreen keyboard for an upcoming MacBook product, but a recently-filed patent suggests the new keyboard could be more revolutionary than first thought. It seems that Apple doesn’t just want a touchscreen keyboard, but is designing one with raised, tactile keys. The keys will apparently have haptic feedback beneath the raised glass, which could be the both of best worlds, allowing for a keyboard that's impervious to dust and debris, but with as much tactile feeling as physically possible from a glass screen. The patent, uncovered by AppleInsider, details a contiguous glass panel with physically raised but unmoving keys, using curved glass techniques, supported by haptic motors to imitate a key press. Alternatively, the keys could use thinner, semi-flexible glass that would slightly depress under normal pressure to simulate a traditional key press. Of course, either way the keyboard beneath the glass would be digital and software-based. Therefore, the keys could change layout and language on the fly.
All iterations of Apple's latest touchscreen keyboard development. | Image Credit: Apple The ultimate solution?Apple's MacBook keyboards have been criticised recently, with some users reporting that the keyboards have been suffering problems when dust or debris gets between the keys. This is obviously far from the first time Apple has tried to resolve this issue in its keyboards, with its most recent butterfly switch keyboards containing a silicone membrane beneath each key to try to prevent the problem. Naturally, this patent specifically name-drops reducing the impact and presence of dust and debris as a primary goal of this development. However, it also discusses how such a design could lead to thinner laptop designs or larger batteries. The Lenovo Yoga Book line of hybrid laptops certainly shows us the kind of thinness that’s possible with more traditional touchscreen keyboards, so imagine a future MacBook Air with an even more advanced version of that. If Apple can turn this patent application into a real product, it may have not only solved one of the most dire problems impacting its laptop line, but it could introduce a whole new form factor of portable computer.
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| Posted: 31 Jan 2019 08:30 AM PST Website builders have been around for decades but a new generation now exploit new technologies like responsive and mobile platforms. A website builder can help individuals or businesses build anything from a simple single-page site to a professional web store, even if you've no design or HTML experience at all. Whether you're a sole trader or a multinational corporation, just about every business needs an online presence – in other words, a website. A growing number are adding bells and whistles like an email list or form facility, domain name registration and much more. Even if you don't sell products online a site can help people find you, learn more about your skills and services, and provide a way to share your details with other potential customers. It's like having a permanent, always-on-call personal assistant, ready to answer queries. And it can even be free
More experienced users can customize and fine-tune the design to suit their own needs, or perhaps install a more traditional web design package that allows them to build the perfect site from scratch. There are free options, but these often have major restrictions, including limits on the size of the site and the lack of any ability to use your own domain. Fortunately, the commercial options are very reasonably priced, from around £5/$5 to £10/$10 a month, with hosting included. To help you decide which option is best for your needs, we’ve picked out the cream of the crop: these are the five top players in the website building world right now.
Wix has more than 100 million registered users Wix is one of the most popular online website creators, offering a range of plans and products. The free version has Wix branding, limited storage space (500MB) and bandwidth, but move up to the most popular plan (unlimited) and there’s no Wix ads. You get unlimited bandwidth (hence its name) and 10GB storage, along with a free domain, Google Ad vouchers and much more. The e-commerce plan adds an online store along with 20GB storage for a reasonable $16.50 (£12.30) per month. An excellent collection of 500 plus templates gets the design process off to a quick start. The drag-and-drop editor gives you all kinds of tools and features to explore – an image editor, video backgrounds, animations, social buttons, an integrated site blog – and just about everything can be tweaked, tuned and restyled. All the core editing functions are really smartly designed, and operate more like a native app than your average website builder. Wix does have some weaknesses, with tech support seeming a little sluggish and limited in some respects. But there’s no denying that the superb editor and range of top-notch templates make it easy for web building novices to create something impressive.
1&1 IONOS is one of the biggest web hosting companies in the world There’s a lot to like here in terms of a powerful drag-and-drop editor bristling with professional features and highly customizable templates, but at the outset, let’s make it clear that this isn’t the cheapest service around. There’s no free plan (or indeed trial – although there is a 30-day money-back guarantee), and the most basic plan is priced at $1 (£0.75) a month for first six months, rising to $7 (£5.40) afterwards. That gives you unlimited pages and web space, a simple integrated blog, limited SEO settings, plus website backup and restore, so it’s a touch pricey for what you get. That said, 1&1 IONOS MyWebsite offers a wide range of responsive templates, and an editor which provides loads of potential adjustments and tweaks, all with plenty of visual feedback and context-sensitive menus to help streamline the whole process. What’s clever here is that the top-level stuff is easy to use and understand for beginners, yet expert users can dive more deeply into the menus to really play around and customize elements. You also get your own personal consultant free of charge. Other highly useful features include the ability to point to your old website in order to import media content from there straight into your new site. This could be a huge timesaver for some. There’s no e-commerce plan here, but there is a separate Pro plan for that functionality (starting at $1 – £0.75 – a month for the first six months, rising to $20 - £15.40 a month).
Weebly is one of the few website builders that offer a free hosting tier. Weebly is another big name in the website building world which offers a powerful editor and capable set of features. There’s a free plan, which like Wix limits space to 500MB and imposes ads on your site. However, if you move up to the Professional plan – at $12 (£9.5) a month – the ads and storage limit are dropped, plus you get a free domain, and even support for a web store containing up to 25 products. The supercharged Business plan lets you create sites with unlimited web store products and high-end store features like product reviews and discount coupons, retailing at $25 (£19) a month. The service offers hundreds of professionally-designed web templates, covering just about any site type. The drag-and-drop editor is neatly designed, although you don’t get full control over where you can position elements on the page, and the interface can seem a little cluttered. A further niggle is that there is no global Undo feature. Like Wix, we found tech support was a little wobbly in terms of sluggish responses, but Weebly offers a host of powerful features, some very stylish templates, and easy access to free images for your site is another definite boon.
As we’ve seen, many a website builder pitch themselves towards novices and making life easy for the less site-savvy out there, but what about experts who want powerful low-level control? Those are the users Voog has in mind. So you don’t get many templates here, for example, and there’s the bare minimum of media support – but what you do get is a compact drag-and-drop editor which does its best to stay out of your way. There are weaknesses here, and the interface is somewhat clunky in respects – and it’s another which lacks a global Undo function – but it has some real power you can drill down into. For example, clicking a text box gives you the option to use bullet-point lists, insert tables or videos, or even edit the HTML source to customize effects. Voog also lets multiple users easily collaborate on a site project, and if you’re after nifty, unusual features like these, you won’t see them elsewhere. The entry-level Starter plan is priced at $7.40 (£5.30) per month (billed annually) and gives you 2GB storage, and all the core features you’ll need, including SSL security (although it’s limited to 30 pages). If you know what you’re doing in terms of website design, and want some true power and customization capabilities, there is a 30-day trial you can check out (no credit card details needed).
Jimdo is a somewhat quirky website builder targeted largely at novice users, but it’s well worth your attention for a number of reasons, not the least of which is a free plan which boasts more than the average offering. Yes, there are the usual limitations including adverts, a 500MB storage limit, no custom domain, and very limited SEO. But there are a few features you won't get in other free plans, like a password protected area, for example. The site editor itself is simple and consistent, even if it’s somewhat unconventional in terms of its design. Also, the editor doesn’t have as many functions and features as some rivals. For example, there aren’t that many templates, and the widgets on offer aren’t as plentiful as you might find elsewhere – plus there’s no global Undo (although Jimdo isn’t alone in this respect). Another neat touch is a good web knowledgebase which means help is generally close at hand when it comes to troubleshooting. Overall, this is a compelling product, that is well worth giving a whirl. You might also want to check out our other website hosting buying guides:
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| Best free Android apps of 2019: 100 you must download Posted: 31 Jan 2019 08:18 AM PST It's been ten years since Android was first outed by Google, and back then it was hard to imagine the sheer number of apps we'd have today. There are apps for everything, and many of them are completely free, meaning you're just a few downloads away from supercharging your smartphone at no extra cost.
Admittedly, the huge quantity of apps doesn't mean they're all quality - far from it in fact, and finding the good ones can be tough. There are tools and techniques to help, with various lists in the Play Store providing you with Editor's Picks across a range of categories, new releases and even apps that are specifically recommended for you based on your previous installs. You can also hunt out apps that are similar to your favorites by searching for an app you have and seeing what else comes up. And checking out user reviews and ratings can save you from downloading a dud of an app. But even with all that, the sheer number of apps on Google Play means many of the best can often get lost, while weaker ones sometimes rise to the top. So to make sure you never install a duff app here's our selection of the best you should install right now - each one carefully chosen to ensure you'll have a whole suite of fun, engaging and, dammit, useful apps on your phone or tablet. New this week: Houzz
Redecorating or improving your home can be a daunting prospect, but Houzz could make it a little bit more manageable. It could do that by inspiring you through its library of millions of photos, showing exteriors and interiors of various styles. It could also do that by giving you a single storefront to find and buy all the furniture and other items you need, even going so far as to let you see products in your home, using augmented reality. And it can do that by helping you find experts – such as architects and builders – to do the hard work for you. If you’re planning to take on the task yourself then there are also plenty of articles on hand to help, as well as the ability to ask the Houzz community for advice. StudySmarter aims to help you do just that. When you first launch the app, you can pick your area of study from numerous categories, such as law and mathematics, then you get access to various flashcards aimed at teaching you the subject. But better yet, you can create your own flashcards and optionally share them with the rest of the StudySmarter community. Speaking of the community, there’s also an area where they can ask and answer questions related to subjects. StudySmarter users can also upload documents related to a subject, ensuring they have access to all their study materials within the app and also giving access to other users, and users can even add their own subjects to the app. The result is an app with a whole lot of potential, because as the user base grows, so will the number of study aids. Right now, the content is somewhat limited, meaning it’s most useful just as a way to create and use flashcards, but as a free download that’s enough to recommend it and if enough people take to it then StudySmarter could one day be a very smart way to study. Woebot was selected by Google as one of the best apps of 2018 and with good reason, as it could make a real difference to your life, especially if you’re struggling with mental health issues. The app is basically a chatbot, but one which checks in with you daily to assess your mood and helps you work through any problems you might have, using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy principles. It tells stories with a message behind them, and provides tools and exercises to help you change your thinking, so you’ll hopefully end up feeling more positive in yourself, even if you can’t change what’s going on around you. As well as daily check ins you can also message Woebot any time you want to chat or feel down, and while it won’t replace actual therapy it’s a handy, always available tool that you’ll likely be thankful for when you need it. StorySign is designed to help deaf children learn to read, by translating children’s books into sign language. To do this you need not just the app but supported books too, which at the time of writing in the UK is limited to just Where’s Spot?, but more are expected to be added. With book in hand, just point your phone’s camera at the page and an animated character in StorySign will read the page in sign language. And children will know which words are being signed as the word will be highlighted. As such they’ll both be able to enjoy the books unsupervised and learn to read in the process. While the content of StorySign is somewhat limited so far, there’s a lot of talent involved, with Aardman Animations (the company behind Wallace and Gromit) designing it and Huawei AI powering it, while Penguin Random House has partnered with it to supply classic children’s books to the app. Even in its limited form, StorySign is well worth trying if you have a deaf child young enough to appreciate it, but we expect that this is one app that will just keep getting better as its library grows. If you use WhatsApp, you’re probably aware that the service has finally added support for stickers, so as well as emojis and GIFs you can now send larger emoji-like images. But while there are plenty of sticker packs to choose from there’s also – thanks to Sticker Maker – the option to make your own. The app first has you create a new ‘sticker pack’ which you can name, then simply load up an image on your phone and cut out the part of the image that you want to use as a sticker. You can do this freehand or use tools in the app to cut a perfect square or circle. You can also rotate the image if you want and then save it to your pack when you’re happy. Packs can contain up to 30 stickers, but need at least three. Once you’ve made at least three you’ll be able to send the pack to WhatsApp, where you can use your custom stickers just like any others. If you later want to add or remove stickers from the pack, you can do that. You can also make additional packs if you have more than 30 sticker ideas or just want to keep the packs themed. Sticker Maker is a slick app, and a useful one for anyone who likes WhatsApp stickers but just wishes they were more personalized. If you ever have trouble remembering people’s birthdays then Wishlist is for you, as it lets you create a list of important dates for the people you care about. Other apps do this too, but with Wishlist you can set a notification to go off in advance of the date, so you have warning that it’s coming up. That too can be handled by some other apps, but Wishlist does it automatically. Just set how many days before a date you want a notification and that setting will be applied to all dates in the app. Ideally, we’d like to be able to set multiple notifications – one in advance and one on the date, for example, but this is a good start. Wishlist isn’t just for dates, either. As the name suggests, it can also be used to build up lists - in this case of present ideas for people - so each contact saved to Wishlist can have their own list of potential presents. That means if you ever see something that you think someone might like, you won’t have to buy it months in advance of their birthday or hope you remember it, you can just add it to a list. There are fields for not just the name of a gift idea, but also website links, the price, any notes, an image, and a priority rating out of 10. Beyond all that you can also add a phone number to any contact you add to Wishlist and can then message or call them from the app. The idea is presumably for Wishlist to become your main dialer app, though we’re not convinced you’ll want to make that change right now as the interface is quite bare bones. But for its date and list features it could make a good companion to your existing apps. BBC Sounds brings all of the BBC’s live radio content and podcasts to one app, so you can listen live on your phone, and subscribe to and stream podcasts. BBC Sounds also lets you pick up where you left off on another device, so if you get halfway through a podcast on your phone, you’ll be able to start from that point on your tablet automatically. It can also recommend content based on what you’ve been listening to, so it’s a good way to discover new things. It’s basically iPlayer for radio (in fact the plan is for it to ultimately replace BBC iPlayer Radio) and if you listen to a lot of BBC content it’s arguably a smarter, better choice than listening on a radio or using another podcast app. At the moment the BBC Sounds app is UK-only, but given that the iPlayer Radio app is available globally we wouldn’t be surprised if BBC Sounds is one day too. SAFE (which stands for Security Assessment Framework for Everyone) shows you at a glance how secure your Android device is, giving it several scores out of five – one for its configuration settings, one for connectivity, one for applications and one for the operating system. Higher is better and it factors in all kinds of things, including whether your SIM card is locked, to whether you allow installation from unknown sources, and whether you allow notifications to show their content on your lock screen. As well as the overall score for each category you can see a list of all these factors, with ones in red being ones that aren’t secure (in the app developer’s opinion). You can tap on each of these things for more details as well as a guide to making them secure. You probably won’t be aiming for a perfect score, especially as some things that SAFE puts in red will be intentional things that you want or need. For example, it considers location services and Bluetooth to be insecure. Still, it’s a good way to quickly and easily assess the security of your device and tighten it up if you feel the need. SAFE might even end up highlighting some vulnerabilities that you didn’t know about or hadn’t considered, which should be enough to make it worth a download. If you ever use public Wi-Fi networks, then 1.1.1.1: Faster & Safer Internet is for you. That’s because public Wi-Fi is notoriously lacking in privacy and security. There’s a chance the provider will sell your browsing data and it also allows other people – if they have the skills – to snoop on your browsing data. But 1.1.1.1 helps stop either of those things from happening by changing your DNS resolver to one managed by Cloudflare (the company that makes this app). It promises never to sell your data or use it to target adverts, and by browsing through Cloudflare you’re also hiding your data from any other potential snoopers. As an added bonus, you might even get a speed boost, as Cloudflare’s DNS resolver is the fastest public one. The app is also completely free and easy to use – there’s just a single toggle to turn 1.1.1.1 on or off. That’s it. Scripts is a language-learning app focused specifically on learning to write and read in Chinese, Japanese or Korean. These languages are among the trickiest to learn as each one has a unique alphabet, but Scripts gives you a fighting chance. It does this by showing you letters from the language you choose to learn, and then taking you through short exercises which see you swipe across your screen to draw the letter yourself. Initially you’ll be swiping across an outline of the letter, but it quickly moves on to just showing the letter at the top of the screen or not showing it at all, so you really have to learn to progress. You’ll repeat the same letter a lot, but the exercises are all bite-sized, and so is your study, as you can only practice for five minutes each day unless you pay. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as everyone should be able to fit in five minutes of learning, but if you do want more you can pay $10.99/£10.49 per month, with discounts if you commit to a year. That gives you unlimited time, removes adverts, lets you access Scripts offline and gives you full access to Drops. We’ve covered Drops previously but it too is a language learning app, but it’s broader, rather than just being focused on the alphabet. InboxIt doesn’t try to do everything. Rather, the app does one thing, but does it very well. That one thing is emailing things to yourself, be it photos, videos, URLs or text. You might not think that you need a separate app to send yourself an email, but InboxIt speeds up the process. Once you’ve set the app up you simply tap the ‘Share’ icon on the content you want to send, then select InboxIt and the content will automatically be emailed to you. No need to select an email address, type out a subject or anything else. And if you’re in the habit of emailing yourself reminders, you can do that from InboxIt too. Just launch the app, select ‘New reminder’, type one out and hit ‘Save’. You can set the free version of InboxIt to send things to a Gmail address, which will probably suit most people just fine. But if you want to use a different email you can pay $0.99/£0.99 to unlock premium features, which also include the ability to use Gmail labels and a custom email subject prefix. The Amazon Alexa app is essential if you have an Echo device, but previously it was an app you probably wouldn’t spend much time in. That’s all changed now though, thanks to an update that aims to make it the only app you need to control your smart home. It’s a similar overhaul to the one Google Home got, allowing you to turn lights on and off, control your thermostat and more. You can also control and set up aspects of Alexa from the app, of course, such as adding skills to it, managing timers and alarms and setting up Routines. The last of those is perhaps the most interesting, as these allow you to set a custom command that will cause Alexa to carry out a custom set of actions. For example, you could set the command “Alexa, time for bed” to turn off all your lights and turn down the thermostat. If you’re anything like us then you probably open Facebook or Twitter about 600 times a day on your phone, even when you know nothing has changed and that you should be doing something far more important. But if you’re anything like us then you’re also motivated by rewards, and Hold gives you them for not using your phone. Simply activate it and put your phone down, and you’ll receive 10 points for every 20 minutes that you resist the lure of your apps and messages. These points can then be exchanged for rewards. These change over time and depend on what country you’re in, but examples include free popcorn at the cinema and free contact lenses. You don’t have to bank very many points for some of the rewards either, with many being available for as little as 20 points. And if free and discounted stuff isn’t enough incentive to stay off your phone, how about a little friendly competition? You can link up with your pals in the app and compete to get the most points. Esports still have a long way to go before they’re as popular as conventional sports, and part of what’s holding them back is accessibility, but that’s something the Blizzard Esports app could help with. The app makes it easy to keep up to date with activity in Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, StarCraft, StarCraft II and World of Warcraft, offering schedules, scores, news and the option to set alerts reminding you to tune in when an event kicks off. When it’s time to tune in, you can do so via the Blizzard Esports app, so it’s a great companion for anyone into esports for the games above, or anyone who thinks they might want to get into them. Blizzard Esports is a little limited in that it only covers esports under the Blizzard banner. It won’t do much to help you understand the games being played if you’re completely new to them either, but for anyone with a bit of understanding and interest it’s a great addition to your app arsenal. There are various Android apps designed to help monitor or control your child’s smartphone use, but now finally one has come from a big name, specifically Google. Google Family Link is actually two apps. There’s Google Family Link for Parents, which you’d be installing on your device, and Google Family Link for Children and Teenagers, designed to be installed on the devices of family members under 13. Once both are installed and set up, you can use your device to view your child’s smartphone activity, choose which apps to allow, set screen time limits, lock their device, control in-app purchases and locate their device. Google Family Link is a useful set of tools for making sure your child isn’t accessing content they shouldn’t, using their phone when they shouldn’t, or spending money, or it can be used as more of a safety feature to locate them when they’re not with you. It’s also completely free. WikiDIY is a website that’s packed full of DIY projects, with guides for everything from making unicorn cupcakes to making a willow whistle. But it’s not all about making things, as WikiDIY also has guides for things like how to clean rubber on shoes or how to take good photos at night. All of these guides can now be found in its new DIY Projects app, and they come with step by step instructions, diagrams, and in some cases videos. The guides also have questions and answers supplied by readers, along with lists of what you’ll need and any warnings that it’s worth being aware of before you start. You can search for specific guides, browse by category, and bookmark your favorites. And while the app itself isn’t the best we’ve seen (it often feels like little more than a web wrapper) it’s hard to argue with the quality and quantity of the content. For years Pocket has been helping people find the time to read all the articles they find online that would otherwise go ignored. You know the situation: you’re idly browsing but don’t have much time or should be doing something else, when you happen across an article that looks interesting. Maybe you plan to read it later and then forget, maybe you just resign yourself to the knowledge that it will go unread. But with Pocket, you can save it to a reading list so it won’t be forgotten, and make it available both offline and on just about any device with an internet connection, so you can read it wherever and whenever. It’s a great app, but as of recently Pocket has got even better, as now you can also listen to articles you’ve saved, so you don’t even need to read them. Pocket’s look has also been updated in an attempt to make it more pleasant to read from for long periods. So if you’re not already using it there has never been a better time to start. Curator claims to be the first gallery app that organizes your photos using AI entirely offline, giving you the search power of something like Google Photos, without compromising on your privacy. It works well too. The first time you launch the app it will analyze and assign tags to all of your photos (which can take a long time), then if you search using a keyword, such as ‘beach’ or ‘cat’, it will show you every image containing that. Curator has a nice interface too, with two themes and the ability to view albums, all images, or all of the tags that have been assigned. Albums can be renamed and favorited, photos can be moved between albums and there are gesture controls, to help you navigate the interface faster. There are also new features on the way, such as private folders and shared albums. If you don’t care about the added privacy offered by Curator, then Google Photos is still the better app. Not least because it backs up your images and gives you access to them from other devices, but Curator is a strong alternative for those who prefer to keep their online presence to a minimum. Google Home isn’t a new app, but it has recently been overhauled, making it now perhaps the best solution for managing your smart home, particularly if you have smart home devices from a number of different brands. That’s because Google Home now lets you control them all from within the app. Or, at least, it does with most things. Inevitably some devices probably won’t be supported, but thousands are from hundreds of brands. You simply link them up to the Google Home app, then you can assign them to a room in your house, so that for example every smart device in your living room is grouped together. You can see all your devices from the main screen though, divided into these groups, and you can interact with some of them in a limited way from there (for example turning lights on or off) or tap on the device to do more with it (such as adjusting the brightness). You can also invite other members of your household to the app, so they can also manage smart devices from it, and the only real limitation is that some functionality isn’t supported. For example, with LIFX lights you can’t currently adjust the colors from Google Home, and with our Honeywell thermostat we can’t adjust schedules. But for the basics it’s a lot easier – and smarter - than jumping between multiple apps for all your smart devices. SW True-Fi Beta aims to maximize the potential of your headphones by tuning sound settings specific to the headphones you have plugged in. You do this by selecting yours from a long list of supported headphones, then True-Fi does the rest. But you can also adjust the sound according your age and make manual tweaks to aspects of it, such as the bass. The adjustments only work when playing music through the SW True-Fi Beta app, but that needn’t be a problem, as not only can it play local music files, it can also connect to Spotify and play music from there. Not all headphones are currently supported, which is the main limitation of the app, but if yours aren’t then you can contact the company to ask them to be added. Pexels is a database of photos that you can use for free for any purpose, including commercial uses, with no attribution needed (though it notes that attributions are still appreciated). You can search using keywords or browse trending images, while tapping the photographer behind a photo will show you their other work on Pexels and let you follow them, so you never miss anything new that they upload. You can also ‘like’ and collect photos within Pexels and if you want to take them outside the app you can easily share them with Instagram or other apps, save them as your wallpaper, or simply download them. But Pexels also lets you become one of the photographers, as you can upload any of your own photos to the app for other people to use. However you choose to use Pexels though, it’s a slick, beautiful app. Your Phone Companion is a companion app for a PC app called – you guessed it – Your Phone. The companion app itself doesn’t do much, other than allowing the main desktop app to do its job of showing your phone’s photos and SMS messages on your Windows 10 PC. Both can be browsed, photos can be downloaded, and messages can even be sent and received on your desktop, so you don’t have to keep turning back to your phone. While that’s ‘all’ the app does, those two features could be very useful for anyone who spends a lot of time at their computer, or who tends to email themselves photos to get them onto their PC. It’s worth noting that Google Photos does the photo part too, and is better at it, since it’s a full-featured gallery app, but this is a good alternative for anyone not already using that. Business cards are a somewhat dated concept but they still serve a purpose, so in an attempt to bring them into the 21st century, HiHello Contact Exchange makes them digital and even easier to share than the physical kind. The app lets you create multiple different cards containing different information. You might for example have a work card that contains your work email and job title, while a personal card could have your personal email and Facebook link. Lots of different things can be added to each card though, including your phone number, website, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter and more. To share a card you just launch the HiHello app, tap on the card you want to share, tap the share button to display a QR code and then the person receiving it simply points their phone camera at the QR code to get it. Alternatively you can email or text the card to someone, so unlike a conventional business card they don’t need to be physically present to receive it. And the card can be saved to their phone’s address book, meaning they don’t need the HiHello app themselves. 1lyrics is designed to show the lyrics to songs as you listen to them, but handily you don’t need to play the songs in 1lyrics itself, instead it supports numerous music players, including ones that use locally stored songs, and streaming players, such as Spotify. Just start listening to a track on your player of choice then open 1lyrics and it should show the lyrics to the current song. In some but not all cases it will even scroll them in time with the music. Lyrics that you’ve viewed in the past are saved, so you can access them at any time, even if you’re not currently listening to the song in question, and it’s quite an attractive app, pulling in artwork for the songs it provides the lyrics to. There are some caveats here. For one thing, it doesn’t currently work with all music players, though more are set to be supported over time. It also doesn’t have lyrics for every song, though we tried some semi-obscure stuff and it found lyrics without any issue, so you should be able to get lyrics for most things. Endomondo is one of the oldest Android fitness apps and it’s still one of the best, thanks in part to regular updates. It’s packed full of features, letting you track not just running, cycling and walking but also more than 60 other activities -, so if there’s a sport you do, chances are Endomondo has some tools to help you monitor it. GPS monitoring lets you track statistics such as distance and pace, but you can also manually log indoor workouts or anything else where GPS won’t be much use. Additionally, Endomondo can be paired with other accounts and wearables, such as the Fitbit app and heart rate monitors, allowing it to sync data with them. With custom goals, challenges (that in some cases even have prizes) and the ability to compete with friends, there’s a lot to keep you motivated and the app itself is slick and easy to use. All of these features are free, but you can unlock various extra tools such as personal training plans and advanced statistics if you subscribe to Endomondo Premium, which costs £9.99 (around $13) per month, though it’s only around a third of that price if you commit to a year. Photo Map is simply a world map that displays your photos over the parts of the world that you took them in. Zoom out and you’ll likely just see a single thumbnail of one of your images over each country that you’ve snapped shots in, but zoom further in and you will see photos grouped into much smaller areas too. The thumbnails also have a number on them, telling you how many photos are in that gallery. You can easily see them all and enlarge them with a tap. There are a few options, such as the ability to change the look of the map or add terrain or satellite imagery to it, but mostly it’s just a great and simple idea – a visual way of separating your photos based on where they were taken. This is definitely one for those who like to travel! Photo Map is free to use, but a one-off $1.49/£1.29 IAP will get rid of adverts. When was the last time you sent a letter? It’s probably been a while. It’s probably been even longer since you sent one that wasn’t a birthday card! That’s probably by choice – after all, why would you when texts and calls are so much faster? But there is something potentially appealing about the simple act of waiting for a letter to arrive. It helps make them feel less disposable and more important. Slowly aims to replicate that. It doesn’t see you putting pen to paper, but it does make you wait when sending and receiving messages. The result – if you’re anything like us – being that you value them and look forward to them more. Slowly isn’t really for sending messages to people you already know though. Rather, it’s for getting to know new people. It lets you send messages either to a random recipient, or to ones filtered based on metrics such as age and interests. Once you send a message, the amount of time you’ll be waiting for them to receive it depends on where in the world they are. It’s not quite as slow as snail mail, generally taking between a few hours and a day, so it’s a nice middle ground between an old-fashioned letter and an instant message. Onedox describes itself as a digital P.A. for your household bills, and that’s fairly accurate. The app lets you link accounts for your household bills, such as gas, electricity, internet, Netflix, Spotify and more, then shows you details of each billing, all on one screen. The app also shows you renewal dates – so you’ll know when prices might be changing and when you can shop around for a new deal. Tapping on any account will show additional details, such as previous bills, price changes, and any notes you’ve added to the account. It makes staying on top of your bills a lot easier and ensures you can always have a clear idea of exactly how much you’re spending. The only downside – other than the fact that this is UK-only right now – is that not all accounts are supported. For example, some gas companies can’t currently be added. However, Onedox is adding new companies and categories of bill all the time, so one day you really will be able to manage all your bills from one screen. Right now you’ll have to make do with managing most of them, which is still pretty handy. Google’s official health and fitness app, Google Fit has been around for a while, but it’s now been overhauled and is better than ever as a result. At the heart of the overhaul there’s ‘Move Minutes’ and ‘Heart Points’. The former records your general movement throughout the day and aims to encourage you to make small changes, such as walking up stairs rather than taking the elevator. Heart Points reward you not just for the amount of time you’re active but for how much you raise your heart rate - a feature which really helps the app stand out. In line with most fitness apps, the core features are still available; you can track various workouts, monitor and adjust your goals, and even get some basic customized tips and coaching, based on the activity that you do. Datally is probably not one of Google’s best-known apps, but it deserves to be, especially if you have any interest in monitoring or conserving your data. The app lets you see how much data you’ve used in the last day, week or month, as well as telling you which apps are using the most data. It also has some clever extra features, two of which were added recently – so even if you’ve used Datally before it could be worth revisiting. There’s ‘Bedtime mode’, which disables data on your phone between two times that you set, which means that apps won’t be using data in the background while you sleep. Futhermore, ‘Emergency bank’ lets you set aside a portion of your monthly data allowance for emergencies. You decide how much and Datally will make sure you don’t use it accidentally. These join existing features such as the data saver mode, which blocks apps of your choice from using data when you’re not connected to Wi-Fi, plus you can view a list of nearby Wi-Fi networks, including information on whether you need a password for them. If you ever find yourself running low on data, then Datally is the app for you. Inware does one thing and does it well: it tells you about the device you’re running the app on. More specifically, it tells you just about every hardware detail, from the screen size and resolution, chipset, RAM amount and battery size, to far more in depth information, like the current speed each core is running at and the serial number. Inware can also tell you how much RAM is currently in use, how healthy the battery is, how hot the battery is, how much storage there is in total and in use, the build number, what security patch your device has, what GPU it has, the aspect ratio of the screen and plenty more besides. It goes way more in depth than your phone’s settings screen likely will, so if you’re ever curious about an aspect of your handset’s hardware or software, this is the app for you. Visual impairments are one of many things that technology has made slightly easier to live with, and Envision AI is a prime example of how tech can help. Point your phone’s camera at whatever’s in front of you, press a button, and the AI will examine it and say out loud what it thinks it’s seeing. Descriptions can be moderately detailed, taking in multiple objects in a scene (for example a computer monitor and the desk it’s sat on). With common objects it all seems quite accurate, though testing it on more unusual things, such as a wooden sculpture of an elephant, led to more mixed results. As well as scenes, Envision AI can also read out text, even if it’s handwritten (though unclear handwriting will again lead to mixed results). So it’s not perfect, but Envision AI could make a big difference to anyone who struggles to see or read on their own. There are all sorts of apps designed for journaling your travels, but Polarsteps can do much of the work automatically. The app will track where you’ve been and add photos from your travels, giving you a map and gallery of all your trips, simply by having the app running in the background on your phone. You can make trips manually and add any photos it missed, but creating trips automatically means you’ll have at least a partial record of your adventures without doing anything. This might sound like it would hammer your phone’s battery, but in fact Polarsteps is designed to only use around 4% each day and it doesn’t even need to be connected to the internet, which is ideal if you’re traveling somewhere where data costs extra. You can keep your trips private or share them with friends and family, and by following people in the app you can see their journeys as they happen. Polarsteps is also nice to look at, easy to use and completely free, making it near essential for anyone who wants a visual record of their trips. Anchor is both an app for both listening to podcasts, and creating and sharing your own. It’s that second part that’s the most interesting. You can record audio straight from the Anchor app, or import recordings. You can also add friends to a recording, even if they’re elsewhere in the world, allowing you to have a recorded conversation that you can use as a podcast. You can add various sound effects, and rearrange and edit parts of the podcast, so you’re not limited to a single audio file. Once you’re done you can share your podcast, not just on Anchor itself, but also on the likes of Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts. When it’s out in the world, you can use Anchor to track how many listeners it has, and which parts of the podcast are most played. If all you want to do is listen to podcasts then there are other apps that do the job just as well or better (Pocket Casts is always a favorite), but Anchor is a slick, simple way to get into podcasting yourself. If you love slathering filters all over your photos then there’s a good chance you’ll love Picai, as it makes the process a lot smarter than most apps. But this isn’t just a tool for sticking filters on photos you’ve already taken (though you can do that too). Rather, it’s a camera app. Simply point it at something you want to photograph and it will use AI to detect what you’re looking at, even going so far as to provide a text pop-up telling you what it sees. From there it will automatically choose filters that it thinks would be a good fit and overlay two of them on the viewfinder – one on the left half, the other on the right. That means you can see what a filter will look like before you even take a photo. If you’re happy with one, you can swipe horizontally across it to select it, or you can swipe up or down to cycle through filters. It’s a clever idea, well implemented and completely free. If you’re serious about your beer then you need Untappd on your phone. It not only has a database of beers for you to discover and rate, but also highlights nearby beer-related events and shows the beer menus in local bars. Add a venue to your favorites, and you’ll get alerts when it starts selling a new beer. There’s a social element too, which lets you follow friends to see what they’re drinking (and what they think of it). Whether you want to make a wish list to help you keep track of all the beers you want to try, keep a log of what you’ve already tried so you can remind yourself whether you liked something, or just keep abreast of all the beer-related happenings in the area, Untappd is for you. Google Clock (or simply ‘Clock’) is a fairly ordinary clock app in many ways, but it has the polish you’d expect from Google and is now better than ever, thanks to Spotify integration, meaning you can set a Spotify song or playlist as your alarm. That instantly gives it an advantage over many clock apps, and the fact that Google Clock is free doesn’t hurt either. Beyond that you get a timer, a stopwatch, the ability to create and save multiple alarms, and the option to view times for other parts of the world. Of course, it also has Wear OS integration, so all of your alarms and timers can be synced with your wrist, and there are several options to tailor the app to your preferences, such as being able to change the clock style and the snooze duration. Overdrop is yet another weather app, but it stands out more for its widgets than its forecasting skills. It has quite a lot of them, and many are beautifully designed, showing some combination of the weather, time, day, date and battery level. We’d be surprised if you can’t find one you like, and while some are reserved for the paid Overdrop Pro app, many are free. Beyond that, Overdrop is a perfectly accomplished weather app, with seven-day forecasts, nice animated illustrations, and information on things like cloud cover and humidity. Khan Academy Kids is packed full of games and activities designed to entertain and educate young children. From sorting objects based on their color, to selecting the right letter to complete a word, to drawing and a whole lot more, there are apparently thousands of activities in here, and while we haven’t tested that many, the ones we have tested are varied and well put together, with colorful drawings, songs and sound effects. Most of the interactions use simple tap and swipe gestures, so most children should be able to navigate the app comfortably. A colorful character sits in the corner, and can be tapped whenever help is needed. There’s a lot here, and Khan Academy Kids should be suitable whether you want something your kid can do on their own, or something they can play through together with you. Notes by Firefox is a very simple note-taking app, ideal if you just want to jot down basic notes without wrestling overbearing interfaces and unwanted options. The look is minimalist, with a mostly white screen housing all your current notes. You can tap on one to open and edit it, tap the plus button to make a new note, or tap the minus next to a note to delete it. There are a few formatting options – you can create bullet points or numbered lists, add headings and use bold and italics, but that’s about it. However, Notes by Firefox does have a few tricks up its sleeve, as it syncs between your Android device and the Firefox browser on your desktop, so you can access your notes from multiple devices, and they’re secured with end-to-end encryption. Other than that, this is a basic app, but if you’re not a power user it should be all you need, and it’s completely free. Emma helps you keep a close eye on your money. Link all your bank accounts (including credit cards) and you’ll be able to see all their balances in one place. But that’s just the beginning. Emma also tells you how much money you have in total across all your accounts, as well as how much debt you have, and how much money you gain or lose in total each month. It also lists all transactions and has a good stab at putting them into categories, such as shopping, transport or bills. This also means you can see at a glance how much you’re spending in each category, which is a good way to make you more aware of your spending and potentially reduce it. You can change any miscategorized spends, see a list of recurring payments, get a weekly breakdown of spending and income, and more. Of course, Emma is secure too. It uses SSL 256-bit encryption, supports fingerprint locking and doesn’t store your banking credentials. Emma is an essential app if you have accounts with more than one bank, but even if you don’t, chances are that it gives you a lot more insight into your money than your bank does. The only real downside is that it’s UK-only. There are a lot of language learning apps on Android, but when it comes to languages such as Japanese, Mandarin and Korean, which have different alphabet systems, most apps fall a bit flat in teaching you to read and write in the language. But that’s where LingoDeer excels, with various exercises designed to teach you the alphabet and grammar, as well as more conventional lessons focused on speaking and hearing the language. LingoDeer can feel a bit intimidating at times, especially if you’re a complete beginner, as these alphabets can look completely alien, but we’re not sure there’s any way around that. Learning one of these Asian languages is going to be hard, and LingoDeer is a good way to get started. There are so many words in the English language, including all sorts of weird and wonderful ones that you might never have come across. But how do you come across them? Browsing a dictionary is inefficient, so instead you could try Orphic, an app dedicated to the more unusual and interesting parts of English. The app contains hundreds of words and will highlight a new one for you every day, even sending you a push notification for it if you want, so you can constantly learn new words. You can also head into the app and explore its library of language at your own pace. For every word you can see definitions, example sentences and even hear an audio clip, so you can be sure you’re saying it right. You can also add words to a list of favorites, so you can easily return to them later, and Orphic promises to add new words regularly, so the app should get better over time. Space Nation Navigator is an oddity. Part game, part learning tool, part fitness app – the only thing uniting it all is a focus on space. There are various ‘missions’ including mini games, such as memorizing codes to repair a spacecraft, quizzes, and even physical exercises designed get you ready for an outer space adventure. There are also videos and articles that teach you more about space and the people exploring it, while leaderboards give you extra incentive to carry out the various activities. There’s the slightly annoying need to buy ‘coins’ or watch adverts if you want to replay missions, but otherwise Space Nation Navigator is an interesting app for anyone with even a passing interest in space. A bit more focus might help, but there’s a lot of content here. Mei: Messaging with AI promises a lot, but at the moment – at its core – it’s primarily an SMS app that can also analyze the messages you send and receive to show you a personality profile for you and the people who message you. It will tell you your top five characteristics, and assign a percentage score to your openness, emotional control, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness. You can tap on any of these to dig deeper. For example, tapping on openness will show how adventurous, emotionally aware and imaginative you are in Mei’s opinion, among other things. You can also use the app to see how similar you are to the people you message and what traits you have in common. As well as standard SMS messages, if you’re talking to someone else who also uses Mei you get end-to-end encryption and free international messaging (due to messages then being sent over the internet), along with other tools such as expiring messages and the ability to unsend messages. The app’s in beta, and more features are coming, including additional AI abilities, such as the app being able to detect if you’re not texting as you normally would, perhaps because you’re in an unusual state of mind, and alerting you to that fact. Being in beta, Mei might not be totally bug-free, but it’s an interesting upgrade to your standard SMS app. Wherever you are, chances are there are hundreds of different plant species within walking distance, and most of us have no idea what all but the most common are called. PlantNet aims to make identifying them easier – simply snap a photo and the app will attempt to identify what kind of plant or flower you’re seeing using visual recognition software. Assuming you’ve taken an in-focus shot with just a single type of plant in it you’ll probably get one or more suggestions, complete with names and pictures. This is probably the main thing you’ll use PlantNet for, but you can also view pictures submitted by other users and browse plants by a number of categories, such as where in the world they’re found. In many cases there are also links to Wikipedia pages about the plants, so you can learn more about them. As an identification tool PlantNet isn’t perfect, but it’s a whole lot better than nothing, and even if it can’t always identify the plant you’re looking at with 100% accuracy, chances are it will highlight some other interesting species in the process of trying. There are plenty of podcast apps already but when Google makes one it’s worth paying attention, and Google Podcasts doesn’t disappoint, instantly reaching the heights of the best free ones. It’s got a minimalist design that’s light on color, but the app’s not light on features, as it automatically syncs podcasts across devices, so you can start listening on one and finish on another, it works with Google Home and you can launch straight into podcasts from Google Assistant and the Google Search app. Google Podcasts also gives you recommendations based on your listening history and preferences, so it’s a decent way to find new content, and there are other tools, such as the ability to change the playback speed. None of which would matter if it didn’t get the basics right, but it does, letting you subscribe to podcasts and highlighting new episodes on the main screen, letting you stream or download podcasts, and providing lists of the top podcasts in various categories. Quip is an office suite built for teams, as not only can you create documents and spreadsheets, you can also share them with others and work on them collaboratively. It supports real-time messaging too and while this app will mostly be of use for teams of people who work together it could also be used for other things, such as shared grocery lists and to-do lists. You can access it all from your phone, tablet or computer, so you’ll never be far from the work and information you need, and Quip is quite full-featured when it comes to actually creating documents and spreadsheets, as for example it supports over 400 spreadsheet functions. You probably won’t want to make much use of them from a phone, but if you’re on a tablet then Quip is a great way to work on the move, and even on a phone it can be good for reading, editing and commenting on work. If you like to have relaxed background music on while working, reading or anything else, then Loffee is definitely worth a download. The app contains a handful of curated playlists, all featuring lo-fi music that’s ideal for relaxing to or having on while you do something else. To our mind, the music choices are great, as well as often featuring little known bands and artists, so you’re sure to find things that you like and haven’t heard before. If you do, you can follow links to the artist’s Facebook, SoundCloud, Twitter and Instagram pages, while other tools in the app include a timer (which shuts the music off when it finishes counting down), and the ability to listen to songs offline. The Loffee app itself is also something you’ll want to spend time in, as each playlist has a custom illustration that’s almost as soothing as the music. You can’t cast music to other devices and the actual selection of songs is small, so this won’t replace your main music apps, but it could definitely complement them. Your phone might already have Google Lens built in, but if not you can now download it from the Play Store, and that’s worth doing. Once you’ve launched the app you can point your camera at almost anything and get information on it. Point it at a book and it will give you links to reviews of the book and places to buy it. Other products also produce store links, or if Google Lens can’t definitively identify something it will suggest similar products. You can also point it at a landmark to get information on it, at foreign text to translate it or at an event to add it to your calendar. You can even point it at plants or animals to identify them. The results aren’t perfect. In our experience Google Lens will regularly incorrectly identify something or fail to come up with any suggestions for what something might be, especially with more unusual items, but it works often enough to be genuinely useful, especially once you get used to the kinds of things it’s likely to work with – so you know whether to even bother booting it up. Starling Bank is more than just an app. In fact, it’s a bank account, but it’s a modern one that’s entirely app-based. That means there are no branches and there’s no web access. That could sound daunting, if the prospect of changing bank account isn’t already off-putting enough, but in fact having everything in an app keeps things simple, and there are some powerful tools here not offered by most conventional banks. For example, it has zero ATM withdrawal fees or transaction fees when using your card abroad, it lets you temporarily or permanently lock your card in-app, and you can enable or disable contactless payments, ATM withdrawals and online payments, for extra security. You can also send in-app requests to friends and family who owe you money (and who don’t need Starling themselves to pay you back), receive instant notifications for income and outgoings, and a whole lot more. As for changing your bank to take advantage of all this, well, you don’t necessarily have to. After all, there’s no real downside to having two bank accounts, but if you do decide you want to go all-in with Starling Bank that’s simple too, as there’s an account switching service that does all the hard work for you. This one’s for UK users only, but there are similar app-based banks elsewhere, such as Simple in the US. Today in History is exactly what it says on the tin, telling you what happened today in history, and as it turns out there’s usually a lot that happened. The Today in History app will tell you about events, births, deaths, holidays and just about everything else significant that ever happened on the current day, and it includes pictures, text and links to Wikipedia articles (which is where it pulls its data from). It’s an attractive app and even better if you use the widget, which shows you events from this day in history on your home screen. Today in History also lets you download content for offline use, get notifications and – for anyone who’s not a native English speaker – switch to one of 50 different languages, a switch which cleverly will also affect the events you see, with those relevant to the culture associated with that language being prioritized. Google News replaces Google Play Newsstand, and it’s a strong substitute. Throughout the day it will highlight the top five current stories that it thinks you’ll care about, based on the sources and topics that you tell the app you like, but if you keep scrolling down you can also see other news. The best bit about Google News though, might be the option to see ‘perspectives and context’. It’s a little button next to stories, which when tapped shows the same story as reported by various different sites and inevitably from various different perspectives, including some that you might never find on your own. As such it can give you a more rounded look at the news than you’d get if you’re always just using your preferred news source. Other features of Google News include the ability to filter headlines by subject or source, and subscribe to paid news sources with a single tap. Pet Care Diary is a fairly simple but potentially very useful app for keeping track of when your pet needs feeding, cleaning, walking or whatever else. Essentially, it’s like a calendar or to-do list, where you can set up events and reminders, but they’re all focused on your pet, and if you have more than one pet you can set up individual profiles for each, where you can see every upcoming event and reminder, as well as previous ones. You can also add comments to each reminder, as well as assigning a category, such as ‘food’ or ‘veterinary care’. Pet Care Diary is probably most useful if you have a high-maintenance pet or multiple pets with their own schedules and needs, but if you ever find yourself putting pet-related things in your calendar, or forgetting to do them, then it’s definitely worth having. The core app is free, but for US$2.99/£3.99 you can unlock the pro version, which removes adverts and lets you create an unlimited number of pet profiles, among other things. If more than one person in your household buys groceries, then Bring! is an app that you should really look into. It’s a grocery list app, as you might have surmised, but it lets you share and collaborate on lists, so everyone who might buy something can see the current list, and anyone else in the household can see it and add to it. Whenever someone does buy things from the list they can tick them off with a tap, so there’s no danger of the same thing being bought twice. Bring! also lets you add photos to each entry, which is handy if you want to add something very specific, such as a certain brand of item, or if you just want to add some color to the list. But Bring! also has its own database, with images for hundreds of items. You can create and share multiple lists if, for example, you have a general grocery list and another one for a party. There’s even a recipe section, designed to inspire you to cook, and making it easy to add all the ingredients to your shopping list. Technically there’s no reason you couldn’t use Bring! for other types of shopping lists as well, or even for to-do lists, but it’s designed for – and excels at – groceries. Privacy is increasingly hard to come by, especially if you live much of your life online, but Signal Private Messenger can at least ensure no one snoops on your messages. The app uses your normal phone number and address book, so as with WhatsApp, you don’t need to set up a separate account or anything, making it convenient to use. Signal is more secure than WhatsApp or most other messaging apps. Not only does it use advanced end-to-end encryption, but it’s also open source, meaning anyone can audit the code to verify how secure it is. Signal lets you set messages to delete anywhere from five seconds to one week after they’ve been seen – or you can have them remain forever if you’d prefer. The app also promises that its server never has access to your messages or any other data, plus it offers password or fingerprint protection and it’s not light on general messaging features, as it also supports group chats, voice calls and attachments. In all, it’s a decent enough messaging app that it could be a strong choice even if privacy and security are only of secondary concern. Steam Link allows you to stream your Steam games from your PC to your Android phone or tablet, so you can play them from anywhere in your house. You are limited to your house though, as your computer needs to be on and using the same Wi-Fi network as your Android device for this to work. No Steam streaming on the train, then, but it’s quite freeing if you’re usually tethered to a desk. You also need a fairly fast and stable internet connection and most games will need you to pair your phone with a Bluetooth controller, though some simpler ones can be controlled purely touchscreen. Still, if you’re big on gaming but wish you could play your ‘proper’ PC games from the couch, bed or bath, then Steam Link is well worth trying. Neverthink is an app that aims to give you interesting things to watch, without you ever having to think or decide on them for yourself. All you actually have to decide is the general category of content you’re in the mood for, be it learning something new, comedy, news, food videos, or one of dozens of other categories. Once you’ve selected one a relevant video starts playing. These are sourced from the internet and it’s all subscription-free stuff that you could find yourself, except now you don’t have to. There’s Chromecast support, and if you see something you like you can favorite it to return to later, and that’s about it. It’s worth noting also that the content is all hand-picked by actual people. There aren’t any algorithms here, and Neverthink promises that hours of new content is added every day, so there should always be so mething to watch. There’s a lot more to the weather than you’ll generally see in a typical forecast, and it can be a lot more interesting – and beautiful – than a simple temperature reading. Ventusky knows this, as it makes forecasts more engaging by including an attractive weather map and wind animation, complete with the current temperature shown on the map, so you can see exactly which areas are what temperature at a glance. Hourly forecasts let you see how the weather will change over the day and tapping on any hour or day will adjust the weather map accordingly. You can also view weekly charts of the temperature, precipitation and wind, so you can see how much it varies over time. Sunrise and sunset times are also available, so there’s a lot to sink your teeth into, but really Ventusky is all about that weather map and wind animation, which shows the motion and direction of the wind in a mesmerizing way. From the name you might think ChefsFeed is a recipe app, or maybe a social network for chefs, but while there’s an element of both it’s so much more than that. ChefsFeed, really, is for anyone who loves food. It has articles and videos about food and restaurants, and yes, some recipes, but most of it’s not so much about cooking your own dishes as it is about food culture, with articles titled ‘why restaurants are a refuge for the restless’, and ‘sourcing sustainably is a way of life’, for example. The app also helps you find new places to dine out, with a section highlighting interesting and recommended restaurants near you, complete with their opening hours and contact details. You can filter these suggestions by price, distance and type of food, among other things, and save your favorites, so you’ll never forget a place you planned to try. SketchBook isn’t a new app, but while many of the features used to cost money, it’s now completely free, making it worth revisiting. The features that are now free include more than 130 brush presets, customizable canvas sizes, various rulers, high quality image imports and more. And that’s on top of all the basic tools that were already free, such as a layer editor and pen mode, all of which combine to make this one of the most generous free sketching apps available on Android. Coming from Autodesk, the power of SketchBook should come as no surprise, but it’s an app that seemed worth the money previously and is now utterly essential if you’ve even toyed with the idea of digital sketching. Facebook Local is all about finding events and attractions nearby. It links to your Facebook account then shows a bunch of events listed on Facebook that are near your current or home location, or another place of your choice. Some of these will be from friends and pages that you follow, but it will also dig up other local public events, so you’re likely to discover things that you wouldn’t have found on your main Facebook feed. You can filter events and attraction by type, date, location or time, view them on a map and add them to your Facebook calendar, so it’s simple to control what you see and keep track of what you’re interested in. You can also add your phone calendar to the app, so you can see and manage everything in one place. More or less all of this stuff can be found on Facebook itself, but Facebook Local is a much more focused way to find out what’s going on around you, without all of Facebook’s many distractions, so it’s worth having on your phone even if you already have the main Facebook app. Ever wanted your own custom emoji and stickers that star you, rather than a generic face? Then you should definitely download Bitmoji. This lets you recreate your likeness in cartoon form, with loads of tools available to make the look as perfect as possible. Then you can choose an outfit and get access to dozens if not hundreds of stickers, each of which feature you. These can be shared to various chat and social apps, but Bitmoji has deeper integration with Gboard, letting you share its stickers direct from the keyboard. It can also be linked to your Snapchat account, making your Bitmoji your Snapchat avatar. You can alter the look of your Bitmoji at any time, so if you change your own hairstyle you can change theirs to match, or just give them a new outfit, and new stickers and customization options are being added over time, so you shouldn’t get bored. Opera Touch is a browser that’s designed to be used with one hand, with a ‘Fast Action Button’ that’s always visible and easy to reach at the bottom of the screen. Tapping it launches you straight into a web search, where you can type or speak your query. There’s even a barcode scanner here, so you can quickly look items up online without having to type their names. Gesture controls ensure you can navigate the rest of the interface with one hand, letting you switch to recent tabs, reload or close the current page or send it to your computer. That last one is powered by Opera Flow, which lets you share links, videos and the like between your phone and computer with a single tap or click – though of course to enable this you’ll also need to be running Opera on your PC. Opera Touch is also fairly secure, with features such as an ad blocker and even cryptocurrency mining protection, which reduces the risk of malicious sites using your phone to mine cryptocurrency in the background – an act that can drain your battery or even cause your phone to overheat. There are some missing features, most notably private browsing and a desktop mode. Hopefully they’ll be added at some point, but considering Touch’s focus on simplicity, they might not. Learning to code isn’t easy, but learning the basics is easier in recent years than it ever used to be, and that’s partially because apps like Grasshopper exist, guiding you through the first steps (of JavaScript, in this case) with exercises and quizzes. The exercises are often presented a bit like puzzles. For example, very early examples task you with completing flags of countries by selecting the right code in the right order. This can feel almost like a game, and is engaging and enjoyable as a result. Achievements can be gained to further motivate you, and while the app will never make you an expert it does aim to leave you with fundamental JavaScript skills, so you’re ready to take on something more advanced. You probably didn’t realize that you can save the world while browsing the net, but you can make a small difference by using Ecosia Browser, which uses its ad revenue to plant trees. Ecosia has already planted over 26 million trees thanks to its users, and for roughly every 45 searches you make another one will be planted. Beyond its environmental credentials, Ecosia is also a very competent browser. It’s based on Chromium so the look and feel is a lot like that of Google Chrome, meaning it’s likely to be familiar to you. It supports tabs, private browsing and bookmarks, lets you view your history, allows autofill of forms and has various privacy controls, so you don’t have to sacrifice a feature-packed browsing experience to help the Earth. PhotoDirector is one of the more powerful and polished photo editing apps available on Android. It’s got you covered for fun filters, frames and effects, but it gives you more control than some of its peers. For example, you can adjust the strength of effects and choose to apply them globally or selectively. You get a lot of control over the core image too, as you can adjust the white balance, saturation, hue, sharpness, tone and more. You can also rotate, crop or mirror the image, cut out sections, adjust the perspective, and if you’ve taken a portrait remove red-eye. There’s more here, too much to list, but suffice it to say, PhotoDirector is a comprehensive app. You’re not limited to just editing photos you’ve already taken either; there’s also a camera component, allowing you to take new shots and see how effects and filters will look before you’ve even taken a picture. PhotoDirector is free to download and use. There’s an optional subscription for £2.59 (around US$3.70) per month if you want to unlock additional tools, remove adverts and improve the output quality, but the core app is already far more generous than most free offerings. Seven – 7 Minute Workout Training Challenge promises to get you fit in just seven minutes a day, and while a longer workout might do you more good, we can’t deny that this got our hearts racing. There’s a wide variety of exercises and workouts, with an animated man or woman showing you how to do each one, along with an optional text explanation. So far, so standard, but Seven also doles out achievements, lets you add friends for some friendly competition and has specific training plans for different goals. For example, if you tell the app you want to lose weight, it will give you different workouts to if you want to increase your mobility. The exercises in Seven don’t require any equipment, so you can do them from home or even your office if you have a bit of space, and you can create your own workouts too if there are specific exercises that you like. Seven is partially free, but there’s an optional US$9.99/£9.99 monthly subscription which unlocks additional workouts, exercises and personalized workout plans. If you like the free version, it could be worth considering. ESPN has all the sporting news and scores you need (probably) all in one place. While not all sports are covered by the app, many are, including soccer, golf, tennis, basketball, F1, baseball and loads more, and you can select your favorite teams and leagues to have them highlighted by the app. You can see the latest scores, any breaking news, and drill down into more detailed stats for specific players, teams and games. There’s also video content, usually surrounding the latest news and results, which you can cast to a big screen. You can get push notifications sent to your device too, so you’re always up to date on the latest goals and wins. Drum Pads – Beat Maker Go is a drum machine which lets you easily make beats on the go. There are numerous sound packs split across various genres, such as dubstep, EDM and hip-hop, and once you select one you can get tapping on the drum pad. There are various effects that you can apply to your track, such as distortion and delay, you can create loops and save your finished pieces, then share them with friends. Drum Pads is accessible enough that beginners should be able to have fun with it (though some trial and error will be required), but there’s enough here to appeal to more advanced users too. Otter Voice Notes is a voice recorder, but that’s just the beginning. It also uses AI to automatically turn the recordings into written text so you can read them back rather than having to listen to them. The app also lets you search for keywords, so you can find exactly the piece of information you’re looking for in seconds, even in long recordings. This all makes it a great tool for recording meetings, lectures and the like, especially since Otter can be trained to recognize voices and you can tag who’s talking, so that even in text form you can see the true flow of a conversation. You can also create groups with other Otter users if you want to share recordings, and all of your recordings are saved in the cloud so you can access them anywhere and don’t have to store them on your Android device. The text transcription isn’t perfect (though Otter claims it will get better over time if it’s you talking, as it gets to know your voice better), but it’s reasonably accurate in our experience and you can always go in and make changes to the text manually. Just a Line is a simple example of the creative potential offered by AR (augmented reality). It lets you view the world through your phone camera and draw on scenes by touching the screen. You can see your drawings from multiple angles as you move the phone around, and you can film your creations to save them or share them with others. There’s not a whole lot more to it than that, and Google (which built the app) describes Just a Line as an experiment, so you should go in expecting a curiosity rather than a full-featured app, but it’s a fun introduction to AR that can be enjoyed by all ages. If your phone battery isn’t lasting as long as you’d like then deleting Facebook could help, as the app tends to use a lot of life, but what to do if you also want to keep using Facebook on your phone? Get Facebook Lite. This is a lightweight version of the Facebook app, with most of the core features, including your timeline, the ability to post status updates and photos, comments, events, notifications and more, but it uses a lot less power and a lot less data. Facebook Lite also works even if you only have a 2G connection, so you’ll be able to use Facebook in places that you wouldn’t have been able to before, and it takes up less space on your phone. The main downside to it is that the interface is much less attractive than on the standard Facebook app, but if you can get used to that it could be a worthy replacement. RememBear is a simple, surprisingly cute password manager full of bears. Simply add all your passwords to it, lock them behind a master password or fingerprint, and RememBear can auto-fill login forms with them so you never have to remember them or type them again. RememBear can also generate new secure passwords, so you won’t have to think them up, and the data is synced across devices, so if you don’t have your phone to hand you can access your logins from a computer or other device. You can also store credit card details, there’s end-to-end encryption and there’s a built-in browser for secure web browsing. RememBear lacks some features offered by rivals like LastPass, such as favorites, but more features are likely to be added over time. It’s also free to use on a single device, though there’s a paid version that you’ll have to upgrade to for $35.99/£32.49 per year if you want to access your account on multiple devices. It’s probably fair to say that most ringtones that come with phones aren’t very exciting, and while you can easily set a locally stored song as your ringtone, you won’t necessarily want the whole thing. That’s where Ringtone Maker & Music Editor comes in. First, you can get this app to scan your device for any stored audio files, sort them by track, album or artist, then select the one that you want to turn into a ringtone and you’ll be able to choose a start and end point – handy for cutting boring intros. You can type out exactly what point in the music you want to start and end the ringtone down to the millisecond, and you can also cut parts of the music, copy and paste parts, or even meld multiple audio files together. There’s also a basic recording feature built in, so you can record your own ringtones and then edit them. Once done, you can save your ringtone and assign it either system-wide or to a specific contact. Ringtone Maker is easy to use and supports various file types, including MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, AAC, M4A, MP4 and 3GPP/AMR, and the only real issue it has is the number of adverts, but there’s a pro version that gets rid of them for US$3.99/£3.29. Moovit is the only app you need to navigate public transport wherever you might be in the world. Simply enter a destination and it will tell you how to get there from your current location (or you can set a different start point). Moovit will give you various route options using different forms of transport by default, but you can tell it to only include certain kinds of public transport, or to minimize walking or transfers. Select a route to see full step by step instructions or get live navigation. The app will tell you exactly where to go and even alert you when you’re nearing your stop so you don’t need to stare at your phone screen the entire journey. There are also timetables for buses and trains and you can save your favorite destinations or transit lines to quickly get directions and timetables in future. Moovit also has widgets, offline maps, and transport information for thousands of cities in over 80 countries. We weren’t kidding when we said it’s the only public transport app you’ll need. Trips by Lonely Planet is a visually beautiful way to share your travel experiences or view those shared by others. It’s essentially a journaling app designed for globetrotters. Create a new trip in the app, give it a title, subtitle and cover photo, then add your choice of photos, text and maps. Your trips can be kept private or shared publicly, you can edit them after posting, and of course you can view and favorite other people’s. There’s a slight social element in that you can follow other users, so you’ll always see any new trips they post, but mostly this is just about seeing the world from your phone and sharing your own trips with the world. TouchPal is a truly feature-packed keyboard, and an enormously customizable one at that. Not only can you select from thousands of free themes, you can also create your own, picking a key color and adding a background image or color. All the usual settings are also available, letting you customize the keyboard height and width, change the key layout, enable or disable auto-correct and much more. There’s also a ‘Curve’ mode, which lets you swipe across keys to select them rather than tapping, and more uniquely a ‘Wave’ setting that builds on predictive text by putting AI-driven next word suggestions under the keys as you type. You can also access various emoji and GIFs from the keyboard, bring up a Google search and use voice typing. None of that would matter if TouchPal was slow or inaccurate, but in our tests it works well – just as long as you take the time to get it set up how you want it. Bandcamp is a service that highlights and sells music from numerous artists, mostly of the independent variety, and with the Bandcamp app you can access all of its content from your phone. As well as buying music, you can stream or download music you already own, and in many cases stream songs that you haven’t yet bought. You also get access to a weekly podcast that highlights music you might not have come across before, so it’s a good way to discover your next favorite musician. You can also search, browse, add things to your wishlist and comment on releases, sharing your thoughts with the wider Bandcamp community. It’s a handy app if you’re into music (and who isn’t?) and a great way to support up and coming artists. Zomato (formerly Urbanspoon) is probably all you’ll ever need to find and choose restaurants. From the main screen you can see a list of nearby restaurants, each of which has a user rating out of five. You can also search using filters, such as whether you can book, whether the place is currently open and whether it has Wi-Fi, then sort the results by distance, cost, rating or popularity. There’s also a tab for viewing collections, which are restaurants sorted into categories such as ‘newly opened’ or ‘romantic’. Tap on a restaurant and you can see photos and reviews added by other users, along with details about what it costs, opening times, an address and map and in many cases menus and lists of pros and cons. From here you can also call the restaurant or add your own photos or review. In some cases you can even book a table direct from the Zomato app. You can also bookmark your favorite restaurants and follow other users, so you can see where they’ve been and what they like. If you’re reading this then chances are you could probably stand to spend less time on your phone – we know we could. If so, THRIVE could be just what you need to stay focused and in the moment. The app lets you block all apps, notifications, calls and texts for a set duration, though you can set up a VIP list of people whose calls and texts will still get through, and you’ll always be able to call emergency numbers. That’s the default mode in THRIVE, though you can deactivate it if you decide you need to use your phone after all. If you really want help staying off your phone there’s also a ‘Super Thrive Mode’, which – short of rebooting your phone – can’t be deactivated before the allotted time runs out. If anyone tries to contact you while you’re using one of these modes, you can set an auto-reply message that will let them know when you’ll be available again. There’s also an App Blocking mode, which will block access to apps of your choice after you’ve used them for an amount of time that you can set. So, for example, it might block Facebook after you’ve used it for 30 minutes. You then can’t access it again until 12am the next day. THRIVE isn’t the only app designed to keep you off your handset but it could be one of the most useful, as while most try to incentivize you, THRIVE simply stops you. If you play an instrument then you probably sometimes need backing tracks, and Backing Track Play Music can provide them. It has thousands of backing tracks designed for guitarists, bassists, drummers, keyboardists and singers, and you can filter by instrument, genre, artist, or just perform a general search. The selection is decent and varied, covering many big hits from artists of various genres. You’ll also find lyrics and tablature for many songs, and the app claims new backing tracks are added every day. The core app is free, but if you want to get rid of adverts and be able to download backing tracks for offline use, you can grab Backing Track Play Music Pro for $1.49/£1.29. Your phone is probably your most used device, so it’s understandable if you get a bit bored of it sometimes and want a change. Rather than buying a whole new handset you could just change your launcher, and Microsoft Launcher is one of the best around. Formerly known as Arrow Launcher, it’s been around for a while and it keeps improving, most recently thanks to the addition of Cortana, which you can activate by tapping an icon or long-pressing the home button. Cortana isn’t any better than Google Assistant (or arguably even as good), but it’s a change and you can still use Google Assistant as well. The rest of the app has a lot to offer, including loads of customizable gesture controls. For example, you can open the app drawer with a two-finger swipe up, but if you’d rather that gesture launched your favorite app, you can set it to do that instead. You can also make Microsoft Launcher your own by customizing the theme, icons and accent colors, and if you’re not feeling inspired when it comes to wallpaper then you can set it to automatically change daily. Got your old home screen exactly how you like it? Then when setting up Microsoft Launcher you can choose to import the old layout, bringing all your folders with you. There’s also a clever unified search bar on your home screen that can search both the contents of your phone and the web. For the latter it uses Bing of course, but you can’t have everything. Yummly is a super customizable recipe app for picky eaters and cooks. It’s packed with over a million recipes, and you can add various filters to dictate which ones you see. These include basic dietary and allergy options, such as vegetarian, pescatarian and gluten-free, but you can also add specific disliked ingredients that you want to avoid, filter by taste such as sweet or bitter, choose the nutritional values you’re interested in (such as low-carb), and pick which cuisines you do or don’t want to see. There are also filters for prep time and techniques required, such as baking or blending, so you can tweak the requirements exactly to your liking, or those of your guests. All that aside, Yummly has many of the same features as other recipe apps, including a built-in shopping list, personalized recommendations, the ability to save favorites, and videos that teach you cooking techniques. Two of the main reasons for using a VPN are accessing geo-restricted content and maintaining your privacy and security online. ProtonVPN can help with both of those, and costs a lot less than most rivals. In fact, the core service is totally free, and there are no bandwidth restrictions, so you can use it as much as you want. There are no ads either, because it’s fully funded by optional paid subscriptions (starting at around $5/£3.50 per month). These unlock higher speeds, VPN servers in more countries and the ability to use ProtonVPN on more than one device. But for free you still get access to VPNs in three countries, and a whole lot more security than you’ll have without a VPN, as your activity will be encrypted and protected by Swiss privacy laws, and it won’t be logged. If you’re a movie lover then you might already know about Letterboxd, and if you don’t you should. It lets you keep track of movies you’ve watched, add them to your list with a single tap, review them, give them a star rating, and say when you watched them. It also lets you keep track of what you want to watch, thanks to a comprehensive film database and the ability to add films to a watch list – again with a single tap. Letterboxd helps you discover films by highlighting what’s currently popular, and offering thousands of lists created by users of the app. These lists all have a theme, and while that’s sometimes as simple as someone’s favorite movies, usually it’s a lot more interesting than that, for example one list is titled “They aren’t films, they’re experiences”. Of course, you can also make lists of your own, and Letterboxd is a bit of a social network too, letting you follow other users and comment on their lists. There are loads of filter apps and photo fixers on Android, but LightX Photo Editor is one of a much smaller number of comprehensive editing apps. It has plenty of filters, as well as tools for sharpening images and removing blemishes, and much more besides. You can tweak the hue, saturation and tone, adjust the focus, add a frame, sticker or text, merge images, create collages, flip, crop and rotate, draw on pictures and change the perspective. All of that is free, though there’s an optional IAP to remove adverts and add a few extra features. Whether you opt for the free or paid version, LightX is a powerful, feature-packed app that should suit most mobile photo-editing needs. While there’s still something to be said for keeping a paper journal, going digital gives you a lot more convenience, security and features, and Day One Journal is one of the best tools for the job. Having enjoyed years of popularity on iOS, it’s finally arrived on Android, bringing with it a slick interface that lets you see your journal entries by date, as a gallery of attached images, or on a map of the world with pins that take you to an entry made at each location. Making a new entry is as simple as tapping the big plus or camera icons on the main screen, depending on whether you want to start with a photo or text. Day One Journal adds the time and current weather to each entry automatically. You can also set reminders to help you get into the journaling habit, star your favorite journal entries to easily return to them, add tags, and get alerts for entries you made on this day in previous years, or at nearby locations. With optional fingerprint or passcode security, no unauthorized eyes will be able to access your memories. That’s all free, but there’s also an optional $24.99/£22.49 yearly subscription that lets you back everything up to the cloud, access your journal on multiple devices, keep multiple journals and more. It’s not cheap, but could be worthwhile if you get really into journaling. Canva was a hit on iOS and now it’s arrived on Android, giving you a simple yet powerful way to create posters, collages, flyers, cards, Instagram posts, banners and headers for blogs or other social media, and more. It’s a graphic design app, and one that’s intuitive from the moment you launch it. Start by choosing the type of content you want to design, then take your pick from a wide selection of ready-made templates (or search for something specific). Once that’s done, you’re ready to get editing. You can tap on any part of a template to change it with context-sensitive tools. Tap on text, for example, and you can write something new, or change the font, size, color and spacing. Select an image to change the color, add a filter, adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation, or switch it for a different picture altogether – either one of the many in Canva or one from your gallery. You can also drag and rotate things, and there’s unlimited undo, so you can go back as many steps as you want if you make a mess of the whole thing. When you’re done, you can save your creation to your phone or share it online. It’s also saved in the ‘Your designs’ section of the app, which you can access from the web and other devices, so you’ll never lose a design you’ve made. Need more podcasts to listen to and not sure where to start? You could do a lot worse than Scout FM. This is a podcast discovery app with various ‘stations’ of podcasts focused on a particular theme, be it mindfulness, the latest news, entertainment, and many other topics. These stations work like playlists; rather than just giving you a list of podcasts in each category, it plays one automatically and lets you move to another with a swipe of your finger. You can pause with a tap, and there are options for skipping, changing playback speed. It’s a fairly basic player, but all the essentials are there. You probably won’t use Scout FM as your main podcast app – not least because you can’t actually choose a specific podcast to play – but if you’re open to hearing something new and just aren’t sure what to start with, it can help you find a whole new selection of favorites. Did you know that the best time to buy a car is at the end of the month, since salespeople have quotas to hit and are more likely to cut you a deal? Or that you can get gum out of hair by dipping it in coke? If you had Life Hacks you would. This appropriately named app has hundreds of hacks spread across various categories, such as ‘Money Savers’ and ‘Study Boosters’. Tap on a category and you’ll be shown a selection of cards, each of which has a life hack on it. The bottom of each card also has the option to favorite, copy or share it, so you can easily build up a library of useful hacks or share them with your friends. New hacks are also regularly added, so you won’t run out of things to learn. Some of the hacks are clearly aimed specifically at US users as they’re related to businesses like Walmart and Wendy’s, but most of them could be useful wherever you are. While many of us have moved to streaming music, there is still a place for locally stored music on Android, and Phonograph is one of the better players. Phonograph puts aesthetics and ease of use first, so it’s always pleasant to operate. The app has a Material Design look that fits with Google’s vision of Android, but it’s also packed full of album art and color, so there’s never a dull screen. You can also customize the colors and overall theme and look of the app, while the color of the main ‘now playing’ screen will change based on the album artwork of the current track. The layout is simple too, with your music library sorted by song, album, artist or playlist, and you can switch between views with a swipe, while most other options are no more than a tap away. Although not as feature-packed as some players, Phonograph has a number of handy extras and toggles, like gapless playback, information and images pulled automatically from Last.fm, a sleep timer, widgets and lock screen controls. It’s not often that Google’s apps come to iOS before Android, but Motion Stills did, as it was designed to stabilize Live Photos, so they’d come out smoother. Now though it’s out on Android too, letting you shoot a short video clip which the app stabilizes. Clips that you shoot can be saved as a video or a looping GIF and then shared on social media, and Motion Stills also lets you use a ‘Fast Forward’ mode, which will condense up to a minute of footage into a shorter clip. This too is stabilized, to keep it smooth, and you can pick the playback speed. Motion Stills only works for new footage – so you can’t import and stabilize anything you’ve already shot (though if you just want to turn old footage into a GIF there are plenty of other apps that will do that). But for anything new you shoot Motion Stills is a great way to make a GIF or short video and ensure footage remains smooth. It’s fast too, as footage is stabilized in real time, so you don’t need to wait for it to process your clip, and it’s completely free. Timbre’s full name is ‘Timbre: Cut, Join, Convert mp3’, and that tells you almost everything you need to know about it: this is an app for cutting, joining and converting files. But the MP3 bit in the name rather undersells it, because Timbre can also work its magic on WAV, FLAC, M4A, AAC, PCM, AIFF, Ogg, WMA, ALAC, MP4, AVI, FLV, MOV, WebM, MKV and MPEG files. You can convert from one file type to another, which is handy if, for example, your music or video player doesn’t like a specific file type. You can also trim down audio and video files, or combine several files into one, which you might want to do if you’re editing together a video with multiple scenes, or making a mixtape. Those are the headline features of Timbre, but there are also tools to remove audio from a video file, split a single audio file into two parts, and change the bitrate of an audio file. All of these things are simple to do, with Timbre sporting a clear interface, and it’s completely free as well. Almost unavoidably there will be times when you have to hand your phone to someone else, be it to show them some pictures or let them make a call, but what you probably don’t want is the risk of them rummaging through your other apps. Or, equally, you might not be in the habit of handing out your phone, and not really want to have to unlock it every time you use it either, but still want security for your most sensitive apps. Either way, Norton App Lock can help, by, well, locking the apps of your choice, behind a PIN, pattern or fingerprint scan. The app itself is easy to use – just set up the security options you want, then tap the padlock next to any app you want to lock. Once done, you’ll get Norton’s lock screen whenever you (or anyone else) tries to launch the app. While Norton App Lock isn’t the only option for this it is the best we’ve come across, as it’s fast, loading the instant you tap on a secured app, rather than keeping you waiting. It’s also smart enough not to re-lock an app until you turn the screen off, and it has other handy features too, like one-tap locking of all the apps it thinks you should be securing. Your phone probably came with a calculator app, but we can almost guarantee that All-in-One Calculator is better. Not only does it have a basic calculator (which changes to a scientific one when you hold your phone in landscape orientation or swipe in from the right edge), it also has over 75 specialist calculators and unit converters. These cover everything from solving equations, to converting weights and lengths, to working out percentages, averages, density and more. There’s even a currency converter, which updates to offer the current exchange rates, and a BMI calculator. Most of these you’ll probably never need to use, but next time you need to calculate or convert anything All-in-One Calculator will ensure the answer is never more than a few taps away. Evernote is an excellent app for your Android device that lets you stash and sync all your text notes, voice memos and files on your phone and access them through a desktop computer. It's a brilliant productivity tool that lets you organize and search your notes so you always have exactly what you need at your fingertips. The paid premium version unlocks offline access and use on an unlimited number of devices, among other things, but for free you still get a vast, feature-packed digitial notebook that's easy to navigate. There are probably hundreds of photo apps around, but Google Photos stands out as it gives you unlimited storage for photos and videos, all for free. That's reason enough to jump on board, especially as it works not just on Android but on iOS and computers too. But with basic editing tools and the ability to make collages and albums this is more than just photo and video storage, it aims to be your first and last stop after taking a picture. To achieve that it will need a few more features, but it's well on its way. Arriving in a brand new city is always exciting but it can also be a little daunting, especially if you need to get around using public transport. Citymapper - Bus, Tube, Rail is a brilliant app that brings you real-time information on public transport for cities around the world. You can easily plan your route using all kinds of transport, from buses to ferries, and you can be kept up to date with real-time data, including any disruptions or cancellations. An essential app for any city-bound traveller. If you fancy learning a foreign language then make sure you download Duolingo: Learn Languages Free, as it's one of those rare apps that manages to be both educational and fun, ensuring that you'll keep coming back for more to brush up on your language skills, with bite-sized, genuinely useful lessons and tests. Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch, Irish, Danish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Esperanto, Polish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian, Hebrew, Welsh, English, Swahili and Romanian can all be learned, it's mostly free and it's one of the best ways you can learn a new language with your Android device. 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| The best cheap laptop deals and sales in February 2019: prices from just £149 Posted: 31 Jan 2019 07:46 AM PST Navigating the swarms of cheap laptop deals can be a bit overwhelming with so many options to choose from here in the UK. Luckily for you, we're checking through the net's laptop sales throughout the year, so we know how to spot a bargain. With such a competitive scene in the UK for laptop deals, there's plenty to choose from all year round, so if you need to buy a new laptop sharpish, we should be able to find you something that fits with your budget nicely. We've even split this guide into sections based on price. We'll give you a bit of info about each laptop we highlight too, so you can see some specs at a glance before you click through to the store and have to browse their lengthy descriptions for those vital stats you're after. Not everyone needs a super powerful laptop, especially if you just want something for the basics like casual browsing, email and document editing, so don't feel like you have to spend £500 on a laptop for that - you can get something for far less if you want. Naturally, if you're a bit of a multitasker, love to have loads of tabs open and want a little extra grunt for media editing, we've found laptop deals with higher spec. We sometimes chuck in gaming-friendly laptops if they meet our sensible price criteria. For you Apple fans, you might be interested in our MacBook prices and deals page too. If you're from the States or Down Under, be sure to check out our selection of the top laptop deals in the US or Australia in our always-updated guides. Cheap laptop sales and deal highlights
We'll continue adding the best cheap laptop deals in the latest sales as we find them. Up next, you'll find the latest prices on some of the most popular laptops around along with a list of retailers who often have a great selection of laptop sales if nothing else takes your fancy here.
The cheapest laptop deals on these popular picks
On release, the Chromebook Flip reached new heights for the Windows-free laptops as it came rocking a proper Intel Core processor along with a HD screen. Most models nowadays come with 64GB of storage instead of the 32GB which is plenty for running apps and storing regular documents and a fair few media files - you can always use a USB drive for more space. For most users, the newer PixelBook is what we'd call 'overkill', not to mention considerably more expensive, so we'd recommend this model if you just need something for work, browsing the net and so on. The Chrome OS works beautifully in this 2-in-1 laptop's tablet mode too.
Plenty of stores still stock the very user-friendly Chromebook R11 and most have models in for a decent price, making it a strong alternative to similarly-priced Windows laptops. Unlike other cheap Chromebooks the R11 has a much more solid build that doesn't feel like tacky cheap plastic, so you certainly won't be embarrassed to be caught using it away from home or the office. And with a battery life that'll get you about eight hours on a single charge, you're all set to leave the charger at home each day. On-board storage is a little light, but there's plenty of free cloud storage available with Chromebooks nowadays if you have lots of media files you need access to regularly.
At around £200 and with a range of colourful models, the HP Stream 14 has been a popular pick as a first ever laptop or for those after something to cover the basics like web browsing or document editing. If you're going to use this quite regularly you may want to skip the 32GB model and look out for the 64GB version instead. Budget Windows laptops with just 32GB of storage tend to struggle with future system updates and some users report there's not enough space after accommodating the OS itself to continue updating it for long even if they've not installed any extra apps or store media files on it. If you can't find any decent 64GB prices, we'd consider a Chromebook instead for this price, as they can handle updates even if they have a small 32GB hard drive.
As one of the cheapest gaming laptops that will still run games at decent settings, the Acer Nitro 5 is well worth a look if you're wanting to get into PC gaming and play modern games too (just don't expect to be running Battlefield V on ultra settings ok?). The design is a bit too 'plastic' and there's no SSD on the cheapest models, but given the low price and the power of the internal spec inside we're more than willing to look past that to get our gaming fix on the go or even as an introduction to PC gaming without investing in a desktop rig.
A sturdy choice for a study laptop for school/college/uni. The HP Pavilion 15 has plenty of power for the average student's needs while keeping the costs sensible. There are plenty of configurations available too. Some favour speedy SSDs, while other go for larger regular hard drives, so it all depends on what you're going to need more really. Faster loading or more space for storing media files and downloads.
The Asus Transformer Mini series is one of the most reliable brands of 2-in-1 tablet/laptop hybrids on the market. This upgrade includes a fingerprint sensor and double the RAM at 4GB for speedier performance compared to the older models. For your money, this is one of the most impressive two-in-one transformer models out there. Available in orange/white as seen above, or in a traditional grey steel colour.
Ready to stretch that budget a bit (ok, maybe a lot) further? Then be sure to check out our selection of the very best laptops money can buy as we've used our dedicated price comparison technology to find the cheapest prices for them too. You can always come back to this page if they seem a bit overpowered (and over-expensive) for what you need. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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