Apple : Best Adidas backpacks: 5 great options to consider |
- Best Adidas backpacks: 5 great options to consider
- Streaming-only Xbox console rumors squashed by Microsoft
- The 13-inch MacBook Air gets a $250 price cut at Best Buy
- Best dedicated server hosting providers of 2019
- Firmware security has barely improved over last decade
- Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order: gameplay, release date, trailers and news
- Watch Dogs Legion: release date, news and trailers
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- Best website builders for photographers in 2019
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- Best cloud storage of 2019 online: free, paid and business options
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| Best Adidas backpacks: 5 great options to consider Posted: 16 Aug 2019 01:51 PM PDT Adidas has managed to straddle the worlds of sports and fashion masterfully, creating clothes and accessories that are on-trend and incredibly functional - precisely the qualities you want from the best college backpack. Whether you’re after a bold Adidas logo on your next backpack, or a simpler, cleaner look with three stripes or a small crest, there are plenty of options available. Compared to Nike alternatives, Adidas backpacks tend to include less padding on the inside, so might not be as good at keeping your tech safeguarded. That said, they are generally a bit more affordable, with the entry-level option costing less than £20/$25/AU$35, despite being as much a fashion statement as a means of transporting your stuff. Adidas also clearly places a focus on comfort, with padded shoulder straps, and the capacities inside are ample. The Creator backpack offers over 40 liters of space inside, with most Nike backpacks capping out at 25-35 liters. As for the type of backpacks we’ve selected, for a back to school bag we’d recommend staying away from anything leather, and we’ve also kept the price below £70/$80 (around AU$120), as well as opting for plenty of compartments. Additionally, if you suffer from sweaty-back-syndrome, as most people do, a bit of breathing space and padding on the back of the backpack should help and in its higher-end bags, that’s precisely what Adidas offers. We’ve ultimately picked five of the best Adidas backpacks for students across a range of prices, covering multiple styles, so there should be something suitable. These are products that we haven't had in our test labs, but based on our experts' opinion and knowledge of the most reputable brands around, we think these are worth looking at. Our selections, ranked from cheapest to most expensive, take into account online reviews, brand reputation, product capability, and unique features, to help you pick through the maze of choices available to you.
The Adidas Linear Classic Daily is the epitome of cheap and cheerful, despite the fact that it still delivers a stylish aesthetic with prominent Adidas branding. Being the smallest backpack on our list, this definitely won’t work for power users who need maximum space for all their tech, kit, and books. Younger students in particular though will find the Linear Classic Daily to be an excellent choice. Available in six color options, including pink, red, blue and black, you can match it with your personal style, and the main zip also has a white accent, adding a distinct design element. With a front pocket, you can keep stationery or other smaller items to hand, and while there’s no designated laptop compartment, it’s perfect for books and sports kit. Padded, adjustable shoulder straps mean the Linear Classic Daily is comfortable to wear, and when you need to take it off your back, the handle at the top of the bag means you can hold it in one hand with ease.
If you want a backpack with racing stripes, a bit more space inside and a padded laptop component, the 3-Stripes Power Backpack is an excellent balance of affordability and versatility. It looks excellent, playing vertical lines off against a two-tone backdrop. You can pick it up in some unique colors, including a reverse Kill Bill/Bruce Lee style yellow on the black scheme, along with four different tones of blue, black, or an off-white. The TPE coated base is durable and water-resistant, so you needn’t worry about resting the bag on a wet locker room floor, and it features a padded laptop sleeve, one central zip section, and a front zip pocket as well. The side mesh slip-in pockets provide space for bottle storage, while the top carry handle means it can be easily shifted off the shoulder on a full train carriage and carried in one hand. Meanwhile, adjustable side compression straps mean you can shrink it down when it’s empty, so things don’t shake about inside too much, and adjustable ergonomic air mesh shoulder straps deliver breathable comfort.
Mature, sophisticated, clean - if this sums up your desired back to school vibe, then the Premium Essentials Modern Backpack from Adidas is for you. With a two-tone/textured look, it’s stylish without being too busy, and the small but prominent Adidas crest on its front pops nicely. The Premium Essentials Modern backpack is only available in black, though the textured base is a dark grey, which plays well against the upper portion’s inkiness. It features two side pockets, an outer zip laptop compartment that can take up to a 15-inch laptop, and there’s a front zip pocket too for smaller bits like keys and pens. Inside, there are also open compartments for pens, USB cables, and other small items, and there are adjustable compression straps either side too. The backpack also includes a chest strap to secure it in place for long bouts of walking.
With pockets and compartments for days, the Adidas Top Loader gives you space to stow your kit and stay organized 24/7, whether you’re exercising at sunrise or dancing in the moonlight (and inexplicably want to do that with a backpack on to make it that much trickier). This tall, smart backpack’s look is tailored to compliment whatever you’re wearing, with its black body, vertical strap on the front, elongating it, and slip-in side pockets, as well as a convenient handle for one-handed carrying. A contemporary take on the classic backpack, the drawcord at the top keeps everything inside in place when you want to clasp it closed, and when you want your kit locked tight, you can double that up with a zip too. The laptop portion isn’t padded, but there’s a small tablet sleeve as well, so if you have both they can be neatly stowed away. By contrast, the shoulder straps are padded, and there’s a chest strap/buckle too to keep everything snug.
Whether you’re creating magic in the classroom, within a video editing suite or on the field, the Creator 365 is one of the most voluminous backpacks we’ve come across, able to take almost 45 liters of stuff, and sporting a separate slot for your laptop and your sports shoes. The shoulder straps are engineered to take the heavy weight that comes with plenty of space, whether it’s school books, tech, sports kit, or all the aforementioned, and the chest strap will help with posture too. The Creator 365 also includes a front zip pocket for quick access, an internal slip pocket for a tablet, and side compression straps, so when it isn’t full, it can be compacted for convenience. The bag also has laser-cut ventilation holes dotted around it as well as an air mesh back panel so that it can breathe from the front to the back. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Streaming-only Xbox console rumors squashed by Microsoft Posted: 16 Aug 2019 01:20 PM PDT Contrary to rumors, Microsoft is not working on a streaming-only Xbox console. In an interview with Gamespot, Microsoft’s executive VP of Gaming Phil Spencer set the record straight: the company isn’t working on a streaming-only Xbox console at the moment. After the Redmond company announced last year that it is working on a game streaming technology (known as xCloud), as well as new game consoles, Spencer said that Xbox fans may have taken that to mean that a streaming console is in the works. The May 2019 release of the disc-less Xbox One S All-Digital Edition only fueled those rumors further. However, while this new console doesn’t play physical disc, it does require for games to be downloaded before you can play them.
We’re not that close to full-time game streaming yetThe good news is that Microsoft’s gaming division is still hard at work in making that console-quality game streaming service a reality. It’s indeed full steam ahead for this game-streaming technology. According to Spencer, “We are not working on a streaming-only console right now. We are looking at the phone in your pocket as the destination for you to stream, and the console that we have allows you to play the games locally." Dubbed Project xCloud, this technology is intended to complement Microsoft’s console hardware and give gamers the ability to utilize Xbox functionality through their other devices, perhaps with as little lag as possible. Currently in beta testing at the company, Project xCloud will be in public beta for select markets as early as September and to the rest of the gaming world by 2020. As for whether or not a streaming-only Xbox console might still be in the stars, who knows? With the direction Microsoft is taking, a streaming-only console could still happen someday. Although, if this game streaming service proves to be a success, we probably won’t need one.
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| The 13-inch MacBook Air gets a $250 price cut at Best Buy Posted: 16 Aug 2019 01:17 PM PDT If you're looking for discounted Apple devices, then look no further than Best Buy's Apple shopping event. You can find massive discounts on laptops, Apple Watches, AirPods, Phones, and more. You can see our roundup of the best laptops under $500: the best budget laptops around. We've taken a look at the other models of MacBook deals too. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Best dedicated server hosting providers of 2019 Posted: 16 Aug 2019 01:02 PM PDT Opting for a dedicated server means that you get an entire server to yourself. There's no sharing of CPU time, RAM or bandwidth, which means your website stays responsive at all times. Shared web hosting can appear to be amazing value, with feature-packed products available for just a few pounds every month. But the reality is often very different, and they're not always the bargains they seem. Very low prices probably mean the host is cramming more customers onto each server, for instance. Performance will be poor as there aren't enough resources to go around, and the extra load could mean more server problems and downtime. Dedicated hosting implies that you also get far more control over how the server is configured. You can add and remove software, install updates or tweak all settings, allowing you to optimize the server for your specific needs. Best of all, dedicated hosting contracts often come with fast and knowledgeable support. The best providers will even monitor your server for issues, like failed services, and can often fix them before you've realized there was a problem. This kind of power doesn't come cheap, and although there are some good signup deals around, you can easily spend $50-$140 a month and more on just a basic package. With that kind of investment, it's important to make the right choice. In this article, we're going to highlight five top dedicated hosting providers who you might want to check out first.
German-based 1&1 (as October 2018 called 1&1 IONOS) is well known as a budget hosting provider, but the company doesn't just offer value for website newbies: its dedicated server range starts at a very low $55 a month for the first three months, then $75. As you might imagine, 1&1 has had to cut a few corners to hit that price point. The cheapest plans are relatively basic, with limited hardware, although network bandwidth got an upgrade with 1Gbit/s. Features like SSD drives and server management (1&1 updates, monitors and manages the server for you) cost extra. Oh, and there's also a setup fee of at least $50. But there are plus points, too, including unlimited bandwidth, bundled Symantec SSL certificates, and the Plesk Onyx server control panel thrown in for free. Overall, even the most limited 1&1 dedicated server plan has enough power to handle many tasks. Additionally, you get a personal consultant free of charge. Demanding users have plenty of paid upgrades to explore, including a faster CPU, more RAM and storage, a bundled backup service and more. Some of these add-ons include more than you might expect, too. Paying $14 a month for management doesn't just mean 1&1 will look after server admin: you also get a website builder, simple analytics, a photo slideshow service, automatic backup and restore for WordPress sites, and more. Sounds like a good deal to us.
Hostwinds offer a range of dedicated servers with powerful configuration options that could make them ideal for anything from general to heavy-duty use, which makes them ideal for hosting everything from company websites to gaming servers. There are multiple base options to select, which you can then customize according to your preferences. The cheapest models have a quad-core single processor and start with at least 8GB of RAM, which would make them ideal for most ordinary uses. However, more expensive (but well-priced) models offer multiple processors and up to sixteen cores, as well as RAM options that go as high as 82GB, making these potentially serious workhorses capable of handling the most demanding tasks. Pricing isn't clear, however - initial list prices displayed by each model don't factor in RAM and number of IPs. This means if you click on the option to "customize" a server a price clearly displayed in a blue box will show the total cost according to whichever RAM and IP options are selected by default. Otherwise, there are a good set of additional options available for customization, with different RAID configurations and a number of operating systems available, from standard CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, or Fedora options, as well as a Windows Server option. A 1 Gps network link means that whichever bandwidth option you choose (all of which are generous) you shouldn't need to worry about traffic being throttled at your end. Full server management is provided, which will be handy for those not wanting to get overwhelmed by sys admin duties, with both server monitoring and nightly backups also provided as part of the service. If there's one criticism it's that a control panel such as CPanel, Plesk, or Exim are not provided as standard, which can simplify a lot of server operations for users, but if you contact Hostwinds they will be happy to advise on the option as an addon if you don't feel comfortable with setting up one yourself.
Opting for dedicated rather than shared hosting will speed up your website in itself, but there's still plenty of room for improvement. A2 Hosting's managed server plans blend multiple tricks and technologies to try and ensure you see the best possible performance. This starts with a powerful set of server components: OPcache and APC may speed up PHP processing by 50%. Memcached holds key MySQL data in RAM for faster retrieval, while mod_pagespeed uses multiple tricks to optimize site content. SPDY and HTTP/2 accelerate page loads even further, and support for technologies like edge side includes and websockets allow more fine-tuned optimizations of your site. A2 Hosting plans also include Cloudflare's free CDN and its Railgun Optimizer, which "compresses previously uncacheable web objects up to 99.6%" and may result in an average 200% performance increase. In reality you might not see anything like that – the boost will vary greatly, depending on your site – but it's still a technology worth having. Elsewhere, performance-boosting add-ons include RAID 1 SSD storage of up to 2 x 1TB. An optional Turbo Boost feature costing from $35 a month replaces Apache with the LiteSpeed server, apparently bringing up to 20x faster page loads, and another add-on can cache the HTML contents of a page, then speedily reload it later without needing to run PHP. We were happy to see cPanel is thrown in, too (it's often a chargeable extra with other hosts). These kind of professional features come at a cost, with even the most basic Sprint plan priced from around $99 a month. But if speed is your top priority then this company could be worth a try, especially as A2's ‘Anytime Money Back Guarantee’ will refund your fees if you cancel within 30 days of your order.
It may not have the profile of the big-name competition, but OVH is a hosting giant, with more than a million customers using 25+ data centers around the world. The OVH dedicated hosting range stands out for its long list of data centers, with hosting available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Poland, Singapore and the UK. Some of these locations offer cheaper hosting than others, and, unusually, OVH passes the savings on to you. For example, one of the UK server costs $86, but switching to Poland cuts the minimum cost to $79. Experienced users will also appreciate the many advanced options that OVH makes available. You don't just get access to SATA or SSD storage, for instance – the company also supports SAS and the supercharged NVMe (non-volatile memory-based storage, potentially five times faster than SSD). If you really know what you're doing, you could buy several servers, link them together in a private cloud, and maybe add a load-balancing IP to spread peak-time demand or keep your website running if one server fails. Novice users are likely to be confused by over 50 available server configurations, and figuring out exactly what's available can take a little time and effort. But the range of data centers alone could make OVH an interesting choice for many users, and if you're the demanding type, its array of expert-level extras are also worth a closer look.
Liquid Web is a popular provider of high-end business hosting products ranging from managed WordPress and WooComerce plans, to cloud VPS, dedicated servers and private clouds. The company's dedicated offerings may look expensive, with a starting price of $199 a month, but they're also far better specified than most of the budget competition. Even the cheapest dedicated server includes two speedy 240GB SSD drives, for instance. There's also a 1TB SATA backup drive provided, making it easy and convenient to run regular backups. The plan includes a dedicated IP. Support for Cloudflare CDN should boost your website speeds, and your server can be hosted in one of three data centers (Arizona, Michigan, or the Netherlands). Although, the special entry plans are only hosted in Michigan. Most importantly, all dedicated servers are managed by Liquid Web's professional support team. They monitor system health, proactively respond to notifications (for example, they’ll restart a failed service), alongside taking care of installing and updating the operating system. If you have any difficulties, support is available 24/7/365, and the company guarantees a 59 second response time via phone or chat, 30 minutes via ticket and email. Factor in the wide range of optional add-ons – load balancers, firewalls, VPN – and the range has more than enough power for almost any purpose. If you're managing a heavy-duty website, Liquid Web needs to be on your shortlist. You might also want to check out our other website hosting buying guides:
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| Firmware security has barely improved over last decade Posted: 16 Aug 2019 12:40 PM PDT A new survey of over 6,000 firmware images has found no improvement in firmware security over the last 15 years as well as lax security standards for the software running connected devices from Linksys, NETGEAR and other major hardware vendors. The survey was carried out by chief scientist at the Cyber Independent Testing Lab (CITL), Sarah Zatcko who explained that firmware security is worse off than many thought, saying: “We found no consistency in a vendor or product line doing better or showing improvement. There was no evidence that anybody is making a concerted effort to address the safety hygiene of their products.”
The CITL study surveyed firmware from 18 different vendors including ASUS, D-link, Linksys, NETGEAR, Ubiquiti and others. The team analyzed over 6,000 firmware versions created from 2003 to 2018 as part of the first logitudinal study of Internet of Things (IoT) safety. Firmware securityResearchers at CITL studied publicly available firmware images to compile their study and evaluated them based on the inclusion of standard security features such as the use of non-executable stacks, Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) and stack guards which are used to prevent buffer overflow attacks. CITL found that firmware from commonly used manufacturers failed to implement basic security features and this was also true when the researchers tested the most recent versions of the firmware. There was some good news including the fact that almost all of Linksys and NETGEAR's recent router firmware included non-executable stacks. However, other common security features like ASLR or stack guards were not implemented according to CITL's data. The researchers documented 299 positive changes in firmware security scores over the 15 years covered by the study but they also found 360 negative changes during the same period. Analyzing the entire data set actually showed that firmware security appeared to get worse over time. The poor scores these devices earned suggest that many companies making IoT devices have not adapted their practices to account for the increased risks that come with connected devices. Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting connected devices because when compared to Microsoft's Windows, Apple's macOS and Google Chrome, they are easy prey.
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| Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order: gameplay, release date, trailers and news Posted: 16 Aug 2019 12:28 PM PDT Hold on to your lightsabers: there's a new Star Wars game on the way, and it's called Jedi: Fallen Order. And we've now got the first concrete details about it, thanks to E3 2019 and an extended gameplay trailer that dropped in June. In development by Respawn Entertainment (the studio behind Apex Legends and Titanfall), Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was announced during E3 2018 but we didn't get a proper look at the game until early in 2019, during a special panel at the annual Star Wars Celebration in Chicago, before EA lifted the covers completely at E3 2019. While the official reveal only gave us a glimpse at a story trailer, it was more than enough to get us hyped for the upcoming game. E3 2019 gave us a far more meaty look at the game - including some lightsaber-fueled gameplay - before the developer dropped an extended demo at the end of the month. While fans of the galactic franchise have seen official tie-ins in the form of Star Wars Battlefront I and II, the new entry takes on a different tack, focusing on a single-player experience more in line with 2008's The Force Unleashed – and we have all the concrete news and wild speculation you could want below. [Update: Gamescom 2019 is approaching and EA will be there. Read on to find out more about what we're hoping to see.] Cut to the chase
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order release dateEA has now confirmed Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will release on November 15, 2019, just in time for Christmas and the long-awaited release of Star Wars Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker. If you pre-order the Deluxe Edition ahead of the game's launch, you'll get two exclusive in-game lightsaber colors plus an exclusive hilt, in addition to skins for your droid and star ship. EA and Respawn will also include a digital art book in the Deluxe Edition and a few behind-the-scenes videos. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order trailers and storyYou'll take the role of Cal Kestis, a former Jedi padawan (AKA, a student of the Force). The game is set in the period following Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith – the fateful time when the evil Emperor Palpatine executed Order 66, which saw the Jedi ambushed and killed by their own supporting Clone Trooper soldiers. Few survived and were forced into hiding. And that seems to include Cal! A youngster only partially through his training, Cal has been forced into hiding, working construction sites and trying to keep a low-profile as the Jedi-hunting Imperial Inquisition continues to track down any remaining survivors. The story trailer shows Cal having to use his Force powers to defend himself against rogue troopers, and to save a friend from falling from an accident. The trailer suggests the game will have some lavish set-pieces and environments, and hinted at a very-story-driven experience to enjoy. Check it out below: You can also watch the EA Play 2019 gameplay reveal for the game below, but note that you're going to have to jump into around the 30 minute mark to skip the build up portion, that's basically just 30 minutes of an EA logo! If you just want to see the game in-action, there's a brand-new official gameplay trailer that should provide everything you need to know about the game - including a few surprises. (Spoiler warning!) This is the same demo that journalists and attendees saw at the EA Play event. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order gameplayEA Play 2019 showed us a 15 minute slice of gameplay from the game, roughly 3 hours into the game. We were shown Chewbacca's homeland Kashyyyk, where Jedi Cal is trying to kickstart the rebirth of the Jedi order. But the poor Wookies are enslaved by the Empire! So Cal has to try to help them out.
Walking through a tech-filled jungle corridor, gameplay at first doesn't look unlike Uncharted 4, with a tool that lets you swing from beams, and some wall-running ala Respawn's other game, Titanfall. Cal's pretty nimble, able to clamber up walls and climb as if he was Assassin's Creed's Ezio. He moves weightily. After meeting up with some resistance fighters, he carves his way through a door and comes across a burning refinery, using his lightsaber as a torch in the darkness. A battle ensues below and Cal needs to reach a troop of Stormtroopers , so force-pushes a tree below to make a path to them.
Here we see our first glimpse of lightsaber action. Cal can force pull and push troops, as well as throwing his lightsaber at them for a ranged attack. Combat is lock-on focussed, not unlike Dark Souls for one-on-one combat, but seems massively more forgiving. There also seems to be finishing animations that trigger when you've took a baddie to low health. Lightsaber combat, thankfully, looks weighty and measured – this will be a tactical fighting game, rather than a hack and slash, with the classic ability to slash blaster bolts back at an enemy.
Cal also seems to have the ability to focus the force and slow time, letting him take on dangerous foes, like flamethrower stormtroopers with a little more ease, as well as avoiding environmental hazards like spinning blades. One cool moment had him slow time, and force pull a stormtrooper towards him in time to use it as a human-shield against the very same blaster bolt it had fired at Cal moments earlier. The same technique can be used to halt a foe momentarily in its tracks – very Kylo Ren. So far, levels, though expansive, seem fairly linear – you're very much set along a path from one action scene to another, although the densely-designed levels prevent it from appearing too much like a series of corridors, back to back. Each scene has lots of AI interactions between NPCs, too – you'll see stormtroopers battling the native, giant-beetle-like creatures of Kashyyyk, and timing your attack against them could help to swing the odds in your favor.
Cal acquires upgrade points as he defeats enemies, and also seems to be able to complete side missions if he goes off the beaten path and explores levels in detail. C The timing of the story, set after Revenge of the Sith, also means there was a familiar face or two turning up. Rogue One's Saw Gerrera, aka actor Forest Whitaker, was present, as was a bot that looked like K2SO. You'll have to fight this one, though.
Skill points will go into your force abilities, letting you upgrade force pulls and push, double jumps and force slowing tricks. You'll get a droid, too, BD1, to help you on your way, offering the ability to hack terminals, heal your player and manage your hologram map, as well as being your buddy. You won't be able to turn to the Dark Side though – Cal's good to the core.
So far then, so good. This is a classic-era Star Wars game, giving you a taste of the most-loved period in Star Wars history. Rather than the original reveal's suggestion that Cal will be a weak newbie Jedi, he's going to be fairly advanced in his training. And, it's all cannon – these characters are going to turn up in the wider Star Wars universe. It looks visually impressive... except for the Wookies. They looked like the plastic figures from the 70s. A bit more free-flowing, walking-carpet Wookie hair please, EA! Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order news and rumorsGamescom 2019 Gamescom 2019 is approaching and EA is going to be attending in some capacity. The publisher has been confirmed to be one of many taking part in the Gamescom: Opening Night livestream taking place on August 19. Whether or not Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will be part of any announcements is as yet unknown. Given, however, that the game is a matter of months from release and Gamescom is one of the final big platforms to show off the game before launch day, it'd make sense for it to be present. There's not long to wait, though, so watch this space! Those Sekiro Comparisons Jedi: Fallen Order has recently attracted some comparisons to From Software's Sekiro with regards to its combat. Rather than be perturbed by this, though, Respawn Entertainment has said it finds it "badass" and "a little comforting". In a recent interview with Edge Magazine (via GamesRadar), lead combat designer Jason de Heras explained that "It just confirmed to us that you don’t have to limit everything the player does; let them have a little more agency, and then let the AI give them a slap on the wrist, or a punch in the face. It was a positive thing for us to know there was a game that was similar to ours. Very similar." The team readily admitted to being fans of From Software's games, though given Jedi: Fallen Order was in development before Sekiro's release the similarities can't be much more than coincidence. Game director, Stig Asmussen, said that he and his team had a look at previous Star Wars games to determine what worked in them and how those fun elements could be brought forward. The Jedi Knight games, for example, were singled out as being good examples of lightsaber combat because they "really sold the lethality of the lightsaber" and served as better inspiration than the kind of heavy-handed combat found in Force Unleashed. Protagonist potential In a recent interview with Game Informer, game director Stig Asmussen offered some insight into the decision making process behind Cal Kestis being chosen as the game’s protagonist. There was a point early on in the game’s development, Asmussen revealed, when an alien protagonist was considered but was soon discounted “because we felt like—no pun intended—that would alienate a lot of people.” While Asmussen admitted that he would be interested in an alien protagonist, he said the team wanted to make sure that “there was a real human connection to the character”. Having an alien protagonist in a Star Wars title certainly has the potential to offer a new and interesting perspective on the universe so it seems a shame that the opportunity was passed by. Fingers crossed it’s something that will be re-explored in the future. That said, Fallen Order has made a good impression thus far and hopes are high ahead of the game’s November launch. Retail box art Here's what the Standard edition look like:
Standard Edition (Image credit: EA) And the Deluxe edition:
Deluxe Edition (Image credit: EA) EA doesn't plan to release Fallen Order on Switch You can check out Ingram's reply to a fan tweet below: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was livestreamed – check it out But luckily for fans that couldn't make the trek to the event, EA livestreamed it. Check out EA's announcement tweet below for a chance to replay it: The galaxy-wide premiere saw the head of Respawn Entertainment, Vince Zampella, and game director, Stig Asmussen (whose previous work includes God of War 3), revealing the much-anticipated details of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order toys -confirmed Development is well underway A Padawan called Cal? Confirmed It's set after Revenge of the Sith This places it after the Galactic Empire hunted the 10,000-strong Jedi Order practically to extinction, leaving only a small fraction of Jedi alive (aka Order 66). With the promise that the game will be set 'in the dark times', it sounds like our Jedi protagonist may be more the hunted than the hunter.
Star Wars: Battlefront II. (Image credit: EA) Could famous Jedi appear? The single-player mode comes first – and there will be no microtransactions It looks like a multiplayer component won't be available at all in the game – surprising given EA's focus in recent years on games that extend beyond a single play session. Even more surprising is the fact that there will be no microtransactions at all, ever, in Fallen Jedi. It's great news considering the industry falls over itself to offer chunks of games piecemeal these days – but don't be surprised if that means there will be an aggressive DLC system instead. I find your lack of faith disturbing Jedi: Fallen Order has been handed to a different studio, albeit one that's still a subsidiary of EA. But Respawn has garnered a lot of respect as the studio behind Titanfall and Titanfall 2, two critically acclaimed sci-fi action games that pit players against each other in giant mechanized suits, and which both came with strong single-player and multiplayer offerings. (Image credits: Respawn Entertainment) Keep checking back here for all the latest Jedi: Fallen Order news This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Watch Dogs Legion: release date, news and trailers Posted: 16 Aug 2019 12:13 PM PDT Ubisoft has officially announced Watch Dogs: Legion during its E3 2019 conference. Rumors suggested the latest installation to the Watch Dog series would take place in post-Brexit London and it turns out they were spot on. Ubisoft officially announced the game alongside lengthy gameplay footage that sees you playing as Ian (a character straight out of a Guy Ritchie film) navigating the streets of futuristic London including Camden Market and Piccadilly Circus. Here's all we know about the third Watch Dogs game, coming in 2020. [Update: Watch Dogs Legion is one of the games heading to Gamescom 2019 with Ubisoft. Find out in what capacity it'll be there below.] Cut to the chase
Watch Dogs Legion trailersUbisoft revealed the first trailer for Watch Dogs 3 - officially titled Watch Dogs Legion - at E3 2019. Watch Dogs: Legion seems to see you taking on an organization called Albion who have distributed riot drones all over London to keep people in line. You're a member of the resistance: DeadSec. What's interesting about Legion is that you play as more than one character (a whole host actually), with permadeath wiping out the one you're playing if you happen to end up on the wrong end of an electric bullet. You can apparently play as anyone - with every Londoner being recruitable and fully simulated. Check out the trailer below: Watch Dogs Legion news and rumorsGamescom 2019 Ubisoft has confirmed that it will be one of the many publishers attending Gamescom 2019 and its plans for the show have been finalised. Do they involve Watch Dogs Legion? Unsurprisingly, yes they do. Ubisoft will be part of the Gamescom: Opening Night livestream so it's quite possible (but not certain) that we'll see some new Watch Dogs announcements. What is certain, though, is that there'll be a live theatre gameplay demo of Watch Dogs Legion shown at the Ubisoft booth stage. E3 2019 From what we saw during E3, Legion seems to be much more combat-heavy than the previous entries we've seen in the Watchdogs series and offer a much more developed open-world. But what's really caught our eye is the realistic interpretation of London - even if it's a Bladerunner, neon feverdream. Watch Dogs: Legion is due for release on March 6, 2020.
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| Formjacking attacks target customers at checkout Posted: 16 Aug 2019 11:50 AM PDT Cybercriminals are increasingly hijacking online forms such as login pages and shopping carts as they hunt for personal financial information (PFI) according to new research from F5 Labs. The firm's Application Report 2019 examined 760 breach reports to discover that formjacking, which collects data from a user's web browser and then moves it to an attacker-controlled location, remains one of the most common attack tactics on the web. According to F5 Labs data, this attack method was responsible for 71 percent of all analyzed web-related data breaches throughout 2018.
Senior Threat Eveangelist at F5 Networks, David Warburton explained how outsourcing parts of web application code led to formjacking's rise in popularity among cybercriminals, saying: “Formjacking has exploded in popularity over the last two years. Web applications are increasingly outsourcing critical components of their code, such as shopping carts and card payment systems, to third parties. Web developers are making use of imported code libraries or, in some cases, linking their app directly to third party scripts hosted on the web. As a result, businesses find themselves in a vulnerable position as their code is compiled from dozens of different sources – almost all of which are beyond the boundary of normal enterprise security controls. Since many web sites make use of the same third-party resources, attackers know that they just need to compromise a single component to skim data from a huge pool of potential victims.” FormjackingBy examining breach data, F5 Labs found that 83 incidents in 2019 were attributed to formjacking attacks on web payment forms which impacted close to 1.4m payment cards. The firm also found that 49 percent of successful attacks occurred in the retail industry, 14 percent were related to business services and 11 percent were focused on manufacturing. However, the transport industry was the biggest victim of formjacking attacks that targeted personal financial information and during F5's window of analysis, 60 percent of all credit card related thefts happened in this sector. Injection vulnerabilities have been around for some time but F5 Labs believes that they remain a growing and evolving problem as shifting industry trends have led to new risks and the widening of attack surfaces. To prevent falling victim to formjacking, F5 Labs recommends that businesses create an inventory of web applications, patch their environment, scan for vulnerabilities, monitor for code changes, enable multifactor authentication and monitor for newly registered domains and certificates.
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| Best website builders for photographers in 2019 Posted: 16 Aug 2019 10:08 AM PDT Plenty of online tools will help you create a website in just a few minutes with just a few clicks, but they're not all geared towards helping photographers – those people who want to show off big, beautiful galleries of images online. If you're looking for the best website builder that's going to help you showcase your work as stylishly as possible, we've picked out four of the best for you to consider. They all score highly for their pricing, features, ease of use, and the choice of templates they offer for getting a photo portfolio up on the web. Once you've picked your favorite, you'll soon be getting your photos up in front of a potential audience of millions. Some sites even give you options for selling copies of your images via the web. Find the best website builder for photographers
Format sample photography site If you're after simplicity first and foremost in your website builder, then check out Format – it doesn't have as many advanced features or options as some of its competitors, but that means less hassle for you and a shorter time between signing up for the site and getting your photos online. You've got 23 different templates to pick from (plus additional premium ones if you go down that route), all of which can be customized in terms of pages, layouts and colors. Every theme adapts automatically to desktop or mobile, and you can preview all this in your browser. As you would hope, getting images up on your site is simple, and once they're on the page they can be dragged and dropped into position as required. If you're happy with original design of the template you've picked – and the templates are all professional-looking and clean – then you really can be online within minutes. We also like Format because of the extras it throws in. The platform lets you bring in your own domain name, set up an online store, and add a blog, with video tutorials generously spread around to help if you get stuck. If you do know a little bit of website coding, you can edit the CSS of your site too. There is a 14-day free trial available to test out the service.
Carbonmade sample photography site On the scale of basic to advanced, Carbonmade is somewhere towards the former, but its service is specifically for creatives – and that means getting your work up in a cool-looking theme is very straightforward, and actually a lot of fun too. You only get a handful of templates to pick from, so if you'd rather spend time agonizing over a choice of hundreds, then Carbonmade perhaps isn't for you. Once you're in, the site builder has one of the best workflows we've seen, letting you easily create projects and pages, and get your pictures uploaded to the site. It's one of those interfaces that you really don't need an instruction manual to get around. Everything from the published/unpublished status of your pages, to the use of thumbnails for navigation, is simple to configure. The customization tweaks you've got, like the option to drop in a logo or a favicon, are all well chosen too. There are some neat extras like the Carbonmade Messages (which lets you interact with all the people interested in your work) or the ability to connect your custom domain. Additionally, If you have a Dropbox account, you can upload files directly from there. You don't get anything in the way of advanced features, like online sales or pages with password protection, but not everyone needs those anyway – if you'd rather get your site up, get it looking good, and then get on with your photography, Carbonmade is definitely worth a look.
Squarespace sample photography site Squarespace is one of the biggest names in website building, and it offers dozens of top-notch templates for getting your portfolio of pictures up on the web. Whether you want your images to show up at full-screen size or you prefer the grid look, Squarespace should have something to suit. All the image cropping and resizing is taken care of for you, so your site is going to look great on any kind of device, and there's actually quite a lot of flexibility when it comes to how your images are presented. You can use your own branding, fonts, and colors, or take the defaults that Squarespace gives you. To protect your images, the platform lets you password-protect certain gallery pages, and if you need to have text flowing alongside your pictures then that's simple to do as well. Embedding a contact form only takes a few minutes if you want to give clients a way to get in touch. Everything can be managed through an attractive web browser interface and you can also add and remove pictures from an iOS app if you need to. It's easy to see why Squarespace is one of the more popular website builders, and it's well suited to photographers.
Dunked sample photography site Dunked doesn't have the same range of templates or the same depth of features as some of its rivals, but getting everything up and running is really simple and really fast. Take a look at the templates on the home page – if you like any of them, give Dunked a whirl. As with most similar services, you've got a basic drag-and-drop interface for getting your pictures in the right place. If needed, images can be split up into pages and categories, so whether you want to stick your whole career online or just a few select snaps, Dunked makes it possible. Even though the choice of templates isn't the widest, they're all designed to adapt to screens of any size, and if you know a bit of CSS then you can tweak various aspects of the site design – just don't expect a massive amount of help beyond the basics of colors and fonts. Changes can be applied at any time and only take seconds. We like the balance Dunked hits in getting you started very quickly and then giving you a few customization options later on. It's going to be too basic for some, but if you don't want to spend hours pondering over layouts, it may well suit you perfectly. You can try out the service free for 10 days.
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| China may be finally softening its VPN stance Posted: 16 Aug 2019 10:07 AM PDT As part of China's ongoing efforts to attract foreign investment, the city of Beijing has unveiled its plans to allow overseas firms to invest in VPN services within a trial zone by the end of the year. Foreign investors will soon be allowed to invest in VPN services though foreign ownership in VPN providers will be capped at 50 percent according to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce. The State Council approved the relaxation of its restrictions back in January in an effort “to attract foreign telecom operators to come and provided VPN services for foreign-invested companies in Beijing” according to Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce.
Senior emerging Asia economist at AXA Investment Managers, Aidan Yao provided further insight on the new policy to the South China Morning Post, saying: “The long-term implications are China is open for business, and continuing to embrace globalisation and the multipolar world order by further integrating itself into the global system. These latest measures are also significant as they are targeting the services and consumption related industries, which are the engines of future growth.” VPN servicesThe new policy is part of a three-year plan by the Beijing Municipal Government to open up the service sector after the city's economy slowed to 6.3 percent during the first half of 2019. China's Great Firewall currently blocks access to 135 of the world's top 1,000 websites and foreign firms must rely on VPN services to get around the country's restrictions in order to do business. According to the municipal government, online games as well as video and audio programs will also welcome foreign investment but they will be required to meet Chinese data security standards. However, foreign investment in online news, publishing, audio and video is still technically banned in China. By opening up investment in VPN services to foreign firms, China may finally be softening its historically hard stance on VPN usage within its borders.
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| Best cloud storage of 2019 online: free, paid and business options Posted: 16 Aug 2019 10:00 AM PDT Businesses and consumers are increasingly reliant on cloud based storage solutions instead of in-house, on-premise local storage hardware. Your files are stored in the cloud, which is a simplified view of what is essentially someone else's infrastructure (data center, server, hard drive, connectivity etc). Ever since Amazon popularised storage online with S3 (Simple Storage Service), 13 years ago, Google data shows that interest for "Cloud Storage" alone has increased by 40x over the past decade. So much so that people less frequently refer to it as "online storage". Given the multitude of cloud storage providers out there, one has to wisely choose a provider who will offer the maximum amount of low-cost storage and bandwidth, while still keeping your data safe. This list represents our top picks for cloud storage: most offer a free tier allowing you to see if they're right for you before handing over any hard-earned cash. Business users will need to consider carefully what their needs are as terms and conditions as well as quality of service is likely to differ significantly from their consumer alter ego. Go straight to your desired option through the jump links below:
IDrive secures servers, desktop system and mobile devices with equal aplomb (Image credit: IDrive) IDrive offers continuous syncing of your files, even those on network drives. The web interface supports sharing files by email, Facebook and Twitter. Cautious or click-happy users will be pleased to hear that files deleted from your computer are not automatically deleted from the server, so there's less danger of removing something important by accident. Up to 30 previous versions of all files backed to your account are retained.
Another thing to note is that IT admins have access to IDrive Thin Client application, which allows them to backup/restore, manage settings, and more for all their connected computers via a centralized dashboard. For photos, you have a neat facial recognition feature that helps you to automatically organize them as well as syncing them across all your lined devices. IDrive also offers IDrive Express which sends you a physical hard disk drive if you lose all your data, allowing for the swift restoration of all your backed up files. That applies to the newly introduced disk image backup feature. A business version exists and offers priority support, single sign-on as well as unlimited users and server backup.
pCloud delivers an affordable Cloud storage facility with a selection of apps (Image credit: pCloud) While some bandwidth limits apply, there seems to be no limit to the size of files you can upload, so feel free to sync large media files with pCloud. The service is available for all desktop and mobile platforms – users can also log in via the website. The company itself is registered in Switzerland which has strong privacy laws and you can also pay a premium of $4.99 a month for pCloud Crypto to lock (and unlock) individual files with passwords. Note that it is one of the very few cloud services that offer lifetime subscriptions. The latter come with 30 days trash history and unlimited remote upload traffic (you only need the URL of the file); you are - as expected - limited on the download link traffic: 500GB for the Premium package and 2TB for the Premium Plus package.
Image credit: Zoolz There are lots of things to like about Zoolz Cloud Backup for both personal use and business deployment. It offers an easy to follow interface with excellent web management options, and the ability to combine cloud operations with local external storage. This UK-based company leverages Amazon’s Glacier infrastructure to deliver a compelling price/performance ratio, with prices far cheaper than the competition. With 20PB of data stored for three million users for more than a decade, Zoolz is also not as ephemeral as some of its rivals.
Image credit: Degoo Swedish outfit Degoo is not a household name, and therefore it comes as a surprise that it has managed to carve itself a niche inside the ultra-competitive cloud storage market. With only two offerings, this outfit has managed to attract more than 15 million users globally since its inception earlier in 2019 – an estimated 20,000 people join Degoo every day. It is one of the few cloud storage companies worldwide that encrypts stored files and disperses them across four different continents. It also supports two-factor authentication via the Google sign-in.
Image credit: Mega With an insanely generous free tier and a simple drag-and-drop interface, New Zealand-based Mega is one of the cloud storage heavyweights. There's a handy mobile app to allow you to upload files and photos, as well as sync clients with desktop machines. The company also has business tailored plans. Mega claims that all data stored in its cloud is encrypted on your device before it reaches the firm’s servers. As the company has released the source code to its sync client, experts can check that there are no vulnerabilities. Price: 50GB free. 200GB for $6 a month (£4.50, €4.99, around AU$7.50). 1TB for $12 a month (£9, €9.99, around AU$16). 4TB for $23 a month (£17, €19.99, around AU$30). 8TB for $35 a month (£26, €29.99, around AU$46).
Image credit: Microsoft OneDrive is integrated into Windows 10's File Explorer. You don't have to download an additional app – it's there to use out of the box, which is obviously very convenient for those who have made the jump to Microsoft’s newest operating system. Microsoft's Photos app can also use OneDrive to sync pictures across all your devices. As of late March, Autodesk AutoCAD has been integrated with OneDrive which is good news for anyone using the software's drafting tools. There's an app for Android and iOS devices, and there's even one in the App Store for Mac users (although it has received mixed reviews). Price: 5GB free. 100GB for $3 a month (£1.99, around AU$4). 1TB for $7 a month (£5.99, around AU$11). Unlimited (as part of Onedrive for Business) for $10 a month (£7.99, around AU$14)
Image credit: Apple If you want to back up your iPhone to iCloud, you'll need more than the free 5GB allowance Apple gives you, but compared to rivals iCloud prices are very reasonable. The Mac Finder app integrates iCloud Drive, where you can store any files you wish. Documents created in the iWork office suite are also saved to iCloud and can sync across your devices. Windows users can also sync their files with iCloud Drive using the official client, and access the iWork apps on the iCloud website. Price: 5GB free. 50GB for $0.99 a month (£0.79, AU$1.49). 200GB for $2.99 (£2.24, AU$4). 2TB for $9.99 (£8, AU$13)
Image credit: Google Google Drive is a natural choice for owners of Android devices as it's already integrated, but users of other platforms may appreciate the generous free storage too. You can also store high definition photos on your mobile phone with companion app Google Photos, and make use of Google's own office suite (now known as G Suite). Also, upgrading to paid Google Drive plans is now called Google One (although it might not yet be available, depending on the region). Downsides include the fact that the web interface isn't very easy-to-use, although Windows and Mac users can download a desktop app to drag-and-drop files easily. Price: 15GB free. 100GB for $1.99 a month (£1.59, around AU$2.50). 200GB for $2.99 a month (£2.35, around AU$4.10). 2TB for $9.99 a month (£8, around AU$13). 10TB for $99.99 a month (£74, around AU$130). 20TB for $199.99 a month (£148, around AU$260). 30TB for $299.99 a month (£236, around AU$426).
Image credit: Box Box's website currently seems to be pushing its Business plans as clicking ‘sign up’ takes you to the pricing page where for $15 per user (£11, around AU$19) you can benefit from advanced collaboration options and unlimited storage. But there is a 10GB free option, too. As Box has been around for a while, it is supported by a number of mainstream apps such as Google Docs and Office 365. It's also integrated with G-Suite, which means Docs, Sheets and Slides are automatically saved and managed in Box. Additionally, like OneDrive, it's also been integrated with AutoCAD. The Box Sync client is available from the Downloads page for Mac and Windows, plus there's also an official Android client. Price: 10GB free. 100GB for around $10 a month (£7.50, around AU$13)
Image credit: NextCloud NextCloud isn’t an online cloud storage provider itself, but offers free software to download and install a cloud storage service on your own server. Using a server on your home network for cloud storage is much faster. You can also enable encryption and make sure the information never leaves your home network, which is far safer. If you've no server or IT experience, you can even purchase a preconfigured NextCloud Box (if you can find one) which comes with a 1TB hard drive and will work with an inexpensive Raspberry Pi board to keep your data synced. Unfortunately, NextCloud Box is sold out but you can check out the alternatives on their website Price: Free to install and use. Self-hosting so storage costs vary.
Image credit: SpiderOak SpiderOak is part of a new trend of zero knowledge cloud storage providers. The website claims that after installing the client your data is encrypted before syncing. Unfortunately since SpiderOak hasn’t made the client source code public, there's no way to confirm this. The SpiderOakOne client is available for Windows, Mac and Linux as well as Android and iOS (although, both Android and iOS are read-only apps, meaning you can only view files, and can't upload or sync anything). You can also log in via the web interface but privacy lovers may prefer not to as it exposes your password to SpiderOak employees. Price: 21-day free trial. 150GB for $6 a month (around £4.5, AU$8.25). 400GB for $11 a month (around £8.4, AU$15). 2TB for $14 a month (around £10.7, AU$19.25). 5TB for $29 a month (around £22.1, AU$39.9)
Best free cloud storage
Image credit: Google Free storage allowance: 15GB (expandable) If you're a Google user, you already benefit from Google Drive integration, such as the ability to save email attachments from Gmail. However, anyone can sign up for the free cloud storage, even if they don't have a Gmail address, by creating a new Google account. Google is also in a process of releasing Google One as a sort of substitution for Google Drive, although depending on your region it might not be available yet. With 15GB of space for new users, Google Drive is one of the more generous cloud offerings, and there are occasional ways to boost this capacity free of charge. The catch is that this Google storage space is also shared with a user’s other Google services including Gmail and Google Photos. Mobile apps are available to allow easy access for iOS and Android users, and Google’s Backup and Sync desktop app lets you synchronize files from your PC to the cloud. Google Drive also includes online office tools for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations which can makes sharing files with others effortless.
Image credit: pCloud Free storage allowance: 10GB (expandable) You might not recognize the name, but if you're looking for a decent chunk of cloud storage free of charge, pCloud could be just the ticket. To kick things off, you're given a fairly generous 10GB to play with, and there's a bandwidth allowance of 50GB of downlink traffic per month. While we're primarily interested in the free version of pCloud, note that you can upgrade to 500GB of space for a monthly plan of $4.99 (£3.70), or 2TB for $9.99 (£7.50) a month – both of which are great deals for storage. You also have annual and lifetime plans, which are a cheaper option in the long run. The initial 10GB free offering can also be expanded up to 20GB via an additional 4GB for completion of offers, as well as referrals that add 1GB each. It’s also worth noting that pCloud offers well-designed desktop and mobile apps that supplement the website for seamless integration into a user’s workflow. With no limit on file sizes, and simple sharing options, pCloud is a great way to send large files to friends and colleagues – it's even possible to share with people who aren't using the service themselves. Add in decent streaming options and a neat online interface, and pCloud is well worth a look.
Image credit: Microsoft Free storage allowance: 5GB Coming from Microsoft – a company with plenty of money to throw at the cloud – it's a little disappointing to find that OneDrive doesn’t include more space free of charge. Free users get a mere 5GB of storage, although it's relatively inexpensive to increase this to 50GB. If you have Office 365, you'll automatically get boosted to 1TB of space, but not everyone wants an Office subscription. Like Google Drive's appeal to Google users, OneDrive will be a good fit for anyone who is committed to using Microsoft's services. There's neat integration with Outlook.com, for instance. It's also integrated with non-Microsoft services like AutoCAD. OneDrive also ties in nicely with Windows 10, and there is a selection of reasonable mobile apps to facilitate access on the move. It's possible to share files with other people even if they aren't OneDrive users (complete with customizable permissions), and the ability to edit files online without downloading them is a welcome touch.
Image credit: Dropbox Free storage allowance: 2GB (expandable) Dropbox is a stalwart of the free cloud storage world, with a web interface that remains streamlined and easy-to-use. Despite its popularity, Dropbox actually has one of the least generous free packages for new users (just 2GB), but there are various ways to boost this space without paying, including inviting friends to join (you get 500MB per referral up to 16GB), completing the Getting Started guide (250MB) and contributing to the Dropbox forum (which elicits 1GB per 'Mighty Answer' provided). DropBox really comes into its own when you start delving into the service’s extra features. There's a great collaborative working tool called Dropbox Paper that acts as a group workspace, and – if you install the desktop app – you can back up photos automatically. The File Requests feature also allows you to request another user to upload a file to your Dropbox account. Additionally, a feature called Dropbox Rewind lets you restore folders or your entire account to a specific point in time. There are desktop apps for Windows, Mac and Linux, and mobile apps including Android, iOS and even Kindle. This gives Dropbox broad appeal, as does the support for third-party apps and services. The web version of Dropbox lets you edit files without needing to download them, and really the only thing that counts against the cloud storage service is that most alternatives offer more space to free users.
Image credit: MediaFire Free storage allowance: 10GB (expandable) MediaFire has been around for over a decade, and those years of experience really show. You're given 10GB of free space initially, but you can boost this by an extra 40GB through activities like referring friends and following MediaFire's social media accounts. Few people would disagree that 50GB of free cloud storage is impressive. Free accounts carry ads, but this is a small sacrifice to make. There's support for large files up to 20GB, and the sharing options are very impressive, even allowing sharing with non-users. The web-based interface is excellent too, and MediaFire offers mobile apps for convenient uploading and downloading on iOS and Android. These make it easy to access files you're storing in the cloud, and include convenient features such as automatic photo syncing.
Best business cloud storage
Image credit: SpiderOak SpiderOak is a collaboration tool, online backup and file hosting service founded in 2007. The platform allows users to access, synchronize and share data using a cloud-based server. The company places a strong emphasis on data security and privacy. They offer a cloud storage, online backup and sharing service which they claim uses a ‘zero knowledge’ privacy environment. This means the client is the only one who can view all stored data. Not even SpiderOak themselves have access to your data. SpiderOak’s main focus is on privacy and security. As a result, the tool itself has a very basic design. This makes the admin console and all central device management very straightforward to use. They also include a handy drag and drop feature for organising files. From the centralized device management dashboard, users can access settings for all applications such as backup selection and sharing. The dashboard also allows users to manage their accounts, set group permissions and gain insight into usage. Prospective business clients will need to contact SpiderOak’s Sales Team directly to obtain a quote. 500 users minimum is required. Online commentators have observed that SpiderOak lacks many of the collaboration tools available from other cloud storage providers.
Image credit: Tresorit Tresorit is a cloud storage provider based in Hungary and Switzerland. It was founded in 2011. The provider emphasizes enhanced security and data encryption for businesses and personal users alike. If you are concerned with ensuring that your stored data is kept safe online then Tresorit is the service for you. This provider allows you to keep control of your files through ‘zero-knowledge encryption’ meaning that only you and the chosen few you decide to share with can ever see your data. Your Tresorit account can also be secured by two-factor authentication login. Furthermore, you also have features like Document Scanner which securely scans and uploads documents directly to Tresorit. Tresorit’s ‘Small Business’ Packages starts at $25 (£19.60) per month (or $20 monthly for the annual plan) for teams with 2-9 users. This includes 1000GB encrypted storage, secure access on up to 10 devices and synching of existing folder structure. Tresorit’s ‘Business’ plan begins at $30 (£23.30) per month (or $24 monthly for the annual plan) for businesses with over 10 users. This comes with extras such as digital rights management, remote wipe and phone support. At the time of writing there is a 50% discount on "Business plan", so you can pay as low as $12 (£9.4) per month The ‘Enterprise’ tier weighs in at $34 (£26.65) per month (or $27 monthly for the annual plan) for businesses with more than 100 users. Extras included in this are personalized staff training, admin API and on-premises deployment. In order to sign up for this plan, users need to contact Tresorit directly. All tiers come with a 14-day free trial. The extra security offered by Tresorit makes it relatively expensive compared to other cloud backup solutions. However most users will probably appreciate the greater piece of mind and extra features offered by Tresorit.
Image credit: Egnyte Egnyte was founded in 2007. The company provides software for enterprise file synchronization and sharing. Egnyte allows businesses to store their data locally and online. All types of data can be stored in the cloud, whilst data of a more sensitive nature can be stored on servers on-premise. This makes for better security. Business teams can work how and where they want with an easy to use collaboration system through Egnyte’s content services platform. Egnyte integrates with popular industry applications such as Office 365 or Gmail. This allows both remote and internal employees to access all files with ease. Egnyte’s ‘Office’ plan starts at $8 (£6.21) per employee per month. This covers 5-25 employees, 5TB of storage and 10GB max file size. The ‘Business’ packages starts at $20 (£15.7) per employee per month. This includes 25-100 employees, 10TB online storage and 10GB max file size. In order to take advantage of their ‘Enterprise tier’, which includes over 100 employees, 25GB max file size and unlimited storage, you will need to contact Egnyte directly. Egnyte offer a 15-day free trial for all packages. Users have observed that some files, such as photos, can take a long time to load.
Image credit: Dropbox Dropbox is one of the oldest cloud storage providers. It was founded in 2007. To date it is one of the simplest storage providers to use. Dropbox can be installed on most computers or devices and syncs easily between apps. The app can store almost any kind of file while never having any issues with compatibility. You can drag and drop files into the desktop app with ease. You can also share files with other users easily through links. These can be shared with users who don’t have a Dropbox account. As Dropbox has been around for a long time it integrates with most other apps such as MS Office and Slack. All files and folders can be shared with other users even if they are not part of your account. These users will be limited to their own plan's storage limits. Dropbox Business can be connected to your personal account so you can access all your files in once place. Personal account feature "automatic camera upload" is now also available to Business accounts, as of November 2018. The dashboard is simple and easy to use. From here, admins can see how many team members they have as well as any pending invites. You can restrict sharing, and allow/block commenting as you see fit. The dashboard allows you to access settings and to monitor usage. Dropbox offers a 30-day free trial which asks for your payment details. Your plan will automatically upgrade after the trial at which point your card is charged. The ‘Standard’ plan starts at $12.50 (£9.71) per user per month starting at 3 users and includes 3TB storage. The ‘Advanced’ package begins at $20 (£15.70) per user per month with unlimited storage. In order to subscribe to the ‘Enterprise’ tier, users will need to contact Dropbox directly. Some users have commented on the lack of online editing tools.
Image credit: Box Box is a cloud content management and file sharing service for businesses. It was founded in 2005. Box offers strong management capabilities and security features. The interface is made for ease of use and is simple to navigate. The dashboard allows access to settings, files and folders. Admins can manage all users, monitors activity and control sharing. As Box has been around for a while, it is supported by a number of mainstream apps such as Google Docs and Office 365. The Box Sync client is available from the Downloads page for Mac and Windows. There's also an official Android client. Box offers a 14-day free trial for all packages. Their ‘Starter’ plan is priced at $5 (£3.88) per user per month. This includes 100GB secure storage, 2GB file upload with a maximum of 10 users. The ‘Business’ plan starts at $15 (£11.80) per user per month which includes unlimited storage, 5GB file upload and no maximum number of users. The ‘Business Plus’ package is $25 (£19.60) per user per month and comes with unlimited storage, 5GB file upload and unlimited external collaborators. In order to subscribe to Box’s ‘Enterprise’ plan, users will have to contact them directly for a quote. If you choose to share files external users are limited to read-only access.
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| Broadband deal of the week: free Amazon Echo Plus with Vodafone's fastest fibre Posted: 16 Aug 2019 09:35 AM PDT We have to say, this broadband deal has us somewhat stumped. Vodafone has taken both of its fibre broadband deals and priced them at the same monthly cost. Confusing? Yes. A great time to seize a bargain on some superfast fibre internet? An even bigger yes. It means for just £23 a month (or only £20 for existing Vodafone phone customers) you can get Vodafone's Superfast fibre 2 package - the exact same price as its Superfast 1 package, can you imagine which one we would recommend? The Superfast fibre 2 package boasts speeds of 63Mb, which makes the £23 a month you're paying for it astounding and the £20 existing Vodafone customers pay almost unbelievable. As if that affordable pricing wasn't enough, Vodafone doesn't even charge any upfront fees and even more importantly (sorry, we're really excited about this one) it's also throwing in a FREE Amazon Echo Plus with all of its broadband deals. It really is an astonishing offer. It feels like nobody told Vodafone they only had to pip the competition by a little bit because no other broadband deals come close to this. Vodafone's sale will be coming to an end on 10 September so you still have plenty of time to grab it.
Vodafone's cheap fibre broadband deal in full:Want more with your broadband deal?While this is one of the best, affordable fibre broadband deals around, you can get even cheaper bills. You may not have heard of the ISP, but Onestream's Jetstream Lite Fibre costs a mere £18.99 per month. You do have to pay a tenner upfront though, so it works out as roughly the same as Vodafone in the long run. Plus, this deal does also offer the lowest average fibre speeds on the market at 17Mb. While for those who want an added extra with their internet, BT could be the way to go. It costs £31.99 a month but comes with a £100 BT Reward Card on top of its faster 50Mb fibre speeds. Read more:
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| How to prevent employee burnout Posted: 16 Aug 2019 09:35 AM PDT The World Health Organisation now officially recognizes workplace ‘burnout’ as an occupational phenomenon, this is the first time it’s being directly linked in its classification of diseases as a work hazard. Why has it become such a prominent issue? If you look at the last ten years of the global economy, you’ll see it’s been a pretty wild ride. The economy had nearly collapsed by 2009, and since then it’s been rebuilt to new heights. That was the same year when smartphone and social media adoption began accelerating rapidly, and these technologies put enormous pressure on brands to move far more quickly than ever before. Brands were expected to deliver amazing customer experiences and drive revenue from new, digital channels. In fact, some people call our current era the “Post-Digital Era” because consumer expectations have reached a point where a rapid digital experience is a barrier to entry into any market, meaning brands that can’t deliver, likely one won’t survive. These new forces have put pressure on workers to stay connected to their employers via their devices from anywhere. Unfortunately, technology has developed faster than etiquette. There’s still a perception that because we can connect with our work 24/7, that we must. Even when you’re not actively working, notifications and vibrations from phones are a constant reminder that there’s work to be done. After a decade, all this stress has proven to be unsustainable to the point that countries, like France and Japan, have instituted right-to-disconnect legislation and other reforms to help employees find balance. What role do you think business leaders should play in managing employee burnout?There has been a proliferation of tools that were designed to improve employee flexibility, but they’ve since reached a point of diminishing returns where instead of consolidating communications, they are overwhelming us with messages and notifications. Business leaders need to think proactively about the role technology plays in the stress of their employees and try to streamline their stacks to make sure technology is supporting your team, and it’s not just another distraction or burden. Rather than enabling your team to work 24/7, your technology should encourage flexibility and allow employees to disconnect. Leaders need to lead by example on this front as well, and support boundaries for their teams. In a survey we conducted about stress in the workplace, over a quarter (28 percent) of UK workers said receiving texts or emails from their boss outside of work hours has a high impact on their stress levels. Of course, this also means organizations need to adopt better practices for planning projects, so there’s less need for last-minute scrambling to hit goals. What role does enterprise technology play in relation to employee stress and happiness?When information is structured and accessible to people who need it to do their jobs, enterprise technology can reduce stress and accelerate work at the same time. People like to be productive, and they get frustrated when they feel technology isn’t enabling it. But when technology gets in the way of productivity, it’s going to add to stress - and there are a few common ways that technology prevents productivity.
I can’t emphasize enough the importance of reducing stress and frustration around execution. We recently conducted a survey that found that Collaborative Work Management (CWM) software users in the UK were 61 percent more likely than non-users to say they have a “very good” relationship with their managers. They were also 152 percent more likely than non-users to say their company’s mission resonated with them “very strongly,” which goes to show that if you can enable people to work smoothly, they’re going to find happiness in the workplace. How can companies declutter their tech stack to help address employee burnout?A decade ago, bottom-up adoption of technology was a fast-growing trend, and as a result, companies went through a period with a vast array of overlapping and redundant technology that varied from team to team. It was a good trend at the time in that it re-engaged workers when enterprise technology was woefully outdated, but it led to problems with privacy, security, and information fragmentation. CIOs need to audit their systems and see how many apps are in use within their teams and examine the gaps created by those systems. It’s in those gaps that painful, manual processes exist for workers who need to ensure information is synced between them. In an ideal world, the various teams in a company will plan projects and collaborate in a single, unified solution. Realistically, it may take multiple systems, but they should be integrated in a way that effortlessly allows work and updates to move from team to team and from system to system to support cross-functional collaboration, and use automation to break down silos and eliminate routine tasks. Collaborative work management helps companies provide flexible working. But how else does it help to manage employee burnout?There are some psychological forces behind burnout, and one of them is the concept of perceived control, which means people experience less stress when they feel they have some ability to control their situation. CWM software actually does give people control over their work, giving them the ability to intake work in the way that works for them, design workflows, and also view projects and assignments in a customized way. Another major cause of stress is the frustration of waiting for people to do what you need them to do to move projects forward. The challenge is that people often don’t know the priority of work, or have the context they need to get started. And CWM provides clarity to priorities and can keep all relevant conversations, documents, and schedules in one place. There’s the issue of what I call hidden work - or tasks that are work but aren’t necessarily tracked in a project plan. Scheduling meetings, responding to emails, versioning documents - these are all tasks that take up a lot of our work time, whether we realize it or not. CWM can automate or reduce a lot of these functions, giving people more time to focus on the work that drives results. Unrealistic expectations are also a struggle, and the challenge is that management doesn’t have visibility into their team’s workload. CWM platforms can provide a clear picture of an employees capacity for delegating tasks, setting deadlines, and prioritizing work. Fifty-one percent of UK workers say that receiving assignments with unrealistic deadlines has a high impact on their stress, and resource management can help keep tasks balanced across a team. Since realistic deadlines are achievable deadlines, resource management can actually increase team capacity. They also track work further down the pike, so teams can begin planning further out and reduce last-minute panics about unseen deadlines - which should help reduce those late night emails and messages. How can companies make sure that they’re utilising all their tools properly to make sure they’re not wasting their employee’s time?Most workers have lived through at least one failed technology deployment in their careers, so when you introduce a new tool, there’s going to be some eye-rolling. Change management is vital in any transformational program, and especially in one that requires a daily habit change from a large number of people. You can spend a lot of money on technology and have it fall flat because no one adopts it, so you need to have a plan. Context and clarity in communicating with your workforce about why you’re implementing a change are critical. Start with “why” and look at it through the lens of “what’s in it for me,” to help sell the idea to your workforce. The better you can define the connection between the application and outcomes (business and personal), the more supportive and enthusiastic your users will be in adopting it. We always encourage our users to start with critical use-cases - solving an immediate need first and then build upon that success to broaden the use through other use-cases. It’s also critical that a solution is flexible enough to accommodate the diverse preferences of your workforce. You probably aren’t going to have much luck forcing people to use a tool that makes people work the way it works, you need a tool that works the way they work, but with optimizations. Putting the work in upfront to select the right tool and deploy it effectively will pay dividends in the long term.
Andrew Filev is the founder and CEO of Wrike, a cloud-based work management platform. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Bluetooth security flaw leaves millions of devices open to attack Posted: 16 Aug 2019 09:10 AM PDT A new Bluetooth vulnerability has been disclosed that would allow an attacker to more easily brute force the encryption key used by devices during pairing to monitor or even manipulate the data transferred between two paired devices. The vulnerability has been given the name “Key Negotiation of Bluetooth attack” or “KNOB” for short and it affects Bluetooth BR/EDR devices using specification versions 1.0 to 5.1. News of the KNOB vulnerability was revealed in a coordinated disclosure between the Center for IT-Security, Privacy and Accountability (CISPA), ICASI and ICASI members including Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Cisco and Amazon.
The flaw itself allows an attacker to reduce the length of the encryption key used for establishing a connection and in some cases, the length of the encryption key could be reduced to just a single octet making Bluetooth devices much easier to access. KNOB vulnerabilityA security advisory on Bluetooth.com, provided further insight on how the KNOB vulnerability functions, saying: "The researchers identified that it is possible for an attacking device to interfere with the procedure used to set up encryption on a BR/EDR connection between two devices in such a way as to reduce the length of the encryption key used. In addition, since not all Bluetooth specifications mandate a minimum encryption key length, it is possible that some vendors may have developed Bluetooth products where the length of the encryption key used on a BR/EDR connection could be set by an attacking device down to a single octet." After figuring out the Bluetooth keys of two devices, attackers could then monitor and manipulate the data being sent between them. This would even allow them to inject commands, monitor key strokes and carry out other types of malicious behavior. Fortunately, ICASI has not yet seen this attack method used maliciously nor have any devices been created to initiate this type of attack. Exploiting the KNOB vulnerability would also be difficult because both devices need to be Bluetooth BR/EDR, the attacker would need to be within range of the devices while they establish a connection and the attack would also need to be repeated every time the devices paired. The Bluetooth specification has also been updated to recommend a minimum encryption key length of seven octets for BR/EDR connections to resolve this vulnerability.
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| Get double data on a range of flagship devices with these O2 mobile phone deals Posted: 16 Aug 2019 09:08 AM PDT These days, a small data plan just doesn't hack it. You want to stream Netflix on the go and scroll through Twitter to your heart's content and you should be able to! Luckily, a recent promotion from retailer Mobiles.co.uk is offering double data on a range of flagship phones, taking away the worries of a tiny data cap. With offers on the likes of the Huawei P30 Pro, Google Pixel 3a, Samsung Galaxy S10e and the iPhone XR, this promotion has offers for everyone. Heck, even brand new Samsung Galaxy Note 10 deals are included. And, with data caps ranging from 4GB all the way up to 70GB, you can rest assured in the knowledge you won't be running out of data anytime soon. We've selected the best offers from this deal and listed them down below for you to compare. Or, if you can't see your dream phone contract in there, check our guide to best mobile phone deals for all of the options on the market. These double data mobile phone deals in full:With the exclusion of the Galaxy S10e, you can apply the code 10OFF at the checkout with any of these offers to save an additional £10 on the upfront spend:
Mobiles.co.uk - Best Online Retailer award winnerNot sure if Mobiles.co.uk is the right retailer to buy from? Having won Best Online Retailer at the Mobile Choice Awards last autumn, you can rest easy knowing Mobiles.co.uk is a safe bet. With some of the market's best pricing, fast delivery and excellent reviews - you can see how they managed to bag that title. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Disney Plus release date, pricing, and brand new Marvel shows Posted: 16 Aug 2019 09:06 AM PDT Disney Plus is on its way. As if we didn't have enough TV already to keep us busy, the Disney Plus streaming service coming this November (to the US, at least) looks set to drain our bank balances that little bit further. With a portfolio of studios and catalogues ranging from the Star Wars franchise, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pixar, and even the Simpsons – from a recent acquisition of 21st Century Fox – there's plenty of big-name content to draw users to the service, and some fear it could even halt the massive growth of Netflix's user base. With a set launch date of November 12, 2019, we know how long we have left to wait until the platform lands, and Disney has shared enough about the kind and quantity of content on offer – as well as how much it'll cost – to give us a vague picture of what we're getting. We even know that Disney Plus is joining Hulu on the Nintendo Switch, a console famously picky over its third-party apps. It's also likely to come to Apple TV according to Disney CEO Bob Iger, in spite of speculation that it would come into conflict with Apple's new streaming service, Apple TV Plus. Read on for all the latest news on Disney Plus pricing, subscriptions, and what movies and shows will be available on the service when it launches later this year. UPDATE: Disney has announced a new streaming bundle in the US that will lump Hulu, ESPN+ and Disney+ into a single package for the same price as Netflix ($12.99 per month).
Inside Out (Image Credit: Pixar) Disney Plus FAQ
Disney Plus overviewDisney Plus will be an all-in-one video destination for movies, TV series, and cartoons spread across the Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, and Marvel brands – packing plenty of existing movies and TV shows along with a stack of brand-new content. With Disney's acquisition of Fox now complete, we could also be seeing a host of other franchises – like X-Men or Avatar – come along to the service. Disney has been working on the plan for some time now, acquiring a controlling stake in streaming technology provider BAMTech in 2017 following a first investment the previous year. BAMTech spun out from Major League Baseball's streaming efforts and now powers platforms like HBO Now and ESPN+, so it knows a little something about on-demand video traffic. Disney makes serious money (an estimated $300 million) putting its films and properties on Netflix and other services, but if Disney Plus is attractive enough to pull in millions of paying subscribers, then it could yield potentially much more income. And it gives Disney a new, exclusive platform for developing new content, whether it's with existing brands or original properties. Disney Plus release date
(Image Credit: Netflix) The Disney Plus streaming service will launch in the US on November 12, 2019 with an expected (but not yet officially confirmed) UK launch date around the same time or a few months afterwards. This still gives Disney plenty of time to court creators and develop and produce new shows – or at least get the ball rolling. If you're in Australia, it looks like you'll be getting Disney movies and shows on Stan for the time being. Disney Plus pricing and bundlesRight now, Disney has only released details about US pricing, where the streaming service will cost $6.99 (around £6 / AU$10) a month. We'll update you as soon as news lands about pricing in other regions. This means it looks like Disney has kept its promise about undercutting Netflix – at least for now. "I can say that our plan on the Disney side is to price this substantially below where Netflix is. That is in part reflective of the fact that it will have substantially less volume," said Robert Iger, The Walt Disney Company's chairman and CEO. "It'll have a lot of high quality [content], because of the brands and the franchises that will be on it that we've talked about. But it'll simply launch with less volume, and the price will reflect that." Iger also suggested that the price could rise gradually over time as the service expands, which is hardly surprising—Netflix's prices have risen alongside its pivot towards original content. However, Disney then turned heads with its plans for subscription bundle that will certainly rival Netflix in terms of price – while possibly offering closer to the site's volume of content. The US-focused bundle will include Hulu (with ads), ESPN+ and Disney Plus for $12.99 per month – the same price as Netflix's Standard subscription. It's a good deal if you want all three services or if you live in a home with multiple age ranges who could enjoy the full range of content on offer. If you're in the UK, journalist Tom Butler pointed out on Twitter that you can already get some of the content that's planned for Disney Plus on the Disney Life app for £5 (around $6 / AU$9). But that doesn't include some of the biggest draws of the new streaming platform, like Marvel and Star Wars properties – although it does currently have past seasons of The Clone Wars.
The Clone Wars is still on the Disney Life app, but will it stay there? Disney Plus: Marvel TV shows and films
Loki (Image Credit: Walt Disney Studios) Marvel fans, rejoice: not only will you get a huge back catalogue of MCU movies on Disney Plus, but you'll also get a number of original TV series and spin-offs with some of your favorite characters. The first will be Falcon and The Winter Soldier (starring Anthony Mackie), coming in Q3 / Fall 2020, around a year after the platform goes live – so we'll have some time to wait before exclusive content really gets going. Hiddleston-lovers will be happy to hear that next in the new Marvel line-up will be all about Loki, coming in Q2 / Spring 2021 – as will WandaVision, a spin-off following Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) that will tie into the events of the Doctor Strange sequel. Q3 / Fall 2021 will then bring a Hawkeye TV show with Jeremy Renner reprising the role.
Marvel's head of television, Jeph Loeb, has said there'll be more "street-level heroes" coming to the Disney Plus service too, with Marvel TV shows set to replace or expand on the likes of Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Iron Fist, and The Defenders – all of which were axed from their home on Netflix (via Deadline). Interestingly, there's also going to be a Marvel TV show that puts a different spin on the MCU. Called Marvel's What If...?, the animated series is based on a comics series and will give fans a glimpse into what might have happened if some of the universe's biggest stories went a little differently. Like how would Agent Peggy Carter have fared if she'd taken the super soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers? When it comes to old Marvel movie properties, we can expect those to be pulled from Netflix as soon as contracts run out before being moved across to Disney Plus when it launches. In an earnings call with investors, Disney CEO Bob Iger clarified that 2019's Captain Marvel would be the first Disney movie exclusive to the service – and we know Endgame will follow the month after launch. Disney Plus: Star Wars TV shows and filmsOne of most exciting original announcement so far is that of a brand new live-action Star Wars TV series from Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Jungle Book) who will both write and executive produce the show. We've been waiting for details about it for what feels like years, but the title has finally been revealed as The Mandalorian. For those not in the know, Mandalorians are a race of jetpack-toting warriors with a lot of political baggage. Now unless you've watched Star Wars Rebels, the only Mandalorian you're likely to have met before is Boba Fett. But the new series will introduce us to a Mandalorian we've never met before and will follow his (or her?) adventures throughout the Star Wars universe.
The first image from the Star Wars live action show The Mandalorian (Image Credit: Lucasfilm) Favreau will also be joined by other great directors, including Star Wars alum Dave Filoni, who’ll direct the first episode, as well as Bryce Dallas Howard, Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok) and Deborad Chow (Jessica Jones). It's not the only new Star Wars episodic content that'll be on the service early on, either. Rogue One's Cassian Andor (played by Diego Luna) will also get his own prequel TV series exploring his life before the events of the 2016 film. We also now have word of a Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series, with Ewan McGregor in talks to reprise his role from the prequel movies (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith). At San Diego Comic-Con 2018, Disney announced that a new, concluding season of animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars will also be on the service. We have to imagine that the existing episodes, currently on Netflix, will also join the fray. Disney Plus: 21st Century Fox
Image Credit: Disney Disney's acquisition of Fox was a very, very big deal – especially for Disney Plus. Fox own the rights to a huge amount of classic television, including The Simpsons, which will see every episode in its 30-year history come to the Disney Plus streaming service. Fox also oversees the X-Men IP, which was made for some very strict stipends about what can and can't be shown in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (such as the word 'mutant' never being used onscreen). The merger could pave the way for mutants appearing in the MCU, or at the very least having some form of reboot for the Disney Plus service. Given the disappointing box office returns of the last couple of X-Men movies, it may be just what the franchise needs. Keep in mind that Sony still owns the rights to Spider-Man and a number of associated characters like Venom and Black Cat (with some of the above being somewhat lent to Marvel). What you waiting for, Disney? Other Disney Plus movies, shows, and exclusives
It won't all be superhero and space flicks, though. Many additional new shows and TV series have been rumored or reported on, including a new Monsters Inc. project and a fresh take on the once-popular High School Musical franchise. Deadline suggests that projects based on Lady and the Tramp, Don Quixote, Sword and the Stone, and 3 Men and a Baby are in the works, along with other projects titled The Paper Magician, Stargirl, Togo, and Timmy Failure. Deadline also suggests that two films for the service were already in post-production as of February 2018: Magic Camp from director Mark Waters (starring Adam DeVine and Jeffrey Tambor), and Christmas-themed comedy Noelle from Marc Lawrence (featuring Anna Kendrick and Bill Hader). Little's been said on older content, though we assume there'll be a good share of remastered classics and selected titles from Disney's extensive 95-year history. There'll also be plenty of television programming from the Disney Channel, Disney Junior and Disney XD. Disney Plus will also be a home for DisneyNature documentaries, including Dolphin Reef – which will be narrated by none other than actress Natalie Portman (Jackie, Black Swan). Disney Nature works both in documentary films and animation, and will also be bringing animated feature Penguins to the Disney Plus service. All told, you can expect "thousands of hours" of Disney TV shows and films on the service, including existing content, and that new Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars films will be available to stream at some point following their theatrical releases. Will Disney Plus have classic Disney movies?Oh yes. We have word that every Disney film ever made will be coming to the service, so everything from the original Lion King to... er... the new CGI Lion King should be available on the service soon after launch. What will Disney Plus be missing?The Disney streaming service won't have content from outside of the Disney ecosystem, as far as we know. That might seem obvious enough, but services like Netflix and Hulu have such diverse offerings because of their wide partnerships and licensing deals. But, of course, Disney has plenty of content to draw from, especially if all Fox content comes onboard as well, but this will still be a very Disney-centric offering. On top of that, there won't be any R-rated or adult-oriented content on the service. That stuff will go to Hulu instead, according to a report from Deadline. Though Disney has now closed its acquisition of Fox, it's unlikely then that the R-rated Deadpool will come to Disney Plus.
R-rated titles like Deadpool should head to Hulu rather than Disney Plus, which will be somewhat family friendly (Image Credit: 21st Century Fox) Also, the Marvel TV original series on Netflix won't be crossing over to the new Disney Plus service – as far as we know. That means the likes of Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones won't be rebooted on Disney Plus in their current iterations. They've all been cancelled from further seasons, but we're assuming previous seasons will continue to stay on the Netflix platform. That's not to say Hulu might not pick up these series and run with them, or maybe they'll get a more family-friendly re-imagining for Disney Plus? Should I subscribe to Disney Plus?We haven't tried the platform ourselves yet, so even though more information is revealed every day, it's hard to make a solid recommendation. But now details have been revealed about pricing, the early signs are certainly promising. Disney plans to tap into its estimable vault of franchises to create exclusive and potentially compelling new content, along with creating a single streaming service for watching all of the latest and greatest movies and TV shows from across the Disney creative ecosystem. Disney Plus will have less content than Netflix, but the price is lower – and Disney Plus may prove more appealing as an add-on to your current subscriptions, rather than a full-on replacement for Netflix or Hulu. The Disney streaming service won't be as comprehensive or wide-ranging as some rivals, but Disney, Star Wars, and Marvel fans might have trouble resisting some of the original shows and movies coming down the pipeline. We're certainly excited to see what Disney Plus has in mind for the live-action Star Wars series, above all, but other projects sound compelling as well.
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| Cheap TV deals at Best Buy: 4K TVs starting at just $199 Posted: 16 Aug 2019 09:04 AM PDT If you're looking for a cheap TV deal you've come to the right place! Best Buy's three-day anniversary sale is going on right now, and includes massive savings on 4K TVs. Prices start as low as $199.99, with offers on a range of screen sizes from top brands including Samsung, TCL and Vizio. The smart TV also has Chromecast built in, which allows you to stream thousands of movies and TV shows from the Chromecast app on your phone or tablet. There's also SmartCast, which works with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, so you can use your voice to browse movies, change the channel, adjust the volume and more. Shop more of the best cheap TV deals from Best Buy below, and keep in mind the sale ends Sunday, so you should take advantage of these steep discounts before it's too late. Best Buy TV deals:Shop more of best cheap TV deals and sale prices that are currently going on. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| iOS 13 beta, release date and feature list Posted: 16 Aug 2019 08:43 AM PDT iOS 13 will soon be here to fundamentally change up how you use your iPhone every day, and we have been testing the public beta since late June. We have a complete list of iOS 13's features below so you can decide whether you want to get the iOS 13 public beta now or wait for the final version. That's likely to arrive in September. Latest leak: Beta 7 for iOS 13 has now arrived, and someone found mention of a potential new iPhone release date in the software's code. It says 'HoldForRelease' with the date September 10 mentioned, so that may be when we hear when iOS 13 will land. Dark Mode is our favorite new iOS 13 beta feature and it inverts those bright white-screen backgrounds to make the display easier to read at night. To see all of the changes that matter, check out our iOS 13 vs iOS 12 comparison. The new QuickPath swipe keyboard is a big highlight, and the new to edit photos has made us open Lightroom less. Plus, as we explain below, iPadOS has been spun off from iOS as a separate operating system for iPads, which aims to make better use of the tablet's screen real estate. We're here to explain all of the updates in full, and we'll start with the many-fanged release date schedule and all-important compatibility list. iOS 13 release date and beta schedule
The iOS 13's public beta was released on June 24, even though Apple said it wouldn't come out until July. It launched earlier than promised, but it's not a giant surprise for us. iOS 12's beta arrived early as well on June 25, 2018. Here's the iOS 13 timeline as we see it: 1. iOS 13 developer beta: The iOS 13 beta 2 is available today but restricted to paid Apple developers. Good news: unlike iOS 13 beta 1, iOS 12 beta 2 can be installed over the air (OTA), whereas beta 1 required Xcode or macOS 10.15 to be installed first. It's a bit easier to install, but you should probably wait for the public beta, which is always more stable, or upgrade to the dev beta on a non-primary device. 2. iOS 13 public beta: Apple's larger-scale features test began on June 24, and is now on version 2 since July 8. Sure, Apple said July, but last year the iOS public beta launched on June 25, and sure enough, it came early in 2019. It's the version to download if you're curious – it's often more refined version of the iOS developer beta, although it can still be rough, and never includes all of the features implemented in the final version of the software. 3. iOS 13 golden master: This will be the final version of the iOS 13 software, released one week before the final iOS release, meant for developers and public beta testers. At this point it's very stable, and gives app makers seven days to adapt to the final software. 4. The official iOS 13 release date: We'll get the new iOS 13 software in its final, stable form about one week after the next iPhone launch event, at which we expect to see what we're calling (for now) the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Max and iPhone 11 XR. The date? Probably mid-September (last year it was September 17) and a leak in the iOS 13 beta 7 code suggested the software's release date it may be revealed on September 10. iOS 13 compatibility list
iOS 13 compatibility requires an iPhone or iPad from the last four years (depending on the device category). That means phones like the iPhone 6 won't be getting iOS 13 – if you've got one of those devices you'll be stuck with iOS 12 forever.
iOS 13 sheds several old devices (Image credit: Apple) You'll need an iPhone 6S or later, the iPad Air 2 or later, and the new iPad mini 4 or later, or the iPod touch 7th generation. No surprise, the new iPod Touch 7th gen is the only devices of its class that gets iOS 13 support. The iPhone SE fits into an odd category, as it has iPhone 6 era specs, but came out after the iPhone 6S. Don't worry, everyone's favorite little iPhone will get iOS 13. iOS 13 Dark Mode
Dark Mode in iOS 13 is going to be system-wide, meaning it'll change the hues from bright white and light grey to black and dark gray on all supported apps. It's a nice feature when you're using your iPhone at night and want to avoid bright white hues shining in your face. It may also save battery life on the OLED-equipped iPhones, from the iPhone X onward. Apple didn't talk about this at all, but we know that OLED displays essentially 'turn off' pixels when rendering blacks. Turning on iOS 13 Dark Mode can be done in Control Center inside the Display slider (right next to the Night Shift and True Tone toggle), according to Apple, or you can set it automatically to turn on at night through a schedule or custom time. The yellow-tinting Night Shift mode finally gets a bright-light dimming companion, and a lot of people couldn't be happier. iOS 13 beta 4 fixes password access bug from beta 3If you were concerned about the privacy bug discovered in iOS 13 beta 3 - which lets anyone see your stored passwords if they get ahold of your device, according to BGR - go ahead and install the newly-released iOS 13 beta 4, which closes that vulnerability. iOS 13 tweaks the visual interfaceApple is tweaking the visual interface for iOS 13. Home screen app menus are smaller, for one, but there are new changes to the 'long press' commands, too. Instead of 'long pressing' to switch into app-deletion-and-rearranging mode, it will now show a menu with connectivity, battery-saving and a 'Rearrange Apps' option to manually trigger that mode, as you can see in Twitter user @filipekids' tweet below: iOS 13 offers 'FaceTime attention correction'This is an interesting one. There's now an option for FaceTime Attention Correction, according to registered iOS 13 beta testing developers, and it's wild. What does it do exactly? It makes it so that it appears as if you're looking straight into the front-facing camera during a FaceTime video call, when you're actually looking at the adjacent screen. That distracted look could be a thing of the past soon. iOS 13 on iPad is iPadOS, and it's a big changeSome of the biggest changes we expected for iOS 13 on the iPad are actually coming in an update called iPadOS. Apple is signaling that the iPad needs its own platform. That means big improvements to your iPad workflow, starting with the home screen redesign. Pinned Widgets, as we predicted in our iOS 13 rumors roundup, lets you add widgets from the Today View screen (that left-mode screen on your iPhone and iPad). So far, it's iPad-exclusive, and not coming to iOS13 for the iPhone. Slide Over lets you have multiple apps open and cycle through them like rolodex. You can also fan to preview them all at once with a swipe gesture, kind of like the recents menu on many phones and tablets. It's multi-tasking made easier.
Split View has been enhanced to let you open one app on both sides of the screen (it wasn't possible before), and Apple demoed this by showing Notes side-by-side with Notes. You can also pair an app with more than one app – so now Safari can be paired with Pages in one space and Safari can be paired with Mail in another. App Expose is new to the iPad software, letting you see all of the space you have open. There's an App Expose icon on the Dock, requiring only a single press to get into the convenient overview mode. New copy, paste and undo gestures are coming to iPadOS. Three fingers scrunched down was shown to copy text, three fingers expanding (in the opposite direction) dropped the text on the page, and sliding three fingers across the screen undid the last action. We'll have to see how this performs when the software lands. Apple's keyboard can float around the screen in a smaller form, and it's debuting a swiping gesture keyboard, which it calls QuickPath Typing. There are also more keyboard shortcuts (a lack of shortcuts was a complaint we had about previous iOS versions). There are actually too many iPadOS changes to detail here in the iOS 13 explainer, so we've spun the full rundown off into a separate iPadOS release date, news and features article. iOS 13 features a QuickPath keyboardWith iOS 13, Apple's default QuickType keyboard will be incorporating swipe-to-type, a popular way of sliding across the keyboard to form words. We've used this in prior iOS keyboard extensions like Google's Gboard and SwiftKey.
Here's QuickPath keyboard in action (Image credit: Apple) You can use the QuickType and QuickPath methods of typing interchangeably, and so far supported languages include English, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, German, French, Italian, and Portuguese is now included. iOS 13 debuts new 'Find My' appApple is combining Find My Friends and Find My iPhone in iOS 13, and the union lets you locate your friends and missing gadgets with a faster, easier-to-use interface.
Find My iPhone and Find My Friends come together in one app (Image credit: Apple) What's really neat is that it'll use a crowd-sourced encrypted Bluetooth signal to help you track down devices that aren't connected to Wi-Fi or cellular. That's mostly a big help for Macs, but it could also help with an iPhone in rare cases, too. Best of all, while Find My Friends didn't always work for us, Apple may be making a bigger push to get location tracking right with this new iOS 13 app now in the limelight. iOS 13 hints at Apple Tag productThe theory that Apple is taking on the Tile tracker is backed up in the iOS 13 beta, according to a new leak regarding what's been dubbed the 'Apple Tag'.
Could Apple be working on something similar to this Tile Sport? (Image credit: Tile) While the redesigned Find My app is supposed to locate your Apple devices and also your iPhone-carry friends, the Apple Tag is allegedly designed for everything else. Think: keys, bag, water bottle, or anything else a Bluetooth tracker could attach to. The Apple Tag wasn't a part of the iOS 13 reveal during WWDC 2019, but it could be an announced alongside the iPhone 11 in September. After all, it is mobile hardware. iOS 13 makes your old iPhone faster, last longerMore people are holding onto their iPhones for longer, and that's something Apple seems to recognize – and the company is speeding up iOS 13 to accommodate them. The most important iOS 13 stats: app launch speed is up to twice as fast according to Apple, and Face ID unlocking will be 30% faster than before. Apple also found a way to make app downloads smaller, up to 60% on average; iOS 12 gave us a faster update, and iOS 13 looks to build upon that. Battery life is also something Apple is tackling this year. Its aim is to slow the rate of battery aging by reducing the time your iPhone spends fully charged. iOS 13 is supposed to learn from your daily charging routine so it can wait to finish charging past 80% until you need to use it. Reminders gets a big overhaulOf all the built-in apps, Reminders is getting the biggest revamp in iOS 13. It appears to be better organized, and includes shortcuts that make it easier to add reminders.
Reminders appears to have gotten the freshest reimagining among iOS 13 apps (Image credit: Apple) Big, color-coded buttons for Today, Scheduled, All and Flagged categories offer you a better oversight of your pressing tasks, while the keyboard when you're in this app has a top-line Quick Toolbar that acts as a shortcut to easily add times, dates, locations, flags, photos and scanned documents. Making plans in Messages? Siri will step in to suggest reminders that can be created, like a personal assistant who chimes in at all the right times. Camera and Portrait Mode changesThe iOS 13 is going to offer important changes to camera features, starting with enabling you to change the intensity of light in Portrait Mode, which is something we've wanted for a while. Portrait mode is also getting a new monochromatic effect called High‑Key Mono.
The new Photos tab in the iOS 13 Photos app – Apple sees it as becoming your photo diary (Image credit: Apple) The Photos gallery is becoming what Apple called "a diary of your life", with a new tab designed to document your best photos by day, month and year. You'll also have more pinch controls to zoom in and out of the Photos gallery. Photo editing is refined with iOS 13, adding adjustment controls and filters, while the video editing portion mirrors this almost entirely: nearly every photo tool and effect – including filters, rotating and cropping – will make it over to video. If you're not good at tinkering with video, there'll even be an 'Auto' adjustment button. New Siri voice sounds more naturalThere's a new Siri voice debuting with iOS 13, and it sounds more natural than before – we've heard a sample and the tone is the same, but it sounds less robotic. It uses advanced neural text‑to‑speech technology, according to Apple, and you'll particularly notice this when Siri says longer phrases, like reading the Apple News aloud or answering knowledge questions. The timing is good, because Siri can also do a lot more talking if you wear AirPods – Siri can read incoming messages and pipe them through the buds, which is convenient. One more new Siri perk: your voice assistant on HomePod will understand the voices of the various family members in your home. This should mean, for example, that asking "What's on my Calendar?" won't bring up someone else's irrelevant information. Memoji gets makeup, Messages gets info sharingApple is putting more of 'Me' in Memoji, allowing one trillion configurations: new hairstyles, headwear, makeup, and piercings to name a few categories. Examples on the WWDC stage showed that these personalized Animoji masks allow for such granular accessory detail as eyeshadow, braces and even AirPods.
Memoji gets better in year two (Image credit: Apple) Memoji Stickers are something entirely new – iOS 13 will bring more iPhone and iPad users into the Memoji fold, TrueDepth camera or not. You can customize a Memoji and iOS 13 will automatically create a fun-looking sticker pack that lives in a sub-menu on the keyboard, which you can use in Messages, Mail, and third‑party apps. You'll be able to share your personalized Memoji with contacts through iMessages, but only when you grant them access. The same applies to sharing your name and photo with contacts, so you can chose how people see your name, for example. According to Apple, you can decide whether you want your profile shared with everyone, with only your contacts, or just once. New HomePod featuresYou might not know this, but the HomePod is part of the iOS family, and it's getting updates too. First, you'll be able to transfer songs from your iPhone by simply holding your phone closer to the HomePod speaker. Previously, you had to tell Siri to do this, but now this hand-off feature is a bit easier, and you don't have to talk to do it. The HomePod will also introduce Live Radio – you can ask Siri to play 100,000 stations from all around the world. And HomePod will allow you to recognize who in your family is talking, and personalize the response – great with Apple Music, where selections will be based on your taste and history. It goes beyond Music, Messages, Notes, Reminders, and more. Sign-in with Apple
Apple wants app developers and sites to use its sign-in feature, and there are some perks for user privacy, too (Image credit: Apple) Apple is taking on Facebook Connect, Google and other platforms that allow you to conveniently sign in to third-party accounts. Sign-in with Apple is poised to protect your privacy more than Facebook and Google do. What's neat is that if you don't want to fork over your email to an app developer or website, Apple will create a unique random email for you, and the email will be unique to that site or app. Maps get revampediOS 13 Maps looks a lot better, even if everyone likes to hate on it. Will it ever be better than Google Maps? No, probably not. But for people who want Apple's pre-loaded maps app on iOS 13, it'll be much better.
360-degree city tours are coming to Apple Maps (Image credit: Apple) There's way more detail here by way of Apple rebuilding maps from the ground up. There's more realistic detail for roads, beaches, parks, and buildings, and you can now explore cities with a 3D 360-degree experience. Favorites were a part of Maps before, but iOS 13 makes these saved locations easier to navigate to with one tap – they appear at the very top of a search menu. Sometimes Google Maps on iOS doesn't get this right (but does better on Android). That's one reason to keep Apple Maps installed, even if you're a Google Maps person. Text formatting in MailMail is getting some changes when it comes to writing out properly formatted email. You'll have more control over font style, size, color, alignment, indenting and outdenting text, and numbered and bulleted lists. What we're really hoping to see in iOS 13 is the ability to insert a hyperlink into some text in an email. On both iOS and Android devices, that's just not possible in their default mail clients (that we've seen) – you have to paste long URLs, and that's not a computer, no matter what you call your operating system. Connect to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth from Control CenterThis is huge – and we've been asking for it for several years. You'll soon be able to select Wi‑Fi networks and Bluetooth accessories right from Control Center. Android has had this for years, and it was always convenient to connect to new Wi-Fi networks or Bluetooth earbuds without having to navigate away from your current app and dive into five Settings submenus. Apple is finally coming around in iOS 13. Xbox One and PS4 game controller supportIf you're going to play games on your phone, you might as well do it with one of the two best controllers available (and maybe something you already own). Enter PS4 and Xbox One game controller support for iOS 13. Apple didn't say if all games will support this or if it'll be limited to Apple Arcade, but whatever the case may be, we're happy to be able to put our PS4 controller to use everywhere we roam. Silence Unknown CallsNuisance SPAM calls drive us crazy every day, and iOS 13 wants to fix the issue with the help of Siri, which scans your Contacts, Mail and Messages to see if you've previously been in contact with the caller. Silence Unknown Calls sounds fairly smart, if you're not expecting business numbers cold-calling you for work. Those that do call you and aren't on your personal 'VIP list' will go straight to voicemail. More iOS 13 features to come in SeptemberWe're testing out the iOS 13 public test, but there may be more to this update that we haven't seen. Apple typically holds features until the next iPhone launches. We'll continue to update the iOS 13 news here, with our guide to what you need to know about its features and how it'll change your iPhone. There might be a separate iPadOS now, but iOS 13 is still mighty important to millions of people. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Apple AirPods get a redesign from original Macintosh team – and they look a bit silly Posted: 16 Aug 2019 08:34 AM PDT True wireless earbuds may seem like tech from the future, but have you ever imagined what they might look like in a few years? Frog, the company that designed the iconic Apple Macintosh have, and its conceptual Apple AirPod alternatives are certainly out there, with a radical design that leaves your ears totally exposed.
The open-hoop true wireless earbuds – which Frog have called Unum – are placed around your ears, so your ear canal is left completely uncovered, unlike traditional earbuds, which sit against your ear canal. When you wear in-ear headphones, they create a seal against your ear canal, preventing environmental noise from ruining your music, as creating better noise isolation.
The future of true wireless?Frog says that the conceptual wireless earbuds would use "advanced micro-drivers and acoustic design to precisely channel the sound into the ear", without completely blocking out the world around you. Why is this necessary? Well, Frog envisions a future where voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are so ubiquitous, that "the constant connection to our personal headphones will be too isolating of a social experience". As such, the company believes that we will need headphones that "support long augmented audio experiences without disrupting their real world communications". It's an interesting concept, but it's hard to say whether people will adopt such a striking design for their in-ear headphones; that being said, the Apple AirPods were widely mocked for their long stems when they were released in 2016, and are now among the most popular true wireless earbuds ever. Could the upcoming Apple AirPods 2 look anything like this? We'll have to wait until the imminent iPhone 11 launch at the very earliest to find out.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Oppo Reno 2 launch date teased, as well as details of the phone's camera Posted: 16 Aug 2019 08:31 AM PDT If you were tempted to buy the Oppo Reno or Oppo Reno 10x Zoom, two of the most intriguing phones to come out so far in 2019, you may want to wait a second – as it looks like they're just about to receive a successor. On Twitter, Oppo India shared a photo showing off the Oppo Reno 2, with some important pieces of information regarding the upcoming phone, as well as a date that the phone series will drop.
That date is August 28, although the photo states that the phone will be out first in India, so we'll likely have to wait a little longer before seeing the phone elsewhere. IFA 2019 is just around the corner, so we could see the handset drop in Europe then. We've contacted Oppo to see what else we can find out about the device, as well as when (or if) we'll see it elsewhere, and will update this article when we find out. What do we know about the Oppo Reno 2?All we know about the Oppo Reno 2 is in the image the company shared – but Oppo has been showing off its new tech for a few months now, so there are some other new features that we may see in the device too. Firstly, what the image shows – a rough outline of the Oppo Reno 2 confirms it has the trademark 'shark-fin' pop-up segment, as well as four rear cameras. The original Oppo Reno only had two snappers, although the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom had three, so it's most likely that this outline shows the Oppo Reno 20x Zoom – that's what we're expecting the 'plus-sized' Oppo Reno 2 to be called. The reason for this is that the image boasts "Quadcam with 20x Zoom". All in all, we're expecting this quad-camera smartphone to be the newer plus model, and perhaps the base Oppo Reno 2 will have three cameras. Another cryptic tweet says "new angles have new possibilities". This could either refer to a lens like the Motorola One Action's 'Action Cam', which flips the image 90 degrees so you can hold the phone vertically but film in landscape, or perhaps an ultra-wide angle lens with a significantly increased field of view. It's worth noting this latter Tweet was from Oppo's global Twitter account, so it's likely we'll see the phones outside of India before too long. We'll find out for sure on August 28, when Oppo drops its new line of devices. What else can we guess about the Oppo Reno 2?Over the last few months, Oppo has shown off two new pieces of smartphone tech. One of these we could see in the Oppo Reno 2, the other we don't imagine so. The first of these is Oppo's under-display camera tech. This hides the front-facing selfie camera literally under the smartphone's screen, so it's not in a notch that takes up space, or a potentially fragile pop-up section. However since the outline of the Oppo Reno 2 in the shared image has the distinctive shark fin, it's clear that Oppo has opted to use this to house the front-facing camera again, so there would be no need for an under-screen camera just yet. The other piece of tech is Oppo's 'Waterfall Screen'. This is a form of curved screen that bends round the front of the device at a steeper angle than other curved screens, like in the Huawei P30 Pro, to create a premium-looking display. We could see the Oppo Reno 2 boast a Waterfall Screen, and it would certainly be a distinct feature compared to the original Oppo Reno, but there's no way of knowing for sure whether these tech improvements will be used in the Reno series at all. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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