Apple : Universal Pictures’ movie library will soon get upgraded to HDR10+ |
- Universal Pictures’ movie library will soon get upgraded to HDR10+
- Industry 4.0 suffering major security issues
- The first 5G phone: our hands-on with the future of smartphones
- Huawei fixes MateBook software following backdoor threat
- Fitbit price cut at Amazon: save $60 on the Fitbit Alta activity tracker
- Windows 10 churned out rogue notifications that looked like a malware infection
- LG TV lineup 2019: every LG TV model coming this year
- Apple Music finally comes to Amazon speakers in the UK
- The best Fitbit Inspire and Inspire HR bands
- Nintendo Switch finally gets controller with a headphone jack
- The best Huawei P10 deals in April 2019
- The best free Android apps of 2019
- Apple has cut the price of the HomePod
- How enterprise AI will change brick and mortar retail
- There has never been a better time to grab super cheap Samsung Note 8 deals
- What is 5G? Everything you need to know
- Best mirrorless camera 2019: 10 top models to suit every budget
- Reaping the benefits of AI for enhanced network security
- PUBG Mobile 0.12.0 beta adds companion eagle, new weapons in zombie mode, friendly spectate and more
- Best flowchart software of 2019
| Universal Pictures’ movie library will soon get upgraded to HDR10+ Posted: 04 Apr 2019 12:19 PM PDT If you’re a fan of films like The Fast and The Furious, Kung Fu Panda and Jurassic World, we’ve got some good news: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (UPHE) has penned a deal with Samsung to create HDR10+ content for compatible Samsung and Panasonic TVs. Said content will include both new titles from the film studio as well as potential remasterings of shows and films from Universal Pictures’ library, which includes the How to Train Your Dragon, Back to the Future and Halloween franchises.
While the collaboration between the two companies is advantageous for anyone with an HDR10+ TV, it’s also a decisive win over Dolby and its Dolby Vision platform - for the last few years, Dolby Vision had a wide lead in terms of supported content, but this deal could help Samsung and the HDR10+ Alliance gain some ground. Unfortunately, however, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment has only announced that it will adapt some of its library to HDR10+, but hasn't stated which films from its catalog would get the bump up to HDR10+. Still, this deal should provide a ray of hope for anyone who has invested in an HDR10+ compatible TV from Samsung and Panasonic and has been patiently waiting for something – anything – to actually watch in the sharper format.
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| Industry 4.0 suffering major security issues Posted: 04 Apr 2019 11:31 AM PDT The manufacturing industry is currently undergoing its own digital transformation in the form of Industry 4.0, where cyber-physical systems (CPSs) combine physical components and digital networks to change how companies automate processes and share information. However, new research from Trend Micro has revealed that the rise of Industry 4.0 has introduced a whole new range of security issues now that IT, operational technology (OT) and intellectual property have been integrated. The firm's “Securing Smart Factories Threats to Manufacturing Environments in the Era of Industry 4.0” report raised the argument that WannaCry is still a real risk due to the fact that manufacturing companies use unpatched operating systems such as Windows XP more than any other sector.
This puts the manufacturing industry at serious risk of ransomware attacks which have the potential to derail their operations due to the amount of data or company time lost. Increased security risksTrend Micro's report also shed light on how USB flash drives containing malware are more prevalent in the manufacturing sector than any other. During the second half of 2018, 25.77 percent of USB worm detections occurred in the sector which was almost double that of government (13.49%) and education (12.73%). Malicious CAD files also pose a threat to the industry as hackers could use them for industrial espionage to steal corporate IP and confidential information. Once again this threat was more prevalent in the manufacturing sector (23.15%) than in other sectors such as real estate (19.75%) or government (13.49%). According to the report, Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI), the dashboard that allows humans to control a machine, are hackers' number one route into a manufacturer and they account for 60.6 percent of equipment exploits. Hackers can access HMIs remotely over the internet and can read and often tamper with readings on critical machinery. Improving the manufacturing process through the use of technology certainly has huge potential benefits but businesses looking to do so must carefully consider the security implications to have a successful Industry 4.0 journey. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The first 5G phone: our hands-on with the future of smartphones Posted: 04 Apr 2019 11:10 AM PDT 4/4, 12:30 pm CT: Popping back outside into the rain to see how long it'd take to download The Raid Redemption at 446MB on the 5G network, we gave up after 2 minutes and 30 seconds that had only netted 44MB. A quick speed test showed the lowest speeds we'd seen all day at 59.9Mbps. Never mind downloading a whole TV show season before a flight takes off, we couldn't even download Iko Uwais kicking his first ass. 4/4, 12:08 pm CT: Went into the grocery store on that same corner and couldn't get 5G even sitting next to a window near that corner. 4/4, 11:56 am CT: Took the Moto Z3 out for a walk in the West Loop, because the 5G signal couldn't bother to join me indoors on this cold and rainy day. Found a corner closer to The Loop that had 5G signal, though it was still spotty. Ran a speed test that hit 448Mbps downstream with a 19ms ping time. We literally cobbled together the world's first 5G phone when we slapped the newly-launched 5G Moto Mod onto the back of an existing 4G phone. And it is indeed faster, according to our on-the-ground 5G tests using the Moto Z3, last year's 4G LTE phone that can be upgraded to 5G care of the new 5G add-on. Yes, 5G service is here, and it's coming together in bits and pieces. We could buy the 5G Mod at exactly one Chicago store on launch day, and it came out faster than anyone expected. Verizon and Motorola jumped ahead of their original April 11 launch to become the first to 5G phone manufacturer and carrier, beating Samsung's scheduled April 5 launch in Korea. Crafty. Although this makes Verizon and Motorola the first to 5G in the world, there's still the question of what that really means for all of us, the people using the the first 5G phone on the first 5G network – which is only available in parts of two US cities. We'll be providing live updates over the course of our testing as we spend more time seeing just what the first 5G phone and 5G cellular network can and can't handle. What it took to get 5G serviceVerizon's activation of its 5G network is far from a wide launch. Officially, the network is only live in Chicago, Illinois, and in Minneapolis, Wisconsin. While Chicago is a sizable city, and Minneapolis isn't small, the actual availability of 5G in each city is still limited. For now, only a handful of Chicago wards are covered in the 5G network, and Verizon hasn't released any coverage map for customers to see. These are dense areas of Chicago, including Magnificent Mile (specifically the Verizon store), Gold Coast, Old Town, River North, and portions of South Loop and West Loop. Milwaukee's 5G coverage areas are in Downtown West, Downtown East, Elliot Park, and the Mall of America's Verizon Store. Aside from the hands-on in the Magnificent Mile Verizon Store where the launch event took place, we knew getting to experience 5G in the wild might take a bit of work. We needed both the Moto Z3, the 5G Moto Mod, an unlimited data plan from Verizon, and we had to pay a special $10 5G service fee on top of the data plan to access the 5G network. In the end, the hardware cost us $749 at the store (without opting for a contract where there are some discounts), and service will cost about $100 a month. Without further ado, let's get to business: is it really faster? 5G vs 4G LTE speedsImage Credit: TechRadar In the Verizon Store where the launch event took place, there was a 5G node set up at the front. And, with a short distance between the Moto Z3 and the node, with line of sight, the device managed to hit 651Mbps downstream. Compare that to a later test on the 4G network that hit 213Mbps downstream. Meanwhile, upstream data actually only uses 4G, so there's no speed boost for that. How does that speed translate into real-world performance? All the 1080p videos on YouTube started playing promptly as we flicked through one after another. Scrubbing through each video's runtime caused a momentary pause before playback resumed. However, after switching over to 4G, we didn't see much of a difference while doing the same thing. Since most of us don't use our mobile network just to run speed tests, we jumped right onto the Play Store to download the hefty 1.81GB PUBG Mobile game. On the 5G network, the download took just shy of 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Repeating the download on the 4G network, the download took 6 minutes and 8 seconds. So, while the 5G network is clearly the faster of the two, it's not by an order of magnitude. 5G reliabilityOver the course of our initial hands-on, we seriously questioned Verizon's 5G network's reliability. Take the Verizon Store where the event took place: it was scarcely bigger than 30 feet across and 100 feet back, with a 5G node in the front of the building. Reception was spotty toward the back, and could even peter out near the front. We noticed the Moto Z3 switch from 5G to 4G LTE on multiple occasions as we moved around, and had to keep checking that our speed tests were 5G all the way through. While we'll be testing the 5G connectivity over the next week throughout the Chicago area, we'll be checking whether the millimeter wave technology Verizon uses for its 5G network will be able to penetrate obstacles and walls. The lack of a defined 5G map is also an issue, as any time we don't get 5G, we'll be left wondering whether it's because there's no signal in the area or if the phone is just fails to pick it up. We're going to continue to test the advent of 5G in Chicago this week, so stay tuned for updates on how the service functions for us and the top speeds we hit. When it works, and where it works, it's certainly faster than 4G LTE; the future of smartphones is here, but not quite everywhere. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Huawei fixes MateBook software following backdoor threat Posted: 04 Apr 2019 10:44 AM PDT Huawei has revealed that it patched a flaw in its MateBook laptops that could have been used by hackers or other third-parties to take control of a user's system. The software bug was first discovered by Microsoft while investigating an alert raised by Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection's kernel sensors. Microsoft notified Huawei of the flaw upon its discovery in January and the Chinese hardware giant quickly corrected it.
Computer security expert at Surrey University, Professor Alan Woodward explained to The BBC that the flaw resembled the type of backdoors the NSA creates to spy on targets' computers, saying: "It was introduced at the manufacture stage but the path by which it came to be there is unknown and the fact that it looks like an exploit that is linked to the NSA doesn't mean anything. It could be organised crime gangs, which are increasingly interfering with the supply chain, or it could be someone playing geo-politics to discredit Huawei. There is no evidence that the company has done anything malicious or any evidence they were under pressure from the state." Security concernsHuawei is already facing a wave of international pressure over how its devices could be used by the Chinese government to spy on the West. This has led some governments such as the US to ban the firm's equipment from being used while the UK is still considering such a ban. Professor Woodward also raised the point that the security flaw found in Huawei's MateBook laptops is going to do little to help the company's case or reduce spying concerns. Huawei's networking equipment has the potential to play a huge part in the global rollout of 5G networks though the chaos that could be caused by their disruption has led many to be worried about the company supplying this technology. Via The BBC
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| Fitbit price cut at Amazon: save $60 on the Fitbit Alta activity tracker Posted: 04 Apr 2019 10:37 AM PDT Summer is just around the corner, and if you're looking to get in shape a fitness tracker can be the perfect companion to help you – and the good news is that Amazon has the Fitbit Alta on sale for only $69, the lowest price we've seen for the best-selling activity tracker. The Fitbit Alta is made for everyday wear, with an ultra-slim and lightweight design. The Alta tracks activities such as steps, distance, running and other exercises, and will even give you friendly reminders to stretch your legs and start moving. The water-resistant Fitbit also tracks calories burned and records your sleep to provide you with helpful insights. Once you download the Fitbit app, you can track all of your activity on your smartphone or computer and follow the progress you've made. You can also get personalized workout videos, and log your exercises to help meet your fitness goals. The Alta has an impressive battery life of up to five days, and also offers basic smartwatch features such as call, text and calendar notifications. If you want a fitness tracker that offers heart rate monitoring, and you don't mind paying a bit more, you might be interested in the Fitbit Alta HR. The Alta HR has all the features of the Fitbit Alta, but in addition it can continuously track your heart rate, and it has a slightly longer battery life. Amazon has the Alta HR on sale for $92.52, which is the best price we can find right now for the popular activity tracker. If you're interested in other Fitbit discounts you can find the best cheap Fitbit sale prices and deals that are currently available. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Windows 10 churned out rogue notifications that looked like a malware infection Posted: 04 Apr 2019 09:28 AM PDT Some Windows 10 users have been rightly worried that their PC had contracted some manner of virus, thanks to rogue notifications produced by a configuration error in Microsoft’s News app. The affected users received a number of notifications entitled ‘My Movies’ with the simple text ‘test notification’, ‘this is test notification’, or a misspelled message that read ‘this test notification’. The fact that the message was repeated, and the spelling error, made some suspect that malware could be involved – as misspellings aren’t exactly uncommon when it comes to the sort of shady stuff that will crop up thanks to a virus infection or hack.
Reports were posted in several threads on Reddit, where a discussion ensued, and a Microsoft support engineer stepped in to clarify: “Due to a configuration error in the Windows 10 News app notifications (English edition), some customers reported seeing test notifications. “This issue was resolved on March 29th via a configuration update for existing versions. We have also released a new version of the app that addresses the issue. The notification does not affect the application or use, and this issue should now be resolved.” So yes, this actually began happening last Friday (March 29), but Microsoft has only just provided an explanation for what went on, and confirmation that the bug is indeed now fixed. Serious consequencesSeveral of the affected Windows 10 users were ready to pre-emptively wipe their PC just in case they had caught something nasty, until they ran an online search and discovered on Reddit that other people had the same problem. So while this slip-up might look relatively innocuous – or even vaguely amusing – this just goes to show how serious these sort of errors can be in terms of (quite rightly) provoking worry across the operating system’s user base.
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| LG TV lineup 2019: every LG TV model coming this year Posted: 04 Apr 2019 08:49 AM PDT Will 2019 be the year of OLED TVs? LG certainly thinks so – with the company's own organic LED panel technology making up 20% of their portfolio this year. It's a year marked by collaboration, as seen in the Alexa and Google Assistant support coming to new LG ThinQ smart TVs in 2019 and the Airplay 2 support coming by way of Apple, allowing streaming of iTunes movies and TV shows. There's also be a host of visual enhancements with the new Alpha A9 (Gen. 2) processor, for better color correction and support for 120fps frame rates on high-end LG TVs – and, more importantly, the first of rollable OLED television, the LG Signature Series OLED TV R.
That said, the 2019 general lineup will be similar to last year: LG OLED TVs at the high end, Super UHD or 'NanoCell' TVs – which have a lot of the same components as the OLED TVs, but lack the main OLED panel – in the middle, and then traditional 4K TVs and finally FHD screens at the bottom. With there being so many different models to take in, we thought we'd lay out the whole 2019 lineup announced so far, from the high-end OLEDs to newly-branded NanoCell TVs, in one, admittedly long, piece. (We'll add the UHD and FHD models as and when they're announced!) LG is already rolling out its 2019 TV range to the US and China, with the UK and European markets set to start shipping in the coming weeks. Some of the specs listed below could change by the time of each TV's retail release, but for the most part the specs you see here should be the components that make it in the final product. [Update: We now have pricing and release dates confirmed for a number of LG's 4K televisions in the UK and US – with some landing as soon as April! Head to the list of TV models below to see what's been announced already]. LG TV 2019 technologyAnother year, another processor. The biggest change for the high-end screens (the OLED line-up) is the switch from last year's Alpha 9 (a9) processor to the a9 Gen 2. 2018's Alpha 9 silicon upgrade promised a 35% boost in CPU and GPU speeds, equating to smoother motion handling, object-based contrast enhancement for better sharpness and detailing and a technology called True Color Accuracy Pro. We're getting more of the same with the 2nd-generation processor, with a big focus on 'intelligent AI' and 'machine learning algorithms' to enhance picture, audio and software performance – with a new algorithm that's able to analyze the source content and optimize for ambient viewing conditions. (Image Credit: LG Display) Flagship TVs will also come with Dolby Atmos 5.1 surround sound, while LG's new processor will be able to "up-mix" two-channel audio into 5.1 surround sound: like upscaling for the ears. We know for a fact the new a9 Gen 2 chip is being used in the LG Signature Series OLED R and new range of Z9, W9, C9, and E9 OLEDs – even the budget B9 model gets the latest chip! The new Alpha 9 processor also has the heft needed for High Frame Rate (HFR, 120/4K) – for that smooth motion crucial for sports, action, or gaming – but it'll only be in 2019 that we see LG TVs implement the HDMI 2.1 ports to make the most of it, so you can display in 120fps/4K from cabled sources, console, and media players. (Image Credit: LG Display) (Last year users could make do with HFR streaming from the likes of Netflix, YouTube, BBC, FOX Sports, Amazon and broadcasts, though compatible content was few and far between – we'll likely see more emerge as a larger number of compatible televisions enter the market.) In May 2018 we saw LG roll out Google Assistant to all of its OLED and Super UHD TVs – meaning you could start using your voice to switch inputs, change the channel, connect to other smart home devices, and integrate with Google's Photos and Maps applications. This year's LG TV line-up – for OLED and Super UHD, at least – will also be arriving with Alexa capability for an even wider range of voice control options. LG OLED 2019 Models(Image Credit: TechRadar) LG Signature Series OLED R (available in 65 inches): The standout television for 2019 is undoubtedly the 65R9 rollable OLED, featuring LG's new a9 Gen 2 processor. First teased at CES 2018, it's being slated for release in late 2019, using a flexible OLED panel to unfurl the television display at the touch of a button – perfect for saving space and, let's be honest, impressing guests. There's no RRP yet, but it'll certainly cost a small fortune – start rolling up those dollar bills. Read our hands on review: LG Signature Series OLED R (Image Credit: LG Display) LG OLED Z9 (available in 88 inches): As the flagship LG OLED – or at least, the flagship that doesn't curl up into a box – the LG OLED Z9 is an 8K powerhouse with big promises for 8K upscaling and 'improved noise reduction' for clean, smooth images. With 33 million pixels across 88 inches of screen, it'll certainly have to work hard to do it – and the a9 Gen 2 processor will surely come in handy. Read our hands on review: LG 8K OLED (Image Credit: LG Display) LG OLED W9 (available in 65, 77 inches): The W9 upgrade to last year's LG W8 will come with the new a9 Gen 2 processor's improvements to High Frame Rate, HDR, and overall picture and sound processing – as well as the same thin, picture frame shape that made this 'wallpaper' television series so attractive. The W8 came with a 60W 4.2 Dolby Atmos soundbar built in to the set, so we're likely to see similar audio credentials for this model. The 65-inch model will retail at $6,999 / £6,999 (around AU$9,800) while the 77-inch jumps up to $12,999 / £12,999 (around AU$18,300). US models: OLED65W9PUA, OLED77W9PUA (available June) UK models: OLED65W9PLA, OLED77W9PLA (available May) (Image Credit: LG Display) LG OLED E9 (available in 55, 65 inches): If last year is anything to go by, the new E Series model will feature the same specs at the W9, but with a glass body and tacked-on chassis instead of the W8's 'wallpaper' design. Expect a $3,299 / £3,999 (around AU$4,600) price tag for the 55-inch, and $4,299 / £4,299 (around AU$6,050) for 65 inches. US models: OLED55E9PUA, OLED65E9PUA (available June) UK models: OLED55E9PLA, OLED65E9PLA (available April) (Image Credit: LG Display) LG OLED C9 (available in 55, 65, 75 inches): The newest C Series model is confirmed, and experience teaches us to expect a neat balance of performance and price, without ditching the company's latest processor to do it. Last year's LG C8 came with a 2.2 soundbar too. Sets will retail at $2,499 / £2,499 (around AU$3,500) for the 55-inch, $3,299 / £3,299 (around AU$4,600) for the 65-inch, or $6,999 / £7,499 (around AU$9,800) for the 77-inch. US models: OLED55C9PUA, OLED65C9PUA, OLED77C9PUA (available April / May) UK models: OLED55C9PLA, OLED65C9PLA, OLED77C9PLA (available April) (Image Credit: LG Display) LG OLED B9 (available in 55, 65 inches): Unlike last year's LG B8 model, the more budget-friendly B Series OLED won't be left behind with an ageing processor. The LG B9 will carry the a9 (Gen 2) chip, though with a cheaper build and less advanced panel than the other OLEDs in this list. UK models: OLED55B9PLA, OLED65B9PLA (available July) LG NanoCell 2019 ModelsSM9975 (available in 75 inches): LG's leading LCD television set will be the SM9975, a 75-inch TV with 8K resolution. LG is rebranding its Super UHD TVs as the far fancier 'NanoCell' range, to better represent the jump in picture quality and color accuracy compared to cheaper LG models – with the high-end a9 Gen 2 processor and High Frame Rate to make it happen. (Image Credit: LG Display) SM9500 / SM9800 (available in 55, 65 inches): More NanoCell, less processing. The LG SM9500 (SM9800 in the UK) packs in the 2nd-generation Alpha 7 processor, rather than the Alpha 9, but comes with Full Array Dimming Pro for more uniform black levels, as well as Dolby Vision and Dolby Vision, and LG's ThinQ AI smart platform. No Dolby Atmos soundbar, though. UK release: The 55-inch and 65-inch models are launching in May for £1,999 / £2,999. (Image Credit: LG Display) SM9000 (available in 49, 55, 65, 75 inches): One step below the previous model, with the same a7 Gen 2 processor, but Full Array Dimming rather than the upgraded 'Pro' technology seen on the SM9500 – meaning less lighting control and less consistent brightness. UK release: The three smaller models (49, 55, 65 inch) are all available in April, for £1,499 / £1,799 / £2,499 – while the 75-inch launches in May for £2,999, and the 86-inch model launches in July for £4,499. (Image Credit: LG Display) SM8600 / SM8500 (available in 49, 55, 65, 75 inches): An update to last year's new SK8500 range, these models sticks with the a7 Gen 2 processor, but with a generally cheaper design and only more basic Local Array dimming zones rather than the Full Array Dimming of the more costly models. The only difference between the SM8600 and SM8500? The TV stand. UK release: The 49, 55, and 65-inch models land in late April for £1,299 / £1,499 / £2,299 respectively. The 75-inch SM8600 model arrives in early May at a higher £2,999. Everything you need to know about the new TV launches of 2019: Sony TV lineup 2019: every Sony Bravia and Master Series set coming this year LG TV catalog 2019: here’s every LG TV model coming this year Panasonic TV lineup 2019: all the OLED and LCD televisions coming your way Philips TV range 2019: everything you need to know from OLED+ to ‘The One’ Hisense TV lineup 2019: the year of ULED television This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Apple Music finally comes to Amazon speakers in the UK Posted: 04 Apr 2019 08:35 AM PDT You can now listen to Apple Music on Amazon Fire TV and Echo devices in the UK, over three months after the platform became available for US users. To stream from Apple Music on your Echo speaker or Fire TV, you'll need to enable the Apple Music skill in the Alexa app – Amazon says once you've done that you can "ask Alexa to play your favourite songs, artists, playlists, and albums" for hands-free control of your music.
Although we've been told that Apple Music won't be coming to Google Home anytime soon, it does seem as though Apple is beginning to cosy up to its rivals in a bid to get its music platform in front of more potential customers. Should Spotify be worried?This could prove worrying for the music streaming world's reining champion, Spotify – however Apple Music has a long way to go before it eclipses the popular streaming platform. At the end of last year, Apple Music surpassed 50 million users, paling in comparison to Spotify's 70 million paid subscribers. Still, it wasn't that long ago that The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple’s music streaming service only had around 36 million paying subscribers, which means that it’s made some impressive gains in the last 12 months. Only time will tell whether Apple will ever achieve its dreams of cast a shadow over Spotify, but one things for certain: it's doing everything it can to make that dream a reality. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The best Fitbit Inspire and Inspire HR bands Posted: 04 Apr 2019 08:05 AM PDT The Fitbit Inspire and Fitbit Inspire HR are a pair of fitness trackers that offer a range of features for anyone looking to monitor their fitness and general activity. The beautiful and understated design means they look great on your wrist too, but what if you want to add some flair, to make the Fitbit Inspire more personal? Well, there are loads of options from both third-parties and Fitbit itself. So let's take a look at the best Fitbit Inspire and Inspire HR bands to give your activity tracker a new look. 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. Image Credit: Reety If you damage your original Fitbit Inspire band then you'll want to find a replacement and the Reety offers a more affordable option than Fitbit’s own selection, and visually it’s very similar. Plus the Reety has more color options available, giving you a chance to pick something that suits you. Given the lower cost, you could pick up a couple of different color options and switch the bands whenever you like. Perhaps an understated black for work with some bright colors for those workout sessions. Image Credit: Cavn Cavn is clearly trying to remind people of another premium watch band with this ventilated design, but we think this strap is ideal for everyday use. It's going to look great on your wrist at work and it's got the chops to manage an intense workout too. It's available in two sizes and more colors than you can shake a stick at. Black/Red looks brilliant and we're fans of the green too - but there is almost certainly a color option you'll love, no matter what your taste! Image Credit: Sansee There's no point pretending that everyone will love this strap design. For one thing it's not designed for people who are about to run a marathon, rather, this is the sort of strap you pop on when you're heading out for the night and want to keep track of the number of dance steps you take. Sansee also includes a screen protector with its strap, which fits with its theme of being one for nights out, not hardcore training. The company also describes the screen protector as "explosion-proof", so now we're thinking this one might be for spies or something? Image Credit: Chofit We love the color options and style of this Chofit strap. The leather design means that it entirely changes how the Fitbit Inspire looks on your wrist. It takes the wearable from a pure workout device into something that looks great at work, or on a night out. With a selection of colors and a really affordable price there's something here for every Fitbit Inspire owner. We think this is ideal for day-to-day wear, especially if you're tracking your steps and keeping tabs on your heart rate while you work. It’s perhaps less well suited to intense workouts where a wipe-clean silicone band is preferable. Image Credit: Humenn You could spend a lot of money on a Milanese watch strap but there are affordable options out there too, like this one from Humenn. The fine mesh that forms the band means that your skin can breathe and even decent amounts of exercise won't generate a wrist swamp. It's adjustable too, so you can be sure that any wrist - within reason - will be catered for and there are two sizes to cover all the bases. The magnetic clasp should hold the watch on safely, but very rigorous exercise might cause problems - but for most people this is a great, affordable way to get a cool-looking band. Image Credit: Fitbit Fitbit admits that this strap isn't ideal for high-intensity workouts and this band isn't water resistant either. That's fine though, it's clearly more of a strap for evening wear or to fit in with your 9-5 job. While it's pretty expensive it is made from premium leather and similar straps for competing smartwatches can cost many times more. It looks fab, has an aluminum buckle, and Fitbit chucks in a two year limited warranty with it too - nifty! Image Credit: Fitbit An absolutely stunning metal band for the Inspire that takes it from a fitness and activity tracker into the realms of something far more fashionable and desirable. Of course the big problem here is that this band is very nearly as much as the Inspire itself. There are much cheaper versions of this band available - see our suggestions above - but there's a quality to Fitbit's accessories that you won't likely find in the third-party market. It's backed up by a decent warranty too and a 45-day money back guarantee. Looking for a different Fitbit?
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| Nintendo Switch finally gets controller with a headphone jack Posted: 04 Apr 2019 07:27 AM PDT Nintendo Switch is finally getting a third-party controller with a headphone jack. Although it's officially licensed by Nintendo, the Faceoff Deluxe+ Audio Wired Controller is developed by PDP, which manufacturers a host of different Switch accessories, Switch travel cases, and controllers. Set to release this summer, the wired controller has a 10-foot USB cable for connecting to your Switch dock, as well as a 3.5mm audio jack for attaching a gaming headset or pair of wired headphones.
Though the Nintendo Switch already has a 3.5mm jack on the console itself, neither the Joy-Cons, Joy-Con grip, or Pro controller have an option for wired audio. The Switch doesn't support Bluetooth audio either, giving you few options if you've docked your console and don't want that Tetris 99 soundtrack keeping your housemates awake. You can also swap out faceplates, and customize a pair of programmable paddles at the back of the controller – not crucial for gameplay, but handy for anyone wanting a more personalized experience. The Faceoff Deluxe+ will retail at $24.99 (around £19/ AU$35), and be available in either red or purple designs. Players in the US will be able to start pre-ordering from May, Team playersOne of the key features of the Faceoff Deluxe+ is that it will feature Vivox's new SDK (software development kit) to enable voice chat between Switch consoles – without using the fiddly voice chat feature in the Nintendo Switch Online smartphone app. The Faceoff Deluxe+ won't feel as premium as the Pro Controller, and won't pack in 'surplus' features like HD rumble. But for anyone wanting to use a proper gaming headset when playing in TV mode, or just to keep the music to themselves, the Faceoff Deluxe+ may be just what you need.
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| The best Huawei P10 deals in April 2019 Posted: 04 Apr 2019 06:55 AM PDT The Huawei P10 was one of the better Android phones that was released in 2017, taking the game to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S8. Here we'll tell you how to get your hands (and wallets) on the very best Huawei P10 deals. Now succeeded by not only the Huawei P20 and P20 Pro, but now also the P30 and P30 Pro, the P10 is an older but now extremely affordable phone. We've put a bunch of the best deals together in one place. If you use our bespoke comparison chart below, you'll find the very cheapest contracts on the market right now. Some of the deals have lots of data, there are some without an upfront cost and some deals are just plain cheap, so we can get you the best deal on your new phone. Unless you're after unfeasible amounts of data, you shouldn't have to pay any more than around £25 a month for your new Huawei P10 deal and there are even tariffs coming in under £20pm - that's exceptional value for a phone that, despite its age, is still full of features. See also: Huawei P20 deals | Samsung Galaxy S9 deals | HTC U11 deals | | iPhone 8 deals | iPhone XR deals | mobile phone deals The P10 may not be a massive upgrade from the Huawei P9, but that didn't stop it from being a serious contender to the best Android phones when it first came out. It may now be a few years old but it will appeal to people who are trying to save a few bucks on their phone contract. The design is still beautiful and considering how much you're paying, this is a pretty powerful piece of kit. And as the Huawei P20 doesn't really kick on too much, the P10 may be a better option if you want to keep things affordable. Read TechRadar's full Huawei P10 review here. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The best free Android apps of 2019 Posted: 04 Apr 2019 06:46 AM PDT It has been over ten years since Android was first outed by Google, and back then it was hard to imagine the sheer number of apps we'd have today. There are apps for everything, and many of them are completely free, meaning you're just a few downloads away from supercharging your smartphone at no extra cost. Admittedly, the huge quantity of apps doesn't mean they're all quality - far from it in fact, and finding the good ones can be tough.
There are tools and techniques to help, with various lists in the Play Store providing you with Editor's Picks across a range of categories, new releases and even apps that are specifically recommended for you based on your previous installs. You can also hunt out apps that are similar to your favorites by searching for an app you have and seeing what else comes up. And checking out user reviews and ratings can save you from downloading a dud of an app. But even with all that, the sheer number of apps on Google Play means many of the best can often get lost, while weaker ones sometimes rise to the top. So to make sure you never install a duff app here's our selection of the best you should install right now - each one carefully chosen to ensure you'll have a whole suite of fun, engaging and, dammit, useful apps on your phone or tablet. We've sorted them into categories so you can more easily find what you're looking for. But make sure to check back weekly for our free Android apps of the week, which you'll find below. Best free Android apps of the weekEach week we add two apps to this list and you'll find these two latest additions below. Google Arts & CultureWe’ve written about Google Arts & Culture before, but it’s worth highlighting again, as the app has been steadily updated with new content and features. In fact, there’s an almost overwhelming amount of content tucked away inside this free app. You can, for example, view high-quality versions of famous artworks and zoom in close for a better look at them. You can also see 360-degree videos and – with the help of a VR headset – virtual reality tours of museums and other attractions. You can also tour many of these sites using Street View, with both exteriors and interiors covered. There are also articles, information on local events and exhibits, the ability to save favorite artworks to easily return to later, and lots more. And if you make it to an exhibit in the real world, you can also use Google Arts & Culture to learn more about artworks, simply by pointing your phone’s camera at them. If you have even a passing interest in art or culture, this is an essential download. Aroundsound Audio RecorderAroundsound Audio Recorder is a seemingly simple audio recording app with a surprising amount to it. It’s designed to allow you to quickly and easily record any sound with a single tap - be it a conversation, the wind in the trees, or anything else. Recordings are saved automatically, named based on the time of day, and given a location tag. Tapping on a recording then plays it back. Simple. You can also adjust the recording quality, pause a recording and continue the same recording later, trim a recording or edit out unimportant parts, and share recordings with people or apps as a web link, so there’s no need for others to have the Aroundsound app or to download a file in order to listen to your recordings. You can also change the names of your recordings and add bookmarks to important points in them, so you can easily find the key parts later. These bookmarks can even have a note attached. Plus, you can back up your recordings to the cloud, so they’ll never get lost. There’s a lot here, but most of its stays out of the way, so if you want to stick to the basics you won’t find endless buttons and toggles intruding on the experience. Our favorite free Android apps for painting, drawing, sketching, design and animation. OverOver could be the app to take your social media game to the next level, as it has all the tools you need to create stylish designs full of photos, images and text, fit for Instagram, Facebook and most other social sites or even for use on posters and flyers. The app lets you select from a range of canvas sizes, many of which exactly line up with the sizes used by popular social sites, then lets you add images and text to them, with various options available, including a range of fonts, the ability to adjust colors and positioning, and more. Over also includes plenty of pre-made graphics to spice up your projects, and when you’re done creating you can easily share your design to other apps or save it as a JPG or PNG. The basic tools are mostly free, but power users might want to pay for the Pro subscription, as this gives you access to more of everything: more fonts, more graphics, plus a database of templates, so you don’t have to build up your designs from scratch. HouzzRedecorating or improving your home can be a daunting prospect, but Houzz could make it a little bit more manageable. It could do that by inspiring you through its library of millions of photos, showing exteriors and interiors of various styles. It could also do that by giving you a single storefront to find and buy all the furniture and other items you need, even going so far as to let you see products in your home, using augmented reality. And it can do that by helping you find experts – such as architects and builders – to do the hard work for you. If you’re planning to take on the task yourself then there are also plenty of articles on hand to help, as well as the ability to ask the Houzz community for advice. Sticker MakerIf you use WhatsApp, you’re probably aware that the service has finally added support for stickers, so as well as emojis and GIFs you can now send larger emoji-like images. But while there are plenty of sticker packs to choose from there’s also – thanks to Sticker Maker – the option to make your own. The app first has you create a new ‘sticker pack’ which you can name, then simply load up an image on your phone and cut out the part of the image that you want to use as a sticker. You can do this freehand or use tools in the app to cut a perfect square or circle. You can also rotate the image if you want and then save it to your pack when you’re happy. Packs can contain up to 30 stickers, but need at least three. Once you’ve made at least three you’ll be able to send the pack to WhatsApp, where you can use your custom stickers just like any others. If you later want to add or remove stickers from the pack, you can do that. You can also make additional packs if you have more than 30 sticker ideas or just want to keep the packs themed. Sticker Maker is a slick app, and a useful one for anyone who likes WhatsApp stickers but just wishes they were more personalized. PexelsPexels is a database of photos that you can use for free for any purpose, including commercial uses, with no attribution needed (though it notes that attributions are still appreciated). You can search using keywords or browse trending images, while tapping the photographer behind a photo will show you their other work on Pexels and let you follow them, so you never miss anything new that they upload. You can also ‘like’ and collect photos within Pexels and if you want to take them outside the app you can easily share them with Instagram or other apps, save them as your wallpaper, or simply download them. But Pexels also lets you become one of the photographers, as you can upload any of your own photos to the app for other people to use. However you choose to use Pexels though, it’s a slick, beautiful app. SketchBookSketchBook isn’t a new app, but while many of the features used to cost money, it’s now completely free, making it worth revisiting. The features that are now free include more than 130 brush presets, customizable canvas sizes, various rulers, high quality image imports and more. And that’s on top of all the basic tools that were already free, such as a layer editor and pen mode, all of which combine to make this one of the most generous free sketching apps available on Android. Coming from Autodesk, the power of SketchBook should come as no surprise, but it’s an app that seemed worth the money previously and is now utterly essential if you’ve even toyed with the idea of digital sketching. DIY ProjectsWikiDIY is a website that’s packed full of DIY projects, with guides for everything from making unicorn cupcakes to making a willow whistle. But it’s not all about making things, as WikiDIY also has guides for things like how to clean rubber on shoes or how to take good photos at night. All of these guides can now be found in its new DIY Projects app, and they come with step by step instructions, diagrams, and in some cases videos. The guides also have questions and answers supplied by readers, along with lists of what you’ll need and any warnings that it’s worth being aware of before you start. You can search for specific guides, browse by category, and bookmark your favorites. And while the app itself isn’t the best we’ve seen (it often feels like little more than a web wrapper) it’s hard to argue with the quality and quantity of the content. BitmojiEver wanted your own custom emoji and stickers that star you, rather than a generic face? Then you should definitely download Bitmoji. This lets you recreate your likeness in cartoon form, with loads of tools available to make the look as perfect as possible. Then you can choose an outfit and get access to dozens if not hundreds of stickers, each of which feature you. These can be shared to various chat and social apps, but Bitmoji has deeper integration with Gboard, letting you share its stickers direct from the keyboard. It can also be linked to your Snapchat account, making your Bitmoji your Snapchat avatar. You can alter the look of your Bitmoji at any time, so if you change your own hairstyle you can change theirs to match, or just give them a new outfit, and new stickers and customization options are being added over time, so you shouldn’t get bored. CanvaCanva was a hit on iOS and now it’s arrived on Android, giving you a simple yet powerful way to create posters, collages, flyers, cards, Instagram posts, banners and headers for blogs or other social media, and more. It’s a graphic design app, and one that’s intuitive from the moment you launch it. Start by choosing the type of content you want to design, then take your pick from a wide selection of ready-made templates (or search for something specific). Once that’s done, you’re ready to get editing. You can tap on any part of a template to change it with context-sensitive tools. Tap on text, for example, and you can write something new, or change the font, size, color and spacing. Select an image to change the color, add a filter, adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation, or switch it for a different picture altogether – either one of the many in Canva or one from your gallery. You can also drag and rotate things, and there’s unlimited undo, so you can go back as many steps as you want if you make a mess of the whole thing. When you’re done, you can save your creation to your phone or share it online. It’s also saved in the ‘Your designs’ section of the app, which you can access from the web and other devices, so you’ll never lose a design you’ve made. Our favorite free Android apps for shooting, sorting and editing photos and videos. CuratorCurator claims to be the first gallery app that organizes your photos using AI entirely offline, giving you the search power of something like Google Photos, without compromising on your privacy. It works well too. The first time you launch the app it will analyze and assign tags to all of your photos (which can take a long time), then if you search using a keyword, such as ‘beach’ or ‘cat’, it will show you every image containing that. Curator has a nice interface too, with two themes and the ability to view albums, all images, or all of the tags that have been assigned. Albums can be renamed and favorited, photos can be moved between albums and there are gesture controls, to help you navigate the interface faster. There are also new features on the way, such as private folders and shared albums. If you don’t care about the added privacy offered by Curator, then Google Photos is still the better app. Not least because it backs up your images and gives you access to them from other devices, but Curator is a strong alternative for those who prefer to keep their online presence to a minimum. Photo MapPhoto Map is simply a world map that displays your photos over the parts of the world that you took them in. Zoom out and you’ll likely just see a single thumbnail of one of your images over each country that you’ve snapped shots in, but zoom further in and you will see photos grouped into much smaller areas too. The thumbnails also have a number on them, telling you how many photos are in that gallery. You can easily see them all and enlarge them with a tap. There are a few options, such as the ability to change the look of the map or add terrain or satellite imagery to it, but mostly it’s just a great and simple idea – a visual way of separating your photos based on where they were taken. This is definitely one for those who like to travel! Photo Map is free to use, but a one-off $1.49/£1.29 IAP will get rid of adverts. PicaiIf you love slathering filters all over your photos then there’s a good chance you’ll love Picai, as it makes the process a lot smarter than most apps. But this isn’t just a tool for sticking filters on photos you’ve already taken (though you can do that too). Rather, it’s a camera app. Simply point it at something you want to photograph and it will use AI to detect what you’re looking at, even going so far as to provide a text pop-up telling you what it sees. From there it will automatically choose filters that it thinks would be a good fit and overlay two of them on the viewfinder – one on the left half, the other on the right. That means you can see what a filter will look like before you even take a photo. If you’re happy with one, you can swipe horizontally across it to select it, or you can swipe up or down to cycle through filters. It’s a clever idea, well implemented and completely free. Google LensYour phone might already have Google Lens built in, but if not you can now download it from the Play Store, and that’s worth doing. Once you’ve launched the app you can point your camera at almost anything and get information on it. Point it at a book and it will give you links to reviews of the book and places to buy it. Other products also produce store links, or if Google Lens can’t definitively identify something it will suggest similar products. You can also point it at a landmark to get information on it, at foreign text to translate it or at an event to add it to your calendar. You can even point it at plants or animals to identify them. The results aren’t perfect. In our experience Google Lens will regularly incorrectly identify something or fail to come up with any suggestions for what something might be, especially with more unusual items, but it works often enough to be genuinely useful, especially once you get used to the kinds of things it’s likely to work with – so you know whether to even bother booting it up. PhotoDirectorPhotoDirector is one of the more powerful and polished photo editing apps available on Android. It’s got you covered for fun filters, frames and effects, but it gives you more control than some of its peers. For example, you can adjust the strength of effects and choose to apply them globally or selectively. You get a lot of control over the core image too, as you can adjust the white balance, saturation, hue, sharpness, tone and more. You can also rotate, crop or mirror the image, cut out sections, adjust the perspective, and if you’ve taken a portrait remove red-eye. There’s more here, too much to list, but suffice it to say, PhotoDirector is a comprehensive app. You’re not limited to just editing photos you’ve already taken either; there’s also a camera component, allowing you to take new shots and see how effects and filters will look before you’ve even taken a picture. PhotoDirector is free to download and use. There’s an optional subscription for £2.59 (around US$3.70) per month if you want to unlock additional tools, remove adverts and improve the output quality, but the core app is already far more generous than most free offerings. Just a LineJust a Line is a simple example of the creative potential offered by AR (augmented reality). It lets you view the world through your phone camera and draw on scenes by touching the screen. You can see your drawings from multiple angles as you move the phone around, and you can film your creations to save them or share them with others. There’s not a whole lot more to it than that, and Google (which built the app) describes Just a Line as an experiment, so you should go in expecting a curiosity rather than a full-featured app, but it’s a fun introduction to AR that can be enjoyed by all ages. LightX Photo EditorThere are loads of filter apps and photo fixers on Android, but LightX Photo Editor is one of a much smaller number of comprehensive editing apps. It has plenty of filters, as well as tools for sharpening images and removing blemishes, and much more besides. You can tweak the hue, saturation and tone, adjust the focus, add a frame, sticker or text, merge images, create collages, flip, crop and rotate, draw on pictures and change the perspective. All of that is free, though there’s an optional IAP to remove adverts and add a few extra features. Whether you opt for the free or paid version, LightX is a powerful, feature-packed app that should suit most mobile photo-editing needs. Motion StillsIt’s not often that Google’s apps come to iOS before Android, but Motion Stills did, as it was designed to stabilize Live Photos, so they’d come out smoother. Now though it’s out on Android too, letting you shoot a short video clip which the app stabilizes. Clips that you shoot can be saved as a video or a looping GIF and then shared on social media, and Motion Stills also lets you use a ‘Fast Forward’ mode, which will condense up to a minute of footage into a shorter clip. This too is stabilized, to keep it smooth, and you can pick the playback speed. Motion Stills only works for new footage – so you can’t import and stabilize anything you’ve already shot (though if you just want to turn old footage into a GIF there are plenty of other apps that will do that). But for anything new you shoot Motion Stills is a great way to make a GIF or short video and ensure footage remains smooth. It’s fast too, as footage is stabilized in real time, so you don’t need to wait for it to process your clip, and it’s completely free. Google PhotosThere are probably hundreds of photo apps around, but Google Photos stands out as it gives you unlimited storage for photos and videos, all for free. That's reason enough to jump on board, especially as it works not just on Android but on iOS and computers too. But with basic editing tools and the ability to make collages and albums this is more than just photo and video storage, it aims to be your first and last stop after taking a picture. To achieve that it will need a few more features, but it's well on its way. Our favorite free Android apps for learning new things, from history to music to coding and beyond. St John Ambulance First AidThe St John Ambulance First Aid app isn’t new, but it is worth highlighting as it could save a life. It includes a selection of situations that you can choose from, such as ‘chest pain’ and ‘choking’, then talks you step by step through what you should do to help a person with these issues. There are also guides to useful techniques that you might need, such as CPR, and the app – while functional rather than stylish – is easy to navigate. Whether you ultimately choose St John Ambulance First Aid or not, we’d strongly recommend having at least one first aid app on your device - and this is one of the best. StudySmarterStudySmarter aims to help you do just that. When you first launch the app, you can pick your area of study from numerous categories, such as law and mathematics, then you get access to various flashcards aimed at teaching you the subject. But better yet, you can create your own flashcards and optionally share them with the rest of the StudySmarter community. Speaking of the community, there’s also an area where they can ask and answer questions related to subjects. StudySmarter users can also upload documents related to a subject, ensuring they have access to all their study materials within the app and also giving access to other users, and users can even add their own subjects to the app. The result is an app with a whole lot of potential, because as the user base grows, so will the number of study aids. Right now, the content is somewhat limited, meaning it’s most useful just as a way to create and use flashcards, but as a free download that’s enough to recommend it and if enough people take to it then StudySmarter could one day be a very smart way to study. StorySignStorySign is designed to help deaf children learn to read, by translating children’s books into sign language. To do this you need not just the app but supported books too, which at the time of writing in the UK is limited to just Where’s Spot?, but more are expected to be added. With book in hand, just point your phone’s camera at the page and an animated character in StorySign will read the page in sign language. And children will know which words are being signed as the word will be highlighted. As such they’ll both be able to enjoy the books unsupervised and learn to read in the process. While the content of StorySign is somewhat limited so far, there’s a lot of talent involved, with Aardman Animations (the company behind Wallace and Gromit) designing it and Huawei AI powering it, while Penguin Random House has partnered with it to supply classic children’s books to the app. Even in its limited form, StorySign is well worth trying if you have a deaf child young enough to appreciate it, but we expect that this is one app that will just keep getting better as its library grows. ScriptsScripts is a language-learning app focused specifically on learning to write and read in Chinese, Japanese or Korean. These languages are among the trickiest to learn as each one has a unique alphabet, but Scripts gives you a fighting chance. It does this by showing you letters from the language you choose to learn, and then taking you through short exercises which see you swipe across your screen to draw the letter yourself. Initially you’ll be swiping across an outline of the letter, but it quickly moves on to just showing the letter at the top of the screen or not showing it at all, so you really have to learn to progress. You’ll repeat the same letter a lot, but the exercises are all bite-sized, and so is your study, as you can only practice for five minutes each day unless you pay. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as everyone should be able to fit in five minutes of learning, but if you do want more you can pay $10.99/£10.49 per month, with discounts if you commit to a year. That gives you unlimited time, removes adverts, lets you access Scripts offline and gives you full access to Drops. We’ve covered Drops previously but it too is a language learning app, but it’s broader, rather than just being focused on the alphabet. Khan Academy KidsKhan Academy Kids is packed full of games and activities designed to entertain and educate young children. From sorting objects based on their color, to selecting the right letter to complete a word, to drawing and a whole lot more, there are apparently thousands of activities in here, and while we haven’t tested that many, the ones we have tested are varied and well put together, with colorful drawings, songs and sound effects. Most of the interactions use simple tap and swipe gestures, so most children should be able to navigate the app comfortably. A colorful character sits in the corner, and can be tapped whenever help is needed. There’s a lot here, and Khan Academy Kids should be suitable whether you want something your kid can do on their own, or something they can play through together with you. LingoDeerThere are a lot of language learning apps on Android, but when it comes to languages such as Japanese, Mandarin and Korean, which have different alphabet systems, most apps fall a bit flat in teaching you to read and write in the language. But that’s where LingoDeer excels, with various exercises designed to teach you the alphabet and grammar, as well as more conventional lessons focused on speaking and hearing the language. LingoDeer can feel a bit intimidating at times, especially if you’re a complete beginner, as these alphabets can look completely alien, but we’re not sure there’s any way around that. Learning one of these Asian languages is going to be hard, and LingoDeer is a good way to get started. OrphicThere are so many words in the English language, including all sorts of weird and wonderful ones that you might never have come across. But how do you come across them? Browsing a dictionary is inefficient, so instead you could try Orphic, an app dedicated to the more unusual and interesting parts of English. The app contains hundreds of words and will highlight a new one for you every day, even sending you a push notification for it if you want, so you can constantly learn new words. You can also head into the app and explore its library of language at your own pace. For every word you can see definitions, example sentences and even hear an audio clip, so you can be sure you’re saying it right. You can also add words to a list of favorites, so you can easily return to them later, and Orphic promises to add new words regularly, so the app should get better over time. Space Nation NavigatorSpace Nation Navigator is an oddity. Part game, part learning tool, part fitness app – the only thing uniting it all is a focus on space. There are various ‘missions’ including mini games, such as memorizing codes to repair a spacecraft, quizzes, and even physical exercises designed get you ready for an outer space adventure. There are also videos and articles that teach you more about space and the people exploring it, while leaderboards give you extra incentive to carry out the various activities. There’s the slightly annoying need to buy ‘coins’ or watch adverts if you want to replay missions, but otherwise Space Nation Navigator is an interesting app for anyone with even a passing interest in space. A bit more focus might help, but there’s a lot of content here. PlantNetWherever you are, chances are there are hundreds of different plant species within walking distance, and most of us have no idea what all but the most common are called. PlantNet aims to make identifying them easier – simply snap a photo and the app will attempt to identify what kind of plant or flower you’re seeing using visual recognition software. Assuming you’ve taken an in-focus shot with just a single type of plant in it you’ll probably get one or more suggestions, complete with names and pictures. This is probably the main thing you’ll use PlantNet for, but you can also view pictures submitted by other users and browse plants by a number of categories, such as where in the world they’re found. In many cases there are also links to Wikipedia pages about the plants, so you can learn more about them. As an identification tool PlantNet isn’t perfect, but it’s a whole lot better than nothing, and even if it can’t always identify the plant you’re looking at with 100% accuracy, chances are it will highlight some other interesting species in the process of trying. Today in HistoryToday in History is exactly what it says on the tin, telling you what happened today in history, and as it turns out there’s usually a lot that happened. The Today in History app will tell you about events, births, deaths, holidays and just about everything else significant that ever happened on the current day, and it includes pictures, text and links to Wikipedia articles (which is where it pulls its data from). It’s an attractive app and even better if you use the widget, which shows you events from this day in history on your home screen. Today in History also lets you download content for offline use, get notifications and – for anyone who’s not a native English speaker – switch to one of 50 different languages, a switch which cleverly will also affect the events you see, with those relevant to the culture associated with that language being prioritized. GrasshopperLearning to code isn’t easy, but learning the basics is easier in recent years than it ever used to be, and that’s partially because apps like Grasshopper exist, guiding you through the first steps (of JavaScript, in this case) with exercises and quizzes. The exercises are often presented a bit like puzzles. For example, very early examples task you with completing flags of countries by selecting the right code in the right order. This can feel almost like a game, and is engaging and enjoyable as a result. Achievements can be gained to further motivate you, and while the app will never make you an expert it does aim to leave you with fundamental JavaScript skills, so you’re ready to take on something more advanced. Duolingo: Learn Languages FreeIf you fancy learning a foreign language then make sure you download Duolingo: Learn Languages Free, as it's one of those rare apps that manages to be both educational and fun, ensuring that you'll keep coming back for more to brush up on your language skills, with bite-sized, genuinely useful lessons and tests. Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch, Irish, Danish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Esperanto, Polish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian, Hebrew, Welsh, English, Swahili and Romanian can all be learned, it's mostly free and it's one of the best ways you can learn a new language with your Android device. Our favorite free Android apps for having fun on your phone or tablet, through watching videos, reading, socializing and more. CuratedCurated lets you curate a list of the movies, songs, articles, podcasts, books and other content that you come into contact with. Simply search for the content on the app or add a link, then add a short review and any relevant tags, and other users of the app will be able to read what you think. In turn, you can also see the content other people post and follow people with similar tastes to you, so it’s a way to share and find interesting new content of all kinds. You can comment on other people’s posts, browse specific tags to find related content, and ‘save’ content that you want to remember to check out another time. For most things in Curated’s database there will also be relevant information. For example, for a podcasts there will be links to listen to it, and for a film there will be a trailer, cast list and synopsis, so you’re not reliant purely on the comments posted by other users. It’s a good app, and with more people using it Curated could be great. VLC for AndroidVLC isn’t new; in fact, in both Android and PC form, it’s been around a long, long time. It’s also been included on this list before, but continual updates mean it’s worth highlighting again. The app, in short, is one of the best and most powerful video players for Android. It supports just about every audio and video file format, as well as network streams, DVD ISOs and pretty much anything else you might reasonably want to play. Subtitles and closed captions are supported, and there are various tools when playing content, including an equalizer, Google Cast support, and numerous aspect ratios. There are also gesture controls for things like volume and brightness, making them easy to adjust without digging into menus. It’s also completely free, so while VLC isn’t the only video player app for Android, it’s probably the only one you’ll ever need. Telegram XTelegram is a popular, powerful messaging app, and Telegram X is that but faster, with better animations and experimental features. That last point is both a pro and a con, since some of those features won’t be as polished or useful as you might want, but most of them are minor (such as a night mode and some customization options) and can be ignored if you want. For the most part, Telegram X is just like Telegram, which itself is a lot like WhatsApp, but with some features that help it stand out. You can, for example, create group chats with up to 100,000 participants, and share files with no limits on the size or type. Telegram claims to be the fastest chat app on the market (other than Telegram X). That’s a tough claim to test, but it certainly seems slick. It also uses encryption, so your chats are secure, and it works on tablets and PCs as well as phones. The real issue with both Telegram and Telegram X is that they’re only useful if you know other people who use them. If you do, or can get people to start, then they’re well worth exploring, but that could be a tough ask. SoonSoon describes itself as a social bucket list app. What that means in this case is an app that lets you create lists of books you want to read, movies you want to watch, restaurants you want to try and more. You can select from a number of categories, including games, shops, bars, museums and TV shows, then make a list of the ones that interest you. To make a list, just type the name of the thing or place and Soon will usually be able to find it in its database, complete with information like the address if it’s a place or the cast if it’s a movie. Once you’ve read, watched, visited or otherwise interacted with a thing on a list you can tap ‘Done’, then rate and share your experience. Soon also has a trip planner, where you can select a destination and make a list of all the things you want to see and do. You can also share this list with anyone else you’re traveling with, so you can collaborate on it. All in all, Soon is a great app for anyone who struggles to remember the things they want to watch, visit, read, play and listen to, or just for anyone who likes making lists. LIKEtoKNOW.itEver seen a picture of someone in an outfit and wondered what they were wearing or where to buy it? With LIKEtoKNOW.it you won’t have to wonder any more. The app lets you take screenshots of photographs and can then tell you what’s being worn, as well as providing links to buy the clothes online. Or at least, it can sometimes. For any guarantee that it’s going to work, you should look out for captions containing ‘#liketkit’, the LiketoKNOW.it website link, or the LIKEtoKNOW.it logo in the bottom right-hand corner. Those things won’t exist on most images, but a growing number of fashion influencers will make posts compatible with the service. And that’s just one part of the app. LIKEtoKNOW.it also lets you browse images and follow influencers from within the app, and all the images of course also have links to buy the products contained within them. By following people, you can create a feed full of content that you like, but you can also browse other feeds for specific categories, such as ‘fitness’ or ‘weddings’. Most of the content is aimed at women, but there is a men’s category too. There’s also some kids clothes and some décor – it’s not all just outfits. If you’re female and into fashion, it’s definitely worth a look. Amazon AlexaThe Amazon Alexa app is essential if you have an Echo device, but previously it was an app you probably wouldn’t spend much time in. That’s all changed now though, thanks to an update that aims to make it the only app you need to control your smart home. It’s a similar overhaul to the one Google Home got, allowing you to turn lights on and off, control your thermostat and more. You can also control and set up aspects of Alexa from the app, of course, such as adding skills to it, managing timers and alarms and setting up Routines. The last of those is perhaps the most interesting, as these allow you to set a custom command that will cause Alexa to carry out a custom set of actions. For example, you could set the command “Alexa, time for bed” to turn off all your lights and turn down the thermostat. Blizzard EsportsEsports still have a long way to go before they’re as popular as conventional sports, and part of what’s holding them back is accessibility, but that’s something the Blizzard Esports app could help with. The app makes it easy to keep up to date with activity in Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, StarCraft, StarCraft II and World of Warcraft, offering schedules, scores, news and the option to set alerts reminding you to tune in when an event kicks off. When it’s time to tune in, you can do so via the Blizzard Esports app, so it’s a great companion for anyone into esports for the games above, or anyone who thinks they might want to get into them. Blizzard Esports is a little limited in that it only covers esports under the Blizzard banner. It won’t do much to help you understand the games being played if you’re completely new to them either, but for anyone with a bit of understanding and interest it’s a great addition to your app arsenal. For years Pocket has been helping people find the time to read all the articles they find online that would otherwise go ignored. You know the situation: you’re idly browsing but don’t have much time or should be doing something else, when you happen across an article that looks interesting. Maybe you plan to read it later and then forget, maybe you just resign yourself to the knowledge that it will go unread. But with Pocket, you can save it to a reading list so it won’t be forgotten, and make it available both offline and on just about any device with an internet connection, so you can read it wherever and whenever. It’s a great app, but as of recently Pocket has got even better, as now you can also listen to articles you’ve saved, so you don’t even need to read them. Pocket’s look has also been updated in an attempt to make it more pleasant to read from for long periods. So if you’re not already using it there has never been a better time to start. Google HomeGoogle Home isn’t a new app, but it has recently been overhauled, making it now perhaps the best solution for managing your smart home, particularly if you have smart home devices from a number of different brands. That’s because Google Home now lets you control them all from within the app. Or, at least, it does with most things. Inevitably some devices probably won’t be supported, but thousands are from hundreds of brands. You simply link them up to the Google Home app, then you can assign them to a room in your house, so that for example every smart device in your living room is grouped together. You can see all your devices from the main screen though, divided into these groups, and you can interact with some of them in a limited way from there (for example turning lights on or off) or tap on the device to do more with it (such as adjusting the brightness). You can also invite other members of your household to the app, so they can also manage smart devices from it, and the only real limitation is that some functionality isn’t supported. For example, with LIFX lights you can’t currently adjust the colors from Google Home, and with our Honeywell thermostat we can’t adjust schedules. But for the basics it’s a lot easier – and smarter - than jumping between multiple apps for all your smart devices. Steam LinkSteam Link allows you to stream your Steam games from your PC to your Android phone or tablet, so you can play them from anywhere in your house. You are limited to your house though, as your computer needs to be on and using the same Wi-Fi network as your Android device for this to work. No Steam streaming on the train, then, but it’s quite freeing if you’re usually tethered to a desk. You also need a fairly fast and stable internet connection and most games will need you to pair your phone with a Bluetooth controller, though some simpler ones can be controlled purely touchscreen. Still, if you’re big on gaming but wish you could play your ‘proper’ PC games from the couch, bed or bath, then Steam Link is well worth trying. LetterboxdIf you’re a movie lover then you might already know about Letterboxd, and if you don’t you should. It lets you keep track of movies you’ve watched, add them to your list with a single tap, review them, give them a star rating, and say when you watched them. It also lets you keep track of what you want to watch, thanks to a comprehensive film database and the ability to add films to a watch list – again with a single tap. Letterboxd helps you discover films by highlighting what’s currently popular, and offering thousands of lists created by users of the app. These lists all have a theme, and while that’s sometimes as simple as someone’s favorite movies, usually it’s a lot more interesting than that, for example one list is titled “They aren’t films, they’re experiences”. Of course, you can also make lists of your own, and Letterboxd is a bit of a social network too, letting you follow other users and comment on their lists. Our favorite free Android apps for working out, reducing stress and crafting meals. myCrewmyCrew is a social running app designed to help you find new runs and people to run with. Once you’ve selected your city (with options currently limited to a handful of major locations across the world, but more set to be added over time), you can browse runs that are happening in the area. These are a mix of big, professionally organized runs and smaller scale ones organized by users of the app. Each run has a description, a distance, a map and more, and you can select to join it with a tap. Then you just need to show up and get running. You can also host your own runs, which could be anything from a short regular route where you’d like some company, to something long and challenging. There’s a tab highlighting other people on the app too, so you can chat to people before you go running with them. Ultimately, myCrew is a social network and event calendar for runners, and its social approach makes it a bit different to most running apps. The only real issue at the moment is the lack of cities available, but a number of big ones such as London and New York are covered. Workout AlertsIf you work in an office, then chances are you’re not moving around enough during the day. There are tools to help with that, such as the movement reminders that are built into some fitness trackers, but Workout Alerts goes a step further. Rather than just reminding you to move regularly, it sets you a random exercise to complete. These exercises aren’t too taxing or time-consuming, usually just consisting of around 10-20 reps of something and taking no more than a couple of minutes, but they’re a lot better than just walking around for a minute or two, and far, far better than staying sat. The exercises don’t require any equipment, so you can do them almost anywhere, and there are both animations and descriptions explaining how to do them. There’s even an optional modified version of each exercise which you can tackle if you’d prefer. You can also set the days, time range and frequency that you get the Workout Alerts and for the most part it’s totally free. The only time fees appear is if you want to swap an exercise for another one or clear ‘Missed’ or ‘Skipped’ exercise stamps. None of that is likely to be very necessary, and if you do want it you can buy credits or just pay $4.99/£4.69 to be able to do those things an unlimited amount. Easy PedometerEasy Pedometer joins the many existing pedometer apps on Android, but this new option stands out in a couple of ways. For one thing, it’s packed full of achievements you can unlock for both daily goals and more long-term objectives, such as walking the same distance as it would take to circle the Earth. That should help keep you motivated, as should leaderboards comparing you to friends and strangers, the ability to level up when you take a certain number of steps, and a custom daily step goal. Easy Pedometer also tells you the distance you’ve walked, your active time and takes a guess at the calories you’ve burnt from walking each day, and keeps a log of this for a year, so you can see a lasting record. There’s a lot here and it’s all wrapped up in an attractive package. It’s an app that seems to have arrived fully-formed, with the type of feature-set and level of polish on day one that many apps take years to reach. The only real issue we have with Easy Pedometer is that sometimes it makes you view an advert for a few seconds when moving between screens. We’d love an option to get rid of adverts with a one-off IAP, but at the moment that’s just not possible. Cocktail FlowCocktails aren’t the simplest drinks in the world to make, especially if you want to go beyond the basics, but Cocktail Flow helps make them more approachable. The app includes recipes for a number of cocktails (complete with lists of the ingredients and equipment you’ll need). And if you’re not sure what you want to make you can also browse based on the spirit you want to use or the type of cocktail, such as ‘creamy’ or ‘tropical’. You can also save any favorites, and if you’re intimidated by some of the skills needed to master them (such as making crushed ice and citrus twists), there’s a tips library to help. Cocktail Flow is a nicely designed, easy to navigate app too. It’s not new, but it has recently had a makeover, so if you’ve tried it before it’s worth revisiting. All of the basics are free, but you can massively expand the app’s cocktail library and add extra features – such as the option to add your own cocktails to the app – with a monthly $5/£4.49 subscription. WoebotWoebot was selected by Google as one of the best apps of 2018 and with good reason, as it could make a real difference to your life, especially if you’re struggling with mental health issues. The app is basically a chatbot, but one which checks in with you daily to assess your mood and helps you work through any problems you might have, using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy principles. It tells stories with a message behind them, and provides tools and exercises to help you change your thinking, so you’ll hopefully end up feeling more positive in yourself, even if you can’t change what’s going on around you. As well as daily check ins you can also message Woebot any time you want to chat or feel down, and while it won’t replace actual therapy it’s a handy, always available tool that you’ll likely be thankful for when you need it. EndomondoEndomondo is one of the oldest Android fitness apps and it’s still one of the best, thanks in part to regular updates. It’s packed full of features, letting you track not just running, cycling and walking but also more than 60 other activities -, so if there’s a sport you do, chances are Endomondo has some tools to help you monitor it. GPS monitoring lets you track statistics such as distance and pace, but you can also manually log indoor workouts or anything else where GPS won’t be much use. Additionally, Endomondo can be paired with other accounts and wearables, such as the Fitbit app and heart rate monitors, allowing it to sync data with them. With custom goals, challenges (that in some cases even have prizes) and the ability to compete with friends, there’s a lot to keep you motivated and the app itself is slick and easy to use. All of these features are free, but you can unlock various extra tools such as personal training plans and advanced statistics if you subscribe to Endomondo Premium, which costs £9.99 (around $13) per month, though it’s only around a third of that price if you commit to a year. Google FitGoogle’s official health and fitness app, Google Fit has been around for a while, but it’s now been overhauled and is better than ever as a result. At the heart of the overhaul there’s ‘Move Minutes’ and ‘Heart Points’. The former records your general movement throughout the day and aims to encourage you to make small changes, such as walking up stairs rather than taking the elevator. Heart Points reward you not just for the amount of time you’re active but for how much you raise your heart rate - a feature which really helps the app stand out. In line with most fitness apps, the core features are still available; you can track various workouts, monitor and adjust your goals, and even get some basic customized tips and coaching, based on the activity that you do. Seven – 7 Minute Workout Training ChallengeSeven – 7 Minute Workout Training Challenge promises to get you fit in just seven minutes a day, and while a longer workout might do you more good, we can’t deny that this got our hearts racing. There’s a wide variety of exercises and workouts, with an animated man or woman showing you how to do each one, along with an optional text explanation. So far, so standard, but Seven also doles out achievements, lets you add friends for some friendly competition and has specific training plans for different goals. For example, if you tell the app you want to lose weight, it will give you different workouts to if you want to increase your mobility. The exercises in Seven don’t require any equipment, so you can do them from home or even your office if you have a bit of space, and you can create your own workouts too if there are specific exercises that you like. Seven is partially free, but there’s an optional US$9.99/£9.99 monthly subscription which unlocks additional workouts, exercises and personalized workout plans. If you like the free version, it could be worth considering. Our favorite free Android apps for making music, listening to music, finding podcasts and everything else to do with audio. Sound AmplifierSound Amplifier is an app from Google designed to enhance audio when using headphones. Well, we say an app, but it won’t appear in your app drawer and you can’t launch it as such. Instead, you’ll find it in the Accessibility section of your phone’s main settings screen, and only when wired headphones are connected. Once there, you can reduce unwanted sounds, adjust the mic volume and boost or fine tune the audio from one or both sides of your headphones. The primary purposes of the app are to make sound clearer by increasing quiet sounds without over-boosting loud sounds, and to reduce background noise so you can better focus on the audio. It did a fairly good job in our tests, but there’s one major issue, namely the need for wired headphones. This of course is a problem for anyone who prefers to go wireless, and even more of a problem on the ever-growing number of phones that lack a 3.5mm headphone port. The app also seems as though it could really benefit those with hearing issues, yet many such people use wireless hearing aids, which won’t be compatible with it. Hopefully Google will drop the need for wires before too long. Radio by DeezerRadio by Deezer is a slick if slightly basic radio player app, and although it comes from Deezer (a company known primarily for its Spotify-like subscription service) it’s free to use. The app has around 30,000 FM and online radio stations sorted into various categories, such as ‘pop’ and ‘rock’. So you can browse them that way, or search for a specific station. Stations that you recently played or play the most often will be added to lists on the ‘My Stations’ tab, though in a weird omission there’s no way to manually add stations to your favorites. You can however favorite songs that are being played, but unless you have a Deezer subscription this will just show you a list of them, rather than actually letting you listen to them again. It’s an app that needs work, but it looks good, is easy to navigate and makes for a great companion to the main Deezer service. BBC SoundsBBC Sounds brings all of the BBC’s live radio content and podcasts to one app, so you can listen live on your phone, and subscribe to and stream podcasts. BBC Sounds also lets you pick up where you left off on another device, so if you get halfway through a podcast on your phone, you’ll be able to start from that point on your tablet automatically. It can also recommend content based on what you’ve been listening to, so it’s a good way to discover new things. It’s basically iPlayer for radio (in fact the plan is for it to ultimately replace BBC iPlayer Radio) and if you listen to a lot of BBC content it’s arguably a smarter, better choice than listening on a radio or using another podcast app. At the moment the BBC Sounds app is UK-only, but given that the iPlayer Radio app is available globally we wouldn’t be surprised if BBC Sounds is one day too. SW True-Fi BetaSW True-Fi Beta aims to maximize the potential of your headphones by tuning sound settings specific to the headphones you have plugged in. You do this by selecting yours from a long list of supported headphones, then True-Fi does the rest. But you can also adjust the sound according your age and make manual tweaks to aspects of it, such as the bass. The adjustments only work when playing music through the SW True-Fi Beta app, but that needn’t be a problem, as not only can it play local music files, it can also connect to Spotify and play music from there. Not all headphones are currently supported, which is the main limitation of the app, but if yours aren’t then you can contact the company to ask them to be added. 1lyrics1lyrics is designed to show the lyrics to songs as you listen to them, but handily you don’t need to play the songs in 1lyrics itself, instead it supports numerous music players, including ones that use locally stored songs, and streaming players, such as Spotify. Just start listening to a track on your player of choice then open 1lyrics and it should show the lyrics to the current song. In some but not all cases it will even scroll them in time with the music. Lyrics that you’ve viewed in the past are saved, so you can access them at any time, even if you’re not currently listening to the song in question, and it’s quite an attractive app, pulling in artwork for the songs it provides the lyrics to. There are some caveats here. For one thing, it doesn’t currently work with all music players, though more are set to be supported over time. It also doesn’t have lyrics for every song, though we tried some semi-obscure stuff and it found lyrics without any issue, so you should be able to get lyrics for most things. AnchorAnchor is both an app for both listening to podcasts, and creating and sharing your own. It’s that second part that’s the most interesting. You can record audio straight from the Anchor app, or import recordings. You can also add friends to a recording, even if they’re elsewhere in the world, allowing you to have a recorded conversation that you can use as a podcast. You can add various sound effects, and rearrange and edit parts of the podcast, so you’re not limited to a single audio file. Once you’re done you can share your podcast, not just on Anchor itself, but also on the likes of Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts. When it’s out in the world, you can use Anchor to track how many listeners it has, and which parts of the podcast are most played. If all you want to do is listen to podcasts then there are other apps that do the job just as well or better (Pocket Casts is always a favorite), but Anchor is a slick, simple way to get into podcasting yourself. ClockGoogle Clock (or simply ‘Clock’) is a fairly ordinary clock app in many ways, but it has the polish you’d expect from Google and is now better than ever, thanks to Spotify integration, meaning you can set a Spotify song or playlist as your alarm. That instantly gives it an advantage over many clock apps, and the fact that Google Clock is free doesn’t hurt either. Beyond that you get a timer, a stopwatch, the ability to create and save multiple alarms, and the option to view times for other parts of the world. Of course, it also has Wear OS integration, so all of your alarms and timers can be synced with your wrist, and there are several options to tailor the app to your preferences, such as being able to change the clock style and the snooze duration. Google PodcastsThere are plenty of podcast apps already but when Google makes one it’s worth paying attention, and Google Podcasts doesn’t disappoint, instantly reaching the heights of the best free ones. It’s got a minimalist design that’s light on color, but the app’s not light on features, as it automatically syncs podcasts across devices, so you can start listening on one and finish on another, it works with Google Home and you can launch straight into podcasts from Google Assistant and the Google Search app. Google Podcasts also gives you recommendations based on your listening history and preferences, so it’s a decent way to find new content, and there are other tools, such as the ability to change the playback speed. None of which would matter if it didn’t get the basics right, but it does, letting you subscribe to podcasts and highlighting new episodes on the main screen, letting you stream or download podcasts, and providing lists of the top podcasts in various categories. LoffeeIf you like to have relaxed background music on while working, reading or anything else, then Loffee is definitely worth a download. The app contains a handful of curated playlists, all featuring lo-fi music that’s ideal for relaxing to or having on while you do something else. To our mind, the music choices are great, as well as often featuring little known bands and artists, so you’re sure to find things that you like and haven’t heard before. If you do, you can follow links to the artist’s Facebook, SoundCloud, Twitter and Instagram pages, while other tools in the app include a timer (which shuts the music off when it finishes counting down), and the ability to listen to songs offline. The Loffee app itself is also something you’ll want to spend time in, as each playlist has a custom illustration that’s almost as soothing as the music. You can’t cast music to other devices and the actual selection of songs is small, so this won’t replace your main music apps, but it could definitely complement them. Drum Pads – Beat Maker GoDrum Pads – Beat Maker Go is a drum machine which lets you easily make beats on the go. There are numerous sound packs split across various genres, such as dubstep, EDM and hip-hop, and once you select one you can get tapping on the drum pad. There are various effects that you can apply to your track, such as distortion and delay, you can create loops and save your finished pieces, then share them with friends. Drum Pads is accessible enough that beginners should be able to have fun with it (though some trial and error will be required), but there’s enough here to appeal to more advanced users too. Ringtone Maker & Music EditorIt’s probably fair to say that most ringtones that come with phones aren’t very exciting, and while you can easily set a locally stored song as your ringtone, you won’t necessarily want the whole thing. That’s where Ringtone Maker & Music Editor comes in. First, you can get this app to scan your device for any stored audio files, sort them by track, album or artist, then select the one that you want to turn into a ringtone and you’ll be able to choose a start and end point – handy for cutting boring intros. You can type out exactly what point in the music you want to start and end the ringtone down to the millisecond, and you can also cut parts of the music, copy and paste parts, or even meld multiple audio files together. There’s also a basic recording feature built in, so you can record your own ringtones and then edit them. Once done, you can save your ringtone and assign it either system-wide or to a specific contact. Ringtone Maker is easy to use and supports various file types, including MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, AAC, M4A, MP4 and 3GPP/AMR, and the only real issue it has is the number of adverts, but there’s a pro version that gets rid of them for US$3.99/£3.29. BandcampBandcamp is a service that highlights and sells music from numerous artists, mostly of the independent variety, and with the Bandcamp app you can access all of its content from your phone. As well as buying music, you can stream or download music you already own, and in many cases stream songs that you haven’t yet bought. You also get access to a weekly podcast that highlights music you might not have come across before, so it’s a good way to discover your next favorite musician. You can also search, browse, add things to your wishlist and comment on releases, sharing your thoughts with the wider Bandcamp community. It’s a handy app if you’re into music (and who isn’t?) and a great way to support up and coming artists. Phonograph Music PlayerWhile many of us have moved to streaming music, there is still a place for locally stored music on Android, and Phonograph is one of the better players. Phonograph puts aesthetics and ease of use first, so it’s always pleasant to operate. The app has a Material Design look that fits with Google’s vision of Android, but it’s also packed full of album art and color, so there’s never a dull screen. You can also customize the colors and overall theme and look of the app, while the color of the main ‘now playing’ screen will change based on the album artwork of the current track. The layout is simple too, with your music library sorted by song, album, artist or playlist, and you can switch between views with a swipe, while most other options are no more than a tap away. Although not as feature-packed as some players, Phonograph has a number of handy extras and toggles, like gapless playback, information and images pulled automatically from Last.fm, a sleep timer, widgets and lock screen controls. TimbreTimbre’s full name is ‘Timbre: Cut, Join, Convert mp3’, and that tells you almost everything you need to know about it: this is an app for cutting, joining and converting files. But the MP3 bit in the name rather undersells it, because Timbre can also work its magic on WAV, FLAC, M4A, AAC, PCM, AIFF, Ogg, WMA, ALAC, MP4, AVI, FLV, MOV, WebM, MKV and MPEG files. You can convert from one file type to another, which is handy if, for example, your music or video player doesn’t like a specific file type. You can also trim down audio and video files, or combine several files into one, which you might want to do if you’re editing together a video with multiple scenes, or making a mixtape. Those are the headline features of Timbre, but there are also tools to remove audio from a video file, split a single audio file into two parts, and change the bitrate of an audio file. All of these things are simple to do, with Timbre sporting a clear interface, and it’s completely free as well. Our favorite free Android apps for taking notes, writing and editing documents and generally working on the move. HiHello Contact ExchangeBusiness cards are a somewhat dated concept but they still serve a purpose, so in an attempt to bring them into the 21st century, HiHello Contact Exchange makes them digital and even easier to share than the physical kind. The app lets you create multiple different cards containing different information. You might for example have a work card that contains your work email and job title, while a personal card could have your personal email and Facebook link. Lots of different things can be added to each card though, including your phone number, website, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter and more. To share a card you just launch the HiHello app, tap on the card you want to share, tap the share button to display a QR code and then the person receiving it simply points their phone camera at the QR code to get it. Alternatively you can email or text the card to someone, so unlike a conventional business card they don’t need to be physically present to receive it. And the card can be saved to their phone’s address book, meaning they don’t need the HiHello app themselves. Notes by FirefoxNotes by Firefox is a very simple note-taking app, ideal if you just want to jot down basic notes without wrestling overbearing interfaces and unwanted options. The look is minimalist, with a mostly white screen housing all your current notes. You can tap on one to open and edit it, tap the plus button to make a new note, or tap the minus next to a note to delete it. There are a few formatting options – you can create bullet points or numbered lists, add headings and use bold and italics, but that’s about it. However, Notes by Firefox does have a few tricks up its sleeve, as it syncs between your Android device and the Firefox browser on your desktop, so you can access your notes from multiple devices, and they’re secured with end-to-end encryption. Other than that, this is a basic app, but if you’re not a power user it should be all you need, and it’s completely free. QuipQuip is an office suite built for teams, as not only can you create documents and spreadsheets, you can also share them with others and work on them collaboratively. It supports real-time messaging too and while this app will mostly be of use for teams of people who work together it could also be used for other things, such as shared grocery lists and to-do lists. You can access it all from your phone, tablet or computer, so you’ll never be far from the work and information you need, and Quip is quite full-featured when it comes to actually creating documents and spreadsheets, as for example it supports over 400 spreadsheet functions. You probably won’t want to make much use of them from a phone, but if you’re on a tablet then Quip is a great way to work on the move, and even on a phone it can be good for reading, editing and commenting on work. Otter Voice NotesOtter Voice Notes is a voice recorder, but that’s just the beginning. It also uses AI to automatically turn the recordings into written text so you can read them back rather than having to listen to them. The app also lets you search for keywords, so you can find exactly the piece of information you’re looking for in seconds, even in long recordings. This all makes it a great tool for recording meetings, lectures and the like, especially since Otter can be trained to recognize voices and you can tag who’s talking, so that even in text form you can see the true flow of a conversation. You can also create groups with other Otter users if you want to share recordings, and all of your recordings are saved in the cloud so you can access them anywhere and don’t have to store them on your Android device. The text transcription isn’t perfect (though Otter claims it will get better over time if it’s you talking, as it gets to know your voice better), but it’s reasonably accurate in our experience and you can always go in and make changes to the text manually. TouchPal KeyboardTouchPal is a truly feature-packed keyboard, and an enormously customizable one at that. Not only can you select from thousands of free themes, you can also create your own, picking a key color and adding a background image or color. All the usual settings are also available, letting you customize the keyboard height and width, change the key layout, enable or disable auto-correct and much more. There’s also a ‘Curve’ mode, which lets you swipe across keys to select them rather than tapping, and more uniquely a ‘Wave’ setting that builds on predictive text by putting AI-driven next word suggestions under the keys as you type. You can also access various emoji and GIFs from the keyboard, bring up a Google search and use voice typing. None of that would matter if TouchPal was slow or inaccurate, but in our tests it works well – just as long as you take the time to get it set up how you want it. Files by GoogleChances are you already have some kind of file manager on your phone, but Files by Google is still worthy of attention, as it’s made by Google and has many rivals beat. There’s two parts to it. First, the ‘Storage’ section which highlights all the ways you might be able to clear space on your device, such as by deleting duplicate or large files, moving files to your SD card and deleting rarely used apps. Then there’s the ‘Files’ section, which is a file explorer, letting you dive into the folders on your phone so you can find, open, rename, delete or share specific files. The whole app is colorful and easy to navigate as well, with an interface seemingly inspired by Google Now’s cards. EvernoteEvernote is an excellent app for your Android device that lets you stash and sync all your text notes, voice memos and files on your phone and access them through a desktop computer. It's a brilliant productivity tool that lets you organize and search your notes so you always have exactly what you need at your fingertips. The paid premium version unlocks offline access and use on an unlimited number of devices, among other things, but for free you still get a vast, feature-packed digitial notebook that's easy to navigate. Our favorite free Android apps for improving productivity, whether through to-do lists, focus timers or other tools. WishlistIf you ever have trouble remembering people’s birthdays then Wishlist is for you, as it lets you create a list of important dates for the people you care about. Other apps do this too, but with Wishlist you can set a notification to go off in advance of the date, so you have warning that it’s coming up. That too can be handled by some other apps, but Wishlist does it automatically. Just set how many days before a date you want a notification and that setting will be applied to all dates in the app. Ideally, we’d like to be able to set multiple notifications – one in advance and one on the date, for example, but this is a good start. Wishlist isn’t just for dates, either. As the name suggests, it can also be used to build up lists - in this case of present ideas for people - so each contact saved to Wishlist can have their own list of potential presents. That means if you ever see something that you think someone might like, you won’t have to buy it months in advance of their birthday or hope you remember it, you can just add it to a list. There are fields for not just the name of a gift idea, but also website links, the price, any notes, an image, and a priority rating out of 10. Beyond all that you can also add a phone number to any contact you add to Wishlist and can then message or call them from the app. The idea is presumably for Wishlist to become your main dialer app, though we’re not convinced you’ll want to make that change right now as the interface is quite bare bones. But for its date and list features it could make a good companion to your existing apps. InboxItInboxIt doesn’t try to do everything. Rather, the app does one thing, but does it very well. That one thing is emailing things to yourself, be it photos, videos, URLs or text. You might not think that you need a separate app to send yourself an email, but InboxIt speeds up the process. Once you’ve set the app up you simply tap the ‘Share’ icon on the content you want to send, then select InboxIt and the content will automatically be emailed to you. No need to select an email address, type out a subject or anything else. And if you’re in the habit of emailing yourself reminders, you can do that from InboxIt too. Just launch the app, select ‘New reminder’, type one out and hit ‘Save’. You can set the free version of InboxIt to send things to a Gmail address, which will probably suit most people just fine. But if you want to use a different email you can pay $0.99/£0.99 to unlock premium features, which also include the ability to use Gmail labels and a custom email subject prefix. HoldIf you’re anything like us then you probably open Facebook or Twitter about 600 times a day on your phone, even when you know nothing has changed and that you should be doing something far more important. But if you’re anything like us then you’re also motivated by rewards, and Hold gives you them for not using your phone. Simply activate it and put your phone down, and you’ll receive 10 points for every 20 minutes that you resist the lure of your apps and messages. These points can then be exchanged for rewards. These change over time and depend on what country you’re in, but examples include free popcorn at the cinema and free contact lenses. You don’t have to bank very many points for some of the rewards either, with many being available for as little as 20 points. And if free and discounted stuff isn’t enough incentive to stay off your phone, how about a little friendly competition? You can link up with your pals in the app and compete to get the most points. Your Phone CompanionYour Phone Companion is a companion app for a PC app called – you guessed it – Your Phone. The companion app itself doesn’t do much, other than allowing the main desktop app to do its job of showing your phone’s photos and SMS messages on your Windows 10 PC. Both can be browsed, photos can be downloaded, and messages can even be sent and received on your desktop, so you don’t have to keep turning back to your phone. While that’s ‘all’ the app does, those two features could be very useful for anyone who spends a lot of time at their computer, or who tends to email themselves photos to get them onto their PC. It’s worth noting that Google Photos does the photo part too, and is better at it, since it’s a full-featured gallery app, but this is a good alternative for anyone not already using that. OnedoxOnedox describes itself as a digital P.A. for your household bills, and that’s fairly accurate. The app lets you link accounts for your household bills, such as gas, electricity, internet, Netflix, Spotify and more, then shows you details of each billing, all on one screen. The app also shows you renewal dates – so you’ll know when prices might be changing and when you can shop around for a new deal. Tapping on any account will show additional details, such as previous bills, price changes, and any notes you’ve added to the account. It makes staying on top of your bills a lot easier and ensures you can always have a clear idea of exactly how much you’re spending. The only downside – other than the fact that this is UK-only right now – is that not all accounts are supported. For example, some gas companies can’t currently be added. However, Onedox is adding new companies and categories of bill all the time, so one day you really will be able to manage all your bills from one screen. Right now you’ll have to make do with managing most of them, which is still pretty handy. DatallyDatally is probably not one of Google’s best-known apps, but it deserves to be, especially if you have any interest in monitoring or conserving your data. The app lets you see how much data you’ve used in the last day, week or month, as well as telling you which apps are using the most data. It also has some clever extra features, two of which were added recently – so even if you’ve used Datally before it could be worth revisiting. There’s ‘Bedtime mode’, which disables data on your phone between two times that you set, which means that apps won’t be using data in the background while you sleep. Futhermore, ‘Emergency bank’ lets you set aside a portion of your monthly data allowance for emergencies. You decide how much and Datally will make sure you don’t use it accidentally. These join existing features such as the data saver mode, which blocks apps of your choice from using data when you’re not connected to Wi-Fi, plus you can view a list of nearby Wi-Fi networks, including information on whether you need a password for them. If you ever find yourself running low on data, then Datally is the app for you. InwareInware does one thing and does it well: it tells you about the device you’re running the app on. More specifically, it tells you just about every hardware detail, from the screen size and resolution, chipset, RAM amount and battery size, to far more in depth information, like the current speed each core is running at and the serial number. Inware can also tell you how much RAM is currently in use, how healthy the battery is, how hot the battery is, how much storage there is in total and in use, the build number, what security patch your device has, what GPU it has, the aspect ratio of the screen and plenty more besides. It goes way more in depth than your phone’s settings screen likely will, so if you’re ever curious about an aspect of your handset’s hardware or software, this is the app for you. Envision AIVisual impairments are one of many things that technology has made slightly easier to live with, and Envision AI is a prime example of how tech can help. Point your phone’s camera at whatever’s in front of you, press a button, and the AI will examine it and say out loud what it thinks it’s seeing. Descriptions can be moderately detailed, taking in multiple objects in a scene (for example a computer monitor and the desk it’s sat on). With common objects it all seems quite accurate, though testing it on more unusual things, such as a wooden sculpture of an elephant, led to more mixed results. As well as scenes, Envision AI can also read out text, even if it’s handwritten (though unclear handwriting will again lead to mixed results). So it’s not perfect, but Envision AI could make a big difference to anyone who struggles to see or read on their own. EmmaEmma helps you keep a close eye on your money. Link all your bank accounts (including credit cards) and you’ll be able to see all their balances in one place. But that’s just the beginning. Emma also tells you how much money you have in total across all your accounts, as well as how much debt you have, and how much money you gain or lose in total each month. It also lists all transactions and has a good stab at putting them into categories, such as shopping, transport or bills. This also means you can see at a glance how much you’re spending in each category, which is a good way to make you more aware of your spending and potentially reduce it. You can change any miscategorized spends, see a list of recurring payments, get a weekly breakdown of spending and income, and more. Of course, Emma is secure too. It uses SSL 256-bit encryption, supports fingerprint locking and doesn’t store your banking credentials. Emma is an essential app if you have accounts with more than one bank, but even if you don’t, chances are that it gives you a lot more insight into your money than your bank does. The only real downside is that it’s UK-only. Starling BankStarling Bank is more than just an app. In fact, it’s a bank account, but it’s a modern one that’s entirely app-based. That means there are no branches and there’s no web access. That could sound daunting, if the prospect of changing bank account isn’t already off-putting enough, but in fact having everything in an app keeps things simple, and there are some powerful tools here not offered by most conventional banks. For example, it has zero ATM withdrawal fees or transaction fees when using your card abroad, it lets you temporarily or permanently lock your card in-app, and you can enable or disable contactless payments, ATM withdrawals and online payments, for extra security. You can also send in-app requests to friends and family who owe you money (and who don’t need Starling themselves to pay you back), receive instant notifications for income and outgoings, and a whole lot more. As for changing your bank to take advantage of all this, well, you don’t necessarily have to. After all, there’s no real downside to having two bank accounts, but if you do decide you want to go all-in with Starling Bank that’s simple too, as there’s an account switching service that does all the hard work for you. This one’s for UK users only, but there are similar app-based banks elsewhere, such as Simple in the US. Pet Care DiaryPet Care Diary is a fairly simple but potentially very useful app for keeping track of when your pet needs feeding, cleaning, walking or whatever else. Essentially, it’s like a calendar or to-do list, where you can set up events and reminders, but they’re all focused on your pet, and if you have more than one pet you can set up individual profiles for each, where you can see every upcoming event and reminder, as well as previous ones. You can also add comments to each reminder, as well as assigning a category, such as ‘food’ or ‘veterinary care’. Pet Care Diary is probably most useful if you have a high-maintenance pet or multiple pets with their own schedules and needs, but if you ever find yourself putting pet-related things in your calendar, or forgetting to do them, then it’s definitely worth having. The core app is free, but for US$2.99/£3.99 you can unlock the pro version, which removes adverts and lets you create an unlimited number of pet profiles, among other things. Opera TouchOpera Touch is a browser that’s designed to be used with one hand, with a ‘Fast Action Button’ that’s always visible and easy to reach at the bottom of the screen. Tapping it launches you straight into a web search, where you can type or speak your query. There’s even a barcode scanner here, so you can quickly look items up online without having to type their names. Gesture controls ensure you can navigate the rest of the interface with one hand, letting you switch to recent tabs, reload or close the current page or send it to your computer. That last one is powered by Opera Flow, which lets you share links, videos and the like between your phone and computer with a single tap or click – though of course to enable this you’ll also need to be running Opera on your PC. Opera Touch is also fairly secure, with features such as an ad blocker and even cryptocurrency mining protection, which reduces the risk of malicious sites using your phone to mine cryptocurrency in the background – an act that can drain your battery or even cause your phone to overheat. There are some missing features, most notably private browsing and a desktop mode. Hopefully they’ll be added at some point, but considering Touch’s focus on simplicity, they might not. Ecosia BrowserYou probably didn’t realize that you can save the world while browsing the net, but you can make a small difference by using Ecosia Browser, which uses its ad revenue to plant trees. Ecosia has already planted over 26 million trees thanks to its users, and for roughly every 45 searches you make another one will be planted. Beyond its environmental credentials, Ecosia is also a very competent browser. It’s based on Chromium so the look and feel is a lot like that of Google Chrome, meaning it’s likely to be familiar to you. It supports tabs, private browsing and bookmarks, lets you view your history, allows autofill of forms and has various privacy controls, so you don’t have to sacrifice a feature-packed browsing experience to help the Earth. Microsoft LauncherYour phone is probably your most used device, so it’s understandable if you get a bit bored of it sometimes and want a change. Rather than buying a whole new handset you could just change your launcher, and Microsoft Launcher is one of the best around. Formerly known as Arrow Launcher, it’s been around for a while and it keeps improving, most recently thanks to the addition of Cortana, which you can activate by tapping an icon or long-pressing the home button. Cortana isn’t any better than Google Assistant (or arguably even as good), but it’s a change and you can still use Google Assistant as well. The rest of the app has a lot to offer, including loads of customizable gesture controls. For example, you can open the app drawer with a two-finger swipe up, but if you’d rather that gesture launched your favorite app, you can set it to do that instead. You can also make Microsoft Launcher your own by customizing the theme, icons and accent colors, and if you’re not feeling inspired when it comes to wallpaper then you can set it to automatically change daily. Got your old home screen exactly how you like it? Then when setting up Microsoft Launcher you can choose to import the old layout, bringing all your folders with you. There’s also a clever unified search bar on your home screen that can search both the contents of your phone and the web. For the latter it uses Bing of course, but you can’t have everything. Our favorite free Android apps for customizing and improving the security of your device. HiyaScam callers and other unwanted calls seem to be getting ever more frequent but fortunately there are ways to tackle them, such as Hiya. This app has a database of numbers, so it’s often able to identify who’s calling, as well as flagging spam calls. There are also tools in the app that let you automatically block ‘scam and fraud calls’, ‘suspected spam calls’ and calls from private numbers. Hiya can also identify the sender of text messages, and there’s a Call Screener tool, which blocks calls from unidentified numbers and sends them a text message asking them to identify themselves and call back. You can also manually block and look up numbers from within the app. It’s a handy, easy to use service, and while it’s not the only option (Truecaller which we’ve recommended before does a similar job), it’s a great choice. RedPapersThere are loads of wallpaper apps, but surprisingly few that will automatically cycle through designs so you can get new wallpapers on your phone without having to lift a finger. And those which do offer that service are often quite limited in terms of content. Not so with RedPapers. This app lets you pull images from any subreddit and have them set as the wallpaper for your home or lock screen. You simply type the subreddit name, pick how often you want the wallpaper to change (with a range of options from every 10 minutes to every 1 week), pick whether to sort the wallpapers by what’s hot or what’s new, and away you go. RedPapers itself is just a single screen where you select those options, so there’s not much to the app, and it’s not much of a looker in itself, but it’s really useful if you get bored of staring at the same wallpaper every day. SAFESAFE (which stands for Security Assessment Framework for Everyone) shows you at a glance how secure your Android device is, giving it several scores out of five – one for its configuration settings, one for connectivity, one for applications and one for the operating system. Higher is better and it factors in all kinds of things, including whether your SIM card is locked, to whether you allow installation from unknown sources, and whether you allow notifications to show their content on your lock screen. As well as the overall score for each category you can see a list of all these factors, with ones in red being ones that aren’t secure (in the app developer’s opinion). You can tap on each of these things for more details as well as a guide to making them secure. You probably won’t be aiming for a perfect score, especially as some things that SAFE puts in red will be intentional things that you want or need. For example, it considers location services and Bluetooth to be insecure. Still, it’s a good way to quickly and easily assess the security of your device and tighten it up if you feel the need. SAFE might even end up highlighting some vulnerabilities that you didn’t know about or hadn’t considered, which should be enough to make it worth a download. 1.1.1.1: Faster & Safer InternetIf you ever use public Wi-Fi networks, then 1.1.1.1: Faster & Safer Internet is for you. That’s because public Wi-Fi is notoriously lacking in privacy and security. There’s a chance the provider will sell your browsing data and it also allows other people – if they have the skills – to snoop on your browsing data. But 1.1.1.1 helps stop either of those things from happening by changing your DNS resolver to one managed by Cloudflare (the company that makes this app). It promises never to sell your data or use it to target adverts, and by browsing through Cloudflare you’re also hiding your data from any other potential snoopers. As an added bonus, you might even get a speed boost, as Cloudflare’s DNS resolver is the fastest public one. The app is also completely free and easy to use – there’s just a single toggle to turn 1.1.1.1 on or off. That’s it. Google Family LinkThere are various Android apps designed to help monitor or control your child’s smartphone use, but now finally one has come from a big name, specifically Google. Google Family Link is actually two apps. There’s Google Family Link for Parents, which you’d be installing on your device, and Google Family Link for Children and Teenagers, designed to be installed on the devices of family members under 13. Once both are installed and set up, you can use your device to view your child’s smartphone activity, choose which apps to allow, set screen time limits, lock their device, control in-app purchases and locate their device. Google Family Link is a useful set of tools for making sure your child isn’t accessing content they shouldn’t, using their phone when they shouldn’t, or spending money, or it can be used as more of a safety feature to locate them when they’re not with you. It’s also completely free. RememBearRememBear is a simple, surprisingly cute password manager full of bears. Simply add all your passwords to it, lock them behind a master password or fingerprint, and RememBear can auto-fill login forms with them so you never have to remember them or type them again. RememBear can also generate new secure passwords, so you won’t have to think them up, and the data is synced across devices, so if you don’t have your phone to hand you can access your logins from a computer or other device. You can also store credit card details, there’s end-to-end encryption and there’s a built-in browser for secure web browsing. RememBear lacks some features offered by rivals like LastPass, such as favorites, but more features are likely to be added over time. It’s also free to use on a single device, though there’s a paid version that you’ll have to upgrade to for $35.99/£32.49 per year if you want to access your account on multiple devices. ProtonVPNTwo of the main reasons for using a VPN are accessing geo-restricted content and maintaining your privacy and security online. ProtonVPN can help with both of those, and costs a lot less than most rivals. In fact, the core service is totally free, and there are no bandwidth restrictions, so you can use it as much as you want. There are no ads either, because it’s fully funded by optional paid subscriptions (starting at around $5/£3.50 per month). These unlock higher speeds, VPN servers in more countries and the ability to use ProtonVPN on more than one device. But for free you still get access to VPNs in three countries, and a whole lot more security than you’ll have without a VPN, as your activity will be encrypted and protected by Swiss privacy laws, and it won’t be logged. Norton App LockAlmost unavoidably there will be times when you have to hand your phone to someone else, be it to show them some pictures or let them make a call, but what you probably don’t want is the risk of them rummaging through your other apps. Or, equally, you might not be in the habit of handing out your phone, and not really want to have to unlock it every time you use it either, but still want security for your most sensitive apps. Either way, Norton App Lock can help, by, well, locking the apps of your choice, behind a PIN, pattern or fingerprint scan. The app itself is easy to use – just set up the security options you want, then tap the padlock next to any app you want to lock. Once done, you’ll get Norton’s lock screen whenever you (or anyone else) tries to launch the app. While Norton App Lock isn’t the only option for this it is the best we’ve come across, as it’s fast, loading the instant you tap on a secured app, rather than keeping you waiting. It’s also smart enough not to re-lock an app until you turn the screen off, and it has other handy features too, like one-tap locking of all the apps it thinks you should be securing. Our favorite free Android apps for planning a holiday, checking the weather and getting around without getting lost. PolarstepsThere are all sorts of apps designed for journaling your travels, but Polarsteps can do much of the work automatically. The app will track where you’ve been and add photos from your travels, giving you a map and gallery of all your trips, simply by having the app running in the background on your phone. You can make trips manually and add any photos it missed, but creating trips automatically means you’ll have at least a partial record of your adventures without doing anything. This might sound like it would hammer your phone’s battery, but in fact Polarsteps is designed to only use around 4% each day and it doesn’t even need to be connected to the internet, which is ideal if you’re traveling somewhere where data costs extra. You can keep your trips private or share them with friends and family, and by following people in the app you can see their journeys as they happen. Polarsteps is also nice to look at, easy to use and completely free, making it near essential for anyone who wants a visual record of their trips. OverdropOverdrop is yet another weather app, but it stands out more for its widgets than its forecasting skills. It has quite a lot of them, and many are beautifully designed, showing some combination of the weather, time, day, date and battery level. We’d be surprised if you can’t find one you like, and while some are reserved for the paid Overdrop Pro app, many are free. Beyond that, Overdrop is a perfectly accomplished weather app, with seven-day forecasts, nice animated illustrations, and information on things like cloud cover and humidity. Ventusky: Weather MapsThere’s a lot more to the weather than you’ll generally see in a typical forecast, and it can be a lot more interesting – and beautiful – than a simple temperature reading. Ventusky knows this, as it makes forecasts more engaging by including an attractive weather map and wind animation, complete with the current temperature shown on the map, so you can see exactly which areas are what temperature at a glance. Hourly forecasts let you see how the weather will change over the day and tapping on any hour or day will adjust the weather map accordingly. You can also view weekly charts of the temperature, precipitation and wind, so you can see how much it varies over time. Sunrise and sunset times are also available, so there’s a lot to sink your teeth into, but really Ventusky is all about that weather map and wind animation, which shows the motion and direction of the wind in a mesmerizing way. Facebook LocalFacebook Local is all about finding events and attractions nearby. It links to your Facebook account then shows a bunch of events listed on Facebook that are near your current or home location, or another place of your choice. Some of these will be from friends and pages that you follow, but it will also dig up other local public events, so you’re likely to discover things that you wouldn’t have found on your main Facebook feed. You can filter events and attraction by type, date, location or time, view them on a map and add them to your Facebook calendar, so it’s simple to control what you see and keep track of what you’re interested in. You can also add your phone calendar to the app, so you can see and manage everything in one place. More or less all of this stuff can be found on Facebook itself, but Facebook Local is a much more focused way to find out what’s going on around you, without all of Facebook’s many distractions, so it’s worth having on your phone even if you already have the main Facebook app. MoovitMoovit is the only app you need to navigate public transport wherever you might be in the world. Simply enter a destination and it will tell you how to get there from your current location (or you can set a different start point). Moovit will give you various route options using different forms of transport by default, but you can tell it to only include certain kinds of public transport, or to minimize walking or transfers. Select a route to see full step by step instructions or get live navigation. The app will tell you exactly where to go and even alert you when you’re nearing your stop so you don’t need to stare at your phone screen the entire journey. There are also timetables for buses and trains and you can save your favorite destinations or transit lines to quickly get directions and timetables in future. Moovit also has widgets, offline maps, and transport information for thousands of cities in over 80 countries. We weren’t kidding when we said it’s the only public transport app you’ll need. Trips by Lonely PlanetTrips by Lonely Planet is a visually beautiful way to share your travel experiences or view those shared by others. It’s essentially a journaling app designed for globetrotters. Create a new trip in the app, give it a title, subtitle and cover photo, then add your choice of photos, text and maps. Your trips can be kept private or shared publicly, you can edit them after posting, and of course you can view and favorite other people’s. There’s a slight social element in that you can follow other users, so you’ll always see any new trips they post, but mostly this is just about seeing the world from your phone and sharing your own trips with the world. Day One JournalWhile there’s still something to be said for keeping a paper journal, going digital gives you a lot more convenience, security and features, and Day One Journal is one of the best tools for the job. Having enjoyed years of popularity on iOS, it’s finally arrived on Android, bringing with it a slick interface that lets you see your journal entries by date, as a gallery of attached images, or on a map of the world with pins that take you to an entry made at each location. Making a new entry is as simple as tapping the big plus or camera icons on the main screen, depending on whether you want to start with a photo or text. Day One Journal adds the time and current weather to each entry automatically. You can also set reminders to help you get into the journaling habit, star your favorite journal entries to easily return to them, add tags, and get alerts for entries you made on this day in previous years, or at nearby locations. With optional fingerprint or passcode security, no unauthorized eyes will be able to access your memories. That’s all free, but there’s also an optional $24.99/£22.49 yearly subscription that lets you back everything up to the cloud, access your journal on multiple devices, keep multiple journals and more. It’s not cheap, but could be worthwhile if you get really into journaling. CitymapperArriving in a brand new city is always exciting but it can also be a little daunting, especially if you need to get around using public transport. Citymapper is a brilliant app that brings you real-time information on public transport for cities around the world. You can easily plan your route using all kinds of transport, from buses to ferries, and you can be kept up to date with real-time data, including any disruptions or cancellations. An essential app for any city-bound traveller. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Apple has cut the price of the HomePod Posted: 04 Apr 2019 06:36 AM PDT Apple has officially cut the price of the HomePod around the world. Originally priced at $349 in the US, the HomePod now costs $299, while the UK price has come down from £319 to £279 on the Apple Store. Similarly, in Australia, the price has been reduced from AU$499 to AU$469, representing a price drop of around 15% worldwide.
Although last year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday saw some fantastic Apple HomePod deals from third party retailers, even dropping as low as $250 (around £190 / AU$350), 9to5Mac points out that "it's quite rare for Apple to reduce the price of any of its products mid-cycle". So why has Apple decided to discount the HomePod now? Image credit: TechRadar Is the Apple HomePod 2 on the horizon?One possible reason for the price drop is that Apple is gearing up to release the HomePod 2, its long awaited follow up to the Siri-powered smart speaker. However, with no mention of a new smart speaker at Apple's most recent launch event in March, a late 2019 or even 2020 release is looking more likely than an Apple HomePod 2 release date coming in the next couple of months. It has also been rumored that Apple is looking to release a HomePod Mini, in a similar vein to the Google Home Mini and the Amazon Echo Dot – and based on the success of those miniature smart speakers, it would make sense for Apple to follow suit. It's also possible that Apple has slashed the price as a result of disappointing HomePod sales in the face of strong competition from Amazon and Google. Even with the new lower price, the Apple HomePod is one of the most expensive smart speakers you can buy, and while we were impressed by its powerful sound, it isn't as adept at controlling your smart home as the far cheaper Amazon Echo or Google Home. Still, if you were looking to buy a new Apple HomePod anyway, the price drop means you can now get it for less than $300 direct from Apple's own store – and that's got to be a good thing.
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| How enterprise AI will change brick and mortar retail Posted: 04 Apr 2019 06:30 AM PDT Many retail stores have yet to introduce AI into their business. However, it’s worth looking at what impact this technology will have on the industry. This past year, artificial intelligence seeped into numerous facets of life. It seems as though no industry is exempt from this technology’s potential and those companies that implement AI are pulling ahead. According to Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise 2018 report, 82% of early adopters of AI saw positive ROI. Revenues from the artificial intelligence for enterprise applications market worldwide is set to grow exponentially through 2025. One industry heavily investing in AI is retail. Retail spending on AI will likely reach $7.3B by 2022. There are many applications for enterprise AI in retail. And while most think about the online impact of AI, brick and mortar retailers have uses for this technology as well.
Many retail stores have yet to introduce AI into their business. However, it’s worth looking at what impact this technology will have on the industry. Here’s a look at how AI will impact physical retail stores. Personalisation gets customers back into the storeAs retailers know, loyal customers are the most valuable. AI solves the problem of getting those customers back into the store to buy again. Retailers have so much data to use to dissect buying patterns. Then, machine learning algorithms can predict future purchasing patterns of shoppers. Retailers can use this information to send offers on these products either online or by attaching specialised offers to catalogs. A completely personalised campaign will likely put the shopper back in the physical location because AI predicted what they would likely buy next and the offer gave them a nudge to go and buy the item. For most retailers, the first step is understanding what data they have and what they can do with it. Furthermore, with the introduction of GDPR, it’s crucial to understand whether or not data collection practices meet the standards. Personalised marketing campaigns are the end goal, but first stores need to collect and analyse data properly. Thankfully, there are a multitude of tools that can help retailers begin. A different in-store experienceThe in-store experience is beginning to change, somewhat drastically, thanks to AI. Robots in retail stores are now a reality. Lowe’s is testing LoweBot, an autonomous retail service robot to help customers in the store and improve the employee experience. More retailers are considering in-store virtual clerks and even taking this technology to the next level. Gordon, for example, is a robotic barista in San Francisco that can serve 120 coffees per hour. Using AI in physical stores can also help customers navigate a large space and find products easily. For retailers just entering the AI space, it’s time to start thinking about how a virtual clerk or robotic assistant could help. This technology is still in its infancy, and still extremely expensive, but the next few years could change that. Retails can begin to think about how this technology could improve the buying experience in-store. Another significant change retails are making in-store is adding virtual reality (VR) capabilities. Image Credit: Pexels AI-powered VR in retail storesIn this realm, Lowe’s again is taking the lead in new technology implementation. Lowe’s has a Holoroom app that customers can use to experience their home and even turn it into a YouTube 360 degree video. Users are offered either Oculus Rift or Google Cardboard to experience the room they designed and get a sense of what their new space will look like. North Face also takes a unique approach, adding VR into their retail spaces. Customers can take a virtual tour of California’s Yosemite National Park and the Moab desert in Utah and experience the incredible sights. These VR experiences help keep customers coming back to brick and mortar stores, as well as encourage purchases. VR tools such as Google Cardboard are now quite inexpensive. Developing the VR experience, however, is still costly. VR capabilities are becoming more and more commonplace, which means retailers should consider what experience to offer their customers. It’s this type of technology that will offer a brick and mortar store a competitive edge. Inventory managementAI makes inventory management easy. Giant retailer Target has a robot named Tally that can autonomously roll around the store and scan products to assess if they have been misplaced, mispriced, or are low in stock. Inventory management is another area where retailers can use machine learning to predict future needs. This ability minimises the possibility of having too much or too little of an item in stock. And for giant retailers trying to manage thousands of locations, this is a real cost-cutting tool. Inventory management really comes down to data management. Retailers that undergo a digital transformation and begin to take a data-driven approach can use AI to ease common burdens like inventory management. Image Credit: Pixabay Product success predictionsA retailer’s nightmare is spending a lot on a new product just to have it sit on a shelf. And while retailers spend fortunes on research and development of a new product, it can still miss the mark. AI, however, can help make these predictions more accurate by harnessing the massive amount of data retailers already have. AI-powered data can help predict product success and avoid product failures by combining the already-collected data and using predictive algorithms. While this technology improves, retailers will still have to use their instinct and knowledge when buying new products. Data, however, can start to help retailers make better decisions that use past buying behavior as product success indicators. In-store AI for a competitive edgeRetailers around the world are not only competing with each other but also with the movement of online buying. To keep customers in brick and mortar stores, retailers must come up with unique ways to get people to shop. AI helps improve the customer experience. Whether it’s from a fun, VR-powered game or from an AI robot to help people get around the store, retailers that implement AI technology in-house will see the results. There is also a pull from the consumer side as well. For example, 62% of shoppers are interested in trying virtual reality shopping. Retailers that capitalise on their customer’s interest, for instance North Face’s hiking experience, can pull more people into the store. And once these people are in the store, they are more likely to make a purchase. AI has many implications for online retail as well, but it’s a game-changer for brick and mortar stores that want to maintain their physical locations. Retailers that want to get started using AI in stores should take a step back and look at their data to ensure proper collection and analysation first. Paul Horbury, Enterprise Account Executive, Retail & CPG at Dataiku
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| There has never been a better time to grab super cheap Samsung Note 8 deals Posted: 04 Apr 2019 06:25 AM PDT With the new Galaxy S10 yet to fall in cost significantly after release, Galaxy S9 deals weirdly climbing in price and Note 9 offers still costing a small fortune, Samsung fans are running out of places to turn for cheap offers. But don't panic...you don't have to throw in the towel and go off searching for a new budget phone just yet, because we have tracked down two Samsung Note 8 deals with price tags to restore your faith in Samsung affordability. Both of these offers are on EE, come from mobile phone retailer Fonehouse and are exclusive to TechRadar readers. Whether you want to pay nothing upfront and just £28 a month for a healthy 9GB of data, or drop the prices and pay £99 upfront and £22 a month for 4GB - both of these deals bring the Note 8 way down in price. You can see details of these two contracts down below and compare prices to decide which one works for you. Or if you would rather see what other phones are out there, an iPhone or Huawei device perhaps? Then check out our guide to the best mobile phone deals.
These cheap Note 8 deal in full
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| What is 5G? Everything you need to know Posted: 04 Apr 2019 06:23 AM PDT What is 5G?5G networks are the next generation of mobile internet connectivity, offering faster speeds and more reliable connections on smartphones and other devices than ever before. Combining cutting-edge network technology and the very latest research, 5G should offer connections that are multitudes faster than current connections, with average download speeds of around 1GBps expected to soon be the norm. The networks will help power a huge rise in Internet of Things technology, providing the infrastructure needed to carry huge amounts of data, allowing for a smarter and more connected world. With development well underway and testbeds already live across the world, 5G networks are expected to launch across the world by 2020, working alongside existing 3G and 4G technology to provide speedier connections that stay online no matter where you are. 5G - the latest news04/04 - DEVICES - Samsung starts mass production of 5G chips - Next-generation modem and RF receivers go into production... 03/04 - NETWORKS - 5G set to deliver £15.7bn in business revenue by 2025 - Barclays says conditions must be right... 02/04 - ANALYSIS - The future of cybersecurity in a 5G-connected world - With more endpoints comes more ways a hacker can penetrate your network... 26/03 - NETWORKS - Ofcom confirms 5G, USO and rural 4G among priorities for 2019 - Regulator issues update for industry... 25/03 - NETWORKS - EU 'won't ban' Huawei from 5G networks - EU wants member states to share cybersecurity data instead... 21/03 - NETWORKS - Three increases annual revenues ahead of 5G launch - Operator says 2018 was solid foundational year... 14/03 - DEVICES - What will future 5G smartphones look like? - Industry experts believe a new era is upon us... 13/03 - NETWORKS - Verizon to launch mobile 5G next month - Verizon set to launch first 5G mobile broadband service... 13/03 - DEVICES - Nissan uses 5G to put an augmented reality co-driver in your passenger seat - A virtual companion for lonely road trips... 12/03 - NETWORKS - Germany makes private 5G spectrum available for industry - IIoT gets boost with local network pledge... 11/03 - NETWORKS - Germany won't ban Huawei but tightens rules for all 5G vendors - Ministers and regulator say they don't want to ban Huawei... 08/03 - ANALYSIS - 5G and a better-connected world - Turning the next generation of wireless into a reality... 07/03 - NETWORKS - Vodafone UK expands 5G launch to 19 towns and cities - More locations named ahead of commercial launch... 07/03 - NETWORKS - 15m Brits would switch to 5G now - But 5G adoption will be slower than 4G, says Deloitte... 06/03 - NETWORKS - Five Eyes "needs major 5G vendor" - Former Australian Prime Minister warns Five Eyes nations on 5G security... 03/03 - DEVICES - Why have so many 5G phones been launched already this year? - Surely, it’s too early? 02/03 - DEVICES - Foldable phones, 5G and cinematic screens: how smartphones are changing this year - MWC 2019 showed a quiet revolution is coming... 01/03 - DEVICES - Motorola targets mid-range in 5G and foldable smartphone era - "New dawn" beckons for Motorola in the mobile market... 28/02 - NETWORKS - BT hires 1,600 apprentices ahead of EE 5G launch - BT looks for apprentice and graduates to future proof workforce... 27/02 - NETWORKS - Security and cost worries could harm 5G - Business and technology executives underestimate the disruptive prospects of 5G... 27/02 - NETWORKS - FC Barcelona's Nou Camp will be 'first' 5G stadium - Fans to benefit from immersive 5G experiences... 26/02 - DEVICES - Sprint 5G: all the phones coming to the next-gen network - Top networks require top phones... 26/02 - NETWORKS - Nokia says it is the one-stop shop for 5G network gear - Nokia details new equipment and operator partnerships... 26/02 - NETWORKS - Google Fi customers will get 5G from Sprint's network - MVNO gets 5G... 25/02 - NETWORKS - Security flaws in 4G and 5G revealed - New flaws allow attackers to intercept calls and track user locations... 25/02 - DEVICES - Sony will make a 5G phone, but only when the tech rolls out - It won't be left behind in 5G race... 25/02 - DEVICES - Lenovo teases first 5G laptop powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx - But, what’s taking so long – and where are the rest? 25/02 - NETWORKS - GSMA: One in seven connections will be 5G by 2025 - GSMA kicks off MWC with prediction for the market... 25/02 - DEVICES - Affordable 5G phones will arrive in early 2020 - Not a flagship exclusive for long... 25/02 - DEVICES - HTC 5G home hub gets you ready for superfast internet - Get your home or office 5G-ready... 24/02 - DEVICES - Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 5G may be your first 5G-ready phone - One of the first 5G phones of MWC 2019... 22/02 - DEVICES - Will Samsung enjoy first mover advantage with 5G? - Samsung beats rivals to 5G smartphone... 22/02 - ANALYSIS - Huawei: We make it cheaper and simpler to deploy 5G - Head of carrier business touts benefits of 5G kit ahead of MWC... 21/02 - NETWORKS - 5G could solve major 4G congestion - Current 4G download speeds differ greatly depending on country and time of day... 21/02 - DEVICES - Gemalto makes 5G SIM card available to operators - Gemalto pitches "world-first" 5G SIM card... 21/02 - NETWORKS - O2 5G confirmed to launch in these four cities in 2019 - O2 5G will go live in UK capitals this year... 20/12 - NETWORKS - 5G will account for a quarter of UK mobile data traffic by 2022 - UK will be second only to the US in 5G... 20/02 - NETWORKS - Vodafone 'world-first' connects smartphones to 5G network - Vodafone connects handset in Barcelona ahead of MWC next week... 19/02 - DEVICES - You may want to hold off buying a 5G phone until 2020 - This second generation 5G modem will make a difference... 19/02 - NETWORKS - Three trials cloud core 5G network with staff - Full rollout expected later in 2019... 19/02 - ANALYSIS - Does sports content hold the key to 5G adoption? - Tokyo Olympics and Euro 2020 could be first time many experience 5G... 18/02 - NETWORKS - UK 'doesn't need to ban' Huawei 5G kit - Huawei's 5G equipment is a 'manageable risk', NCSC apparently claims... 18/02 - NETWORKS - Vodafone UK switches on first 5G airport - Manchester Airport upgraded to superfast speeds for consumers to try out 5G... 15/02 - NETWORKS - Three brings 5G to the catwalk and its flagship store - Three shows off 5G to consumers at London Fashion Week... 13/02 - NETWORKS - UK switches on first 5G factory trials - Worcestershire 5G testbed goes live... 11/02 - NETWORKS - Sprint sues AT&T over '5GE' claim - Rivals clash in 5G row... 11/02 - ANALYSIS - AI, 5G and the race to completely autonomous vehicles - Now is the time to implement a data-centric architecture... 08/02 - NETWORKS - Trump anticipated to ban 5G networks from using Chinese tech - An executive order is expected to come before MWC... 07/02 - DEVICES - Vodafone trials 5G form factor device with Ericsson and Qualcomm - Operator takes step forward in 5G development... 06/02 - NETWORKS - US urges EU to reconsider role of Huawei in 5G - US ramps up pressure on Huawei with stark warning... 05/02 - NETWORKS - Ericsson joins O-RAN to drive intelligent 5G radio development - Ericsson extends commitment to open standards... 04/02 - NETWORKS - GSMA suggests Huawei 5G talks at MWC - Industry concerned at Huawei 5G exclusion following long-term controversies... 01/02 - DEVICES - Huawei 5G foldable phone teased in MWC 2019 press conference invite - Our first look at the world's first foldable 5G phone... 31/01 - ANALYSIS - Investing in a 5G future: The role of MNOs - 5G's 2020 rollout is fast approaching... 31/01 - NETWORKS - Nokia predicts staggered demand for 5G kit in 2019 - Nokia reports increased revenue and profit in Q4... 31/01 - DEVICES - 5G phones: these are going to be the first next-gen handsets - The new 5G phones of 2019 and beyond... 31/01 - DEVICES - LG hints strongly at 5G foldable phones for 2019 - Taking the fight to Samsung's Galaxy X... 28/01 - NETWORKS - Chinese EU Ambassador says Huawei 5G ban would be 'self-defeating' - Senior diplomat dismisses security fears as fabrications... 25/01 - DEVICES - Huawei says it'll show off a foldable 5G phone at MWC 2019 - The world's first 5G phone with a foldable screen... 24/01 - HARDWARE - Huawei reveals 5G modem and base station chips - Huawei chips will ease deployment and widen support... 22/01 - NETWORKS - Vodafone and O2 team up on 5G network sharing - Two operators look at options for mast infrastructure as they extend network sharing deal to cover 5G... 17/01 - NETWORKS - Huawei faces US probe as Germany considers 5G options - US DoJ reportedly accuses Huawei of trade secret theft... 14/01 - NETWORKS - US government shutdown is threat to 5G rollout - Industry body warns about impact of FCC shutdown... 14/01 - HARDWARE - Intel wants to be your one-stop shop for 5G - Intel VP tells us that “5G runs on Intel”... 14/01 - DEVICES - Apple looks at Samsung and MediaTek modems for 5G iPhone - Latest revelations from Qualcomm's antitrust trial... 12/01 - DEVICES - iPhone 11 tipped to have faster Wi-Fi, but 5G might have to wait - Better speeds for the 2019 iPhones? 11/01 - NETWORKS - Ericsson tests strengthen wireless backhaul's suitability for 5G - Ericsson and Deutsche Telekom trials achieve 'fibre-like' performance... 10/01 - NETWORKS - T-Mobile continues US 5G crusade with 600MHz call tests - T-Mobile completes multi-band call tests with Ericsson and Intel... 09/01 - DEVICES - 5G and fixed displays to drive smartphone sales in 2019 - Research suggests 5G might be silver bullet... 09/01 - NETWORKS - AT&T claims advanced 4G is '5G' - Software update claims advanced 4G is 5G Evolution... 08/01 - DEVICES - 5G can be tonic for smartphone saturation - GSMA Intelligence finds 80 per cent of developed world owns a smartphone... 08/01 - HARDWARE - Intel targets 5G base stations with 'Snow Ridge' chips - Intel hopes edge computing advantage will pay off... 08/01 - NETWORKS - The Galaxy S10 isn't at CES 2019, but Samsung's 5G plans are here - Samsung Galaxy S10 is here in pieces if you look closely... 06/01 - DEVICES - Byton confirms M-Byte car will be available in 2019 with AI, 5G and 48-inch display - That's a whole lot of screen... 04/01 - ANALYSIS - What to expect from 5G at CES 2019 - 5G could be the star of the show at CES 2019... 24/12 - ANALYSIS - Three CEO: Capacity, not speed is the true 5G revolution - Dave Dyson talks up Three's 5G strategy... 21/12 - NETWORKS - O2 confirms 5G tests will use Huawei kit - London 5G tests will be carried out using Huawei equipment, O2 confirms... 19/12 - NETWORKS - 'Strong' business demand for 5G could be tempered by network transformation - Gartner says operator focus is on consumer applications... 19/12 - NETWORKS - AT&T is second US operator to launch 5G - AT&T gears up for limited 5G launch... 19/12 - DEVICES - Top Samsung Galaxy S10 could have a massive screen and support 5G - But it might not be available everywhere... 17/12 - ANALYSIS - The coming 5G revolution - How the next generation of mobile connectivity will bring emerging technologies to life... 17/12 - NETWORKS - Rivals claim Three's spectrum variation will hand it 5G advantage - Three now has 100MHz of continuous 3.6GHz spectrum... 14/12 - NETWORKS - 5G could add billions to world GDP - Unlocking the right 5G spectrum will make all the difference... 13/12 - NETWORKS - Huawei will do 'anything' to be trusted 5G partner - Huawei says if there's anything it can do to ease security concerns, it will do it... 10/12 - NETWORKS - Vodafone to use manhole covers to improve 4G and 5G - Vodafone hopes street level infrastructure will improve network... 10/12 - ANALYSIS - 5G is just the beginning for the future of smartphones - The future of mobile looks promising... 06/12 - ANALYSIS - Vodafone Business rebrand highlights strategic focus in 5G era - Vodafone Enterprise is now Vodafone Business... 06/12 - POLICY - EU approves new regulations to boost 5G rollout - EU passes new code despite industry opposition... 06/12 - PRODUCTS - OnePlus CEO confirms its 5G phone will cost $200 to $300 more than OnePlus 6T - But it isn't done with 4G devices... 06/12 - NETWORKS - We need rigorous 5G testing before we get in the driverless car - Autonomous vehicles will rely heavily on next generation networks... 05/12 - PRODUCTS - OnePlus will be the first to release a 5G phone in Europe - It's all thanks to some help from EE... 05/12 - NETWORKS - How 5G technologies can be implemented more efficiently - Knowing where to place 'small cells' will make all the difference... 05/12 - DEVICES - This Samsung 5G prototype phone has a notch... but it's in the corner - Updated with an official comment from Samsung... 04/12 - DEVICES - Here's the first 5G smartphone and, no, you can't buy it - It's a reference device from Qualcomm, but it promises a lot... 04/12 - NETWORKS - Nokia and Qualcomm complete 5G call interoperability tests - Another 5G testing hurdle is cleared ahead of launch... 04/12 - NETWORKS - Arqiva and CityFibre to build 5G small cell network in London - Hammersmith & Fulham will host UK's largest pilot to date... 04/12 - ANALYSIS - 2019 telecoms forecast: the year of 5G and open source - Canonical takes a look at some of the most important trends for next year... 04/12 - NETWORKS - MI6 chief warns UK on role of China in 5G networks - Alex Younger says there needs to be a conversation about Huawei's role... 03/12 - NETWORKS - Three Korean operators launch 5G networks - Operators bring forward South Korea 5G launch... 03/12 - DEVICES - Verizon and Samsung to launch 5G smartphone in 2019 - Companies will show off PoC this week... 29/11 - PRODUCTS - Toyota's new humanoid robot can be controlled remotely via 5G - A helping hand from afar... 29/11 - NETWORKS - 5G will require mobile operators to rethink the role of Wi-Fi - Operators may need to de-prioritise Wi-Fi in 5G era... 28/11 - NETWORKS - New Zealand 'blocks' use of Huawei 5G kit - Spark application rejected by New Zealand government... 27/11 - NETWORKS - 5G will have 'fastest ever' global rollout - Ericsson Mobility Report says Europe will fall behind without market changes... 23/11 - NETWORKS - O2 gears up for 5G with Massive MIMO trial - O2 trials technology in London head of 5G launch... 22/11 - NETWORKS - Huawei boasts of 22 5G commercial contracts - Head of Huawei carrier business touts end-to-end capabilities of its equipment... 22/11 - NETWORKS - Nokia creates Access Networks Division for end-to-end 5G - Nokia hopes organisational changes will give it 5G advantage... 21/11 - NETWORKS - EE and BT Sport plan UK's first 5G sport broadcast - EE Wembley Cup will be transmitted via 5G... 20/11 - HARDWARE - Huawei urges operators to trust its 5G vision as it shifts 10,000 base stations - Huawei Chairman Ken Hu details 'Cloud X' vision... 20/11 - NETWORKS - Three: 5G wireless broadband can be genuine alternative to fibre - Three-commissioned report touts price-saving benefits of 5G FWA... 20/11 - DEVICES - OnePlus could charge a high price for its upcoming 5G phone - Price tag for superfast device could be up to $100 more... 19/11 - NETWORKS - Faroese Telecom wants to bring 5G to Shetland - Shetland confirms talks with Faroese mobile provider... 16/11 - ANALYSIS - The week that UK 5G transformed from hype into reality - UK operators detail more about 5G launches in 2019... 16/11 - ANALYSIS - 2025: the year of 5G entertainment - Intel's Alex Gledhill tells us how 5G can benefit all areas of work and life... 15/11 - RESEARCH - Samsung invests $22bn in AI and 5G - Korean tech giant aims to control 20 per cent of the network equipment market... 15/11 - NETWORKS - US begins auction of 5G spectrum - US operators bid for high range spectrum to power mobile broadband services.. 15/11 - HARDWARE - German government 'urged' to consider Huawei 5G ban - Reports suggest push could have come too late... 14/11 - DEVICES - Verizon connects a smartphone to its 5G network - Verizon is currently the world's only commercial 5G operator... 13/11 - PRODUCTS - Intel will launch 5G modem next year - Chipmaker speeds up plans for 5G modem launch in 2019... 13/11 - NETWORKS - EE to launch 5G as 'premium' mobile experience in 16 UK cities in 2019 - Operator to upgrade 1,500 sites in the busiest parts of its network... 12/11 - DEVICES - OnePlus 7 may not be the upcoming 5G phone from the brand - Is a whole new OnePlus line on the way? 09/11 - NETWORKS - What role will 5G play in NBN's gigabit broadband vision? - 5G can boost FWA broadband to gigabit levels... 08/11 - POLICY - Ofcom CTO: Spectrum and security are biggest 5G challenges - Ofcom CTO Mansoor Hanif discusses the barriers to fulfilling 5G potential... 07/11 - NETWORKS - EE announces UK 5G trial expansion - Nine east London sites are now linked up to EE's 5G trial network... 07/11 - NETWORKS - How 5G will enable the next generation of IoT deployments - Canonical head tells us why next-generation networks are the key to innovation... 07/11 - NETWORKS - Three reveals £2bn UK 5G investment - 5G set to be a "game-changer" in the UK says Three CEO Dave Dyson... 06/11 - DEVICES - UK operators urged to 'consider' 5G equipment suppliers - Government aims to ensure UK's telecoms infrastructure is secure... 06/11 - NETWORKS - GSMA: Operators need prime spectrum to fulfill 5G potential - Industry body publishes paper ahead of WRC-19... 05/11 - NETWORKS - 5G operator revenues to reach £230bn by 2025 - Research suggests £46bn in 5G R&D will be well spent... 03/11 - DEVICES - Apple tipped to launch a 5G iPhone in 2020 - Super-fast speeds on the way... 31/10 - NETWORKS - BT CTO: Convergence of fibre, 5G and Wi-Fi will create 'one network to rule them all' - Howard Watson believes convergence will be a key differentiatior in telecoms... 30/10 - DEVICES - Oppo wants to release the first 5G smartphone - Oppo wants to beat LG to the punch after successful 5G tests... 30/10 - NETWORKS - Budget 2018: More funding for rural fibre but no new 5G commitments - Digital infrastructure largely a footnote in 2018 Budget... 26/10 - NETWORKS - Trump lays out US 5G strategy - Order looks to ease progress towards 5G network deployment in the US... 25/10 - PRODUCTS - Qualcomm works with Samsung on 5G small cells - Qualcomm and Samsung look to establish 5G leadership... 25/10 - NETWORKS - Vodafone switches on 'full 5G' trial in Manchester - Salford's MediaCity UK gets 5G coverage as Vodafone shapes up next-gen network... 23/10 - DEVICES - OnePlus 7 or OnePlus 7T will be first from company to support 5G - 2019 is the year OnePlus adopts 5G... 22/10 - NETWORKS - EU could back Wi-Fi over 5G for connected cars - Draft proposals could see Wi-Fi rules set before 5G... 19/10 - DEVICES - Operators may have to subsidise 'expensive' 5G smartphones - Early 5G smartphones could be too expensive for consumers... 19/10 - PRODUCTS - Huawei 5G folding phone could take on the Samsung Galaxy X in 2019 - Huawei knows when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em... 18/10 - NETWORKS - Ericsson sales boosted by early 5G adoption - Ericsson feels flush from operator investment... 17/10 - PRODUCTS - Samsung buys Zhilabs to power 5G analytics - Samsung's 5G efforts continue with purchase of analytics experts... 16/10 - NETWORKS - European mobile giants urge pro-5G investment policies - Leading CEOs urge EU regulators to consider importance of connectivity... 15/10 - PRODUCTS - US senators urge Canada to 'ban' Huawei from 5G deployment - US senators fear Huawei kit could harm US national security... 12/10 - PRODUCTS - New Nokia kit promises more rapid and effective 5G FWA deployments - Operators can get new high gain antennas and gateways... 12/10 - NETWORKS - Deutsche Telekom plots 99 per cent 5G coverage by 2025 - German operator details plans for 5G rollout... 08/10 - ANALYSIS - Differences in early 5G services will make it a 'marketing headache' - Analysts predict difficulties in 5G marketing as mobile broadband will be key adoption driver... 05/10 - NETWORKS - EE switches on 'UK's first' 5G trial network at Canary Wharf - EE gears up for 2019 5G launch... 04/10 - NETWORKS - Huawei tells FCC that US ban could mean country falls behind in 5G - Huawei hasn't given up hope in playing US 5G role... 01/10 - INNOVATION - Samsung partners with AT&T to build a 5G tech lab - Facility will research ways 5G could improve manufacturing... 01/10 - NETWORKS - Verizon turns on the world's first 5G network - Launch across four US cities could be a major landmark in the development of 5G... 28/09 - NETWORKS - Digital Catapult switches on Brighton 5G testbed - UK's latest 5G testbed goes live on the South Coast... 26/09 - ANALYSIS - Could 5G networks herald the arrival of a four-day work week? Increased productivity as a result of 5G powered technologies could disrupt the traditional work week... 25/09 - DEVICES - Manufacturers hope 5G and foldable displays will drive smartphone growth - Analysts believe the smartphone will be unrecognisable by 2027... 24/09 - NETWORKS - WIG raises £220m for 5G infrastructure - WIG to use additional funding for small cells and fibre... 21/09 - NETWORKS - Vodafone targets cities and rural areas for 2019 5G launch - Cornwall and the Lake District will be first to get Vodafone 5G... 12/09 - NETWORKS - T-Mobile signs $3.5bn 5G network deal with Ericsson - T-Mobile secures second major 5G equipment deal... 11/09 - NETWORKS - EE could launch the UK's first 5G network in 2019 - EE reallocates 3G spectrum ahead of 2019 5G launch... 11/09 - NETWORKS - European mobile operators bring forward 5G plans - Global 5G connections to reach 340m by 2021 as European optimism increases forecasts... 11/09 - GAMING - Nvidia shows how GeForce Now 5G streaming could make high-end gaming hardware irrelevant - Hitting 60 fps in Full HD resolution with no need for a beefy gaming laptop... 10/09 - NETWORKS - CityFibre SDN rollout to speed up 5G deployments and enable 10Gbps - CityFibre agrees deal with Calix to smarten its network.. 10/09 - NETWORKS - Ericsson radio updates and transport partnerships to accelerate 5G deployments - Ericsson says a series of developments will make it easier and quicker to deploy 5G... 08/09 - NETWORKS - How 5G will make our streaming dreams come true - Zero buffering, no waiting. Will 5G lead the way? 07/09 - FEATURE - Inside the 5G factory: How Nokia's research aids its own production - Nokia's Oulu facility has been involved in every generation of mobile technology... 05/09 - NETWORKS - San Marino will have Europe's first 5G network - Microstate will be a testbed for TIM... 05/09 - NETWORKS - China considers merging two major mobile operators in 5G push - Merger would create world's second largest mobile operator... 04/09 - PRODUCTS - UK''s 'first' large-scale 5G hub to test digital health apps in 2019 - West Midlands will become UK's first 5G hub... 31/08 - ANALYSIS - Golf's digital ambitions make it an unlikely 5G pioneer - Golf looks to new technologies - including 5G... 31/08 - NETWORKS - German operators will have no rural obligation for 5G - 5G spectrum auction will take place in 2019... 30/08 - DEVICES - Larger screens and 5G to drive smartphone growth through to 2022 - Smartphone market 'generally healthy' despite recent dip... 28/08 - NETWORKS - German regulator calls for fourth operator for 5G - Competition chief believes new entrant will kickstart German 5G... 28/08 - NETWORKS - Nokia secures €500m EU loan for 5G research - New funding will accelerate 5G technology R&D... 23/08 - NETWORKS - Major 5G trends become more apparent as first network launch nears - The past seven days have been a long time in the world of 5G... 23/08 - ANALYSIS - Huawei & ZTE banned from Australia 5G networks - Australian government says 5G architecture makes it too risky... 22/08 - PRODUCTS - Qualcomm to start shipping its 5G modems - However chipmaker says it doesn't expect 5G phones to launch this year... 22/08 - NETWORKS - Speed takes centre stage as operators ramp up 5G testing - Report suggests 82 per cent of mobile operators worldwide are testing 5G... 22/08 - DEVICES - Nokia expects to make €3 from every 5G smartphone - Finnish giant sets rate for its essential 5G patents... 20/08 - NETWORKS - Government to test 5G on UK railways - DCMS invites participants for pilot to see how 5G can improve transport sector... 20/08 - NETWORKS - Verizon and Nokia test 5G with a moving vehicle - Partners make progress in mobile broadband and connected car apps... 17/08 - NETWORKS - 5G network slicing could be worth £51bn to mobile operators - Researchers say efforts by operators and vendors could bear fruit... 16/08 - NETWORKS - Cisco posts healthy revenues ahead of 5G push - Cisco is happy with innovation roadmap as it prepares for next generation networks... 16/08 - NETWORKS - Telstra switches on 5G for the Gold Coast, but wider availability remains murky - Australian telcos Optus and Vodafone say there’s a long road ahead... 15/08 - NETWORKS - O2 tests light-based wireless transmission ahead of 5G tests - Li-Fi is pitched as a Wi-Fi alternative... 15/08 - DEVICES - LG to launch 'first 5G smartphone' in 2019 - LG and Sprint will release a 5G-ready device in the US next year... 13/08 - NETWORKS - Ericsson hopes US 5G investments will speed up deployments - Ericsson makes investments in 5G R&D... 08/08 - NETWORKS - Samsung invests billions in 5G and AI - Samsung's £17bn investment programme looks to guard against smartphone slowdown... 07/08 - NETWORKS - US set to lose out to China in 5G race - Deloitte report urges policymakers to promote investment... 02/08 - DEVICES - Moto Z3 is the world's first 5G-upgradable smartphone, say Motorola and Verizon - The first 5G-almost-ready smartphone... 02/08 - OPERATORS - Three focuses on 5G after revenue and customer rises - Three now boasts 10.1m customers across the UK... 31/07 - DEVICES - Lenovo says it'll be the first to launch a 5G smartphone - Could be here before the end of the year... 30/07 - NETWORKS - Nokia and T-Mobile ink $3.5bn 5G network deal - US operator presses ahead with 5G rollout plans... 27/07 - OPERATORS - Mobile helps BT Q1 results ahead of 5G trials - Consumer division continues to offset BT business decline... 26/07 - OPERATORS - O2 invites FTSE 500 to trial its 5G - O2 presses ahead with 5G tests as it adds more customers... 26/07 - OPERATORS - Nokia looks to 5G after sales slowdown - Nokia says drop is to be expected but is confident for second half of 2018... 26/07 - OPERATORS - Sky Mobile extends O2 MVNO agreement to cover 5G - Sky Mobile now has 500,000 customers across the UK... 23/07 - REGULATION - UK Government promises new regulations and investment for full fibre and 5G - Government report outlines plans to deliver fibre to entire UK by 2033... 23/07 - PRODUCTS - Qualcomm's mmWave antennas pave way for first 5G smartphones - The first 5G smartphones should arrive in 2019... 20/07 - NETWORKS - Barriers to 5G could stop UK being a global leader - BSG report identifies issues and resolutions... 18/07 - NETWORKS - South Korea plans 2019 5G launch - "Korea 5G Day" will see new networks introduced a year ahead of schedule... 10/07 - NETWORKS - China Mobile, Intel and Huawei complete 5G interoperability testing - Tests pave way for China Mobile 5G launch next year... 09/07 - NETWORKS - SSE Enterprise Telecoms unbundles BT exchanges to boost broadband and Three 5G - SSE Enterprise Telecoms doubles its reach... 03/07 - NETWORKS - Samsung, Cisco and Orange hold multi-vendor 5G FWA trial - FWA will deliver a fixed-like broadband experience when 5G launches... 29/06 - DEVICES - OnePlus 7 could support 5G and be sold by US carriers - But don't expect it for a while... 28/06 - NETWORKS - "World's first" 5G network launches - Finnish operator Elisa claims global first in launching a commercial 5G network... 27/06 - ANALYSIS - The World Cup and 5G: the trials you need to know about - 5G will change how you watch football forever... 25/06 - NETWORKS - UK 'needs shared spectrum' for 5G - Ofcom urged to rethink 5G spectrum auction to ensure fairer rollout... 20/06 - NETWORKS - Vodafone launches 5G trials in seven UK cities - Vodafone to hold trials later this year with plans for a 2020 5G launch... 19/06 - NETWORKS - Mobile signal woes 'strengthens' business case for 5G - Only half of mobile users in the UK are happy with their speeds, but willing to pay more for faster service... 15/06 - NETWORKS - First standalone 5G network standard approved - 3GPP finalizes 'Release 15' of 5G after three years of work, meaning networks are on the way this year... 14/06 - ANALYSIS - Three CEO: 5G capacity is a 'big opportunity' to lead UK market - Dave Dyson says Three's spectrum holdings mean it could be the UK's 5G leader... 13/06 - NETWORKS - Vodafone: 5G smartphone uncertainty means focus on core network and IoT - Vodafone UK CTO says 5G will be a gamechanger, but smartphone innovation in the 4G era won't be matched... 12/06 - NETWORKS - 5G networks still set to arrive this year - Ericsson report suggests Europe will fall behind US and Asia on 5G adoption... 11/06 - NETWORKS - 'First ever' UK 5G report paints rosy picture - UK's 5G ambitions rely heavily on startup and research community... 06/06 - ANALYSIS - EU telecoms rule changes will hinder rather than help 5G, claim industry - Telecoms groups label the new EU code a "missed opportunity"... 06/06 - NETWORKS - EE to switch on 'UK's first' 5G trial in London - Residents and businesses in Tech City will get chance to try out 5G... 05/06 - PRODUCTS - 5G PCs coming from Intel and Sprint next year - US telecoms giant Sprint has joined the race to bring 5G to the masses, announcing at Computex 2018 to start shipping Intel-powered 5G computers next year... 01/06 - ANALYSIS - 5G UK - How far away are we really? - 5G will deliver immediate benefits in 2019, but the true mobile revolution will take time... 25/05 - POLICY - Mobile industry 'shouldn't wait' for 5G to roll out small cells - Small cells will be essential for delivering the 5G vision but industry warns there is no time too wait... 25/05 - POLICY - Nordic Prime Ministers reach agreement to support 5G - Joint agreement is welcomed by Nokia, Ericsson and regional operators... 22/05 - NETWORKS - Qualcomm details 5G small cell platform - Qualcomm wants to help operators and network equipment manufacturers densify 5G networks... 18/05 - NETWORKS - Verizon to bring 5G to Los Angeles in 2018 - Verizon says America's second largest city will be its next 5G location... 16/05 - NETWORKS - Mobile IoT networks to be a 'core component' of 5G - GSMA says NB-IoT and LTE-M deployments are paving the way for massive IoT powered by 5G... 14/05 - NETWORKS - 5G and network convergence drives growth of carrier-grade Wi-Fi market - Fixed and mobile operators look to densify network infrastructure... 08/05 - PRODUCTS - Why self-driving vehicles could be the biggest winner in a 5G world - Telefónica tells us why autonomous vehicles are set to be a key 5G use case... 08/05 - NETWORKS - Verizon and Samsung get 5G regulatory boost - Verizon and Samsung make major headway towards 5G... 03/05 - NETWORKS - Deutsche Telekom holds live 5G NR trial in Berlin - German operator says test will see how 5G NR behaves in real world... 02/05 - ANALYSIS - Why T-Mobile and Sprint merger would give the US a 5G lead - A truly national 5G network could ensure the US retains its advantage... 01/05 - NETWORKS - Three futureproofs backend infrastructure for 5G - Three and SSE Enterprise Telecoms deal with start with data centre connectivity... 30/04 - NETWORKS - T-Mobile and Sprint merger promises 5G progress in the US - America's third and fourth largest mobile operators are to merge... 18/04 - NETWORKS - Huawei dampens 5G expectations - Huawei CEO says consumer might not notice the differences... 17/04 - NETWORKS - China has narrow lead over US in 5G race - Government support and industry momentum gives China slight advantage, report says... 16/04 - DEVICES - 5G anticipation set to slow smartphone sales - Manufacturers hope for 5G boost as worldwide smartphone demand slows... 13/04 - NETWORKS - What does the Ofcom 5G auction mean for the UK mobile industry? - The long-awaited auction is over, paving the way for 5G...so what next? 12/04 - NETWORKS - Vodafone hits major UK 5G milestone - Vodafone is first UK operator to test 3.4GHz spectrum in preparation for 5G... 09/04 - NETWORKS - Europe set be left behind in 5G race - US and Asia will lead the way in 5G development, claims report... 05/04 - NETWORKS - Mobile networks fork out £1.4bn for 5G spectrum - Ofcom publishes the results of its 5G spectrum auction, revealing that the UK's biggest mobile network operators spent almost £1.4 billion... 28/03 - NETWORKS - 'World's first' 5G public trial switched on in Australia - Australian telco Telstra flips the switch on the world's first public trial of 5G at the Gold Coast... 28/03 - NETWORKS - 5G RuralFirst looks at smart farming, spectrum sharing and broadcasting - Government funded project will use Cisco tech to help transform rural lives... 28/03 - POLICY - UK5G group makes bid for global 5G leadership - Government and industry backed UK5G looks to establish UK 5G community... 27/03 - NETWORKS - GSMA: 5G will be dominant mobile tech in USA by 2025 - Mobile industry body report shows US will be a 5G leader... 27/03 - NETWORKS - Telefonica tests tech that could boost 5G broadband - Telefonica spectral efficiency trials hope to pave the way for better fixed wireless access (FWA)... 23/03 - NETWORKS - 5G networks are now just a year away - Korea Telecom plans commercial 5G launch next March... 20/03 - NETWORKS - UK 5G spectrum auction gets underway - Five bidders will battle it out for more of the UK's airwaves... 19/03 - NETWORKS - UK university makes major 5G breakthrough - University of Kent-based iCIRRUS consortium says Ethernet equipment can help deliver 5G networks... 16/03 - NETWORKS - O2 kickstarts the UK's 5G charm offensive to consumers - 5G hypetrain moves from industry into the mainstream... 15/03 - NETWORKS - Digital minister pledges to eliminate barriers to 5G deployment - Margot James says she wants to work with mobile operators and local government on 5G... 14/03 - NETWORKS - O2: 5G will save local councils and households £6bn a year - Report details how smart technologies powered by 5G can improve society... 12/03 - NETWORKS - Ofcom 5G spectrum auction will start next week - Ofcom confirms that bidding for 5G frequencies will begin on 20 March... 12/03 - NETWORKS - Government reveals £25m prize fund for UK 5G - £25m competition will see 5G testbeds located across the UK... 11/03 - DEVICES - 5G a key factor to seamless VR experience, says Lenovo EMEA President - Lenovo wants to create memorable experiences for its customers, but is that enough? 09/03 - NETWORKS - Ofcom plans new rural coverage obligations for 700MHz spectrum - Ofcom says 700MHz is an important opportunity to improve rural coverage as it plans for 5G future... 05/03 - NETWORKS - EU Parliament and US Congress take steps to accelerate 5G legislation - EU chambers reach provisional agreement while US Congress to vote on spectrum auction... 05/03 - DEVICES - HTC CEO: 5G will turn any VR device into the most powerful in the world - Cher Wang says the smartphone still has a role to play in VR... 03/03 - NETWORKS - Qualcomm hopes 5G vision will stand out from the hype - Qualcomm's influence in the industry is significant, so its 5G roadmap is worth listening too... 02/03 - NETWORKS - BT CEO: EE convergence even more important ahead of 5G - Gavin Patterson says BT never really left mobile and is preparing for converged network era... 28/02 - NETWORKS - Intel and NTT DoCoMo prepare 5G plans for Tokyo 2020 Olympics - After success at PyeongChang 2018, Intel is stepping up plans for next Olympics... 27/02 - NETWORKS - Satellite-supported UK 5G testbed will trial mission critical apps - Juniper Networks and Satellite Applications Catapult say satellite cannot be ignored... 27/02 - MOBILE - Qualcomm looks to make it easier to make 5G phones - Launch will help OEMs build 5G connectivity into more devices... 27/02 - NETWORKS - Ofcom confirms six bidders for 5G spectrum - All four mobile operators have been approved, with small cell operator and Hull fixed wireless firm joining... 27/02 - NETWORKS - Ericsson tells operators: 5G is ready - Ericsson has agreements with 38 operators around the world as 5G moves from idea to reality... 27/02 - PRODUCTS - Get ready for a 5G Internet of the Sky - Drones like the Ehang 184 will usher in a 5G-powered autonomous airspace... 26/02 - NETWORKS - Telstra plans to ramp up 4G speeds in the lead up to its full 5G rollout - Major cities in Australia to get increased bandwidth... 26/02 - NETWORKS - Cisco targets mobile operators with '5G Now' - Cisco wants to help operators prepare for the next era of networks... 25/02 - MOBILE - Huawei reveals 5G-ready modem - Test beds for 5G networks will be launched this year, Huawei reveals... 23/02 - NETWORKS - Why PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics are a 5G milestone - Athletes are making history at the Winter Olympics, but it's an important event for 5G networks too... 22/02 - NETWORKS - O2 reveals UK 5G test bed - Operator will test 5G applications at iconic London venue later this year... 19/02 - NETWORKS - Vodafone and Huawei successfully test IP Microwave backhaul for 5G - Vodafone and Huawei achieve 2Gbps on IP microwave link, claiming it shows the tech is viable for 5G... 16/02 - NETWORKS - Why startups and research can make the UK a 5G leader - Does the UK really need to be first to the mark or be an industry powerhouse to be a 5G leader? 16/02 - OPINION - No time to waste now 5G legal challenges are over - For an industry keen to avoid a repeat of the 3G and 4G auctions, Three's failed appeal removes a barrier to 5G... 14/02 - MOBILE - Fiber-like internet and a glimpse of our 5G future are coming to smartphones in 2019 - Qualcomm's new mobile modem offering speeds of up to 2Gbps... 14/02 - NETWORKS - 5G spectrum auction to go ahead after Three's legal challenge fails - Three's bid to decrease an overall spectrum cap falls on deaf ears and prevents further delay... 12/02 - NETWORKS - China Mobile plans 5G launch in 2019 - China Mobile joins a select few number of operators planning to beat original 2020 target... 08/02 - MOBILE - The first 5G smartphones are coming in 2019 - But you won't see 5G service everywhere by next year... 07/02 - MOBILE - 5G set to push mobile data use sky-high - Giffgaff research estimates customers will use nearly 100GB of mobile data a month by 2025... 05/-2 - NETWORKS - Telstra joins Optus on 5G bandwagon, also aiming for 2019 rollout - Australian carrier Telstra will trial new tech during Commonwealth Games... 05/01 - NETWORKS - AT&T set to run 5G trials - Company to adopt new 3GPP guidelines as it continues push for next-generation networks... 04/01 - NETWORKS - Samsung teams up with Verizon on 5G - New service to be launched in Sacramento later this year... 02/02 - NETWORKS - Optus 5G network rollout set to begin in early 2019 - Australian telco Optus announces its plans for 5G rollout... What will 5G networks mean for me?
How fast will 5G be?It’s still not exactly known how much faster 5G will be than 4G, as much of the technology is still under development. That being said, the networks should provide a significant upgrade to current download and upload speeds - with the GSMA proposing minimum download speeds of around 1GBps. Most estimates expect the average speed of 5G networks to reach 10Gb/s, and some even think transfer rates could reach a whopping 800Gb/s. This would mean that users could download a full-length HD quality film in a matter of seconds, and that downloading and installing software upgrades would be completed much faster than today. Will I be able to get 5G networks on my phone?Existing smartphones, tablet or other devices that were released when 4G networks were the standard may not be able to connect to 5G to begin with, or may incur extra costs to do so. However following the 2020 deadline for the initial rollout, we should soon see devices coming with 5G connection as default. Don't worry though - although 5G should represent a major step up from current 4G and 3G networks, the new technology won’t immediately replace its predecessor - at least, not to begin with. Instead, 5G should link in with existing networks to ensure users never lose connection, with the older networks acting as back-up in areas not covered by the new 5G coverage. So-called “4.5G” networks (also known as LTE-A) are set to fill the gap for the time being, offering connections that are faster than current 4G networks, although only certain countries such as South Korea can benefit from them right now. Once launched however, implementing 5G may be a slower process. Much like the gradual takeover of 4G networks from the previous generation, existing network infrastructure may need to be upgraded or even replaced in order to deal with the new technology, and homes and businesses may also need to get new services installed. It’s not yet known how 5G networks will take over from existing networks, but again, much like the rollout of 4G, you may not be able to immediately connect to the new networks without upgrading your technology. What will a 5G network need?The GSMA has outlined eight criteria for 5G networks, with a connection needing meet a majority of these in order to qualify as 5G:
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| Best mirrorless camera 2019: 10 top models to suit every budget Posted: 04 Apr 2019 06:10 AM PDT If you want to find out what's the best mirrorless camera you can buy in 2019, you've come to the right place. Since Panasonic launched the first mirrorless camera in 2008, the genre has grown massively, with models to suit every budget and ability. Mirrorless cameras allow you to swap and change lenses like a DSLR, but because the mirror inside the camera has been removed (hence the name, with mirrors used to bounce light from the path of the lens up into the optical viewfinder of a DSLR), it has allowed designers to make mirrorless cameras much more compact than DSLRs. No mirror means that instead of optical viewfinders to frame your subject, mirrorless cameras rely on electronic viewfinders instead. Be aware, too, that most cheaper mirrorless cameras don't come with viewfinders at all – instead, you compose the photo on the rear screen, just as you do with most compact cameras or smartphones. You'll find that mirrorless cameras are also known as compact system cameras (or CSCs for short), with models ranging from the simple to use beginner models to sophisticated full-frame monsters that rival the very best DSLRs out there. Why are mirrorless cameras better?Is a mirrorless camera better than a DSLR then? There are still quite a few pros and cons to both designs, so if you want to find out more, read this: Mirrorless vs DSLR cameras: 10 key differences Mirrorless cameras certainly offer more choice. If you're looking to buy a DSLR, there's only really two main players in the shape of Canon and Nikon. If you opt for a mirrorless camera, the choice is much broader, with the likes of Canon, Panasonic, Fujifilm, Sony, Olympus and Leica all offering a wide range of cameras to suit most budgets. Things got really interesting in the last half of 2018, with big announcements from Canon and Nikon in the shape of the EOS R, Z6 and Z7. While it would be very easy to select 10 high-end models to make up our pick of the best mirrorless camera, we've tried to pick out some more affordable options as well. These models might not be dripping in features, but they represent great options for new users and those on a budget. That said, if you're looking specifically for a budget mirrorless camera, take a look at our best mirrorless camera for beginners buying guide. So whether you're after a better camera than the one featured on your smartphone or are looking for an advanced, high-end model to push your creativity even further, read on to find out what are the best mirrorless cameras you can buy right now. Best mirrorless cameras in 2019As we've touched on, 2018 saw the mirrorless camera market really take off, with a flurry of new launches, from entry-level to professional-focused cameras. 2019 has already seen Sony, Olympus, Panasonic, Canon and Fujifilm announce new mirrorless cameras in the shape of the Alpha A6400, OM-D E-M1X, Lumix S1R, EOS RP and X-T30. For now though, this is our pick of the best mirrorless cameras in 2019. Nikon's Z6 rockets straight to the top of our best mirrorless camera charts, and just edging out its closest rival, the Sony Alpha A7 III. There's not much to choose between them, but we reckon the Z6 just nudges it thanks to its brilliant blend of features and performance which makes it a brilliant choice for the enthusiast photographer or pro photographer looking for a second body. The 24.5MP full-frame sensor delivers beautiful results with great color reproduction and detail, while the 273-point AF system (while not quite as sophisticated as the 693-point AF in the A7 III) and 12fps burst shooting should mean you'll never miss another shot. Handling is polished too, while the large and bright electronic viewfinder is a joy to use.
The Alpha A7 III may sit on the bottom rung of Sony's full-frame mirrorless camera range, but it should no longer be seen as the poor relation to its pricier siblings. This is a brilliant choice for the enthusiast photographer or pro, and when you look at the specification, it's easy to see why. Sony has taken some of the best bits from its flagship Alpha A9 and A7R III cameras, and distilled them into a single camera that offers a fantastic mix of performance and image quality. The full-frame 24.2MP sensor is excellent in a range of lighting conditions, while the advanced 693-point AF looks set to get even better with a firmware upgrade in April. This is one advanced camera that's at a great price considering the features and performance on offer.
Like the sound of the Z6, but want more megapixels? Then the 45.7MP Z7 should do the trick. Sharing an identical design to the Z6, Nikon's first full-frame mirrorless camera is a real triumph. It may be a first-generation camera, but we think Nikon's knocked it out of the park with the Z7 right from the get-go. The densely populated 45.7MP sensor is brilliant, delivering some of the best results we've seen on a mirrorless camera, while the effective in-camera image stabilization also delivers. Factor in a beautiful EVF, excellent handling, very competent AF performance and great response throughout, and it's easy to see why the Z7 is such a pleasure to use.
Like the look of the A7 III but want even more pixels? Step forward the 42.2MP Alpha A7R III. It has to be one of the most complete and versatile cameras available today. With a brilliant full-frame 42.2MP sensor, the Alpha A7R III is supported by an advanced 399-point AF system and 10fps burst shooting, proving you no longer have to sacrifice performance for resolution or vice versa. Did we mention it shoots excellent 4K footage as well? This is a camera that would be equally at home perched on a mountain shooting brooding landscapes, in a studio capturing high-end portraits or shooting fast moving sport or wildlife.
The X-T2 was one of our favorite cameras for a long time, but the X-T3 improves on it in pretty much every single way. The new 26.1MP X-Trans sensor might not be a massive leap in resolution over the 24.3MP sensor in the X-T2, but noise control is even better. Focusing also takes a leap forward, with a staggering 2.16-million phase detect AF pixels (with a maximum of 425 selectable points) to help the X-T3 track focus smoothly. There's also now touchscreen control, 11fps burst shooting and a number of other improvements, particularly when it comes to shooting 4K video. That's not forgetting the array of body-mounted controls that's all wrapped-up in a tactile body, that all goes to make the X-T3 a brilliant camera.
The OM-D E-M10 Mark III might not be a massive leap forward over the Mark II, with much of the camera's specification remaining the same. However, Olympus has refined and tweaked one of our favorite mirrorless cameras to make it an even more tempting proposition for new users and enthusiasts alike. Some will criticise the smaller Micro Four Thirds sensor format (roughly half the area of APS-C) but the effect on image quality is minor and it means that the lenses are as compact and lightweight as the camera itself. Sporting a 5-axis image stabilization system, decent electronic viewfinder, an impressive 8.6fps burst shooting speed and 4K video, it's no toy – the E-M10 Mark III is a properly powerful camera.
You don't have to go full-frame to get the benefit of Sony's great camera technology and this APS-C format model makes a great choice for enthusiasts looking for an alternative to big, heavy DSLR. Sony's equipped the A6400 with a brilliant AF system that not only offers fast focus tracking, but a clever EyeAF system the locks focus on the eye. There's also an excellent electronic viewfinder that makes it easy to see when the subject is sharp and correctly exposed, while the touchscreen can be rotated round 180-degrees that makes it a good choice for vloggers. Image quality is very high and there's built-in Wi-Fi and NFC connectivity to allow to share images via a connected smartphone.
Fujifilm's X-T10 and X-T20 models squished the best bits from the X-T1 and X-T2 respectively into much smaller and cheaper bodies, and the new X-T30 does the same from the X-T3. The result? A powerful, mid-range mirrorless option that's no bother to carry around and is just as much of a star when shooting images as it is 4K video. With a relatively new 26.1MP backlit APS-C sensor, a better autofocus system than before, a tough body and plenty of direct control falling to hand, this is a great all-rounder for a very nice price. Those with larger hands may find its body a little too fiddly, though, which is where the X-T3 (above) has an advantage.
The Lumix GH5S is the latest in the line of Panasonic's top-of-the-range GH series of mirrorless cameras, which over the years have carved out a niche for themselves among videographers thanks to their breadth of movie-making features. While it can shoot stills quite happily (although at a pretty limited 10.2MP resolution), this should be seen first and foremost as a video camera – if you want to do both you've got the Lumix GH5 to fill that brief. While the absence of built-in image stabilization might be a disappointment for some, that issue aside the breadth of video features is incredibly impressive. It's certainly the best 4K camera out there before you start considering dedicated professional video cameras.
Until recently this was the flagship option in Olympus's mirrorless portfolio, and while the E-M1X model tat now sits above it does hold a few advantages, much of what we have there we have here – for about half the price. Built around a 20MP Four Thirds sensor and the Micro Four Thirds lens mount that will happy accept hundreds of different lenses, the weather-sealed E-M1 Mark II boasts a superb image stabilization system, 4K video in both DC1 4K and UHD 4K resolutions, 60fps – yes, 60fps – burst shooting at full resolution and the option to capture images at a 50MP resolution. Sure, the Micro Four Thirds format isn't for everyone, but if you need extra reach with your lenses and speed is a priority, this affordable mirrorless model would serve you beautifully.
Finally, let's take a quick look at a camera that doesn't quite make the cut in our top 10 mirrorless buying guide, but represents great value. As you can see further up the top you'll see the Alpha A7 III from Sony is one of our favorite mirrorless cameras you can buy right now. If your budget can't quite stretch that far, then why not take a look at the model it replaces? Still available (so is the even cheaper Alpha A7), you get an awful lot of camera for your money. This includes a great 24.2MP full-frame sensor, high-resolution electronic viewfinder and a very capable AF system. Handling isn't quite as refined though as the newer camera, but for the incredibly tempting price, this can be overlooked. You'll be hard pressed to find a better camera for your money.
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| Reaping the benefits of AI for enhanced network security Posted: 04 Apr 2019 05:30 AM PDT The role of AI in business is surrounded by anticipation and excitement. From the use of chatbots offering an improved customer experience, to customer data analysis through third party programmes – there is a lot of anticipation around its usages. Machine learning is starting to find its feet within the SMB community, with many businesses already using it in one form or another – some without even realising it. When it comes to security, AI has been heralded as the answer to our cybersecurity worries. With SMBs increasingly fighting a losing - and often invisible - battle against malware and cyberthreats. By adding an intelligent, machine-based layer to the traditional firewall approach can arm companies with the necessary tools to keep their networks impenetrable. To make the most of the AI security benefits of AI, it is essential to understand the key aspects that comprise a robust and reliable solution alongside the main areas where AI can make a real difference.
Sandboxing all the way to successWhile it might sound like something you’d do on holiday, ‘sandboxing’ plays a fundamental part in supporting businesses to deal with the rising threat of cyberattacks. Combatting cyberthreats is not an exact science and with new variants being developed all the time, it can be hard for IT teams to keep up and for a basic firewall to identify a suspicious file from a safe one. But with 53 percent of midmarket companies having fallen victim to a cybersecurity-based breach, and 40 percent of those experiencing eight or more hours of system downtime as a result , it is essential to keep all threats at bay. With threats evolving so fast, the ability to immediately identify a file as unknown is the first step in securing the network. Sandboxing can give this reassurance, as it isolates and contains unknown programs in a safe cloud environment for further investigation away from the main network. Behaviour is then analysed, and the threat verified as malicious or not. The benefit of sandboxing is the speed of isolation and incident response which is only possible by using a secure cloud environment. Sandboxing also ensures that a firewall can continually learn and bolster its defences, by analysing the traffic and files which try to enter the network. This feature means that protection can constantly evolve to remain robust and reliable, no matter what is thrown at the network. Image Credit: Pixabay Removing malware concernsAny solution implemented to secure your company from external threats will only be as successful as the most recent data it is based on. Using a firewall alone to block malware, is like relying on an old umbrella with holes to keep the rain off: it will get through and you will get wet. The only way in which malware can be blocked, is through empowering and updating the defences in place. In addition to sandboxing unknown threats, your defence strategy needs to be fed up to the minute information and insight in order to block and defy zero-day malware from taking hold. Indeed, research from the Ponemon Institute found that advanced malware and zero-day attacks increased from 16 percent to 24 percent over the past year. By using reliable sources, including feedback from devices, third party data and top ranked threats, the firewall can be optimised to strengthen malware blocking capabilities. Brushing off the botnetsOn top of all threats entering a network via file attachments and malicious emails, compromised websites can also cause significant damage to daily operations. If staff were to carelessly visit a site which has been infected by a botnet or its command and control server compromised, then this could have disastrous consequences for your business. Your own website is also prime target for attack and key gateway for criminals to infiltrate your network. With SMBs relying on their website as the main sales tool and window into their offering and brand identity, any compromise can be fatal. A data breach or halt to operations can cause reputational and financial damage, which many SMBs might simply never recover from. Indeed, figures from the National Cyber Security Alliance suggest that the cost of a cyberattack can be high enough to put an SMB out of business, with 60 percent of those affected going out of business within six months. To stop your staff putting the business at risk by unwittingly visiting infected websites, and to keep your own website safe from attack, you need to deploy an intelligent botnet and content filter as part of your firewall defences. This will ensure that all URLs visited by users are checked for cyberthreats, based on local and wider knowledge. If a site is malicious and riddled with malware and botnets, users will be blocked from accessing it. These examples reflect just a small number of ways in which AI can enhance the overall security landscape; not just in keeping networks safe. It is becoming clear that having a network security solution, such as AI, which can cope with threats of all shapes and sizes. In fact, the only constant in an always-changing cybersecurity landscape is AI. Thorsten Kurpjuhn, European Security Market Development Manager at Zyxel
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| PUBG Mobile 0.12.0 beta adds companion eagle, new weapons in zombie mode, friendly spectate and more Posted: 04 Apr 2019 05:20 AM PDT PUBG Mobile 0.12.0 beta is rolling out to testers and it brings a bunch of new additions to the popular battle royale title. Recently, the game celebrated its first anniversary as Season 6 went live for players around the world. Now, the beta update 0.12.0 is here and we have listed everything that you would want to know about it below. PUBG Mobile 0.12.0: What's newThe beta update adds a companion eagle to the player's avatar which is also carried in-game. This is more of a cosmetic addition than being an ally on the battlefield. The eagle has its own emotes which are made accessible with every level. There are five in total. During a round, the eagle will be around the player but will fly away if they are prone or in water. Perhaps the most exciting feature in the beta update is the ability to spectate your friends from the lobby. While viewing the enemy’s gameplay, players will be able to send friend requests. Zombie mode on PUBG Mobile is still live and the new 0.12.0 beta update adds another zombie event in Erangel. This time though, its survival until you’re rescued. To make the extraction even more challenging, players can wander outside the houses during the night as the air becomes toxic and damages health levels. Two new weapons- RPG rocket launcher and explosive Crossbow will spawn during the new zombie mode. The rocket launcher will come with 6 rockets while the crossbow is able to shoot explosive arrows that blow on impact. Alongside, liquid nitrogen grenades will also spawn on the island which has the ability to slow the movement of zombies and enemies alike. The update also adds a double AR extended magazine that can be attached to assault rifles. This item will be found only in elite zombie drops. Some of the other changes include the new shapes and colours that can be applied to the red dot, holo sight, 2x and 3x scopes. To make the player feel more in control of his in-game avatar, the developers have fine-tuned a couple of player actions. Now when your avatar reloads a weapon, the magazine will fall to the floor. While opening the door, the avatar will push open the door with their arm. The beta update is live and is being tested for bugs and issues. We can expect more features to be added to the build over the course of its final development. Currently, there is no official information about the launch of PUBG Mobile 0.12 update. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Best flowchart software of 2019 Posted: 04 Apr 2019 05:05 AM PDT There was a time, before computers, when every child in senior school carried with them a plastic stencil for creating neat flowcharts. Thankfully, creating them on a computer is so much easier to do, faster to change, and infinitely reproducible. Clear diagrams can detail the flow of information, products on a production line, the execution of code in software, and a dozen other business-critical processes. Managing people and resources can be difficult without understanding the dependencies involved, and these documents can often reveal those succinctly. Here are 10 of the best we could find, each with their own twist on the perfect recipe for being well understood.
Image Credit: Cacoo Business users often don’t work in isolation, and Cacoo by Nulab is a charting solution built to address that need, among others. It’s an online tool that interfaces to a wide range of cloud services, including Google Drive/Docs, Confluence, Adobe Creative Cloud, Box and Dropbox. In addition to Cloud stored and distributed content, Cacoo also works with TypeTalk (another Nulab product) and Slack to enable an information flow that alerts other team members when a diagram is updated. The number of templates might be less than other products, but it has all the critical ones like Network diagrams, organisational charts and floor plans. The feature set makes it of the most use to systems designers, software engineers, project managers and business administrators. Pricing is competitive, starting at $5 per month per user for a team of three people, when paid annually. Other pricing options are available for larger team groups if you contact Nulab directly. There are also educational plans for teachers and students. There are also educational plans for teachers and students. For those wishing to check out Cacoo, trials are available for 14 days, and there is a free plan that allows six diagrams to be created in it, with limited sharing options. Image Credit: ConceptDraw The ConceptDraw Office package combines three different products in a single suite of applications designed to enable business planning and enhance productivity. This includes dedicated software platforms to cover diagrams, mind-mapping, and project management. The ConceptDraw Diagram product is a highly versatile business graphics and diagramming product with thousands of stencils and hundreds of templates ready to use. But for those that want greater flexibility, it is possible to design any stencil elements from scratch and incorporate them into a design. These custom elements can then use the tree and chain connecting modes available in the ConceptDraw Office software. Fully compatible with Visio (stencils and drawings), ConceptDraw Diagram can be installed either to the Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac platforms, each costing $199 for a single license. However, if you want to buy into the while ConceptDraw Office package a license will cost you $499, which discounts all three main products (Diagram, Mind Mapping, and Project). Five and ten user license packs are available with a user discount, and there are also discounts for teachers and students. A free trial is available for those wishing to try it out. Image Credit: Creately Where other tools rely on application installations, Creately is available online, as a desktop app and also on mobile platforms. It’s not exclusively for Flowcharts either, as it can be used to produce a wide variety of diagrams including organisational charts and wireframes, Gantt charts, Infographics and even maps. The available templates are extensive, and you can try it out online before you invest. Online Creately costs just $5 per month or $49 per year for a single user, and cheaper-per-head team pricing is also available. The Creately Desktop is $75 with one year of updates included. Image Credit: Draw.io Let’s say it upfront: Draw.io is free. No, seriously. They develop and maintain it at no cost to the user. When you’ve recovered from that shock, you should know that it’s an online solution that can save your work to Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive. It can handle a wide range of schematics, including complex BPMN workflows, UML diagrams and general Flowcharts, along with mind maps and network infrastructures. The list of possibilities is so big that we chose not to list them all here. So what is the catch? Well, if you use either Confluence or JIRA Cloud, then they’d like a subscription paid for that functionality. But it’s hardly expensive, being just 1$ per user per year. Before you spend money on other solutions, it’s worth checking out Draw.io, if only to be amazed at what software tools you can get for free, and how good they can be. Image Credit: Edge Diagrammer Based in Arizona, Pacestar Software has four diagram design tools of which Edge Diagrammer is the most versatile. Using Edge Diagrammer, you can easily generate block diagrams, flowcharts, org charts, family trees, data flow diagrams and many other standard diagrammatic forms. In addition to the base functionality, Pacestar has some free extension packs that support an even wider range of different diagramming methodologies. The limitations of this product are that it is exclusively Windows platform, although it has very minimal hardware requirements and will run on any full version of Windows from XP upwards. There is also a free to distribute Windows tool that allows anyone to view drawings created using Edge Diagrammer. While this software is undoubtedly powerful and effective, it doesn’t take account of information flow or distribution within a large operation. Therefore if you intend to use this you’ll need to manage the files it creates with other tools. A single user license is $149, and the more seats you purchase, the cheaper it gets per user. For those wanting to try it out a thirty-day trial is available to download, and for that period you can experience full functionality. Image Credit: Edraw Another cross-platform option, Edraw Max, works on Windows, Mac and Linux natively. Created by the Shenzen Edraw software company, Edraw Max was built to construct professional-looking flowcharts, organisational diagrams and has templates for 280 different diagram types. If you have a specific need, you might not need all the power of Edraw Max, and the same company makes tailored tools for Mind Mapping, Infographics, Org Charts and nine other different specific diagram requirements. In theory, Edraw Max can do any of these jobs, although users might find the scope and power of this tool a little daunting at first. Those that get through an initially challenging learning curve report that once mastered this is a great application for creating professional looking schematics rapidly and efficiently. A single user license is $179 and includes free upgrades for three years on Windows and Mac. Pay a little more and you can get a lifetime license with indefinite upgrades, or you can pay $99 per year for a subscription. Multi-user discounts are also available, as they are for educational users. Image Credit: Gliffy This product has many parallels with Draw.io, in that it also supports Confluence and JIRA Cloud, but Gliffy is also working on a proprietary Cloud solution to be launched soon, called Gliffy Project. Gliffy Diagram is available now and provides a straightforward tool for creating a very wide variety of chart types online or within Confluence. It also stores created charts into Google Drive, should you use that those Cloud services. Pricing is $7.99 per month for a single user, but this unit cost reduces to $4.99 per user for team members. Multi-user licenses also include additional groupware functionality. For Enterprise customers pricing is less per-person structured, and Gliffy provides an integrated solution that can dovetail into existing business processes. One nice twist on this online software tool is that you can install a Chrome version that can work offline, should an Internet connection not be available. What this product lacks is much in the way of object customisation, although it scores highly on ease of use and a gentle learning curve. Image Credit: Lucid Software According to Lucid Software, they have over 11 million users. Strongly suggesting that this is not a niche solution, but a highly popular one. Lucid is one of the few tools that covers Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OSX and various Linux distributions by default, admittedly by being an online app rather than natively. For those who need workflow integration, Lucidchart supports Confluence, JIRA and JIVE, along with the Google Cloud and apps and Microsoft Visio compatibility. There is a free trial that isn’t time limited. Instead, diagrams are restricted to a maximum of 60 objects, sufficient to explore its potential. Licensing starts at $4.95 per month for a Home user, and ‘Pro’ Business users pay $9.95 per month, both paid on annual subscriptions. Pro users get the ability to import and export to Visio, and dynamically link data into their charts for the extra money. There are also Team versions with groupware and Enterprise options, all at extra cost. Lucid convinced Amazon, Adobe, DocuSign, Cisco, Red Hat and Wells Fargo to be customers. And, it might be right for your business, too. Image Credit: Microsoft When most people think about flow charts, they almost immediately think of Visio, although the product is capable of creating all manner of diagrams quickly and efficiently. It was one of the first products with smart drawing tools, and today it retains the ability for the tool to intelligently restructure a drawing as the user moves objects around. The obvious big selling point of Visio is that its part of the Office 365 suite, and therefore designed to integrate with the other Office tools seamlessly. Microsoft offers four different options with Visio; two online, and another two that are standalone Windows applications. Visio Standard 2016 and Professional 2016 are the installable apps, and they retail for $375 and $709 respectively. As you might guess, that high pricing is intended to encourage you to subscribe to the online versions, labelled Visio Plan 1 and Visio Plan 2. Plan 1 is pitched at $5 per user/month and is purely an online version, where Plan 2 costs $15 per user/month. And with that you also get online and Visio 2016 Professional app, and access to better mobile tools, and a Visio Viewer for iOS. These prices are if you subscribe annually, with month-by-month pricing being a little higher. For those already using Office 365, many of the existing packages include the online version of Visio. And, you can try that for free on Microsoft’s Office online website. Image Credit: SmartDraw Like Lucid, SmartDraw can name an impressive list of blue-chip companies that are license holders since the company started in 1994. These include at least half of the Fortune 500 quoted businesses and more than 250,000 public and private enterprises across the globe. The SmartDraw product can be used online or as a standalone Windows application. It supports the creation of no less than seventy chart types, including all the standard ones. There more exotic templates include those for documenting a crime scene, landscape gardening, seating plan and even accident reconstruction. For those working as part of a team, it supports Confluence, JIRA, Trello and Google’s GSuite. And, it’s fully compatible with Visio, able to import and export diagrams and stencils with Microsoft’s application. The Windows Desktop offers a single user license for $297 and multi-user 5+ licenses from $595. The online version is just $9.95 per month for one user, and $5.95 per user/month for 5+, both billed annually. The multi-user packages have extra functionality that allows licenses to be managed and can also control the sharing of SmartDraw data with other users. Most of the sophistication of SmartDraw is in the templates and not the application. Therefore it might be more suitable for those who make many simple charts, and not those involved in the creation of very complex diagrams. What to look for when choosing flowchart softwareAlthough designers might use these tools, the majority of people creating flowcharts aren’t classically trained graphic designers. Therefore, they need a tool that assumes no artistic abilities but can generate professional looking results rapidly. There is a fine balance between an application giving the operator the power to do whatever they want and funnelling their efforts in the direction of ultimate success. The way that most software handles this delicate balance is to offer the user templates that avoid them using too many fonts, or trying to cram too many elements into a design. If the operator has graphical skills, these restrictions might seem a hindrance, but to the less confident, they can be exactly the structural support these folks need. These are the key aspects that you might want to consider before purchasing a flowchart solution:
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