Apple : Ashes 2019 live stream: how to watch every England vs Australia cricket Test from anywhere |
- Ashes 2019 live stream: how to watch every England vs Australia cricket Test from anywhere
- Walmart TV sale: the RCA 65-inch 4K TV gets an incredible $500 price cut
- Entrepreneurs not threatened by AI and automation
- The 5 best back to school backpacks for 2019
- The best indoor TV antennas 2019: 6 great digital TV antennas for inside your home
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare release date, trailer and news
- Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order: gameplay, release date, trailers and news
- Best Smart TV 2019: every smart TV platform ranked, rated and reviewed
- The Last of Us 2: release date, news, and rumors
- Best 4K TV 2019: Your definitive Ultra-HD TV buying guide
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- Best computer speakers 2019: the best audio systems for your PC
- Best e-commerce platform of 2019: get an online store now!
- Google uncovers security flaws in iMessage
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- The best Samsung Galaxy Note 8 deals in August 2019
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| Ashes 2019 live stream: how to watch every England vs Australia cricket Test from anywhere Posted: 31 Jul 2019 02:09 PM PDT Forget World Cups and Twenty20s - winning the Ashes is the biggest feather in a cap for any cricketer from old rivals England and Australia. Thursday sees the start of the latest chapter in the 135-year sporting story and you'll be able to watch all of the action between England vs Australia no matter where you are in the world with our 2019 Ashes live stream guide. It's one of oldest sporting rivalries and the Ashes series still stands as the pinnacle of Test cricket. England will be desperate to win back the Ashes on home soil, having been thrashed 4-0 Down Under 18 months ago. While for the Aussies it's an opportunity to make some positive headlines after their recent ball-tampering scandal and a World Cup campaign that ended at the semi-final stage after promising so much more. The home side appear to have huge strength in depth when it comes to bowling, but big doubts remain over their batting line up going into the series. Jofra Archer's superb showing at the World Cup which saw him take 20 wickets during the tournament,ensured his place in the squad for the first Ashes Test. His pace, added to the quality brought by Jimmy Anderson and Chris Woakes makes England a formidable force with the ball. However, last week's one-off Test against Ireland at Lords only served to highlight just how unconvincing England's batting order still looks, with it clearly lacking a settled top three order. Australia go into the series with former captain Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft all reinstalled to the line-up after completing their bans for the infamous sandpaper ball-tampering scandal. Their middle and lower middle-order however, looks decidedly weak and inexperienced on paper. If Australia are to avenge their recent humbling in the World Cup semi-finals against their arch-rivals and win their first series in England since 2001, then it'll likely be down to fast bowling department, which boast a potent mix of James Pattinson's pace and Pat Cummins' machine-like accuracy. And the resounding victory of their female counterparts in the Women's Ashes could give them a boost, too! It's set to be a fascinating series - follow the instructions below to watch all of the action where we'll tell you how to grab an England vs Australia Ashes live stream from pretty much anywhere on Earth. The great news...it's absolutely free in Australia. Watch an Ashes live stream when away from your countryFor cricket fans in the UK, Australia, India or the US and looking to find out how to watch the Ashes, we've got all the details about the broadcasters with the rights to show the England vs Australia Test series in your region below. If you're away from home country and looking to see the action you'll likely to find you won't be able to thanks to geo-blocking. Thankfully there's a way to alleviate that frustration. By using a VPN you'll be able to watch the game without having to resort to watching via an illegal feed from a dodgy website you've discovered on Reddit. England vs Australia: how to watch the Ashes in the UKHow to live stream the Ashes 2019 in Australia for FREEHow to get an Ashes live stream in New ZealandHow to watch England vs Australia: live stream in IndiaHow to live stream England vs Australia in AmericaWho has won the Ashes the most?Australia are currently ahead on 33 Ashes series wins to England’s 32 and five series drawn Who is favourite to win this year's Ashes?The hosts England are currently installed as favourites with Betfair. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Walmart TV sale: the RCA 65-inch 4K TV gets an incredible $500 price cut Posted: 31 Jul 2019 01:44 PM PDT Walmart's summer clearance sale means killer deals on laptops, kitchen appliances, iPads, and more importantly, 4K TVs. You can find massive savings on top brands such as LG, Samsung, Sony, and more. One of the best TV deals we've seen is the RCA 65-inch 4K TV that's on sale for $399.99. That's a whopping $500 discount and a fantastic price for a large-screen 4K TV. Shop more of Walmart's best TV deals below that include a range of different sizes, features, and prices. These discounts are limited-time offers, and it might be your last chance before Black Friday to find a killer deal on a top-brand TV. Walmart TV deals:See more of best cheap TV deals and sale prices that are currently going on. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Entrepreneurs not threatened by AI and automation Posted: 31 Jul 2019 12:44 PM PDT Entrepreneurs in the US face both technological and political disruption that is helping them to prosper and grow while also requiring them to adapt in new ways according to GoDaddy's new Global Entrepreneurship Survey. The web hosting giant's survey was conducted by the research firm Savanta and surveyed 4,505 small business owners in Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. According to the global survey, entrepreneurs are being impacted by a myriad of external challenges ranging from cyber threats to political and societal turbulence as they try to grow their businesses. However, even with these disruptions and uncertainties, entrepreneurs remain optimistic with 70 percent of US respondents reporting that they expect their business to grow by at least 25 percent in the next three to five years.
Experts warn that 38 percent of US jobs are at a potential high risk of automation by the 2030s but the entrepreneurs surveyed by GoDaddy believe they are insulated from the impacts of disruptive technologies. Of those surveyed, 75 percent of small business owners feel protected against job loss from robots, automation and AI. The survey also revealed that females (76%) were slightly more likely to believe than men (71%) that their businesses would be able to withstand these types of technological disruption. Adapting to changePolitical and societal turbulence was another concern cited by entrepreneurs and SMBs as a potential challenge to their success. However, that concern is substantially lower in the US where only 17 percent of entrepreneurs said societal and political turbulence poses a threat to the success of their business, compared to 33 percent of entrepreneurs in all of the other regions surveyed. VP of Global Marketing Operations at GoDaddy, Melissa Schneider explained why SMBs and entrepreneurs are less worried about potential disruption to their businesses, saying: "Globally, we are currently in an intense period of technological, political and societal change and transformation. Small business owners and entrepreneurs are constantly adapting to change, both in their own venture and in the outside world, with limited help. That's why GoDaddy is so committed to supporting them on their ever-changing journey, with the guidance and tools to help make them successful online." Technological disruption can pose challenges but entrepreneurs and SMBs, it can also help to reduce the barrier to entry when creating a new venture. Small businesses in the US are among the most likely to report having their own website at 44 percent while 29 percent said they rely on either social media or online marketplaces to conduct their business.
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| The 5 best back to school backpacks for 2019 Posted: 31 Jul 2019 12:42 PM PDT All of the semester’s books, plus your laptop, plus your everyday essentials is a heavy enough physical burden to bear much less the figurative weight of coursework and a reputation to upkeep. Picking out the best back to school backpack for you can lift some of that burden. Naturally, we happen to be experts in picking out the best of, well, all sorts of tech products, including the best back to school backpacks to cart them around in. From designer names for the lowest prices they’ll be found this season to sensible, affordable picks all year round, these are the very best back to school backpacks we’ve found for 2019. Quick LinksIf you’re looking to just drop 30 some bucks (or around £18) on a backpack that will get you through the year, i.e. most folks that just want a bag to hold their stuff, this is the one for you. Made and sold by Amazon through its Basics program, this all-black backpack has a laptop sleeve for machines up to 15 inches, and several types of pockets, for but a pittance compared to most. The tried and true JanSport is tough to go wrong with. A full-canvas bag with nylon mesh inside including a 15-inch laptop sleeve, this version of the JanSport comes in several colors for a variety of prices. Included in the price are also a media pocket lined in fleece as well as a removable storage pouch. For those that like the look and feel of JanSport but need even more storage for a particularly heavy semester, the Big Student Backpack from them should do the trick. With a whopping 2,100 cubic inches of carrying capacity, this backpack should hold everything you need and then some. Plus, ergonomic shoulder straps help prevent your load weighing too far down on you. Burton is one of those brands that has come in vogue in recent years, and for good reason. Its backpacks come in countless colors and fabric styles, even nylon so that rain runs off it a bit easier. The Tinder style packs a 15-inch laptop sleeve, too, as well as ergonomic shoulder straps and a lifetime warranty should a piece go bad. Meet the ultimate backpack for your next school semester, marrying the worlds of form and function like few others can. The Little America comes in several colors and patterns, all intimating that look and feel of a hiker’s pack. That feeling comes through even with the 13-inch laptop sleeve, magnetic closures and media pocket with headphone port.
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| The best indoor TV antennas 2019: 6 great digital TV antennas for inside your home Posted: 31 Jul 2019 12:03 PM PDT Yes, the rumors are true - there are actually more than a dozen over-the-air channels that you can get for free with an indoor TV antenna. These are the evolution of the rabbit-ear antennas you remember growing up but with the added bonus that they can pick up 1080p HD broadcasts. Unfortunately the fact that TVs can receive these channels is a fact that has largely been obscured by cable companies that are all-too-eager to sign you up for an expensive cable plan. That said, while over-the-air broadcasts are much more limited than any cable package out there, they're totally free and still usually carry the biggest sports match-ups (the NFL on Sunday, the NBA Finals and the Stanley Cup), plus sitcoms, dramas and comedy shows from NBC, ABC, CBS and more. How do you get access to this treasure trove of content? Well, you buy an antenna obviously, and for both better and worse, there are dozens of options that can make the process harder than it needs to be. You've got a lot of different types of antennas to pick from – those that sit (or stick) near your TV, those meant for an attic, and others that can be mounted to the side of your building. With that in mind, knowing the right one to buy can be challenging, but we're here to help you decide. We've done the research to find the best indoor TV antennas to suit every budget. Antenna scams you should know aboutRecently there have been a number of misleading product pages on Amazon that have promised customers outrageous features like a 120-mile range and 4K resolution. Do not take them at their word. These claims are misleading and, with our current technology, impossible. You can read a great breakdown of lies antenna manufacturers tell you over on TechHive, but suffice it to say that the curvature of the Earth prevents more than an 80-mile range for broadcasts and no broadcast station in America currently puts out a 4K OTA signal. That is going to be part of the next set of ATSC standards that's currently in development, but it's still a long way from adoption. Best indoor TV antenna: how we testedFor this piece, we tested indoor antennas that remain near your TV, both standard antennas that connect solely via coaxial cable, and amplified ones that add a USB connection for a powered-up range boost. We tested several current indoor TV antennas from the top makers in the business, watching to see how many channels each antenna could find, how easy it was to set up, how crisp the signal looked, the style and size of the device, and the price and overall value. Our testing environment was a two-story house just outside of Chicago, less than 15 miles from downtown. Each antenna was tested on two televisions: one on the first floor, and another upstairs on the second floor. Even if modern antennas are more reliable than the old versions, they can still be fickle: your distance from broadcast towers is important, but so too is where you place the antenna, where you are in your home, and what's around it. Your experience may vary to ours, as a result, and you may need to experiment with location to yield the most channels to watch. These are the best indoor TV antennas that we've tested so far, and we'll be adding more to the list once we try more models. Best indoor TV antenna: AmazonBasics Ultra-Thin Antenna Amazon hardware is usually cheaper than the competition and lacking some flash, but when it comes to an indoor TV antenna, most people don't need anything fancy. The AmazonBasics Ultra-Thin Antenna is boosted via USB cable or power adapter to provide a strong 50-mile range, and it works just as well as any other flat antenna we tried. We pulled in more than 50 channels in crisp 1080p HD with supported content. It's no-frills from start to finish: it comes in a plain brown box and is a simple sheet of plastic with white on one side and black on the other. It comes with pins and Velcro dots for affixing it to a wall (if you want t), and it only takes a couple of minutes to get it set up and plugged into your TV. At $25 for this 50-mile range version, it's easily the best value of the antennas we've tested. There are cheaper 35-mile and 25-mile versions that aren't amplified, so you might save a few bucks if you live close to a downtown area. But even at $25, this is a steal. Best indoor TV antenna: TERK MTVGLS Indoor Plate Antenna TERK's MTVGLS model indoor antenna is flat like some of the others on this list, but it's not paper-thin – instead, it's just over an inch thick and runs about a foot in either direction. It comes with a little stand that can be screwed in on the bottom if you want to lay it flat, or on a side if you wish to stand it up, or you can opt to mount the antenna to a wall. No matter how you choose to arrange it, TERK's amplified plate antenna should satisfy: it proved to be the most consistently powerful antenna of the bunch of TV antennas we tested, yielding 58 channels with the ground-floor TV and 60 channels upstairs. The 1080p channels looked sharp, plus it's capable of 4K signals once that becomes a reality. Also, the 65-mile range of this omnidirectional antenna could come in handy if you're further out from the towers. At a regular price of $80, though, you'll pay for that extra power and range: it's quite a bit pricier than some other nicely-capable devices on our best indoor TV antennas list. Best indoor TV antennas: Antop AT-127 Paper Thin Indoor Antenna It's obvious from a glance that the Antop AT-127 is different than the flat competition. It's sturdier than Amazon's antenna, but the faux wood grain – dark walnut on one side and light oak on the other – is also an intriguing touch. Antop has plenty of plain-looking antennas, but we can't help but dig the look. It feels certifiably retro, like the casing of a decades-old TV. The AT-127 isn't amplified, so it just connects via a coaxial cable. Still, we found more than 50 channels in both locations, and everything looks crisp and clear in 1080p. Antop says it's 4K ready, but we'll have to test that whenever American networks begin broadcasting in Ultra HD resolution (probably not any time soon). You can mount this one to a wall or window, but Antop also provides a little black, plastic stand that you can slot the antenna into, in case you want to tuck it behind your TV. Best indoor TV antenna: Antop Flat-Panel Indoor/Outdoor Antenna AT-402 Antop's AT-402 antenna isn't like any other on our best indoor TV antennas list. It's two feet tall and stands on its own with a removable stand, looking almost like a shrunken tower fan – and it can also be mounted outside. In fact, the "indoor" part of the description seems like an afterthought. Between the large size and 40-foot cable, it almost seems silly to set something this large next to your TV. But it sure is powerful. The AT-402 doesn't require an amplifier, yet it still offers a 60-mile range, making it an ideal option if you're a fair distance from the city. In our testing, it pulled a few more channels on the ground floor than the paper-thin antennas we tried, comparable to the TERK antenna on that front (although the TERK antenna found a couple more upstairs). Also, the AT-402 and TERK antennas were the only ones to pull a clear CBS signal on the ground floor. We've seen the AT-402 routinely sold for just under $70 recently, which makes it pricier than some other antennas on this list. But the extra range and seemingly stronger pull might make this a good option for anyone worried about signal issues, or anyone who hopes to snag a few extra fringe channels in the lineup. Best indoor TV antenna: Winegard FlatWave Amped FL5500A Winegard's amplified FlatWave FL5500A antenna checks all of the same boxes as the AmazonBasics model listed above. It offers a 50-mile range, is flat and nearly paper-thin with black and white sides, and delivers a strong 1080p signal. In our testing, it found just over 50 channels in both locations. We have no complaints about the device itself. Really, our only issue that the FlatWave FL5500A costs more than double the price of the AmazonBasics 50-mile option, and truth be told, we couldn't tell a difference between them in use. They are nearly identical across the board, but based on current pricing, you'll save more than $25 with Amazon's model. It's great, but there's no clear reason to pay extra that we could see. Best indoor TV antenna: Mohu Blade Indoor/Outdoor Bar Antenna Mohu's new Blade antenna is a one-of-a-kind – instead of a floppy sheet, it's a thicker, rectangular plastic panel that you might not be compelled to hide. You could mount it on the wall below the TV like a soundbar, or there's a little attachable kickstand if you'd rather put it on a TV stand. In any case, it's stylish in a way that most antennas simply don't strive to be. And if you want, you can mount it in an attic or even outside. But that style comes with frustrations. We struggled mightily to attach a coaxial cable or 90-degree coaxial adapter to the back of the antenna, because its coaxial connector is wedged so tight to the backing. Ultimately, we used a screwdriver to remove the spongey support ring on the back to give our hands a bit more room, and then had to use pliers to tighten the adapter because it wouldn't budge using our fingers. It was a real pain. Once it was finally up and running, we searched multiple times and found fewer channels with the ground-floor TV – just 44 max, compared to 50+ with the others. None of the omissions were crucial, but it was still a difference. Upstairs, we had to play around with the location before hitting the same 50+ mark as the other antennas. The Blade is sleek and stylish, but the smaller size brings a couple of frustrations along with it. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare release date, trailer and news Posted: 31 Jul 2019 11:39 AM PDT Call of Duty Modern Warfare is going back to the series' roots. Forget the zombies. Forget the WWII battles. Forget the jetpacks, exo launchers and all the other future weaponry – Call of Duty is going back to one of the most beloved series within the franchise with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, a reboot of the highly-lauded 2007 first person shooter that's set in today's battlefields. It’s all about the gritty realities of war this time out, with the ‘modern’ of the ‘Modern Warfare’ title referring to the high-tech gear of today, the cutting-edge killing machines employed in combat right now in places like the Middle East and Russia, rather than the far-flung fantasies of science fiction. With the battle royale genre taking up many shooter fans’ spare gaming time, Call of Duty’s crown as the king of competitive shooters has slipped in the past few years. Can a return to its most-popular roots bring it back to glory? Read on for what we know so far. [Update: Activision has confirmed that Killstreaks will return in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Find out more below.] Cut to the chase
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare release dateAnnounced right before E3 2019, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare leaked ahead of the event but a trailer gave us our first glimpse and a variety of details for the game. It included the release date, which is set for October 25, 2019. You're already able to pre-order the game on the official site too. Call of Duty Modern Warfare screenshotsCall of Duty: Modern Warfare trailersInfinity Ward has confirmed a brand new multiplayer mode for Modern Warfare called Gunfight and released five whole minutes of crisp 4K gameplay to give players a better idea of what to expect from this fast-paced, 2v2 mode. Watch it for yourself below. The first trailer for Modern Warfare was the release trailer that debuted on May 30. In it, we can see series protagonist (and all-around badass) Captain Price light up, and some intense - and dare we say great-looking - nightvision sequences. You can watch it below: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare newsKillstreaks are back Ahead of the full multiplayer reveal scheduled for August 1, Activision has confirmed that Killstreaks will make a return in Modern Warfare, making it the first game in quite a while to include the feature. As players rack up kills, they'll be able to unlock weapons and armor. Some of the killstreaks have been revealed on Twitter already including the intimidating Juggernaut suit from Modern Warfare 3, the light infantry assault vehicle and, most unpleasantly, the controversial White Phosphorus. More information on the game will be revealed on August 1. Female multiplayer options Infinity Ward has been drip-feeding multiplayer news ahead of the full reveal on August 1st. The latest announcement has come from a Reddit post in which communications manager, Ashton Williams, has confirmed that there will be playable female models in Modern Warfare's multiplayer. Multiplayer intro In addition to that confirmation of playable female characters, Infinity Ward has also revealed some footage of what the short cinematic preceding a multiplayer match will look like to Twitter ahead of the full multiplayer reveal. Like in Call of Duty: WW2's War Mode, the cinematic will show players in a scene heading towards their drop point. Full Multiplayer Reveal While fans have had a first look at Gunfight, Modern Warfare’s new 2v2 multiplayer mode, a more full reveal has been announced for August 1. On a Twitch livestream, Infinity Ward is expected to show how the game’s story will continue into its online play and how progression across modes will play out. Gunfight Infinity Ward gave fans their first peek at multiplayer gameplay via Twitch followed by a five minute long 4K trailer. Four players streamed Modern Warfare live on the streaming platform, debuting Gunfight, the brand new 2v2 multiplayer mode that will be in the game. Gunfight is a mode for four players where two teams will play in “multi-round cage matches” across three small custom maps. Every two rounds, teams will swap to opposite sides of the map. All four players will have the same loadout which will typically be comprised of a primary and secondary weapon as well as a tactical Grenade and a piece of Lethal Equipment. The first team to win six rounds are the winners. This is going to be a mode for players that like fast rounds, with each round counting down on a 40 second timer. If one team hasn’t wiped out the other by the time the 40 seconds is up, a flag will appear on the map. The first team to control the area around the flag for more than three seconds is them the winner of the round. Each round, overall, will last for around a minute so speed is key. Aim Down Sight reload Infinity Ward has confirmed in a blog post that Modern Warfare will have Aim Down Sight reload, the first time the feature has appeared in a Call of Duty game by default. Aim Down Sight reload will mean that, while aiming down the sight of your weapon, your view won't be pulled away to watch an animation when you reload. Instead, you'll stay on target. Animation director Mark Grigsby offered some details on the feature in the post: “One other thing we added this year is the ADS [Aiming Down Sight] reload. In the past, if you're ADS, and you're shooting and you reload, the weapon would go off to the side, and you'd have to retrain to get to your target. This time if you reload, it stays on the target, so you can stay in the battle.” "Ripped straight from the headlines" This mission sees you tracking down the instigator of the terrorist attack (AKA The Wold) to a townhouse in North London. As a member of the SAS, the player creeps up a ladder and into the back of the dimly lit home where they methodically assassinate the plain-clothes terrorists occupying the residency. There's even an unsettling situation involving a woman using her baby as a shield. It's pretty rough but Infinity Ward claims the new Modern Warfare sees missions "ripped straight from the headlines" and investigated the "civilian collateral damage" that comes hand-in-hand with war. What was peculiar was that our presentation was shorter than those who had attended earlier in the week. We were only shown the London townhouse mission, whereas other journalists were shown an extra - more controversial - segment which seen players taking on the role of a child soldier in an unspecified war-torn country. Image Credit: Infinity Ward Is this a reboot of the classic Modern Warfare? Instead, Infinity Ward is using the Modern Warfare name here to evoke a similar feeling, and some of the same characters will return but this is an entirely new storyline set in a different timeline. It's totally separate to what we've seen in the previous games as here those events haven't occurred. We'll still follow Captain Price in this different timeline, and it may mean we see over returning characters throughout too. Price features heavily in the trailer above, and he ends it by saying there's a team of his "old comrades" so it may well be that we see the return of other fan favorite characters such as Soap or Gaz. This new timeline is also why the game isn't called Modern Warfare 4. It should mean it's a good place for new entrants to the series to pick up the game, but there's sure to be a few nods to the original series for die-hard fans. Narrative director at Infinity Ward, Taylor Kurosaki, also noted that the game's storyline is still being tweaked but it's anywhere between five and nine hours long. That means it's not set to be very long, but at least this time there is a storyline. Call of Duty: Blacks Ops 4 opted to drop the storyline in favor of focusing on online play, which is something we've heard very little about so far for this game. Image credit: Activision/Infinity Ward No Zombie mode for Modern WarfareZombie mode might be a staple of the over-the-top Black Ops entries into the Call of Duty series, but the undead horde will not be being reanimated this time around in Modern Warfare according to Campaign Gameplay Director Jacob Minkoff. In an interview with PlayStation Lifestyle, Minkoff said that the team's goal is to create something on par with today's battlefields - which, unfortunately, don't include any undead wandering around. "We don't have the flexibility to do something like put zombies in the game. That would compromise the feeling of playing in a world that feels realistic and authentic and relative to today's conflicts and things we face," Minkoff said. If you want Zombies, you'll just have to wait for the next Black Ops game. Image Credit: Activision / Infinity Ward Return of the JuggernautWhile Call of Duty Modern Warfare didn't have a huge presence at E3 2019, it did pop up at an E3 Coliseum event where Activision had the first two multiplayer screenshots. One shot shows a sniper in a ghillie suit, while the other shows a juggernaut suit – one of the most powerful pieces of gear from the original game. A whole new engineThis title will be the first to use a whole new engine for the series, and that should allow for some drastic graphical improvements over previous titles including Black Ops 4. It's the first time the games will use a new engine in 14 years. We've yet to learn the name of the engine, but we know that the franchise has been working on it for five years. We expect to learn more about it in the coming months, but we can expect some more detailed environments, improved volumetric lighting and ray tracing technology too. Expect controversyAccording to ComicBook.com, the game be "heavy on troubling, realistic emotions, very much inspired by the controversial 'No Russian level" That mission is in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. It was highly controversial at the time for depicting an undercover CIA agent who takes part in a mass shooting of civilians. The trailer suggests other terrorist attacks may feature in the story, and children also feature so it may be these elements are used to stir up controversy.
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| Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order: gameplay, release date, trailers and news Posted: 31 Jul 2019 11:25 AM PDT Hold on to your lightsabers: there's a new Star Wars game on the way, and it's called Jedi: Fallen Order. And we've now got the first concrete details about it, thanks to E3 2019 and an extended gameplay trailer that dropped in June. In development by Respawn Entertainment (the studio behind Apex Legends and Titanfall), Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was announced during E3 2018 but we didn't get a proper look at the game until early in 2019, during a special panel at the annual Star Wars Celebration in Chicago, before EA lifted the covers completely at E3 2019. While the official reveal only gave us a glimpse at a story trailer, it was more than enough to get us hyped for the upcoming game. E3 2019 gave us a far more meaty look at the game - including some lightsaber-fueled gameplay - before the developer dropped an extended demo at the end of the month. While fans of the galactic franchise have seen official tie-ins in the form of Star Wars Battlefront I and II, the new entry takes on a different tack, focusing on a single-player experience more in line with 2008's The Force Unleashed – and we have all the concrete news and wild speculation you could want below. [Update: Developers at Respawn have found recent comparisons between Jedi: Fallen Order's combat and Sekiro "comforting". Read on to find out more.] Cut to the chase
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order release dateEA has now confirmed Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will release on November 15, 2019, just in time for Christmas and the long-awaited release of Star Wars Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker. If you pre-order the Deluxe Edition ahead of the game's launch, you'll get two exclusive in-game lightsaber colors plus an exclusive hilt, in addition to skins for your droid and star ship. EA and Respawn will also include a digital art book in the Deluxe Edition and a few behind-the-scenes videos. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order trailers and storyYou'll take the role of Cal Kestis, a former Jedi padawan (AKA, a student of the Force). The game is set in the period following Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith – the fateful time when the evil Emperor Palpatine executed Order 66, which saw the Jedi ambushed and killed by their own supporting Clone Trooper soldiers. Few survived and were forced into hiding. And that seems to include Cal! A youngster only partially through his training, Cal has been forced into hiding, working construction sites and trying to keep a low-profile as the Jedi-hunting Imperial Inquisition continues to track down any remaining survivors. The story trailer shows Cal having to use his Force powers to defend himself against rogue troopers, and to save a friend from falling from an accident. The trailer suggests the game will have some lavish set-pieces and environments, and hinted at a very-story-driven experience to enjoy. Check it out below: You can also watch the EA Play 2019 gameplay reveal for the game below, but note that you're going to have to jump into around the 30 minute mark to skip the build up portion, that's basically just 30 minutes of an EA logo! If you just want to see the game in-action, there's a brand-new official gameplay trailer that should provide everything you need to know about the game - including a few surprises. (Spoiler warning!) This is the same demo that journalists and attendees saw at the EA Play event. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order gameplayEA Play 2019 showed us a 15 minute slice of gameplay from the game, roughly 3 hours into the game. We were shown Chewbacca's homeland Kashyyyk, where Jedi Cal is trying to kickstart the rebirth of the Jedi order. But the poor Wookies are enslaved by the Empire! So Cal has to try to help them out. Walking through a tech-filled jungle corridor, gameplay at first doesn't look unlike Uncharted 4, with a tool that lets you swing from beams, and some wall-running ala Respawn's other game, Titanfall. Cal's pretty nimble, able to clamber up walls and climb as if he was Assassin's Creed's Ezio. He moves weightily. After meeting up with some resistance fighters, he carves his way through a door and comes across a burning refinery, using his lightsaber as a torch in the darkness. A battle ensues below and Cal needs to reach a troop of Stormtroopers , so force-pushes a tree below to make a path to them. Here we see our first glimpse of lightsaber action. Cal can force pull and push troops, as well as throwing his lightsaber at them for a ranged attack. Combat is lock-on focussed, not unlike Dark Souls for one-on-one combat, but seems massively more forgiving. There also seems to be finishing animations that trigger when you've took a baddie to low health. Lightsaber combat, thankfully, looks weighty and measured – this will be a tactical fighting game, rather than a hack and slash, with the classic ability to slash blaster bolts back at an enemy. Cal also seems to have the ability to focus the force and slow time, letting him take on dangerous foes, like flamethrower stormtroopers with a little more ease, as well as avoiding environmental hazards like spinning blades. One cool moment had him slow time, and force pull a stormtrooper towards him in time to use it as a human-shield against the very same blaster bolt it had fired at Cal moments earlier. The same technique can be used to halt a foe momentarily in its tracks – very Kylo Ren. So far, levels, though expansive, seem fairly linear – you're very much set along a path from one action scene to another, although the densely-designed levels prevent it from appearing too much like a series of corridors, back to back. Each scene has lots of AI interactions between NPCs, too – you'll see stormtroopers battling the native, giant-beetle-like creatures of Kashyyyk, and timing your attack against them could help to swing the odds in your favor. Cal acquires upgrade points as he defeats enemies, and also seems to be able to complete side missions if he goes off the beaten path and explores levels in detail. C The timing of the story, set after Revenge of the Sith, also means there was a familiar face or two turning up. Rogue One's Saw Gerrera, aka actor Forest Whitaker, was present, as was a bot that looked like K2SO. You'll have to fight this one, though. Skill points will go into your force abilities, letting you upgrade force pulls and push, double jumps and force slowing tricks. You'll get a droid, too, BD1, to help you on your way, offering the ability to hack terminals, heal your player and manage your hologram map, as well as being your buddy. You won't be able to turn to the Dark Side though – Cal's good to the core. So far then, so good. This is a classic-era Star Wars game, giving you a taste of the most-loved period in Star Wars history. Rather than the original reveal's suggestion that Cal will be a weak newbie Jedi, he's going to be fairly advanced in his training. And, it's all cannon – these characters are going to turn up in the wider Star Wars universe. It looks visually impressive... except for the Wookies. They looked like the plastic figures from the 70s. A bit more free-flowing, walking-carpet Wookie hair please, EA! Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order news and rumorsThose Sekiro Comparisons Jedi: Fallen Order has recently attracted some comparisons to From Software's Sekiro with regards to its combat. Rather than be perturbed by this, though, Respawn Entertainment has said it finds it "badass" and "a little comforting". In a recent interview with Edge Magazine (via GamesRadar), lead combat designer Jason de Heras explained that "It just confirmed to us that you don’t have to limit everything the player does; let them have a little more agency, and then let the AI give them a slap on the wrist, or a punch in the face. It was a positive thing for us to know there was a game that was similar to ours. Very similar." The team readily admitted to being fans of From Software's games, though given Jedi: Fallen Order was in development before Sekiro's release the similarities can't be much more than coincidence. Game director, Stig Asmussen, said that he and his team had a look at previous Star Wars games to determine what worked in them and how those fun elements could be brought forward. The Jedi Knight games, for example, were singled out as being good examples of lightsaber combat because they "really sold the lethality of the lightsaber" and served as better inspiration than the kind of heavy-handed combat found in Force Unleashed. Protagonist potential In a recent interview with Game Informer, game director Stig Asmussen offered some insight into the decision making process behind Cal Kestis being chosen as the game’s protagonist. There was a point early on in the game’s development, Asmussen revealed, when an alien protagonist was considered but was soon discounted “because we felt like—no pun intended—that would alienate a lot of people.” While Asmussen admitted that he would be interested in an alien protagonist, he said the team wanted to make sure that “there was a real human connection to the character”. Having an alien protagonist in a Star Wars title certainly has the potential to offer a new and interesting perspective on the universe so it seems a shame that the opportunity was passed by. Fingers crossed it’s something that will be re-explored in the future. That said, Fallen Order has made a good impression thus far and hopes are high ahead of the game’s November launch. Retail box art Here's what the Standard edition look like: Standard Edition (Image credit: EA) And the Deluxe edition: Deluxe Edition (Image credit: EA) EA doesn't plan to release Fallen Order on Switch You can check out Ingram's reply to a fan tweet below: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was livestreamed – check it out But luckily for fans that couldn't make the trek to the event, EA livestreamed it. Check out EA's announcement tweet below for a chance to replay it: The galaxy-wide premiere saw the head of Respawn Entertainment, Vince Zampella, and game director, Stig Asmussen (whose previous work includes God of War 3), revealing the much-anticipated details of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order toys -confirmed Development is well underway A Padawan called Cal? Confirmed It's set after Revenge of the Sith This places it after the Galactic Empire hunted the 10,000-strong Jedi Order practically to extinction, leaving only a small fraction of Jedi alive (aka Order 66). With the promise that the game will be set 'in the dark times', it sounds like our Jedi protagonist may be more the hunted than the hunter. Star Wars: Battlefront II. (Image credit: EA) Could famous Jedi appear? The single-player mode comes first – and there will be no microtransactions It looks like a multiplayer component won't be available at all in the game – surprising given EA's focus in recent years on games that extend beyond a single play session. Even more surprising is the fact that there will be no microtransactions at all, ever, in Fallen Jedi. It's great news considering the industry falls over itself to offer chunks of games piecemeal these days – but don't be surprised if that means there will be an aggressive DLC system instead. I find your lack of faith disturbing Jedi: Fallen Order has been handed to a different studio, albeit one that's still a subsidiary of EA. But Respawn has garnered a lot of respect as the studio behind Titanfall and Titanfall 2, two critically acclaimed sci-fi action games that pit players against each other in giant mechanized suits, and which both came with strong single-player and multiplayer offerings. (Image credits: Respawn Entertainment) Keep checking back here for all the latest Jedi: Fallen Order news This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Best Smart TV 2019: every smart TV platform ranked, rated and reviewed Posted: 31 Jul 2019 11:07 AM PDT Smart TVs are so common it doesn't feel necessary to add the 'smart' to them. You'd have to hunt high and low to find a new TV that doesn't come with some form of smart capability or features built-in, whether that's LG's WebOS, Google's Android TV that's used on Sony and Hisense TVs, or Samsung's Tizen. Although the majority of these smart TV platforms function in the same way: giving you access to apps, streaming services and smart home functionality, each has its pros and cons. So, for that reason, we've put together this guide to the best smart TV platforms available right now – with the very best smart TV models listed at the bottom of this article. We've come a long way from the early days of smart TVs, which were marked by sub-standard performance, non-existent software updates, and a general lack of manufacturer support. So what smart TV platforms are out there, what do they do, and how different are they from each other? Smart TV platforms: which is which?In 2019, there are five main smart operating systems: Android TV, webOS, Tizen, Roku TV and SmartCast that are used by Sony, LG, Samsung, TCL and Vizio, respectively. In the UK, you'll find that Philips also uses Android while Panasonic uses its own proprietary system called MyHomeScreen. The vast majority of TVs use one of the operating systems listed above - but not all TVs. At lower price points, you probably won't find any of the above as most TV manufacturers offer a narrow proprietary service instead. These will vary between manufacturers, however, by and large, they're not as good as the ones listed above for the sheer reason that they aren't updated as frequently. When in doubt, try to buy one a TV with one of the above. That said, if you're completely undecided on which smart TV to buy, it's worth considering the value of each of these smart systems - which we'll list below. (Scale: Awful, Bad, OK, Good, Better, Best) Image Credit: TechRadar Android TV (found on 2019 Sony 4K and OLED TVs) Setup: OK | Ease of use: Good | Speed: OK | Number of apps: Better | Universal search: Better
Android TV is the nearest the smart TV universe has to a standardized operating system, but there are still variations between brand executions. Sony has the most comprehensive Google solution. For UK viewers, it has rather cleverly layered a YouView program guide platform on top, deftly addressing one of Android TV’s big weaknesses – catch-up TV provision. This YouView app ensures that all the main catch-up services are provided, and accessible via a roll-back 7-day EPG. Other supporters of Android TV are Philips (via maker TP Vision) and in the US, Sharp and Hisense. It’s also available on the Nvidia Shield streaming device. While other TV platforms make a virtue of their minimalism, Android stacks the screen with various layers of content: There’s also a row of specific Sony selected content, followed by apps for Netflix, Amazon Video, links to the Google Play Store, Google Play Music, Google Play Movies and TV, YouTube and so on. Owners of Android phones/tablets can use their device to control Android TVs via Sony’s TV SideView app, and Google Assistant continues to get more and more useful with its own Android TV integration. Android TV devices also have Chromecast built-in, which simplifies streaming from mobile Android devices (iOS users can download the AirBuddy app to Google Cast). Controllers from Logitech and Razer also promise gaming without needing a console. There is a caveat though. In our experience, Android is the least stable of the various smart platforms, with Sony TVs exhibiting more than their fair share of failures – it’s not unusual to be notified that various aspects of the Android platform have stopped working, and some of these messages are completely inscrutable (usually the best option is to simply restart the TV). To be fair to Google, this is becoming less of an issue as successive Android TV updates roll out – the latest incarnation is particularly slick on the Nvidia Shield, for example – but there's still room for improvement. Image Credit: TechRadar WebOS (found on 2019 LG OLED, Nano Cell and some UHD TVs) Setup: OK | Ease of use: Good | Speed: Better | Number of apps: Bad | Universal search: OK
LG rewrote the rulebook for smart TV platforms with its webOS, starting the trend for minimal, simplified user interfaces back in 2014. Since then it's been gradually refining its offering, leading us to the all-new WebOS 4.5 that's going to make its debut in 2019. The UI, which is still built around a Launch Bar for apps, inputs and features, remains tidy and customizable this year, plus you can change the running order to best suit how you use the set. If you like to Miracast images from your smartphone, grab the Screen Share app with LG's cursor-based Magic Remote and move up further up the pecking order. App support is excellent. Netflix streams in 4K with both HDR and Dolby Vision, as well as Dolby Atmos audio when available. There's also Amazon with UHD HDR and YouTube in 4K. Other options include Now TV, Sky Store, Wuaki.TV, plus all the main channel catch-up services. As we’ve seen on earlier webOS builds, these streaming apps remain open and live, even when you navigate away from them. This means you can pause Star Trek Discovery, browse the TV listings for The Walking Dead, and then return to the action. Other cool features recently added to the platform include 360-degree video playback (from 360-degree videos on YouTube), support for both Google Assistant and Alexa, and an OLED still image gallery. LG TVs also have Freeview Play in the UK, which means a full larder of catch-up television. For US viewers, there's Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and Google Play TV and Movies, as well as Hulu, VUDU, MLB.TV, and FandangoNow. Image Credit: Tizen Tizen (found on Samsung 2019 QLED and NU-Series TVs) Setup: Good | Ease of use: Good | Speed: Better | Number of apps: Bad | Universal search: Bad
Samsung is another brand keen to keep things simple – its Tizen OS clearly owes much to LG's webOS interface, in so much as it consists of icons, apps and shortcuts all accessible via icons held a horizontal strip across the bottom of the screen. A dynamically changing ‘Recent’ box in the far-left corner cycles between recently used apps and TV channels. But it’s not overly intelligent as it stands right now, but that could change in the future when Samsung integrates its TV AI into Tizen. For now, we like the fact that on-screen icons can be changed: a sense of identity is welcome when it comes to some AV inputs and key apps you use everyday. The OS cuts down on clutter, although this sometimes works against navigation – there are plenty of occasions when it's necessary to go hunting for a specific app. Thankfully that's made easier by a Smart Hub multimedia page that divvies up content from apps and from your own USB sticks/home network. On some of the higher-end Samsung TVs, you'll also get Bixby built-in as well as Samsung SmartThings that allows your TV to act as the center of your connected home. Image Credit: Roku TV Roku TV (found on 2019 TCL and Hisense TVs) Setup: OK | Ease of use: Better | Speed: Better | Number of apps: Good | Universal search: Best
Despite Android TV and all the proprietary portals available, there's still room for other connected smart offerings. In Europe, Vestel has its own stripped back smart platform, which is used for TV companies it manufactures for, including Toshiba and JVC. It’s unfancy but does the basics. In the US, TV maker Element now offers a screen with Amazon’s Fire TV OS built in. But perhaps the most interesting second-division smart OS is Roku TV. Announced back in 2014 for TCL TVs, Roku TV has found support with low-cost US TV suppliers. Today, you can find Roku TV on quite a few Haier, Hisense, Insignia, Sharp and TCL TV models. As a platform, Roku TV borrows the interface and feature set from the company's popular media streamers, like the Roku Streaming Stick. What that means is that you'll find a universal search function able to scan over 30 different apps like Netflix, Google Play TV and Movies, Amazon, VUDU and more to find you the lowest price on the TV show or movie you want to watch, as well as around 4,500 channels of content to watch. Add to that some neat features like a dedicated app that helps you keep track of upcoming movies and TV shows via the My Feed section, and a private listening mode (via headphones that plug into the remote) when you want to watch TV without disturbing the whole house. Image Credit: SmartCast SmartCast (found on 2019 Vizio TVs) Setup: OK | Ease of use: OK | Speed: Bad | Number of apps: Good | Universal search: OK
SmartCast, on paper, is a great idea. It's all the fun extras of the Android TV platform - including the ability to Cast content to your screen - with a more logical layout. When you turn on a SmartCast TV be prepared to see three rows - one featured row that has huge marquee images to point you to specific shows or movies; one row for recommended content and one row for all your apps. If you want to drill down into specific content categories or settings, you can move to one of the other tabs (there's a tab for movies, TV shows, Support and Extras) or go to the top right of the screen to perform a search. Unfortunately, while SmartCast provides a lot of versatility in what you can stream, it's also one of the slower smart platforms and can misbehave on occasion. Image Credit: MyHomeScreen MyHomeScreen (found on 2019 Panasonic TVs) Setup: OK | Ease of use: Good | Speed: Better | Number of apps: OK | Universal search: OK
If you live in the UK, Panasonic's My Home Screen 2.0 is one of the most customizable smart TV platforms around. Built on the open-source code of Mozilla’s Firefox TV OS, Panasonic's My Home Screen 2.0 smart TV interface combines an intuitive minimalism with extensive customization options. The platform looks simple but has some inspired functionality: the home screen launches with three buttons (Live TV, Apps and Devices), but you can pin more as required, perhaps for a favorite streaming service, or a specific input. There are now also folders for multiple users, while a My App button on the remote can be customised for faster access to favourite content. A revamped Media Player supports 4K HDR10 and HLG HDR, meanwhile. App provision on Panasonic TVs is good too. Netflix streams in 4K with HDR, and Amazon Video and YouTube also offer 4K support. Catch-up TV service support is integrated through the provision of Freeview Play. This includes iPlayer, ITVHub, Demand 5 and All4, and usability is great across the board. The OS is extremely convenient to live with, yet powerful enough to cater for a variety of different users, be they family members who just want their favorite channels pinned to the home screen, or TV enthusiasts keen to dive quickly between multiple sources. Amazon Fire TV (found on some Toshiba and Insignia TVs) Setup: Good | Ease of use: Good | Speed: OK | Number of apps: OK | Universal search: OK
One of the lesser-known operating systems is Amazon Fire TV that comes installed on some TVs from Toshiba and Insignia. It's more or less the same operating system that you'd find on Amazon's Fire TV streaming dongle, but it's conveniently built right into the TV - no dongle necessary. The big problem here actually isn't the operating system - which, by all logical measurements, is totally fine. It's that the TV manufacturers Amazon has partnered with - Toshiba and Insignia - aren't great, and usually put out the cheapest TVs in the American market. Some of these TVs are OK, but many (including the ones that use the Amazon Fire TV platform) aren't. That's something Toshiba is hoping to fix with it's upcoming Amazon Fire TV Edition with Dolby Vision TV that was announced in June of 2019, but we'll need to wait for review samples to know for sure how the latest software stacks up. If you're interested in the speed and versatility of Amazon's smart TV platform, we recommend buying an Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K instead.
What's the best smart TV?Image Credit: LG The LG C9 boasts the latest iteration of webOS and while this game changing platform remains largely the same, there have been a few tweaks. For a start there’s now a second tier on the launcher bar that’s very reminiscent of the one found on Samsung’s Tizen system. It’s rather ironic that LG should take inspiration from Samsung, especially when you consider that Tizen copied webOS in the first place, however the second tier is a useful feature, making it quicker to access content and adding an AI Preview that makes recommendations based on your viewing habits. There’s also a new Intelligent Edit feature that lists your apps based on how often you use them. That’s very handy because the C9 has a lot of apps; not to mention a comprehensive selection of streaming services that includes Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, Now TV, Rakuten, and all the UK TV catch-up services. The AI-enhanced recommendation feature monitors and analyses your viewing habits based not only on content but also the time of day. It will then make recommendations according its analysis, although there’s the option to turn this feature off if it gets annoying. There’s a new Home Dashboard that collates all connected mobile, input and home IoT devices into a single hub. You can monitor and control just about any connected device in your smart home, and LG will be adding support for Homekit later this year. LG’s ThinQ open AI platform already includes Google Assistant, and the company plans to add Amazon Alexa via a future firmware update. You can access Google by pressing the mic button on the remote, and then voice control your C9 or simply use it as a smart assistant. Other new features include the ability to setup your C9 using an LG smartphone, and the ability to auto-detect connected HDMI devices. There’s also a mini-browser, a new TV channel banner, and an expanded Gallery mode with world famous travel attractions seasonally curated by TripAdvisor.
Image Credit: Panasonic Panasonic’s My Home Screen smart platform is decidedly simple compared to much of the competition, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Currently on its third generation, it remains largely the same as the Firefox OS on which it was originally based. When you press the Home button on the remote, you get a choice of three options: Live TV, Apps, and Devices. This simplicity is the platform’s greatest strength, making it easy to navigate and find things by helpfully storing all the apps in single location; you can also pin your favorite apps to the home page for quicker access. Since the smart platform is relatively simple, it doesn’t require a vast amount of processing power to operate, which makes it responsive, robust, and free from crashes. My Home Screen isn’t fragmented like some platforms, nor does it bombard you with recommendations – it simply delivers all the streaming and catch-up services you need. Thanks to Freeview Play, a comprehensive list of catch-up services are included, covering BBC iPlayer, ITVhub, All4, My5, BBC News & Sport and UK Play. The iPlayer app supports 4K and HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma – the broadcast version of HDR), both of which the BBC trialled during the World Cup. There’s also Netflix, Amazon and YouTube, all of which support 4K and HDR, along with services like Rakuten and Chili Cinema. In fact the only major streaming service missing is NOW TV.
Image Credit: Sony The A9F is unquestionably Sony’s best OLED offering to date, and arguably a strong contender for high-end screen of the year. When it comes to image quality and audio performance it’s deliciously impressive. While we experienced some minor issues with Android Oreo, the UX is now logical and inclusive. It no longer feels like you’re wrestling with an octopus. Oreo introduces plenty of nice new features, including a recently watched content rail, curated recommendations and a favorite channel listing. Thankfully, the UI is also significantly faster than previous Android TV OS implementations. It’s a massive upgrade all round. If you can live with the slightly idiosyncratic design, and afford the asking price, it’s a glorious UHD display.
Image Credit: Samsung While it's not Samsung's flagship TV for 2019, the Samsung Q70R is the best bang for your buck when looking for a Eden smart TV. For starters there’s now compatibility with Samsung's SmartThings platform, which provides an on-screen hub for monitoring and even controlling other smart devices (fridges, washing machines, lights etc) on your network, and iTunes/AirPlay 2. The latter is great if you're an iOS/Mac user, while the former allows you to dabble in Samsung's IoT platform. There’s also much better integration of the TV listings and live broadcasting into the TV’s content searching features: there are now hour-by-hour show recommendations, for instance, as well as TV shows getting much more prominence in the content browsing menus. Samsung has delivered enhanced interactivity with your smartphones and tablets too, as well as some seriously cool new gaming related features. Overall, a slick, easy to use and helpfully customizable interface belies the impressive sophistication and comprehensiveness of Samsung’s latest smart TV engine.
Image Credit: TCL Once you get this TCL TV up and running, you’ll be met with the familiar veneer of Roku TV – an egalitarian operating system that handily retains its top spot as (arguably) the best operating system year after year. It’s intuitive to use, if a bit boring, and its lack of ties to a particular streaming platform allow it to point you to all the places content can be found without bias. That last bit is important, especially if you’ve ever used an Apple TV or Amazon Fire TV, both of which would much rather have you stream from their ancillary streaming services over any of the third-party ones. Because Roku doesn’t have ties to a major streaming service – other than a vague deal to include FandangoNow on the home screen of the OS – it doesn’t push you any direction you don’t want to go and happily supports everything from Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV and Amazon, to lesser-known channels like Pluto.tv, tubi, Crackle and others. That’s to say nothing of Roku’s own streaming service that it launched at the end of last year, which provides its own collection of entirely free movies that change in and out every few months. Most aren’t anything to write home about, but you do get the occasional gem in there. While it’d be nice to see the inclusion of artificial intelligence and personal assistants on Roku TV – similar to what LG is doing with webOS and Samsung has done with Tizen and SmartThings – all things considered, this is still one of the best TV operating systems and a fantastic TV overall.
Image Credit: Vizio The Vizio P-Series Quantum X is a smart TV, but that goes beyond simply offering a smart platform for streaming: This is one of the first TVs from the California-based TV manufacturer to offer Apple AirPlay 2 functionality, opening it up to the entire Apple ecosystem. That's a game-changer if you're an iPhone user. Beyond AirPlay, the Quantum X also has direct access to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and more, all from the home screen, and while the overall selection of apps isn’t massive, and there’s no real app marketplace to get more, most of the big ones are there, plus you can cast with Vizio’s SmartCast platform, which is handy. We still find SmartCast to be one of the least appealing smart platforms out there, but we can't knock the Vizio P-Series Quantum X - it's one of this year's best TVs.
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| The Last of Us 2: release date, news, and rumors Posted: 31 Jul 2019 11:05 AM PDT As endings go, The Last of Us's was pretty conclusive. But as it turns out, that hasn't stopped The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog from cranking out a sequel in the form of The Last of Us 2 – or, The Last of Us Part II if we're using its proper name. Given the first game was hailed by players and critics alike as a masterpiece with excellent, emotional storytelling and engaging, realistic characters, we have to admit that the decision to release a follow-up isn't particularly shocking. We'd probably have been more surprised if there wasn't one. And yet, when The Last of Us 2 was first announced, we'd be lying if we said our hearts didn't skip a beat. The Last of Us 2 was first announced by Naughty Dog at PlayStation Experience in 2016 alongside a teaser trailer and the last significant news drop around the game came at E3 2018. As we're now well into 2019, we're now hoping to hear an official release date any day now. And it really could be any day - after Sony decided to bow out of E3 2019 it's become increasingly hard to predict when news around the game could drop. Regardless, as this year goes on it's looking increasingly likely that we'll have to wait until late 2019 or maybe even 2020 before we join Ellie in her new adventure. [Update: Troy Baker has been talking about The Last of Us Part 2 at Manchester Comic Con. Read on to find out what he had to say.] Cut to the chase
The Last of Us 2 trailersThe most recent trailer we have for The Last of Us 2 was shown during E3 2018. This trailer finally gives us a look at Ellie in an intimate scene before cutting away to some of the brutal but stealth-based combat we can expect to see in the game when it's launched. The gameplay sequence gives us a look at Ellie fighting for her life in the wild. Success in a fight appears to require the right balance between stealth and all out attack as damage seems to have a more realistic impact. Ellie can move quietly between areas, taking weapons from bodies and crafting, before bursting out and taking down her enemies. It's a different creature in many ways to the original The Last of Us but it looks like something to look forward to, with more advanced enemies to challenge us and more complex gameplay to thrill us. See the gameplay for yourself below. The Last of Us Part 2 had another trailer drop during PSX 2017. During a panel it was confirmed that the game will be set in the city of Seattle and the darker themes we know are coming were touched upon. You can watch the panel for yourself below: Another trailer for the game was shown at Sony's press conference during the 2017 Paris Games Week. This trailer is around 5 minutes long, focusing on conflicts between the human factions in the game. It shows part 2 is going to have a dark story, perhaps even darker than the first, and the trailer is fairly harrowing to watch. Visually impressive though it is, do note that it's gory before you watch it for yourself below. The first look at The Last of Us 2 came with its announcement at PlayStation Experience in 2016. Despite the fact that the game was early in development, the trailer showed a full (non-gameplay) scene that features both Ellie and Joel. You can watch it below: The Last of Us 2 release dateThe Last of Us 2 has been in the works for a while but we're still waiting for a definite release date. Considering Naughty Dog has experienced the bad side of promising a solid release date and missing it before, it’s hard to blame them for not committing before being ready. In an interview with Vorterix, the game's composer, Gustavo Santaolalla, said that the game is going to launch in 2019. Naturally, this hasn't been confirmed so we'd take it with a pinch of salt. Making that 2019 release date seem less likely are the recent rumors suggesting we won't see The Last of Us 2 on shelves until early 2020, especially after another big PlayStation exclusive, Death Stranding, just had a November 2019 release date confirmed. It would be incredible to have two releases from PlayStation that are this big during the holiday season but it's unlikely. Adding fuel to the 2020 fire is a recent Variety interview with Ellie actress Ashely Johnson. When asked when the game is going to be released, Johnson appears to begin to say "February", which would tie up with the rumored release date after Death Stranding took the end of 2019 release slot. Of course, Johnson didn't actually get to finish what she was saying and a lot can change between now and February 2020. We won't know for certain until Naughty Dog makes it official. You can watch the interview with Johnson below (with that release moment being around the one hour and seven minutes mark). What we know so farTroy Baker shedding some light Things have been a little quiet around The Last of Us Part II lately so Troy Baker, the voice of Joel, has caused some excitement merely by mentioning the game. During Manchester Comic-Con, Baker was asked what can be expected from the sequel and wasn't able to give away much. What he did say, however, was that "it's hands down the most ambitious game that Naughty Dog has ever done for sure. It's far larger than I thought was going to be possible." That's a pretty big statement to make and one guaranteed to leave fans salivating. When it came to the release date, though, Baker wasn't able to make any announcements. Not because he didn't want to (though obviously and understandably he didn't) but because he and his fellow cast members don't know the release date just yet. "Last time we announced, we slipped," he explained, "And they don't want to do that again." (Via PlayStationLifestyle) Rumors of a delay There was much excitement on May 29 as a result of PlayStation exclusive Death Stranding finally getting its release date confirmed as November 8 2019. This has, however, had a ripple effect which is concerning fans of The Last of Us 2. With Death Stranding now slotted in as PlayStation's big exclusive release for the holiday season of 2019, it's been rumored (by Kotaku's Jason Schreier among others) that The Last of Us 2, also originally said to be looking at a late 2019 release, will now be pushed into early 2020. This has not been confirmed by Naughty Dog or PlayStation so it remains nothing more than rumor at the moment. It's also worth pointing out that The Last of Us 2 has never had a set-in-stone release date anyway. However, an early 2020 release date for The Last of Us 2 does not seem impossible at this point as PlayStation having two such huge releases close together at the end of 2019 would be a surprise indeed. A recent interview with Ellie actress, Ashley Johnson, has also added to those early 2020 rumors as, when asked by the interviewer when the game will release, she appears to begin to say February. However, nothing has been confirmed by Naughty Dog just yet so everything stands as rumor only at the the moment. Into the final stages News around The Last of Us 2 has been hotting up recently as the game inches closer towards completion. Naughty Dog has now confirmed that the final scene for the game has been shot and the game’s co-director, Anthony Newman, has tweeted out a recruitment call as the studio begins to “close out” the game’s development. As promising as these announcements are, they don't reveal anything about whether or not we can expect to see The Last of Us 2 this year or next. Regardless, development has reached a critical stage and though Sony won’t be attending E3 2019, that doesn’t mean it can’t make some announcements around the time of the show. In fact, recent rumors have suggested that we will see some kind of news around this time. Hopefully we’ll see a confirmed release date in the coming months. Mocap is underway Things have been quiet on the official news front for The Last of Us 2 but we've been glad to see some studio insiders and actors from the game posting images on social media which show that the game's motion capture is well underway. Actors Ashley Johnson and Shannon Woodward have both posted images of themselves wearing mocap suits. They didn't give much away but the fact that Naughty Dog is this far into the motion capture process suggests we might at least be closer to hearing about a possible release date. Troy Baker is impressed The Last of Us 2 is still in the works, but we now know that one of its lead voice actors, Troy Baker, has had an in-depth look and he thinks the game is 'awesome'. It's not clear whether Baker just saw some gameplay or had the chance to go hands-on himself but according to GameRant he said during MCM Comic Con at Birmingham “It’s a fantastic story. It’s a fantastic game. We just finished a playtest. It’s looking awesome. I can’t for it to be on shelves.” Though we can't be sure where exactly in the development process it is (during PSX, it was said that Naughty Dog had reached around the 50 to 60% mark) this playtest is an encouraging sign. Directors With Neil Druckmann having been promoted to Vice President of Naughty Dog, The Last of Us 2 now has two confirmed directors. Druckmann will, of course, still be heavily involved in the creation of the game but it's now being headed up by Anthony Newman and Kurt Margenau, both of whom were lead designers on Uncharted 4. Story Although it was no slouch in the gameplay department, it was the story told by The Last of Us that stuck with us for months afterwards. Naturally Naughty Dog had to give us some kind of hint about where the sequel would go. At the moment we know The Last of Us 2 will take place in the city of Seattle, five years after the end of the original game, with a 19 year old Ellie taking the starring playable role. Joel will still appear in the game but if the teaser trailer is anything to go by, he could be a much more passive presence. This time around, Ellie is extremely angry about...something. From what we saw from the teaser trailer she wants revenge, which to her appears to be a dish best served deadly. She does, after all, promise to “kill every last one of them.” It’s not clear who “them” is but it could signal that the Fireflies, the first game's well-meaning but morally grey antagonists, will make a return. Anger, hate and revenge are going to be key themes this time around so expect to be in for an emotionally heavy ride. In the trailer for the game shown at Paris Games Week in 2017, we got a look at how dark the game is likely to be. The trailer focuses on the opposing relationships between human characters in the game and features some seriously cringe-inducing violence. It doesn't tell us much about any new characters of how they'll relate to one another but it does confirm that we're going into a dark game world in The Last of Us part 2. In a recent panel at PSX both Druckmann and Gross said that though the game's story will indeed be dark and there'll be a focus on the theme of hate, "there is hope" and there will be "lighthearted moments." We can't pretend we're not relieved to hear this after the game's controversial Paris Games Week trailer which, Druckmann said, was intended to highlight the game's exploration of the pursuit of justice. Ellie is one of the most real and refreshing characters we’ve seen in gaming so it’s exciting that Naughty Dog are going to take her story further and put her in center stage. The creative director of the game, Neil Druckmann has said that the story will be about Ellie and Joel’s relationship and that though the story would be complementary to the story of the first game, it would be much larger. When asked at a PSX panel whether or not Joel or Ellie may die, Druckmann responded that "no one is safe" highlighting that the game's story really could go anywhere. Hopes are particularly high for this larger story as it’s been revealed that one of the writers of Westworld, Halley Gross, will be co-writing the game’s story. Having someone who’s written scripts for such an incredibly popular and successful show should be a boon for the game's story. Gameplay E3 2018 brought us our first proper look at the gameplay in The Last of Us Part 2. Given Ellie is now the leading playable character, it was expected that things would be a little different from the first game and the presentation at the show made this fairly clear. Ellie will have some moves similar to Joel but there are some things she'll be able to do that are completely different. For one thing she can jump - the new jump button should make the world of The Last of Us Part 2 more complex and more enjoyable to traverse. It also has the potential to make combat more interesting. Speaking of combat, Ellie doesn't really throw punches as her first form of attack, she has a stealthy knife. Melee combat generally appears to offer a little more than the original game, with evasions and an environment that can help as well as hinder your fighting. Not only has Ellie matured as a character, the enemies she faces have developed and they're more realistic than ever. The Infected in The Last of Us Part 2 are smarter and more reactive than their predecessors, making them a tougher foe to face. AI has improved, allowing enemies to communicate with one another and to look for Ellie when she's hiding. Expect some tense moments to arise from this.
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| Best 4K TV 2019: Your definitive Ultra-HD TV buying guide Posted: 31 Jul 2019 11:03 AM PDT For over a decade, HD TVs ruled the market. Their 1080p (and often, lower) resolution felt like a huge jump from the CRT TVs we had been using. If you're just getting on board with them now, 4K TVs are a similar jump in technology you saw 10 years ago, promising four times the resolution and exceptional contrast. So why should you ditch that 1080p TV? Not only do 4K TVs simply look better thanks to the increased pixel density and support for wide color gamut technology, but they're usually just as cheap as a 1080p TV - even if you buy them brand-new. In fact, buying a new 1080p TV is getting harder and harder as more manufacturers continue to phase them out of their product lineups. But with so many options out there, narrowing down a year's worth of high-caliber screens to just eight is a tough job. But that's where we come in. We've viewed the vast majority of the 4K TVs on the market, and have narrowed them down to a list of the top 4K TVs on the market for 2019 with screens from Samsung, Sony and LG leading the pack, and lower-cost options like Vizio, Hisense and TCL following just behind. If you recently bought something from another manufacturer that you love and you don't see it on this list, it doesn't mean we've intentionally snubbed it. Unfortunately best-of lists are tiny and we can only squeeze so many screens on here. That said, we're always adding more screens to this list, so be sure to check back this time next month. What is 4K? Watch the video below to find out: What are the best 4K TVs in 2019?Samsung Q90R QLED TV (2019) Last year, the Samsung Q9FN was the TV to beat. It won award-after-award for its features and image quality, not to mention its excellent, improved smart platform that came with Bixby support and Samsung SmartThings. However it wasn’t perfect and there were legitimate complaints about viewing angles and an over-aggressive local dimming system that crushed black detail. Samsung has clearly taken these criticisms to heart, and directly addressed them in the Q90. The new model has a visibly superior viewing angle that holds its own against OLED, and the local dimming delivers deep blacks without losing shadow detail. To that end, the new Ultra Black Elite filter is nothing short of a revelation, rejecting ambient light in a way that just staggers belief. The Q90 is able to deliver images that can directly compete with an OLED, with natural colors, bright highlights, deep blacks, and well defined shadows. It can also surpass any OLED when it comes to HDR, with images that are often breathtaking in their detail and dynamic range. In fact our only real criticism would be that, unlike some of the competition, the Q90 doesn’t support Dolby Vision. However in all other respects the Samsung Q90 is an absolutely stellar TV that takes QLED to another level. Read the full review: Samsung Q90R QLED TV LG C9 OLED 4K TV If smart features are the most important criteria for you when picking out a new 4K TV, then you can't do any better than the new LG C9 OLED. The 2nd generation Alpha9 processor, which uses AI enhancements to deliver stellar SDR and HDR images, helps make the upscaling and processing second-to-none with incredible levels of detail and image fidelity. Add to that a robust smart platform and new AI sound options that analyze and improve sound quality in real time, and you have one of the smartest – and, in our opinion – one of the best 4K TVs on the market. Not to mention one of the best OLED TVs too. Read the full review: LG C9 OLED (OLED55C9, OLED65C9, OLED77C9) The Vizio P-Series Quantum X is a home run for Vizio. Sure, the SmartCast interface isn’t all the great, and the speakers are worth bypassing, but the TV is packed with awesome features and backed up by an excellent image quality. We’re looking forward to AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support, but even without those features the TV is still one of the best options in its price range. If you truly have deep pockets and want the best image quality out there, then it’s still worth going for LG's OLED or Samsung's QLED TVs - but in the absence of a six-figure salary, the $2,199 Vizio P-Series Quantum X PX-65G1 is clearly an excellent option for those that want quantum dot tech in a smart TV at Vizio-level prices. Read the full review: Vizio P-Series Quantum (PQ65-F1) Sony’s second-generation OLED flagship, the A9F, is coming at a good time – just as Samsung and LG have stepped up their games with the Samsung Q9FN QLEDand LG E8 OLED, Sony has fired back with a phenomenal OLED of its own. Much better than last year's A1E, the A9F is unquestionably Sony’s best OLED offering to date, and would've been the best OLED of the year if the C8 didn't exist. While we experienced some minor issues (notably Black level crushing on Dolby Vision, and that Netflix Calibrated mode), niggles are to be expected on a set as ambitious as this. If you can live with the slightly idiosyncratic design, and afford the asking price, it’s a glorious UHD display. Read the full review: Sony Bravia A9F OLED LG E9 OLED Series (2019) Overall, the LG E9 OLED offers a dazzling picture, with crisp detail and truly cinematic visuals. LG’s organic LED displays lack the brightness of competing models, but those after a proper movie night in won’t be disappointed. The E9 differs mostly from other LG OLEDs in its shape and its size options – both the more premium W9 and cheaper C9 offer a larger 77-inch model – but we’d be surprised if the E9’s all-glass panel design didn’t impress you. With a unique look, and the multi-channel audio to elevate it above other OLED sets in the range, the E9 is a fantastic addition to any living room if you can afford one. Read the full review: LG E9 OLED (OLED55E9, OLED65E9) Samsung Q70R QLED TV (2019) Samsung’s flagship Q90R QLED TV blew us away recently with its wider viewing angles, deeper blacks, and superior HDR images - sadly, however, not everyone can afford the flagship model. So what can Samsung offer for those wanting to experience QLED picture quality on a budget? Despite sitting lower down in the QLED line-up, the Q70R includes the same comprehensive smart platform, extensive connections, and cutting-edge features found further up the range. This isn’t the flashiest-looking TV that Samsung has ever made, but if your funds are limited the Q70 is a cracking QLED all-rounder that’s worth checking out. Read the full review: Samsung Q70R QLED TV Sony Bravia X900F 4K TV Short and sweet, the 65X900F is a brilliant mid-priced 4K TV. Every one of the improvements Sony has introduced over and above last year’s already excellent X900E series – better processing, more brightness, slightly more backlight dimming zones, improved motion performance – delivers the goods, resulting in picture quality that humbles many more expensive TVs. Its Android TV system and some generally minor backlight clouding stop it short of perfection, but it’s hard to imagine any similarly priced upcoming 65-inch UHD rival getting the better of it. Read the full review: Sony BRAVIA XBR-X900F TCL 6-Series 4K TV If you have deep pockets and a checkbook filled with blank checks, we’d tell you to reach deep and shell out for only the best 4K TVs on the market – LG’s crazy-thin OLED W8 or Samsung’s ultra-bright Q9FN QLED. But that’s not always realistic: for the vast, vast majority of us, our budget to spend on a 4K UHD TV is limited to somewhere under $1,000 – and often it's even less than that. To that end, it’s absolutely fair to say that the TCL 6-Series is the best TV you can possibly get in this price range. Its performance per dollar is unmatched and its picture quality – despite a few minor flaws – will truly impress you. Said simply, if there’s a better value 4K TV on the market, we’ve yet to see it. Read the full review: TCL 6-Series (R615, R617)
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| The best student laptops: all the best options for school Posted: 31 Jul 2019 10:40 AM PDT Without even including one of the best laptops for students to the mix, school can already get very costly very fast: textbooks, tuition, school supplies and accommodation – those things rack up fast. The silver lining, however, is that many of the best student laptops on the market could still save students a lot of money. That's more than just a good thing. When you’re already dropping all that money on textbooks and instant ramen, saving up for a new laptop, after all, can be hard. The prime contenders for the best laptop for students will place value over having the top-of-the-line processors and graphics cards. And yet, they still have enough juice to get you through your formidable workload at school – and let you partake in some post-school entertainment. In fact, the best laptops for students on this list we put together are some of the most wallet-friendly devices on the market. And they also exude style, tout power and offer portability, all without breaking the bank. You need not stick to Windows 10, either, as some of the best Chromebooks are capable of going toe-to-toe with some of the best laptops, which means you can get all your needs in a laptop without shelling out some serious dough. Going to school, after all, can be a taxing time, and you don’t need the added pressure of having to work on a barely functional laptop. You deserve to have an excellent laptop, and that’s why we sought out the 10 best laptops for students that can fit within your budget. Because no one should be restricted to an ancient relic just to get some work done, but you shouldn’t have to sell an organ, either. We’re huge fans of laptops that can skillfully combine price and performance with hardly any compromises, and the Huawei MateBook 13 comes closer to striking that perfect balance than anything else in 2019 so far. It’s thin and light, perfect for stuffing it in your backpack as you hurry from class to class; and it’s quick and affordable. This 13-inch Ultrabook stunner will let you get all your work done in style, without burning a hole in your pocket. Just be sure to keep that charger on hand, as the battery life is underwhelming. There’s no doubt that it deserves its lofty spot on the 10 best laptops for students list. Read the full review: Huawei MateBook 13 Dell’s flagship laptop has always been rated among the 10 best laptops for students, not to mention professionals and casual, everyday users. This time around, the Dell XPS 13 2019 brings back the entry-level model, making it cheap enough for college students again. Dell has also managed to fix our biggest problem with the XPS lineup – the webcam. It has finally moved the webcam back up above the display where it belongs, so your family and friends don’t have to stare up into your nostrils when you’re video chatting. Read the full review: Dell XPS 13 While the Surface Laptop was arguably one of the 10 best laptops for students, it was limited by its below average performance, a lack of ports and Windows 10 in S Mode. The Surface Laptop 2 greatly improves on its predecessor, however – with the exception of the ports. It’s now packed with 8th-generation Intel Kaby Lake Refresh processors, full-fat Windows 10 Home and a black color option. We wish it included even a single USB-C port, but that doesn’t change the fact that you will get all your tasks done in style with this laptop with little to no effort. Read the full review: Surface Laptop 2 When you’re searching for a laptop for school that strikes a balance between cost and performance, a little bit of style can’t hurt. The Microsoft Surface Go isn’t just one of the best Windows tablets, but it’s also one of the best 10 laptops for students, especially from a value perspective. Don’t be duped by the low-power components, as Microsoft has engineered this tablet to handle all your general schoolwork and more without breaking a sweat. Read the full review: Microsoft Surface Go The Dell XPS 15 has made our list of best laptops for students for a few years now, and Dell has stuck with that old “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach with the latest model. Not much has changed since the 2017 version, but that isn’t a bad thing. After all, you’re getting an Ultrabook that’s not only dependable, but also has enough power to get you through pretty much any workload. The best part? The Dell XPS 15 is very reasonably priced. The entry level should work just fine for most users and good enough to make the 10 best laptops for students list, but you can also configure this thing with up to an Intel Core i9 processor and 32GB of RAM, upgrading the Dell XPS 15 into an extremely powerful workstation. Now, if Dell would just move that webcam, we’d be gravy. Read the full review: Dell XPS 15 You don’t need some super powerful laptop from Apple that looks like it just popped out of a designer catalog… at least, not for school. You need a device that’s going to get the job done, and going by that condition, the Acer Swift 5 should be near the top of the 10 best laptops for students list. This affordable Ultrabook is packed with the latest 8th-generation Intel processors, not to mention enough RAM and SSD storage, to take on pretty much any homework or project. It’s not the most amazing looking laptop in the world, but with that price, looks hardly matter. Read the full review: Acer Swift 5 The Microsoft Surface lineup has made a name for itself for being among the best Windows devices available, with beautiful touch screens, spectacular performance and long-lasting battery life. The Surface Pro 6 continues that tradition, even if it doesn’t add much over its predecessor. You’re getting a fast Windows tablet that can easily turn into a laptop with the addition of the Surface Type Cover, making it one of the 10 best laptops for students. You can get your work done then effortlessly transition into break time. Read the full review: Surface Pro 6 Most schoolwork that’s not specialized (i.e. engineering) can be done on a Chromebook, which could save you hundreds of dollars. If you’re a student on the market for one of the 10 best laptops for students that will help you do all your research, type up papers and nothing else, the Dell Inspiron Chromebook 11 2-in-1 might be the perfect fit. The Dell Chromebook 11 2-in-1 won’t be able to handle much heavy lifting, but at under $300, it doesn’t need to. This is the best laptop for students on a very limited budget. Read the full review: Dell Inspiron Chromebook 11 2-in-1 Much to many MacBook Air fans’ collective relief, Apple has finally brought the MacBook Air into the modern age, with 8th-generation fanless processors, a thinner and lighter design, and – perhaps most significantly – a Retina display. You won’t have to settle on modern features anymore if you want an “affordable Mac,” which makes the MacBook Air one of the 10 best laptops for students, especially those in college. Read the full review: MacBook Air Apple’s most powerful MacBook in existence has just gotten a boost, which means that the 15-inch Cupertino powerhouse is faster than ever. Whether you’re doing school projects, photo editing or gaming, this won’t disappoint as one of the best laptops for students. What’s behind this refresh? To start, an improved keyboard and some of the latest and most powerful processors from Intel. Now, you not only have the option to take one home with an 8-core Intel Core i9, but also configure one to pack Radeon Pro Vega 16 or Pro Vega 20 to give you a boost in graphics as well. Read the full review: MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2019) Bill Thomas, Michelle Rae Uy and Gabe Carey have also contributed to this article. Images Credit: TechRadar
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| Financial malware threat grows Posted: 31 Jul 2019 10:38 AM PDT The number of users hit by financial malware grew by seven percent during the first half of 2019 to reach 430,000 according to new research from Kaspersky which revealed the growing threat that banking Trojans pose to both businesses and individuals. This type of malware is aimed at stealing finances and financial data while also providing threat actors with access to users' and financial organizations' assets and machines. Banking Trojans have always occupied a significant part of the threat landscape as finance is the most common motivation for both cybercriminals and fraudsters. Kaspersky data on new samples of these threats shows that malware aimed at stealing funds is active and extremely dangerous, especially to corporate environments where connected devices are prevalent.
Spam emails and phishing sites are typical attack vectors for malware and during the first half of this year, Kaspersky researchers detected over 339,000 phishing attacks from web pages which were disguised to appear like the landing pages of large banks. Banking Trojan familiesKaspersky's researchers also compiled a list of the most popular banking Trojan families that were utilized to attack corporate users. Four-in-ten (40%) of financial threats on corporate users came from the RTM banking Trojan followed by the Emotet banking Trojan at 15 percent and the Trickster banking Trojan at 12 percent. The cybersecurity firm also found that the situation was a bit different for private users. The Zbot malware (26%) which steals credentials with the option of remote control by attackers topped the list of malware that attempted to attack them followed by RTM and Emotet. Security researcher at Kaspersky, Oleg Kupreev provided further insight on the firm's findings and the growing threat posed by financial malware, saying: “We expect to see a rise in the number of attacked users in the second half of 2019. Usually, we see a rise in malicious activity after the holiday season, when people are using their devices less than usual and therefore are less likely to fall a victim to threat actors. We urge everyone to be extra careful with all banking and finance-related operations that they perform online and remain vigilant.” To protect your business from financial malware Kaspersky recommends introducing cybersecurity awareness training at your organization, installing the latest updates and patches and forbidding employees from installing software from unknown sources.
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| Best computer speakers 2019: the best audio systems for your PC Posted: 31 Jul 2019 10:17 AM PDT Quite a few people will tell you that the best headphones are the only way to really experience incredible audio through your PC. However, wearing headphones day-in and day-out isn’t always the most comfortable experience. The best computer speakers are an excellent alternative, and not just to give your earlobes a breather. Like any computer peripheral, finding the computer speakers that are best suited for your needs won’t necessarily be easy. There are some things to keep in mind before you pick the best computer speakers for you, like the sound quality, for example. Is the sound nice and balanced, or will you start getting listener fatigue after only a couple of minutes? And, how important is the sound quality you need? Do you want audiophile-level fidelity or are you satisfied with something compromises there if it saves you some cash? If you’re a gamer and a frequent movie streamer, is the surround or stereo separation good enough? These are only some of the most crucial questions to ponder when searching for the best computer speakers. You must take into consideration what kind of setup is perfect for you. Do you normally lounge while playing PC games like Rage 2, where immersion (and explosions) are essential? Is your setup more for binge-watching your favorite TV shows, or are you more of a music fan? No matter what you’re wanting to use them for, one of the best computer speakers on this list will make your computing setup sound that much better. While the Audioengine A2+ arrived on the scene four years back, they are still conceivably among the best computer speakers on the market. These slick-looking speakers will function with your PC’s USB port for uncompressed audio and amazing sound quality with its built-in DAC. The Audioengine A2+ comes sans subwoofer. However, if you really need that deep bass for extra rumble, that’s hardly a deal breaker: mostly because there is an RCA output, so it’s simple to connect an external woofer, which Audioengine also sells separately. They may be more expensive than you’d expect to pay for Logitech’s best computer speakers, but the Logitech Z623 speakers are still pretty reasonable, considering that they’re an audio beast. The Z623 may look like a typical set of speakers, but the subwoofer produces a powerful, deep sound that can easily be adjusted up or down based on your preference. As a bonus, these speakers have an impressive soundstage – with great highs and mids – making for an extremely immersive gaming and movie audio experience. When it comes to computer accessories, Logitech is a household name. However, the G560 takes the company’s speaker prowess up a level. These are the first Logitech computer speakers created specifically for gaming, and the manufacturer’s hard work has more than paid off. The Logitech G560 speakers are, without a doubt, one of the best computer speakers for gaming. Not only do they have RGB lighting – a must for gaming peripherals in 2019 – but through Logitech’s software, the multi-colored illumination can adjust to any kind of content you consume for a more brilliant, not to mention mesmerizing, experience. The Razer Nommo Pro may have an amusing name and a uniquely funky look, but make no mistake, these are a quality set of speakers that must be taken very seriously, and not only because of its hefty price. Try to combat the urge to run in the opposite direction of that $500 price tag, the Razer Nommo Pro has a lot to offer and is definitely a sound investment. There’s the thundering down-firing subwoofer that’ll blow you away, and then there’s the Razer Chroma feature, making these speakers look just as great as they sound. There are definitely more reasonably priced computer speakers out there, but with this level of quality, the Razer Nommo Pro is worth the cost of entry.
Sure, the Harmon Kardon Soundsticks III may look like a bloom of jellyfish. These translucent computer speakers look more like a modern art installation protesting rising ocean temperatures, but you’ll appreciate them once you hit that power button. These are certainly an excellent speaker system that belong on our best computer speakers list. This speaker and sub combo features booming bass, thanks to its woofer, as well as detailed highs. Finally, you get that amazing sound at a good price, making it ideal for music fans with a mid-range budget.
The Edifier E25 Luna Eclipse is a staggering speaker setup that not only has an enticing design, but also sounds terrific. It’s meant for folks who like a lot of rumbling and booming bass. The Luna, which comes in red, white and black colors, offers a powerful but well-controlled bass, as well as great balance with sharp mids and good stereo separation. It even includes a nifty little remote control so you don’t have to get up if you’re feeling lazy. The Luna Eclipse are some of the best computer speakers out there, especially if you like to pump up the volume with little to no distortion. Wireless speakers might not make the cut for gaming, where every millisecond counts, but that’s why you should opt for the AudioEngine HD 3. The beauty of these speakers is that it offers the best of both worlds. They’ve only got about 30ms of latency when using the wireless connection, so latency is practically negligible as far as listening to audio, watching videos and doing casual gaming. For competitive gamers, these also have USB Audio and Dual Analog Audio Inputs, not to mention subwoofer output for that extra rumble. And, since it is made by AudioEngine, you know the sound quality is top-notch. The Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 speaker system offers fantastic, versatile sound. This means regardless of whether you’re listening to music, watching movies or gaming, you’re getting the best computer speaker experience. These THX-certified speakers boast a lot of power, a wide frequency range of 31Hz to 20kHz, and a detailed audio quality with strong bass, maximum clarity and great balance. When we say it’s powerful enough to replicate that home theater quality in your living room, we’re not exaggerating. The best part is that the price is very reasonable.
Dell’s AE715 may not be the most powerful on this list of the best computer speakers, but it does produce a reasonable 360-degree sound that – while fairly common in portable audio – is unusual when it comes to computer speakers. The downside is that the bass is a bit lacking, and there’s some delay because of the wireless connection. The upside is that the audio quality is definitely good enough if your listening standards aren’t quite as demanding. You’re also getting its wireless functionality, the USB charging port so you can charge the device and a built-in mic for conference calls. Without a doubt, it’s a great portable and wireless solution that’s affordable to boot.
The Mackie CR4BT promises professional-grade performance. True, it has its share of drawbacks – including a weaker mid-range and bass that cut off at 70 Hz, meaning while there’s good bass presence, you might be missing that extra low stuff. However, they do sound great for a premium pair of speakers, and the pros include the acoustic foam pads to isolate the speakers from the surface below it, as well as the front auxiliary input. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill peripherals; they are the best computer speakers if you do a lot of multimedia creation and production-related work.
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| Best e-commerce platform of 2019: get an online store now! Posted: 31 Jul 2019 09:48 AM PDT The rise of the web has allowed countless businesses to reach a wider market. Not only that, it has given rise to countless new online-only businesses, fueled by the exponential rise of mobile connections. It's not surprising, then, that one analyst claims that the SMB e-commerce platform market will break the billion dollar barrier. There's no doubt that the web provides a huge opportunity for companies, but it’s important for organizations to make the most of that opportunity. In order to sell your products or services online, your website has to be appropriately equipped. Building an online store from scratch is a mammoth task, and fortunately, an unnecessary one. Today, there is a huge variety of e-commerce platform packages from which to choose. Most e-commerce platforms will provide businesses with standard functionality such as the ability to showcase products in an online catalog, take payments online, manage customers and provide with after-sales. Others will provide more sophisticated functionality, such as online marketing features, the ability to manage or integrate with in-store systems and the provision of APIs. Which e-commerce software is best for your business depends entirely on your specific requirements. If you're an online-only outfit, then POS integration won't be necessary, but you may get a lot of business from overseas, in which case foreign currency support would be a requirement. In this article, we’re going to highlight some of the best e-commerce platforms available right now, before moving on to consider other options you might want to explore in terms of creating your own e-commerce solution. The best e-commerce platform packagesShopify is perhaps the most well known e-commerce platform available. It was set up in 2006 by founders Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake who, as the story goes, felt that there wasn't a simple-to-use e-commerce platform available and so built their own. The company claims that: "You don't need to have any technical or design experience to easily create a beautiful online store." According to Shopify, it's possible to get one of its online stores up-and-running within minutes. Users can choose from a wide range of templates, or they can design the look and feel of their store themselves. It accepts a comprehensive range of credit cards, has Level 1 PCI compliance and 256-bit SSL encryption for security, and it offers 24/7 support via phone, instant messaging or email. The platform provides a full CMS with which users can manage the functionality and layout of their online store. Users can manage their store on-the-go using Shopify's mobile apps, and the platform itself is fully responsive, meaning the store will be optimized for visitors regardless of whether they access it from a desktop computer or a mobile device. Shopify also offers users unlimited hosting for their stores, in-depth analytics of how visitors are using the store, and functionality for marketing such as SEO optimization, a discount and coupon engine, gift cards and email marketing tools. You can test out Shopify with a 14-day free trial. Bigcommerce was established in 2009 and promises to "support your business, not just your store." In addition to offering support via phone, instant chat and email, it also offers articles and videos to help with e-commerce, and access to a team of e-commerce experts who can provide advice and guidance about online selling. Their experts are qualified in both Google Analytics and Adwords. Like Shopify, Bigcommerce provides a variety of templates and themes to help stores look their best and get up-and-running quickly. Alternatively, users can design their own store or use Bigcommerce designers to do so. The platform incorporates a full-featured CMS that allows users to run an entire website, rather than just a store. Users can benefit from detailed and flexible product management, optimized search engine rankings, along with a variety of integrated marketing tools and analytics. Payments can be accepted via 40+ pre-integrated gateways and shipping details can be customized as per the business's requirements. As of late, some new features have been added like support for Amazon Import and Link and Shopping in Instagram Stories. The platform offers automated order processing, flexible tax rules depending on where orders are made and shipped, and support for multiple currencies. You can test out Bigcommerce with a 15-day free trial. Volusion has been around for almost two decades, having been set up in Texas over in the US in 1999. The company touts its platform as being an "all-in-one e-commerce solution", and offers a free 14-day trial (no credit card required). As with other e-commerce platforms, users are offered a variety of templates from which to choose, and can also customize templates if they so wish. Should a more complex design be required, Volusion offers a custom design service that can incorporate branding and a firm's social media presence. The platform provides the site and product management tools you'd expect, marketing functionality for SEO, social media, and affiliate outlets, along with emails and order management functionality for fast order processing, accepting payments, tax calculations and POS integration. In addition to its platform and associated services, Volusion offers apps from its partners, support for users and a knowledge-base for help with e-commerce. Users can draw upon blog posts, guides and webinars. As of October 8th 2018, there are no more transaction fees. CoreCommerce was set up in 2001 and focuses on providing e-commerce services to small and medium-sized businesses. The company places an emphasis on simplicity and transparency, promising that its platform is easy-to-use and that customers will not fall foul of any hidden charges. Perhaps CoreCommerce's most unique aspect is that all of its features are offered to all customers regardless of what plan they are on. Price plans are determined by the number of products, the number of email addresses, the amount of bandwidth and the amount of storage required by the user (and higher-end plans also benefit from additional support). As with other e-commerce providers, CoreCommerce offers functionality for store design, product management, order processing and marketing. Of its headline features, the platform offers unlimited product customization options, a built-in blogging engine, and secure hosting that is provided by Rackspace and comes with a 99.9% uptime guarantee. You can try CoreCommerce out with a 15-day free trial. Having been founded in 1997, 3dcart is the oldest of our featured providers here. It was set up with a view to incorporating as many of the most requested e-commerce features into one platform as possible. The company says it has six core values by which it operates: ongoing innovation, good service, simple solutions, fostering trust, keeping employees and customers happy, and stimulating prosperity amongst employees and customers. Some of the platform's innovative features include a module that users can install to offer gift-wrapping, a purchase order system, the option of running a loyalty program and the ability to offer recurring orders. Many of these features are very specific, meaning that stores can be highly tailored to the needs of each business. Stores can be designed using one of the many templates offered by 3dcart, or users can design their own store. A quick edit bar means that making changes to the design of a store is simple. Product images are fore-fronted with 3dcart's auto-zoom feature and products can be sold via Facebook with its store integration. As with some other platforms, users can blog directly from 3dcart and tools are provided for setting up coupons, sending newsletters and affiliate marketing. Users can also make use out of "make an offer" feature, which basically lets you and your customers to negotiate on a price. In addition to its platform, 3dcart offers a number of professional services. Users can request help with SEO, PPC, shopping feed management, social media, Facebook ads and conversion consulting. Help can also be provided to ensure that a user's store is set up to the highest standard. Services such as site cloning, setting up custom tracking, data migration and training are offered. In addition, 3dcart can provide SSL certification. Hosting is guaranteed at 99.9% uptime and 24/7 support is provided via phone, email or online chat. You can test out the service with a 15-day free trial. Also consider: Alternative meansIf you don’t want to go the route of using an off-the-shelf package, what other options are available for you to explore? That’s what we’re going to look at in the second half of this piece… Is eBay right for your business?Opening its doors in 1999, eBay UK now has over 14 million users, with over 10,000 people using the site for a business that is their primary means of income. It's not just about people selling unwanted goods - businesses have used the simplicity that eBay offers to set up lucrative operations. Even the larger brands such as Argos, Debenhams and House of Fraser are using eBay to sell online. With sophisticated tools now available you can be up and running with your store in just a few hours. The eBay Seller Centre has all the information you need. Each store is managed via eBay's familiar user interface, and there are a number of eBay-provided tools to help manage, track and promote your shop once it's established. Using eBay as the platform for your business could be ideal if your business wants to sell goods on a fixed price basis. The complete integration of the PayPal e-payments system into eBay takes care of this essential component of your store. The key with eBay is to look closely at the costs involved and also the transaction fees that PayPal charge before moving forward and setting up your own store. How to create your own e-commerce solutionOf course if you want complete control over every aspect of your new online store, building each page yourself will be the best course of action. Hiring someone to code your website is one option. If you decide to do this follow these steps:
You also don't have to build your site completely from scratch. Buying a template can give you all the basic pages your site needs. You can then either modify them yourself using an application like Dreamweaver, or hire a coding expert to make the changes. Website templates are available from a number of vendors including Template Monster. If you already have a website and want to add e-commerce functionality, this can be easily achieved with a number of applications including: Final adviceWhichever route you decide to take when building your website always remember:
Setting up your online store should be approached carefully and diligently to ensure you put a professional and efficient site live. Internet shopping continues to expand. Make sure your business doesn't miss out on a sales channel that shows no signs of slowing down.
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| Google uncovers security flaws in iMessage Posted: 31 Jul 2019 09:44 AM PDT Researchers from Google's Project Zero have shared the details of five flaws they discovered in Apple's iMessage software that could leave its devices vulnerable to attack. One of the vulnerabilities they uncovered was so severe that only way to save a targeted iPhone would require deleting all of the data contained on the device. Another vulnerability could even be used to copy files off of a device without any help from the device's owner. While Apple released fixes to these vulnerabilities last week, the researchers also flagged a sixth vulnerability which has not yet been patched in the latest update to iOS.
Google established its Project Zero team back in 2014 with the aim of uncovering previously undocumented vulnerabilities and so far it has informed Microsoft, Facebook, Samsung and others regarding problems in their code. iOS updateApple is well aware of the seriousness of the vulnerabilities discovered by Google and even its own notes regarding iOS 12.4 show that if left unpatched, the flaws could allow hackers to crash an app or execute their own commands on recent iPhones, iPads and even the new iPod Touch if they happen to discover it. The iPhone-maker has not commented on the issue specifically but it is urging users to install the latest version of iOS which contains fixes for the vulnerabilities as well as additional glitches and threats. In a statement, Apple stressed the importance of regularly updating your devices, saying: “Keeping your software up to date is one of the most important things you can do to maintain your Apple product's security.” ZDnet, which broke the initial story, noted that Google's researchers had shared enough details about the vulnerabilities that attackers could be able to craft exploits to take advantage of them. If you own any of Apple's mobile products, it is highly recommended that you update them immediately to avoid falling victim to any potential attacks or exploits.
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| Posted: 31 Jul 2019 09:25 AM PDT Getting started with WordPress web hosting doesn't have to be expensive, after all the 15-year old WordPress is free (and open source). Even the cheapest shared hosting plan usually comes with a one-click WordPress installer, allowing the greenest of blogging newbies to have their first post ready in less than 60 seconds (we tried it). Managing a blog over time is much more challenging, though. You'll need to find your own themes and plugins. And also keep them, and WordPress itself, up-to-date (although you can even get that done automatically). Blogs are often targeted by malware, so it's important you have some way to detect and remove any threats, and you'll want regular backups to help get a broken blog working again. There's a long list of hosting companies offering WordPress plans, but we've picked out five of the best to point you in the right direction. Whether you're a first-time user or a big business, there's something for you here, and with prices starting at around a pound per month, it's well worth taking the time to find out more.
These are the best WordPress hosting services of 2019Image Credit: Bluehost Budget WordPress hosting can have a lot of appeal, but it usually won't deliver the features, performance or reliability that high traffic sites need. If you're the demanding type, opting for a premium hosting plan will give you much better results. Bluehost has created its own VPS-based architecture to deliver optimum WordPress performance via NGINX, a custom PHP-FPM setup and intelligently allocated resources through KVM hypervisor. (If you're not a hosting geek, this just means Bluehost has taken the time to optimize the low-level setup of its platform for WordPress, rather than simply making do with a standard configuration.) The company doesn't waste time by pretending to offer ‘unlimited’ resources, and instead tells you exactly what you're going to get. For the Basic plan which starts at $2.95 per month for the first term (renews at $7.99), this means 50GB SSD storage, a single website, a free domain for one year and $50 Marketing Credit. Additional features for all plans include free SSL, unmetered MySQL DB, site analytics dashboard, unlimited parked/sub domains and the ability to manage multiple sites with the excellent ManageWP. New Bluehost accounts will also get a free service called Blue Spark, which is designed to help newcomers with everything WordPress related. The Plus plan which starts at $4.45 per month for the first term (renews at $10.99), adds unlimited websites and website space, and additional features like spam protection, free CDN and WP staging environment. The Choice Plus plan costs $4.45 per month for the first term (renews at $14.99) and adds even more features. Bluehost also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee if you feel the service doesn't deliver. If you need more power, BlueHost has a managed hosting solution called WordPress Pro that has been optimized for WordPress websites, with prices starting at $16.95 per month. These plans have many additional features like unlimited everything, malware detection and removal, JetPack site analytics, business review tools and more. Image Credit: Tsohost Managed WordPress packages can often feel overpriced. Many hosts charge significant premiums for impressive sounding claims – optimized servers, malware scanning – that are difficult to evaluate or confirm. The UK-based Tsohost isn't interested in any of that, instead focusing on providing the core WordPress essentials at a very fair price. The baseline Startup plan gives you a free domain name, will migrate your existing site, includes Let's Encrypt SSL support and has no limits on bandwidth. You get daily backups and can restore any of the last 30 days with a click. There's 24/7 support via ticket and email, and phone and live chat is available from 7am to midnight. You get a hundred 200MB mailboxes, and the plan restricts you to 15GB storage and 100,000 page views a month. If that's enough for you, the plan costs ~$4.15(£3.16) a month paid annually, or ~$3.8(£2.92) if you pay for two years upfront. If that's just too underpowered, opting for the Business plan gets you 50GB of storage, 100x1GB mailboxes, and up to 500,000 page views over a maximum of eight websites. That's significantly more capable, yet still very reasonably priced at ~$11.50(£8.78) a month, ~$9.62(£7.33) a month paid annually or ~$8.65(£6.59) a month paid biennially. The ~$31.50(£23.98) a month (~$26.20 a month paid annually or ~$23.60 a month paid biennially) eCommerce plan supports 100GB storage, 1,000,000 page views and unlimited 10GB mailboxes. Tsohost doesn't offer all the frills and extras you'll get with some products. There's no talk of SiteLock malware protection, optimized WordPress add-ons or a custom CDN. But it's hard to complain at this price, and Tsohost is still delivering a capable service with more than enough power for smaller sites. Image Credit: Inmotion Hosting Most web hosts offer only a few WordPress plans, and even these might be set up to point you in a particular direction. You'll often see an underpowered plan, an overpriced one, and a special deal on the mid-range plan they really want you to buy. That makes it easy to decide, but it also limits your upgrade options if your site grows over time. InMotion Hosting is unusual in offering six WordPress plans, covering everything from small personal blogs to resellers and big business. Figuring out which is the best product for you will take a little more thought, but at least there's room to upgrade – or downgrade – if your circumstances change. Better still, InMotion hasn't artificially limited the low-end plans by removing key features. Even the baseline WP-1000S plan – which costs $6.99 (£5.3) a month initially (1-year plan), $9.99 (£7.70) on renewal – gives you 40GB storage, unlimited bandwidth and email addresses, preinstalled WordPress, SSL, backups, automatic updates, SiteLock security, cPanel site management, and extras like BoldGrid and WP-CLI. The only significant issue is InMotion's suggestion that the plan works best for blogs with up to 20,000 monthly visits, and even that won't be a problem for many smaller sites. Upgrading your plan gets you some extras – premium themes and plugin subscriptions, a dedicated IP address, support for hosting more sites – but it's mostly about giving you more resources. For example, the top-of-the-range WP-6000S plan supports 1,200,000 monthly visitors across up to 20 sites for $114.99 (£87.6) a month initially (1-year plan), $142.99 (£110) on renewal. There are cheaper deals around, but in previous reviews we've found InMotion to be reliable, professional and honest, and any price premium is likely to be worth paying. You don't have to take our word for it, though – an exceptional 90-day money-back guarantee gives you plenty of opportunity to find out for yourself. Image Credit: 1&1 IONOS Web giant 1&1 IONOS seems to have a hosting product for every possible need, and WordPress is no exception. Novice users can try out its service for a nominal $1(£0.75) a month over the first six months ($9 or £6.90 afterwards), yet the plan still outperforms many competitors. The bundled 25GB of storage means you won't be running out of space in a hurry, for example. There are no bandwidth or visitor limits, and you can set up as many email accounts as you need. 1&1 IONOS offers the core WordPress management functions that you would expect: a setup wizard, preinstalled plugins, automatic updates and 24/7 support (including by telephone). Also, you get a personal consultant free of charge. All this is built on a capable platform – NGINX, PHP 7.2, OPcache, up to 2GB RAM guaranteed – to enhance your blog's performance. There's SSL included and even a free domain thrown in, which is ridiculously good value at this price. If you're a WordPress novice, it might be worth taking out the plan for an initial year, claiming your free domain and taking the time to learn how the blog works. When you time is up, renew if you're happy, or if you're not, use your knowledge and experience to find a better plan. 1&1 IONOS isn't just about newbies, though: there's value for more demanding users, too. In particular, the Pro plan gives you 5 managed Wordpress sites, 200GB SSD storage space, 50 databases (1GB max), and 500 email accounts. Bonus features include a CDN and SiteLock malware scanning, as well as RailGun content delivery network, and the price looks good at $1(£0.75) a month for the first six months, $15(£11.50) on renewal. Image Credit: HostGator Choosing the best WordPress hosting package can seem like a complicated business, with a stack of low-level details and issues to consider. But it doesn't have to be that way. If you don't have special requirements then opting for a reliable company will get you capable mid-range products that can handle everything most users need. HostGator generally delivers powerful hosting plans for a fair price, and its managed WordPress range is no exception. Its Starter product may only cost $5.95 (£4.25) for three years, $9.95 (£7.10) afterwards, but you still get a free site migration, an SSL certificate, automatic malware detection and removal, unlimited email addresses and unmetered storage and bandwidth, and it can handle up to 100,000 visits a month. Ramping up to the high-end Business plan gets you more CPU power, support for up to three sites and 500,000 visits a month, yet still costs only $9.95 (£7.10) a month initially (first three years), $22.95 (£16.40) a month afterwards. Smart caching and a CDN are on hand to enhance your website's performance, 24/7 support helps keep your site up and running, and surprise bonus features include free domain privacy to protect from identity theft and reduce annoying spam. We've had good experiences with HostGator's service, but if you're not so lucky, there's a generous 45-day money-back guarantee. As with other hosting companies, this won't cover any domain registration fees, but it's still a better deal than you'll often find elsewhere. You might also want to check out our other buying guides:
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| Best email providers of 2019: Free, Paid and business services Posted: 31 Jul 2019 09:09 AM PDT Getting hold of an email account is easy. Sign up with an ISP and you’ve got one account for starters. Creating an account with Google and other big names will get you more. Buy a decent web hosting package and you'll probably get enough email addresses to power a large business, all for no extra charge. Getting the right email account is more difficult, as there's a lot to consider. What are the spam filters like? How easy is it to keep your inbox organized? Can you access the account from other email clients? And what about using the service with a custom domain and address of your own (yourname@yourdomain.com)? Keep reading and we'll highlight some of the best email providers around. All have decent free services, perhaps with ads and some limits, but we'll also talk about their business-friendly commercial products which deliver the power, functionality and enterprise-level extras that demanding users need.
The best email services of 2019 are:Image credit: Proton Technologies Signing up with an email provider will often involve some privacy compromises. Yahoo Mail asks for your name and mobile number, for instance. Gmail and other services might scan your messages to carry out useful actions (such as adding events to calendars), and just about everyone serves you with ads. ProtonMail is a Swiss-based email service which focuses on privacy above all else. You can sign up anonymously, there's no logging of IP addresses, and all your emails are end-to-end encrypted, which means there's no way ProtonMail (or anyone else) can read their contents. Also, address verification (which allows you to be sure you are securely communicating with the right person) and full support for PGP email encryption is available. In late April 2019, elliptic curve cryptography was introduced, which adds additional security and faster speeds. There are some significant limits. The free product has a tiny 500MB storage space, only supports sending 150 messages a day, and is distinctly short in terms of organizational tools (no folders, labels or smart filters). As the end-to-end encryption is specific to ProtonMail, it also ensures that you can't use the service with other email clients. Still, it seems a little unfair to complain about a service which is no-strings-attached free, and doesn't even show ads. In reality, ProtonMail is a specialist tool which is intended for use alongside services like Gmail – not to replace them – and overall it performs its core tasks very well. If you do need more, ProtonMail's $5 (you can choose to pay in USD, Euro and CHF) a month (or $48 yearly) Plus account gives you 5GB storage, a 1,000 message-per-day allowance, custom domains (you@yourdomain.com) and support for folders, labels, filters as well as some addition features like contact groups. A further Professional plan brings more storage, email addresses and a second custom domain, as well as adding a catch-all email address and multi-user support. It's priced from $8 per month per user (75$ yearly), which is reasonable if you need ProtonMail's security, although it's also notably more expensive than the business accounts of the big-name competition. Image credit: Google First released back in 2004, Google's Gmail has become the market leader in free email services with more than a billion users across the globe. Gmail's stripped-back web interface is a highlight. Most of the screen is devoted to your inbox, with a minimum of toolbar and other clutter. Messages are neatly organized via conversations for easier viewing, and you can read and reply to emails with ease, even as a first-time user. There's plenty of power here. Dynamic mail makes Gmail more interactive, with the ability to take action directly from within the email, like filling out a questionnaire or responding to a Google Docs comment. Messages can be automatically filtered into tabbed categories like Primary, Social and Promotions, helping you to focus on the content you need. Leading-edge spam blocking keeps your inbox free of junk, you can manage other accounts from the same interface (Outlook, Yahoo, any other IMAP or POP email), and there's 15GB storage for your inbox, Drive and photos. You can also access Gmail offline, although you'll need Google Chrome for that to work. Furthermore, there is a neat snooze feature that allows you to, well, snooze an email for a specified amount of time (it also automatically labels that email as important). Other features are more questionable. Instead of organizing messages into folders, for instance – a simple metaphor which just about every user understands – you must filter them using a custom labelling system. This works, and has some advantages, but isn't popular with all users. Still, Gmail is an excellent service overall, and a good first choice for your email provider. Google makes a paid business-oriented version of Gmail available in the shape of its G Suite product. This more professional product drops the ads and allows using a custom email address on your domain (yourname@yourcompany.tld). Business-oriented migration tools can import mail from Outlook, Exchange, Lotus and more. Storage space doubles to 30GB on the Basic plan, and you get unlimited group email addresses, 99.9% guaranteed uptime and 24/7 support. G Suite is Google's answer to Microsoft Office, so of course you also get apps for working with documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Shared calendars keep you better organized, there's video and voice conferencing for online meetings, and again, there’s 24/7 support to keep your system running smoothly. This more Office-like power makes for a more expensive product than the email-only competition, with prices starting at $6 a user for the simplest plan. You're getting a lot for your money, though, and if you'll use G Suite's features then it could be a smart choice. A 14-day free trial provides an easy way to help you find out.
Image credit: Microsoft Outlook's web interface follows the same familiar style as its desktop incarnation, and most other email clients: folders and organizational tools on the left, the contents of the current folder in the center, and a simple preview pane on the right (with adverts in the case of the free account). A toolbar gives you speedy access to common features, and right-clicking folders or messages shows you just about everything else. If you've ever used another email client, you'll figure out the key details in moments. Despite the apparent simplicity, there's a lot going on under the hood. The service automatically detects important emails and places them in a Focused Inbox, keeping any distractions out of sight. Events including flights and dinner reservations can automatically be added to your calendar. It's easy to share that calendar with other Outlook.com or Office 365 users, or you can save your events to a Family calendar that everyone can access. Excellent attachment support includes the ability to directly share OneDrive files as copies or links. You can also attach files directly from your Google Drive, Dropbox and Box accounts, and a chunky 15GB mailbox allows storing plenty of files from other people. This all worked just fine for us, but if you're unhappy with the service defaults, there's a chance they can be tweaked via Outlook.com's Settings dialog. This doesn't have quite as many options as Gmail, but they're well organized and give you plenty of control over layout, attachment rules, message handling and more. If that’s still not enough, Microsoft offers a bunch of app-based integrations to take the service further. You get built-in Skype support via the beta, and apps give you easier access to Evernote, PayPal, GIPHY, Yelp, Uber and more. Upgrading to Office 365 gets you an ad-free inbox, 50GB mail storage and a vast 1TB of OneDrive storage. Extras include offline working, professional message formatting tools, phone or chat-based support, file recovery from malicious attacks like ransomware and more. Oh, and the latest versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. All this can be yours for the equivalent of $7 a month on the single user Office 365 Personal plan or you can pay 70$ for a year. Image credit: Yahoo Yahoo Mail doesn't make the headlines so much, these days, but its latest version is a polished and professional service which stands up well against the top competition. The well-designed interface resembles Gmail, at least initially, with a large view of your inbox, one-click filters for common messages and content (Photos, Documents, Travel), and easy browsing of all the emails in a conversation. But you can also organize mails into custom folders, and the layout can be tweaked to display a message preview in a couple of clicks. Mobile users have some additional features like the option to unsubscribe to newsletters and such, without ever leaving the Yahoo Mail inbox. A powerful underlying engine can integrate with Facebook, supports sending SMS and text messages, is accessible via web, POP and (in some situations) IMAP, and can forward email to another address. Valuable extras include disposable email addresses to protect your privacy, and a mammoth 1TB of mailbox storage means you can keep just about everything you receive, for a very long time. Demanding users might find issues, over time. Mail organization can't quite match the flexibility of Gmail's labelling scheme, for instance, and there aren't nearly as many low-level tweaks, settings and options as you'll often see elsewhere. But overall, Yahoo Mail is an appealing service which needs to be on your email shortlist. As with other providers, Yahoo offers a Business Mail plan with more features. The highlight is an option to use the service with a custom domain (yourname@yourdomain.com), although there are other advantages, too. The service can import contacts from Facebook, Gmail, Outlook and more. You can view all your mailboxes on the same screen, and there are all the usual business-friendly productivity tools (multiple calendars, document handling, analytics and more). Prices start from $3.19 per mailbox per month, billed annually, and they drop as you add mailboxes – $1.59 for 5, $1.19 for 10, and for 20+ you'll need to contact them. Additionally, another pricing plan called Yahoo Mail Pro is available at $3.49 per month. This gives you ad-free inbox, priority customer support and additional features. There's even a free domain name included, and not just the initial registration: Yahoo will also renew it for as long as your subscription is active. Image credit: Zoho Zoho Workplace is a business-oriented email service which throws in an online office suite, document management, and a host of collaboration tools and other extras. Zoho's free plan supports up to 25 users, although there's an extra 25 available if you can refer others to the service (update: Zoho is currently remodeling the referral program so this isn't available at the moment), each with 5GB of mailbox storage, and can be used with one domain of your own. These are features you'll normally only find in commercial products, and when you factor in the spreadsheet, word processor, presentation and other tools, it looks like a real bargain. The email service is easy-to-use, and provides a decent set of features to help organize your emails: folders, tags, filters, smart searches, and more. The free plan is still a little basic. It gives you web access only, for instance, and there's no support for email forwarding. Fortunately, the Zoho Standard plan fixes that. A mere $3 per user (paid annually) gets you IMAP and POP access, email forwarding, active sync, multiple domain hosting, domain aliases, 30GB storage, a 30MB attachment limit (up from 25MB with the free plan) and some major improvements elsewhere (the ability to send cloud files to non-Zoho users, for instance). You also have Lite plan which is a cheaper Standard plan ($1 per user) with less features, and a Professional ($6 per user) plan which adds more features. A number of these features are available elsewhere for free, of course, but businesses or anyone who will use the custom domain support or Office tools will find a lot to like here. Well worth a closer look.
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| Best green web hosting of 2019 Posted: 31 Jul 2019 08:58 AM PDT Choosing a web hosting company typically involves weighing up many factors, such as price, features, support, reputation and more. The environmental impact of a web host probably won't rank high on most people's priority lists, if they think about it at all – but that could be a mistake. Web hosting is very energy-intensive. Data centers may have tens of thousands of high-powered computers, most of these with permanently high CPU and drive usage, generating so much heat that the provider will usually need a massive cooling system to keep temperatures manageable. The math can be surprising. Web Neutral Project founder Jack Amend calculates that powering the average website produces 4,500 pounds of CO2 a year, equivalent to driving the average new car for more than 10,000 miles. We're not quite sure what ‘average’ means in that context, but whatever the precise details, the message is clear: hosting has a very real environmental impact, and it's much more significant than you might think. Green web hosting companies try to address this issue by investing in some form of carbon offsetting scheme, so that for every unit of energy they use, they pay to generate the same amount of energy (or sometimes more) from renewables, and pump that into the grid. This doesn't negate their environmental impact entirely – building and disposing of all those computers produces issues of its own – but it does at least mean that your individual website isn't adding to the problem. Going green does tend to have some hosting consequences, in particular with the price: it's often a little higher than the competition. That's no surprise when a company is paying a second energy bill to generate renewable power, though, and the extra cost usually isn't significant. Check out our pick of the green hosting crop to find out more. Founded in California back in 2008, GreenGeeks now proudly claims to be the ‘world's #1 green energy web hosting provider’, not surprising given that it is dedicated entirely to green causes. That's a big statement, but there is some substance behind it. The company doesn't just say that its platform has been designed for maximum energy efficiency, it also promises that "for every amperage we pull from the grid, we invest three times that in the form of renewable energy via Bonneville Environmental Foundation." So in theory at least, your hosting isn't just carbon-neutral, it's carbon-reducing. GreenGeeks' hosting range isn't quite as impressive. There are the usual set of plans – shared products, application hosting, VPS, dedicated – but there isn't much choice, and what you do get is mostly very average. There is one exception in GreenGeeks powerful shared hosting plan. This offers unlimited websites, emails, databases, web space and bandwidth, and throws in a free domain, shared SSL, Cloudflare CDN integration, nightly backups, the Softaculous one-click app installer, a simple website builder and support via email, chat and telephone. Pay for three years upfront and you can get everything for an equivalent $2.95 (£2.2) per month – $9.95 (£7.10) on renewal – and a 30-day money-back guarantee represents a risk-free way to test the service for yourself. It's a good deal, and shows that green hosting isn't just about making eco-friendly gestures: you can find some capable products, too. Despite the increasing interest in green hosting, many providers do little to flag up their eco-friendly credentials. The DreamHost website doesn't talk about the issue on its front page, there's no clear link or green 'energy saving' logo, or indeed no sign that the company is thinking about this at all. But dig a little deeper and you'll find the reality is very different. DreamHost says its data centers are powered by grids that obtain electricity from many renewable sources, for instance. It's a partner in state-level 'clean wind' programmes. Cooling systems are designed for efficiency, and the evaporative cooling plants use both municipal and reclaimed water. The company offices are LEED Platinum and EnergyStar-certified. Optimized heating, ventilation and air conditioning plants keep energy demand down all year round, and the working environment is designed with sustainability in mind: recycling bins everywhere, electronic forms to reduce paper usage, disposable cups and plates replaced by ceramic, financial incentives to use public transportation and work-from-home policies to keep some people off the roads entirely. All this environmentally-friendly infrastructure powers a good-looking range of highly specified and fairly-priced products. Shared hosting gives you unlimited everything from $5.95 (£5.70) a month on a 3-year plan (renews at $7.95 a month). Fully managed VPS hosting starts from $13.75(£10.45) a month, and the list goes on. DreamHost has its issues, too – in our review, we weren't impressed by the non-standard hosting panel, and found support response times could be slow – but it's still a decent host in many areas, and an exceptional 97-day money-back guarantee shows just how confident the company is in its service. Green web hosts make all kinds of claims about their eco-friendliness, but it's not always easy to figure out what these mean. A provider might say it's using an energy-efficient cooling system, for instance, but how does that compare to the rest of the industry, and what could the savings be, if any? There's no way to tell. iPage sidesteps this problem by avoiding the usual vague chat, and instead presents a clear and definitive green policy in a single sentence: "For every KWH of energy that iPage uses, the company purchases Renewable Energy Certificates to offset that amount with wind energy by 200%!" Simple, straightforward, and it outperforms most claimed carbon-neutral providers by offsetting twice its energy usage (although GreenGeeks manages 300%). iPage's hosting products also have plenty of appeal. Prices are sometimes a fraction higher than the competition, but there some excellent introductory deals – three years feature-packed shared hosting for $1.99 (£1.50) a month, renewal at $8 (£6) – and a range that also includes managed WordPress, capable VPS plans and powerful dedicated servers. Well worth a browse for demanding users who are more interested in functionality than getting the lowest possible price. A2 Hosting is another provider that doesn't boast about its green credentials. There's not a word about the topic on its website's front page, and unless you're in the habit of browsing web host 'About' pages you might never know anything about A2’s green-friendly aspects. This is a little surprising, because in reality A2 Hosting has more to boast about than many providers. This starts with a Carbonfund.org energy offset scheme which has allowed the company to be effectively carbon-neutral since 2007. This isn't just about buying energy from wind farms: Carbonfund.org also works on reforestation and promoting energy efficiency in many other areas. A2 highlights some of its green hosting practices, too, covering everything from using coffee mugs instead of disposables, to allowing telecommuting for its staff as much as possible. Whatever you think of its environmental attitudes, A2 Hosting's plans have a lot of appeal. Starting prices are a little higher than some, but that's mostly because the company is focused on delivering power and functionality, rather than barebones products which only exist to create a low headline price. Even the most basic shared hosting account gets free site migration, for instance. Not to mention Let's Encrypt SSL, Cloudflare CDN integration, and regular virus scanning. Oh, and performance-boosting AnyCast DNS. You don't just get one-click installs for WordPress, PrestaShop and others: A2 gives you optimized performance settings, too. And there are data centers in the US, EU and Asia. Not bad at all for a starting price of $3.92 (£3) a month, rising to $7.99 (£6) on renewal. HostPapa was one of the first hosting companies to commit to going green, and we're not just talking vague claims about energy-efficient data centers: it's making real and significant promises. The company explains that it "purchases ‘green energy tags’ or certificates from a certified green energy supplier. That supplier calculates the total energy consumption of our operation and uses their suppliers of green energy to pump in 100% equivalent energy back into the power grid." Essentially, although HostPapa's operations aren't directly powered by green energy, it purchases the equivalent amount from green providers, a carbon offsetting system which balances out emissions overall. HostPapa's products include shared hosting, managed WordPress and a website builder. Prices are a little higher than the competition, but individual plans could appeal in other ways. Even simple shared plans offer unlimited bandwidth and disk space (although Starter plan has 100GB disk space), for instance. And although there's no dedicated hosting, the company has some monster VPS packages, with the high-end Extreme plan giving you 12 CPU cores, 24GB RAM, 1TB storage and 8TB bandwidth for $299 (£215) a month (first month is $249.99). You might also want to check out our other website hosting buying guides:
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| The best Samsung Galaxy Note 8 deals in August 2019 Posted: 31 Jul 2019 08:52 AM PDT In theory, Samsung Galaxy Note 8 deals should now be old news - right? Well we would disagree, the phone might have now been replaced by a few newer Samsung models but it still stands as one of their best releases yet, now at a super affordable price. Both the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and the Galaxy S10 have come out since, full of high-end specs but, they both carry massive price tags. Samsung Galaxy Note 8 deals are definitely still well worth a look. And it's still getting cheaper! The Note 8 is not by any means a budget device, however. It's a absolutely massive smartphone, not just in size but also in raw power. It's got the screen size and specification smarts to be a competitor to the highly praised iPhone X or iPhone's new massive iPhone XS Max and neither of those come cheap. But there are now some excellent Samsung Galaxy Note 8 deals floating around. Check out our comparison chart and handpicked favourite Galaxy Note 8 deals below. Now we know some of you may have fiery memories of the Galaxy Note 7 in your head when looking at this device but leave those worries behind. Both the Note 8 and 9 have massively improved their batteries and you won't be facing overheating problems anymore. Samsung Galaxy Note 8 deals truly are miles ahead of the 7 in every way.
5 best Galaxy Note 8 deals in the UK today:Should I get the Galaxy Note 8 SIM free?Are you determined to get the very best price? Always looking to see how you can trim a few pounds off your new favourite gadget? As you probably know, you can now pick up cheap SIM only deals for as little as £4 a month, which could make it worth buying a SIM and handset separately. The Galaxy Note 8's RRP has dropped massively recently to £649. That is much cheaper than it used to be but you will still be putting up a big chunk of money upfront. Even if you get the cheapest SIM card (usually around £4 a month for 500MB data), that would still cost near to £800 over the two years. You're probably better cranking up the upfront cost in our price comparison chart above, imposing a low maximum for monthlies and finding a cheaper deal in the long run. To get the best price on your new SIM free Galaxy, you can head to our cheapest unlocked Note 8 deals page. Wondering what all the fuss is about? Well the fervour for the Note 8 is probably doubled due to the fact that the Note 7 was pulled from shelves soon after release. But it doesn't take more than one look at the Note 8 to see that it justifies the hype. The huge 6.3-inch ‘Infinity Display,’ is gorgeous to look at, the 6GB RAM innards go like a train and there are two best-in-class rear cameras. It's expensive, but we think the Note 8 is worth it. Read TechRadar's full Samsung Galaxy Note 8 review This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The best Three mobile deals in August 2019 Posted: 31 Jul 2019 08:50 AM PDT Three mobile has for a long time been well known in the UK for offering good deals, especially for customers looking for some seriously big data bundles. In the early days, the network was blighted by poor reception in many areas but these days Three mobile doesn't have any such issues and its prices can be stellar. So take a look at our comparison tool to see what you can get for your money with Three. And below that we've also handpicked the best the network has to offer on flagship handsets such as the iPhone XR and Samsung Galaxy S10. And if you're perfectly happy with your current handset but are at the end of your contract, then we heartily recommend that you consider the 100GB Three SIM only deal for £20 per month Want to browse the best phone deals at other networks too? Simply head over to our best mobile phone deals page. The latest and greatest from Huawei, the P30 Pro is now easily our choice for best smartphone camera on the market. Combine top of the line camera quality with an impressive battery life and beautiful screen and you get easily one of the best phones on the market.
Samsung's newest release, this phone is rocking a completely flat, notch-less screen with a pin hole camera, giving it a unique style. Whether it's the triple cameras on the back, fast processor or reverse charging, there is a lot to love here.
Samsung's brand new budget flagship, the S10e features high-end specs for an affordable price. If you want the best Samsung has but don't want to have to pay through the roof to get it, this is the way to go. With all of the same features as the S10 with a few cutbacks, this is a high-end phone with mid-range pricing.
The iPhone XR hits a sweet spot between high tech and reasonable pricing. It looks a lot like its more powerful brethren - both in appearance and on the spec sheet - and boasts a glorious 6.1-inch Liquid Retina display and A12 Bionic chipset without a £1,000 price tag.
OK, so the Samsung Galaxy S9 doesn't make massive strides on the S8, but that doesn't mean it's not still one of the premier Android phones on the market. The cameras in particular are awe inspiring and tangible improvements have been made to the biometrics and position of the fingerprint scanner.
Oh gosh, Apple went and did it. After years upon years of incremental upgrades, it finally made something special to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. For the iPhone X it has dropped the bezel altogether, while the 5.8-inch Super Retina HD is scarily good - and then it tweaked things a year later for the XS. Marvellous!
Samsung has now well and truly put the flaming memory of the Note 7 behind it. If the Note 8 was exceptional (6.3-inch infinity display and 6GB RAM), then the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is even bigger and better (6.4-inch infinity display and 8GB RAM). If you want the best big screen Android phones on the market, then look no further.
Thanks to the spectacle that was the iPhone X launch, the reception for the iPhone 8 was a little bit flat. Perhaps unfairly - it improves on the iPhone 7 with wireless charging and an improved camera. Plus, it's quite a bit cheaper. So if you're looking for the best iPhone but balk at the iPhone X expense, try the 8 on for size instead.
The Google Pixel 3 and 3 XL are relatively new devices on the flagship scene but they have very quickly become two of our favourites. Powerful processors, loud speakers, but most importantly they have what is arguably the best cameras you can get on a phone right now.
What are the benefits of Three?The benefits of getting a Three mobile deal can be split into three main categories: Another factor that has made Three so popular is its offer off massive amounts of data (or even unlimited) at some brilliant price points. Can I keep my number when I switch to Three?You sure can, if you switch over to an Three mobile deal and want to keep your old number, then simply call your old network, get a PAC code and transition it over. If you were previously on Three, you can still keep your number but it is slightly more complicated. They won't let you keep your number, so you have to use this workaround. Buy a free pay-as-you-go SIM from any other network and tell your network that you're moving. They'll release the PAC code, which you then give to the substitute network. Then, you immediately get another PAC code from them. Take that to your old network, and they'll move your number to your new contract. Long winded, but easier than learning a new number! Can I use my Three phone abroad?When it comes to roaming abroad Three mobile deals are a pretty great way to go. With access to free roaming anywhere in Europe and options in at least 71 countries, Three trumps the rest for roaming charges. There are select countries where you will have to pay extra to use your data, you can check Three's website to find these countries. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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