When it comes to home security, most of us aren't looking to renovate panic rooms or build high-end home monitoring systems. We just want a little extra peace of mind. Turns out, one of the cheapest options for exactly this purpose is a $20 Amazon Echo Dot ($30 at Amazon). Using Alexa Guard -- a recently added, totally free feature for every available Echo device -- your smart speaker will listen using far-field microphones for window-breaks and alarms. In addition, the device can turn any connected smart lights on and off to simulate someone walking around the house, and it can send any notifications to ADT and Ring security services if you use them.
So if you're heading out of the country for a few weeks, or just to the store for a few minutes, your Echo can help monitor the house. Here's how it works:
Step 1: Open the Alexa app and tap the hamburger menu (the three-line icon in the upper left corner).
The Guard screen can be accessed from the Settings menu.
Screenshot by David Priest/CNET
Step 2: Tap Settings, and scroll to the bottom.
Step 3: Tap Guard and follow the prompts to set up. If you want to use the smart lighting feature, you'll need to confirm your zip code.
Step 4: From now on, saying, "Alexa, I'm leaving" will activate Guard Mode.
Note: If Alexa hears glass breaking or an alarm sounding, she will record the sound and send you a snippet. If you want, you may then Drop In on your Echo device to listen for other sounds, such as an intruder moving around the house.
Step 5: To adjust Guard settings, return to the Guard screen from the settings menu.
Step 6: Tap the gear icon in the upper right corner of the screen. From here, you may adjust which Guard features you'd like to enable or disable, including connecting to an ADT or Ring security service.
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The iPhone 11 doesn’t currently seem interesting enough to sway me from my perpetual ambivalence to Apple’s smartphones – they all seem like phones that are struggling to keep up with Android competitors, but ship for twice the price – but there might be a device in the works that changes my mind.
If rumors are to be believed, the iPhone 11 release will also bring with it the surprise unveiling of the iPhone 11 Pro; a handset that’s top-end even by iPhone standards, one that will come with an Apple Pencil-style stylus, and presumably a big screen.
This iPhone 11 Pro isn’t confirmed by any means, but there have been enough leaks about the handset for us to take them seriously, and it has us considering the possibility that Apple is going to take its iPhones down the path of the iPads – bringing out several different variants, headed by the powerful iPad Pro.
If real, the iPhone 11 Pro will be a huge departure from previous iPhones – and this fascinates me, since I don’t think most iPhones improve enough between iterations. While I still respect Apple’s products – the iPad Pro 12.9 (2018) is my go-to tablet – I’ve always felt the phones are a little disappointing.
However, if the iPhone 11 Pro rumors prove true, it could be the first Apple phone that I’m actually interested in or, dare I say it, excited for. Here’s why.
The iPhone XS
(Image credit: Future)
What makes the iPhone 11 Pro so different?
While we don’t know the processing power, dimensions, camera specs, or special features of the iPhone 11 Pro, what we have heard is that it may come with a smaller Apple Pencil stylus, similar to the S Pen that comes with the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.
In the Note 10, the S Pen has a range of useful features. You can take notes, draw, and annotate, as well as use several gestures that trigger functions, like taking pictures. Although they’re similar devices in terms of specs, the Samsung Galaxy S10 presents a completely different phone experience to the Note 10, and that’s because it doesn’t have the stylus.
This distinction will potentially be echoed in the iPhone 11 Pro. Assuming the base iPhone 11 is a small step up from the iPhone XS, the Pro will be the device which brings interesting new changes to the iPhone series, and that’s a step up that’s rare in Apple’s phone range.
What’s so special about a stylus?
A phone stylus isn’t just a replacement for a finger for people who have constantly grubby hands, but a peripheral that adds an extra layer of functionality to your handset.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 with its S Pen
(Image credit: Future)
The reason for this is that it’s just easier to draw with a stylus than with a finger. Styluses are designed for drawing on smartphone screens, and the experience of drawing is smoother because there’s less friction than when you’re using a human finger.
On top of that, us humans are trained to write and draw with a pencil, not with our fingers, so it’s more natural to use a stylus, and a lot more precise too.
Have you ever tried taking quick notes with a smartphone? It’s hard to type efficiently on such a small keyboard, and hand-written notes often look gibberish when using a finger. However, when you use a stylus, it’s easy to quickly write down notes and thoughts on the fly.
You can also draw, and annotate documents, so much more easily with a stylus, and it feels a lot more natural to do all of those things.
Why is this all so exciting?
I like to take notes, sign forms, and annotate documents a lot – I currently use an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil for this, but it can be pretty annoying to have to pull that out of my bag every time I need to do a quick task. A phone with a stylus would be valuable.
Yes, I could buy a Samsung Galaxy Note 10, but I’m a big fan of the iPad Pro, and really respect the way Apple’s ecosystem of devices works together smoothly. However, I haven’t gone down the phone route yet because, honestly, iPhones just seem a little boring, and Android phones are all a lot more exciting at the moment.
Sketch to your heart's content on an iPad Pro with its Apple Pencil
(Image credit: Future)
But if Apple were to bring out an iPhone 11 Pro with a stylus, designed for professionals or creatives, it would leave the other iPhones in its dust, and I’d be able to get so much more mileage out of it.
By writing this opinion piece out, I’ve managed to get myself anticipating a device which isn’t even remotely confirmed by Apple yet, and it’s worth bearing in mind that it’s entirely possible the iPhone 11 Pro isn’t a thing (or that it ends up getting called something totally different). Rumors and leaks sometimes point to real devices, but just as often they’re totally bogus.
Saying that, I’m surely not alone in hoping Apple finds some new way to make the iPhone 11 range a real step up from the iPhone X– the kind of step the iPhone XS wasn’t – and a stylus-toting high-end device would be just that handset.
Visitors look at Samsung QLED 8K TV's during the preview day of the IFA, the leading trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances, in Berlin, Germany, August 30, 2018.
Christian Mang / Reuters
More manufacturers are selling8K TVs or have models going on sale soon, and ahead of the IFA 2019 tradeshow an industry group has released its "performance specification" for consumer TVs. The 8K Association includes members like Samsung Electronics, Samsung Display, Panasonic, Intel, Hisense and TCL.
They're pushing this spec as a set of display performance for HDR, color performance and more that establishes what customers can expect when they see a TV with its logo, and are working on a compliance test.
Resolution: 7680 x 4320 pixels
Input Frame Rate: 24p, 30p and 60p frames per second
Display Luminance: More than 600 nits peak Luminance
Codec: HEVC
Interface: HDMI 2.1
Those are the publicly listed requirements, while details available to members include "8K Input Parameters (bit depth, frame rate, chroma sub-sampling), Display Performance (resolution, peak brightness, black level, color gamut, white point), and the Interface & Media formats (High Dynamic Range, codec)." We'll need to see more of these TVs in action, but if you need a reason to upgrade that goes further than mere pixel and resolution count, then these specs may be key in pushing the new displays, just like HDR was for 4K sets when they began to appear.
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The Galaxy Note 10 Plus is Samsung’s very sleek, very expensive new Note. It’s the kind of device that does a triple double flip when all you asked for was a couple of cartwheels. It’s also a phone of a thousand niches, meaning that whether or not it’s worth the money depends very much on what you need.
Samsung says this phone is aimed at creators, which means precisely nothing these days. But, for instance, if you are someone who leans more into fun photography or you enjoy the art of handwriting with an S Pen stylus or well, you have quite big hands, then this is the phone for you. If you don’t fit into one of the many (many) niches the Note 10 Plus caters for, though, there’s plenty of 2019 phones that could offer better value than this.
When we first encountered the Note 10 Plus, we noted that it makes the six month old Galaxy S10 series out of date already and if you want the very best Samsung tech – the Note 10 Plus has three mics to enable the well executed Zoom In Mic video feature versus the S10’s two, say – this is now the Galaxy to get. The main differences, though, are what has always been different: the Note 10 Plus is bigger and blockier than the Galaxy S10 and it has the redesigned S Pen as a bonus.
A lot of the work Samsung has been finishing up between the S10 launch and now is focused around the S Pen and the camera features. Let’s start with the S Pen; it’s been retooled as a unibody stylus that’s slightly shorter but still very enjoyable to use to prod the screen. Samsung has used the fact it now includes a Bluetooth antenna to plant the seed of the S Pen as a remote control.
So with ‘Air gestures’ you can press the button and wave the stylus around to scroll through Gallery pictures, remote shutter or play, pause or skip YouTube videos. Samsung has opened up an SDK for developers to come up with ideas on how to use these but in use, it didn’t really come together. The button presses are fine but the gestures don’t register every time and this is coupled with the fact that if you’re using S Pen gestures, this means you’re holding the (big) phone with one hand without the stability of the S Pen hand leaning on it to scribble.
We actually found that after some time away from the Note, the basics of handwriting – which is still a bit fiddly to get just right but exports as Microsoft Word files now – and prodding the screen as a finger replacement are still what works best here. The ability to write on the calendar is neat, as is the magnify feature. We even played Monument Valley 2 with the stylus; it quickly gets addictive. The battery is good for ten hours, making it a non-issue.
As for the cameras, it’s an almost identical setup to the Galaxy S10s with a 12MP main camera, 16MP wide-angle and 12MP telephoto lens; there’s now a F2.1 aperture on the 2x zoom lens, and the addition of a time-of-flight depth sensor which we previously saw only on the Galaxy S10 5G. The Note 10 Plus offers a very fast and capable phone camera with the wide-angle in particular a great option to have in your digital camera bag.
It’s not quite as versatile and reliable in low light as the ones to beat, the Huawei P30 Pro and Pixel series. Where the Note shines is video with the same dual optical image stabilisation as the S10 with further recent improvements to its Super Steady video feature; the results are impressively smooth and stable.
Elsewhere, one of the things the depth sensor is being used for is the ad-friendly AR Doodle feature, which allows you to scribble (with the S Pen) onto faces and objects including in-video as you record. In use, the placement in 3D space is just accurate enough to work and it might work for fun Instagram Stories. The selection of blurred backgrounds you get with Live Focus – some are more subtle than others – will be popular with the same set. (The bokehs are achieved thanks to the depth sensor on the rear camera, software round the front for selfies).
It almost goes without saying that this 6.8-inch phone is large and feels large, despite the fact that the screen to body ratio is a super impressive 94.3 per cent. The iridescent ‘Aura Glow’ finish on the handset we reviewed is very eye catching, reminiscent of gleaming chrome on retro cars. It shows the influence Huawei has had recently on tech aesthetics and you’ll end up purposely laying it screen down to show it off; there’s also a ‘high shine Aura Black’ model available.
It can be slightly unwieldy, though, so we strongly recommend that you try out both the Note 10 and Note 10 Plus before you decide. A small thing – the decision to turn the Bixby button into the power button/programmable ‘side key’ is irritating for anyone who has used Samsung phones – OK, any phones – for a long time, and will take some getting used to.
The punch hole in the display, for the superb, wide-angle forward facing 10MP camera, is smaller and centred now, as compared to the very similar Galaxy S10 series. To be honest, though, we quite preferred it in the corner. On first glance, you might also notice that there’s no headphone jack here – just a cartwheel, please – a decision Samsung made as it now feels enough of its customers have made the switch to wireless earbuds – another slight miss, there’s no USB-C dongle bunded in the box.
The 6.8-inch 3040 x 1440 AMOLED display is HDR10+ and best-in-class in our book. My word, this screen is lovely, by which we mean rich and accurate colours, pure whites and deep blacks, top notch viewing angles, whether you’re looking through your own wide-angle Bank Holiday beach snaps or crisp Netflix downloads. If you want to make the most of it, and you don’t mind the battery taking a hit as a result (more on that shortly), make sure to head into settings to switch from Full HD – the default – to Quad HD.
The one screen spec Samsung could be accused of not bringing to the Note is a 144Hz refresh rate, as seen on the OnePlus 7 Pro, which does beg the question of whether the Note 10 Plus is for serious mobile gamers who get excited about such tech. The Game Booster optimisation of processing and battery offered, and the idiot-proof screen recorder function, which lets you put a feed of your face on a screen recording of what you’re playing, seems to indicate Samsung would like it to be.
The in-display fingerprint scanner also makes a reappearance and now it’s faster and much more hit than miss than we found on the Galaxy S10.
Performance is flawless and One UI, Samsung’s Android skin, is now one of the cleanest and easiest to get on with despite Samsung’s efforts to stuff in extra features; it’s certainly preferable to Huawei’s EMUI. (Huawei is, of course, still Samsung’s closest rival for Android hardware though speaking of getting the basics right, its ability to release phones, like the upcoming Huawei Mate 30, with official Google Play Store access is very much up in the air, giving new Samsung products like this something of an advantage.)
There’s Dolby Atmos onboard and the stereo speakers – one which now sits at the top of the device – play loud with sound quality better than most flagship phones and decent enough for when headphones won’t do.
This is a phone you will want to power use then and so it is a shame that in this respect, Huawei trounces Samsung on battery life. Whereas the Huawei P30 Pro will easily go for a day and a half or two, the Note 10 Plus, and its 4,300mAh battery and giant screen, is a charge every night phone.
There is a 25W fast charger bundled in the box though – we’re talking 90 mins from dead to full – and it technically supports 45W fast charging. That’s as well as the gimmicky, but also rather impressive, reverse wireless charging for earbuds and accessories, a feature that’s soon to be copied on the iPhone 11S and 11R (if the rumours are to be believed) but makes more sense for devices where you’re not concerned about your phone’s battery.
If you’re tempted by what Samsung is selling with the Note 10 series – there’s also a 5G variant of the Note 10 Plus – we can say you won’t be disappointed by this device. But is it the best way to blow £1000 right now? There are some exciting launches on the horizon – the new iPhones, the Google Pixel 4, the Huawei Mate 30 - all big phones in all senses of the word.
The innovation that Samsung is pushing on this device is interesting but, at least for now, limited in appeal and scope. For certain people, this will be the plush, feature-stuffed phone of your dreams. For everyone else, a lot of this could well be overkill.
Gearbox Publishing and Blackbird Interactive have announced Homeworld
3, a true sequel to 2003's space-faring RTS Homeworld 2.Homeworld 3 is currently a few months into pre-production and is currently on Fig.com, which allows fans to pledge/invest in the development of this new title. As of this writing, Homeworld 3's money raised is at $137,380 with 30 days to go.
This move allows backers to "snag a backstage pass to impact the game's development and prove that the fanbase still craves Homeworld 3." From features to priorities to what's in the collector's edition, backers will have their voice heard.
Homeworld 3 is coming! Join us on Fig to get an inside look as it's created and have a meaningful impact on the game development.
Fans can even invest at $500/share and "reserve an investment in a security of Fig Publishing, Inc. that will generate returns based on revenues received by Fig Publishing for the sales of Homeworld 3, if and when the game is developed and commercially released."
Homeworld 3 developer Blackbird Interactive was founded by original Homeworld art director Rob Cunningham, and Gearbox Publishing will also be supporting, which seems like a good fit as both companies previously worked on 2015's Homeworld Remastered Collection and 2016's Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak.
Homeworld 3 will pick up just after the end of Homeworld 2, will deliver "best-in-class fleet combat in fully-3D space," and will feature multiplayer options as well.
While not much else is known, Blackbird Interactive has teased that "The Hyperspace gates have opened, and with them, a new era of space travel has begun. The rest is yet to come..."
Homeworld 3 is scheduled to be released in Q4 2022 on at least PC.Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN who loves space. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst.
If you find a crack suddenly forming on your Apple Watch's display, you may want to check if it's eligible for free repair. Apple has launched a screen replacement program for Apple Watch Series and Series 3 devices, admitting that a crack may form along the smartwatch's edges until the damage makes its way around the whole display. The tech giant made sure to note that it happens "under very rare circumstances." Even so, it will swap broken screens with new ones free of charge for Series 2 and 3 aluminum devices, including Nike+ models, sold within a certain time period.
You can check Apple's support document for more details on eligible devices, but to summarize, the company will repair these models for free: Watch Series 2 sold between September 2016 and September 2017, Watch Nike+ Series 2 sold from October 2016 to October 2017, Watch Series 3 GPS and GPS+Cellular sold from September 2017 to September 2019, and Watch Nike+ Series 3 GPS and GPS+Cellular sold between October 2017 and September 2019.
You can either arrange to mail in your device by contacting Apple Support or walk into an Apple Authorized Service Provider or retail store. Take note that your device will be sent to an Apple Repair Center whichever method you choose, because the company has to verify that it's eligible for the program.
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Google's Project Zero published a blog post this week about a previous security threat wherein malicious websites quietly hacked into the victim's iPhone. This small collection of hacked websites were used in what was described as "indiscriminate" attacks against unsuspecting visitors for years, but the threat has been addressed by Apple.
If the attacks were successful, a monitoring implant would be installed on the targeted iPhone, able to steal private data including messages, photos, and GPS location in real time. Google estimated that thousands of visitors headed to these websites per week over the course of two years, and that iOS versions ranging from iOS 10 to iOS 12 were exploited.
There was no target discrimination; simply visiting the hacked site was enough for the exploit server to attack your device, and if it was successful, install a monitoring implant. We estimate that these sites receive thousands of visitors per week.
TAG was able to collect five separate, complete and unique iPhone exploit chains, covering almost every version from iOS 10 through to the latest version of iOS 12. This indicated a group making a sustained effort to hack the users of iPhones in certain communities over a period of at least two years.
Project Zero discovered exploits for a total of 14 vulnerabilities in iOS, seven for Safari, five for the kernel, and two separate sandbox escapes. The team reported these findings to Apple in February, and Apple's release of iOS 12.1.4 that same month addressed the issues.
Google's deep dive into the iOS exploit can be read on the company's Project Zero blog.
Earlier this year, Google cybersecurity experts "discovered a small collection of hacked websites" that exploited vulnerabilities in Apple's(AAPL) smartphone software, Ian Beer, a researcher with Google's Project Zero, said in a blog post published Thursday. He did not name the websites.
"Simply visiting the hacked site was enough for the exploit server to attack your device, and if it was successful, install a monitoring implant," Beer added. "We estimate that these sites receive thousands of visitors per week."
The implant was capable of giving hackers access to iPhone users' contacts, photos and location, as well as data from apps like iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, Gmail and Google Hangouts, according to the Project Zero researchers.
The Google(GOOGL) researchers discovered "a total of fourteen vulnerabilities," half of them linked to the iPhone's web browser. They informed Apple of the vulnerabilities on February 1, prompting the company to issue a software update six days later when it admitted certain applications could potentially "gain elevated privileges" and "execute arbitrary code."
Beer described the attempted hack as a campaign to exploit "iPhones en masse." He also said it was "a failure case for the attacker" and it was not clear from the post whether any data was actually stolen.
Neither company responded immediately to a request for comment on Friday.
The vulnerabilities covered almost every version of the iPhone operating system "from iOS 10 through to the latest version of iOS 12," Beer added.
"This indicated a group making a sustained effort to hack the users of iPhones in certain communities over a period of at least two years," he wrote.
Beer said that also warned that there could be other potential attacks.
"For this one campaign that we've seen, there are almost certainly others that are yet to be seen," he said. "All that users can do is be conscious of the fact that mass exploitation still exists and behave accordingly; treating their mobile devices as both integral to their modern lives, yet also as devices which when compromised, can upload their every action into a database to potentially be used against them."
Microsoft has always had a tablet mode for 2-in-1 Windows 10 PCs -- including its own Surface products -- but that could be changing. In the latest Insider 18970 beta release, Windows 10 no longer automatically offers to enter tablet mode when you remove a keyboard. While the finger-friendly square tile interface is still available, you need to manually activate it by going into the Action Center pull-out on the taskbar.
That's not to say that the interface doesn't change at all when you enter into a "tablet posture," but it's more subtle. The new build increases spacing between taskbar icons, collapses the taskbar search bar into a single icon, opens the touch keyboard automatically for text fields and switches File Explorer to a touch optimized layout.
To be clear re: Build 18970 and the updated tablet experience... Tablet Mode hasn't changed and is still there and does exactly what it did before. The change in 18970 is regarding switching into the tablet posture.
The idea is to provide a similar experience in either mode, possibly so that 2-in-1 or convertible buyers don't get confused by the much different-looking tablet interface. "This new experience allows users entering tablet posture to stay in the familiar desktop experience without interruption," Microsoft wrote in the Windows blog.
Users who know and love the existing tablet mode -- a holdover from the Windows 8 era -- will still be able to use it, but that might change down the road. The fact that it's no longer offered automatically means that Microsoft might phase it out in favor of the more desktop-like 2-in-1 and convertible mode.
It could also have something to do with Microsoft's upcoming October 2nd Surface-focused event. The software giant will reportedly launch Core OS, a stripped down Windows 10 OS designed for touch-centric devices and wearables.
It could be that Windows 10 as it exists now will be reserved for business and power users, hence the more desktop-like interface in the latest Insider build. Meanwhile, Core OS would have a more visual, touch-oriented interface like the existing tablet mode. That would become the operating system of choice for the next generation of consumer-oriented devices, including a rumored dual-screen PC that might be revealed at the Surface event.
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