Here are all the 5G phones announced at MWC

Mobile World Congress is underway, which means there are a handful of brand spankin’ new 5G phones hitting the market soon.

How ever will you decide?

Here’s a look at all the 5G phones announced thus far:

Huawei Mate X

The Mate X is a foldable 5G phone with one 4.6-inch screen, another 6.6-inch 2480×1148 screen, and (when unfolded) an 8-inch 2200×2480 display.

Some other specs:

• Processor: Kirin 980
• Battery: 4,5000mAh
• Memory: 8GB RAM, 512GB internal
• Price: $2,600
• Size: 11mm folded, 5.4mm unfolded

LG V50 ThinQ 5G

Aside from its unbearably long name, the LG V50 ThinQ 5G’s claim to fame new biometric security measure called Hand ID, which reads the veins in your hand to authenticate your identity. Plus, the new LG flagship has a dual-screen case, which effectively turns the phone into a foldable.

Some other specs:

• Processor: Qualcomm SDM855 Snapdragon 855
• Battery: 4,000mAh
• Memory: 6GB RAM, 128GB internal
• Price: Unknown

Samsung Galaxy Fold

The Galaxy Fold is likely to be the most talked-about phone out of MWC because 1) it folds and 2) it’s made by the biggest phone maker in the world. The handset, with a 7.3-inch 1536×2152 Super AMOLED unfolded display and a 4.6-inch cover display, will be available April 26.

Some other specs:

• Processor: Qualcomm SDM855 Snapdragon 855
• Battery: 4,380mAh
• Memory: 12GB RAM, 512GB internal
• Price: $1,980
• Size: 17mm folded

Samsung Galaxy S10 5G

The Samsung S10 5G is exactly what you would expect it to be. It’s packed with all the bells and whistles that might appeal to the customer who wants the top of the line phone regardless of price. It sports a 6.7-inch 1440×3040 AMOLED display.

Some other specs:

• Processor: Qualcomm SDM855 Snapdragon 855
• Battery: 4,500mAh
• Memory: 8GB RAM, 256GB internal
• Price: Unknown

Xiaomi Mi Mix 3

Interestingly, Xiaomi opted to leave 5G out of its flagship phone for the year, the Mi 9. That said, the 5G Mi Mix 3 has a handful its own interesting features, including a sliding front-facing camera that results in a 93.4 percent screen-to-body ratio. It also has a dual-camera system that offers the ability to shoot slow-mo videos at 960 frames per second.

Some other specs:

• Processor: Qualcomm SDM855 Snapdragon 855
• Battery: 3,800mAh
• Memory: 6GB RAM, 64GB/128GB internal
• Price: $680

ZTE Axon 10 Pro 5G

The Axon 10 Pro 5G doesn’t have many tricks, like a folding display, but it does come with a triple-camera system and what appears to be an in-display fingerprint reader. It also sports a 6.7-inch 1080p display. The phone will definitely launch in Europe and China, but no word on whether it will make its way stateside.

Some other specs:

• Processor: Qualcomm SDM855 Snapdragon 855
• Battery: 4,000mAh
• Memory: 6GB RAM, 128GB internal
• Price: Unknown

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Europe is prepared to rule over 5G cybersecurity

The European Commission’s digital commissioner has warned the mobile industry to expect it to act over security concerns attached to Chinese network equipment makers.

The Commission is considering a defacto ban on kit made by Chinese companies including Huawei in the face of security and espionage concerns, per Reuters.

Appearing on stage at the Mobile World Congress tradeshow in Barcelona today, Mariya Gabriel, European commissioner for digital economy and society, flagged network “cybersecurity” during her scheduled keynote, warning delegates it’s stating the obvious for her to say that “when 5G services become mission critical 5G networks need to be secure”.

Geopolitical concerns between the West and China are being accelerated and pushed to the fore as the era of 5G network upgrades approach, as well as by ongoing tensions between the U.S. and China over trade.

“I’m well away of the unrest among all of you key actors in the telecoms sectors caused by the ongoing discussions around the cybersecurity of 5G,” Gabriel continued, fleshing out the Commission’s current thinking. “Let me reassure you: The Commission takes your view very seriously. Because you need to run these systems everyday. Nobody is helped by premature decisions based on partial analysis of the facts.

“However it is also clear that Europe has to have a common approach to this challenge. And we need to bring it on the table soon. Otherwise there is a risk that fragmentation rises because of diverging decisions taken by Member States trying to protect themselves.”

“We all know that this fragmentation damages the digital single market. So therefore we are working on this important matter with priority. And to the Commission we will take steps soon,” she added.

The theme of this year’s show is “intelligent connectivity”; the notion that the incoming 5G networks will not only create links between people and (many, many more) things but understand the connections they’re making at a greater depth and resolution than has been possible before, leveraging the big data generated by many more connections to power automated decision-making in near real time, with low latency another touted 5G benefit (as well as many more connections per cell).

Futuristic scenarios being floated include connected cars neatly pulling to the sides of the road ahead of an ambulance rushing a patient to hospital — or indeed medical operations being aided and even directed remotely in real-time via 5G networks supporting high resolution real-time video streaming.

But for every touted benefit there are easy to envisage risks to network technology that’s being designed to connect everything all of the time — thereby creating a new and more powerful layer of critical infrastructure society will be relying upon.

Last fall the Australia government issued new security guidelines for 5G networks that essential block Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE from providing equipment to operators — justifying the move by saying that differences in the way 5G operates compared to previous network generations introduces new risks to national security.

New Zealand followed suit shortly after, saying kit from the Chinese companies posed a significant risk to national security.

While in the U.S. President Trump has made 5G network security a national security priority since 2017, and a bill was passed last fall banning Chinese companies from supplying certain components and services to government agencies.

The ban is due to take effect over two years but lawmakers have been pressuring to local carriers to drop 5G collaborations with companies such as Huawei.

In Europe the picture is so far more mixed. A UK government report last summer investigating Huawei’s broadband and mobile infrastructure raised further doubts, and last month Germany was reported to be mulling a 5G ban on the Chinese kit maker.

But more recently the two EU Member States have been reported to no longer be leaning towards a total ban — apparently believing any risk can be managed and mitigated by oversight and/or partial restrictions.

It remains to be seen how the Commission could step in to try to harmonize security actions taken by Member States around nascent 5G networks. But it appears prepared to set rules.

That said, Gabriel gave no hint of its thinking today, beyond repeating the Commission’s preferred position of less fragmentation, more harmonization to avoid collateral damage to its overarching Digital Single Market initiative — i.e. if Member States start fragmenting into a patchwork based on varying security concerns.

We’ve reached out to the Commission for further comment and will update this story with any additional context.

During the keynote she was careful to talk up the transformative potential of 5G connectivity while also saying innovation must work in lock-step with European “values”.

“Europe has to keep pace with other regions and early movers while making sure that its citizens and businesses benefit swiftly from the new infrastructures and the many applications that will be built on top of them,” she said.

“Digital is helping us and we need to reap its opportunities, mitigate its risks and make sure it is respectful of our values as much as driven by innovation. Innovation and values. Two key words. That is the vision we have delivered in terms of the defence for our citizens in Europe. Together we have decided to construct a Digital Single Market that reflects the values and principles upon which the European Union has been built.”

Her speech also focused on AI, with the commissioner highlighting various EC initiatives to invest in and support private sector investment in artificial intelligence — saying it’s targeting €20BN in “AI-directed investment” across the private and public sector by 2020, with the goal for the next decade being “to reach the same amount as an annual average” — and calling on the private sector to “contribute to ensure that Europe reaches the level of investment needed for it to become a world stage leader also in AI”.

But again she stressed the need for technology developments to be thoughtfully managed so they reflect the underlying society rather than negatively disrupting it. The goal should be what she dubbed “human-centric AI”.

“When we talk about AI and new technologies development for us Europeans it is not only about investing. It is mainly about shaping AI in a way that reflects our European values and principles. An ethical approach to AI is key to enable competitiveness — it will generate user trust and help facilitate its uptake,” she said.

“Trust is the key word. There is no other way. It is only by ensuring trustworthiness that Europe will position itself as a leader in cutting edge, secure and ethical AI. And that European citizens will enjoy AI’s benefits.”

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OnePlus demos a 5G prototype at MWC

OnePlus promised us a 5G handset this year. At Mobile World Congress this week, the company kind of, sort of delivered. Unlike the sea of other 5G devices unveiled at the show, however, the company’s offering is still very much in the prototype phase — like, behind protective glass with all of the interesting bits obscured, since it isn’t officially official.

The product appeared at Qualcomm’s booth this week, since OnePlus’ presence at the show has been mostly limited to closed door events. For the chipmaker, it was an opportunity to show yet again how ubiquitous its tech has become in the vast sea of Android devices.

“At Qualcomm Technologies’ booth, OnePlus simulated a futuristic setting of 5G cloud gaming where players would only need a smartphone and a gamepad,” Qualcomm explains. “Through the powerful capabilities of cloud processing as well as the throughput and responsiveness of 5G, players can play large sized games online that are generally only playable after downloading onto the PC first. Utilizing Snapdragon elite gaming features and optimizations, players were able to experience high definition and low latency cloud gaming like never before.”

Based on past release schedule, we can likely expect OnePlus to officially debut its next handset in the summer. Past release cycles have also seen a point upgrade later in the year as well, though the company has been shifting things around a bit, as it continues to grow and figure out where it best fits in the broader handset market.

This particular device, likely the OnePlus 7, is due out in Q2, though, sadly, its 5G variant won’t be released in the States in 2018.

The addition of 5G in 2019, meanwhile, finds OnePlus taking a more cutting edge approach to its release cycle, rather than holding back in order to lower the price tag on technology.

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More passwordless logins are coming to Android

The FIDO Alliance and Google today announced that Android (from version 7.0 up) with the latest version of the Google Play Services, is now FIDO2 certified. At first glance, that sounds rather boring, but it will enable developers to write apps that use a phone’s fingerprint scanner or a FIDO security key to authenticate users without making them type in a password. Since I’m not aware of too many people who like to type in complicated passwords that their IT department makes them change every few months, that’s a big deal.

Developers will be able to enable password-less logins in their web and native apps. Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Firefox already fully support this feature, as does Apple’s Safari (but only in preview). In addition to the convenience, FIDO2 also promises to offer phishing-resistant security, given that this technology won’t let you authenticate on a malicious site.

“Google has long worked with the FIDO Alliance and W3C to standardize FIDO2 protocols, which give any application the ability to move beyond password authentication while offering protection against phishing attacks,” Google product manager Christiaan Brand. “Today’s announcement of FIDO2 certification for Android helps move this initiative forward, giving our partners and developers a standardized way to access secure keystores across devices, both in market already as well as forthcoming models, in order to build convenient biometric controls for users.”

It’s worth noting that Android already supported password-less authentication for native apps, but now it’ll also support these for browser logins. Once you’ve set up this new authentication mechanism (and once web apps support it), your phone will store all of the cryptographic data on the device and none of the raw fingerprint data, for example, will be transferred to anybody else.

The FIDO Alliance says this new mechanism will soon enable a billion users on modern Android devices to experience password-less logins. Developers will have to implement support in their web and native applications, though, but that’s relatively easy.

Windows 10 will soon get passwordless logins with Yubico’s Security Key

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4 Easy Ways to Make Your Stock Photos Stand Out

Social media wouldn’t be the same without the constant stream of digital eye candy. And most websites would be unreadable without graphics and high resolution photos to break up the space. So it’s safe to say, images are kind of a big deal.

Stock photos have come a long way since the days of corporate clip art and those laughing-with-salad pics. Still, even high quality images can feel a little too obvious straight “out of the box.”

So, with that in mind, in this article, we look at several ways you can customize stock photos to make them your own, even if you’re not great at Photoshop.

1. Color

The easiest way to customize a photo is by changing the color. Think about what happens when you go from color to black and white—the mood shifts dramatically.

Make Adjustments

The most obvious way to make a stock photo feel more like “you” is to play with it in Photoshop, Lightroom, or your editing app of choice.

Bump up the saturation or boost the white balance. Play with the contrast and the color balance. In any case, this is the easiest way to change the “vibe” of the stock photo.

Here’s the original stock photo for reference.

Where the initial image had a bluish tinge, here, we increased the exposure, amped up the saturation, and turned up the whites.

The overall effect gives more of a candy-hued, summer-time vibe.

This next example takes the same photo and adds the Vintage preset. Then, we ventured over to the adjustment page and messed around with the vibrancy and toned down the clarity.

We also knocked the de-haze back to -55, giving our selfie-takers the Victorian ghost treatment.

Develop Your Own Preset

In Lightroom, presets are super easy to find and apply in one click. But there’s no reason to rely on the defaults. The benefit of creating your own is, it gives you the ability to ensure that there’s a certain level of consistency across everything you post.

The second benefit is convenience. Creating a filter that speaks to your tastes means that you can quickly customize stock photos from different sources—with a unifying theme.

DIY presets are all the rage on Instagram and elsewhere. Influencers are monetizing them to fans who don’t realize just how easy it is to make filters themselves.

Creating your own filter in Adobe Lightroom is very easy. To learn more, see our article on how to create your own custom Lightroom presets.

2. Enhancements and Overlays

Another way to customize your stock pics is by taking an additive approach. A quick disclaimer—we recommend using some of these enhancements sparingly. Too many borders and frames in one place, and your photos will start to resemble a Pinterest-looking nightmare.

That said, here are some things you can add to a generic free download to spice things up a bit.

Text

One of the easiest ways to customize a basic stock photo is by adding text.

Pablo by Buffer is probably the easiest way to play with text.

The app doesn’t offer too many options for customizations. Filters include red tint, green tint, and a handful of blurred effects. Knowing this, be sure to make your more advanced edits before uploading to Pablo.

Pablo does, however, provide free access to a fair amount of stock photos—so that’s one step removed from the equation. Text works well in photos with a lot of negative space or when combined with the “blur” effect.

The below image, from Canva, offers a good example of how blur+text can create a pretty rad effect.

Frames and Borders

Frames and borders add some flair to any run-of-the-mill stock photo, with minimal effort on your part.

There are countless apps for adding borders and frames to photos. And if you need help, here’s how to add borders to photos.

Keep in mind though that it’s easy to overdo it on borders and other add-ons. We recommend sticking to simple lines that draw the eye inward.

3. Change Up the Orientation

Instead of sharing stock photos as a download-and-go presentation, know that most images can be cropped or rotated, flipped, or zoomed into a whole new view.

A few ideas for reframing your stock photos…

Crop It

Cropping isn’t exactly the most exciting or innovative concept, but it is a great way to get more mileage out of one photo. Simply crop the image so you only focus on one portion of the picture.

Think of it as though you’re looking through a camera lens. Take, for example, the image below. The original version focuses on the woman in the foreground, at her computer.

But this could easily be transformed into an interesting shot of this man outside—especially with the effects happening with the cars and the reflection.

Zoom

Zoom is also a good choice, but it’s vital that you start with a high-resolution image. Stock photos from Unsplash, Pexels, or Pixabay are all high-quality images that will serve you well here.

Zoom works well in by helping you create an abstract image by honing in on a specific area. We’ll start with the image below.

Cropping out the broccoli and cauliflower from the initial shot gives you a whole new view. On top of that, I used one of the Lightroom presets to play up the sheen on that plastic.

Flip Things Around

Sometimes all it takes is a different point of view to make a difference.

Flipping alone won’t totally transform your download, but it’s a good place to start. I like this trick for images like a room or a collection of items, as you’ll start with a slightly different foundation.

Think of it as one more degree of separation between your image and the original.

4. Make a Collage

We’ll turn toward Adobe Spark for this tip. The web app makes it super easy to combine a few images into one larger one.

1. Choose a layout (in this example, we went with landscape)
2. Upload photos or use Adobe’s selection of stock photos
3. Rearrange, add text, and add borders

With Adobe Spark, you’ll want to crop and edit your photos before uploading them to compile the collage. Unfortunately, you can’t edit the images after you’ve uploaded them.

Canva’s option offers more customization than Adobe Spark. This means you can click on a photo and add it to your canvas. From there, add more, and arrange them however you wish.

We played around with this by using the same stock photo; cropping and arranging different versions to create a collage.

To add a filter or make an adjustment, click the design element you’d like to change and go from there. Canva lets you choose from their library of stock photos—free and paid—or you can upload your own images.

Now, Put These Tricks to the Test

As you can see, you don’t need to be a Photoshop whiz to transform your collection of stock photos. By combining two or more of the above techniques, you’ll create an (almost) original work of art.

Just one last word of advice: avoid choosing photos with distinctive looking models. The Unsplash guy with the whimsical beard will give away your little secret—no matter how many filters and frames you’ve applied.

Now, if you’re looking to shave some time off of your editing efforts, we recommend our article detailing how to batch edit photos using Lightroom.

Read the full article: 4 Easy Ways to Make Your Stock Photos Stand Out

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How to Make the MacBook Pro Touch Bar More Useful: 4 Tips

The Touch Bar was a controversial addition to the MacBook Pro, and it’s a feature many Mac users ignore. A lot of people tend to forget that it’s there at all—until they curse the missing Escape key.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can transform the Touch Bar from a forgotten strip above to keyboard to a useful tool you use every day. All it takes is a few tweaks.

1. Useful Touch Bar Functions Out of the Box

The one feature that a lot of Mac users do enjoy about the Touch Bar is Touch ID. Pressing your finger against the sensor at the upper-right of your keyboard is a lot easier than typing your password. This is especially true if you use a strong password.

There are also some apps that make good use of the Touch Bar. Adobe Photoshop CC, Microsoft Excel, Pixelmator, and Evernote are some examples of this. Google Chrome also works with the Touch Bar, but these apps are just the beginning. We’ve put together a list of apps that put the Touch Bar to good use if you’re looking for some recommendations.

Don’t forget to look up at the Touch Bar occasionally, especially in apps you use often. It’s possible there are useful shortcuts you’ve ignored all along.

2. Adjust Your Touch Bar Settings

If you don’t tweak your Mac’s settings often, finding out how to adjust your Touch Bar settings may be tricky. There isn’t a dedicated Touch Bar section in System Preferences. Instead, you’ll have to open System Preferences, then go to the Keyboard section.

General Settings

Once you’re here, you have a few options. The simplest is a dropdown menu labeled with the text Touch Bar shows that lets you customize what you see by default. You can choose from App Controls, which is the default, as well as a few other options.

• Expanded Control Strip shows a complete suite of controls, rather than the limited controls you normally see on the Touch Bar. This gives you access to brightness controls for the display and keyboard, playback and volume controls for media players, and dedicated buttons for Mission Control and Launchpad.
• F1, F2, etc. Keys shows you the function keys, which you normally must hold down the Fn button to see. With this option selected, holding the Fn key shows the Expanded Control Strip.
• Finally, the Quick Actions allows you to put Automator workflows directly on your Touch Bar. If you’re an avid Automator user, this is handy.

Customizing the Touch Bar

At the bottom of the Keyboard preferences pane, you’ll see another option labeled Customize Touch Bar. This pulls up a pane on-screen with icons that you can drag down to your Touch Bar. You can customize both the Control Strip and the Expanded Control Strip here.

You can’t customize the standard Control Strip much here, but you can customize the Expanded Control Strip to your heart’s content. Replace options you don’t use with ones you do, and suddenly the Touch Bar becomes much more useful.

Per-App Settings

Some apps let you customize how you use the Touch Bar. You can check if this is available for an app by opening the View menu, then looking for the Customize Touch Bar option. If it’s available, you’ll normally find this option at the very top of the menu.

Selecting this option brings up a screen similar to the Customize Touch Bar option in the Keyboard preferences pane. The difference is that here, you’re customizing app-specific options. If you find yourself wishing you could control a specific action via the Touch Bar, this may help you get what you’re looking for.

3. Make the Virtual Keys Feel Real

With the arrival of the Touch Bar, the MacBook Pro keyboard lost its physical Escape key. If you’re a keyboard-heavy computer user, you might find the lack of tactile feedback a problem. Fortunately, there are ways you can fix this.

One of the simplest options is to use the app Haptic Touch Bar. This is a simple app that vibrates the MacBook’s trackpad whenever you press a button on the Touch Bar. You can control exactly how much this vibrates, as well as whether to play a sound or not.

Because it’s the trackpad vibrating, the effect doesn’t feel all that realistic. Still, it’s enough to give you a tactile indication that you pressed a button.

Haptic Touch Bar is available for $5, and you can check out a free trial before you buy.

4. Customize the Touch Bar With BetterTouchTool

If you’re looking to add a whole lot more functionality to your Touch Bar, look no further than BetterTouchTool. This is an app that offers a ton of functionality beyond making your Touch Bar more useful. You can also map actions to your trackpad and even the keyboard.

Once you’ve downloaded BetterTouchTool, getting it to work with your Touch Bar is pretty simple. Launch the app, then open Preferences. Select TouchBar from the menu strip near the top of the app.

At the bottom of this window, you’ll see buttons labeled + TouchBar Button, + Widget/Gesture, and + Button Group. The first is the easiest option.

One usage example is creating buttons for frequently used apps. Click + TouchBar Button, then type the name of the app in the dialog that pops up at the bottom of the window. You can also use emoji here.

Once you’ve set the name, click Predefined Action, then Controlling Other Applications. In this menu, click Launch Application / Open File / Start Apple Script. In the menu that pops up, pick the app you want to launch.

This is just the start of what you can do with BetterTouchTool; you can map much of its functionality to the Touch Bar. The app lets you create groups of specific apps and actions, letting you create entire menus and sub-menus on the Touch Bar. BetterTouchTool can even add haptic feedback to the Touch Bar, just as Haptic Touch Bar does.

If you want to learn more, we’ve detailed the ways in which BetterTouchTool is the ultimate Mac productivity app.

Why Stop at Customizing the Touch Bar?

Now that you’ve customized your Touch Bar, do you have the urge to tweak your Mac’s behavior even more? If your answer is yes, take a look at our guide to customizing your Mac’s keyboard to personalize how you use your computer even more.

Read the full article: How to Make the MacBook Pro Touch Bar More Useful: 4 Tips

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Sprint to launch 5G service in 4 cities in May

Telecom company Sprint has shared some of its plans when it comes to 5G service in the U.S. The company announced at MWC in Barcelona that mobile customers in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City can expect 5G service as soon as May 2019.

If you don’t live in one of those cities, maybe you live in Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix or Washington D.C. Sprint also promises 5G coverage in those cities soon after the initial launch, at some point before the end of June 2019.

Overall, Sprint expects to cover 1,000 square miles in nine cities by the end of the first half of 2019. It’s going to take years to roll out 5G coverage across the U.S.

When it comes to devices, Sprint will sell smartphones that are compatible with its 5G network. The first one will be the LG V50 ThinQ 5G. The company will also sell the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G at some point this summer.

Sprint is also partnering with Google so that Google Fi customers can take advantage of Sprint’s 5G network if they have a compatible device.

And that’s about all there’s to know. It’s still unclear whether 5G plans are going to cost more.

Disclosure: Sprint competitor Verizon owns TechCrunch

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New microSD format promises insane transfer speeds, better battery life

Today MWC Barcelona the SD Association unveiled microSD Express that will allow future mobile devices to consume and create content at even faster speeds. This new microSD card platform boosts incredible transfer speeds while consuming less energy used by previous formats.

The new format will be available in the flavors of microSDHC Express, microSDXC Express and microSDUC Express.

Like SD Express, microSD Express taps the PCIe interface to hit a maximum data transfer rate of 985 megabytes per second (MB/s). This is possible through the PCIe 3.1 and NVMe v1.3 specifications that live on a second row of pins. The SD Association expects the faster cards to consume less energy than traditional memory cards while still being backwards compatible.

The fast data speeds could lead mobile device makers to rethink how they equip devices. Read and write speeds have long been a limiting factor for expandable memory, but with this new format, that’s backwards compatible, the data transfer happens nearly as quick as built-in memory. With 5G data and cameras pumping out huge files, expandable memory could make a comeback.

Want more technical information about #microSDExpress? Learn more in our newest whitepaper: https://t.co/SyVdzdwGbN pic.twitter.com/3kmsdvjJhh

— SD Association (@SD_Association) February 25, 2019

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