Background noise on calls could be a thing of the past if Krisp has anything to do with it. The app, now available on Windows and Macs after a long beta, uses machine learning to silence the bustle of a home, shared office, or coffee shop so your voice and the voices of others comes through clearly.
I first encountered Krisp in prototype form when we were visiting UC Berkeley’s Skydeck accelerator, which ended up plugging $500,000 into the startup alongside $1.5M round from Sierra Ventures and Shanda Group.
Like so many apps and services these days, Krisp uses machine learning. But unlike many of them, it uses the technology in a fairly straightforward, easily understandable way.
The machine learning model the company has created is trained to recognize the voice of a person talking into a microphone. By definition pretty much everything else is just noise — so the model just sort of subtracts it from the waveform, leaving your audio clean even if there’s a middle school soccer team invading the cafe where you’re running the call from.
It can also mute sound coming the other direction — that is, the noise on your friend’s side. So if they’re in a noisy street and you’re safe at home, you can apply the smart noise reduction to them as well.
Because it changes the audio signal before it gets to any apps or services, it’s compatible with pretty much everything: Skype, Messenger, Slack, whatever. You could even use it to record podcasts when there’s a leaf blower outside. A mobile version is on the way for release later this year.
It works — I’ve tested it, as have thousands of other users during the beta. But now comes the moment of truth: will anyone pay for it?
The new, official release of the app will let you mute the noise you hear on the line — that is, the noise coming from the microphones of people you talk to — for free, forever. But clearing the noise on your own line, like the baby crying next to you, after a two week trial period, will cost you $5 per month or $50 per year. You can collect free time by referring people to the app, but eventually you’ll probably have to shell out.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that: a straightforward pay-as-you-go business model is refreshing in an age of intrusive data collection, pushy “freemium” platforms, and services that lack any way to make money whatsoever.
With 200X the range of WiFi at 1/1000th of the cost of a cellular modem, Helium’s “LongFi” wireless network debuts today. Its transmitters can help track stolen scooters, find missing dogs via IoT collars, and collect data from infrastructure sensors. The catch is that Helium’s tiny, extremely low-power, low-data transmission chips rely on connecting to P2P Helium Hotspots people can now buy for $495. Operating those hotspots earns owners a cryptocurrency token Helium promises will be valuable in the future…
The potential of a new wireless standard has allowed Helium to raise $51 million over the past few years from GV, Khosla Ventures, and Marc Benioff including a new $15 million round c-led by Union Square Ventures and Multicoin Capital. That’s in part because one of Helium’s co-founders is Napster inventer Shawn Fanning. Investors are betting that he can change the tech world again, this time with a wireless protocol that like WiFi and Bluetooth before it could unlock unique business opportunities.
Helium already has some big partners lined up including Lime, which will test it for tracking its lost and stolen scooters and bikes when they’re brought indoors obscuring other connectivity or their battery is pulled out deactivating GPS. “It’s an ultra low-cost version of a LoJack” Helium CEO Amir Haleem says.
InvisiLeash will partner with it to build more trackable pet collars. Agulus will pull data from irrigation valves and pumps for its agriculture tech business, Nestle will track when its time to refill water in its ReadyRefresh coolers at offices, and Stay Alfred will use it to track occupancy status and air quality in buildings. Haleem also imagines the tech being useful for tracking wildfires or radiation.
Haleem met Fanning playing video games in the 2000s. They teamed up with Fanning and Sproutling baby monitor (sold to Mattel) founder Chris Bruce in 2013 to start work on Helium. They foresaw a version of Tile’s trackers that could function anywhere while replacing expensive cell connections for devices that don’t need high-bandwith. Helium will compete with SigFox, another lower-power IoT protocol, though Haleem claims its more centralized infrastructure costs are prohibitive. Lucky for Helium, on-demand rental bikes and scooters that are perfect for its network have reached mainstream popularity just as Helium launches six years after its start.
Helium says its already pre-sold 80% of its Helium Hotspots for its first market in Austin, Texas. People connect them to their Wifi and put in their window so thee devices can pull in data from Helium’s IoT sensors over its open-source LongFi protocol. The hotspots then encrypt and send the data to the company’s cloud that clients can plug into to track and collect info from their devices. The Helium Hotspots only require as much energy as a 12-watt LED lightbulb to run, but that $495 price tag is steep. The lack of a concrete return on investment could deter later adopters from buying the expensive device.
Only 150-200 hotspots are necessary to blanket a city in connectivity, Haleem tells me. But since they need to be distributed across the landscape so a client can’t just fill their warehouse with the hotspots and the upfront price is expensive for individuals, Helium might need to sign up some retail chains as partners for deployment. Haleem admits “The hard part is the education”. Making hotspot buyers understand the potential (and risks) while demonstrating the opportunities for clients will require a ton of outreach and slick marketing.
Without enough Helium Hotspots, the Helium network won’t function. That means this startup will have to simultaneously win at telecom technology, enterprise sales, and cryptocurrency for the network to pan out. As if one of those wasn’t hard enough.
With 200X the range of WiFi at 1/1000th of the cost of a cellular modem, Helium’s “LongFi” wireless network debuts today. Its transmitters can help track stolen scooters, find missing dogs via IoT collars, and collect data from infrastructure sensors. The catch is that Helium’s tiny, extremely low-power, low-data transmission chips rely on connecting to P2P Helium Hotspots people can now buy for $495. Operating those hotspots earns owners a cryptocurrency token Helium promises will be valuable in the future…
The potential of a new wireless standard has allowed Helium to raise $51 million over the past few years from GV, Khosla Ventures, and Marc Benioff including a new $15 million round led by Union Square Ventures. That’s in part because one of Helium’s co-founders is Napster inventer Shawn Fanning. Investors are betting that he can change the tech world again, this time with a wireless protocol that like WiFi and Bluetooth before it could unlock unique business opportunities.
Helium already has some big partners lined up including Lime, which will test it for tracking its lost and stolen scooters and bikes when they’re brought indoors obscuring other connectivity or their battery is pulled out deactivating GPS. “It’s an ultra low-cost version of a LoJack” Helium CEO Amir Haleem says.
InvisiLeash will partner with it to build more trackable pet collars. Agulus will pull data from irrigation valves and pumps for its agriculture tech business, Nestle will track when its time to refill water in its ReadyRefresh coolers at offices, and Stay Alfred will use it to track occupancy status and air quality in buildings. Haleem also imagines the tech being useful for tracking wildfires or radiation.
Haleem met Fanning playing video games in the 2000s. They teamed up with Fanning and Sproutling baby monitor (sold to Mattel) founder Chris Bruce in 2013 to start work on Helium. They foresaw a version of Tile’s trackers that could function anywhere while replacing expensive cell connections for devices that don’t need high-bandwith. Helium will compete with SigFox, another lower-power IoT protocol, though Haleem claims its more centralized infrastructure costs are prohibitive. Lucky for Helium, on-demand rental bikes and scooters that are perfect for its network have reached mainstream popularity just as Helium launches six years after its start.
Helium says its already pre-sold 80% of its Helium Hotspots for its first market in Austin, Texas. People connect them to their Wifi and put in their window so thee devices can pull in data from Helium’s IoT sensors over its open-source LongFi protocol. The hotspots then encrypt and send the data to the company’s cloud that clients can plug into to track and collect info from their devices. The Helium Hotspots only require as much energy as a 12-watt LED lightbulb to run, but that $495 price tag is steep. The lack of a concrete return on investment could deter later adopters from buying the expensive device.
Only 150-200 hotspots are necessary to blanket a city in connectivity, Haleem tells me. But since they need to be distributed across the landscape so a client can’t just fill their warehouse with the hotspots and the upfront price is expensive for individuals, Helium might need to sign up some retail chains as partners for deployment.
Without enough Helium Hotspots, the Helium network won’t function. That means this startup will have to simultaneously win at telecom technology, enterprise sales, and cryptocurrency for the network to pan out.
RealityEngines.AI, a research startup that wants to help enterprises make better use of AI, even when they only have incomplete data, today announced that it has raised a $5.25 million seed funding round. The round was led by former Google CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt and Google founding board member Ram Shriram. Khosla Ventures, Paul Buchheit, Deepchand Nishar, Elad Gil, Keval Desai, Don Burnette and others also participated in this round.
The fact that the service was able to raise from this rather prominent group of investors clearly shows that its overall thesis resonates. The company, which doesn’t have a product yet, tells me that it specifically wants to help enterprises make better use of the smaller and noisier datasets they have and provide them with state-of-the-art machine learning and AI systems that they can quickly take into production. It also aims to provide its customers with systems that can explain their predictions and are free of various forms of bias, something that’s hard to do when the system is essentially a black box.
As RealityEngines CEO Bindu Reddy, who was previously the head of products for Google Apps, told me the company plans to use the funding to build out its research and development team. The company, after all, is tackling some of the most fundamental and hardest problems in machine learning right now — and that costs money. Some, like working with smaller datasets, already have some available solutions like generative adversarial networks that can augment existing datasets and that RealityEngines expects to innovate on.
Reddy is also betting on reinforcement learning as one of the core machine learning techniques for the platform.
Once it has its product in place, the plan is to make it available as a pay-as-you-go managed service that will make machine learning more accessible to large enterprise, but also to small and medium businesses, which also increasingly need access to these tools to remain competitive.
Private equity firms get a bad rap — and not without reason. In the prototypical example, a bunch of men in suits (and these folks always seem to be men for some reason) swoop in from Manhattan with Excel spreadsheets and pink slips, slashing and burning through an organization while ladening the balance sheet with debt in an algebraic alchemy of monetary extraction.
Vultures, parasites, octopuses — these are folks who almost certainly won popularity contests in high school and now seem to be shooting for most unpopular person to be compared to a crustacean in the Finance section of the WSJ (and there is some damn strong competition in those pages).
Sometimes that restructuring can save an org, and yes, many companies need a Marie Kondo armed with a business plan. But it’s a model that works best for, say, retail chains, and traditionally has been wholly incompatible with the tech industry.
Tech is a tough place for private equity buyouts, since the biggest expense for most companies is talent (i.e. R&D), and cutting R&D is usually the quickest path to cutting the valuation of the asset you just acquired. Unlike retail or manufacturing, there are just less cost levers to manipulate to make the numbers look better, and so PE firms have generally shied away from big tech acquisitions.
So it was interesting talking to Simon Segars this week in New York. Segars is the CEO and longtime executive at ARM Holdings, the UK-headquartered chip designer that powers billions of devices worldwide. Over the past two decades, ARM has had just an incredible run: last year, its designs were imprinted on 22.9 billion chips, thanks largely to the now ubiquitous adoption of smartphones across the world.
That success has been under stress though. As Brian Heater analyzed in his State of the Smartphone, smartphone growth has slowed in most markets as consumers extend their upgrade cycles and the pace of innovation has slowed. Add in the on-going trade kerfuffle between the U.S. and China, and suddenly being the worldwide leading designer of smartphone chips isn’t as enviable as it was even just a few years ago.
As a public company facing this landscape, ARM would have faced incredible pressure from investors to meet short-term revenue targets while cutting back on R&D — the very source of future growth the company has relied on its entire history. But ARM isn’t a public company — instead, SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son bought out the company entirely in 2016 for $32 billion.
Rather than being pegged to its stock price or a quick return to a PE shop, ARM is now seemingly evaluated on growth in its intellectual property and strategy for capturing new markets. “I’m in a very fortunate position where, despite the slowing of the smartphone market, … I’ve got an owner that says, invest, you know, invest like crazy to make sure you capture these ways of growth in the future, which is what we’re doing,” Segars explained to TechCrunch.
The company could have just doubled down on its existing product lines, but SoftBank’s ownership has opened the floodgates to explore other areas that could use ARM expertise. The company is now focused (if one can focus on many things) on everything from 5G and networking to IoT and autonomous driving. “We look to be in the right place at the right time with the right technology to catch the upswing into the future,“ Segars said.
That strategy requires some serious audacity though. ARM’s EBITDA was $225 million last year (21% lower than the year before) on $1.8 billion in net sales, which year-over-year grew a paltry 0.2% according to SoftBank’s latest financials. Meanwhile, operating expenses are up from the addition of hundreds of new employees and a new headquarters campus in Cambridge outside London. R&D isn’t cheap, nor does it payoff quickly.
Yet, that is exactly how Son and SoftBank approach this take-private transaction. “During the acquisition process, Masa said to me, ‘You run the business, I only care about long-term strategy, not going to interfere, you know, you know what you’re doing.’ … [and] Masa has been absolutely true to his word on that,” Segars said. “From a day-to-day basis, SoftBank leaves us completely alone.”
And unlike the bean counters that plague most PE shops, Son isn’t interested in detailed operational data from the firm. “When I give tactical updates… he’s asleep, [but] try stopping him when he’s talking about long-term strategy,” Segars said.
While ARM clearly has a bullish owner who somehow uses financial wizardry to give the company the resources it needs to grow, Son doesn’t have an infinite timeline for the company. Much like classic PE firms with 5-7 year time horizons to harvest returns, Son has already spoken out loud about pushing ARM back into the public markets in roughly five years time.
“I’m pretty sure, the night before we go public again, I’m going to be thinking ‘Man, I wish we’d had more time, you know, five years sounds like a lot,” Segars said. But “the way I talk about it within ARM is we’re in an investment phase now … and the goal is that by the time we re-list, … the revenues from these new markets are taking off and that’s flowing to the bottom line and we get back to a world of growing top line and expanding margins.”
In other words, ARM is a classic PE deal, but with the focus on actually getting the fundamentals in the business right without that financial alchemy and employee firing sadness. Maybe the plan will work, or maybe it won’t, but it is the right approach to handling the growth of a tech company.
How many other tech companies could use such an approach? How many other companies are currently languishing if only they had more focused owners with a true growth mindset to invest in the future? Silicon Valley has created trillions of dollars in market value over the past two decades, but there is even more waiting to be unlocked. And the best part is, it doesn’t even require an Excel macro to make it happen.
Google will now allow iPhone and iPad owners to use their Android security key to verify sign-ins, the company said Wednesday.
Last month, the search and mobile giant said it developed a new Bluetooth-based protocol that will allow modern Android 7.0 devices and later to act as a security key for two-factor authentication. Since then, Google said 100,000 users are already using their Android phones as a security key.
Since its debut, the technology was limited to Chrome sign-ins. Now Google says Apple device owners can get the same protections without having to plug anything in.
Signing in to a Google account on an iPad using an Android 7.0 device. (Image: Google)
Security keys are an important security step for users who are particularly at risk of advanced attacks. They’re designed to thwart even the smartest and most resourceful attackers, like nation-state hackers. Instead of a security key that you keep on your keyring, newer Android devices have the technology built-in. When you log in to your account, you are prompted to authenticate with your key. Even if someone steals your password, they can’t log in without your authenticating device. Even phishing pages won’t work because only legitimate websites support security keys.
For the most part, security keys are a last line of defense. Google admitted last month that its standalone Titan security keys were vulnerable to a pairing bug, potentially putting it at risk of hijack. The company offered a free replacement for any affected device.
The security key technology is also FIDO2 compliant, a secure and flexible standard that allows various devices and running different operating systems to communicate with each other for authentication.
For now, Google said the Android security key will be limited to sign-ins to Google accounts only.
Slack’s rapid rise and upcoming IPO are clear signs of the ripe opportunity to be had in the field of enterprise messaging. Today, a startup that’s built a messaging product specifically for the financial services vertical is also proving that out. Symphony, which offers secure messaging and other collaboration tools for bankers and those who work with them, is today announcing that it has raised $165 million. With this round, Symphony’s valuation now tops $1.4 billion.
The funding comes from Standard Chartered and MUFG Innovation Partners (a division of Mitsubishi that makes fintech investments), and also included other (unnamed) current and new investors. Symphony has now raised a very hefty $460 million, with previous backers including Google, Lakestar, Natixis, Societe Generale, UBS, Merus Capital and BNP Paribas, along with a consortium of 14 of the world’s largest investment banks and money managers, including Bank of America, BlackRock, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and JP Morgan.
Notably, its financial backers are all strategic investors in the company: they use Symphony both for internal collaboration as well a channel to communicate with outside partners and integrate data from across their networks in a secure and compliant way.
And before you consider Symphony’s expansion into new products and plans for the funding — more on those below — that usage has been on an upward trajectory. With an expanded presence outside of its home market of the US into Europe and Asia, the company now has 425,000 users across some 400 companies using its mobile and desktop apps for messaging, voice and video conversations, and more. As a point of comparison, when the company last raised money, in 2017, it had 200,000 paying customers.
That came in the form of a new product called Symphony Market Solutions, with many of the companies now adopting its product doing so in the context of “digital transformation” agendas — bringing their IT infrastructure and what it’s there to serve up to speed with modern developments.
For banks and others in the financial services industry, this is a notable development: more than any other vertical, except tech itself of course, financial giants have long been recruiters and builders of their own innovative IT services. That was in part because that is what necessity dictated: with tens of billions of dollars at stake, proprietary trading software built to do something better than your rivals can could give you a distinct advance. And part practicality: it can help you keep a better security and audit trail for what passes through that product.
Fast forward to today, and banks are cutting costs like everyone else, and they are also suffering from the brain drain that has hit many other verticals: big technology companies, and the lure of building a potentially lucrative startup, have become magnets for many of the greatest technical minds.
That has resulted in an interesting emergence of companies that are building products for these companies, knowing specifically what they need, and they’re getting more face time and consideration by buyers than ever before. Symphony is not the only one; BlueVoyant — which also recently raised funding — has also developed a similar proposition specifically in the area of security.
“Symphony has generated tremendous interest for revolutionising buy-side and sell-side secure messaging and collaboration in global markets, both in content curation and consumption as well as the workflow across the whole deal life-cycle,” said Yann Gerardin, Deputy Chief Operating Officer and Head of Corporate and Institutional Banking at BNP Paribas, in a statement.
On the use of the chatbots, Darren Cohen, global head of Principal Strategic Investments (PSI), Goldman Sachs, noted that it’s a likely sign of how the product and the banking industry will continue to developl “The rapid proliferation of Symphony bots and application integrations across the trade lifecycle and throughout the enterprise gives us a glimpse into the future,” he said in a statement. “Symphony’s secure infrastructure and diverse ecosystem will enable the industry to unlock significant operational efficiency and meaningfully enhance the client experience.”
The other side of the communications are coming from organizations that are using Symphony to communicate with each other and share information across walled gardens.
Alex Manson, Global Head of SC Ventures, Standard Chartered, pointed out in an interview that this is helping Symphony expand its presence in other verticals, for example with the accounting and legal firms that are using the app to communicate with their clients, who are already using Symphony.
Another vertical that’s seeing some early traction with Symphony is government, which has a similarly strong need for security and audit trails. The startup is currently running some trials with government groups but declined to provide details on them.
Interestingly, Symphony is also exploring another kind of walled garden expansion:
For its investor-customers, Symphony represents not just a service that can help them get their jobs done more efficiently, but an opportunity for learning at a time when many fintech startups, including challenger banks, are nipping at incumbents’ feet.
“What is the bank of today versus the bank of tomorrow?” Manson said. “Collaboration tools give us the potential to bridge verticals, especially as the lines between them become blurry.”
Facebook today is expanding its set of features focused on blood donations. The company since 2017 has been working with blood donation centers worldwide who have been able to use the platform to reach potential donors and then reach out to them in times of need. Now, Facebook is bringing its Blood Donations feature to the U.S.
At launch, Facebook is partnering with leading blood donation organizations across the U.S., including America’s Blood Centers, the American Red Cross, Inova, New York Blood Center, Rock River Valley Blood Center, Stanford Blood Center, Versiti, and Vitalant.
It’s also first launching Blood Donations in select urban markets ahead of a nationwide rollout. To start, the feature will arrive in Chicago, New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the company says.
The U.S. Blood Donations feature is similar to the one already available elsewhere in the world — including Bangladesh, Brazil, India, and Pakistan.
To access the Blood Donations feature, U.S. Facebook users in the supported markets can sign up by visiting its page from the “About” section of their Facebook profile. Here, they’ll give Facebook permission to notify them when nearby blood banks need their help. When the blood banks are running low on supply, they can also turn to Facebook to alert the nearby donors through the platform.
People will see and respond to these blood donation requests and opportunities on the Blood Donations destination on Facebook. They can also use tools on this page to inspire their friends to donate, too.
Since its 2017 launch, the Blood Donations feature has performed well. Over 35 million people signed up in the handful of worldwide markets where it was first available. In India and Brazil, blood donation centers said that 20% of people said Facebook influenced their decision to donate — a statistic based on in-person surveys conducted at the blood banks.
“Through our partnership with Facebook, individuals will be able to conveniently find and connect with their local blood center to help meet the ongoing need for a diverse pool of blood donors in the US and share their experiences and the importance of blood donation,” said Kate Fry, chief executive officer at America’s Blood Centers, in a statement about today’s launch. “By encouraging blood donation as a way of life, each of us can assure that the more than 30,000 pints of blood used daily throughout the country is available.”
The launch is timed just ahead of World Blood Donor Day on June 14. Founded by the World Health Organization, the day is meant to raise awareness of the regular need for blood donations. Facebook says it will host blood donations in some of its own offices on this day, and will run awareness campaigns in Brazil and India. It’s also partnering with Missing Types for a campaign with the American Red Cross and Vitalant to help draw attention to the need for blood donors, it says.
“We are grateful to Facebook for supporting the Missing Types campaign, which underscores the critical need for blood donors,” said Cliff Numark, senior vice president, American Red Cross. “This campaign comes at exactly the right time, as busy summer schedules make it extremely challenging to sign up sufficient blood donors. And Facebook’s new blood donation feature makes it even easier to make a lifesaving donation,” he added.
What does a gaming company do after raising $1.25 billion? Acquisitions seem like a pretty good place to start. Epic Games — of Unreal Engine and the ridiculously successful Fortnite phenomenon — has has just picked up Houseparty. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The social video app announced the news via blog post this morning. The deal seems like a natural fit for Epic. Social has been a an integral piece of Fortnite’s success as a multiplayer battle Royale title.
Founded in 2015, Houseparty is a social network that delivers video chat across a number of different platforms, including iOS, Android and macOS. Like Fortnite, the offering tends to skew younger. Specifically, the app caters toward teen users, providing a more private and safer space than other, broader platforms.
“Houseparty brings people together, creating positive social interactions in real time,” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said in a Media post announcing the news. “By teaming up, we can build even more fun, shared experiences than what could be achieved alone.”
For Houseparty, the acquisition appears to mean the app will continue to operate relatively unchanged for the time being. In an FAQ, the company noted that the app largely staying the same as of today. Things like friendships and streaks will remain untouched by the company and Epic and Houseparty accounts will stay separate. How such integration looks going forward remains to be seen, of course.
“Joining Epic is a great step forward in achieving our mission of bringing empathy to online communication,” Houseparty CEO Sima Sistani said of the news. “We have a common vision to make human interaction easier and more enjoyable, and always with respect for user privacy.”
With some massive investments on its side, it seems more acquisitions are likely in the cards for the gaming company. In January it purchased Serbia-based computer design startup 3Latera.
In this second of my two-part conversation on the ethics of technology with Jessica Powell, the former head of PR at Google turned author of the wonderful satirical novel, The Big Disruption: A Totally Fictional But Essentially True Silicon Valley Story, we discuss the meaning of “genius” in the tech world; why Silicon Valley multi-millionaires vote for socialists; and whether it is possible to use the master’s code to destroy his app.
But first, an excerpt that might seem absurd at first, but considering that so many tech companies are currently working on or talking about space travel, it’s hard to be sure whom Powell is even satirizing here:
“Slow down,” Niels said. “Are you joking with me?”
“We have been working on the project for a year,” Gregor said. “Fifty engineers working in secret in Building 1. We’re building a colony on the moon.”
“You mean you have a spaceship and everything? How are you dealing with gravity? Wait, never mind, don’t answer that. What I mean is, since when did Anahata get into the business of humankind?”
“Anahata has always only ever been about humankind. Everything we do is done for — “
“Yeah, yeah, I know, everything we do is to improve humankind. But I mean, a society, Gregor. There are no synergies with our current business. How do you know how to construct a society?”
“Actually, a society is a lot like software. You build it on solid principles, then you iterate. Then you solutionize, and you iterate again.”
“What makes you think you can solve what centuries of wise men have failed to do?”
“Because we have something they don’t have,” Gregor said. He pushed his chair closer, and Niels couldn’t help but lean forward. The broken wooden spindle leaned with him, pushing into his back. But he did not move to swat it away; his eyes were locked on Gregor, their faces almost touching.
“Algorithms,” Gregor whispered.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Niels snorted. “These are humans we’re talking about, not robots. You can’t predict and control human behavior with algorithms.”
“That is an emotional reaction to what is a very logical project. And, yes, an algorithm could have predicted that you would respond that way. Even irrational behavior is rational when seen as a larger grouping of patterns. And as you can imagine, this project is built on patterns of success. Project Y, we call it. It will save Anahata — and, as a result, humankind.”
Greg E.: Let’s talk about the ideas in the book. Your Google-like company, Anahata, is symbolized by a squid that becomes the size of a bus, which is a great symbol of course for what companies like Google have become.
You explore what drives that kind of expansion, and in large part it’s a personal drive. One could say it’s a sex drive, but what I took from it was more a drive to be noticed, needed, recognized, that gets out of proportion.
I was wondering to what extent you felt like some of the crazy foibles of these male engineer characters being obsessed with women and women’s approval, was less about an actual sex drive and more about what the approval of those women would mean to them? They’re finally attractive enough, they’re finally likable enough. How do you feel about that?
Jessica P.: Oh, yeah. I think it definitely has a status thing. So much of the driver of this book is about ego. I think that’s absolutely the case.
Greg E.: At one point, the dichotomy between having a guiding philosophy and just being into your own ego took the form of character you call The Fixer, who is very Zen, and the CEO and big executives go to him essentially saying, “please fix our problem.”
Xiaomi has refreshed its smart fitness tracker and unveiled a range of other gadgets in China, giving a glimpse at some of its affordable products that it will likely be bringing to other markets in the coming future.
The wearable fitness tracker, called Mi Smart Band 4, sports a bigger AMOLED display (39.9% increase in screen size) than its popular year-old predecessor and features support for XiaoAI, the company’s voice assistant that can be activated with a voice command.
The bigger display, which supports 16 million colors and 77 customized themes, will allow users to quickly glance at notifications and fitness stats. The tracker also supports offline payments via AliPay. It is still very affordable, priced at just RMB 169 (roughly $24.5).
Coupled with the long durability that previous generation smart bands have offered, it is no wonder that the Chinese giant has emerged as the second largest wearable maker in the world. According to IDC, Xiaomi shipped 7.5 million wearable units in the waning quarter of last year, second only to Apple, which shipped 16.2 units.
The company has also launched a smart lock, dubbed Mi Smart Door Lock, that offers up to six unlocking modes and allows users to track its status in real time. It also works with the NFC variant of Mi Smart Band 4 that when paired can serve as a key. It is priced at RMB 1699 (roughly $245).
The announcement comes as Xiaomi, which went public last year and is increasingly trying to expand its services business, struggles to meet analysts expectations. The Chinese group, once thought of worth over $100 billion, has a market cap of under $30 billion currently.
Xiaomi also launched a smart washing machine, induction cooker, e-skate hover, digital translator, and pens. The washing machine, called Mi Smart Combo Wash Dryer, sports OLED smart buttons and supports voice controls for activating or halting a washing cycle. It is priced at RMB 2999 (roughly $433).
Shaped like a smartphone, the Mi AI Translator, comes preloaded with Oxford and Collins dictionary as well as Chinese dictionaries. It is aimed at people who are trying to learn a new language and want to improve their pronunciation. It supports real-time translation between 34 languages. It starts at RMB 499 (roughly $72).
Have you ever found a piece of amazing software, only to realize it is Mac-only? With such a vast range of software available for Windows machines, it is a rarity. But, at times, there are just some apps that are better on macOS.
If you have a Windows 10 system, there are very few ways you can run Mac apps on your device. However, it isn’t impossible.
Here’s how you run Mac apps on your Windows 10 machine, for free.
Step 1: Create a macOS Virtual Machine
The easiest way to run Mac apps on your Windows 10 machine is with a virtual machine. While it is the easiest method, it is also a lengthy process. Don’t worry!
The tutorial will guide you through the virtual machine download and installation process, how to download the macOS operating system, and how to install it in the virtual machine.
Once your macOS virtual machine is up and running, return to this tutorial to find out how to install your Mac apps.
Step 2: Log Into Your Apple Account
From here, downloading and using an Apple app is very similar to the regular macOS experience. You still need to log in to your Apple account to download and use apps from the App Store.
Step 3: Download Your First macOS App
Once you sign into your account, you have the run of the App Store. You can install almost any macOS software you want in your virtual machine.
Select the App Store from the Dock at the bottom of the screen. You may well have to enter your Apple ID credentials again.
Browse to the macOS app you want to download. Hit Get, then Install. After installation completes, select Open, and you’re good to go. For instance, here’s an example where I am using Downlink to put an automatically update my background with satellite images.
Step 4: Save Your macOS Virtual Machine Session
Saving the state of your macOS virtual machine session is easy. Why? Well, you’re using a virtual hard disk. The changes you make to the virtual machine save in the virtual hard drive, ready for the next time you want to open the macOS virtual machine and continue using the Apple Apps on your Windows machine.
The best way to shut down the macOS virtual machine is from within macOS itself. Both VirtualBox and VMware have an option to power down on command, but as with physical hardware, this can cause an issue. In fact, a sudden shutdown on your virtual machine can corrupt the virtual drive.
Select the Apple logo in the top-right corner, then Shut Down. The operating system will close in the correct sequence, then the virtual machine will close.
Snapshot or Power Off?
VirtualBox users also have the option to take a snapshot. A snapshot saves the current state of the virtual machine, allowing you to create a string of snapshots as you use Apple apps and the macOS operating system.
Snapshots are handy if you are about to attempt something that might damage your virtual machine. A snapshot allows you to restore the virtual machine to the previous state, picking up where you left off.
The free version of VMware doesn’t have the same functionality, unfortunately.
Still, you shouldn’t rely on a snapshot to back up your virtual machine activities, nor are snapshots suitable as an alternative to shutting down your virtual machine using the macOS Shut Down option.
The Apple Apps Aren’t Very Fast
Your macOS virtual machine isn’t working well? Or are the macOS apps you’re downloading not running as you expect?
The thing to remember is that your virtual machine doesn’t have the same processing power as your host machine. That is because your virtual machine is sharing the system resources of the host. You may well have a very powerful host machine, with incredible amounts of RAM and multi-core Intel i9 processor. But the vast majority don’t.
What I’m saying is, don’t expect too much from the software you install. It isn’t the same as installing and testing on a dedicated Mac.
Updating Your macOS Virtual Machine
In a word, don’t.
If you update your macOS virtual machine on either VirtualBox or VMware, there is a very strong chance your macOS virtual machine will stop working.
Due to the nature of the configuration of the virtual machines, the update process is not the same as a regular macOS installation on proper hardware. The patches and workarounds that make the macOS virtual machine work with a particular version may not work with the update.
Of course, you are welcome to try, but know that you could lose everything in the virtual machine in the process.
Running a macOS virtual machine to use Apple apps isn’t an option for everyone. While you can get away with running your macOS virtual machine with 4GB RAM, your experience will suffer. Older machines certainly won’t handle the requirements.
One alternative is to use a cloud-based macOS environment. macOS cloud environments are predominantly for Apple app and macOS development, but you can still run an app if you wish. The downside is the cost of the cloud service and the latency between your system and the cloud server.
Using Apple Apps on Windows 10
The vast majority of Apple apps now also have Windows equivalents or alternatives. Many have a Linux equivalent, too. All it takes is a quick internet search, and you will find the equivalent app, perhaps saving you a heap of time in the process.
Do also note that using macOS on non-Apple hardware is against Apple’s End User License Agreement (EULA).
Running a macOS virtual machine to test an app is handy, but only if you have the correct hardware and a little time to get it all set up. Of course, you can use a virtual machine to test other operating systems, too. Here’s a guide on how to install Linux in Windows with a virtual machine.
In this week’s Really Useful Podcast, Christian Cawley and James Frew take a look at the most important Apple news from WWDC 2019, grammar checking tools, positivity apps, and admiring a current MakeUseOf giveaway for an underwater drone.
Really Useful Podcast Season 3 Episode 2 Shownotes
Adjust is announcing that it has raised $227 million in new funding.
The company, founded in Berlin back in 2012, has created a variety of ad measurement and anti-fraud tools — CEO Christian Henschel said the goal is to “make marketing simpler, smarter and safer.” Adjust says it’s now being used in more than 25,000 mobile apps for customers like NBCUniversal, Zynga, Robinhood, Pinterest and Procter & Gamble.
It’s been nearly four years since the company raised its previous round of $15 million. Henschel (pictured above with his co-founder and CTO Paul Müller) told me the company was already profitable back then, and it’s continued to be profitable while growing revenue by an average of 80 percent every year. So it raised more money (a lot more), he said, “because we saw the opportunity … to grow our business even further.”
Henschel pointed to three broad areas where Adjust is planning to invest and grow. First, there’s combating fraud, where he said the company was “very early,” first launching its mobile fraud prevention suite in 2016. It expanded its offerings earlier this year with the acquisition of Unbotify.
Second, he said Adjust will continue to invest in automation and aggregation — an area where it made another recent acquisition, namely the data aggregation company Acquired.io.
“We’re giving our customers the ability to get rid of the repetitive and boring tasks and really focus them back on thigns that human beings are very good at — that is creativity,” Henschel said.
Lastly, the company (which already has 350 employees in 15 offices worldwide) will continue to invest in customer service and geographic expansion, particularly in Asia.
Speaking of acquisitions, Adjust says it’s also partnered with Japanese marketing agency Adways and acquired Adways’ attribution tool PartyTrack. So naturally, you might assume that this new capital means even more deals are in the works, but Henschel said, “Acquisitions are always tough — it’s hard to find the right companies, and even harder to integrate them.”
In other words, he’s open to acquiring more companies, but he said, “We don’t have any plans right now.”
This new round brings Adjust’s total funding to $250 million. It was led by Eurazeo Growth, Highland Europe, Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners and Sofina.
“Adjust reached profitability just three years after its creation, and has seen extraordinary growth since then,” said Eurazeo Growth’s Yann du Rusquec in a statement. “The company is ideally positioned to further expand its product and footprint throughout 2019 and beyond, cementing its position as one of the most successful global tech champions to come out of Europe.”
Microsoft is changing the way Xbox Gamertags work. The changes mean that you’ll have many more options available to you when choosing (or changing) your Gamertag. Thankfully, if you’re happy with your current Gamertag you can keep everything as it is.
Xbox Gamertags are the nicknames Xbox owners use when gaming. They mean you don’t have to use your real name, letting you create an online persona. You’ve been able to change your Gamertag for a while, but the options available are now expanding.
Microsoft’s New Xbox Gamertag Options
As detailed in a post on Xbox Wire, the first new Xbox Gamertag option is support for more character sets. Microsoft is adding support for 10 more worldwide alphabets, which means Gamertags will now encompass 200 commonly spoken languages.
The new character sets are Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement, Hangul, Katakana, Hiragana, CJK Symbols for languages in China, Japan, and Korea, Bengali, Devanagari, Cyrillic, and Thai. Which gives you a vastly expanded set of characters to use.
There are some changes coming to Xbox Live Gamertags to support more naming scripts to represent over 200 languages and provide you more options with selecting (or changing) your Gamertag. https://t.co/b5yORYLRxj
The second change is ID suffixes. These mean that anyone can choose any Gamertag they like, even if that name has already been taken. In the event that someone has already taken it, the name will have a hashtag followed by a set of numbers to make it unique.
Microsoft gives the example of “Doctor Hoot,” which would become “Doctor Hoot#1056”. This may not be the prettiest solution, but it’s better than not getting to use your preferred nickname at all. It’s very similar to what works on Steam, Discord, and Battle.net.
If You’re Happy With Your Gamertag…
If you’re already on Xbox and are happy with your current Gamertag, you don’t need to do anything. Your Gamertag will remain the same and won’t have an ID suffix added to it. However, be aware that people can now use the same name as you, albeit with a suffix.
These changes are available right now through the Xbox app for PC and Xbox Game Bar. They will be rolled out to consoles and mobile devices over the next year, so if you make any changes now, you may not see the changes take place across all devices quite yet.
If you want to make more use of these new options, here’s how to change your Xbox Gamertag. Sony has also introduced the option, so here’s how to change your PSN name. Just beware that it costs real money to change them, so try to get it right the first time.
Shazam has gained a new feature allowing it to identify music playing through your headphones. In a nutshell, this means that regardless of the app you’re using, Shazam can identify the song playing through it without actually hearing it.
An Introduction to Shazam
For the uninitiated, Shazam is an app which helps you identify a song whose name escapes you. Say your sitting in a bar and a song you used to like starts playing. You can whip out your phone, let Shazam listen in, and find out the name of the song.
As cool as Shazam is, the app has always had a blind spot. In order to identify music, it would actually have to hear it. Which, if the music was playing on your phone, would mean unplugging your headphones or holding one earpiece against the microphone.
How to Identify a Song While Wearing Headphones
This is no longer the case. With the latest update, Shazam can now identify music played through headphones. This means that if you’re sitting on a bus watching YouTube and hear a song in the background, you won’t need to disturb everyone in order to identify it.
This works across a whole host of different apps. Basically, if you have Shazam installed on your phone, it can hear any music being played in another app. That is once you have enabled the Pop Up Shazam feature in the Settings menu.
This feature is currently only available on Android. Which is ironic given that Apple now owns Shazam, having acquired the company in 2018. However, this feature relies on permissions that iOS currently doesn’t support, handing Android an exclusive.
This feature isn’t particularly useful for apps such as Spotify, which display the song currently playing anyway. However, if you hear a song being used in an advert in a podcast, for example, Pop Up Shazam should work a treat. And display the song lyrics as a bonus.
Shazam isn’t the only app capable of identifying songs by hearing them. The major competition being Musixmatch and SoundHound. So we pitched Shazam vs. Musixmatch vs. SoundHound to see which was best. Read the article to find out who won.
Many of the best video games feature timeless gameplay that you can return to again and again. Unfortunately, the outdated graphics can ruin everything. Thankfully, remastered games have come along to solve this issue.
Whether you want to revisit an old favorite in HD or experience classic titles for the first time, let’s take a look at some of the best remastered video games you can pick up and play today.
A Note on Remaster Terminology
When discussing remastered video games, the terminology can get rather confusing. However, once you know what you’re looking for it’s actually quite simple.
A remaster refers to a graphically improved version of a game that still shares most of its core with the original release. While a remaster may fix glitches or add a bit of additional content, the focus is on touching up what already exists.
Conversely, a remake is a near-complete redesign of a game. This can include changes to the gameplay, physics, and similar. An example is the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy.
Meanwhile, a port refers to taking a game from one platform and making it available on another. While this may involve small enhancements or graphical changes, ports are not usually remakes or remasters.
Finally, a reboot is a game that forgoes the existing story of a franchise and starts it over for a new generation. 2016’s Doom and 2013’s Tomb Raider are both good examples of reboots.
We’re focusing exclusively on remasters.
1. Grim Fandango Remastered
First released in 1998, Grim Fandango is a noir adventure story split up into four chapters, each taking place a year apart. Throughout the game, you’ll play as the main character—Manuel “Manny” Calavera—wandering around Grim Fandango’s classic city setting.
Grim Fandango has held up (and received acclaim) for so long. Whereas other adventure games grant you the same play styles and arcs, providing a load of meaningless quests, the point of Grim Fandango is to immerse you in both the characters and the universe.
There’s a dual layer to everything the game has to offer. It’s not enough to give players a puzzle if it doesn’t also further the plot. You don’t receive information using only cutscenes; instead, the game turns the noir dial to 11 and you get a Casablanca-inspired comic interplay with characters you’ve just met but already love.
The original Dark Souls became a force in the gaming community. It did to the action genre what most would have considered impossible: create a quasi-open world action game with arcade-level difficulty.
You could even say Dark Souls awakened the sadistic trend of punishing and crushing the average player with its difficult bosses. What most don’t mention, however, is the beautifully dark environment and rugged terrain which perfectly compliment the gameplay.
That’s what catapulted the Dark Souls franchise from a frustrating action adventure to one of the most notable and recognized gaming franchises today. The love-hate relationship continues on with the remastered version of Dark Souls.
Paradise is the last true game in the excellent Burnout racing series. What sets these games apart is their emphasis on dangerous driving and battling with your opponents. Driving on the wrong side of the road, near-missing traffic, and getting big air rewards you with boost. Smash your opponents into the wall to take them out and leave them in your dust.
Instead of the arcade level-based gameplay of previous games, Burnout Paradise features a full open world to explore. In between events, you can find collectibles, challenge the record time on each road, and even play online with others. The Remastered version brings improved graphics, better performance, and all the DLC from the original, including an extra Big Surf Island area and motorcycles.
If you like adrenaline-fueled action and find traditional racing games a bit boring, you’ll have a blast with Burnout Paradise Remastered.
Get It Now: Burnout Paradise Remastered for PS4 | Xbox One | PC
4. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD
The Legend of Zelda is a renowned series, and most of its games have stood the test of time. While Nintendo has remastered several games in the series, we think The Wind Waker HD stands as the best (see our guide to the Legend of Zelda series for information on the other games).
Its derivative cartoon art style had many fans worried before its initial release in 2003. Once you play it, though, you’ll love the unique art style. Link is more expressive than ever, and it’s fun to see longtime Zelda enemies remade in this form.
The Wind Waker HD makes these graphics even more impressive. It uses the Wii U GamePad for enhanced aiming and inventory management, plus makes some gameplay modifications for a streamlined experience. This all makes The Wind Waker HD a great first Zelda game if you’re new to the series.
The only drawback is that it’s on the dead Wii U, but if you have the system, you should definitely check it out.
Get It Now: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD for Wii U
5. The Last of Us Remastered
The Last of Us stands as one of the most memorable titles on the PS3. A game as beautiful in gameplay as it is in story, The Last of Us was released to critical acclaim and has maintained its spot as a high point in gaming history.
Besides the obvious enhancements to in-game textures, The Last of Us Remastered also includes the major benefit of 60 FPS gameplay. This means smoother shooting, more immersive environments, and improved stealth. Oh, and there’s an all-new Photo Mode to capture all the pretty/gritty goodness of The Last of Us’s post-apocalyptic United States.
All around, this is a better-looking version of an already fantastic game. It’s one of the best PS4 exclusives whether you played the original or not.
Whether you’re a longtime Halo fan or not, The Master Chief Collection stands as one of the top remastered games on its value alone. You get full remastered campaigns of the first four Halo games, including an HD remake of Halo 2. What’s more, the collection includes every multiplayer map from the original games.
Those who want to experience Master Chief’s story for the first time will have just as much fun as those reliving long nights playing Halo’s online multiplayer. At the time of writing, the game remains an Xbox One exclusive, though a PC release is on the way.
Get It Now: Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Xbox One | PC
7. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition
Skyrim Special Edition is the definitive version of one of Bethesda’s most popular RPGs. Released five years after the extremely successful original title, the Special Edition serves as a graphical update for both fans of and newcomers to Skyrim.
The allure here is largely to console players who didn’t play the game on the PS3 or Xbox 360. Due to mod support, many PC players had already enhanced Skyrim before the official remastered release. However, on PC, its technical updates are a big advantage. Skyrim Special Edition is a 64-bit game, meaning most in-game aspects—both official and modded—run better, faster, and with fewer glitches.
It’s unlikely that you haven’t played Skyrim by now, but if you’re looking to get into one of the most acclaimed RPGs ever, this is the way to do it. The game is also available for the Nintendo Switch, but due to that system’s reduced power, it’s not the Special Edition.
Get It Now: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition for PC | Xbox One | PS4 | Switch
8. BioShock: The Collection
The original BioShock is a hallmark in video game storytelling. While its sequels never quite reached the same heights, they still create interesting worlds that you’ll enjoy exploring.
BioShock: The Collection packs all three titles into one package. With new textures, lighting, combat advancements, and additional commentary, it’s the best investment for anyone interested in playing or replaying the games. It also includes a museum of scrapped ideas from the first game, which is pretty interesting.
Make sure to avoid spoilers if this is your first time going through the worlds of Rapture and Columbia. Otherwise, would you kindly play these great games as soon as possible?
Get It Now: BioShock: The Collection for PC | PS4 | Xbox One
9. Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection
Alongside The Last of Us, Uncharted is one of the PlayStation’s flagship games. Each offers a thrilling action adventure shooter through all sorts of exotic locations. Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection remasters the original three games with enhanced graphics, textures, and 60FPS gameplay.
Nathan Drake’s saga is about as close as you can get to “playing a movie” and still having a ton of fun with it. With memorable characters, stirring music, and great voice acting, this is an adventure you can’t miss. Once you complete these games, make sure to check out Uncharted 4 for the conclusion of the story.
Get It Now: Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection for PS4
10. Okami HD
Okami is a masterpiece, albeit a rather strange one. The hype makes more sense once you’ve played the game for yourself. It’s one of the oldest games on this list, and the fact that Okami has maintained enough of its popularity to warrant a remaster so many years later is impressive.
Okami certainly deserves the HD release. Its watercolor art style benefits from the impressive 4K upgrade, and thankfully little from the original was altered. This ensures an original experience, even if you never played the game when it was new.
Unfortunately, the game only runs at 30FPS. That said, its cinematic art is still stunning in HD. Don’t miss this one, especially if you’re a Zelda fan. Okami features a similar gameplay style.
Some argue remasters like these are simply ways for companies to squeeze extra money out of a previous release. There’s some truth in that. However, the best remastered games can breathe new life into classic titles, especially for new audiences.
If any of the video game remasters listed above engender nostalgia, consider trying out their HD remakes. It’s never too late to relive and replay these remasters. If you’re looking for more games to play, check out our list of the best Nintendo Switch games.
Apple Macs are great devices for photo editing, especially for professionals. The Mac’s Retina display, coupled with powerful processors, make for a seamless image editing workflow.
No matter if you’re an amateur looking to enhance your family vacation photos or a professional photographer working under pressure, there are Mac image editors to suit your needs.
Here are the best free and paid image editors for Mac.
The Best Free Mac Image Editors
If you’re looking for a basic editor, you don’t need to buy a fully featured editing suite. A basic image editor is both easy to use and has all the features that you’d need to fix and enhance your personal photos.
1. Photoscape X
Photoscape X is a great basic image editor for Mac you’ve probably never heard of. It’s an all-in-one app that lets you edit RAW images, fix photos, add filters, and more. Using the brush tool you can quickly fix small issues with your photos. Photoscape has a batch mode that lets you resize and rename photos with just a click.
GIMP is an open source project that’s been in active development for over twenty years. It’s often referred to as the best free photo editor. Thanks to its community-based development, it offers professional features that you only otherwise find in paid apps like Photoshop.
GIMP is laid out like a professional editing tool and has a steep learning curve. But it has all the basic and professional features you would expect from a graphic design suite. GIMP’s Layers feature is powerful and you can even use some Photoshop plugins with GIMP. If you’re new to GIMP, use our introductory guide to GIMP to learn the basics.
If all you’re looking for is a simple way to manage your photo library on Mac and perform some basics edits to fix or enhance your personal photos, the built-in Photos app will be more than enough.
The Photos app has a good auto-enhance tool, a crop tool, basic image editing, and filter support. Plus, it has a familiar user interface. If you feel comfortable editing photos in the iPhone Photos app, you’ll be right at home on the Mac version as well.
4. Pixlr X
Pixlr X runs smoothly on any modern web browser. If you only need to edit a couple of photos every now and then, it doesn’t make sense to download a feature-rich image editor. Instead, see if Pixlr’s web-based image editor is enough for you.
Pixlr X has all the basic image editing features you’d expect. You can crop, resize, add filters, and easily remove the background from any image. There are a couple of tools for adjusting the visual elements of the picture and you can add text and doodle over images. If you have a stock image, you can use Pixlr X to quickly create a poster or flyer as well.
If you’re serious about photo editing, you’ll need professional tools. A fully-featured photo editing suite will help improve the quality of your work. Because paid apps are designed for professionals from the ground up, you’ll end up saving a lot of time once you get used to the workflow.
1. Lightroom
Lightroom is the default photo editor for professional photographers. Lightroom’s workflow sets it apart. Other than the stellar photo editing features, it also has a simple yet robust image organization feature. And this is why a lot of professionals stick with Lightroom.
If you’re clicking thousands of photos for a project and you need to select a couple of dozen good ones, Lightroom makes the process easy for you. You can skim through thousands of RAW files, mark the important photos, move them to a different directory, edit them in a particular style, save that style as a preset, go back and apply it to other photos, and then finally export the images in multiple formats.
And once you’re done with the project, you can use Lightroom’s library to keep the important photos and back them up using your Adobe Cloud account. For professionals, this is what makes Lightroom’s $9.99/month starting price palatable.
Photoshop is a different kind of photo editor. You can think of it as Lightroom’s bigger brother. Photoshop is designed specifically for image manipulation and enhancement. Photoshop is famous for its advanced selection tools, complex layer system, and infinitely customizable brushes.
You can use Lightroom to bring out all of the details from a RAW image file or to enhance an image aesthetically (to fix colors and saturation levels). Once you’re done with that, you can import the image in Photoshop to kick things up a notch. In fact, you can’t edit RAW images in Photoshop without the Camera RAW plugin.
Photoshop is a massive, complex application with over two decades of consistent updates. It has way too many features, but once you master the basics, Photoshop gives you the tools to turn your imagination into reality.
Using Photoshop, you can merge multiple images together, completely change the color palette of an image, and fix parts of an image to make them better (particularly portraits).
You can think of Affinity Photo as a lightweight version of Photoshop. It has the most common features from Photoshop like the advanced selection tools, brushes, and layer support. Affinity Photos weighs in at 350 MB instead of the 2GB behemoth that is Photoshop. Affinity Photo is also much faster than Photoshop, especially on Macs without a dedicated graphics card.
Plus, unlike Photoshop, you can buy Affinity Photo outright for $49.99. If you don’t like Adobe’s shift towards subscription pricing and increasing dependence on cloud syncing, take a look at Affinity Photo. If you’ve already learned the basics of Photoshop (you can open PSD files in Affinity Photo), it will be much easier to pick up Affinity Photo.
Pixelmator Pro is a powerful image editing app that’s designed to be easy to use. It’s an all-in-one tool for image manipulation. Pixelmator Pro is a mix of Lightroom, Photoshop, and Illustrator. It has basic features from all three apps.
You can use it to edit RAW images, enhance photos, fix parts of images, and create posters by adding beautiful text and other elements. Pixelmator Pro can stretch itself from being a basic photo editing app to a graphic design suite, depending on your needs and skillset.
There’s something for everyone in the apps listed above. We recommend most people start with Pixlr X and see if that does the trick. However, if you’re looking for a fast, beautiful, and feature-rich photo editor that’s designed for the Mac, Affinity Photo is a great choice.
There are many more great Mac apps out there just waiting to be explored. Take a look at our list of the best macOS apps to discover some of the apps you should be installing on your Mac.
