Cases, cables, PCI-E USB-C cards, nifty adapters, Gloo chargers and so much more this month in our reviews roundup!

Catalyst Apple Device cases

Are you one of those die-hard Apple fans? Do you queue up for the latest handset and strut around the streets with AirPods dangling from your ears like leaking brain matter while faux casually checking your Apple Watch, deluded that anyone with any self-respect gives a shit? Good for you, everyone needs something to live for.

Well, today I am not going to lambast the recent failures of a once great and innovative company or further ridicule the morons that follow them like sheep (well maybe just a bit), I am going to look at some seriously impressive Apple device protection from Catalyst.

I’m a fan of a good case, not the yellow tainted, transparent, Hello Kitty branded crap from the street market but a really well designed, attractive case that you don’t mind carrying around. Now most phones look pretty much identical you might as well make a statement with a stylish case that protects your device and your precious data. Catalyst focuses exclusively on Apple products but really look and feel the business and I kind of hope they broaden out to Android devices soon as they are clearly quality products.

I'm a fan of a good case, not the yellow tainted, transparent, Hello Kitty branded crap from the street market but a really well designed, attractive case that you don't mind carrying around
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Costing £999 here in the UK the latest (greatest?) iPhone X is worth protecting, so you should take a look at the two cases Catalyst offers. The $39.99 Impact Protection Case offers a grippy rubber bumper, lanyard attachment, rotating mute switch and clear case back to show off your iPhone. This design has an angular modern form and added impact protection from a nifty truss cushioning system and proprietary rubber polymer blend that provides drop protection up to 3m (9.9ft). Catalyst’s $89.99 Waterproof Case looks almost identical and gives you 33ft (10m) of waterproof protection but a lower impact protection of 6.6ft (2m).

If you love the fruity brand enough to have spent up to £749 on a Series 3 Apple Watch it would be wise to consider Catalyst’s Impact Protection Case that retails at $39.99, it can’t possibly make you look worse than you already do and if you fall over after too many imported lagers your Watch might survive the experience.

Catalyst's Impact Protection Case retails at $39.99, it can't possibly make you look worse than you already do and if you fall over after too many imported largers your Apple Watch might survive the experience
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Augment it further with a $39.99 Sports Band so you look a proper tool jogging round central London while checking out your reflection in passing shop windows.

Augment your Apple Watch further with a $39.99 Sports Band so you look a proper tool jogging round central London while checking out your reflection in passing shop windows
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Now most phones look pretty much identical you might as well make a statement with a stylish case that protects your device and your precious data
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What self-respecting Apple fanboy doesn’t love their AirPods enough to protect them from the spittle of passing critics, salty body fluids or carelessly spilt Chardonnay? So costing a reasonable $24.99 the Waterproof AirPod Case is a must! You can even hang it from your rucksack, satchel strap or belt loop to prompt conversation with your AirHead iFriends! So Useful.

To be honest I didn’t know there was such a thing as an Apple Pencil, I seem to remember Steve Jobs deriding styluses in favour of well-designed touchscreen apps, but rolling in his grave or not, I’m sure Steve would endorse the protection of your Apple products, so if you like to carry your Pencil around, in case you need to work something out with it (Constipated mathematician anyone?), the $21.99 Catalyst Apple Pencil Carry Case should keep it safe.

To be honest I didn't know there was such a thing as an Apple Pencil, I seem to remember Steve Jobs deriding styluses in favour of well-designed touchscreen apps
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If Catalyst made a case for my Samsung Galaxy S9+, I would buy it in a heartbeat
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However, if your fingers slip while working out a particularly sticky problem the Apple Pencil Grip Case will ensure you maintain a firm grasp on your pointless device if not on your pointless life. Apologies for the vitriol leaking through this review but rest assured Catalyst’s well made & attractive range of protective cases are not the target and even if they were, they are sturdy enough to shed said vitriol like water from a fucks dack. If they made a case for my Samsung Galaxy S9+, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Oculus Go VR Headset

Once I got it up and running on my Wi-Fi the brand new Oculus Go was a real surprise. Every new VR headset from the big companies takes us a small step closer to enjoying the true possibilities of VR but I have become a bit jaded by the slow progress. Each baby step forwards a new device takes feels so small and iterative it leaves me feeling like I am wading through mud to get to the future of VR. The Oculus Go, however, took a solid and pleasing stride ahead of the rest, not a jump or a leap but enough to make a real difference in how we access and consume VR. Read the full review here.

Once I got it up and running on my Wi-Fi the brand new Oculus Go was a real surprise
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Preview – Honor 10

This is just a heads up for a full review of the brand new Honor 10 which I’ll publish later in July but I wanted to give a quick, first impressions look at this very affordable “Flagship Killer”. With the official global launch of this handset held just two days away from the OnePlus 6 launch, it is clear Huawei and Honor are targetting the budget flagship space with the Honor 10 and just like the OnePlus 6 you get top tier components in an attractive yet affordable package. After a week of using it as a daily driver, what do I think?

#Honor are targetting the budget flagship space with the #Honor10 and just like the OnePlus 6 you get top tier components in an attractive yet affordable package
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The way android is designed to mould itself to your usage means that the first few days of using a new phone are crucial while you set it up how you want it to work and Android learns how you use your phone and how to give you the best experience and battery life. This bedding in process means you will experience pretty terrible battery life and a hot handset for the first 4-5 days and that judging the device in any way is foolish until about a week has passed and everything has settled down. By day 7 of my test I think I got the phone I was expecting. It was super fast and a pleasure to use.

By day 7 of my test and after tweaking it to my taste I think I got the phone I was expecting. The #Honor10 was super fast and a pleasure to use
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I was also fortunate as Honor Global wanted to ensure I got the latest Android 8.1 and EMUI 8.1 updates for this review so I am testing the Honor 10 at its absolute best. Honor are pushing the concept of “Beauty in AI” and reveal “two major ground-breaking and industry-leading smartphone technologies to consumers”.

The first is the advanced AI 2.0 technology, applied chiefly to the smartphone’s dual camera. Second is the Honor 10 CMF design, a 3D glass back with a very pleasing nano-scale optical coating composed of 15 layers of glimmering colour. The Honor 10 is now available from € 399.90 for purchase in select markets including UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, with other markets follow.

Confident in the new camera’s abilities Honor and Central St Martins recently celebrated the ground-breaking new AI & Photographic capabilities of the Honor 10 with the talented up and coming young designers graduating this year.

@Honorglobal wanted to ensure I got the latest Android 8.1 and EMUI 8.1 updates for this review so I am testing #Honor10 at its absolute best
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Using the impressive new 24 Megapixel camera they celebrated how mobile technology will increasingly be integrated into education and design in the future, whether it be graphic communication, product, architecture, fashion or jewellery, exploring the future of aesthetics and how mobile technology will play a critical role in that development.

The #Honor10 handset itself is beautiful with a very cool layered, refractive glass back that shines and changes colours as it moves
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Battery life is a full day, which is still average but totally usable and not a negative in the current marketplace. EMUI 8.1 is fast, slick and fun to use and importantly the AI camera is very good. The only niggle is it defaults to AI mode every time you open it meaning you only get 16 megapixels of the available 24 and the AI monkeys with your shot whether you want it or not. Even flipping to non-AI mode defaults to 16 megapixels and you have to go into the setting to up it to 24, annoying. However, AI mode is very cool indeed for portraits and dog pics, with the background, subtly blurred for that shallow depth of field look that’s all the rage.

“We believe the recipe of success is simple – give consumers a really good product! That’s what we work hard for everyday at Honor,” said George Zhao, President of Honor. “But we don’t just stop at making a good product. We want to co-create a new lifestyle with young people worldwide. We listen to them, we bounce ideas around with them, and we cheer for them. They are our inspiration, and the reason we created the Honor 10, with its AI photography features and exquisite design.”

EMUI 8.1 on the #Honor10 is fast, slick and fun to use and importantly the AI camera is very good
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The handset itself is beautiful and the unique refractive glass back shines and changes colours as it moves. Another nice note is that a basic clear case is included in the box! Plus the handset came with a preinstalled screen protector, so no frustration and bubbles adding one yourself. Watch out for my full review in a week or two and with a bit of luck, we will have received the huge GPU Turbo update by then which promises to boost the graphical performance by up to 60%. How this will improve the phone’s Camera, AR and VR capabilities I don’t know, but much more on that next time!

If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough…
#GPUTurbo Coming soon! pic.twitter.com/PwSQ4TEopK

— Honor UK (@UKHonor) 2 July 2018

Group Test – Aukey USB-C Adapters

Faster, smaller, better, thinner… Those design goals have led us here, to a new standard of connection port that I am still not sure anybody really wants. You probably know all about USB-C and its capabilities and if you own a new Mac of any kind you will be familiar with its drawbacks. USB-C adaptors and cables have made Apple a pretty penny but today Tech Trends is looking at the budget offerings from Chinese company Aukey, a four-port PCI-E card, two basic USB 3 to USB-C adapters and one braided USB-C to USB-C cable.

First off the Express PCI-E card, retailing at £28.99 provides 4 additional USB-C ports to your desktop computer and promises super-speed USB 3.0 data transmission speeds of up to 5 Gbps. Compatible with Windows 2000 / XP / 7 / 8 / 8.1 and Linux Kernel; USB3.0 can be backwards compatible ( USB 2.0 / 1.1 / 1.0 ) it is easy to install and Windows 10 found the driver itself with no problems.

Now the spec-heads out there will confuse you with the various standards and capabilities of USB-C hardware that mean a USB-C connection or cable might or might not give you true USB 3.1 speed, power transfer or even the much vaunted alternate mode, depending on the manufacturer, but basically as a consumer you expect new tech to be better, faster and easier to use. Sadly not the case here. I found the transfer speeds to be slower than USB 3, the power transfer to be less quick than with a dedicated charger and the ports themselves quite shallow, so cables easily dropped out of the connections.

The adapters and cable, on the other hand, were very useful. The well-made £7.69 male to male USB-C cable sports sturdy aluminium heads and a 2m flexible, braided length. It fast-charged a Galaxy S9+ and was blazingly fast (460Mbps) at transferring large files. Now we’re talking!

Of the two adapters on test, my favourite is the £8.49 USB C Male to USB A Female. Small and good looking it effortlessly bridged the gap between old and new USB standards, it was super quick and would easily fit in a pocket or on a keychain if it had a loop. Good simple design. The second £6.99 USB C male to USB A female adapter features a short extension but is less attractive black plastic. This would be more useful on the back of PCs than laptops but it was fast and really cheap. Apart from the disappointing PCI-E card all the USB-C peripherals from Aukey have been excellent, very affordable and are highly recommended.

Gloo Shared Charging Station

After a record-breaking crowdfunding success with $8M raised for the ZeTime hybrid smartwatch, design innovators MyKronoz has just hit Kickstarter again to launch the Deconnect Gloo – a sleek wireless charging station that doubles as an ambient light source. Sounds great but most interestingly Gloo is the first crowdfunding project that enables you to preview exactly how different versions of a new product will look in your own home, via a unique Augmented Reality feature within the companion Deconnect app for iOS. Read the full review here.

Gloo is the first crowdfunding project that enables you to preview exactly how different versions of a new product will look in your own home, via a unique Augmented Reality feature within the companion Deconnect app for iOS
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Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post June 2018 Tech Trends Product Reviews appeared first on Tech Trends.

Free yourself of cables and smartphones with the new Oculus Go VR headset.

Once I got it up and running on my Wi-Fi the brand new Oculus Go was a real surprise. Every new VR headset from the big companies takes us a small step closer to enjoying the true possibilities of VR but I have become a bit jaded by the slow progress. Each baby step forwards a new device takes feels so small and iterative it leaves me feeling like I am wading through mud to get to the future of VR. The Oculus Go, however, took a solid and pleasing stride ahead of the rest, not a jump or a leap but enough to make a real difference in how we access and consume VR.

Every new VR headset from the big companies takes us a small step closer to enjoying the true possibilities of VR but I have become a bit jaded by the slow progress
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The Oculus go takes a solid and pleasing stride ahead of the rest, not a jump or a leap but enough to make a real difference in how we access and consume VR
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That step is VR that is independent from cables or mobile phones. For a couple of years now we have been waiting for the latest phone with the latest VR tech onboard, paying a fortune then plugging it into unimpressive headsets while it overheats and crashes or tethering ourselves to PC towers or more recently backpack computers. You do need a phone with Bluetooth to set up the Go but after you have created your account and connected it to your Wi-Fi you are free and the Go becomes something we have not seen before, an affordable, standalone device for enjoying VR whenever and wherever you want.

You need a phone with Bluetooth to set up the Oculus Go but after you connect it to your Wi-Fi, you are free and it becomes an affordable, standalone device for enjoying VR whenever and wherever you want
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Don’t get too excited, the Go has a bunch of limitations but the liberation of an independent VR device is the true achievement here. Oculus has basically built a stripped-down mobile phone into the Go and the specs are very last year. The 5.5-inch screen is 2560 x 1440 resolution (1280 by 1440 per eye). It uses a 2016 Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor and comes in two flavours, a $199 base model with 32GB of onboard storage and a $249 64GB version. Clearly keeping it affordable was the goal here and considering you don’t need the latest and greatest $1k phone to use it the prices look very good indeed.

The Go has a bunch of limitations but the liberation of an independent VR device is the true achievement here
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In use, the screen is as good as most consumer VR devices out there but good content always helps you forget about the pixels and sucks you into the experience so I try to judge the content, not the screen. Motion is OK, with a refresh rate of 60Hz it is a little juddery but generally fine and I only felt a twinge of nausea when first getting used to the Go. The environments feel nice and solid around you and the simple hand controller was very effective and runs on a single AA battery so is easy to power. Charging the headset battery is also easy via any micro USB cable and is quite quick. To keep the weight down Oculus limited the battery to a stated 3 hours of charge, I got a bit less than that in real-world use but I’m never in VR for more than an hour or two anyway.

To keep the weight down Oculus limited the battery to a stated 3 hours of charge, I got a bit less than that in real-world use but I’m never in VR for more than an hour or two anyway
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Sound is another feature worth discussing, as – a bit like the Microsoft Hololens – the Go has built-in speakers that direct sound into your ears without the need for headphones. Oculus claim you get spatial sound and I did identify some instances where the sounds around me worked very well with the environment, making me turn to find the source but generally the freedom from headphones was the best part of this system. Those around you in quiet rooms will hear a bit of bleed but it is nothing bad and if you want to go old school the Go does have a 3.5mm headphone jack so you can be more private if you wish.

The Oculus Go speakers direct sound into your ears without the need for headphones
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In use I found the Go to be very comfortable if a little heavy. After a couple of hours, my neck did feel it but it is really no worse than something like the Samsung Gear VR with an S9 in it. I used the included glasses spacer and found the new lenses Oculus boast about to be adequate but my field of vision was a bit limited and the grooves in the lenses did become visible to me at points. I found I got a better experience by turning my head to look at things rather than using my peripheral vision.

The lack of friction for the user feels so good after years of faffing and fiddling and popping phones in and out and trailing headphone cables around that it felt like real progress
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I highly recommend you try out the Jurassic World: Blue to experience to see a first-rate, cutting-edge VR demo. It was a stiff test for the Go but the extra detail and quality of the textures and animation is worth it. Another, more interactive test was the Tomb Raider Lara’s Escape VR I found this to be quite compelling and made good use of the handset. The spatial audio here was also effective as you are chased through underground tunnels. However, I spent the longest time in Bait by Resolution, just fishing.

Soothed by gentle music and surrounded by cool lapping water and palm trees I cast my lures and emerged calm and rested
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Soothed by gentle music and surrounded by cool lapping water and palm trees I cast my lures and relaxed, finding myself calm and rested when I emerged. I really think the power of VR to affect us emotionally is best observed through the gentle experiences rather than raging first-person shooters. Overall the Go wasn’t flashy but was comfortable, affordable and easy to use.

All sounding good you say but what exactly got me so excited? It was the fact I could just pick it up, put it on and Go (excuse me, but it is true). The lack of friction for the user feels so good after years of faffing and fiddling and popping phones in and out and trailing headphone cables around that it felt like real progress. The Oculus Go is not breaking any new technical ground but it cuts the cord and shows us the way forward.

Retails at: $199 with 32GB of onboard storage and $249 for 64GB

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post Product Review: Oculus Go appeared first on Tech Trends.

Birmingham University pioneered Immersive technologies for well over a decade, and now teaches students the skills they need to work at the cutting edge of VR.

Regular readers of Tech Trends won’t be surprised to find out that VR, AR, MR, XR (this last one stands for Extended Reality, and yes, that’s a thing) and the whole virtual experiences alphabet soup are going to be the future of work, entertainment, computing, the economy, and pretty much everything.

So when we got the invitation to visit The University of Birmingham’s Human Interface Technologies (HIT) lab we jumped a the chance. Not only were we keen to find out what cool stuff they were up to – quite a lot, at it turns out – but also get a sense of how students considering their career options these days can actually gain the qualifications they need to work in VR.

Graduates lucky enough to study here will enjoy amazing opportunities in VR
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Under the charismatic Professor Bob Stone, the HIT team has been at the cutting edge of Virtual Reality and telepresence/ telerobotic technologies since it opened in 2003, but their success is built on nearly thirty years of work in simulation, robotics and Human Factors for applications in aerospace, defence and healthcare.

Those looking to pursue a career in VR often gravitate towards computer-focused HE courses, but these are often quite broad in their scope, so many of the pioneers now working in the industry such as designers and modellers often come to VR and AR through Arts and Media backgrounds such as VFX, which makes sense considering what a highly visual medium this is.

The Human Interface Technologies department at Birmingham University pioneers VR Tech
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Although there are many world-class research centres around the world which focus on immersive technologies – such as the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University, which coincidentally was founded by Professor Jeremy Bailenson in the same year as HIT was born in Birmingham – university courses that teach a focused and practical skillset that enables students to work in VR are quite rare, with some notable exceptions such as Full Sail University which we visited in Orlando earlier this year.

Even more rare are courses which support this learning with industry partnerships and hands-on experience, which is what HIT has been offering its students under the leadership of Professor Bob Stone.

University courses teaching a practical skillset enabling students to work in VR are still rare
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Professor Stone holds a Chair in Interactive Multimedia Systems within the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences and has been pioneering the R&D into interactive media and robotic technologies at the University while his systems and technologies have also been used around the world by the likes of BAAE and British Ministry of Defence. Oh, and he is an honorary Cossack, so quite an interesting chap!

Many of their projects are developed in partnership with external companies and organisations
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As Bob talked us through his thirty years of experience working on VR technologies, two things stood out to me: how practical their work is – addressing real-world problems and involving field research – and how many of their projects are developed in active partnership with a range of external companies and organisations. Their track record in successful industry collaborations and community linked research and development projects is very impressive to say the least, I had a hard time picking a few examples to mention here, but these certainly caught my eye:

Subsafe

This is a VR training tool used by the Royal Navy to gain their submarine qualification, an experimental interactive 3D spatial awareness training tool designed to eventually replace legacy systems being used by Royal Navy submarine qualification (SMQ) instructors.

Navigating the decks and compartments in a “first-person” mouse-and-keyboard game style, SMQ trainees had access to all decks forward of the control room, comprising over 30 compartments and 500 different objects – including fire extinguishers, hose units, high-pressure air valves, and emergency breathing system masks.

After a year of experimental trials with the RN’s Submarine School, data revealed that the use of SubSafe in classroom training significantly improved the final “walkthrough” examination scores of trainees onboard an actual submarine.

Subsafe proved so successful, in fact that it sparked a series of spin-off projects commissioned by other future vessel and naval system developers, from submarine abandonment and rescue to early deck layout concepts for future surface combatants.

Virtual Wembury

The HIT Team also worked with medical professionals and patients at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham to determine whether VR could help patients recover from major surgery

They spent three years developing a detailed recreation of the Devon coastal path known as ‘Virtual Wembury’ which allowed recovering patients to enjoy a cycle ride through those idyllic landscapes right from their hospital beds. Professor Stone was born and bred in that area, so drew on his own experience to recreate the picturesque Devon environment in virtual form.

Feedback from patients has been very positive, and there’s a chance that this will inspire other hospitals around the country to roll out similar initiatives to incorporate virtual reality into their rehabilitation programmes.

Cutlass robot

Many Armed Forces EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) instructors feel that current classroom training does not equip trainees with adequate skills and system awareness to help them appreciate the capabilities and limitations of the vehicles they are about to operate.

The HIT team’s challenge in this case was to develop an affordable solution to train operatives in the Cutlass. This is an extremely advanced bomb disposal remote unite operated with a 9-axis manipulator and six separate joysticks, each controlling a different function and movement of the manipulator, depending on which control mode has been selected.

They did this by not only creating a highly realistic virtual urban street scene and house interior, but also a physical replica of the cutlass console containing accurate physics-based representations and locations of the key components, including the manipulator mode selection areas on a touch screen.

The Mayflower

Bob and his team also worked with groups in Plymouth, Dartmouth, Southampton and Worcester using Augmented Reality (AR) to deliver a range of innovative digital experiences including a detailed graphical recreation of the iconic Mayflower ship.

The 3D model is still a work in progress, but it will eventually include animated passengers, crew and cargo. They are also working on developing a range of believable effects relating to such features as the movement of sails and flags, the ship’s bow wave and wake, and the visual blurring necessary to create credible sense of changes in depth and distance over the route of the virtual ship, which will be superimposed onto the real-world scene, he explains.

Chinook Training Room 

From all the awesome things that Bob showed me, however, my favourite was probably the Chinook helicopter Mixed Reality simulator, which brings together VR with an inflatable enclosure conceived to help to support the future training of the UK Armed Forces’ Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT). In battlefield incidents that require emergency medicine, treatment is often administered in the back of the helicopter.

The system is used to track the user’s hands with infrared markers mounted on lightweight gloves
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Using an Augmented Reality head-mounted display, trainees are able to experience interacting with a body that has both visual and haptic elements. The position of head mounted display is tracked in real time, and in six degrees of freedom, using an OptiTrack V120 optical/infrared motion capture system. This same system is used to track the end user’s hands, using small infrared markers mounted on lightweight gloves.

Yorkshire-based company TraumaFX delivered the Simbodie, an incredibly detailed human male model capable of being configured to represent a wide range of injuries, complete with interchangeable lower leg components representing intact limbs and traumatic amputation, and repositionable bullet wounds and lacerations. A Leicestershire-based company, Imagine Inflatables, constructed a ‘Chinook’ enclosure capable of being inflated and deflated quickly for rapid deployment and portability.

The enclosure provides a constraining environment for simulator users
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Together with replica Minigun and M60 Machine Gun models, and in conjunction with the Simbodie, the enclosure provides a constraining environment for simulator users, creating a believable in-flight scenario. As well as using video to simulate the external view from the helicopter via the windows and rear ramp (captured by flying the HIT Team’s drones over Dartmoor). The scene has been integrated with realistic sound effects taken within an actual Chinook cabin, provided to the team by Boeing Defence UK.

At the core of all this work is the idea of Human Centred Design – or ‘Human Factors’ as it is known. Designing the technology around the user and for the user. Not design for designs sake. Which is why it makes sense that the visit was organized by The Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF) – a body whose goal is to put the human at the heart of good design and engineering.

After all, technology is supposed to improve our performance but I am sure many of you will recognise situations where tech has slowed you down and made life more complicated not less!

At the core of all this work is the idea of Human Centred Design
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University of Birmingham College of Engineering and Physical Sciences students have an incredible opportunity to tap into the expertise of the HIT team and learn about the career possibilities Immersive Technology specific skills might offer them.

This is one of the most impressive and productive VR & AR focused education facilities I've seen
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I have to say that this is certainly one of the most impressive and productive VR & AR focused education facilities I have seen, and makes me wish I could go back in time and revisit some of my own education choices. But graduates lucky enough to study here will certainly enjoy some amazing opportunities to not only learn about VR, but also apply it in a variety of practical scenarios.

To find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers bespoke Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post Studying for the Virtual Revolution appeared first on Tech Trends.

This beautiful smartwatch combines the best of analogue and digital into one classic-yet-modern timepiece.

I have reviewed a few Smartwatches recently on Tech Trends and was impressed by some, such as the Samsung Gear S3 which certainly boasted good design and quality materials, as well as a nifty range of apps. Still, it felt like something was lacking, and it was only when the NYSW (New York Standard Watch) Soho arrived the other day in the post that I realised what that was.

It wasn't until I handled the NYSW Soho that I realized what other smartwatches were lacking
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Where most smartwatches have the insubstantial quality of a toy about them, with rubbery buttons and plastic backs, the Soho is a weighty, shiny steel timepiece that oozes quality.

Too many smartwatches look like mini-phones on straps
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To be fair the S3 does not present itself as a traditional high-quality watch but the styling takes a lot from this established market and the version I tested was called the ‘Classic’ so I think the comparison still stands.

The NYSW Soho is actually a hybrid, defining itself as an Analogue Smartwatch
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But wait, aren’t I comparing a 21st century, super high tech smartwatch with the old-fashioned tick tock wind up kind, surely that is unfair? Well no, because the NYSW Soho is actually a hybrid, defining itself as an ‘Analogue Smartwatch’.

The New York Standard Watch Company began in 1885 as a pocket watch manufacturer in the Big Apple
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Too many smartwatches look like mini-phones on straps. Why can’t a smartwatch look like a classic watch? That’s exactly the big benefit of NYSW. The watch performs and looks like a normal timepiece but has smart-tech to keep you going.

Maintaining connectivity with a solid stainless steel construction was a design challenge
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Remember the iPhone debacle a while back, when the metal construction of the phone restricted the functioning of the basic cell aerial? well, that was the biggest design challenge for NYSW, to use high-quality 316L stainless steel yet maintain Bluetooth and Wireless connections to other devices. That is one reason why the Samsung S3 uses so much plastic, but my Soho felt like a glistening steel tank and had no problem keeping in touch with my Android phone and Wi-Fi network. The front is sturdy and reliable Sapphire glass and the strap is gorgeous Italian leather plus the watch is waterproof up to 50 meters (164 feet) so it’s pretty tough all-around.

The New York Standard Watch Company began in 1885 as a pocket watch manufacturer in the big apple. But after more than 40 years in business, closed its doors the same year as Wall Street crashed. A name that was always associated with high-quality timepieces became elevated to antique status and collector’s items. In 2006, the New York Standard Watch Company name was rediscovered and established by innovative watchmakers with a new focus – combining analogue watch technology with exciting design.

NYSW is relaunching for the 21st century with a Kickstarter campaign that with 21 days to go, at the time of writing, has achieved double its target so backers are seriously keen on this product. Take a look at the images and graphics below for info on the three smart models NYSW are offering at this stage.

My watch felt like a steel tank and had no problem keeping in touch with my phone and Wi-Fi network
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The strap is gorgeous Italian leather plus the watch is waterproof up to 50 meters
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So apart from stylishly telling the time just what will your NYSW do? Once you pair it with your device and download the appropriate iOS or Android app, you’ll get the full range of features you’d expect from a smartwatch, such as: call alerts, Facebook, Twitter and SMS notifications, smart health features including steps and calorie counter, activity tracker, global calendar, drink water & pill reminder, countdown timer all communicated by haptics and dials on the watch face. The battery is also supposed to last you two weeks, and although I haven’t had mine for quite as long as that, it is certainly showing no signs of winding down after four days of heavy use. So far, so good.

The Soho timepiece claims a battery life of two weeks
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My one complaint is that you can't tell the time in the dark with this smartwatch
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After using it for a few days I have only one complaint, it is impossible to read the time in the dark. The Manhattan model has luminous hands and dial which the others – including my Soho don’t –  but all things considered, this is a fine piece of craftsmanship and a very attractive and useful hybrid watch which I would highly recommend. Check out the NYSW Kickstarter campaign for a chance to get on board early and grab a large, early backer discount in time for Christmas.

Early backers on Kickstarter will receive a hefty discount when ordering
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Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post Product Review: New York Standard Watch appeared first on Tech Trends.

Mozilla’s Black Mirror-like installation forces users to confront their complex relationship with data, privacy, and identity. Tech Trends went to London to open Pandora’s box and see what we could see. 

Advances in technology in the last few years have meant most of us are now dependent on digital services and Internet-connected devices. And in the context of our hectic lives, most of us never stop to think about what this constant connectivity and “always on” lifestyle means for our privacy.

The mere act of clicking “accept” when faced with a dauntingly long list of T&Cs for a new device, service or app signs us up for a multitude of sins. Let’s be honest, it’s a long-standing joke that people could put pretty much anything in there and we’d just agree. But the joke, it seems, is on us as we increasingly surrender control of our personal information, without really knowing what that entails down the line.

“I don’t have anything to hide, but I don’t have anything I want to show you either.” The Glass Room Exhibition Postcard

Mozilla & the Tactical Technology Collective have teamed up to lift the lid on some of the unexpected and unwelcome practices digital service providers use to extract value from our data. To engage the public in this debate they set up The Glass Room, an international, open Pop-Up Space where visitors are encouraged to learn more about the current situation, their rights, and responsibilities when living their digital lives.

We all need to regain some agency over our digital selves
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The message that comes through is that we all need to regain some agency over our digital selves, and to try to act independently in a world where we are increasingly and indiscriminately being monitored – and where our data is constantly monetised in return for paid and free services.

We are increasingly being monitored in return for services
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“As a not-for-profit, Mozilla invests in creative ways to make sure people are informed and ready to protect themselves online. With fake news and misinformation, the normalisation of surveillance, and so-called “free” services from powerful tech companies, The Glass Room opens your eyes to the invisible imbalance of power and the irony of referring to our most intimate data as ‘personal’.” Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, Mozilla’s Chief Marketing Officer

The white-painted space resembles an art gallery dotted with plinths
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The Glass Room previously wowed visitors in New York in 2016 and this year came to London for three weeks. And if the packed house I saw when I visited earlier this month is anything to go by, it’s also been a hit on this side of the pond.

“The response from Londoners has been extremely positive.  In just three weeks, around 20,000 people saw the exhibit and hundreds of thousands more continue to experience it online through virtual reality.” Mozilla

The experience offered is hard to explain, the space is painted all white like a modern gallery and the floor is dotted with white plinths but instead of dusty bronze sculptures or fancy ceramic pots, the plinths boast iPads and headphones or strange looking interactive electronic devices, screens flickering with data or video feeds.

Mozilla invests in creative ways to get people ready to protect themselves online
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The closest thing The Glass Room resembles is an art exhibit but there is no reverent hush here, some people are huddled around the plinths debating loudly and animatedly while fiddling with their mobile phones while some solitary people stand closed off from the room in headphones intently watching video on iPads. One exhibit by @sam_levigne scanned your brainwaves while you followed a series of prompts and images that stimulated specific thoughts and emotions, then scanned your mind while you thought about shopping, exploring how we might integrate our thoughts digitally into services in the future and how that might work while subtly suggesting that you would have to surrender all that intimate brainwave data to an organisation, without questioning what it might do with it. We all assume the best in our data transactions but this is not a wise move. I particularly like the prompt that asked you to consider your own death for fifteen seconds while showing a school corridor!

I was surprised by how long the average visitor stayed
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Many of the exhibits were playful and drew you in with an interactive element, a novel premise or playful comment on our digital behaviour, such as the then let you draw your own conclusions about the healthiness or otherwise of that behaviour. Others such as the printed records of the 4.6 million passwords stolen from LinkedIn in 2012 encouraged you to flick through to see if your password was in there, a reminder that large digital organisations do not have a good record of keeping our private data safe. I strongly recommend you check out The Glass Room VR experience to look more closely at the innovative exhibits on display.

“The Glass Room is more than just a pop-up store — it’s part of a broader campaign to educate the public about their relationship with the internet. Billions of people depend on an open and accessible internet for knowledge, livelihood, self-expression, and even love. This is why Mozilla is investing in exhibits like The Glass Room, to grow a movement to make the Internet healthier.” Mozilla

The UK Glass Room was located on the bustling Charring Cross Road – just on the edge of Soho –  so the streets were teeming with people. Still, I was surprised by just how many of them stopped to through the tall glass windows and then came in. I was even more surprised, though, to see how long they stayed.

The Glass Room did not only want to help you grasp the implications of your online actions and digital lifestyle, several of the iPad exhibits showed videos and infographics that lifted the lid on the commercial companies behind some of the services we use daily and presented some shocking facts about the business models behind these services. The videos were simple, well designed and were often just a contextualised corporate video from the companies themselves explaining what they do and how they monetize it.

We should all make an effort to understand the new digital world we inhabit
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I consider myself pretty tech savvy and aware of the ways companies like Google and Facebook make their money but plugging into the array of exhibits at The Glass Room showed me just how wrong I was. I came away feeling that we should all make an effort to understand the new digital world we inhabit and take responsibility for our engagement with large digital companies whenever we can, otherwise we risk being seriously exploited in ways we don’t even imagine.

The London Transport Contactless system turns out to be something of a digital data trap
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The Glass Room previously wowed visitors in New York in 2016
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The most shocking example of how we have all blindly walked into a digital trap was the company behind the London Transport Oyster Card and Contactless Payment system. Convenient it may be, but those responsible for managing it – The Cubic Corporation – are in fact a huge American company specialising in realistic combat training systems, secure communications for specialised support services for military and security forces, networked command, control, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities for defence, intelligence and commercial security missions. Notice the word ‘commercial’. It makes you wonder how in the world the UK government – without consulting the public, signed away the data of millions of London transport users, which can then be used by this company to enhance their other – less civilian-focused services too.

The Glass Room opens your eyes to this invisible imbalance of power
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IrisGuard scanned 2.3 million refugees and registered them on their biometric database
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Another shocker was the company IrisGuard, who have partnered with the UNHCR (the UN refugee agency) to help monitor and distribute aid to Syrian refugees in Jordan. They have so far scanned 2.3 million refugees and registered them on their biometric database. The refugees have no choice if they want to receive shelter and aid after fleeing a war zone and IrisGuard could use that personal data for, well we don’t know. More worrying still is that the advisory board members for this private company include the founder, chairman and CEO of a global bank; the former Head of MI6 in the UK and the former Homeland Security Advisor to George W. Bush. This is powerful personal data being gathered under the guise of a humanitarian cause with big money involved and it is probably safe to bet that the expected payoff is not just a warm tingly feeling… WTF!?!

The refugees have no choice if they want to receive shelter and aid after fleeing a war zone
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Most of us have little choice where it comes to signing away out data
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It could be argued that we all agree to these conditions when signing up to various services so – to quote the current U.S. President – “we knew what we were signing up for” but in the two previous cases that simply is not true, as the people in question had very little choice, and the information certainly wasn’t volunteered. Although we do all sign up to services and willingly give away our data with the abstract understanding that these companies will make money from it somehow, just how far they go, and where our data eventually ends up, is something few of us actually grasp.

Few people actually grasp how our data ends up being used by commercial companies
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Should we be excluded from useful services if we don't want to sign our lives away?
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A case in point is DNA testing company 23andMe, who my wife and I have used to find out a bit about our ancestry. Well, two years ago they signed a deal with drugs giant Pfizer to allow them access to all our DNA records for use in drug development, very profitable drug development. Buried deep in the T&Cs of 23andMe must have been a clause allowing them to sell our DNA data, a clause I didn’t read through laziness and unwillingness to trawl through the small print so yes it is my fault, but does that make it right? We have all done this but would it even be possible for me to be totally vigilant and read every letter of all the T&Cs I might sign up to? And should I be excluded from all these useful services because I would like to not quite sign my entire life and associated rights away to the highest bidder?

To put things in some context, should we take the time to read all the Privacy Policies we are required to agree to in a year, Time Magazine has reported we would lose 76 work days per year, not counting the T&Cs of the ISPs we all need to use in order to function in 21st century society. Clearly, it is unrealistic to expect any working human to fully take charge of and responsibility for their online activities and data if they are required to do this.

“There’s so little time in people’s daily lives to consider the consequences of their online decisions. The Glass Room is an engaging way for people to take an hour to think about what’s going on with technology and society and decide for themselves how they want to live their online lives.” Mozilla

The important messages here are firstly that we are all pretty ignorant of how our data is being used but more importantly that we have some power to make different choices that keep us safer online and limit the ways in which companies exploit our data. We also need to truly understand the value of our data, both to us and to others who would monetize it without our knowledge.

The Glass Room tackled all these issues in a friendly and educational way that had the public pouring through the doors and effectively highlighted the gaps in our collective knowledge. It was shocking but inspired me to pay more attention when I give away my data in return for services and content and to reassess how I evaluate the value of my data.

“We are always looking for opportunities to take our message of a free and open internet to new places. Right now, we encourage people to visit The Glass Room in virtual reality, and to try out the eight-day Data Detox Kit, helping you to take back some control over your digital self.” Mozilla

Some reactions from the public

During the exhibition, visitors were encouraged to leave their feedback by answering some questions. Here are a few of our favourites:

After visiting the Glass Room I felt:

–       “Watched”

–       “Empowered”

–       “That what I feared about the net was true”

–       “Scared and fascinated”

–       “It’s a confirmation of everything I feared and a reminder to not be complacent”

–       “Excellent! I was waiting for this project”

After visiting the Glass Room I want to:

–       “Stop stalking my ex-boyfriend”

–       “Find more ways of protecting me, my friends and family/ Enlighten other but I still want a social life”

–       “Think about my digital footprint”

–       “Delete all my apps but I need them”

–       “Be free”

–       “Start paying for an email service so I don’t use Gmail”

My favourite thing about the Glass Room:

–       “It’s free, accessible, intelligent and interactive”

–       “Someone cares about my privacy concerns and is taking the effort to explain it to me”

–       “It’s an accessible way to get non-techy people thinking”

–       “It makes complex content playful and accessible”

Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post Big Mother is Watching You appeared first on Tech Trends.

WiZ lights the way ahead with its Smart IoT connected LED lamps & bulbs.

We get a lot of products to test here at Tech Trends, build your own Raspberry Pi Laptop Computers, 360 Cameras, Secure Hard Drives, Smart Watches and even the odd Lunch Box and apart from the Lunch Box it is very rare for a product to just work out of the box. I usually have to do a bit of fiddling, research online, read a pretty complex manual or at worst email the manufacturer for help but not with the WiZ connected LED lights. THEY JUST WORK!

“Patented WiZ technology lets you enjoy full control of all your lights whether it’s through WiFi, mobile data networks, the infrared remote or your existing switches. By giving you more ways to control, you’re spoilt for choice when it comes to how you’d like to interact with light. WiZ lets you control your lights by rooms, individually and also by groups, so you’re not limited to the physical constraints of the electrical wiring of your lights.”

The greatest thing about these lights is that THEY JUST WORK!
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Why is this so impressive? Well, let me explain. I tested the Colours Hero & Quest lamps and the WiZ Colours Pin type bulbs, all of which offer highly customizable lighting solutions based on energy efficient LEDs packaged into attractive and functional modern designs. More on the colours and design below but it is the setup process that blew me away. Plug a WiZ lamp into the mains or twist the bulb into the ceiling socket, connect to your Wi-Fi, download the app and choose which room in the house you want to set up and hit add light.

Hit the scan button on your phone app and start playing with the lights
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Hit the Start scan button in the app and while it tries to connect your phone to the light via your Wi-Fi, flick the light on and off a few times till it starts pulsing and you are done. The light shows up in the designated room within your app and via the app, you have full control to set the lighting to your taste. I set up four lights in less than 10mins and three days later I am still having fun working through the options. All your setting are connected to a cloud account so you can connect to your home lighting from wherever you have an internet connection.

“Turn your lights on in your home from your office and vice versa. You can even control your WiZ locations from as far away as the moon. As long as you’ve got internet access, you can do what you want to do with your lights – even when you’re not physically there.”

The devices can be operated by Amazon Alexa and Google Home
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All these devices can also be operated by Amazon Alexa and Google Home as well as via the handy Mobile App. But what can you do with them? Aha, this is the cool bit, you can set your light to Daylight, Warm White or Cool White, choose custom colours or pre-defined dynamic colour sets such as Party, Forest or Fireplace.

Christmas and Haloween presets cycle through festive colours
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There are literally too many options to list here but whatever your mood or event the WiZ lights can be easily set to enhance your home and bring light to your day, there are even Christmas and Haloween presets that cycle through the relevant festive colours as fast or slow as you like.

“With Amazon Alexa, not only do you have the WiZ smart home skill, but you also get the WiZ custom skill (listed as “WiZ Advanced skill” on the Alexa store) to let you enjoy immersive WiZ dynamic light modes such as forest, mojito or romance. For Google, WiZ is supported by “Direct Actions”, where the Google Assistant on Google Home or your smartphone lets you control your lights in the most natural way possible – just by talking to it.”

Night-time and wake-up settings can be scheduled and customised
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The brightness is also customisable and night time and wake up settings can be scheduled to run at custom times. I really enjoyed playing with the WiZ lights and soon settled on the warm and comforting Fireplace setting for downstairs and the Daylight setting for the landing and office where it instantly felt brighter and less gloomy than the old-fashioned bulbs I had used. These really are fun and useful tech that just works!

With 64 million colours and dynamic light presets, this has something to suit everyone
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“WiZ brings total flexibility with 64,000 shades of white and preset well-being modes plus 64 million colours and dynamic light presets. Your eyes deserve the right light temperature and intensity to focus on a laptop screen, read a magazine or gradually get yourself ready for bed.”

RRP: WiZ Colours Hero £95.94
RRP: WiZ Colours Quest £89.94
RRP: WiZ Colours Pin Bulb £47.94

Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post Product Review: WiZ Connected Smart LED Lights appeared first on Tech Trends.

It’s that time of the month, when the Tech Trends team gathers up all the cool gadgets that come our way, Enjoy! 

Bakker Elkhuizen UltraBoard 940 Bluetooth Keyboard

Here we go again! My quest to find a Bluetooth keyboard that will work when I am sitting on my sofa about 10 feet from my Mac Mini, through which I stream TV. The UltraBoard 940 keyboard got off to a bad start as it is deeply unattractive and made of cheap feeling plastic but it came with clear instructions and the required rechargeable batteries, so I plugged it in and charged it up overnight hoping that the next day I would be able to search the web from the comfort of my sofa… Sadly not.

My quest for a Bluetooth keyboard that works at a 10 feet range continues
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I must have tried 10+ Bluetooth keyboards but none of them has the range. 10 feet doesn’t seem like a big deal to me when my Skullcandy Crusher Bluetooth wireless headphones can be 20-30 feet from my phone and still work flawlessly. Am I missing something? I was also disappointed with the keys on the UltraBoard 940 which are very cheap plastic and have a flimsy and unpleasant feel to them, in fact, the entire keyboard creaks when picked up and flexes horribly revealing that there are no metal structural components at all. The UltraBoard 940 claims to be ergonomic which in my experience usually means ‘small’ and I can’t speak to this claim as I was not inclined to use it for very long.

RRP: £83.99

Scentsy Go

The Scentsy Go is a portable, compact, cordless fragrance system that almost silently spreads, admittedly quite girly, scents around the house. It is battery-powered & ready to roam and is USB rechargeable so it goes where the stink is! I could have done with about fifty of these at the multi-day Hackathons I have attended when, by the third day, the air is thick with the rich stench of teenage genius, a smell comparable to sniffing the sticky, decade-old carpet in screen one of your local Odeon.

The Scentsy is portable, so can go wherever the stink is
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With a range of small and easy to change Scentsy Pods in your favourite fragrances enhanced by adjustable fragrance strength buttons it also brightens things up with a seven-colour LED display. If your home suffers from teenagers or dogs I can highly recommend these.

RRP: $50

DBPower 4K Action Camera

I am always excited to receive new cameras in the post and today DBPower have sent me their latest 12MP 4K Action Camera to test, so I’m a happy bunny. Not that I am planning to jump off some cliffs, soar around like an overactive eagle, or start leaping across random canyons in a high-powered motorcycle at some point… But when you’ve got such a new toy, even popping down to Tesco for your chicken Kievs is an excuse to start capturing moments for posterity. Read the full review here.

Dagoma Neva 3D Printer

I really wanted to like this cool looking budget Neva 3D printer from Dagoma and I also wanted the awesome red and white Tintin rocket ship I was trying to print but it seems the efforts to keep the costs low on this model have undermined its basic function. The guys at Dagoma were really great, and tried their best to help when I had issues but time after time the printer clogged, stopped working randomly, wouldn’t start or the semi printed object came free from the base and span off crazily resulting in a spaghetti of plastic all over the place.

I wanted to like this portable 3D printer, but the tech just isn't there yet
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Some of the issues I had might have been software related but to be honest, the Mac-based Cura software was the best part of the process, well laid out and not too confusing to use, but the real problems are with the printer itself. The feed mechanism, where you slide in the plastic medium is really crappy. It is not securely attached to the base of the printer so wobbles and feels very unstable. It jams frequently as it tries to pull medium into it and seems to leave chew marks on the medium that jam the printer head a bit further down the line. Twice the printer head jammed and when I pulled (extreme force required) the medium out of the feed tube it was mangled and the damage looked to have been done by the feed mechanism. The base plate was the most annoying feature though, following the instructions I cleaned it thoroughly with alcohol wipes before each new print but areas of it simply didn’t bind with the print medium so as the print progressed you could see the corners of the printed object peeling away from the base plate which inevitably meant that at some point it would break free and fly around as the printer continued to spit out medium in a useless mess. This happened three times and I simply do not have the time to waste trying to print the same piece over and over again only for it to fail halfway through.

Another compounding frustration is the printed instructions & the website, both of which are not clearly laid out or assume you know something about the 3D printing and the process when you shouldn’t need to. When I gave up part of my weekend last week to give it one more try, I found I needed to re-download the Cura software needed to create the Gcode file to feed into the printer but I literally couldn’t find this integral software anywhere on the website, so I resorted to Google to find it, and there it was, under a different, French Dagoma website with no link from the English homepage or support pages. Simply baffling. The website is a mess, full of empty, dead-end pages and when I couldn’t easily find advice for the third clogged/jammed printer head I resorted to Google again and woohoo, found the right page but then I was hit by another issue, The downloadable head cleaning Gcode file didn’t work when inserted on the SD card as per the instructions. A quick email to my contact at Dagoma came back with the response he had checked the file and it worked for him. Well, it didn’t work for me and with the disorderly website set up, I am not convinced we were even looking at or talking about the same page or Gcode file.

I must have put in 20+ hours trying to get this 3D printer to work
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I approached this printer with the best will in the world and must have put 20+ hours into trying to get it to work but I had to just give up after it failed to print even one piece of the model I was trying to build. I really don’t want to be harsh or overly critical of Dagoma but in the age of ‘it just works’, this 3D Printer just doesn’t. However, if you want to spend days of your time tinkering, fixing and retesting a 3D printer you might well enjoy the process and learn a lot about how the 3D printing works, but for anyone who needs it to just do its thing while you go and have a cup of tea, this is not the printer for you. I get this is a product designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but as a consumer product it falls short.

RRP: $249 (reduced from $399)

iStorage diskAshur Pro2

Since I started building computers 15 years ago I have tried every kind of drive – and every type of encryption – out there. And I can tell you, it was never simple. It never “just worked”. Until now.  I was very impressed in my quick test of the non Pro, SSD version of this drive but the Pro2 manages to keep the interface just as simple while ramping up both the security and capacity. Read the full review here.

RRP: £269 for 1TB Drive

Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post October 2017 Tech Trends Product Reviews appeared first on Tech Trends.