Hands On With Samsung's Galaxy S8 and S8+: Taller Screens and Slimmer Bezels

Samsung officially unveiled the latest Galaxy devices at its Unpacked event in New York today. Previous Galaxy phones were part Porsche 911 Carrera, with an easily recognizable curvaceous style, and part Swiss Army knife, bristling with technology and features. This analogy holds true for the 5.8-inch Galaxy S8 and 6.2-inch Galaxy S8+, which share the same design DNA as the previous two generations.

The new phones’ aluminum frame remains sandwiched between edge-to-edge Corning Gorilla Glass 5, with curved sides on the front and back. The curved rear glass makes the phones easier to pick up and more comfortable to hold just as they did for the S7 and S7 edge, while the curved front glass—now standard on both S8 models—adds some visual flair.

There’s not much difference between the S8 and S7 along the sides either. The USB Type-C port on the bottom is flanked by a 3.5mm headphone jack and a single downward-firing speaker. The microSD/NanoSIM combo tray still resides on the top, and the thin power button is still a bit more than halfway up the right side. The only differences between new and old lie on the left side, where the volume buttons __have been combined into a single rocker and a dedicated button for launching Samsung’s Bixby assistant makes its debut. Unlike the power button, I found myself occasionally pressing the Bixby button accidentally when picking up the smaller S8.

The most significant change is found up front, however, and it’s one that impacts both form and function. The Galaxy S8 and S8+ adopt Samsung’s new “Infinity Display” that stretches the screen vertically but not horizontally, deviating from the traditional 16:9 aspect ratio. The result is a QHD+ SAMOLED display with a 2960x1440 resolution and an 18.5:9 aspect ratio that’s very similar to the 18:9 aspect ratio display LG is using in its G6. Both Samsung and LG cite market research for this new display direction: People want larger screens that can show more content, but they also want phones that are useable with one hand and can fit in their pocket. The taller screen fits more content, so less scrolling, but keeps the phone narrow, so it’s easier to wrap your hand around.

Both S8 phones incorporate another emerging design trend: rounded display corners. Where LG’s G6 is using an LCD panel that actually has rounded corners, it appears Samsung is using a rounded bezel to cover the S8’s still sharp-cornered display. This avoids the aliasing that’s evident in the G6’s corners, producing a much smoother, nicer looking effect. While my time with the S8 was limited, it appears that TouchWiz and Samsung’s apps were redesigned to account for the rounded corners: Backgrounds extend the full height of the display and visual elements are still displayed along the top and bottom edges without getting cut off. Third-party apps, however, find their vertical dimensions constrained to the purely rectangular portion of the display, with the status bar above and the navigation bar below taking on black backgrounds.

Gallery: Galaxy S8 Rounded Display Corners

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The S8 and S8+ are also the first phones to receive the UHD Alliance’s Mobile HDR Premium certification that ensures a mobile device meets the minimum requirements for playback of 4K HDR video. This means that both S8s are capable of rendering at least 90% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, __have a dynamic range of at least 0.0005-540 nits, and support a 10-bit display pipeline.

To keep the overall size of the phones in check, the S8/S8+ and G6 have dramatically reduced the bezel area around the taller screens. Samsung claims a screen-to-body ratio of 83% for its new Galaxy phones, less than the 91.3% of Xiaomi’s Mi MIX concept phone, but impressive nonetheless, especially considering how much hardware is located in the S8’s upper bezel. Besides the usual earpiece and proximity/ambient light sensors, there’s a new 8MP front-facing camera with f/1.7 lens and Smart AF that uses facial recognition for accurate focusing when taking selfies. There’s also an IR LED and IR camera for the iris-scanning security feature that made its debut on the ill-fated Galaxy Note7.

Shrinking the size of the lower bezel required relocating the fingerprint sensor to the back. Instead of placing it below the rear camera like we see on most other phones, Samsung places it next to the flush-mounted camera, which is less than ideal. Both the camera and the sensor are surrounded by a raised lip and are similar in size, making it difficult to locate the sensor by feel, and if your finger misses the sensor, you end up with a nice fingerprint on the camera lens. On the smaller S8, this issue may be mitigated with practice, but the problem is worse for the S8+. Being taller, it places the camera and sensor further from the lower edge, making it very difficult, if not impossible, to reach the sensor when holding the phone with a natural grip. Even with my larger-than-average hands, I struggled to reach the sensor without shifting my grip. I suspect people will turn to the iris scanner or the new face unlock feature, which uses the front camera for facial recognition after pressing the power button, to overcome the poor fingerprint sensor placement. The physical home button and capacitive navigation buttons, iconic Galaxy design features, have also been evicted in favor of the slimmer bezel, replaced by onscreen controls.

How to Remove Your User Account from an Xbox One

If you signed in into your friend’s Xbox One with your Microsoft account but you are finished playing together, you may want to remove your account before leaving so that your account is not accessed by others. Luckily, Xbox One provides a simple method for removing yourself from any console where you signed in. Here’s how it works:

1Start the Xbox One console and sign in.

Sign in with the Microsoft account you want to remove from that console.

2Go to Settings and select Sign-in, security & passkey.

Here you will find all the settings related to signing in to the Xbox One.

3Go to the Sign-in & security section.

Once there, select Remove me from this Xbox.

4Confirm that you want your account removed.

Xbox One asks you to confirm that you truly want your account to be removed and informs you on the effects of this decision.

5Read the information displayed and select Remove my account.

You are now signed out from the Xbox One and your Microsoft account and all its data is removed from it.

The Riotoro Onyx Power Supply Review: 650W & 750W Tested

Riotoro is a new player in the PC market, coming into business into 2015. The company was founded by ex-Corsair and ex-NVIDIA employees who possess the experience that is necessary for them to compete in today’s cutthroat markets. They are making slow, cautious moves towards new product releases, trying to maximize their revenue and, as a result, their growth. Their first entrance into the North American market was with the Prism CR1280, an RGB full tower case that we reviewed last April.

In this review we are having a look at Riotoro’s very first PSUs, the Onyx 650W and the Onyx 750W, which are used as proof of the company’s experience and cautiousness. These two PSUs are released in tandem with the 80Plus Gold certified Enigma 750W PSU.

Instead of releasing a high output PSU that would be impressive but targeted at a very small fragment of the market, the two newly released Onyx units are more mainstream  and are aiming to be financially competitive - not to take the market with brute force as with other brands. They are 80Plus Bronze certified and targeted towards casual gamers and/or advanced users, where the bulk of today’s home PC revenue comes from. For the time being there are only two versions of the Onyx, with a maximum output of 650W and 750W respectively.

Riotoro Onyx 650W Specifications

Riotoro Onyx 650W Power specifications ( Rated @ 50 °C )
AC INPUT	100 - 240 VAC, 50 - 60 Hz
RAIL	+3.3V	+5V	+12V	+5Vsb	-12V
MAX OUTPUT	25A	25A	54A	3A	0.8A
	130W		650W	15W	9.6W
TOTAL	650W

 

Riotoro Onyx 750W Specifications

Riotoro Onyx 750W Power specifications ( Rated @ 50 °C )
AC INPUT	100 - 240 VAC, 50 - 60 Hz
RAIL	+3.3V	+5V	+12V	+5Vsb	-12V
MAX OUTPUT	25A	25A	62.5A	3A	0.8A
	130W		750W	15W	9.6W
TOTAL	750W

 

Packaging and Bundle

We received the two Onyx PSUs into simple, effective cardboard boxes. The artwork on the boxes is simplistic, but all of the necessary information and specifications are printed onto the sides and rear of the box. Inside the box we found the PSUs simply wrapped in nylon bubble bags, without any polyethylene foam or extra cardboard packaging. While not the best shipping protection for a PSU, but it should be sufficient for the vast majority of cases.

The items bundled with the Onyx PSUs are the absolute minimum that we expect: inside the box we only found the necessary AC power cable, a few cable straps, four black mounting screws and a basic user’s manual. Both units share the exact same bundle, only the manual itself and the number of  supplied modular cables differ.

Connector	Onyx 650W	Onyx 750W
ATX 24 Pin	1	1
EPS 4+4 Pin	1	1
EPS 8 Pin	-	-
PCI-E 6+2 Pin	2	4
PCI-E 8 Pin	-	-
SATA	6	9
Molex	3	6
Floppy	1	1

The Riotoro Onyx PSUs are semi-modular, with the ATX and EPS cables hardwired onto the units, with the rest of the connectors on removable cables. All of the wires and connectors, including those of the hardwired cables, are black. The ATX cable is wrapped into black nylon sleeving, while the rest of the cables are “flat” ribbon-like cables. The 750W version has two extra PCI Express connectors, plus extra SATA and Molex connectors. Technically, the power rating difference does not really justify such a vast difference on the number of connectors, suggesting that Riotoro simply wanted to differentiate the target group of their two models.

AutoCAD 2017’s Drawing Scale and Limits in Millimeters

If you prefer to work in millimeters when using AutoCAD 2017, you still want to set your limits correctly. This allows you to display the drawing grid over your working area, among other things. Here are the dimensions for different paper sizes at different drawing scales.

How to Add Math Symbols in MATLAB

15

Fraction

Displaying a fraction onscreen doesn’t always include a numeric fraction; it could be a formula that requires that sort of presentation. Whatever your need, you can display fractions whenever needed. However, to do that, you must use the LaTeX interpreter. This means that your formatting options are limited and that the output won’t necessarily reflect the formatting choices you normally make when using MATLAB.

The fraction requires use of a LaTeX display style that you access using $displaystylefrac. The fraction itself appears in two curly brackets, such as {1}{2} for the symbol 1/2. The entry ends with another dollar sign ($). To see how fractions work with something a little more complex, type TBox12 = annotation(‘textbox’, [.13, .3, .14, .075], ‘String’, ‘$displaystylefrac{x-2y}{x+y}$’, ‘BackgroundColor’, [1, .5, .5], ‘Interpreter’, ‘latex’); and press Enter.

25

Square root

MATLAB makes displaying a square root symbol easy. However, getting the square root symbol the right size and with the bar extended over the expression whose root is being taken requires LaTeX.

As with many LaTeX commands, you enclose the string that you want to format in a pair of dollar signs ($). The function used to perform the formatting is sqrt{}, and the value that you want to place within the square root symbol appears within the curly brackets.

To see the square root symbol in action, type TBox13 = annotation(‘textbox’, [.29, .3, .14, .075], ‘String’, ‘$sqrt{f}$’, ‘BackgroundColor’, [1, .5, .5], ‘Interpreter’, ‘latex’); and press Enter. The variable f will appear in the square root symbol.

35

Sum

Displaying a summation formula complete with sigma and the upper and lower limit involves using LaTeX with the sum function. You supply all three elements of the display in a single statement: the lower limit first, the upper limit second, and the expression third. Each element appears in separate curly brackets.

The lower limit is preceded by the underscore used for subscripts and the upper limit is preceded by the caret used for superscripts. The entire statement appears within dollar signs ($), as is normal for LaTeX. However, in this particular case, you must include a second set of dollar signs or the expression doesn’t appear correctly onscreen. (The upper and lower limits don’t appear in the correct places.)

To see how summation works, type TBox14 = annotation(‘textbox’, [.45, .285, .14, .1], ‘String’, ‘$$sum_{i=1}^{2n}{|k_i-k_j|}$$’, ‘BackgroundColor’, [1, .5, .5], ‘Interpreter’, ‘latex’); and press Enter. Notice the use of the double dollar signs in this case. In addition, be sure to include both the underscore and caret, as shown.

45

Integral

To display a definite integral, you use the LaTeX int function, along with the d function for the slices. The int function accepts three inputs: two for the interval and the third for the function. In many respects, the format is the same as that used for summation.

The beginning of the interval relies on the superscript caret character, while the ending of the interval relies on the subscript underscore character. You must enclose the entire command within double dollar signs ($$) or else the formatting of the superscript and subscript will fail.

To see how to create an integral, type TBox15 = annotation(‘textbox’, [.61, .285, .22, .1], ‘String’, ‘$$int_{y1(x)}^{y2(x)}{f(x,y)}d{dx}d{dy}$$’, ‘BackgroundColor’, [1, .5, .5], ‘Interpreter’, ‘latex’); and press Enter. Notice that the two slices come after the int function and that each slice appears in its own d function.

55

Derivative

When creating a derivative, you use LaTeX to define a combination of a fraction with superscripts. So, in reality, you’ve already created a derivative in the past — at least in parts. To see how a derivative works, type TBox16 = annotation(‘textbox’, [.13, .21, .14, .085], ‘String’, ‘$displaystylefrac{d^2u}{dx^2}$’, ‘BackgroundColor’, [1, .5, .5], ‘Interpreter’, ‘latex’); and press Enter.

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How to Explain the Results of an R Classification Predictive Analytics Model

Another task in predictive analytics is to classify new data by predicting what class a target item of data belongs to, given a set of independent variables. You can, for example, classify a customer by type – say, as a high-value customer, a regular customer, or a customer who is ready to switch to a competitor – by using a decision tree.

To see some useful information about the R Classification model, type in the following code:

> summary(model)     Length      Class      Mode            1 BinaryTree        S4

The Class column tells you that you’ve created a decision tree. To see how the splits are being determined, you can simply type in the name of the variable in which you assigned the model, in this case model, like this:

> modelConditional inference tree with 6 terminal nodesResponse: seedType Inputs: area, perimeter, compactness, length, width,   asymmetry, length2 Number of observations: 147 1) area <= 16.2; criterion = 1, statistic = 123.423   2) area <= 13.37; criterion = 1, statistic = 63.549     3) length2 <= 4.914; criterion = 1, statistic = 22.251        4)* weights = 11      3) length2 > 4.914        5)* weights = 45   2) area > 13.37     6) length2 <= 5.396; criterion = 1, statistic = 16.31        7)* weights = 33      6) length2 > 5.396        8)* weights = 8 1) area > 16.2   9) length2 <= 5.877; criterion = 0.979, statistic =   8.764     10)* weights = 10   9) length2 > 5.877     11)* weights = 40

Even better, you can visualize the model by creating a plot of the decision tree with this code:> plot(model)

This is a graphical representation of a decision tree. You can see that the overall shape mimics that of a real tree. It’s made of nodes (the circles and rectangles) and links or edges (the connecting lines).

The very first node (starting at the top) is called the root node and the nodes at the bottom of the tree (rectangles) are called terminal nodes. There are five decision nodes and six terminal nodes.

At each node, the model makes a decision based on the criteria in the circle and the links, and chooses a way to go. When the model reaches a terminal node, a verdict or a final decision is reached. In this particular case, two attributes, the and the , are used to decide whether a given seed type is in class 1, 2 or 3.

For example, take observation #2 from the dataset. It has a of 4.956 and an of 14.88. You can use the tree you just built to decide which particular seed type this observation belongs to. Here’s the sequence of steps:

1. Start at the root node, which is node 1 (the number is shown in the small square at the top of the circle). Decide based on the attribute: Is the of observation #2 less than or equal to (denoted by <=) 16.2? The answer is yes, so move along the path to node 2.

2. At node 2, the model asks: Is the area <= 13.37? The answer is no, so try the next link which asks: Is the area > 13.37? The answer is yes, so move along the path to node 6. At this node the model asks: Is the length2 <= 5.396? It is, and you move to terminal node 7 and the verdict is that observation #2 is of seed type 1. And it is, in fact, seed type 1.

   The model does that process for all other observations to predict their classes.

3. To find out whether you trained a good model, check it against the training data. You can view the results in a table with the following code:

   > table(predict(model),trainSet$seedType)     1  2  3  1 45  4  3  2  3 47  0  3  1  0 44

   The results show that the error (or misclassification rate) is 11 out of 147, or 7.48 percent.

4. With the results calculated, the next step is to read the table.

   The correct predictions are the ones that show the column and row numbers as the same. Those results show up as a diagonal line from top-left to bottom-right; for example, [1,1], [2,2], [3,3] are the number of correct predictions for that class.

   So for seed type 1, the model correctly predicted it 45 times, while misclassifying the seed 7 times (4 times as seed type 2, and 3 times as type 3). For seed type 2, the model correctly predicted it 47 times, while misclassifying it 3 times. For seed type 3, the model correctly predicted it 44 times, while misclassifying it only once.

This shows that this is a good model. So now you evaluate it with the test data. Here is the code that uses the test data to predict and store it in a variable (testPrediction) for later use:

> testPrediction <- predict(model, newdata=testSet)

To evaluate how the model performed with the test data, view it in a table and calculate the error, for which the code looks like this:

> table(testPrediction, testSet$seedType)testPrediction  1  2  3             1 23  2  1             2  1 19  0             3  1  0 17

The results show that the error is 5 out of 64, or 7.81 percent. This is consistent with the training data.

How to Create Stacks Using Lists in Python

You can use lists to create stacks in Python. A stack is a handy programming structure because you can use it to save an application execution environment (the state of variables and other attributes of the application environment at any given time) or as a means of determining an order of execution. Unfortunately, Python doesn’t provide a stack as a collection.

However, it does provide lists, and you can use a list as a perfectly acceptable stack. The following steps help you create an example of using a list as a stack.

1Open a Python File window.

You see an editor in which you can type the example code.

2Type the following code into the window — pressing Enter after each line:

MyStack = []StackSize = 3def DisplayStack(): print("Stack currently contains:") for Item in MyStack:  print(Item)def Push(Value): if len(MyStack) < StackSize:  MyStack.append(Value) else:  print("Stack is full!")def Pop(): if len(MyStack) > 0:  MyStack.pop() else:  print("Stack is empty.")Push(1)Push(2)Push(3)DisplayStack()input("Press any key when ready...")Push(4)DisplayStack()input("Press any key when ready...")Pop()DisplayStack()input("Press any key when ready...")Pop()Pop()Pop()DisplayStack()

In this example, the application creates a list and a variable to determine the maximum stack size. Stacks normally __have a specific size range. This is admittedly a really small stack, but it serves well for the example’s needs.

Stacks work by pushing a value onto the top of the stack and popping values back off the top of the stack. The Push() and Pop() functions perform these two tasks. The code adds DisplayStack() to make it easier to see the stack content as needed.

The remaining code exercises the stack (demonstrates its functionality) by pushing values onto it and then removing them. There are four main exercise sections that test stack functionality.

3Choose Run→Run Module.

You see a Python Shell window open. The application fills the stack with information and then displays it onscreen. In this case, 3 is at the top of the stack because it’s the last value added.

4Press Enter.

The application attempts to push another value onto the stack. However, the stack is full, so the task fails.

5Press Enter.

The application pops a value from the top of the stack. Remember that 3 is the top of the stack, so that’s the value that is missing.

6Press Enter.

The application tries to pop more values from the stack than it contains, resulting in an error. Any stack implementation that you create must be able to detect both overflows (too many entries) and underflows (too few entries).

SketchUp For Dummies Cheat Sheet

Like any 3-D modeling program, SketchUp offers different ways to do common tasks. In this Cheat Sheet, you’ll find tips on the best way to use SketchUp tools and to boost your productivity. Keyboard shortcuts also enable you to work quickly and easily in SketchUp, so you’ll uncover keyboard shortcuts for common tools.

13 Tips and Techniques for Using SketchUp

One of the best things about SketchUp is that you can use it to create 3-D models much more quickly than with other modeling programs. You can really turn up the speed on your creations with the following tips and techniques for using SketchUp tools.

To Do This Task	Here’s the Best Way
Navigate
Orbit with your mouse	Hold down scroll wheel
Zoom with your mouse	Roll scroll wheel
Pan with your mouse	Hold down Shift and the scroll wheel
Draw
Draw an edge a certain length with the Line tool	Type a length and press Enter
Snip off an edge at the last place you clicked	Press the Esc key
Lock your current direction with the Line tool	Hold down the Shift key while drawing with the tool
Change the number of sides in a circle, arc, or polygon	Type a number, then type s, and press Enter
Draw a circle or an arc of a certain radius	Type a radius and press Enter after you draw a circle
Select with the Select tool
Add or subtract from what you’ve selected	Hold down Shift
Select everything that isn’t hidden	Press Ctrl+A (Command+A on the Mac)
Select everything inside a selection box	Click and drag from left to right
Select everything touched by a selection box	Click and drag from right to left
Select all faces with the same material	Right-click and choose Select→All with Same Material
Move with the Move tool
Move a certain distance	Type a distance and press Enter after you move
Force Auto-Fold (tell SketchUp it’s okay to fold)	Press Alt (Command on the Mac)
Lock yourself in the blue (up and down) direction	Press the up arrow or down arrow key
Copy with the Move and Rotate tools
Make a copy with the Move or Rotate tools	Press Ctrl (Option on the Mac)
Make multiple copies in a row	Make a copy, type a distance, type x, and press Enter
Make multiple copies between	Make a copy, type a number, type /, and press Enter
Hide and Smooth with the Eraser tool
Hide something	Hold down Shift and click with the Eraser
Smooth something	Ctrl+click with the Eraser (Option+click on the Mac)
Unsmooth something	Hold down Shift+Ctrl and click with the Eraser (Shift+Option on the Mac)
Push/Pull and Offset
Make a copy of the face you’re push/pulling	Press Ctrl (Option on the Mac) and use the Push/Pull tool
Repeat the last distance you push/pulled	Double-click a face with the Push/Pull tool
Repeat the last distance you Offset	Double-click a face with the Offset tool
Scale with the Scale tool
Scale about the center	Hold down Ctrl (Option on the Mac) while scaling
Scale uniformly (don’t distort)	Hold down Shift while scaling
Scale by a certain factor	Type a number and press Enter
Make something a certain size	Type the size and the units and then press Enter
Apply materials with the Paint Bucket tool
Sample a material from a face	Hold down Alt (Command on the Mac) and click the face with the tool
Paint all faces that match the one you click	Hold down Shift while you click
Create guides
Tell the Tape Measure or Protractor tool to create a guide	Press Ctrl (Option on the Mac) and click with the tool
Walk around your model with the Walk tool
Walk through things	Hold down Alt (Command on the Mac)
Run instead of walk	Hold down Ctrl (Option on the Mac)
Get taller or shorter instead of walking	Hold down Shift
Change your eye height	Select the Look Around tool, type a height, and press Enter
Change your field of view	Select the Zoom tool, type a number, type deg, and press Enter

3 Timesaving Techniques for Using SketchUp

Creating a 3-D model takes time, but SketchUp makes it accessible and easy when compared to high-end modeling programs. As you create your models in SketchUp, you’ll come to appreciate the following timesaving techniques.

To divide an edge into a number of shorter edges:

1. Right-click an edge with the Select tool.

2. Choose Divide from the context menu that pops up.

3. Type the number of segments you’d like and press Enter.

To resize your whole model based on one known measurement:

1. Select the Tape Measure tool.

2. Press Ctrl (Option on a Mac) until you don’t see a + next to your cursor.

3. Measure a distance; click once to start measuring, and again to stop.

4. Type a dimension for the distance you just measured and press Enter.

5. Click Yes in the dialog box that pops up.

To set up your own keyboard shortcuts:

1. Choose Window→Preferences (File→Preferences on the Mac).

2. Click the Shortcuts panel.

13 Keyboard Shortcuts for Common SketchUp Tools

SketchUp offers keyboard shortcuts for the tools you use most often as you create models. To select the tool you want, simply press the letter that’s indicated in the following table.

Tool	Shortcut Key
Line	L
Eraser	E
Select	Spacebar
Move	M
Circle	C
Arc	A
Rectangle	R
Push/Pull	P
Offset	O
Rotate	Q
Scale	S
Zoom Extents	Shift+Z
Paint Bucket	B

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Performance Preview

The Snapdragon 820 SoC was a significant milestone on Qualcomm’s roadmap. It was a solid improvement over the 808/810, delivering higher performance and efficiency, and became a commercial success, finding its way into the majority of flagship phones last year. More importantly, it heralded Qualcomm’s vision for mobile devices: heterogeneous computing. This meant new hardware—a much improved Hexagon 680 DSP that added single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) Hexagon Vector Extensions (HVX); Qualcomm’s first fully-custom 64-bit CPU core, Kryo, which focused on improving floating-point IPC; and an updated Adreno GPU with strong ALU performance—for enabling new software technologies and user experiences—artificial intelligence for smarter personal assistants, machine learning for object recognition, computational photography for better image and video quality, and new AR/VR experiences.

Snapdragon 835—now a part of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Mobile Platform that includes all of the company’s mobile hardware and software—is an evolutionary product that builds on this vision. The greater than 3 billion transistor SoC is the first to use Samsung’s 10nm "10LPE" FinFET process, which reduces overall package size by 35% relative to Snapdragon 820. The new SoC’s CPU transplant and X16 LTE modem, which tops out at 1Gbps (Category 16) on the downlink, are the biggest changes, but most of the other blocks within the SoC __have received at least minor updates too. For detailed information about all the changes and new features, you can read our Snapdragon 835 launch article.

Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs: Three Generations
SoC	Snapdragon 835 (MSM8998)	Snapdragon 820 / 821 (MSM8996 / MSM8996 Pro)	Snapdragon 810 (MSM8994)
CPU	4x Kryo 280 Performance @ 2.45GHz 4x Kryo 280 Efficiency @ 1.90GHz	2x Kryo @ 2.15GHz / 2.34GHz 2x Kryo @ 1.59GHz / 2.19GHz	4x Cortex-A57 @ 2.00GHz 4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.50GHz
GPU	Adreno 540 @ 710MHz ?	Adreno 530 @ 624MHz / 653MHz	Adreno 430 @ 630MHz
Memory	2x 32-bit @ 1866MHz LPDDR4x 29.9GB/s	2x 32-bit @ 1866MHz LPDDR4 29.9GB/s	2x 32-bit @ 1600MHz LPDDR4 25.6GB/s
ISP/Camera	Dual 14-bit Spectra 180 ISP 1x 32MP or 2x 16MP	Dual 14-bit Spectra ISP 1x 25MP or 2x 13MP	Dual 14-bit ISP 1x 21MP
Encode/Decode	2160p30 (2160p60 decode), 1080p120 H.264 & H.265	2160p30 (2160p60 decode), 1080p120 H.264 & H.265	2160p30 (2160p60 decode), 1080p120 H.264 & H.265
Integrated Modem	Snapdragon X16 LTE (Category 16/13) DL = 1000Mbps 3x20MHz CA, 256-QAM UL = 150Mbps 2x20MHz CA, 64-QAM	Snapdragon X12 LTE (Category 12/13) DL = 600Mbps 3x20MHz CA, 256-QAM UL = 150Mbps 2x20MHz CA, 64-QAM	Snapdragon X10 LTE (Category 9) DL = 450Mbps 3x20MHz CA, 64-QAM UL = 50Mbps 1x20MHz CA, 16-QAM
Mfc. Process	10nm LPE	14nm LPP	20nm SoC

In what has become an annual tradition going all the way back to Snapdragon 800, Qualcomm invited the media to its headquarters in San Diego for some feature demonstrations and limited testing using the company's Mobile Development Platform (MDP) devices. These are fully functional tablets or smartphones in a slightly oversized, utilitarian chassis used for hardware testing and software development. The MDP for Snapdragon 810 took the form of a tablet, while Snapdragon 820 came inside a large smartphone with a 6.2-inch display. This downsizing trend continues for Snapdragon 835, whose MDP/S is a smartphone with 6GB of RAM, a 5.5-inch 2560x1440 display, and a small 2850 mAh battery. The use of a smaller chassis is encouraging, because it has less mass and surface area to absorb and dissipate heat. This suggests a lower TDP for the 835, but we'll need to measure power consumption to be sure.

Because we only had a limited time for testing, we focused on running some basic CPU, GPU, and memory performance tests. Keep in mind that we were testing prototype hardware running pre-production software that resulted in a few hiccups. The condensed testing period also forced us to stray slightly from our usual testing methodology. Therefore, these numbers should be viewed as preliminary and could change by the time retail units begin shipping.

The Tesoro Excalibur SE Spectrum Review: A Mechanical Keyboard with Gateron Optical Switches

The popularity of mechanical keyboards has led to the flooding of the market with hundreds of products, many of which had very small (or even zero) differences from each other. After all, there were only a handful of different keyboard switch types (and their clones), and there is only so much one can do with differentiating in terms of aesthetics and design without moving into software. This lack of variety, in conjunction with the very high popularity that mechanical keyboards __have amongst gamers, has pushed the manufacturers to design and develop new, unique mechanical keyboard switches - often aimed directly towards gamers.

During the past couple of years, we __have seen (and tested) several new switch designs that were trying to differentiate from the typical Cherry MX switches and their clones. Manufacturers experimented with the travel and actuation distance of the keys, or the differences were purely cosmetic, such as clear plastic bodies for better LED lighting effects.

In this review we are having a look at the new Tesoro Excalibur SE Spectrum, a keyboard with switches that are more than just a little different. The Excalibur SE Spectrum externally looks like a typical mechanical keyboard but its switches are optical, relying on infrared sensors rather than metallic contacts for signaling.

Packaging and bundle

Tesoro supplies the Excalibur SE Spectrum in a typical cardboard box with minimal, straightforward artwork. The design of the packaging is focused on the promotion of the optical key switches. It is a sturdy packaging that should be offering more than adequate protection to the keyboard during shipping.

Inside the packaging we only found a very basic manual and a small sticker listing the keyboard’s advanced keystroke functions. There is no keycap puller or other accessories supplied alongside with the Excalibur SE Spectrum.

Ticket touts face unlimited fines for using 'bots' to buy in bulk

Touts who use computer software to harvest concert tickets in bulk and resell them at vast mark-ups face unlimited fines as part of a crackdown on highly profitable resale sites such as Viagogo, StubHub and GetMeIn.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport will announce a package of measures to curb the growing power of the so-called “secondary ticketing” industry, which now regularly offers tickets at huge mark-ups, even before they are available to the general public.

Proposals will include a new criminal offence for the use of “bots” – software that helps touts bypass limits on the number of tickets one person can buy.

National Trading Standards will also be handed a ringfenced pot of money to fund efforts to stop fans being ripped off or shut out of the most in-demand events.

The government is taking action following outrage that face-value tickets to see artists such as Adele and Ed Sheeran are selling out in minutes, only to appear for thousands of pounds on resale websites such as Viagogo, StubHub and GetMeIn moments later.

These websites make money by allowing touts, as well as genuine fans, to resell tickets in return for a cut of anything up to 25% of the sale price.

As well as criminalising bots, ministers at DCMS will accept in full the recommendations of a review by Professor Michael Waterson, who published proposals to tackle rogue ticket traders last year.

These include demanding that ticket firms to step up their own efforts to prevent the use of bots and to report any attacks on their systems by touts trying to harvest tickets.

While primary ticket firms such as Ticketmaster say they are doing their utmost to stop bot users, the company also owns secondary sites, such as GetMeIn and Seatwave, which __have close relationships with major touts and take a cut of their profits.

Ministers will also propose stronger enforcement of consumer rights laws, amid concern that tickets are being sold with no information about the seat location or the name of the seller, in contravention of the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Efforts to step up scrutiny of firms’ adherence to consumer laws is also aimed at sites that sell tickets whose terms and conditions specifically ban resale, meaning fans are turned away at the door.

Labour MP Sharon Hodgson, a long-time campaigner for ticket reform, welcomed measures she said would address a “broken and parasitic market”.

“These measures will ensure that fans are protected, but there still remains work to do to make sure that these measures are enforced properly so touts do not circumvent them as this is going to very soon be the law of the land.”

The DCMS proposals will be informed by an ongoing review by the Competition and Market Authority into secondary ticketing firms’ compliance with the law.

Ticket resale sites will face even harsher measures if they do not prove that they are taking sufficient steps to address the power of touts, the Guardian understands.

Theresa May promised to take action on ticket resale at Prime Minister’s Questions after Nigel Adams MP urged her to help “ensure genuine fans are not fleeced by ticket touts and rogues”.

Increased scrutiny of secondary ticketing follows revelations in the Guardian about the actions of well-known ticket resale sites and the touts who __have used them to build multi-million pound businesses by harvesting tickets in bulk.

Viagogo, which is based in Switzerland but has a large office in Cannon Street, London, was recently accused of “moral repugnance” for seeking to profit from the resale of tickets for an Ed Sheeran gig at the Royal Albert Hall in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Ticketmaster, which owns resale sites GetMeIn and Seatwave, has also come under the spotlight after it emerged that a man previously convicted of a £2m ticket fraud was using the sites to sell thousands of pounds’ worth of tickets.

The identities of some of the UK’s most powerful touts were revealed last year after a whistleblower passed the Guardian information revealing the vast rewards on offer to those with a grip on access to the UK’s most popular events.

Many have since rebranded their companies amid mounting outrage about their business models.

While music concerts have proved the most lucrative targets for touts, high-profile theatre productions such as critically acclaimed hip-hop musical Hamilton, as well as Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, have also been targeted.

Tim Berners-Lee calls for tighter regulation of online political advertising Tim Berners-Lee warns of danger of chaos in unprotected public data

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the worldwide web, has called for tighter regulation of online political advertising, which he says is being used in “unethical ways”.

“We urgently need to close the ‘internet blind spot’ in the regulation of political campaigning,” he said, writing in an open letter marking the 28th anniversary of his invention.

The 61-year-old British computer scientist described how political advertising has become a sophisticated and targeted industry, drawing on enormous pools of personal data on Facebook and Google. This means that campaigns create precisely targeted ads for individuals – as many as 50,000 variations each day on Facebook during the 2016 US election, he said.

This can become unethical when voters are pointed to fake news sites and using messaging to discourage people from turning out to vote, as the Trump campaign did with certain groups whose support Hillary Clinton needed to win.

“Targeted advertising allows a campaign to say completely different, possibly conflicting things to different groups. Is that democratic?” Berners-Lee said.

The lack of regulation in political advertising online was one of three trends that threaten the openness of the web that Berners-Lee has become “increasingly worried” about over the past year. The others are the loss of control over our personal data and the spread of misinformation online.

Personal data is the price many of us agree to pay for free services online, but Berners-Lee points out that “we’re missing a trick” by letting large data-harvesting companies – such as Google, Facebook and Amazon – control that information.

“As our data is then held in proprietary silos, out of sight to us, we lose out on the benefits we could realise if we had direct control over this data, and chose when and with whom to share it,” he said.

A more pernicious side-effect of this data aggregation is the way governments are “increasingly watching our every move online” and passing laws such as the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, which legalises a range of snooping and hacking tools used by security services that “trample our right to privacy”. Such surveillance creates a “chilling effect on free speech”, even in countries that don’t __have repressive regimes, he said.

Berners-Lee’s final concern was that it is too easy for misinformation to spread on the web, particularly as there has been a huge consolidation in the way people find news and information online through gatekeepers like Facebook and Google, who select content to show us based on algorithms that learn from the harvesting of personal data.

“The net result is that these sites show us content they think we’ll click on – meaning that misinformation, or fake news, which is surprising, shocking, or designed to appeal to our biases can spread like wildfire,” he said. This allows for people with bad intentions and “armies of bots” to game the system to spread misinformation for financial or political gain.

Berners-Lee said that the Web Foundation, the organisation he founded in 2009 dedicated to improvement and availability of the web, is working on these issues as part of a five-year strategy.

“It has taken all of us to build the web we have, and now it is up to all of us to build the web we want – for everyone.”

Stephen Collins on vlogs – cartoon

The Guardian Trump heaps praise on Twitter and denies using it to spread falsehoods Trump heaps praise on Twitter and denies using it to spread falsehoods

It’s official: Donald Trump is the first Twitter president of the United States.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson of Fox News, Trump put into words what many people __have long been suspecting, that were it not for his mastery of hyperbole in 140 characters, he would not now be occupying the most powerful office on Earth.

“Let me tell you about Twitter,” the president began. “I think that maybe I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Twitter.”

Lump together his followers on Twitter and Facebook, Instagram, @Potus and “lots of other things”, Trump said, and he has the combined ability to publish directly to as many as 100 million people.

“Twitter is a wonderful thing for me, because I get the word out … I might not be here talking to you right now as president if I didn’t __have an honest way of getting the word out.”

Or “dishonest way”, he might have said. Many of his most memorable tweets have been demonstrable lies, such as his claim that millions of people voted illegally in the presidential election.

Or his contention that global warming was a hoax invented by the Chinese.

And then there was that little matter earlier this month in which Trump sparked a firestorm by claiming on Twitter, without producing any evidence, that President Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower.

Carlson pressed Trump on his relaxed approach to accuracy on social media. “Why not wait to tweet about it until you can prove it? Don’t you devalue your words when you can’t provide evidence?” the Fox News host asked.

To which the president of the United States replied, slightly indignantly, that there had been evidence: he had read about wiretapping in the New York Times – “the failing New York Times” he corrected himself quickly, realizing he had just committed a faux pas by crediting one of his “dishonest media” enemies as a reliable source.

Not only that, he hastened to add, he even heard Fox News’s own Bret Baier use the word. “If you watched the [sic] Bret Baier and what he was saying and what he was talking about and how he mentioned the word wiretap, you would feel very confident that you could mention the name.”

Who needs the combined might of the intelligence agencies – commanded, as it happens, by one President Trump – when you’ve got the “failing” New York Times and the Bret Baier to lean on?

“And don’t forget,” Trump added, “when I say wiretapping, those words were in quotes. That really covers, because wiretapping is pretty old fashioned stuff, but that really covers surveillance and many other things. And nobody ever talks about the fact that it was in quotes, but that’s a very important thing.”

But if the president says something that cannot be proved or is demonstrably untrue, doesn’t that devalue his own currency, Carlson asked a second time.

“Let’s see whether or not I proved it,” said the Twitter master. “I think we have some very good stuff. And we’re in the process of putting it together, and I think it’s going to be very demonstrative.”

The Guardian The Guardian view on a trustworthy web: it’s up to us The Guardian view on a trustworthy web: it’s up to us

Sir Tim Berners-Lee has warned that the world wide web, which he invented 28 years ago, has become an instrument of purposes he finds both sinister and corrupting, and in a letter released to mark the anniversary he warns that it is being turned against its users in three ways. They – we – __have lost control of our personal data. It has made it astonishingly easy to spread lies and misinformation. And it is enabling sophisticated political advertising which plays on the precisely known personal weaknesses of its targets. All of these dangers are real and urgent. This paper has also warned against all of them. The problem comes with Sir Tim’s proposed remedies, such as they are. He is in the position of a civil engineer who has built a road for aid convoys to use and now finds it choked with tank transporters. The new problem can’t be solved entirely by better engineering.

The web, conceived as a means to spread democracy and decentralise knowledge, has also become an unparalleled instrument of surveillance and a means for small organised groups to spread lies to immense audiences, sometimes for political motives, sometimes simply for profit. But it turns out that when access to the world is so easy, most of the resulting traffic will be rubbish, little will be factually true and a great deal will be actively misleading. It’s all profitable, of course, for the companies that take a slice of advertising. This isn’t entirely new. Only a well-paid hack could look back at the years when print journalism was profitable and claim that all or even most of it was inspired by public spirit. But the slipperiness of the web, the way that it has shortened the interval between urge and reward, and the increasing sophistication of the algorithms used to keep people reading by supplying them with a little more of what they fancy than does them good, all make the problem larger and more urgent than it has ever been before. Earlier this week, MPs were rightfully vexed by the apparent ease with which Islamic State supporters and neo-Nazi groups could earn advertising revenue from their hate-filled YouTube videos.

The market has no answer to the question “How much money ought to be enough for Facebook (or Google)?”, except “more”. When companies can shop around for the most beneficial tax regime, there is no single government which could curb this greed either. The time when a cabal of high-minded engineers like Sir Tim could fix the technology completely to try to protect us against our own worst impulses feels as though it is past. That’s why the admirable technical solution Sir Tim is presently working on at MIT – a way of storing personal data that would restore control to the person collected from, rather than the entities collecting it – will spark a showdown, since it threatens fundamentally the business model of the whole advertising industry.

But it would be wrong to despair. Nations __have come up with novel methods to police the web – this week the German government proposed fining social media companies up to €50m for not deleting fake news and hate speech within a day of a complaint. The contest between lies and truth is an arms race in which no victory for either side is permanent. Some techniques of advertising and propaganda, hugely effective in their day, have since been discredited by experience and common sense. The institutional fightback against troubling uses of the web may be insufficient, but some things are possible – which means they’re also necessary. Politicians must demand accountability, and so far as possible transparency, from the companies which base their decisions on algorithms. Even when institutions fail us we are not helpless as individuals. We learn from being lied to, even if the process can be horribly painful. The consequences of Trump and Brexit will offer any number of opportunities for learning in that sense. In the end, the web will be made trustworthy again by our own decisions about who to trust.

Tweet to Katie Hopkins: just say sorry next time Hasn’t £13k a day George Osborne already got a job as an MP? | Jess Phillips Daddy, Daddy – can we play too? | Jess Phillips

I like a row on Twitter. I’ve suffered some pretty high-profile abuse, but, by and large, it is the perfect platform for the whip-smart retort. Last week saw rightwing windbag Katie “please pay me attention” Hopkins looking more whipped than smart.

She has been ordered to pay £24,000 in damages to the food blogger Jack Monroe following an online spat during which she accused Monroe of supporting the defacing of war memorials.

I can see some problems on the horizon with this judgment and the freedom of speech warriors will no doubt be tooling up.

The judgment hung on the issue of reputation and I struggle to imagine how my reputation wouldn’t simply be enhanced by Hopkins sending bile my way.

Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but smile at Hopkins’s defeat. She deserved it, she courted it and then she refused to do what even a child would do and just apologise.

It is easy to win a Twitter war with humour and the ability to punch a hole in pomposity and piety. You don’t need to be mean if you are clever. It’s no surprise that Hopkins fell flat on her face.

Facebook and Twitter should do more to combat fake news, says GCHQ What is fake news? How to spot it and what you can do to stop it Fighting fake news: societies using technology to search for truth

Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook should be doing more to combat the emerging threat of fake news, a director of the government’s new National Cyber Security Centre has said.

Paul Chichester, the director for operations at the GCHQ-controlled body, said the companies must recognise their “social responsibility” and help tackle misinformation spread by state-backed groups.

He said: “We don’t own those platforms, we don’t run them, the industry does. It’s really important that they do recognise they carry some social responsibility.

“Technology companies, they’re huge global companies with responsibilities of nation states sometimes to tackle some of these problems.”

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which officially opened on 14 February, has said protecting the integrity of Britain’s electoral democratic systems is one of its top priorities following the hacking of the Democratic party in the US last year.

Facebook has come under particular scrutiny after a proliferation of fake news stories went viral during the US presidential election campaign, including one story that claimed the pope had endorsed Donald Trump.

The social network is testing a way to flag news deemed to be fake but government officials, including the EU’s digital chief, Andrus Ansip, __have urged them to take a stronger stance or face action from Brussels.

Asked on Tuesday whether social networks could do more to tackle the rising tide of fake news, Chichester said: “I think so. It’s an emerging threat that we’re all grappling with. It’s not just a challenge for government.

“I think you can see some of the social media companies already looking at tackling some of that.

“I think perhaps they feel they’ve been exploited and they’re looking to tackle that as well. Actually, I think it currently looks like an area we can collaborate and work together with industry to tackle this.”

Chichester was speaking in Liverpool on the fringes of the NCSC’s first cybersecurity summit, hailed Cyber UK. Security was tight at the three-day event for intelligence and cybersecurity professionals. A small number of journalists was allowed to watch a keynote address by Robert Hannigan, the outgoing GCHQ director, before being ushered out.

The government-run conference comes a week after WikiLeaks published what it claimed was the biggest leak of confidential documents from the CIA, detailing the tools it uses to break into phones, smart televisions and other communication devices.

Chichester would not be drawn on the implications of the leak for the British intelligence agencies, but said cyber-criminals would seek to take advantage from any vulnerabilities disclosed in the leak.

He said: “For us any leak of data, or any leak of vulnerabilities, in an uncontrolled way, whoever does it doesn’t help the security industry. We believe in responsible disclosure. We believe in if you understand vulnerabilities you __have ways to disclose them responsibly. I wouldn’t in any way shape or form endorse the mass leaking of anything like that.

“Cybercriminals will always be looking for new techniques. They’ll certainly be keen to look at how they can use them. Any time when somebody discloses potentially new ways of attacking systems then the criminals are going to be really keen to weaponise them before people have had a chance to fix them.”

You've Got Mail: the forgotten world of 90s movie websites How Twitter killed the official movie website 25 things you may have forgotten about the internet

You’ve Got Mail has dated horribly in the 19 years since it was released. It isn’t just the haircuts that __have aged, or the music, or even the fact that it’s about a battle between small bookstores (which don’t exist any more) and big bookstores (which don’t exist any more) over who gets to sell the most books (which nobody reads any more).

No, the thing that dates You’ve Got Mail more than anything else is its website. Never taken down, it really goes in hard on what the internet was like in the days before anyone really had the internet. There’s a “Buy the video” link, and a link to the You’ve Got Mail soundtrack CD. There’s downloadable desktop wallpaper that strobes violently like a Japanese cartoon, and instructions on how to download it to Windows 95. There are RealAudio files of New York street drummers. Most grievously of all, the website contains the text “Sure, computers aren’t really the end of Western Civilization as we know it, but they’re full of great ways to waste a little time”, which of course has since been proved wrong on two counts now that Twitter exists.

Obviously, You’ve Got Mail isn’t alone here. In the late 90s and early 00s, Hollywood became slightly too confident about what the internet could offer moviegoers. Jurassic Park sequel The Lost World created its very own InGen site, full of menus and submenus that lead to emails where two non-film characters describe last night’s dreams to each other in excruciating detail. Space Jam basically has a GeoCities page where if you click around enough, you’ll be presented with a list of radio stations that are “currently playing the first single from the Space Jam Soundtrack, Seal - Fly Like An Eagle”. Steampunk western Wild Wild West’s site has a page where, if you must, you can perv on impractically small photographs of the film’s “lovelies” (its female cast members) in various provocative poses.

It goes on. Saving Private Ryan has full-width white-on-black text that was presumably designed to make the reading experience as traumatic as the Normandy landings. The Mallrats site is largely a vessel for Kevin Smith’s excitement about a potential laserdisc release.

The Mortal Kombat: Annihilation site contains an embarrassingly needy plea for fan feedback that in part reads: “Did you notice Sindel’s sonic blast? It destroyed a whole canyon of ancient temples. Did you get this? How about Nightwolf’s animality or the green glow on his ax. Did you see the Shadow Priests in Kahn’s fortress? Did you know that the girl who plays Mileena is an Olympic Gold medalist in Tae Kwon Doe? That’s so the mudfight will be exciting and realistic. Was it for you?”

It’s easy to laugh at sites like these, but really their only crime is still being accessible. They were made at the birth of a technology by people who thought a website could enrich the moviegoing experience. I’d rather take that over what we __have now, where an underpaid graduate sits in a room and glumly retweets every last bit of praise that Logan ever gets to keep their cackling paylord happy.

Luckily, the practice hasn’t died out completely. One can only assume that it’ll be less than 19 years before someone finds the La La Land website and spends a day laughing uproariously at its annoying autoplay songs and gif creators and links to official La La Land iPhone stickers (featuring, of course, one where Ryan Gosling stands in front of the word “HONNNNNK!!!”. And that’s La La Land, for crying out loud. That’s a website for a critical darling. Imagine the atrocities we’d have to put up with if Space Jam was made today.

MPs slam social media companies over online hate speech – video

Can .art domain give the art business an online boost? Art market faces uncertain 2017 after falling values and high-profile disputes

London’s Institute of Contemporary Art adopted the new .Art suffix last week, a sign that the art and culture business may at last be starting to come to terms with its future in the digital realm.

The hip arts organisation ditched its fusty ica.org.uk web domain for the more streamlined and descriptive ica.art. The move may soon be followed at other prestigious art institutions around the world, the ICA says, including the Tate in London, Guggenheim in New York, the Pompidou Centre in Paris and Lacma in Los Angeles.

The ICA director, Stefan Kalmár, said the change of web address was not only logical but underlined the ICA’s position as an institution “that has always thought globally and opposes the current re-emerging of nationalism in the UK and elsewhere”.

Five years ago, the body in charge of names on the internet, ICANN, swept away regulations and opened up a new world of additional web address suffixes, or top-level domains, including .art.

But can the adoption of .art really be more than just a symbolic gesture? “The intent is to bring back a more orderly structure to this incredible mess of the internet,” says Anton Vidokle, the entrepreneur behind the art company e-flux. E-flux is acting as an adviser to UKCI, a UK-based company that signed an agreement with ICANN to administer the .art domain in August 2016.

Vidokle believes that distributing the .art extension to artists or art-related businesses will help to more clearly define the intelligibility and authenticity of art enterprises – and perhaps contribute to the continuing viability of the art business.

“There are maybe 6,000 art institutions [working with e-flux] and perhaps half of them __have no reference to visual art in their names,” Vidokle says. He estimates that there are at least 20,000 institutions worldwide. “If they cater to the public, they may want the public to identify them as an art space because people immediately understand your professional affiliation.”

He adds: “Being an artist implies a normative departure from bourgeois society. It’s a different kind of extension because it refers to a different lifestyle, so, unlike other domains, .art has the capacity to draw artists and institutions to itself.”

This could prove a timely development. Once assumed immune to digital disruption, art has recently appeared more vulnerable, thanks to a slew of gallery closures and institutional upheavals tied in part to the costs of doing business in the physical realm.

Whether or not a more defined internet structure will help business remains to be seen. There were once just 22 top-level domains with type suffixes like .com, .net, .mil, and .gov, and a handful of geographic suffixes. According to ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, there are currently 1,216 delegated suffixes, including many, like .xxx, .tattoo, .bike, .attorney, .bingo, .broker, .lol, and .pizza, that are administered by and for commercial purposes.

In each case, the suffixes are licensed by ICANN but administered by a third party, such as UKCI. For the most part, ICANN does not seek to enforce how delegated domains are operated, subject to certain contractual agreements that prohibit discriminatory practices.

According to Alison Simpson, senior manager for domain management at software company MarkMonitor, there is “real potential for companies to do creative branding” with domains like .art. But she expects that many companies will defensively register .art, and then not do anything with the domain.

Under Vidokle’s plan, e-flux will give art professionals and artists the opportunity to register a .art domain for a three-month period, after which the suffix will become more generally available. In its role as an arts organisation producing magazines, running a New York exhibition space and various affiliated arts projects, the body could offer UKCI, the owner of the .art domain, guidance.

Close to 100 arts organisations __have signed up; some have already switched, including the Stedelijk museum in Amsterdam and Museo Tamayo in Mexico City. Others who have signed up but not switched include the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and DIA Art Foundation.

Attempts to commercialise art online have had mixed results, but with the internet changing virtually every kind of transaction, its effect on art is likely to increase – despite a lingering resistance to purchasing art on the internet.

“There have been many attempts to create viable commerce in art [online] but I’m not sure how successful they’ve been,” Vidokle says.

“The big question is authenticity. It is very difficult to tell if something is authentic from a small jpeg picture. If you don’t know what it is, or the website behind it, you’re very unlikely to buy it.”

MarkMonitor’s Alison Simpson doesn’t expect any rapid transformation.

“It’s going to be a long process. I don’t think there will be a huge uptake, because consumers don’t know .art is even available. Companies operating under .art will have to undertake a lot of advertising and it will take five to ten years to get it out there and to build trust.”

But the costs of digital adaptation, or the failure to adapt, are becoming clear. This week, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Thomas P Campbell resigned, in part over problems related to rebranding and the expansion of the institution’s digital presence.

Several well-known galleries, including Marlborough Contemporary and Andrea Rosen in New York, have merged or closed in recent weeks, in part over the difficulties of maintaining gallery spaces and the cost of exhibiting at art fairs, where a large proportion of sales are made.

All of which, says Vidokle, points to the increasing adoption of the internet, at least at the lower end of the market.

“As protocols around authenticity come into place, and as we try to prevent cyber-squatting or the kidnapping of identities and institutions, there is the possibility people will start purchasing more art online.” But, he warns, “it’s a slow process.”

The Guardian Kesha at SXSW: 'The internet is not a healthy place for me' Kesha at SXSW: 'The internet is not a healthy place for me' Emails reveal Dr Luke said Kesha not given good songs 'because of her weight'

The pop star Kesha spoke about the internet abuse she has suffered, which has seen the singer pare back her online presence dramatically, and her struggles with eating disorders at an emotionally charged SXSW event.

Speaking at a session that discussed ways to reclaim the internet, the star said she only used the web to connect with her fans but no longer feels comfortable in the space. “I use the internet to connect to my fans but aside from that, it’s not a healthy place for me,” she said. Comment sections __have also become a no-go zone for her.

“Especially not posting comments. I try to limit myself in terms of reading comments because there can be a million positive ones, but I always gravitate towards the one negative one. I hold on to that and I internalize it and I know it’s an unhealthy habit. I’ve stopped reading comments.”

Kesha also spoke about her battle with body dysmorphia and bulimia, which she said almost killed her after doctors said she was so weakened by the disease that they were surprised she hadn’t had a stroke.

“I want to talk about it because I want to help people,” she said, visibly moved. “It can kill you. I almost died. I came very close, closer than I ever knew. By the time I entered rehab they were surprised I hadn’t had a stroke because I wasn’t consuming enough of anything.”

She added that when she was at her lowest point during her eating disorder was when people complimented her on how well she looked. “I was starving and people used to say: ‘Wow, you look so great. Keep doing what you’re doing.’ And little did they know they were encouraging me to starve myself to death.”

She added that a turning point came when she began to ignore online abuse and focus her attention on her own well-being. “Criticism used to tear me up inside,” she said. “I was making trolls, I was making bullies, I was making people who I’d never met before who were projecting their insecurities on to me on the internet – I was making them the truth. I was really sad.”

In order to cope with the stresses of online abuse, Kesha, who has been embroiled in a long-running legal battle with her former producer Dr Luke, who she says raped and abused her, undertook a “shit ton of therapy” and created music.

“Over the past couple of years I feel like I’ve become a woman in a lot of ways because I’m kind of reclaiming my personal space, my body, my music, and my life. With online, it’s important to reclaim that space too.”

“When I first came out as an artist, I thought I had to be really tough and I was really young and I had no fucking idea what I was doing,” she said. “I thought to overcompensate, I had to act really tough and act like nothing affected me. I thought that was strength. I’ve since realized I’ve found a lot of strength in my vulnerabilities. A lot more people can relate to that.

“I think the world should be a safe space, I think America should be a safe place and I definitely think the internet should be a safe place,” she said.

The singer’s case against Dr Luke became a focal point for fans and other acts worldwide who supported Kesha. Stars including Taylor Swift and Lena Dunham spoke out, and Swift donated $250,000 to Kesha’s legal fund.

One lawsuit was filed in California and dropped by Kesha in August 2016; another in New York was dismissed by a judge in April 2016. The verdicts essentially meant Kesha was tied to a contract with the producer who she alleged had raped her.

Dr Luke, whose real name is Lukasz Sebastian Gottwald, has denied all the allegations.

Mischa Barton sex tapes: OC actor speaks of her horror

The actor Mischa Barton has described her horror at learning that videos of her that she says were taken with hidden cameras by her ex-boyfriend were being offered for sale to porn sites.

The former star of the teen drama series the OC has taken legal action over the scandal in an attempt to stop the footage being published online and, at a press conference this week, said she was speaking out to “protect” other women from the “pain and humiliation” of similar situations.

“I just want to say that I __have been put through an incredibly hard and trying time. This is a painful situation and my absolute worst fear was realised when I learned that someone I thought I loved and trusted was filming my most intimate and private moments without my consent, with hidden cameras.

“And then I learned something even worse – that someone is trying to sell these videos and make them public,” Barton said, reading from a prepared statement.

“I came forward to fight this, not only for myself but for all the women out there. I want to protect them from the pain and humiliation that I __have had to go through. No woman should have to go through this.”

She thanked her lawyer, Lisa Bloom, and her friends for helping her “throughout this horrific experience”. Barton added: “It is a very hard thing to do, but I am glad that I am finally standing up for myself,” she added.

Bloom, who sat next to the actor throughout, said she believed that making the videos without her client’s consent or knowledge was a form of domestic abuse under California law.

“There’s a name for this disgusting conduct: revenge pornography. Revenge pornography is a form of sexual assault, and it is also a crime and a civil wrong in California. And we will not stand for it.”

Bloom added: “The court agreed and gave us everything we asked for.” That included an order to Barton’s former partner, whom it declined to name, to stay away from her. “Most importantly, the court ordered that this individual and his agents ‘may not sell, distribute, give away or show any naked pictures or videos of any type of Mischa Barton’,” Bloom added.

It was confirmed that the footage was shot within the last 12 months. Data from Google show that searches for tapes depicting Mischa Barton increased markedly in the early part of this month, suggesting that rumours had begun to spread of the existence of the footage.

“We cannot know everyone who may be looking at or considering purchasing these images,” Bloom said.

She warned anyone who sought to distribute the images: “If you continue, we will find you, come after you and bring you to justice to the fullest extent possible under the civil and criminal laws.

She said that both she and her client stood for a “woman’s right to choose what images of her own body will be made public”, adding that no one had the right to exploit a woman “for revenge or financial gain”.

At the press conference, she said: “Revenge porn is a very common crime … it’s scary, even for a celebrity, to stand up like this, but it’s important for girls and women to stand up for our rights.”

Barton is not the first Hollywood actor to find herself the victim in such a case. In 2011, naked pictures of fellow actor Scarlett Johansson were published online after being stolen from her phone. In 2014, around 500 private pictures of celebrities obtained via a hack of Apple’s iCloud service were posted on a messageboard. Jennifer Lawrence, one of the victims, called that incident a sex crime. “It is a sexual violation,” she said. “It’s disgusting.”

Barton’s appeal also came after the actor Emma Watson revealed plans to take legal action after private photographs, in which she is trying on clothes during a fitting, were stolen.

The Guardian Abta website hack compromises holidaymakers' data Abta website hack compromises holidaymakers' data UK fraud hits record £1.1bn as cybercrime soars

A cyber-attack on the website of the UK’s largest travel association could __have affected about 43,000 people, including 1,000 holidaymakers.

The Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) said hackers broke into web servers hosting the organisation’s website on 27 February and stole data related to customers of its members, which include tour operators, and information pertaining to the members themselves.

The breach is estimated to __have affected 43,000 people, including around 1,000 files containing personal identity information of customers of Abta members.

Abta added that the vast majority of the 43,000 relate to people who have registered on abta.com, with email addresses and encrypted passwords, which are types of data at “a very low exposure risk to identity theft or online fraud”.

The Abta chief executive, Mark Tanzer, said: “I would personally like to apologise for the anxiety and concern that this incident may cause to any customer of Abta or Abta member who may be affected.

“It is extremely disappointing that our web server, managed for Abta through a third party web developer and hosting company, was compromised, and we are taking every step we can to help those affected.”

Tanzer said Abta was not aware of hackers passing the stolen data on but as a precautionary measure is warning both customers of Abta members and Abta members who have the potential to be affected.

“We are today contacting these people and providing them with information and guidance to help keep them safe from identity theft or online fraud,” he said.

Abta has alerted the data watchdog, the information commissioner, and the police.

Google is 'profiting from hatred' say MPs in row over adverts

Politicians and advertisers __have warned Google that it must overhaul advertising practices or risk being hit by regulation and advertiser boycotts.

A major global marketing company became the first to pull all its advertising spending with Google after the news that adverts for a range of organisations had been inadvertently placed next to extremist material. MPs meanwhile threatened that legislation could be put on the table if social media companies did not effectively self-regulate.

The company has been forced to review its advertising policies after the UK government joined organisations including the Guardian, BBC and Transport for London in pulling advertising from Google and YouTube in response to the news. The company has also been summoned to the Cabinet Office.

An influential group of MPs from the home affairs select committee wrote to the company on Friday, accusing them of “profiting from hatred” just days after accusing Google, Twitter and Facebook of “commercial prostitution” because of a failure to tackle hate speech on their platforms.

Labour MP Yvette Cooper, chair of the HASC, said that despite reassurances during the committee hearing that the companies did not allow hate speech or terrorist content to be monetised, media reports had revealed “that this is not the case”.

“Government advertisements and major brands advertising is still being placed on inappropriate and hate-filled sites,” she wrote. “As a result Google and these organisations are still profiting from hatred.”

Cooper called on Google to refund money to the government and other advertisers and explain “how this has happened, and what you are doing to prevent it ever happening again.”

Google could face an embarrassing number of refund requests, which it is understood will be issued in the form of credits to advertisers if the company made an error placing an ad and concluded that the material was sufficiently offensive to terminate the account of the publisher.

Conservative MP Tim Loughton, who also sits on the committee, said if social media companies “would not do their own self-regulation, they will __have to face proper regulation” – raising the prospect of more restrictive UK legislation being brought against internet giants. He supported a move in Germany which could see social media companies face fines of up to €50m (£44m) if they failed to delete offending material within a week. .

“There is a real public appetite that would support those companies being brought to heel,” he said.

Labour MP Chuka Umunna said: “It is wrong that these social media companies should make billions of dollars out of running their platforms but don’t make the necessary investments to properly police them.”

Meanwhile Google was facing growing commercial pressure, with French advertising group Havas, whose clients include O2, EDF and Royal Mail, becoming the first of the major global marketing companies to pull all its advertising spending from its platforms.

Havas, the world’s sixth largest marketing services group, spends about £175m on digital advertising on behalf of clients in the UK annually.

The firm said it had taken the step after talks with Google had broken down because the tech company had been “unable to provide specific reassurances, policy and guarantees that their video or display content is classified either quickly enough or with the correct filters.”

Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of the world’s largest marketing services group WPP, was critical of Google, but fell short of blacklisting the company from its UK advertising schedule.

“Google, Facebook and others are media companies and have the same responsibilities as any other media company,” said Sorrell. “They cannot masquerade as technology companies, particularly when they place advertisements.”

Publicis, the world’s third largest marketing group, said that it is reviewing its global relationship with Google and YouTube. The company, which has clients including Samsung, Coty and Mars, was highly critical of Google’s failures.

“Publicis Media is committed to being at the forefront of rigorous brand safety, viewability and verification standards and protocols,” said a spokeswoman. “We hold all publishers, including Google and YouTube, accountable to ensure that the highest standards of advertising are consistently met.”

It is also understood that Tesco has joined the host of advertisers to “pause” spending on YouTube for the time being.

In face of the growing pressure Google promised it would conduct a “thorough review of our ads policies and brand controls”. Ronan Harris, managing director of Google UK, said the company would be making changes in the coming weeks to give brands more control over where their adverts appeared.

Harris said 400 hours of video was uploaded to YouTube every minute, adding that last year Google removed nearly 2 billion “bad ads” from its systems, removed over 100,000 publishers from its AdSense programme and prevented adverts from serving on over 300m YouTube videos.

“We’ve heard from our advertisers and agencies loud and clear that we can provide simpler, more robust ways to stop their ads from showing against controversial content,” he said.

The controversy comes after a Times investigation revealed that adverts from government departments, Channel 4, the BBC, Argos, L’Oréal and others were placed next to YouTube videos of American white nationalists, a hate preacher banned in the UK and a controversial Islamist preacher.

Ads for the Guardian’s membership scheme are understood to have been placed alongside a range of extremist material after an agency acting on the media group’s behalf used Google’s AdX ad exchange, which uses programmatic trading. The Guardian withdrew its advertising from Google and YouTube in response.

The use of programmatic trading, which automates the process of buying and selling advertising online, is increasingly controversial, raising concerns that it both hurts media revenues and supports extremist material.

A government spokeswoman said it had placed a temporary restriction on YouTube advertising pending assurance. Google has been summoned to the Cabinet Office “to explain how it will deliver the high quality of service government demands on behalf of the taxpayer.”

Pakistan asks Facebook and Twitter to help identify blasphemers

Pakistan has asked Facebook and Twitter to help identify Pakistanis suspected of blasphemy so it can prosecute them or pursue their extradition.

Under the country’s strict blasphemy laws, anyone found to __have insulted Islam or the prophet Muhammad can be sentenced to death.

The interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, said an official in Pakistan’s Washington embassy had approached the two social media companies in an effort to identify Pakistanis, either within the country or abroad, who recently shared material deemed offensive to Islam.

He said Pakistani authorities had identified 11 people for questioning over alleged blasphemy and would seek the extradition of anyone living abroad.

Facebook said it reviews all government requests carefully, “with the goal of protecting the privacy and rights of our users”.

“We disclose information about accounts solely in accordance with our terms of service and applicable law. A mutual legal assistance treaty or other formal request may be required for international requests, and we include these in our government requests report,” which is publicised each year, it said in a statement.

Facebook has often struggled to deal with the varying cultural norms around censorship in the hundred-plus countries where it operates. In a sprawling manifesto released in February, the company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, described one possible solution to the difficulty: “combine creating a large-scale democratic process to determine standards with AI to help enforce them”.

In that plan, Zuckerberg said, Facebook would ask users all over the world to vote on what sort of content they found acceptable to see on their social media feeds. Content which breached those personal and national standards would then be automatically flagged by an artificial intelligence, and removed without the need for human intervention.

Twitter declined to comment.

Tim Berners-Lee: I invented the web. Here are three things we need to change to save it How the web lost its way – and its founding principles

Today marks 28 years since I submitted my original proposal for the worldwide web. I imagined the web as an open platform that would allow everyone, everywhere to share information, access opportunities, and collaborate across geographic and cultural boundaries. In many ways, the web has lived up to this vision, though it has been a recurring battle to keep it open. But over the past 12 months, I’ve become increasingly worried about three new trends, which I believe we must tackle in order for the web to fulfill its true potential as a tool that serves all of humanity.

1) We’ve lost control of our personal data

The current business model for many websites offers free content in exchange for personal data. Many of us agree to this – albeit often by accepting long and confusing terms and conditions documents – but fundamentally we do not mind some information being collected in exchange for free services. But, we’re missing a trick. As our data is then held in proprietary silos, out of sight to us, we lose out on the benefits we could realise if we had direct control over this data and chose when and with whom to share it. What’s more, we often do not __have any way of feeding back to companies what data we’d rather not share – especially with third parties – the T&Cs are all or nothing.

This widespread data collection by companies also has other impacts. Through collaboration with – or coercion of – companies, governments are also increasingly watching our every move online and passing extreme laws that trample on our rights to privacy. In repressive regimes, it’s easy to see the harm that can be caused – bloggers can be arrested or killed, and political opponents can be monitored. But even in countries where we believe governments __have citizens’ best interests at heart, watching everyone all the time is simply going too far. It creates a chilling effect on free speech and stops the web from being used as a space to explore important topics, such as sensitive health issues, sexuality or religion.

2) It’s too easy for misinformation to spread on the web

Today, most people find news and information on the web through just a handful of social media sites and search engines. These sites make more money when we click on the links they show us. And they choose what to show us based on algorithms that learn from our personal data that they are constantly harvesting. The net result is that these sites show us content they think we’ll click on – meaning that misinformation, or fake news, which is surprising, shocking, or designed to appeal to our biases, can spread like wildfire. And through the use of data science and armies of bots, those with bad intentions can game the system to spread misinformation for financial or political gain.

3) Political advertising online needs transparency and understanding

Political advertising online has rapidly become a sophisticated industry. The fact that most people get their information from just a few platforms and the increasing sophistication of algorithms drawing upon rich pools of personal data mean that political campaigns are now building individual adverts targeted directly at users. One source suggests that in the 2016 US election, as many as 50,000 variations of adverts were being served every single day on Facebook, a near-impossible situation to monitor. And there are suggestions that some political adverts – in the US and around the world – are being used in unethical ways – to point voters to fake news sites, for instance, or to keep others away from the polls. Targeted advertising allows a campaign to say completely different, possibly conflicting things to different groups. Is that democratic?

These are complex problems, and the solutions will not be simple. But a few broad paths to progress are already clear. We must work together with web companies to strike a balance that puts a fair level of data control back in the hands of people, including the development of new technology such as personal “data pods” if needed and exploring alternative revenue models such as subscriptions and micropayments. We must fight against government overreach in surveillance laws, including through the courts if necessary. We must push back against misinformation by encouraging gatekeepers such as Google and Facebook to continue their efforts to combat the problem, while avoiding the creation of any central bodies to decide what is “true” or not. We need more algorithmic transparency to understand how important decisions that affect our lives are being made, and perhaps a set of common principles to be followed. We urgently need to close the “internet blind spot” in the regulation of political campaigning.

Our team at the Web Foundation will be working on many of these issues as part of our new five-year strategy – researching the problems in more detail, coming up with proactive policy solutions and bringing together coalitions to drive progress towards a web that gives equal power and opportunity to all.

I may have invented the web, but all of you have helped to create what it is today. All the blogs, posts, tweets, photos, videos, applications, web pages and more represent the contributions of millions of you around the world building our online community. All kinds of people have helped, from politicians fighting to keep the web open, standards organisations like W3C enhancing the power, accessibility and security of the technology, and people who have protested in the streets. In the past year, we have seen Nigerians stand up to a social media bill that would have hampered free expression online, popular outcry and protests at regional internet shutdowns in Cameroon and great public support for net neutrality in both India and the European Union.

It has taken all of us to build the web we have, and now it is up to all of us to build the web we want – for everyone.

The Web Foundation is at the forefront of the fight to advance and protect the web for everyone. We believe doing so is essential to reverse growing inequality and empower citizens. You can follow our work by signing up to our newsletter, and find a local digital rights organisation to support here on this list. Additions to the list are welcome and may be sent to contact@webfoundation.org

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