Roumen.ganeff

Devon & Cornwall and Dorset Police have begun utilising special FBI-trained sniffer dogs that have been specifically trained to detect hidden storage devices. Police dogs Tweed, a 19-month-old springer spaniel, and Rob, a 20-month-old black Labra...

The hot button item expected to come from Apple’s announcement today was the set of iPhones being announced. The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus were the expected models to come to market, but Apple felt that for the 10-year anniversary since the launch of the original iPhone, it should release a new model which ‘breaks the standard for another 10 years’. This new iPhone X device goes all in on some significant features that are novel to the Apple smartphone ecosystem: an edge-to-edge OLED display, a TrueDepth front-facing camera system, removal of TouchID in favor of a new facial recognition system called FaceID, and a few new features surrounding the integrated neural engine inside the A11 SoC.

The iPhone X (pronounced iPhone Ten) is a visually significant departure from previous Apple smartphones. The 5.8-inch display is called an ‘edge-to-edge’ display in the marketing material, citing minimal bezels and taking up pretty much the full real estate of the phone. Apple also dubs this as a new retina display, specifically a ‘Super Retina’ display, with a 2436x1125 resolution with a pixel density of 458 PPI. The display is Apple’s first foray into OLED technology on a smartphone, as ‘previous versions of OLED were not sufficient’ in previous generations. This means that Apple is promoting features such as HDR10 for high dynamic range, a 1000000:1 contrast ratio, and high color accuracy. That contrast ratio is due to the blacks provided by the OLED display, although it will be interesting to see what the practical limits are. Apple has always been consistent with having superb color accuracy on its smartphones, so we will have to see in our testing if OLED changes things in Apple’s qualification process. Also Apple’s TrueTone technology makes its way from the iPad to the iPhone. This display technology uses data from the ambient light sensor to detect the ambiance of the surroundings and adjust colors (particularly when reading black on white) and adjusting the display to make it easier to read. The display will also support 3D Touch.

With Apple moving to a full-screen technology like this, there is no room for the standard Home button, and with it, TouchID. As a replacement/upgrade, Apple is implementing FaceID: a set of front-facing technologies that will develop a face-map of a user and embed that as the passcode. This functionality is likely derived from Apple’s acquisitions of PrimeSense in 2013 (the IP behind Microsoft Kinect) and FaceShift in 2015. Apple states that the technology uses its embedded neural network engine to speed up facial recognition, but also that algorithms are in place such that the system will work if a user puts on glasses, wears a hat, has different hair, and even in low light. The algorithms will also auto-update as a user grows a beard. A lot of security researchers have questioned this move, while Apple quotes that the possibility for a false positive on TouchID was around 50k-to-1, FaceID should be more similar to a million-to-one. With FaceID, users will be able to unlock the device, as well as use their face to preapprove ApplePay purchases before touching a pay pad.

In order to enable FaceID, Apple implemented a small top area for the main hardware. This includes an infrared camera, a flood illuminator, the front camera, and a dot projector. The hardware will map the face in three dimensions with a 5-second startup (when in sufficient light) to produce a face mesh. One version of the mesh, with the textures as part of the algorithm, will be held in a secure enclave for identification and approval. At this point in time, only one face per device can be registered, marking an initial limitation in the hardware. One of the other features for the technology shown by Apple was the ability to generate a face mesh and map new textures to it, such as new SnapChat ‘masks’, or animated emoji in Message. The hardware will map 50 muscle tracking points, and a user can choose one of twelve animal emoji (fox, cat, dog, pig, unicorn, poop emoji) and record a ten second message where the ‘ani-moji’ will mimic in real-time how the user is moving and speaking in order to send to the other person. Apples plan here is to open the resources up to developers to use in their own applications.

Because the FaceID hardware is essentially an indent into the display, there will be some issues on content that will have to be addressed. On the home screen, Apple has designed the top icons to be inside the two nooks either side of the FaceID hardware, and adjust as needed. As shown by several journalists on the show floor at the launch event, the video will naturally default to fit perfectly without the little nooks, but if a user selects full screen, it will wrap around the FaceID hardware and intrude into the video being watched. Apple usually prides itself in the simplicity in its display support, and this might be a little scratch in that armor.

With no home button, Apple is having to implement new interactions to deal with regular home button actions. To wake the phone from a screen off state, a user can tap on the display (or use FaceID if setup). To get to the home screen, the user can swipe up in any application, although this seems a bit fraught with issues, especially with games where swiping up is a key mechanic of the application. In order to get the list of applications in memory, then swipe up but hold the finger down on the screen. Apple neglected to mention how to put the phone to sleep / screen off mode – there is a button on the side, but that is specifically for Siri. In order to get the notifications menu, swipe down from the top.

Under the hood, Apple is using its new A11 Bionic processor, with significant upgrades over the A10 and A10X. Details were scarce, but this is a TSMC 10nm design featuring six cores: two high-performance cores and four power efficient cores, with all six cores available for use at the same time. Apple is quoting that the high-performance cores are 25% faster than the high-performance cores in A10, while the high-efficiency cores are 70% faster than their counterparts in A10. No speeds are details about the cores were provided, though some initial analysis online from the code base suggests that the larger cores have two levels of private cache, while the smaller cores only have one level of private cache, with a high level of shared cache between both sets before hitting the DRAM. The A11 SoC will come in at 4.3 billion transistors, and features Apple’s second generation performance controller to assist with the 2+4 configuration. Also involved is a new GPU, which Apple states is its own custom design, coming in at ‘three cores’ (whatever that means in this context) and offers 30% higher performance than the graphics in the A10. Apple also stated that it can offer A10 graphics for half the A10 power, and that the GPU can assist in machine learning. We’ve seen discussions on Apple’s Metal 2 compute already appear at WWDC, so this is likely what Apple is talking about. The SoC also features a new ‘Neural Engine’ inside, offering two cores and 600 Giga-Ops per second, although no information as to how this inference hardware operates or at what precision (for example, Huawei’s NPU gives 1.92 TFLOPs of FP16). Apple was very light on A11 details, so we’ll likely revisit this topic later with more details.

For the camera system, Apple is using a vertical dual camera on the rear of the iPhone X, rather than the horizontal cameras on the iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 8 Plus. Both of these cameras are new models, both are 12 megapixels, and both come with optical image stabilization. One camera is f/1.8, while the other is f/2.4, with both having larger and faster sensors with deeper pixels than previous iPhones to aid in image focus. Like with the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, Apple will use the embedded Neural Engine to assist with photo taking, such as adjusting skin-tone mapping in real-time depending on the environment. The camera also supports dual Quad-LED flash.

The full design is glass on the back and front, using a new technology that Apple is quoting as the most shatter-resistant glass on an iPhone, and the band in the device will be ‘surgical grade stainless steel’ rather than aluminum. The iPhone X will be dust and water resistant, although Apple stopped short of giving it a full IPXX rating. Due to the glass, Apple is equipping the iPhone X with wireless charging capabilities using the Qi standard, and will offer a large ‘Air Power’ pad in 2018 that will allow users to wireless charge the iPhone X, the new Apple Watch Series 3, and the Air Pods all at the same time. Apple did not go into the size of the battery, although it does quote it as having two hours more battery life than the iPhone 7, despite the large OLED display.

Lots of features that we’ve seen discussed in previous Apple launches were glossed over here: changes in the haptic feedback, anything about audio (there’s no 3.5mm jack, if you were wondering), any hard performance metrics, SoC details about the cores and how/if they are different, or frequencies, or how the Neural Engine is laid out, or even how much DRAM is in the device. This is likely due to the fact that even for a two-hour presentation, time was spent detailing the new features more than the underlying hardware. Unlike other smartphone vendors or chip designers, Apple doesn’t do a deeper ‘Tech Day’ on their hardware, which is a shame.

What we do know is that Apple will be offering two storage options, 64GB and 256GB, and two colors in Space Grey and Silver (both of which have a slight pearlescence, according to Apple). The 64GB model will start at $999, and include Ear Pods in the box. The 256 GB model will have some markup, although Apple did not disclose how much. The iPhone X will go up for pre-order on October 27^th in around 30 countries, and ship on November 3^rd.

Additional: turns out there are a lot more specifications on Apple's product page that just went live. Key features are screen brightness (625 nits), dimensions (143.6 x 70.9 x 7.7 mm, 174 grams), native FLAC support and HDR video playback support. The 256 GB model will start at $1149, putting a $150 mark-up on the higher capacity, and the Lightning-to-3.5mm cables are still included in the box.

Apple iPhone
	iPhone 7	iPhone 7 Plus	iPhone 8	iPhone 8 Plus	iPhone X
SoC	Apple A10 Fusion 2 x 2.3 GHz Hurricane 2 x little cores		Apple A11 Bionic 2 x High-Perf 4 x High Efficiency
GPU	6 Core PowerVR GPU		3-Core Apple Custom
Display	4.7-inch 1334 x 750 IPS LCD DCI-P3	5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 IPS LCD DCI-P3	4.7-inch 1334 x 750 IPS LCD DCI-P3	5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 IPS LCD DCI-P3	5.8-inch 2436x1125 OLED DCI-P3
Size / Mass	138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm 138 grams	158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3 mm 188 grams	138.4 x 67.3 x 7.3 mm 148 grams	158.4 x 78.1 x 7.5 mm 202 grams	143.6 x 70.9 x 7.7mm 174 grams
Battery	1960 mAh (7.55Whr)	2900 mAh (11.17Whr)	?	?	+2hr over iPhone 7
Wireless Charging	-	-	Qi	Qi	Qi
Rear Cameras	12 MP f/1.8, OIS Wide Color Gamut Quad LED True Tone Flash		12 MP, f/1.8, OIS Wide Color Gamut Quad LED True Tone Flash
	-	12MP ƒ/2.8 Telephoto, 2x Optical Portrait Mode	-	12 MP f/2.8 Telephoto, 2x Optical Portrait Mode, Portrait Lighting	12 MP f/2.4 Telephoto, OIS 2x Optical Portrait Mode, Portrait Lighting
Front Camera	7MP ƒ/2.2 Wide Gamut Retina Flash		7MP ƒ/2.2 Wide Gamut Retina Flash		7MP f/2.2 Wide Gamut Retina Flash Portrait Mode, Portrait Lighting
Storage	32 / 128 / 256 GB		64 / 256 GB
I/O	Apple Lightning connector		Apple Lightning connector
WiFi	2.4 / 5GHz 2T2R 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, NFC BlueTooth 4.2		2.4 / 5GHz 2T2R 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, NFC BlueTooth 5.0
Launch Price	32 GB: $649 128 GB: $749 256 GB: $849	32 GB: $769 128 GB: $869 256 GB: $969	64 GB: $699 256 GB: $849	64 GB: $799 256 GB: $949	64 GB: $999 256 GB: $1149

 

 

It's only been a week since Colin Trevorrow left (or was forced out of) the director's seat for Star Wars: Episode IX, but a familiar replacement is already lined up. J.J. Abrams, who you may know from such films as the Star Trek reboot, Super 8 and...

Now that Apple's augmented reality platform is nearly here, developers are ready to show off what it can do... and one of the first examples will be particularly handy if you're updating your living room. IKEA has unveiled IKEA Place, an iOS app that...

Apple has just revealed Face ID, a new facial recognition feature that will make its debut on the iPhone X. The technology is powered by what the company calls a TrueDepth camera system, which is made up of a bunch of sensors that detect your face, e...

There's always a lot to consider after an iPhone event, and today we're looking at three new phones. The iPhone X is the new flagship, offering up an edge-to-edge screen and TrueDepth front camera for unlocking your device with Face ID. But those who...

China has never been a fan of digital currencies like bitcoin, and now the country appears bent on a major crackdown. In the wake of China's recent ban on initial coin offerings (where you raise funds for a new cryptocurrency), Wall Street Journal s...

High-end CPU was result of a 'skunkworks' project, firm reveals

Step aside, Jon and Daenerys: The only love story that matters in Westeros is the one between the Bear Leerer and the Maiden Fair.

At least, actor Kristofer Hivju believes so. Hivju, who plays Tormund, stays in character between takes on the set of Game of Thrones, Gwendoline Christie revealed during her interview on Late Night With Seth Meyers. Given the flame-haired wildling’s obsession with Christie’s character Brienne of Tarth ever since he saw her at Winterfell in season 6, this can make things a bit… awkward.

“He likes to continue being in character even off set,” she explains, laughing. “He will start chewing a sandwich wildly at me… really kind of making love to that sandwich as he eyeballs me.” And, Christie continues, she had no idea Hivju would play his reaction to her so passionately. “In the script, it simply said, ‘Tormund gives Brienne a look,'” she says. “I was not expecting the power, the magnitude of sort of intense sexual intention to pour out of a man’s eyes and cover me.”

Watch the video above, during which Christie also tells Meyers the story of a strange fan encounter that occurred in a restroom. Looks like the Maid of Tarth can never catch a break, no matter where she goes.

To celebrate Fall TV and our huge Fall TV Preview issue — hitting stands on Sept. 15 — EW is bringing you 50 scoops in 50 days, a daily dish on some of your favorite shows. Follow the hashtag #50Scoops50Days on Twitter and Instagram to keep up with the latest, and check EW.com/50-Scoops for all the news and surprises.

ABC’s Black-ish has always been fearless when it comes to storytelling, whether it’s tackling the N-word or racial profiling or the 2016 election. So for its fourth season premiere, creator Kenya Barris naturally decided to do something bold: a musical episode revolving around June 19, 1865, considered to be the last day of slavery.

“I think it’s the most ambitious episode we’ve ever done,” Barris tells EW. “The episode takes place with Dre (Anthony Anderson) at a Columbus Day pageant with his kids and he’s like, ‘This is bulls–t!’ and he starts spiraling. With the help of The Roots and Aloe Blacc, he tries to create an advertising campaign to bring back June 19th and we do a Broadway-level musical with the cast in the parts.”

In the above exclusive image, guest star Aloe Blacc and Dre work on composing a new song for Dre’s campaign.

Black-ish returns for its fourth season Oct. 3 at 9 p.m. on ABC.

Genius has found its Pablo Picasso!

Antonio Banderas will play the Spanish painter in the Nat Geo anthology series’ upcoming second season, which will chronicle Picasso’s life and work. As of now, there is no word yet on who will play younger Picasso. Season 2 will follow the model set by season 1, which starred Johnny Flynn and Geoffrey Rush as the young and older Albert Einstein, respectively.

“The life story of Pablo Picasso has long since fascinated me and I have so much respect for this man, who also comes from my birthplace, Málaga,” Banderas said in a statement. “I am thrilled to work with National Geographic, Brian , Ron , Ken , and the rest of the Genius team to tell an authentic story of one of the most innovative painters in the world.”

“Antonio was the natural choice. He, like Picasso, has a no-holds-barred approach to life that will add to the genuineness that we’re looking for,” said Howard. “He has such tremendous range as an actor, who I know will bring this brilliant and unconventional artist to life.”

Grazer added: “From Pancho Villa to Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Antonio has had such a successful track record in portraying real-life, larger-than-life iconic figures with such honesty and depth. And with Picasso, I’m looking forward to seeing his interpretation of the man behind the artistic greatness.”

The EPs decided to focus on Picasso in the second season because they wanted to make a statement that scientists aren’t the only geniuses. As it did with Einstein in its debut season, Genius will explore the link between the painter’s professional and personal lives, the latter of which was characterized with tumultuous marriages, numerous affairs, and constantly shifting political and personal alliances.

“He was an enigmatic figure, famous, a household name, and yet you don’t really know the story of his life or what inspired him, drove him, troubled him, and how through the turbulence he achieved such artistic greatness in so many different ways and modalities and over so many years,”  said Howard in June when he revealed season 2’s subject. “I think it’s that combination that made him feel like a great choice for our season 2.”

Genius is expected to return in 2018.

Black Mirror: Season 4 will bring six new stories of the anthology series to Netflix, and IGN has your first, exclusive look at two of those episodes.

Netflix has already revealed the names of season 4's upcoming episodes, but for a better look at "USS Callister" and "Arkangel" beyond the season's first teaser, IGN has two sneak peeks of the season.

First, meet the crew of the titular "USS Calister," a Star Trek-esque looking episode starring Friday Night Light's Jesse Plemons, Cristin Milioti (Fargo), Jimmi Simpson (Westworld), Michaela Coel (Chewing Gum), and Billy Magnussen (Aladdin, Ingrid Goes West).

Continue reading…

Though the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's IT hasn't quite hit theaters yet, New Line is already making plans for a sequel. Adhering to the structure of King's original novel, the plans are for the sequel to follow the same characters as adults.

In the book, King jumps back and forth between the main characters as kids and as adults, although in both eras they are trying to vanquish the evil clown Pennywise, who is played by Bill Skarsgard in this new adaptation. The latest adaptation of IT focuses on the childhood portion of the story, moving the story from the 1950s to the 1980s for a new generation of viewers. The plan for the sequel, which is being called Chapter Two, will set the action in the present with adults.

Continue reading…

Jared Leto rid himself of his sight in order to play Niander Wallace in Blade Runner 2049.

The villainous Wallace happens to be blind, and in an interview with the Wall Street Journal (via ET), Leto revealed he wore special contact lenses that made his eyes look opaque and restricted his sight while on set. This meant he had to be guided around the set during the entire shoot.

"We all heard stories about Jared, how he transforms into the characters," Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve told the WST, "but even this didn’t prepare me for what was to come."

Continue reading…

Stephen King's IT has had quite the successful Thursday night showing.

The horror film grossed an impressive $13.5 million on opening night. This is the third-highest Thursday night showing in 2017, coming in behind only Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2's $17 million opening and the live-action Beauty and the Beast's $16.3 million gross, the latter of which crossed the $1 billion mark.

IT now has the largest opening for any horror movie, September release, R-rated film, and any Stephen King film adaptation. Paranormal Activity 3 previously held the record for biggest preview night for a horror film, having made $8 million in 2011 ahead of its $52.5 million

Continue reading…

On the morning of 6 September the sun let out two pretty sizeable burps of radiation. Both were considered X-class -- the strongest type of solar flare -- with one of them proving to be the most powerful since 2005. If a solar flare is directed at Ea...

A little girl has pulled a 4 foot sword out of the lake where King Arthur was said to have thrown the legendary Excalibur.

Matilda Jones, age 7, was holidaying with her family in Cornwall where she pulled the blade out of Dozmary Pool. According to folklore, Dozmary Pool is where King Arthur threw the sword after the Battle of Camlann, where it was caught by the Lady of the Lake.

Matilda's father Paul told The Star that he had been telling Matilda and her sister the legend of King Arthur on the way to the lake, and initially didn't believe her when she said she'd found a sword while paddling.  "It was a blistering hot day and Matilda asked if we could go for a paddle," he told the publication. "She was only waist deep when she said she could see a sword. I told her not to be silly and it was probably a bit of fencing, but when I looked down I realised it was a sword. It was just there laying flat on the bottom of the lake."

Continue reading…

Alert Cersei Lanniester immediately, because her son’s killer has been spotted in Atlanta.

Thousands of cosplayers and pop culture aficionados flocked south this weekend to attend Dragon Con, where an 85-year-old woman in a wheelchair stole the show.

Dressed in full wardrobe and sitting on her own wheelchair Iron Throne, the world’s coolest grandma perfectly channeled fan favorite Olenna Tyrell, Dame Diana Rigg’s Emmy-nominated character. She even carried a sign that read, “It was me,” referencing Lady Tyrell’s dying confession to the murder of King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson).

Goals: This 85 year old at #DragonCon17. Cosplay for life! pic.twitter.com/jsgfdhEBnU

— Noelle K. Adams (@pfangirl) September 2, 2017

Following her death by poison in season 7’s “The Queen’s Justice,” GoT co-showrunner D.B. Weiss declared, “She’s probably the only character to win her own death scene.”

Hidetaka Suehiro, better known as Swery, revealed his latest game at PAX West, The Good Life, will be partially funded by a Fig campaign.

The Good Life is described as a "debt repayment life simulation RPG." Set in a bucolic English village, the residents of the town take to the streets at night, where they turn into cats. It's also equal parts life-sim and murder mystery, according to developer White Owls.

So, pretty par for the course for Swery, who last month said the The Good Life inherits "the spirit of Deadly Premonition," which he describes as his "most representative work."

The Fig campaign aims to raise $1.5 million USD to "achieve Swery-level greatness." Interested fans can invest in shares, or "traditional reward-based backing."

Continue reading…

Blockchains are far more than a simple conduit for cryptocurrencies.  With their strong cryptographic foundations, they have the ability to become an underpinning technology for smart contracts and these, in turn, offer the possibility for autonomous (or semi-autonomous) organisations.

There is a great deal of excitement around the potential for smart contracts, but they remain in their infancy, and many technical and legal challenges remain to be overcome.  Some of these challenges have attracted the attention of nChain’s research team, in order to find solutions.

One smart contract solution is represented by nChain’s patent application is PCT/IB2017/050865, entitled “Registry and Automated Management Method for Blockchain-Enforced Smart Contracts.”    This claimed invention expands the cryptographic technique from another of our patent applications (PCT/IB2017/050856) highlighted in one of our previous blog posts.  In this patent application, we demonstrate how you can create smart contracts that have two common behaviours of ‘real-world’ contracts – renewing an existing contract or automatically rolling a contract on upon expiry.

Such contracts are ubiquitous in the real world – think of media, cloud storage, and e-commerce subscriptions that have a fixed initial period, and after that period require one month’s notice before termination; otherwise, the subscription is automatically renewed and the consumer’s payment card is automatically charged the renewal fee.  Whilst this is easy for the subscription provider to handle with a stand-alone database, this injects a trusted-third party (the database provider) into the model.  Using the techniques in nChain’s above patent applications, the contracts and the renewal/cancellation options can be constructed as a sequence of blockchain transactions that eliminate the need for a separate licence database to manage.  The result is greater efficiency and automated management of auto-renewing contracts.

The full technical detail of this patent application is available at this link:

Registry and Automated Management Method for Blockchain-Enforced Smart Contracts – PCT/IB2017/050865

The post nChain Innovation: On the Road to Smart Contracts appeared first on nChain.

When it comes to this renewal, Syfy is no killjoy.

The NBCUniversal cable network has renewed the sci-fi series Killjoys for a final two seasons, EW can confirm. The news comes just hours before the Friday night broadcast of the third season finale.

The series, created by Michelle Lovettra, has been renewed for a total of 20 episodes, spread over the course of two seasons. The fourth season will air sometime in 2018.

“Helmed by Lovretta and driven by the superb storytelling, we are excited to bring Killjoys back for two final seasons,” said Bill McGoldrick, executive vice president scripted development for NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment, in a statement. “Tonight’s game-changing season finale sets the tone for the final chapters of our bounty hunter’s space adventures and we cannot wait for our talented cast and crew to bring to life what is sure to be an epic journey that will leave our passionate fans on the edge of their seats.” 

Killjoys follows the adventures of three interplanetary bounty hunters — Dutch (Hannah John-Kamen), John Jaqobis (Aaron Ashmore), and D’avin Jaqobis (Luke MacFarlane) — just as the universe seems poised to explode into war.

“This renewal is the kind of privilege every creator hopes for — a chance to plan the end of your story with the luxury of 20 episodes to do it,” Lovretta added.

Killjoys’ renewal comes on the heels of the demise of another Syfy original series: EW can confirm that after three seasons, the network has decided not to renew Dark Matter.

Earlier this year, Syfy extended renewals to more of its original programs, including a fourth and final season for Twelve Monkeys and a third season for The Magicians.

Just as you were getting on board with the idea of 4K and adjusting your eyes to the bright new resolutions and possibilities, Sharp Corporation has revealed that it’s bringing 8K to Europe. Not only that, it’s coming as soon as March 2018.

At IFA 2017 in Berlin, Sharp took the opportunity to present its brand new line of 8K TVs and monitors, known as the AQUOS Series. The series will be released in China, Japan and Taiwan between October and February before finally landing in Europe in March. 

Information on the 70-inch 8K monitor coming to Europe is still quite thin on the ground at the moment, but we do know it’ll have 4 HDMI input ports. While one of the ports will be dedicated to 8K, the others will support 4K and 2K output and enable up-scaling to an 8K resolution. 

Picture perfect

So, yes, eight is a higher figure than four, which immediately sounds more impressive, but what will 8K resolution actually bring to the table? From a pure specification standpoint 8K displays offer 4 times higher resolution than 4K displays, which should mean sharper, brighter and more realistic images. 

From what we saw on the show floor, 8K resolutions are indeed impressive. The videos on show, which ranged from slow-motion blossoming flowers to Animal Planet-inspired footage were incredibly realistic with a fantastic depth of colour and sharp details. Unfortunately, there was no display which allowed us to compare it directly with 4K footage but we were impressed nonetheless. 

Sharp has been pushing 8K displays in Japan for a while now for industrial use but at IFA 2017, it made it clear that it’s serious about its intentions to extend the technology to consumers worldwide and re-take complete control of its TV and display business.

8K display technology is set to be one of the main areas of Sharp’s business over the next few years and it’s going to be releasing everything from cameras and editing software, to storage systems and displays in an effort to establish an ecosystem which will feed into a host of industries as well as consumer lifestyles. 

This creation of an ecosystem is something Sharp hopes will encourage the growth of 8K content. Rather than simply offering displays to watch 8K content that doesn’t exist, it wants to offer an efficient means to create and use this content. 

Something that’s greatly helped Sharp in Japan is the fact that the country’s public broadcaster NHK has promised it will start broadcasting 4K and 8K footage, something which it hopes to have rolled out more fully by the end of 2018 ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. 

When asked at the press conference just how many 8K TVs Sharp anticipated it would sell worldwide by the end of 2020, the company's European CEO Bob Ishida said that no specific numbers had been forecast at this stage. Given that 4K has only seen a significant surge in interest in the mainstream in the last year or so, we think avoiding numbers at this early stage is probably a good idea. 

Though the planned release window is March 2018, at the moment there's no word on where the sets will be available to buy or exactly how much they'll cost. We'll update here with this information when it becomes available. 

• IFA 2017 is Europe's biggest tech show. The TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new phones, watches and other tech as they're announced. 

Luke Cage is heading back to Netflix in 2018, and a first look featuring two returning characters in the Marvel hero's comeback has been revealed.

Spoilers for The Defenders follow. Turn back if you haven't finished the Netflix team-up series' eight episodes. And if you have, be sure to read IGN's review of every episode in The Defenders series.

EW has debuted the first photo of Luke Cage season 2, which features Luke (Mike Colter) and Misty Knight (Simone Missick) walking through a garage. While Luke's return won't be much of a shock, the photo reveals that Misty has taken one step closer to her comic book counterpart:

Continue reading…

All remaining unfinished novels by the late author Terry Pratchett have been destroyed by steamroller - at his specific request.

Pratchett, diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2007, continued to write, increasingly with assistance from other writers, up until his death in 2015. He made a specific request, as relayed by his friend and fellow author Neil Gaiman, that anything he was working on at the time of his death should be "put in the middle of the road . . . and

a steamroller to steamroll over them all".

There goes the browsing history... Many thanks to @steamfair. Soon to be on display at @SalisburyMuseum in September https://t.co/Di8tvTO4Hi pic.twitter.com/onGGWLDYL4

Continue reading…

The first gene therapy treatment has been approved for use in the United States. The FDA greenlit a procedure that uses a patient's own cells to combat a particular type of leukemia, but will only permit it for children and young adults up to age 25.

Earlier this year, Daimler announced plans to develop a self-driving, car-sharing system with fully autonomous vehicles geared towards city living. Today, the company says that the first part of that vision -- Smart's Vision EQ Fortwo concept vehicle...

It's been nearly two years since Sphero introduced its app-controlled BB-8, a replica of the cute rolling droid that first appeared in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. That toy quickly became one of the most coveted by fans of Disney's franchise, and it...

SanDisk just unveiled a 400GB microSD card, which it claims is the world's biggest. Really, it was only a matter of time until something of this stature arrived. Especially, now that we're capturing every aspect of our daily lives in glorious 4K, in...

Skype recently launched a preview version of a new feature that could be appealing to people who conduct technical interviews online. Now, while on a video call, Skype users have the option to simultaneously use a real-time code editor through the pl...

Orlando Bloom is returning to the fantasy genre for his first major television role. The Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings actor will star in and produce Amazon Studios’ new hourlong drama, Carnival Row, which received a straight-to-series order earlier this year.

The eight-episode project is described as a “fantasy noir set in a neo-Victorian city.” It’s a place ripped apart by tension between its citizens and immigrant population — i.e. mythical creatures who have fled their war-torn homeland. Bloom will star as Rycroft Philostrate, a police inspector who must solve the murder of a faerie showgirl on the eponymous Carnival Row.

Travis Beacham, who executive produces the series with showrunner Rene Echevarria, revealed more details on the character on social media. “A veteran of a foreign war,” Rycroft is described as “sharp-eyed,” “stalwart, principled, haunted in a way, and not without his share of secrets.”

Massive #CarnivalRow news, you guys: Orlando Bloom is Inspector Rycroft Philostrate. #AmazonOriginal #Legendary pic.twitter.com/hT6VfLsn1h

— Travis Beacham (@travisbeacham) August 25, 2017

Beacham initially wrote the script for Carnival Row when it was a feature film called A Killing on Carnival Row. Guillermo del Toro was once attached to direct the project in 2005, but fell off when it stalled in production. EW confirmed Amazon and Legendary Television’s development of Carnival Row as a series in 2015.

Echevarria penned the latest script for Carnival Row, and Paul McGuigan will direct and executive produce. According to Beacham, filming on season 1 will begin in two months ahead of a premiere in 2019.

In two months, cameras will roll on season one of Carnival Row.

— Travis Beacham (@travisbeacham) August 3, 2017

Bloom was last seen on the big screen reprising his role of William Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. He also appears in the action film Unlocked, starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Douglas.