We’re big fans of the Bad Lip Reading (BLR) channel here at TechRadar, the YouTube brand that takes high-profile public speaking events and adds its on interpretation of the words being said.
So when we saw that BLR had parodied an Apple launch, we were straight onto the video – and it does not disappoint.
With launches of elements like the DeBonk DeBonk musical can opener, the Apple Wish Prince app and the, well, Apple Hole, the graphics are so well done that it would be hard to convince someone without any clue about Apple’s line up that some of these aren’t real.
Do you have a wiiiiiiIIIIISH?
To be honest, if Apple does make a robot there’s every chance it will be called Handsome Anthony, although the moustache might be a step too far.
We’ve been at every major Apple launch for years, and we’re struggling to name what some of these products actually are – so if you’ve got a better idea, let us know over on Twitter through our @techradar channel.
Watch the video below to get the full effect for yourself – not just for the made up product launches, but more the fact the launch presentation itself is parodied so well, with Tim Cook at one point admonishing the audience for not being excited enough and Craig Federighi running off stage for a pee.
Early December saw the launch of the 19th rocket of 2018 from Elon Musk’s SpaceX from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, but this one was a bit different. What got most of the attention was that it was the first launch from SpaceX to re-use a first-stage rocket booster for a third time.
Already famous for its reusable rockets, SpaceX successfully landed it on a drone-ship stationed in the Pacific Ocean. However, it was what was carried into low Earth orbit that was the real ground-breaker – no less than 64 separate satellites. It was the largest single ride-share mission from a US-based rocket to date.
So what were they? The mission was called Spaceflight SSO-A: SmallSat Express, and on board was a weird art installation from the Nevada Museum of Art called Orbital Reflector, a 30-meter-long polypropylene balloon by artist Trevor Paglen that’s now orbiting Earth (and which can soon be seen from Earth using the Star Walk app). However, it was what else was on board – and what comes next – that could trigger a ‘space internet’.
Orbital Reflector. Picture credit: Nevada Museum of Art
When did SpaceX launch?
The payload on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket was organised by Spaceflight Industries, which put together a massive ride-share – 15 MicroSats and 49 CubeSats – from 34 different governments, companies, universities, startups, and even a middle school, from 18 countries. Among them were several satellites that are trying to solve a big problem in tech. About 30 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices are expected to be deployed by 2020, including connected vehicles, precision agriculture, container tracking, and many more.
All of that needs an always-on low-bandwidth connection, but as yet there is no global network. Mobile phone networks? Not even close. They cover about 10% of the Earth. So why not power the Internet of Things … from space? That’s the plan, and that’s what Hiber, Audacy, Astrocast, and Swarm Technologies just launched into orbit. Meanwhile, SpaceX itself also has big big plans for the internet …
What is Hiber?
Why not use a network of dozens of orbiting nano-satellites to allow people in remote, unconnected areas to use the cloud? We’re not talking high-bandwidth video streams here, but ‘HiberBand’ – small data packets.
Due to be operational in the first few months of 2019 after the launches of its shoebox-sized HiberOne and HiberOne satellites, Netherlands-based Hiber’s early sign-ups include the British Antarctic Survey, climate-monitoring stations in schools in off-grid areas of Peru, Tanzania and Sri Lanka, and a company measuring global groundwater levels. It’s expected to be 20 times cheaper than using sat-phone networks.
Spaceflight SSO-A Mission. Picture credit: SpaceX
What is Astrocast?
The first test satellite of Astrocast’s IoT network also went up with the Falcon 9 last week. In partnership with the European Space Agency and Airbus, its nanosatellite network will eventually consist of 64 CubeSats in low Earth orbit that will together provide low-latency global coverage.
Much like Hiber’s network, it’s aimed at bringing two-way communications to the 90% of the planet that lacks a signal, but specifically for battery-powered sensors on things like oil rigs, pipelines, buoys, cargo, and anything else in the maritime/oil and gas/mining/agriculture sectors that needs to intermittently connect to the internet. It’s also being mooted as a back-up for smart cities during natural disasters.
“We’re making the satellite market accessible for millions of new applications,” said Fabien Jordan, CEO of Astrocast.
What is Swarm?
Part of the reason that Internet access from satellites is expensive is that it costs millions of dollars to launch a satellite. That’s specifically not the case for a nanosat as small as Swarm’s SpaceBEEs, which can share a rocket with dozens and dozens of others. Swarm eventually wants to provide remote areas of the world cheap internet access from a constellation of 100 SpaceBEEs, the world’s smallest two-way communication satellites.
“Existing communications satellites haven’t changed significantly in price, size, or functionality for decades,” wrote Sara Spangelo, CEO and co-founder at Swarm Technologies in a blog post. “Swarm was born out of our obsession with a long-standing problem: connectivity is prohibitively expensive and not universally accessible. It’s a problem that affects rural areas and developing countries most, further widening gaps in economic opportunity.”
One of its first projects is with SweetSense, a global development tech company monitoring the function of water pumps in East Africa.
“Until now there has been no affordable connectivity solution that exists on a global scale,” says Spangelo. Swarm now has five satellites in orbit, having launched the fifth on the Falcon 9.
Building Audacy Zero, which could one day create an internet that stretches to the Moon. Picture credit: Audacy
What is Audacy?
Also on the SpaceX rocket was Audacy Zero, a demonstration satellite for Audacy’s plan to build the world’s first commercial inter-satellite data relay network in 2020. It’s a space internet for spacecraft, with the ambition of creating always-on connectivity from Earth’s surface to low-Earth orbit, and even to the Moon.
However, Audacy also gave a helping hand to… space lasers. As a secondary payload, Audacy Zero carried Stanford Student Space Initiative’s Polar Orbiting Infrared Tracking Receiver (POINTR). This optical receiver will test laser communications in space by finding and tracking a laser transmitted on the ground by NASA. That’s something NASA has already been testing the other way, with lasers fired to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA has been testing how to beam data via lasers to Earth from the International Space Station. Credit: NASA.
What is StarLink?
While for now it’s happy to take its customers’ hardware into space to create an Internet of Things from low Earth orbit, SpaceX co-founder and CEO Elon Musk has much grander plans for the regular internet. Based on the premise that there remain many places in the world that don’t have super-fast internet access, that internet from geostationary satellites is way too slow, SpaceX is planning to launch a constellation of over 4,000 micro-satellites that orbit much closer to Earth, and link together.
Two experimental satellites for the so-called Starlink network are already up there, though between 2019 and 2024 SpaceX plan to launch thousands of small satellites to create a global high-speed broadband service. It’s set to go into competition with OneWeb, a planned 700 satellites-strong network invested in by the Virgin Group, Qualcomm, and Airbus, among others. So why does Elon Musk want to become a global communications provider? To make lots of money to spend on a mission to Mars, of course.
Elon Musk wants to create ‘global broadband’. Picture credit: SpaceX
Think there’s already too much space junk so our planet? Think again – mobile networks and low-power wide-area (LPWA) networks (the latter for the IoT) have proved themselves incapable of connecting 90% of the world. We need another solution. The satellites that currently sit in geostationary orbit far from Earth are as big as two-storey houses. What SpaceX just took up was the equivalent of one satellite, but split into dozens of shoebox-sized nano-satellites.
What launched earlier this month kicks off the era of low-cost and global IoT, but what SpaceX and OneWeb have planned goes way, way further – a vast Internet of Space for all.
The holidays are an expensive time, so we’re bringing you a special treat: a full, free Windows program to download every day until Christmas.
Look behind the 22nd door on our free downloads advent calendar to find a full copy of ASCOMP PDF Conversa – a fantastically useful tool that takes the hassle out of working with PDFs.
Once you’ve downloaded the software, register for a free account using the link at the top right of the program window to unlock the full version.
Editing PDF documents is a real nuisance, but with PDF Conversa you can turn them into Word documents in seconds, ready to tweak and change to your heart’s content.
You can integrate fonts into converted PDFs, compress text, and determine the quality of pictures contained within documents. You can even convert password-protected documents; ideal if you’ve accidentally locked yourself out.
Grab ASCOMP PDF Conversa today and you’ll wonder how you managed without it.
Apple launched a new entry-level iPad and two new iPad Pros in 2018 but it’s apparently not finished with tablet refreshes yet. Reports from inside the Apple supply chain suggest that a new 10-inch iPad and a revival of the iPad Mini are scheduled for 2019.
As per anonymous sources speaking to the China Times, the two new slates are intended to boost iPad sales – the iPad Mini is coming in the first half of next year, with the 10-inch iPad (set to replace the 9.7-inch model Apple launched in 2018) arriving in the second half of 2019. Adjust your tech budgeting plans accordingly.
The iPad Mini 4 was launched way back in September 2015, and we were all assuming Apple had given up on the small form factor, with the growing size of its iPhones. Apparently not – and we did hear rumors of a new iPad Mini back in October.
New and improved
As for how much you’ll have to pay for these two new tablets, or the sort of features they might be carrying, that’s yet to be confirmed. It would make sense for Apple to update its whole range of products to Face ID rather than Touch ID, but we’ll have to wait and see.
The new iPads might also adopt the rounded edges and edge-to-edge screens of the new iPad Pro – unless Apple really wants to keep costs down by sticking with the old design. Upgrades for the internal processor are likely as well, but the prices should stay well below the premium-level slates Apple puts out.
Indeed the China Times report also mentions a few cost-cutting measures by Apple, including switching the production of its LED panels to new locations to keep prices as low as possible. The entry-level iPad and the iPad Mini currently sell for $329 / £319 and $399 / £399 respectively.
The Fitbit Charge 3 only landed in October and it’s an impressive device, ranking high on our list of the best fitness trackers. But there’s no reason to think Fitbit will stop at three – there’s probably going to be a Fitbit Charge 4 sooner or later.
And good as the Fitbit Charge 3 is, there’s still plenty of room for Fitbit to improve things for a fourth generation. After all, our review gave it four stars – so that’s one star still to get.
With that in mind we’ve created a list of the things we most want from the Fitbit Charge 4, if and when it arrives. You’ll find that below, along with news, rumors and release date information. There’s not much to go on yet, but we’ll add to this article as soon as we hear anything.
Cut to the chase
What is it? The next entry in the Fitbit Charge range
When is it out? Not before late 2019
What will it cost? Maybe £129.99 / $149.95 / AU$229.95
Fitbit Charge 4 release date and price
The Fitbit Charge 3 landed in October 2018, so we probably won’t see the Fitbit Charge 4 before around October 2019.
However, there’s a good chance we’ll have a longer wait, as there was roughly two years between the Charge 3 and the Fitbit Charge 2. There was also roughly two years between the launch of the original Fitbit Charge and the Charge 2, so it might actually be around October 2020 that we get the Fitbit Charge 4.
It’s likely to land late in whatever year it does launch though, as that’s been the case with the previous numbered models. The Fitbit Charge HR was a slightly exception, as it went on sale in January 2015, but it was announced in October 2014, alongside the original Fitbit Charge.
We can only guess at the price so far too, but the standard Fitbit Charge 3 launched for £129.99 / $149.95 / AU$229.95. That’s the same as what the Charge 2 cost at launch, so it’s very possible that the Fitbit Charge 4 will cost that much as well. If anything though the price will probably be higher rather than lower.
The Fitbit Charge 4 might cost the same as the Fitbit Charge 3
Fitbit Charge 4 news and rumors
We don’t know anything about the Fitbit Charge 4 yet, but we can take some guesses. For example, it’s very likely to retain most of the features of the Fitbit Charge 3, including a waterproof build, a heart rate monitor, swim tracking and a somewhat similar design – with a rectangular screen and a plastic or silicone strap.
But it will also presumably add and improve features. For example, the Charge 3 has connected GPS (that being a connection to your phone’s GPS), so the Fitbit Charge 4 will surely have that at the very least. But it might go one better and have proper GPS of its own.
We’re not sure what else will change, but we have some suggestions below.
What we want to see
While we wait for news and rumors about the Fitbit Charge 4 to roll in, here’s what we most want from the wearable.
1. Onboard GPS
Perhaps the biggest missing feature from the Fitbit Charge 3 is onboard GPS. It does at least have connected GPS, but that means you need to take your phone out running with you if you want GPS tracking, which isn’t ideal.
So for the Fitbit Charge 4 we’d like to see GPS added. If it is added and Fitbit doesn’t drop the ball in any other ways, then the Charge 4 could be a fitness tracker with no major failings.
2. A color screen
We’d like to see a color screen on the next model
The Fitbit Charge 3 has a bigger screen than the Fitbit Charge 2, but it’s still monochrome. For the Fitbit Charge 4 we want to see some color added.
Adding color to the screen should make it nicer to look at and interact with and while it might hit the battery life the effect should be minimal. That said, an option to switch to monochrome if you want to save battery would be appreciated too.
3. Standard USB-C or wireless charging
The Fitbit Charge 3 has a proprietary charger, which basically means that if you don’t have the charger with you then you probably won’t be able to charge it, as it’s unlikely someone you’re with will have a compatible charger lying around.
So for the Fitbit Charge 4 we’d like it to work with standard USB-C chargers or standard wireless chargers, as they’re both becoming increasingly common.
4. Fitbit Pay as standard
There is a version of the Fitbit Charge 3 that comes with NFC and Fitbit Pay built in, but we want to see it come as standard on the Fitbit Charge 4, rather than being a feature you have to pay extra for.
Contactless payments can be very useful, especially on a fitness tracker, as you’re not likely to want to bring your wallet on a run, so with Fitbit Pay you’ll still be able to stop for a drink if you need to.
5. A nicer strap
The Fitbit Charge 3 doesn’t come with the nicest of straps
We weren’t the biggest fans of the plastic strap that the standard Fitbit Charge 3 comes with. There are silicone and leather bands available from Fitbit, but these cost extra.
We’d like the Fitbit Charge 4 to come with a silicone strap out of the box, since this is a lot nicer to work out in. Even if it means paying a bit extra, you’ll still be saving money overall versus having to buy one separately.
6. Fitbit’s App Gallery
The Fitbit Charge 3 doesn’t support apps, but we’d like it if the Fitbit Charge 4 did, especially if it gets a color screen.
Fitbit already has an App Gallery for devices like the Fitbit Ionic and Fitbit Versa, so we’d like to see the Fitbit Charge 4 also given access. That could help make it smarter and more versatile than the average fitness tracker.
7. Better battery life
The Fitbit Charge 3 doesn’t have bad battery life. In fact, at close to seven days between charges it’s perfectly reasonable, but it is still beaten by some fitness trackers, so we’d like to see further improvements made here.
This is especially important as the Charge 3 – and most fitness trackers – can also be used to track sleep, which can’t be done so easily on nights when you have to plug them in.
Business is now transacted on the move. According to the latest figures from the UK Cards Association, total spending on payment cards in April 2018 reached $77 billion (around £61 billion), with rises partly attributable to the impact of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Richard Koch, head of policy at the UK Cards Association, said: “Making a contactless payment is fast, easy and secure. With so many retailers now accepting this technology, we are sure consumers will continue to vote with their wallets and use contactless cards as their preferred way to pay.”
There is no doubt that the success of contactless payments is heralding a new era of mobile commerce. Consumers want to pay quickly and conveniently, and contactless payments are predicted to become the predominant way to pay with Juniper Research expecting them to account for 53% of POS transactions by 2022.
For SMBs, offering the right payment methods has always been a vital component of their businesses. With more consumers wanting to buy on the move, ensuring your business has the right mobile payment methods is a commercial imperative that can’t be ignored.
The smartphone and tablet have not only delivered a mobile digital wallet to consumers, but this technology can also be used by your business to enhance its payment systems. With the addition of some low-cost hardware coupled with an app, it is possible to turn a smartphone or tablet into a fully functional payment device.
Let’s look at some great choices to transform your smartphone into a mobile payment platform. We made our selections based on the best features, lowest prices, and both user and professional reviews.
SumUp is mobile card reader that is available in 31 countries, although it is a more recent entry to the US market. Notably, it supports cards with EMV, popularly known as the newer ‘chip cards,’ and is powered via a micro-USB port, and has a lithium ion battery.
This mobile card reader solution is well suited to lower volume users as it offers a fixed 2.65% transaction cost, with no monthly fee, or minimum usage level. The card reader is available for a one time fee of $69 (£55), and connects via Bluetooth to your smartphone with a downloadable app.
There is also support for a wide variety of credit cards, including MasterCard, Visa, American Express and Discover Card, as well as the newer services Apple Pay and Google Pay. Payouts to your bank account take an efficient one to two days. Unfortunately, the card reader is required for any transaction to occur, as transactions cannot be manually entered.
Shopify offers an entire suite of merchant services. Here we are focusing on its mobile POS system, that targets selling at “fairs, markets, pop-ups, and everywhere in‑between,” making this an attractive solution for a business on the move with a pocket-sized card reader. The chip and swipe reader is also free, sweetening this deal even further.
In addition to the mobile card reader offering, this also integrates into Shopify solutions including the Shopify POS smartphone app.
Shopify offers three plans, with the starting tier being the Basic Shopify Plan costing $29 (£23) per month – it also has transaction fees of 2.9% plus $0.30 (£0.24) per transaction. Furthermore, there is an additional 2% fee for any payment provider other than Shopify payments.
PayPal Here is the mobile card reader offering from the online transaction juggernaut that brings instant name brand recognition to this space. A definite plus is a low cost of entry in terms of acquiring the card reader, and there are accessories on offer such as a bouncepad and charger to complete a professional package.
The PayPal Mobile Card Reader that can handle card swipes is available for an affordable $15 (£12), and connects to the phone via the headphone jack, with interaction facilitated via a smartphone app.
A better choice for many is the option to upgrade to the more modern Chip and Swipe Reader for $25 (£20), though the transaction fee is on the higher side at 2.7%. While the companion app offers plenty of features for invoicing and tracking, users describe the customer support as less than consistent.
Intuit, best known for TurboTax, produces the QuickBooks small business accounting offering, and under that umbrella is its mobile card reader effort, which is known as QuickBooks Payments.
The GoPayment smartphone app is notable, and this has a companion card reader, both of which come for no additional charge. Unlike free card readers from competing services, this one from Quickbooks Payments can handle both mag-stripe and chip methods of entry, and connects to the smartphone wirelessly via Bluetooth.
Another benefit of this service is that there is no setup fee, or any minimum usage level, making QuickBooks Payments more attractive for the lower volume user.
Transaction fees are not the lowest with this otherwise slick offering as they cost 2.4% plus $0.25 (£0.20) for each swipe, and for a keyed entry this rises to a lofty 3.4% plus $0.25 (£0.20) for each transaction.
PayAnywhere is a mobile card reader solution that integrates into the larger PayAnywhere ecosystem. This reader accepts the full range of payments, including traditional magnetic swipe, newer chip payments, and even the latest contactless payments, including Samsung Pay.
The entry-level reader is free, connects via Bluetooth, and can do both swipe and chip transactions; an upgraded reader also supports contactless transactions.
The notable feature of the PayAnywhere card reader is that it is part of the larger family of PayAnywhere services. These include being able to send invoices from within their app, accepting card payments on your website, and being able to apply discounts to invoices.
For the Pay-As-You-Go plan, there is no monthly fee, with a transaction fee of 2.69% plus a free card reader is included. The upgraded Standard Plan reduces the transaction fee to a low 1.69%, but requires signing up to reveal the monthly fee.
Left all of your Christmas shopping till the last minute? Still need that iPhone you promised someone as a gift? Well you don’t need to panic as Amazon.co.uk has your back this year delivering all the way up until Christmas Eve and they still have hundreds of mobile phone deals to choose from.
However, there is a bit of a catch here. Amazon deliveries for non-Prime members have now finished which means you’ll have to upgrade to Amazon Prime if you want to get your last minute phone deal in time for Christmas. But luckily if you’ve never had Prime before you can get a 30-day FREE trial and still get your presents delivered in time.
Amazon Prime members can have Christmas presents delivered all the way up until Christmas Eve. In fact, Amazon’s ‘Prime Now’ feature allows you to get a 2-hour delivery. If that sounds a bit risky to you then you can also order through Amazon’s one-day delivery system which means if you order on 23 December your package will still arrive on Christmas Eve.
Update: there’s still time to get this fantastic cheap Xbox Live gold deal. And don’t forget, CDKeys’ instant delivery service means you won’t have to worry about it being delivered in time for Christmas. The only thing you have to worry about is the store selling out at this super low price.
This is a fantastic time of year to get a cheap Xbox Live Gold membership deal. Especially on the 12-month ones, which are always the length we go for to get the lowest monthly price overall.
Xbox Live Gold membership grants you access to a selection of free games each month, exclusive discounts in the digital game store and also access to play online multiplayer on your Xbox One or Xbox One X.
All these benefits make Xbox Live Gold subscriptions a fantastic gift at this time of year for anyone getting a new Xbox console for Christmas or even for someone that may already have one. And it doesn’t matter if you already have a membership, as this one can be stacked onto an existing subscription and you’ll find these prices much cheaper than the default auto-renew prices or the prices you’d pay picking a sub up at most other online stores or game store shelf. And yes, if you’re moving from a regular Xbox One, to a new 4K Xbox One X you can use the same subscription.
The Xbox Live Gold prices listed below are from CDKeys.com, an online specialist in cheap digital gaming and subscription keys. Codes will be delivered within minutes of the transaction, meaning you don’t have to wait for them to arrive in the post. If you are gifting the membership, you could always print off the code and put it inside a nice festive card. Given prices for Xbox Live Gold usually shoot up after Christmas, you could save someone a lot of money with a present like this.
If you’d rather buy from a store you might know a bit more in the US, then Walmart will email you a code straight away, although it’ll cost you the regular $59.99 there.
We’ve not seen prices this low for a long time over on our regularly-updated Xbox Live Gold deals guide, so we’re confident they won’t go any lower before Christmas. There are some brilliant discounts available in the US/UK for Xbox Game Pass deals too if you fancy giving the ‘Netflix of gaming’ a spin.
If you’re still looking for more gift ideas before Christmas, be sure to check out our full range of cheap deals features. We’ve rounded up the best offers on a huge range of items including gaming consoles, TVs, laptops, mobile phones, broadband, digital TV subs, smart speakers and much more.
While moving to the cloud is a large part of many businesses’ digital transformation efforts, some companies have yet to do so. Security concerns such as data breaches and data loss are the main reasons these businesses have held off on their own cloud migrations.
In an effort to better understand how businesses can move their workflows to the cloud without sacrificing their security, TechRadar Pro spoke to BitTitan’s Vice President of Products Mark Kirstein.
Mark Kirstein, Vice President of Products at BitTitan
We’ve not even had chance to get the freezer out of the freezer yet, and yet we’re already plunging straight on into January sales and Carphone Warehouse has led the way with its push of deals on devices including the iPhone XR, Samsung Galaxy S9 and Huawei Mate 20 Pro.
To sweeten the deal, Carphone is offering the first few months half price on some of these devices meaning you’ll still get the same amount of data but only pay half of your monthly costs. These range from three to six months half price depending on the contract and can shave a fair amount of your total 24 month cost. And if you order before 3pm on December 23 you can get the phone delivered in time for Christmas.
We’ve listed all of Carphone’s standout deals below and how long the half price period lasts for each one. Although these prices are brilliant during the half price stage they do become really quite expensive after that so if you would rather have some stability and pay more affordable prices throughout then go to our mobile phone deals page for all of the best offers on phones today.
These January sale mobile phone deals in full:
iPhone 7 – £38pm, 30GB of data, Unlimited calls and texts, three half price months, O2
iPhone 8 – £49pm, 100GB of data, Unlimited calls and texts, three half price months, O2
iPhone SE – £31pm, 10GB of data, Unlimited calls and texts, six half price months, O2
iPhone XR – £62pm, 30GB of data, Unlimited calls and texts, six half price months, EE
Google Pixel 3 – £79.99pm, 30GB of data, Unlimited calls and texts, three half price months, EE
Huawei P20 Pro – £49pm, 100GB of data, Unlimited calls and texts, three half price months, O2
Samsung Galaxy S9– £43, 30GB of data, Unlimited calls and texts, three half price months, EE
Samsung Galaxy Note 9 – 70GB of data, Unlimited calls and texts, three half price months, O2
