Facebook bets big on live video, gives it a new tab in its mobile apps

Facebook is going all-in with live video broadcasts. The social network has announced that it's expanding its live video feature, just a few months after it was made available to everyone. The new stuff will be seen in the Facebook apps for Android and iOS "over the coming weeks", as the rollout completes.

First off, you'll see a new tab in the app, in between the one for friend requests and the one housing notifications. This new video tab will let you discover live videos that others are broadcasting. What you'll see here are (obviously) videos from your friends and celebrities you follow, but also the most talked about videos in the world, as well as video on the topics Facebook thinks you're most interested in.

The new tab will give you an opportunity to search for both live and non-live videos too, and you can easily go live yourself from the same place.

Live videos can now be created just for specific groups and events, and reactions have landed for videos. These are the same ones that were introduced into the News Feed recently - Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, and Angry. They can be used by viewers to express their feelings about a live broadcast in real time, and the reactions animate right on top of the video.

When you watch a live broadcast later, you'll see comments replayed as they happened during the live session. Facebook says people are commenting ten times more on live videos than regular ones. Oh, and filters are in - you'll first get five to pick from for your live appearances.

There's also an option to invite a friend to watch a live video with you. You can do this straight from the video, while you're watching it. There's a special invite icon that will help with that.

All of these things are coming to Facebook's mobile apps, but there's one new feature that is currently limited to computer use - the Facebook Live Map. This will give you a window into where live videos are currently being shot. People in more than 60 countries now have access to the live video feature, so that map is clearly going to be full.

Huawei Watch for women listed as “coming soon” on the Google Store

At CES, Huawei held an announcement that its Huawei Watch was going to be redesigned as a smartwatch for women. The watch would be available in two models for women: the Watch Elegant, and the Watch Jewel. The Watch Jewel is the one encrusted with Swarovski Crystals all the way around the bezel.

On the Google Store, we can now see the page for Huawei Watches for women and the site has only put it up as “Coming Soon”. There is still no word on when these watches will officially start shipping to customers. Even Huawei’s official website only shows you a link to sign up for notifications. But this should mean they are coming pretty soon.

The Huawei Watch Elegant and Jewel have the same specs as the original Huawei Watch. They even have nearly the same thickness and width. The major difference being that the women’s watches are a tad bit curvier and whose straps are considerably narrower for women’s generally smaller wrists.

All Huawei Watches are controlled by a Snapdragon 400 CPU with half a GB of RAM, feature a 1.4 inch round display with a 400x400 resolution and are powered by a 300mAh battery. The Huawei Watch Elegant comes in Rose Gold plated stainless steel whose entire bezel features a knurled appearance all the way around. Meanwhile, the Jewel showcases an array of Swarovski Crystals all the way around the face of the watch.

The Huawei Watch, Watch Elegant, and Watch Jewel all start at $350, $500, and $600, respectively. Check out our hands-on with the women’s Huawei Watches at CES this past January.

LG G5 gets an awesome 8/10 repairability score from iFixit

LG's new flagship offer is anything, but traditional. regardless of how you view the rather unorthodox design approach of the Korean OEM, it appears to have at least one clear advantage over many of its direct competitors - repairability.

According to the good folks over at iFixit, the LG G5 is a breeze to open up and repair, especially compared to most glued and tightly-sealed unibody handsets of late. It is arguably irrelevant whether the phones "modular" design contributes directly to the pleasant repair experience or simply facilitates the continuation of an old LG valued tradition carried over from the likes of the LG G4, which also has eight iFixit points on its record.

This means you should be able to make your way through a guided repair of the G5 a lot easier and with fewer tools than, lets say, the waterproof Samsung Galaxy S7. Of course, the user-replaceable battery is a clear and rightful contributor to the final score, but even beyond that, most of the internals of the LG G5 are rarely glued or hard to access and easy to disassemble.

Unannounced Huawei P9 Lite debuts in a hands-on preview

Huawei's major P9-series event is under way and in addition to the P9 and P9 Plus, the company is apparently preparing to unveil the P9 Lite. The guys over at Hi-Tech Mail.ru have spent some quality time with Huawei's latest mid-ranger and spilled the phone's main specifications.

Just like the regular P9, the Huawei P9 Lite packs a 5.2" display of 1080p resolution resulting in a pixel density of 423ppi. Understandably, the dual Leica camera setup is missing on the P9 Lite and instead the phone packs a conventional 13MP main camera with a single LED flash. At the front, the phone offers an 8MP selfie camera.

Sadly, there's no information regarding the chipset of the phone, but we know it will be available in 2GB and 3GB RAM versions. The internal storage is 16GB and is expandable up to 128GB more via the microSD card slot.

The battery is 3,000mAh (like the P9) and the fingerprint scanner is also updated from the previous generation.

We'll provide more information about the P9 Lite as it becomes available.

Huawei P9 and P9 Plus announced - dual 12MP cameras by Leica, Kirin 955 SoC

After a buildup lasting several months, with leaks and rumors coming in almost daily, the Huawei P9 is now finally official, announced at a dedicated event in London. And alongside the P9 we're also being treated to a P9 Plus, instead of the previously rumored P9 Max.

Huawei P9

The Huawei P9 is the regular-sized flagship, though we're inclined to call it the small-sized one - it has pretty much the same footprint as an iPhone 6s. Display diagonal is 5.2 inches, resolution is 1080p, and it's an IPS LCD panel.

It's the in-house Kirin 955 chipset powering things, a modified version of the Kirin 950 inside the Mate 8. Its octa-core CPU is set at 2.5GHz for the quad-Cortex-A72 cluster and 1.8GHz for the quad-Cortex-A53.

There will be two versions - the lower-specced one containing 3GB of RAM and 32 of storage, and the better-equipped one with 4GB and 64GB storage. A microSD slot provides an option for expansion.

It's all about the camera though, the dual setup being the headline feature. Co-developed with German optics specialist Leica, the P9's rear shooter consists of two 12MP units, one capturing color, the other seeing only black and white. And varying levels of gray, naturally. They work in unison to deliver more detailed shots in good light and significantly reduce noise in low light.

For those fond of numbers, lens aperture is f/2.2, and the field of view is equivalent to a 27mm lens in 35mm terms. Autofocus relies on a combination of laser, contrast and depth calculation (likely an algorithm based on the differences between what the two cameras are seeing).

There's a dual-LED flash to help in the dark, but the big omission here is OIS. We figure it's impossible to stabilize both cameras identically, and with the monochrome one helping in less than ideal conditions, the lack of stabilization shouldn't be missed.

The body is made from aluminum, and resembles the existing Huawei-made Nexus 6P, especially the camera strip on the back. The fingerprint sensor is on the back, for immediate access with either forefinger.

The P9 packs a 3,000mAh battery, and changing takes place via a USB Type-C connector.

Huawei P9 Plus

A P9 Max was rumored, but today's not the day it gets announced with the Huawei P9 Plus filling it for it. It measures 5.5-inches in diagonal, so a Max isn't entirely out of the question with its alleged 6.2-inch diagonal.

The bump in size to 5.5 inches doesn't come with a resolution increase, but the Plus makes a switch to AMOLED. What it does bring on top of the regular P9 is pressure sensitivity, 3D Touch-style. On the P9 Plus the tech is called Press Touch. Huawei already did it on that one special top-end version of the Mate S nobody has seen, but hopefully the P9 Plus will bring it to more pockets.

Unlike the options you get on the P9, the P9 Plus will only come in a 4GB/64GB variety. The P9 Plus comes with a due increase in battery capacity, rated at 3,400mAh. Dual-IC Rapid Charge will give you 6 hours of talk time for a 10-minute charge, Huawei says.

Additionally, the P9 Plus boasts stereo speakers, which can also adjust their output depending on the phone's orientation. That means that when the P9 Plus is held in portrait, bass comes out of the bottom speaker, and the top takes care of the treble. We're not sure how that qualifies as stereo, though.

The Huawei P9 is priced at €599 for 3GB/32GB version and €649 for the 4GB/64GB variant. The Plus commands a €100 premium for a total of €749. The smaller model will be available starting April 16 and 29 countries in Europe and the Middle East will get it in the first wave. The P9 Plus will hit the stores on May 20.

Meizu m3 note goes official with aluminum unibody, fingerprint sensor

Meizu held an unveiling event today in Beijing andfinally made the eagerly-anticipated m3 note official. The Chinese manufacturer's "m" lineup has a very distinct reputation for delivering quality budget-friendly offers, like the m1 note and its m2 note successor, both of which delivered outstanding value for money.

In a first for the "m" line, the new offer features an 6000 series aluminum unibody. On the hardware side of things, the phone comes with a 5.5-inch, FullHD display, rather typical for the family with a 2.5D front glass. The front comes in black and white colors combined with a dark gray and gold finish on the back, respectively.

Under the hood is a MediaTek Helio P10 SoC, with octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU clocked at 1.8Ghz, a Mali T860 GPU. Memory options include 2GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable storage in the lower tier, as well as 3GB of RAM and a 32GB fast eMMC 5.1 solid state chip. The camera setup seems to be borrowed from previous models, at least on paper, and includes a 13MP rear shooter and a 5MP one on the front.

The Meizu me note offers Dual SIM support with a hybrid card tray solution (that is two SIM cards or a SIM plus microSD combo). The Meizu m3 note is also "full netcom", which means it will work on every network in China. LTE is also a given and so is VoLTE. To top things off, the device has a spacious 4000 mAh battery and an mTouch 2.1 fingerprint reader in the home button - also a novelty for the "m" lineup.

But perhaps the most attractive aspect of the m3 note is its price point, starting at CNY 799 ($125) for the 2GB version and CNY 999 ($155) for the 3GB. This actually leaves in about $100 cheaper than the Meizu metal at current prices. The me note will be available in China from April 11.

Huawei P9 leaks one last time, black version shows up

Mere hours before announcement, the Huawei P9 showed up one last time unofficially, in black on this occasion.

Unlike early leaks, this new image now features the Leica branding on the dual camera on the back of the device. The collaboration between the two companies was announced a couple of months ago and last week it was confirmed that the P9 will already reap the benefits.

The shape of the fingerprint sensor has also been finalized to a rectangle with rounded corners. The circular design we saw earlier may have been an abandoned prototype, or might be used on the P9 Max. Whatever the case, we'll certainly know more later today.

The Huawei P9 story told in videos

The most characteristic feature of the new Huawei P9 flagship is the Leica-designed dual camera setup. Why two cameras? Well, Huawei draws parallels with human eyes - both of them.

The Huawei P9 comes in a number of special finishes and coatings for its six color options. This 1-minute "design story" video quickly covers the key points.

This was the short introduction if you crave more info you can watch how Huawei and Leica partnered to reinvent smartphone photography (and don't forget to check out our hands-on for yet more details).

The P9 is a global phone and as the following video shows, the design was created in Paris.

Huawei TalkBand 3 brings more styles, better audio

At the Huawei P9 and P9 Plus premiere today, the company also revealed the TalkBand B3 band. Just like on its predecessor, the band is passive and is a holder for the Bluetooth earpiece, which sits on top of it. The earpiece itself is where the major updates are too.

For starters, Huawei touts it to be more ergonomic and has a high-grade chipset resulting in better audio performance. The sound volume is up by 25% compared to the B2 and the wind noise cancellation is bumped by 80%. Finally, the glass covering the earpiece is 3D-curved Corning Gorilla Glass (Huawei doesn't specify which generation though).

The bracelet itself, while familiar, is slightly updated and is now available in a few variations. You can get it in Classic (Brown, Gold), Elite (Rose Gold) and Active (Black or White rubber bands).

Pricing and availability are yet to be detailed, but we'll update this article once the information becomes available.

PS4 Remote Play App is available now for Windows & OS X

The PlayStation 4 v3.50 update is out and with it, Sony also launched Remote Play for Windows and OS X. The new feature allows you to stream your PS4 games on your desktop PC for when the TV just can't be accessed.

Don't hold your breath for some stunning visuals, as the default quality of the video stream is 540p @ 30fps. Provided your PC is top notch and internet connection rock solid, 720p @ 60fps is the highest you can go. In comparison, optimized PS4 titles can run at 1080p@60fps.

Finally, Sony could also be improving its PS4 controllers drivers for the PC in the near future. The DualShock 4 controller has a touchpad in the middle, which will be useful on the PC or Mac.

Vivaldi browser now out of beta

We first heard of Vivaldi back when it was released in beta form early last year. The browser is now finally out of beta, and available for Windows, OS X, and Linux.

Vivaldi is a browser by Vivaldi Technologies, an Oslo-based company founded by the former co-founder and CEO of Opera Software, Jon von Tetzchner. Vivaldi tries to build on what made Opera so popular with some people in the first place, a ton of features and customizability, before Opera decided to strip it away of everything and become overly simplistic.

Vivaldi includes features such as tab stacking, where you can drop tabs on top of each other to create a stack and make managing them easier, tab stack tiling, where you can tile the tabs in a stack side by side within the browser window if you have a big enough monitor to view them comfortably, notes feature to save quotes from website and screenshots and the browser remembers where you took them from, mouse gestures and keyboard shortcuts, speed dial, web panels to have a small panel on the side dedicated to sites that don't require a lot of space or IM windows, UI customizability, and more.

PSA: Siri-lock screen flaw leaves your contacts and photos vulnerable (iOS 9.3.1)

Siri isn’t exactly the most loved feature of the iPhone among many users. She/He sometimes doesn’t hear you correctly, and often infuriates users who try to use Siri and end up disabling it altogether.

Now here is where 3D Touch comes in. It wasn’t included in the iPhone SE, so we still don’t know if it’s because Apple intends to phase it out in the future, or if the iPhone SE was meant to be an inferior model to the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S+

3D touch enables a serious flaw present in iOS 9.3.1 on the iPhones 6S and 6S+ that lets anybody who can get their hands on your iPhone to access your contacts and your photos. The “Siri-D Touch” (See what I did there?) hack bypasses the lock screen by first activating Siri from the lock screen, next, ask Siri to do a search on Twitter. Then, find a result that displays an email address.

The offender can then 3D Touch this email address and choose to “add to a contact”. When the offender chooses to add to an existing contact, the phone’s entire contact list is revealed. Once here, the contact can be opened and the iPhone will allow the selection of a photo to be used for such contact. Hereby, granting the operator access to the entire gallery.

In order for said hack to work, the victim's phone would need to have 3D Touch enabled, as well as Siri enabled from the lock screen, and there should be a Twitter account logged in on the phone

Apple will surely patch this flaw in an incremental update, but in the meantime, if you would like to take precautions with your iPhone 6S(+), you can change the setting that allows Siri's access to Twitter, or you can also disable either 3D touch, or Siri’s access to the lock screen.