Airbag Prank Fail

Everyone’s seen the airbag prank made famous from the movie Neighbors. You place an undeployed airbag under a seat cushion, or in this case a tire, then fix the switch to a power source. You get a willing friend to sit on it. When it launches, it sends them into the air a good 10 feet. Fun for everyone, right? Well not if you’re this guy who makes the mistake of landing right on his tailbone!Source===

Read More

Take The Craziest Downhill Mountain Biking Ride With World Champion Gee Atherton

Take The Craziest Downhill Mountain Biking Ride With World Champion Gee AthertonSource==G===

Read More

Jimmy Kimmel Hands People First Generation iPhone And Tells Them It's The New iPhone 6S

Jimmy Kimmel Hands People First Generation iPhone And Tells Them It's The

.source==G==ew iPhone 6S

Read More

Windows 10 is sneaking onto Windows 7 and 8 installs without permission

Microsoft is downloading Windows 10 to Windows 7 and 8 machines, even if the user hasn’t expressed permission. A reader of The Inquirer saw that the ~BT Windows 10 folder had appeared on his system even though he hadn’t reserved a copy. He only noticed after spotting a number of failed ‘Upgrade to Windows 10’ messages in his Windows Update history. Microsoft has confirmed this is happening to The Inquirer, as well as VentureBeat and PCWorld when reached for a statement.
Users have been able to opt-in to the free Windows 10 upgrade if they're running Windows 7 or 8, but apparently even if they don't, the files are being downloaded anyway. It's happening on devices which have automatic updates allowed, which we'd generally recommend to catch the latest security and stability updates for Windows.
When asked about this issue, Microsoft responded by saying “For individuals who have chosen to receive automatic updates through Windows Update, we help upgradable devices get ready for Windows 10 by downloading the files they’ll need if they decide to upgrade. When the upgrade is ready, the customer will be prompted to install Windows 10 on the device.” Convenient, if you're installing Windows 7 or 8 specifically to upgrade to Windows 10. Otherwise, not so much.
The automatic download takes up between 3.5 and 6GB of storage space, which may not sound like a lot, but it’s not an insignificant amount for some users. Windows tablets with smaller hard drives are affected, and people with data caps on their Internet connections certainly don’t want that amount of data coming in without permission. The background download could affect people with poor Internet connections too, without them being aware that they're downloading unnecessary files.
Since launch, over 75 million devices have made the upgrade to Windows 10, and some sources say that the number is closer to 100 million.Source===pcgamer

Read More

The World's First 3D-Printed Titanium Rib Cage Is a Medical Marvel

1

We can rebuild him, better, stronger, faster

2

Okay I’m sure the surgeon and designers thought of this but ..... aren’t these a bit narrow?

3

It sounds like something straight out of a comic book, but after losing his sternum and part of his rib cage to cancer, a 54-year-old Spanish man received the world’s first 3D-printed chest prosthetic made from lightweight, but incredibly strong, titanium.

Titanium implants aren’t new, but replacing large sections of the rib cage is tricky. Titanium prosthetics are usually built from various plate components, and over time they can come loose creating future complications.

Surgeons at the Salamanca University Hospital in Spain decided that a custom-designed titanium prosthetic would better replicate the portions of the patient’s chest that had been removed, and in the long term would be a safer option.

Using high-resolution 3D CT scans of the patient’s chest, the surgeons determined what areas needed to be replaced, and then turned to a Melbourne, Australia-based company called Anatomics to design and build the replacement sternum and rib cage.

As impressive as home 3D printers like the MakerBot are, printing with titanium requires a higher level of expertise and equipment. Anatomics actually used a $1.3 million electron beam Arcam 3D printer to produce the prosthetic, the first of its kind in the world, which was then flown to Spain and surgically implanted in the patient.

Just 12 days after their final surgery, the patient, who is now probably the closest thing the world has to Marvel’s Wolverine, was discharged and is recovering well. And 3D printing takes another important step forward to becoming one of the most important technologies of the 21st century.Source===G

Read More

The Apple iPad Pro event: A good, sad day for Microsoft

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.

---

But it's nothing like a stylus, right? CNET

The graybeards who've adored Apple ever since Steve Jobs was a lad must have looked at this and winced.
Or might they have thought it the ultimate in scalding irony?
Here was Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president for Microsoft's Office division, wandering onto the stage of an Apple event. Not because he had lost his temper and wanted to berate Apple CEO Tim Cook, but because there's now a certain level of nice (and need) between the two companies.
Think, though, what he and his company had to endure on Wednesday. Koenigsbauer was at the event to discuss the role Microsoft Office plays on Apple's new 12.9-inch iPad Pro, which when you put all the pieces together might pass as a lookalike for the Microsoft Surface at a casting session.
There, too, was Apple lauding the same thing of which Cook had once said, "Our competition is confused. They're turning tablets into PCs and PCs into tablets."
Those clouds of confusion parted more quickly than a shower on a December day in St. Lucia. Suddenly, it all makes sense and it all looks good. Apple good.
As if, though, to apply a touch of albumen foundation before adding a little yolk mascara to Redmond's face, Apple produced a stylus.
"Who wants a stylus?" Jobs famously said at Macworld in 2007. "You have to get them and put them away and you lose them. Yeuch. Nobody wants a stylus."
Of course, Apple didn't present a stylus on Wednesday. It presented the Apple Pencil. Pencils are cool, you see. They're human. Styluses are chilly and nerdy.
It's not enough having stylus, ya gotta have style.
And there's the essence of Microsoft's cheery melancholy today. As many learn in life, being right often gets you nowhere. "That was my idea" may be honest words that some never get over.
How much worse it will be for some at Redmond if the iPad Pro is a big-screen success. How much worse if it eclipses the Surface Pro.
At the heart of it all, though, is brand.
Where Microsoft once understood that people needed to feel positively about its name and ethos, somehow Bill Gates and then Steve Ballmer let that go in favor of power, dominance and ubiquity.
Where they could have continued an ad campaign such as "Where Do You Want To Go Today?" that put people, hearts and dreams at its core, they forced Windows onto the world's laptops. Not enough people loved Microsoft for it.
Meanwhile, Apple mocked Redmond and became loved. The Mac vs. PC campaign was a manifesto for the identity that those who used Macs wanted to be associated with. It was something for them to feel a part of. It lasted and it worked. It lasted because it worked.
When Microsoft launched Surface, it had an avowedly different-looking product in its hands. It presented this product through some of the most painful advertising ever seen. You surely remember the dancing teens? Oh, they still haunt you?
The Surface product has improved, as have its sales. Microsoft had a three-year head start. But now it must watch Apple's reinterpretation of some of its ideas and wonder whether there's any justice in the world.
There's rarely justice. The best you can hope for is poetry.
In 2012, cartoonist (current project Sharksplode), writer and voice actor Joel Watson predicted that Apple would launch a Surface-like thing in 2015. He has cartoon Steve Ballmer holding a Surface and uttering these words: "In three years when Apple copies this, you cockwads will think it's genius."

This was created in 2012 by Joel Watson, who makes online comics and is a voice actor for Cyanide and Happiness. Hijinksensue.com (With Permission.)

The excellent part for anyone at Microsoft must be that it employs people who do see the future and see it clearly. The galling part must lie in seeing Apple potentially gaining the most from that vision.
So many deep, rational, righteous thinkers decry Cupertino for its alleged distortion field and the supposed reliance on that deadly nonsense known as marketing. But the company has always stopped to think about how to delight humans. This doesn't mean it always gets it right. It does mean that it goes out of its way to try.
How Microsoft wished it had found a way to be held to human bosoms, rather than be kept at arm's length.
Of course, it could be that the iPad Pro will be a failure. I fancy, though, that aside of its more rational business uses, there will be plenty of people who will be only too delighted to be seen with the vast new Apple screen.
In some bars around Washington state on Wednesday night, there will have been more than a few muttering into their glasses of fizzy rosé: "Apple Pencil, my a**."Source===cnet

Read More

Metal Gear Solid 5's best secret: You can play the campaign as a woman

Much has been written about the juvenile design of Quiet, the improbably naked sidekick in the Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. But, for all the justifiable anger about her character, almost nothing has been written about the secret new female protagonist in Metal Gear.

I’m calling her FemSnake.
FemSnake is awesome. She’s on the title screen. Soldiers stop dead in their tracks and sharply salute her. "Thanks for saving those kids, Boss," they say.
Revolver Ocelot speaks to her in reverent tones, reporting on mission outcomes. When she interrogates a prisoner, she demands "Out with it!" and my heart skips a beat.

FemSnake stands in ironic contrast to Quiet. FemSnake wears full military armor, form-fitting, but tough and realistic. Everything about her demands to be treated like a professional and not a sex object. Accompanying her is a sexist train wreck of a design, a woman designed to be ogled while never speaking a word. Quiet is a capable soldier who looks like anything but.
Some people will tell me FemSnake is not really Snake, and it’s true. She’s a prisoner you rescue on a mission, but you do get to play almost every mission as her. She can be your protagonist, and is included in many of the cutscenes. She runs Mother Base. She commands the game’s soldiers. She is fully voiced, and her acting is even more menacing than Kiefer Sutherland’s. This is my title screen, featuring my game's hero:

I’ll tell you how to unlock her. But first, let’s back up. Let’s look at some of the design decisions in Metal Gear Solid V that are meant to make most gamers feel like they’re Snake — including gamers that are not white.

A silent protagonist

I was confused when David Hayter tweeted that he wouldn’t be returning as Snake. As a hardcore fan of the series, I couldn’t imagine long codec monologues with anyone but Hayter. Now that I’m 30 hours in, this design decision makes total sense.
Wanting to capture a wider audience, Metal Gear has gone the Portal route with Snake — our now near-silent protagonist. The story happens around him, with imaginative characters like Ocelot, Master Miller and Skull Face providing much of the personality and voice acting. Snake watches everything unfold around him.

Goodbye, long discussions about nuclear disarmament. Hello, adrenaline-filled setpieces and systems that hint towards for-pay DLC. Just like the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Call of Duty franchises, Metal Gear is going for a more mainstream appeal. For that to happen, the angst-ridden, talkative version of Snake had to go.
In fact, Snake himself barely even matters in this version of Metal Gear. That’s why the game teases you with changing Snake’s character’s race and face in the opening, a feature that delighted my Asian husband. As the online component comes next month, players will represent themselves as their custom avatar. The technical term for this in gamedev parlance is "player agency," giving you control over your game world.
FemSnake is a design compromise to allow female players to play as a woman. And make no mistake, including her was a feature that took quite a bit of development resources from the Metal Gear team. They had to alter the game’s armor implementation to work with her different body proportions. They had to bring in a voice actress. They had to code scenes so Sutherland’s line reads would appear as captions and not voiceover in many scenes. What they did to make this happen across so much content was neither quick nor easy. Someone cared about this feature.

How to make this happen

How do you unlock FemSnake? Go to Prisoner Extraction 02 in Side Ops, which seems to always spawn the otherwise extremely rare woman prisoners. This unlocked my FemSnake, who was assigned the random codename "Obsidian Mole."
Then, when choosing a mission, go to Character and you’ll be able to play the rest of the game as her. Her combat stats rise as you play, primarily affecting your health pool — but any other differences between Snake and FemSnake were not perceptible to me.
After you’ve selected your new character, you’ll see them in everything but fully-voiced cutscenes for the remainder of the game, including the title screen. This trick can also be used with any rescued prisoner you’d like to represent you instead of Snake, including those of different races.

This is a nice step forward

Metal Gear fans are used to duality in how the series treats women. I was astonished by the excellent portayal of Meryl Silverburgh when Metal Gear Solid came out in 1998. You felt her emotions, you understood her as a person and cared about her. And then, you burst in on her in the bathroom, creepily staring at her butt and watching her change from her uniform.
That’s how I feel playing this latest Metal Gear. I’m both elated and troubled. In researching this piece, I saw hundreds of articles critiquing Quiet’s design. But I didn’t see a single article praising Konami for including an inclusive design compromise that boosts my own enjoyment of the game. You can play through almost the entirety of the game as a woman hero! Or a person of color! This is great news, and needs to be celebrated.
So, to all the team and Kojima Productions, I want to say thank you for this inclusive game design. FemSnake is a huge step forward for the series. None of the core Metal Gear console games have had a female protagonist, and even Metal Gear Online omitted women.
We can’t just critique the steps backwards, we need to notice the steps forward. FemSnake Source==polygon

salutes you.

Read More

Pug in Pink Sunglasses Rocks Out on a Tiny Set of Drums to the Metallica Song ‘Enter Sandman’

An adorable pug with a big tongue and a pair of pink sunglasses effortlessly knocks out the beat to the classic Metallica song “Enter Sandman” on a tiny set of rose-colored drums, without breaking a sweat.Source====

Read More

50 Million Dollar Disappearing Garage

You might think you’ve got the ultimate garage, but do you have one with a subterranean storage lair?
Check out this Lake Tahoe estate with a massive 30 car underground garage that’s accessed by way of a massive hydraulic lift! Well it only costs $50 million!Source==youtube===

Read More

Reckless Biker Splitting Lanes Eats It Hard

Lane splitting on a bike is one of the big advantages of a motorcycle in heavy traffic. However, you not only have to be sure you can legally do it (only legal in California), but you have to be EXTREMELY careful.

These two bikers were screaming down a highway in Georgia while illegally lane splitting. Sure enough, disaster strikes. They are moving entirely too fast when a car in front of them changes lanes. The first biker can’t correct in time and completely eats bumper and flies over his handle bars!Source===altdriver.

Read More

Nokia C1 Android smartphone concept emerges

Nokia is getting back into the smartphone game, and these images — initially believed to have been real leaked pictures of Nokia's prototype — show one fan's concept for how to reintroduce the brand to phone buyers. Earlier this summer, Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri said that the Finnish company will indeed look to make a return, by designing and licensing handsets, to the mobile market once its agreement with Microsoft to not use the Nokia name on smartphones had expired. Having been barred from branding any smartphones as Nokias until the end of 2015, the company is now working on its plans for 2016 and beyond, which it has said will not conflict with Microsoft's mobile efforts: "Microsoft makes mobile phones. We would simply design them and then make the brand name available to license."
The concept Nokia C1 would run run on Android Marshmallow, powered by an Intel Atom processor inside. Its proposed 5-inch size and 1080p resolution are both rather conventional, and the suggestion is that Nokia should aim for a budget-friendly device.
The Nokia N1 tablet, introduced earlier this year, sets the likely blueprint for what we can expect from its next mobile device. The N1 was manufactured and distributed by Foxconn, which licensed Nokia's design and brand. There's no guarantee that Foxconn will again be the partner for any new smartphone projects, though given the two companies' established collaboration, it would seem to be a probable candidate. If Nokia does decide to develop an Android smartphone, it wouldn't be its first one ever — that was the Nokia X — though it would be the first without Microsoft's influence and control.
Update September 8th 8:33AM ET: It appears that these pictures are the product of a Nokia fan's imagination rather than prototypes from the Finnish company. They were originally posted by Kim Wayne, who also presented an earlier set of renders of the purported C1.Source==THE VERGE====

Read More

GoPro's Google-Powered Camera Is the Next Best Thing To Teleportation

This year, the most amazing thing I saw at Google’s annual developer conference wasn’t a phone, a tablet, or even a head-mounted display. It was a 360-degree 3D video that took me to Japan. Now, filmmakers can spend $15,000 on the tech that made it possible: the GoPro Odyssey. It’s one heck of a camera.

Okay, so I probably need to do a little explaining: the GoPro Odyssey isn’t a camera in the traditional sense. It’s actually an array of 16 perfectly aligned GoPro Hero4 Black cameras—the same $500 ones you’d mount on your surfboard or drone or mountain bike—plus some special Google hardware and software to combine them into a single 360-degree stereoscopic 3D video at 8K resolution and 30 frames per second. (It’s an incredible amount of data.)

What Odyssey looks like now. The top image in this post is what it looked like back in May.

The result is a video like nothing you’ve ever seen. You place your smartphone into a Google Cardboard VR headset, put it up to your face, and you’re somewhere else. A beach. A glacier. A cable car climbing up a Japanese mountain filled with sightseers like yourself. And the quality is far better than any other such 360-degree video I’ve seen, due to the way Google’s software computationally generates believable 3D no matter where you turn your head. No seams. With this camera, filmmakers could take you to all sorts of wonderful places.

You don’t technically need to buy a $15,000 GoPro rig to create such a video: Google’s initative, dubbed Jump, will actually let you 3D-print a frame to install your own cameras. But the GoPro Odyssey kit doesn’t just come with 16 cameras (and 16 cables, and 16 microSD cards, and... you get the picture) it’s also got the hardware to interface all of them together, custom firmware loaded onto the cameras, and a way to plug ‘em all into an AC outlet simultaneously—so you don’t need to swap out 16 batteries in the middle of a shoot.

GoPro claims Odyssey allows the 16 Hero4 Black units to act like a single camera, with every pixel of every frame synced accurately.

Plus—since GoPro is Google’s primary partner—this is probably the only way you get access to Google’s super-impressive Jump video assembler technology for a while. Speaking of getting access, though, it may be rather limited to start: GoPro and Google are accepting applications now, but will only give “select content partners” the go-ahead to actually buy one.

In the meanwhile, there’s already a way for you to see what this camera is capable of: just direct your Chrome browser or the YouTube app on your phone to this video:

Be sure to tap and drag (or move your phone) to pan around. Or put on a Google Cardboard headset for the best results.

What if you aren’t a pro, yet you still like the idea of creating virtual reality videos? You could try a Ricoh Theta, which will let you publish non-3D spherical videos to YouTube and spherical photos to Google Street View. Or you could wait for GoPro to create a consumer-grade VR camera. I’m pretty sure that’s coming, too.

[GoPro]GoPro]Source==G==

Read More

Pet Lion becomes Wild Lion

Read More

See Reaction After Man Adds Butane Gas to Coke Bottle, Then Flips It Over

You probably should avoid trying this experiment at home.
A Russian YouTuber published a video late-last that shows him pump a Coca-Cola bottle with butane gas and then flip it over.
The result?
It turns into what he called a “mega rocket,” shooting straight up into the air and leaving a gas stream behind.
“Liquid gas mixed with cola instantly turns into a gaseous state, while increasing in volume more than 500 times!” the YouTuber wrote in the description of the video, according to an online translation.
Since it was uploaded, the footage has gone mega-viral, amassing more than 4 million views on YouTube.
Correction: This story has been amended to reflect that the man added butane gas to the bottle of Coke, not propane gas.Source===BLAZE=====

Read More

California's Longest Zip Line Opens in SoCal

Receive the latest california updates in your inbox

A courtesy photo from La Jolla Zip Zoom of their zip line, which goes through parts of the La Jolla Indian Reservation.

If you have the guts and the time, what is believed to be California’s longest zip line opened at the La Jolla Indian Reservation Friday.

Riders will coast through 1.25 miles of mountains, tree tops, canyons, valleys and the San Luis Rey River at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour. 

The ride, located northeast of San Diego, will be an added attraction to the reservation's popular campground, which draws more than 120,0000 people annually, according to Tribal Vice Chairman Fred Nelson. 

The zip line was built with the help of part of $1.8 million in federal economic grant money that came on the heels of several disasters in the area. The tribe also contributed $200,000.

Officials say if the zip line is a success, it could bring in enough revenue to build new cabins in the area and eventually a casino. 

The reservation, home to most of the tribe’s members, collects no gaming revenue and has been declared a disaster area three times in the last eight years after a devastating fire, mudslides and flooding. 

The zip line offers four separate rides broken up by a nature hike as well as cultural and nature lessons. The whole journey takes roughly two and a half hours to complete.

The cost is $99 per rider, $75 for returning campers. Participants must be 48 inches or taller and weigh between 65 and 275 pounds in order to ride. Reservations are required and can be made by clicking here. Source===NBC====

Read More

Google’s Latest Chrome Update Emphasizes Speed And Lower Memory Usage

Chrome started out as one of the least memory hungry browsers on the market, but over time, it developed a bit more of an appetite for RAM. Now, however, Google is starting to get back to basics and the latest Chrome release (version 45) focuses on making the browser faster and more efficient.
As the company announced in a blog post today, Chrome 45 includes a number of updates that focus on making Chrome load faster and use less memory. When you restart the browser, for example, and Chrome restores your tabs, the browser will now first open those tabs you most recently looked at, so you can get back to work (or browsing car videos) faster.
That will save a few seconds here and there, but the real updates are in how Chrome now manages memory.
Starting with this update, the browser will recognize when your computer is running low on resources when it’s restoring tabs and then stops restoring them until you actively click to restore them yourself. For the most part, this will likely only affect those of you who regularly have a few dozen tabs open, but if memory usage is a major issue on your machine, then every little megabyte counts (and you should probably look at extensions like The Great Suspender, too).

Most importantly, though, Chrome now notices when you’re not using a tab for a while or a website isn’t busy with another task and then uses that time to free up unused memory. Google says its tests have shown that this can cut memory usage by 10 percent on average, though more complex web apps will obviously profit from this more than your average Tripod homepage.
As previously announced, Chrome will now also start automatically pausing Flash videos that it thinks aren’t “central” to a website. For this, Google’s tests have shown that turning on this setting can make your battery last up to 15 percent longer, so Google will now turn this feature on for all users by default in the coming weeks.Source===TC++++++++

Read More

Sony's Xperia Z5 family includes the world's first 4K smartphone

To say that Sony's mobile division has had a tough time lately would be an understatement. As the company puts out half-hearted efforts like the Z3 and Z3+, sales have been dropping steadily. We're now at the point where Sony is losing more than $1 million per day just keeping the division going. Something has to change. Sony has to take smartphones seriously, and this is its attempt to do just that. Meet the Xperia Z5 family, which includes the world's first 4K phone display, "next-generation" cameras and some tiny, tiny fingerprint scanners.

GALLERY|45 PHOTOS

Xperia Z5 family

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
  + See all 45/

For what seems like the first time in ages, Sony is announcing a trio of flagship phones at the same time. From big to small, we've got the Z5 Premium, the Z5 and the Z5 Compact. The trio share many attributes, but thanks to one spec, the Premium is by far the most interesting.

The world's first 4K phone display

I'm totally besotted with the Premium's display. It's got a truly ridiculous, world-beating 5.5-inch 4K (3,840 x 2,160) panel, with rich colors and deep blacks. We'll need to spend more time than the few hours we've had with the new lineup to give a proper verdict, but right now we can say for sure that it looks great. I'm not sure I want a 4K display in my phone, but I am sure that the allure of an 806-ppi display will be enough to win some over. Sony's thrown down the gauntlet, and at least in pixel density, the Z5 Premium is the phone to beat.

Unfortunately, Sony's saved all of its new screen tech for the Premium, with the regular Z5 retaining the same 5.2-inch 1080p unit as the Z3 and Z3+, and the Z5 Compact getting a slightly larger -- 4.7 inches vs. the Z3 Compact's 4.6 inches -- but still 720p display.

Apart from their displays, the devices are almost identical.

As far as specs go, though, the displays are pretty much the only things distinguishing the Z5 Premium from the Z5 and Z5 Compact. All three have Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 processor inside, up to 32GB of internal storage (expandable by microSD), high-res audio chips and "up to two-day battery life." That's a cute way Sony found to say "you only need to charge this one once a day." How they eke out that battery life differs of course, with the Premium having a 3,430mAh battery, the Z5 a 2,900mAh and the Z5 Compact a 2,700mAh. The only other differentiator is RAM: The Z5 Premium and Z5 have 3GB; the Z5 Compact only has 2GB.

The same, but different

The Z5s' power buttons house fingerprint sensors.

If you've seen any Sony phone made in the last couple of years, I'm sure you've already noticed the Z5 family is a very familiar one. Sony's "OmniBalance" design theme has been knocking around since the Xperia Z1, and it's really difficult to get excited about: They're rectangular slabs with clean line; they're waterproof; and they're uncomplicated. That said, this is probably the tightest iteration on that theme. The Z5 Premium and Z5 both feel very polished, with carefully considered color schemes and materials. The Z5 Compact feels sturdier and a little chunkier, but not necessarily in a bad way.

The Z5 Premium is available in black, gold or chrome, all with a mirrored glass back, while the Z5 has white, black, gold and a subdued green, with a frosted glass back. Sony's clearly targeting the younglings with the Compact, especially with some of the bright and "fun" colors. It comes in the usual white and black, but also vibrant yellow and coral (pink) -- again with frosted glass at the back. Of course they're all different sizes too; The Z5 Premium has a 5.5-inch display and is 7.8mm thick; the Z5 has a 5.2-inch display and is 7.3mm thick; while the Compact has a 4.7-inch display and is 8.3mm thick.

The Z5 Premium in chrome makes for a very effective mirror.

I think the yellow Z5 Compact is probably my favorite of the bunch; the bright color wrapping around the edge of the black display frames the device really well. The green Z5 is also kinda classy looking, and it's a nice step away from the staid colors we're used to from flagships. Also, big shout out to the chrome Z5 Premium, which is essentially a mirror with a phone attached to the back. It's ostentatious; it's ridiculous; and it's impossible to keep clean, but I kinda love it.

So all these new Xperias are familiar, but changed. The same, but different. Those coming from a previous-generation Z will notice how nicely this latest bunch feels to hold, as well as some neat design additions. There's now a little "Xperia" wordmark etched into the phones' metallic sides, and the series' small circular power button is no more, replaced by an oval-shaped button that somehow squeezes in a tiny fingerprint reader.

Taking care of number one

All three phones share the same camera setup.

Sony's new sensor is exclusive to Xperias, for now.

Sony's image sensors are everywhere. Of course you'll find them in the company's own smartphones, mirrorless and SLT cameras, but they're also in high-end Nikon and Fujifilm models. Not to mention flagship smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S6 and LG G4. Put simply, they're considered some of the finest in the business, and one of the increasingly few areas that Sony is a market leader in. Not all sensors are created equal, though, and this time, Sony's keeping the best smartphone sensor for itself. All of the Z5s have a 1/2.3-inch Exmor RS 23-megapixel image sensor. It's brand-new, and Sony says it'll be exclusive to Xperias, at least for a while.

Click image for original 7MB file. Shot by Sony at f/2.0, 1/2500s, ISO 40.

This fancy new sensor is backside illuminated and has embedded phase-detection pixels. It's housed in Sony's first mobile camera module with a closed-loop actuator, and in front of the sensor is a new six-element 24mm lens with a wide f/2.0 aperture. If you're unsure what all of this means, I'll break it down for you:

Sony says that, thanks to the phase-detection pixels, the Z5 family can autofocus in as little as 0.03 second, claiming it's the "world's fastest autofocus in a smartphone." All we can say is it's very quick. The actuator helps with this by swiftly moving the lens to focus, and because it's closed-loop, it'll also offer better image stabilization, especially for video. As you'd expect, all three will shoot movies in 4K, although evidently the Z5 Premium is the only one capable of playing footage back natively on the phone itself. Sony says the new sensor is capable of oversampling images (PureView style) for digital zoom "without loss of image quality." Take that claim with an ocean's worth of salt, of course, but the zoomed images definitely seemed good enough for a Facebook or Twitter share.

Click image for original 3MB file. Shot by Sony at f/2.0, 1/30s, ISO 250.

All of this adds up to... well, no one knows yet. What I can say is that Sony's sensors are the envy of the business; Sony's "unedited" sample images look fantastic; and, in my brief time with the Z5s, I took some quite pretty images that I'm sadly unable to share with you. But it's too early to say whether this new camera represents a huge leap forward, or even if it's at the front of the pack.

A fresh start

Although it's not quite stock, Sony has all but removed its Android skin.

On the software side, the Z5 family runs Android 5.1.1, and Sony says "stay tuned" about an Android M update. The good news for virtually everyone but the most die-hard of Sony fans, though? The company's Android skin is no more. Instead, the devices all run a virtually stock Android experience. Sure, there are some differences in iconography, but the general look-and-feel isn't too far from a Nexus device. That's a huge step forward from current Xperias, which feel like they're stuck in the past despite many of them actually being on the latest version of Android.

Google won't officially bake in fingerprint support to its OS until Android M is released this fall. Like other manufacturers, though, Sony already has things up and running. I wasn't able to test out the functionality myself, but the placement seems very natural, and I watched Sony staff unlocking their devices with various fingers and thumbs at a 100 percent success rate.

The big questions

A close-up of the Xperia Premium's etched metal wordmark.

I'm pretty impressed with Sony's new lineup. But there are still three lingering questions that Sony needs to answer. First, there's the small matter of price. So far, we've got this from Sony: "Pricing will reflect the premium quality of the smartphone." Make of that what you will, but Sony isn't exactly known for producing budget devices. In the age of the OnePlus 2 and the Moto X Pure, you can get a lot of smartphone for a few hundred dollars.

Second is battery life and performance. The chip inside all three, the Snapdragon 810, has had some well-reported issues with overheating, and is not known to be very frugal when it comes to battery life. Couple that chip with a 4K display, and it's easy to question Sony's claim of "up to two-day" endurance when it comes to the Premium. The company points to its on-display memory (which effectively switches off the processor when the screen isn't moving), and other battery-saving tech as proof it can hit that target. Many will remain unconvinced until the phone's been properly tested.

Third, and perhaps most importantly for Sony's shot at a global success, is availability. The Z5 and Z5 Compact will be "globally" available in October, with the Z5 Premium following in November. But Sony has really struggled to persuade carriers to push its devices. That's especially true in the US, where sometimes it feels like Sony doesn't exist.

If a 4K display doesn't pique the US carriers' attention, nothing will.

You could argue that this is Sony's fault. Several generations of Xperias have come and gone, all of which looked pretty much the same, and none of which blew the competition out of the water. They've been solid phones, but plenty of companies make solid phones. Why should carriers put their weight behind Sony when Samsung et al. offer the same basic package? With iPhone season fast approaching, there's a real chance Sony could be left by the wayside again. At least with the Z5 Premium, Sony has clearly put everything it can into a single device, short of a new design. If the world's first 4K smartphone doesn't get the attention of AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, nothing will.المصدر==Gadget=====

Read More