10 of the best apps for independent travellers

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This article titled “10 of the best apps for independent travellers” was written by Will Coldwell, for theguardian.com on Tuesday 26th December 2017 10.00 UTC

Luckytrip

Want an adventure and don’t care where? Luckytrip is the smarter version of showing up at the airport and buying the first flight you can afford. Just set a budget and let the app plan the perfect trip: it will figure out somewhere to go, a place to stay and something to do, with handpicked activities in more than 300 cities.

• Free, iOS, luckytrip.co.uk

Trip.com

With trip.com users can request ‘foodie’, ‘active’ or ‘luxury’ trips. Photograph: Gustav Willeit

Formerly known as Gogobot, Trip.com is a travel research app for exploring things to do and places to stay – including special events – in more than 60,000 destinations, with traveller reviews as a further guide. By allowing users to describe their travel preferences and personality – such as “foodie” or “luxury” – it claims to be able to gear recommendations to personal travel tastes, saving hours of research time.
• Free, iOS and Android, trip.com

Localeur

Find offbeat corners of Los Angeles with Localeur. Photograph: Gary Williams, Jr

This widely praised travel app focuses on tips from people who know the destination best. It uses a “community of local tastemakers”, from artists to entrepreneurs, who share their tips for everything from clubs to coffee shops. It also has recommendations for boutique hotels, and suggested itineraries. The app has tips for cities around the world, but is particularly strong in the US, where it covers 50 major cities.
• Free, iOS and Android, localeur.com

Cool Cousin

Cool Cousin will connect you with a resident in your destination city

Another app that focuses on the trusted recommendations of locals is Cool Cousin, in use in 16 cities worldwide. As well as connectingusers with a city resident, and providing a map and guidebook based on their tips, it has a facility for messaging the local directly for personalised advice.
• Free, iOS, coolcousin.com

500px

Take a peak … a Matterhorn shot by 500px user Thomas Fliegner

For some rewarding armchair travelling, and a break from all the yoga poses and shots of coffee from above on Instagram, 500px is worth a look. The app is geared towards serious photographers, and with a community of more than 11 million it’s easy to get lost in the sea of stunning imagery. As well as being a showcase for stunning images from around the world, it allows users to share their own travel snaps and get feedback and reactions to help improvetheir photography skills.
• Free, iOS and Android, 500px.com

National Trust/English Heritage Days Out

Stately progress … the National Trust app could take you to Tyntesfield in north Somerset

Two apps to inspire days out in the UK. Both allow users to scan through hundreds of heritage locations and natural wonders, searching for whatever is nearest or to discover special events. The apps also hold all the visitor information for planning an excursion.

• Free, iOS and Android, english-heritage.org.uk and nationaltrust.org.uk

Time Out

Make the most of Tokyo with Time Out’s app. Photograph: Alexander Spatari/Getty Images

From Accra to Tokyo, the brand synonymous with city breaks around the world makes it easy to explore virtually, with lists of the best places to eat, drink and shop, and events to discover. It is as much a tool for inspiring a trip as it is for helping you get the most out of it once you arrive.

• Free, iOS and Android, timeout.com

Musement

Roman holiday … Musement lets you book tickets within the app

Available in more than 350 destinations worldwide, Musement is another city guide app that picks out interesting local experiences. What Musement is particularly strong for is its ticketing element, which makes it easy to book events and attractions, as well as priority tickets, through Apple Pay.

• Free, iOS and Android, musement.com

Lonely Planet Trips

Use tips from fellow travellers with Lonely Planet Trips. Photograph: Matthew Micah Wright/Getty Images

This community-focused app from Lonely Planet lets users explore travel experiences through the eyes of fellow travellers, and contribute their own media-rich stories, sharing video, photo and text from their trips. The app is a worthy alternative to Time Out, with tips for more than 150 cities.
• Free, iOS, lonelyplanet.com/trips

Wander and Co

Share trekking adventures with Wander and Co. Photograph: Pearly Jacob

With a beautiful design that will sing to fans of indie travel mags such as Boat, Cereal and Sidetracked, Wander and Co is a photo journal app geared towards adventure travellers. Just like with Trips (above), users can tell their own story, tracking outdoor adventures with GPS and and adding stats like average pace and elevation. Journals of the app’s community of adventurers are a good source of ideas for future trips.
• Free, iOS, gowander.co

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The top US tech stories of 2017: the utopian dream comes to an end

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This article titled “The top US tech stories of 2017: the utopian dream comes to an end” was written by Merope Mills, for theguardian.com on Monday 25th December 2017 13.15 UTC

The utopian dream of Silicon Valley is no more – 2017 made sure of that. Every month has brought fresh scandal to the titans of the industry, from Russian interference to sexual harassment; from Uber’s never-ending woes to YouTube’s advertising scandals.

Facebook and Google’s coffers may be overflowing, but these companies are being held increasingly responsible for their role in a divided world, where inequality is rising and extreme points of view thrive – and are even rewarded – online. Here are some of the pieces that captured the mood:

k

‘Our minds can be hijacked’: the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

Paul Lewis spent several months tracking down and interviewing the designers and thinkers who were at the forefront of the smartphone and social media revolution, and found many of them now regret their involvement in these hyper-addictive technologies. The resulting piece expertly questioned the role the attention economy is playing in undermining democracy itself.

“If the people who built these technologies are taking such radical steps to wean themselves free, can the rest of us reasonably be expected to exercise our free will?

Not according to Tristan Harris, a 33-year-old former Google employee turned vocal critic of the tech industry. “All of us are jacked into this system,” he says. “All of our minds can be hijacked. Our choices are not as free as we think they are.”

Harris, who has been branded “the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience”, insists that billions of people have little choice over whether they use these now ubiquitous technologies, and are largely unaware of the invisible ways in which a small number of people in Silicon Valley are shaping their lives.”

2018 will be the year 4K TV goes big, but HDR still lags behind

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This article titled “2018 will be the year 4K TV goes big, but HDR still lags behind” was written by Samuel Gibbs, for theguardian.com on Tuesday 26th December 2017 09.00 UTC

During Black Friday and the run up to Christmas , discounted TVs have been advertised with buzzwords such as 4K, UltraHD and HDR banded around as the latest and greatest thing – but is now the right time to buy one?

Having been burned by 3DTV and then annoyed by often rubbish smart TVs, you could be forgiven for thinking that 4K and HDR are the next big forgettable fad.

The difference here is that both technologies simply improve an existing experience. You don’t have to fight with an uncooperative system, wear special glasses or buy yet another version of the same movie you already own on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray.

4K UHD video, also known as Ultra HD or simply 4K, is a format of video that has twice the number of vertical and horizontal lines, and four times the number of pixels as full high-definition video.

4K can therefore be significantly more detailed than HD and, particularly at large TV sizes, is seen as a upgrade in picture quality similar to the move from standard definition to HD.

It is called 4K due to the horizontal screen display resolution being in the order of 4,000 pixels. For 16:9 widescreen video at 4K, the resolution is 3840 x 2160, compared to widescreen full HD, which has a resolution of 1920 x 1080.

 

The big driver for ultra HD has been the price of 4K TVs dropping to more reasonable levels from their £5,000-plus beginnings.

“It’s fair to say that most TVs on sale will be 4K-capable,” said Paolo Pescatore, vice president of multiplay and media at CCS Insight.

Good ultra HD TVs are available for well under £1,000, with even really great, big sets costing under £1,500 – such as Sony’s fantastic 55in Bravia XE9005. But while more pixels benefits large screens, it is HDR that has film and TV makers excited, as not only can it be made with four times the number of pixels, those pixels can be better.

HDR allows content creators to better display their vision on your small screen as they have done on the big screen, as well as do things that have not been possible with SDR formats.

However, HDR content doesn’t necessarily have to be 4K, and there are some HDR-capable TVs, typically smaller screened models, that are full HD, not ultra HD. Sony’s standard and slim PS4 consoles are capable of outputting HDR content, but not 4K, for instance.

Most top-end 4K TVs and even those in the under £1,000 bracket will support some form of HDR, with at least the HDR10 standard included.

High dynamic range (HDR) video is that recorded and displayed with a wider range of colours than so called standard dynamic range (SDR).

HDR video therefore has a greater range of both contrast and colour  than SDR, resulting in a more true-to-life picture and producing scenes with more “pop” or depth. HDR is usually combined with the increased resolution of 4K video producing greater detail and immersion.

HDR video is different to HDR photography, where the latter is a technique that combines multiple exposures of a scene to create a single image with a greater dynamic range of luminosity, mimicking what is seen by the human eye.

HDR video comes in several different standards or formats.

HDR10

HDR10 is the most widely supported format available and controlled by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). It is an open standard, using a 10-bit colour depth, and is backed by the big players, including Samsung and Sony, used by the Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One S and X. Both Netflix and Amazon Video also support HDR10.

HDR10+

An update to HDR10 backed by Samsung and Amazon, HDR10+ adds metadata that aids brightness adjustment on a scene-by-scene or frame-by-frame basis.

Dolby Vision

Dolby Vision is a proprietary HDR format from the makers of Atmos. Vision uses a 12-bit colour depth and includes dynamic metadata, but has limited support in TVs and streaming content.

Hybrid Log-Gamma

Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) is an royalty-free HDR standard developed by the BBC and NHK. It requires systems capable of 10-bit colour depth, but is compatible with SDR displays. HLG is supported by some versions of traditional digital broadcast systems, as well as BBC iPlayer, Freeview Play and Google’s YouTube streaming services.

 

Getting content

Streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Video, as well as broadcasters such as Sky and BT, have made accessing 4K and, to a lesser extent, HDR content easier than ever.

Almost all 4K and HDR TVs will come with some form of smart TV platform, which support various streaming apps. If they’re terrible, or don’t support the right services, smart TV boxes or dongles are also available, with several including Amazon’s Fire TV HDR and Google’s Chromecast Ultra costing under £70.

The biggest change in 2017 was the size of the libraries of TV shows and movies available. New TV shows and movies are more likely to be available in 4K and HDR across the board.

Almost all of Netflix’s original shows are available in at least 4K, with many in HDR too. Highlights include Godless, Narcos and Marco Polo, all of which look spectacular on the right screen.

Amazon’s roster of 4K and HDR content is similarly focused on its original productions. Even the Grand Tour looks stunning despite it just being three ageing Brits driving around.

Both Google Play and Apple’s iTunes offer 4K movies on an ad hoc basis too, with smaller on-demand services beginning to offer more.

“There’s a lot of misconception at the point of sale, with buyers expecting all the broadcast services to be in 4K, which is not yet the case,” said Pescatore. “The web guys such as Amazon and Netflix have certainly lead the way on both 4K and HDR so far. But BT and Sky are catching up, leading with sport in 4K.”

Both Sky’s Q 2TB box and BT’s TV offer the Premier League in 4K and with Dolby Atmos, which looks and sounds almost like being pitchside with the right gear. Sky also offers Formula 1 and cricket in 4K, both of which benefit from the increased detail, plus a range of movies and TV shows on demand in 4K.

But other broadcasters have lagged behind, primarily due to the cost of production and distribution in 4K with limited spectrum across which to transmit the data-heavy signal.

“We’ve seen traditional broadcasters commit to showing the big sporting events in 4K in 2018, including the Winter Olympics, Wimbledon and the World Cup,” said Pescatore. “2018 will be a big year for the likes of the BBC and ITV, driving users to IP TV with their catchup services.”

While 2018 will be the year 4K hits the big time, the same cannot be said for HDR, says Pescatore.

“The web and telecoms companies are leading way in HDR, and it will be live sport that will drive adoption, with BT Sport well placed with a tech-focused offering of 4K, HDR and Atmos,” said Pescatore.

Of the competing HDR standards, the open HDR10 format has been the only outright leader so far, becoming the default to which content and TVs fall back on for compatibility. But issues around standards, support from electronics manufacturers, the cost of production and difficulties and cost of broadcast of the improved content will hold HDR back in 2018.

“When you buy a TV it may seem like the latest and greatest, but the HDR landscape is still a minefield of formats that mean you have to have the right TV with the right box and right content,” said Pescatore.

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5 killed as runaway bus crashes into underground passage in Moscow

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Five people were killed by a bus that crashed down the stairs of an underground passage in western Moscow, police said. The driver of the bus was taken into custody.

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5 killed as runaway bus crashes into underground passage in Moscow

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President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump's 2017 Christmas Message

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President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump deliver their 2017 Christmas message to America and the world.

Watch the video from below.

President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump’s 2017 Christmas Message

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The Queen's Christmas message

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The Queen has paid tribute to the victims of terror attacks in London, and has highlighted the importance of “home” in her annual Christmas message.

The Queen’s Christmas message

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Merry Christmas in Dominoes! (Christmas Card)

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This project spells out “Merry Christmas” in 7,000 dominoes and incorporates various Christmas-related objects including ornaments, Santa, a mistletoe, and Christmas lights 🙂

Merry Christmas in Dominoes! 🎅🏻 (Christmas Card)

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Queen to reflect on 'appalling' attacks in Christmas Day message

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This article titled “Queen to reflect on ‘appalling’ attacks in Christmas Day message” was written by Robert Booth, for theguardian.com on Monday 25th December 2017 02.00 UTC

The Queen will remember this year’s “appalling” terrorist attacks in London and Manchester that claimed 41 lives, as she delivers a Christmas Day television message focusing on the importance of home.

The traditional televised message – the 60th by the Queen – was pre-recorded in the 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace. She will say: “We think of our homes as places of warmth, familiarity and love … there is a timeless simplicity to the pull of home.

“This Christmas, I think of London and Manchester, whose powerful identities shone through over the past 12 months in the face of appalling attacks.”

In the address, scheduled to be broadcast in the UK at 3pm, the Queen, who is 91, will pay tribute to the Duke of Edinburgh, who stepped back from official public duties earlier in the year, praising his “support and unique sense of humour”.

The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, who is 96, will celebrate Christmas at Sandringham in Norfolk, along with family members and Meghan Markle, the American actor and activist engaged to marry Prince Harry next May.

The message has been recorded in ultra high-definition and includes drone footage of St James’s Park, technical innovations that are a long way from the Queen’s first Christmas broadcast to Britain and the Commonwealth, in 1957, broadcast live from the long library at Sandringham.

The national anthem and the Christmas carol It Came Upon the Midnight Clear are performed by the Commonwealth Youth Orchestra and Choir and conducted by the artistic director Paul Carroll. The choir was made up of 52 children, representing the 52 nations of the Commonwealth.

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Lost in rhyme: a walk in the poetic beauty of Ballynahinch, Galway

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This article titled “Lost in rhyme: a walk in the poetic beauty of Ballynahinch, Galway” was written by Killian Fox, for The Observer on Sunday 24th December 2017 07.00 UTC

There are few things I’d rather do, on a cold December morning, with ice in the puddles and a crisp blue sky overhead, than go rambling for an hour or two in the woods around Ballynahinch Castle hotel in County Galway.

There is a hot whiskey waiting for me when I get back from my walk, and a roaring fire in the bar

One of the most romantic places to stay in Ireland, Ballynahinch sits at the base of the Twelve Bens mountain range in the heart of Connemara. It has its own lake, and a river runs right past the dining room, weaving its way down to the Atlantic coast at Roundstone, six miles away. There are no fewer than 700 acres of grounds to stretch your legs in.

The paths are muddy when I head out for my walk, and my ears and nose are red with cold, but I have a couple of incentives to keep me going. There is a hot whiskey waiting for me when I get back, and a roaring fire in the bar, and I want to feel that my rewards have been properly earned.

I cross the bridge on the main avenue and walk along a section of the old Galway-to-Clifden railway line, which hasn’t encountered a train since the 1930s. Along the way my companion Josh Mcgloin, who runs activities at the hotel, is on the lookout for fungi. With a basket in one hand and a penknife in the other, he leads me to secret clusters of ceps, burnt-orange chanterelles and hedgehog mushrooms, all of which end up in my lunch the following day.

Christmas spirit … a warm welcome awaits at the hotel. Photograph: Doreen Kilfeather

Reaching the immaculately preserved station building, we loop back and follow the river past the main building, an 18th-century manor house, and on up to Ballynahinch Lake.

Ambassadors and armers have been known to bond over a pint at the bar and get animated about the state of fishing

This is angler’s heaven. At Beat No 1, just below the lake, wild salmon take a breather. Evidence of this can be seen in the hotel bar, where some of the most staggering catches of recent decades – including a spectacular 20lb specimen landed by a lucky first-timer last year – are mounted for posterity.

There is deep history here. On the far side of the lake, on the site of a 2,000-year-old crannóg, or artificial island, lie the ruins of a 16th-century tower house – the original Ballynahinch Castle. This belonged to the once-powerful O’Flaherty clan, who owned the land before it was taken away by the British.

The beauty of this spot didn’t escape the poet Seamus Heaney, a regular visitor to the hotel before his death in 2013. In his poem Ballynahinch Lake he recalls stopping by the water “As a captivating brightness held and opened / And the utter mountain mirrored in the lake / Eked into us like a wedge knocked sweetly home / Into core timber.”

A river runs through it … an angler surveys the water at Beat No 1. Photograph: Barry Murphy

Heaney loved the hotel bar, to which we repair when the rain sets in and the need for hot whiskeys becomes urgent. I’ve heard people describe the Fisherman’s Pub at Ballynahinch as the most beautiful bar in Ireland, a hard claim to dismiss when you settle in by the crackling log fire, glass in hand, and survey the artful jumble of paintings and photographs on the wall, each with a story to tell. (I would, however, make a competing case for a wonderful pub in Drogheda called Clarke’s.) “This is an egalitarian sort of room,” says the hotel’s gregarious manager Patrick O’Flaherty, noting that ambassadors and local sheep farmers have been known to bond over a couple of pints at the bar and get animated about the state of fishing.

In the lull before dinner, I gather that Seamus Heaney wasn’t the only literary figure to patronise Ballynahinch, which marked its 70th anniversary last year. Edna O’Brien is a regular, and O’Flaherty invites artists, such as Dorothy Cross, to “stay at the castle and record their response to the landscape”. The resulting work is published by Occasional Press and some of the art ends up on the well-furnished walls, where you’ll also find paintings by Paul Henry, Louis le Brocquy and Sean Scully.

Follow the path … sand dunes on Inishbofin island on the Galway coast. Photograph: Henry Donald

It would be easy for a place like this to feel stuffy, given the weight of its history but Ballynahinch feels informal, almost bohemian in character. The food, too, is carefully constructed without seeming fussy. At dinner, fat scallops are served in a delicate dashi with sea vegetables and a roe cracker. Roast duck breast from Skeaghanore in Cork – probably the best I’ve ever had – comes with several types of beetroot, cooked to the tenderest pink.

None of this comes cheap: Ballynahinch is a place for special occasions and is perfect at Christmas time. As well as woodlands to explore and rivers to fish, you can go cycling or climbing – the Diamond Hill near Letterfrack has spectacular views out to Inishbofin island – and it’s worth driving a little further up to Killary Harbour, Ireland’s only fjord, to have lunch at Misunderstood Heron, a food truck serving fresh mussels and lamb samosas right down by the shore. Closer to home, Roundstone Ceramics, Rosemarie O’Toole and Séamus Laffan’s lovely workshop, is highly recommended for its pretty pottery.

Still waters … the original 16th-century castle sits on its own island

The following day we head to Roundstone Harbour to meet our skipper John O’Sullivan for a boat trip to the island of Inishlacken. There’s no longer a community here, only the remains of their limestone cottages. The island gradually emptied out during the 20th century but a few of the houses have been restored and (yet more) artists come to the island each year in search of inspiration.

You can see why. The island is fringed by beaches of white sand, giving way to tufty dunes and bogland strewn with wildflowers, the territory patrolled by a number of temperamental goats. By the old schoolhouse, with its bright blue door and high windows, Patrick produces a Thermos flask filled with broth from yesterday’s haul of wild mushrooms. We drink it all in. Not every afternoon in Connemara is this picture perfect, but even in the deepest midwinter, with rain driving in from the Atlantic, this is an extraordinary place to spend a couple of days or more.

Way to go

Doubles at Ballynahinch Castle from €185 B&B a night low season, €300 B&B a night high season. Ryanair flies Gatwick to Knock from £31. For more information, go to discoverireland.ie

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Green shoots at BlackBerry? Fallen phone giant turns its hand to software

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This article titled “Green shoots at BlackBerry? Fallen phone giant turns its hand to software” was written by Charles Arthur, for The Observer on Saturday 23rd December 2017 16.00 UTC

Remember BlackBerry? The one-time giant of smartphones has gone through tumultuous times over the past six years, and become a much smaller software company. Its results last week showed just how small: third-quarter revenues were $226m (£169m), its lowest three-monthly total since 2004, with an operating loss of $258m.

The Canadian company’s chief executive, John Chen, is a turnaround specialist who believes that the future is in self-driving cars, where automakers and software firms alike see huge promise. It is investing hope in QNX, which it bought in 2010: a maker of software that underpins car entertainment and data systems.

That is a long way from the early 2000s, when BlackBerry was one of the world’s biggest smartphone makers and Apple had yet to launch the all-conquering iPhone. A failure to adapt to trends like keyboard-less devices was its undoing as iPhones and Android phones took off. Then came a calamitous multi-billion bet on a new phone operating system, BB10, in 2013. It abandoned handsets altogether last year and the road ahead remains rocky – not least due to the state of its finances.

Nonetheless, analysts see potential in the ashes. The stock jumped from $11 to over $12 last week, as investors liked what they found in the figures: for instance, a new record for revenue from software and services, at $199m. BlackBerry stock is now back at levels it hasn’t seen since mid-2013.

“It’s pretty impressive, beating on both the top and bottom lines,” Ali Mogharabi, an analyst at research firm Morningstar, told Reuters. “The growth specifically in enterprise software is good to see.”

Chen was quietly famous in the business world for having saved Sybase, which had looked in 1998 as if it might wither away. Chen saw that the would-be database company had lost out badly to Oracle, and decided to focus on the “unwired enterprise” – mobile services. That decision allowed Sybase to regain its primacy in new markets; it was sold to the enterprise software giant SAP for $5.8bn in 2010, compared to its market capitalisation when Chen took over of $362m – a 16-fold growth in value in 12 years.

The auto sector is our best chance at revenue growth

John Chen, BlackBerry

But can he do it again at BlackBerry? In many ways Chen is repeating the formula that saved Sybase: look for new opportunities while letting what remains of the customer base cover other costs. Thus he has focused on the software side, where operating margins often beat 50%, unlike hardware, which often struggles to get into double digits.

Speaking after the results, Chen pointed to new contracts with the US and Dutch governments, and with Nato. BlackBerry’s purchase in September 2015 of Good Technology, which writes software for remote management of smartphones, means it no longer relies on selling its own handsets but can administer everyone else’s. He also suggested that patent licensing could bring in $100m over the financial year – essentially free money, as the patents were often acquired years ago.

But the biggest move may be on “embedded” software, where QNX is a crucial part of a much bigger trend of making cars and other vehicles that run almost entirely on software.

BlackBerry has signed deals with Ford and automotive parts makers such as Denso, Delphi, Bosch and Scion. Talking to the Wall Street Journal, Chen said: “The auto sector is our best chance at revenue growth.” QNX is able to handle real-time events and multiple demands in a way that software used on smartphones or PCs cannot; more than 60 million vehicles were using QNX by the end of 2015.

John Chen, BlackBerry’s chief executive. Photograph: Aaron Harris/Reuters

But most of them were using it for entertainment systems; Chen wants more. “Infotainment is a handful of dollars apiece,” he said. “We’re trying to enhance that with higher ASP [average selling prices] by getting into different components … All the design [contract] wins, whether with Denso or Delphi, they’re in these areas that’s beyond just traditional infotainment systems. This is why I feel bullish about the overall business on a longer term in terms of growth.”

However, that’s in the future. Chen hasn’t pulled the company out of its revenue dive yet. Despite the focus on more profitable software, profit remains elusive. Since its slide started in the summer of 2011, BlackBerry has made a net loss of $7.3bn, and though $4bn of that was a huge writedown on unsold handsets in autumn 2013, the situation has not improved much since. In the previous financial year, it made a net loss of $1.2bn.

For the three quarters of this fiscal year, net profit is $415m – but that includes an whopping $815m payment related to a dispute with chipmaker Qualcomm over handset and chip royalties, and a $137m payment to Nokia over a patent row. Overall, BlackBerry is $678m better off from those disputes: but that shows how far the rest of the business is from profit.

Even so, the positive sentiment from analysts and investors is pushing up the stock, and some think that if Chen can push it into profit and get the shares up to the $16 level, the business might even be attractive to a buyer – with Samsung and Oracle having expressed interest in recent years.

So far, the price hasn’t been right. But with Chen in charge, having weathered the past few years, there could be a surprise in store in 2018.

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Nissan Micra review: ‘Packs a punch of fun and flair’

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This article titled “Nissan Micra review: ‘Packs a punch of fun and flair’” was written by Martin Love, for The Observer on Sunday 24th December 2017 06.00 UTC

Price: from £11,995
Top speed: 109mph
0-62mph: 12.2 seconds
MPG: 64.2
CO2: 99g/km

Do you remember the car you passed your test in? Mine was a Nissan Micra. It was in Glasgow, in August 1983. The peach air freshener dangling from the mirror did little to cover up the smell of my driving instructor. Gary seemed well on his way to a coronary and spent every lesson eating sweets and smoking. But, bless him, he helped me pass first time. And bless Nissan’s Micra, too. Its simple layout, biddable engine and large windows all played their part in getting me through.

A lifetime later, here I am once again sitting at the wheel of a Micra – and it’s a world away from that basic 80s model. Micra always used to rely on its rep as a cheap, dependable and dull runaround (which, of course, is just what you want when learning to drive). This tech-friendly model, however, makes a clean break from the previous approach, with miles of clear blue water between it and the under-equipped outgoing version.

Inside story: despite its dinky dimemsions, the Micra is remarkably roomy

Despite the Japanese tag, the new Micra is actually made in France in a Renault factory. The same plant also makes the excellent Renault Clio, so expectations are high that some of its magic will rub off on the new Micra.

First impressions are so crucial – and this little Nissan doesn’t put a foot wrong. It’s petite, but the designers have used every inch of its small frame to create a big impression – the most striking of which is a long, flowing crease which swoops up across the bonnet before ducking under the wing mirrors and heading towards the back doors with their invisible handles. The rear corners feature a high peak which creates the impression of a floating roof. Considering the early Micras were so boxy they made biscuit tins look curvy, this one is a revelation.

Shore thing: the Micra enjoys its moment in the sun.

Step inside and you’ll be amazed: small cars are so often a masterclass in plodding tedium. It’s as if the very fact you’ve managed to get a dashboard and steering wheel into the right place is enough. But the Micra proves there is another way. It packs in so much flair, fun and space – the headroom is amazing. There’s a great choice of clever aids, including pedestrian-detection auto-brake, blind-spot warning, surround-view cameras, radar cruise control and active lane-keeping – all usually big-car goodies.

There’s a choice of three engines: two petrols and a diesel. The big seller will be the 0.9-litre 90bhp turbo triple. The performance you get out of an engine that’s less than 1-litre is awesome. There is no automatic available, it only comes as a five-speed manual, but being smooth and quick you’ll get plenty of enjoyment from ducking and weaving down busy town roads. On the motorway it holds its own, but a blustery and rainy day was a bit hair raising in such a light car.

I think Gary would definitely have passed it with flying colours.

Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter@MartinLove166

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Santa without the stress: last-minute digital Christmas gift guide

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This article titled “Santa without the stress: last-minute digital Christmas gift guide” was written by Samuel Gibbs, for theguardian.com on Friday 22nd December 2017 07.00 UTC

The time has probably passed for Christmas delivery, and the shops are going to be rammed, so here’s a list of gifts that can be bought and delivered instantly from the comfort of the sofa in case you’ve forgotten someone on Christmas Eve.

Netflix

The gift of Netflix might make Christmas a little more bearable. Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters

Netflix is arguably the king of streaming services, with thousands of movies and TV shows, including some very good original content. You can access Netflix in many countries around the world, and the company offers various levels of monthly subscription with no minimum contract.

The “basic” plan costs £5.99 ($8) a month for streaming to one screen at any one time in standard definition. The “standard” plan confusingly increases the resolution to HD with two screens at any one time for £7.99 ($11) a month. The top-tier “premium plan” streams to four screens at any one time for £9.99 a month ($14) and adds ultra HD resolution for those new 4K TVs.

Gift cards are available from £15 ($15) from PayPal.

Amazon Prime

On offer as part of Amazon Prime – three ageing Brits pratting about in cars. Photograph: Ellis O’Brian/Amazon Prime Video

Prime is a yearly subscription service for one-day delivery from Amazon, but it also includes access to Prime Video, Prime Music, Twitch Prime, Prime Reading, and photo backup, making it a one-stop-shop for a range of content services.

It costs £79 a year, or £7.99 a month, and can be given in three month $33 or 12 month $99 plans only in the US. UK users will have to resort to buying an eGift Voucher for the value, which are delivered instantly with your choice of values from £1 to £1,000.

Give a movie

See Harry Styles sat on a beach in Dunkirk. Photograph: AP

It’s not possible to give an individual movie on Google’s Play Store, so Android users are out of luck. But if you want to give an Apple user a film rather than a gift card or a subscription, then its as simple as finding your choice of movie in the iTunes Store and hitting the gift button. Prices depend on the movie, but for example, Christopher Nolan’s World War Two epic Dunkirk costs £13.99 in HD and will play in 4K Dolby Vision on a 4K Apple TV.

Give an app

Affinity Photo for the iPad is a full-featured Photoshop alternative for Apple’s tablet. Photograph: Serif

Giving apps isn’t possible from the Google Play Store, the Mac App Store or Microsoft’s Store, but is just as easy as buying a movie or game on the iOS App Store. Find the app you’d like to buy in the App Store and hit the gift button under share. Apps start from as little as 99p, with excellent apps such as the brilliant Photoshop replacement for the iPad Affinity Photo costing £14.99 ($14.99).

Give a game

Give Sonic Mania and give someone the delights of 1990s platforming lovingly restored for 2017. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

There are plenty of options for giving the gift of games digitally. For those looking for a one stop shop for computers, Valve’s Steam store is great, allowing you to gift any title in its enormous library. Some games are available across platforms, others only on Windows.

Valve’s Steam lets you give any title available in its rather large library, with games compatible with Windows, OS X, Steam Machines and Linux. My choice is Sonic Mania, but you’ll need a Windows PC to play it and it costs £14.99 for all the classic Sega platforming you can handle. Alternatively, the new Bridge Constructor Portal costs £6.99 and runs on Windows, Mac OS and Steam Boxes.

Spotify

A Spotify subscription is a great way to give someone instant access to over 30m songs. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

Spotify is free on mobile phones, tablets and computers, but Spotify Premium allows your loved one to listen to any track of their choosing from the 30m-plus library. You can take your music offline, remove ads and enable higher quality audio streams. Gift subscriptions start at £9.99 for one month, with a whole year available for £199.88.

Give a song or album

He’s waiting to inflict Jingle Bells on any of your unsuspecting ‘loved ones’. Photograph: REX

If a general music subscription is a bit too much like buying a voucher, you can gift an individual song or album through Apple’s iTunes. Find the track or album you want and hit gift. For those family members you don’t actually like, I suggest Crazy Frog’s Jingle Bells – just 79p.

Comics

Graphic novels look brilliant on the high-resolution screens of modern tablets or convertible laptops. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

Does your family member or friend have a tablet? Do they love comics? Then perhaps a digital comic ( like ebooks, but with way more pictures) is the perfect present for them . Giving individual comics or graphic novels is easy via Amazon’s Comixology. Just find the issue you’d like to send then hit the Gift in Cart button. Prices start at £1.49.

Alternatively, Marvel’s Unlimited service costs $9.99 a month or $69 a year, but giving it as a gift is difficult.

Vanity URL

Give someone their own little place on the internet. Photograph: Lifestyle pictures / Alamy/Alamy

Anyone can have their very own space on the internet. Why not treat your loved one to a unique URL of their own. It could be their name, business, something obscure or ironic, maybe even a subtle dig only they would recognise. Hosting services such as Tumblr allow you to use a custom URL for free making www.yournamehere.com an affordable reality. From 99p.

_{This article contains affiliate links to products. Our journalism is independent and is never written to promote these products although we may earn a small commission if a reader makes a purchase.}

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Apple faces lawsuits over its intentional slowing of older iPhones

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This article titled “Apple faces lawsuits over its intentional slowing of older iPhones” was written by Samuel Gibbs, for The Guardian on Friday 22nd December 2017 10.46 UTC

Apple is facing lawsuits over the revelations that it intentionally slows down older iPhones without user consent.

Apple has admitted to slowing down the iPhone 6, 6S, 7 and SE when their batteries are either old, cold or have a low charge to prevent abrupt shutdowns.

Two separate class-action lawsuits were filed Thursday, brought by plaintiffs in California and Illinois, arguing that Apple did not have consent to slow down their iPhones.

Two people from Chicago, along with residents of Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina, claim that Apple’s iOS updates were “fraudulently forcing iPhone owners to purchase the latest model offered by Apple.”

“Apple purposefully and knowingly released operating system software updates to iPhone 5, iPhone 6 and certain iPhone 7 phones that slowed the performance speeds of the central processing units (‘CPUs’) of these devices,” said the plaintiffs in a filing in the Northern District of the State of Illinois. “Apple’s software updates purposefully slowed or ‘throttled down’ the performance speeds of iPhone 5, iPhone 6, certain iPhone 7 phones and as yet unknown versions of iPhones because operating system software updates wreaked havoc on batteries within these model devices.”

James Vlahakis attorney for the plaintiffs told the Chicago Sun Times: “Corporations have to realise that people are sophisticated and that when people spend their hard-earned dollars on a product they expect it to perform as expected.

“Instead, Apple appears to have obscured and concealed why older phones were slowing down.”

The two California plaintiffs, Stefan Bogdanovich and Dakota Speas, are seeking damages through the US District Court for the Central District of California, saying that Apple’s actions caused them to suffer “economic damages and other harm for which they are entitled to compensation”. The plaintiffs are trying to seek the case for all owners of Apple smartphones older than the iPhone 8 in the US.

Bogdanovich and Speas claim that they “were never given the option to bargain or choose whether they preferred to have their iPhones slower than normal” and that they “suffered interferences to their iPhone usage due to the intentional slowdowns”.

The plaintiffs claim they are therefore entitled to compensation, including for the replacement of an old phone, loss of use and value, purchase of new batteries, and losses in the form of deprivation of the value of their iPhones.

They also claim that they are entitled to compensation for “overpayments” to Apple for iPhones that, due to Apple having “purposefully interfered in order to slow down its performance”, the plaintiffs “did not receive what they paid for”.

Speed issues with older iPhones were recently highlighted by Reddit users, who found when they replaced the batteries in their devices they returned to normal performance. Analysis of performance data by benchmarking firm Primate Labs clearly showed the artificial inhibition of the iPhone’s performance, which prompted Apple’s admission.

The company said that it intentionally slowed the performance of the older iPhones because when their batteries wear to a certain level they can no longer sustain the required current demanded by the phones’ processors.

When the processor demands more current than the battery can supply, the phone abruptly shuts down to protect its internal components, as was the case with the iPhone 6S forcing Apple to replace batteries.

Apple did not immediately comment.

• No, quitting iPhone apps doesn’t help save battery, says Apple

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