For some, the most interesting models may be the decidedly more affordable Lifestyle models. The S series (pictured above) has a friendlier-looking round design covered in the Kvadrat textiles used for one of Samsung’s Galaxy S20 cases. The S60T also throws in Alexa voice control as well as a wide-range tweeter. That model costs $330, although a simpler S40T is available for $180.
The T series replaces the earlier R series and covers the low-to-mid-range lineup. You won’t find Atmos, Alexa or a special design, but they do pack wireless subs. The higher-end T550 and T650 models are also HDMI-capable and support DTS Virtual:X spatial surround sound. These start at $200 for the no-frills T450 and scale up to $400 for the T650.
Amazon committed to spending $4 billion on, among other things, “getting products to customers and keeping employees safe.” But apparently it still needs more time to prepare for a major event like Prime Day.
Last month, Reuters reported that Amazon might delay Prime Day until at least August. At the time, the company expected the delay could cost it $100 million and force it to discount an additional five million devices. The delay could also impact third-party sellers.
Since 2016, Google has done a better job of making Maps more useful to wheelchair users and those with limited mobility. In 2018, for instance, it added a feature that lets you find accessible transit routes. With the help of crowdsourcing, the company says Maps now has accessibility-related information on more than 15 million places across the world. As the company points out, highlighting locations that make entering and exiting easy is useful to a variety of people (as parents with strollers can attest), not just those who depend on wheelchairs.
Google says it plans to roll out the accessible places functionality to users gradually beginning today with people who live in the US, Australia, Japan and the UK, with availability in other countries to follow.
Positive Grid’s Bias FX Mobile app for iOS lets you plug in your guitar and sculpt out a custom tone. Today, the company released a new version of the software — and the update contains more than just a few tweaks. The sounds engine of Bias FX 2 has been rebuilt from the ground up, and a variety of features add new ways to tweak your tone ad infinitum as well as, you know, actually play.
Like before, you can choose from a variety of classic amplifiers and effects pedals, but now you can also shape the tone of your guitar itself. If you’re playing a Les Paul, for example, Bias FX 2’s Guitar Match can sculpt out those wooly lows and punch up the mids to help your guitar sound a bit more like a PRS. The new looper should help with practicing, as well as building up a wall of sound. A redesigned LiveView mode lets you switch your entire rig with a single tap and no latency, which should be very useful when you want to switch from a clean passage to monstrous power chords.
Tinder has a similar, paid feature called Passport that lets people connect with users in other locations. Last month, Tinder made Passport free to all users, but that offer expired on April 30th.
While Global Mode will do away with geographic boundaries, it sounds like it won’t allow users to decide which cities they pop up in. That could be one way for Tinder to distinguish between Global Mode and Passport, so that it can still keep Passport as a paid feature.
Tinder isn’t the first to loosen dating boundaries in response to the pandemic. In April, Bumble made it possible for users to match with anyone in the US with a “whole country” filter. It added a Virtual Date badge for users willing to date via video chat, and it has teamed up with Airbnb to encourage creative online dating. Tinder is also preparing for virtual dates with plans to launch one-on-one video chats this summer.
It’s clear that, like everything else, dating has been impacted by COVID-19. While app users probably shouldn’t meet in person, swiping is up. Tinder said it saw more swipes (over three billion) on March 29th than on any single day in its history. Letting users match around the world, might give the app even more of a boost.
As healthcare professionals continue to battle the coronavirus pandemic across the US and much of the world, Google is adding a new Maps feature to help those individuals find special accommodations when they’re done their daily shifts. Starting today, first responders can use the app to find hotels that have special policies in place to help them by typing in a search term like “hotels for essential workers in New York.”
Another option is to use a less specific phrase like “hotels in New York,” and then apply the new “COVID-19 responder rooms” filter Google has added to Maps. The same functionality is also available through the company’s search engine. Additionally, both Maps and Google’s travel portal will display a notification at the top of the page if you’re in an area with hotels that have those policies in place. Once they’ve found a promising lead, healthcare workers can call the hotel directly from Maps or search to find out exactly what they’re offering.
Next up is color correction, which really is a strength in Resolve. It was originally designed as a color correction application, and the industry has used it for that since 1985.
For simple color adjustments in Resolve, you drop into the Color workspace, adjust your shots and see the results immediately. You can also create and track “power windows” to adjust specific parts of an image. It also has a warp stabilizer to adjust shaky footage, a dust, blemish and noise remover (Studio version only), along with lens and aperture effects. Resolve Color automatically works with RAW footage, lets you apply LUTs and easily work in HDR, both with Dolby Vision and HDR10.
Premiere, on the other hand, uses the Lumetri color module. It’s more like Lightroom color correction than any dedicated video system. It also offers some basic secondary color correction and the ability to mask and track parts of an image. Overall, it’s adequate for most jobs and is relatively easy to use, especially if you’re used to Lightroom.
The bottom line is that Resolve’s color tools are more powerful than you’ll find in Premiere. However, if you’re more of a casual user, Adobe Premiere Pro is easier to understand and use.
According to Schodt: “I always get vastly better results in Resolve, especially for log or RAW footage, than I do in Premiere.”
He added that the free Resolve version doesn’t include noise reduction, which is “really powerful,” while noting that “Premiere doesn’t have any functional noise reduction at all.”
When it comes to VFX, Resolve’s Fusion beats what’s built into Premiere Pro. However, many Premiere users also have access to After Effects via Creative Cloud subscriptions, so let’s compare that.
It’s certainly more convenient to hop over to the Fusion page than it is to switch over to After Effects, even when using Adobe’s Dynamic Link. However, both Fusion and After Effects take time to learn. If you depend heavily on After Effects, it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to switch to Resolve, considering the investment of time required to learn Fusion.
Both effects apps have their strengths. Fusion is better for pure VFX work thanks to its true 3D workspace and advanced keying, rotoscoping, lighting and other effects. After Effects is better for 2D and motion graphics work and also supports a vast number of plugins for anything from warping to aged film effects. Resolve, meanwhile, offers a more limited selection of plugins.
From Chris: “Fusion is so complicated. After Effects is also a huge, complex program, but the layer/clip/timeline setup is a little easier to grasp coming from a video background.”
Text
Steve Dent/Engadget
A lot of creators focus on motion graphics and text, making it a key feature on any editing system. Premiere Pro has a great reputation for how it handles text, especially since it added a new Photoshop-like text tool several years ago. That lets you type text directly on to your video, then manipulate it using video effects or filters. Even without any extra apps, Premiere Pro can handle text better than Resolve.
Should you need more, After Effects is available via a Creative Cloud subscription — if you pay for it. It’s the most widely used program for advanced text and motion graphics effects, with an enormous range of controls, scripts and third-party apps available.
With Resolve 15, Blackmagic Design offered editors more control over typography with the Text+ function. That feature offers animated text, write-on effects and more, all in a 3D space. You also gained better control over things like kerning, outlines, text color and other properties, along with some 2D and 3D text animation presets.
However, many of the text features have weak controls and lack undo functions, so creating even a simple animation can be a tedious process. And while some of the preset animations are nice, you can’t change any of the properties outside of the color. All told, if you do a lot of fancy text work, then stick to Premiere Pro and After Effects — Resolve 16 still needs a lot of work in that area.
Audio
As I mentioned, Resolve 16 has a standalone tool called Fairlight. Taken alone, it easily beats out the relatively basic audio functionality within Premiere. Again, however, Creative Cloud full subscription owners will have access to Adobe’s Audition, a mature and powerful audio editing tool.
For most of the audio chores that a video editor needs, both apps do a good job. Audition does have a few useful tools that Fairlight is lacking, like a remixing function that lets you change the length of a sound clip to match the audio. Audition supports more plugins just because it’s been around for a long time, but Fairlight also has a good range of useful plugins.
Overall, I’d give the edge here to Resolve 16 as Fairlight is built right into the app and easier to access. Audition, meanwhile, requires a more expensive subscription, and you need to use Dynamic Link to access it from Premiere Pro.
Pricing
Steve Dent/Engadget
Here’s where the philosophies of Blackmagic Design and Adobe diverge the most. Adobe’s main product and source of revenue is its subscription service. Blackmagic, meanwhile, sells (and gives away) Resolve 16 as a compliment to its cameras, control surfaces and other products.
As such, Resolve 16 pricing is dead simple. The basic version is free, and the Studio version costs $300 for the life of the product. So if you buy a Resolve 16 Studio license now, you’ll be able to install Resolve 17 for free whenever that comes along. Blackmagic Design also gives buyers of the $1,295 Pocket Cinema Camera (and many of its other broadcast products) a Resolve 16 Studio license for free.
Adobe’s pricing is more expensive no matter which way you look at it. Buying a license for Premiere Pro alone costs $20.99 per month, or $240 per year prepaid. That makes it more costly than Resolve 16 after about 14 months of ownership.
If you want all other apps I’ve mentioned, like Audition and After Effects, you’ll need to spend $53 per month or $600 per year, prepaid. That’s double what Resolve 16 costs after a year, to say nothing of the ongoing costs. That said, you do get other very useful apps, like Photoshop Character Animator and Lightroom, that Blackmagic doesn’t offer at all.
Conclusion
Should you switch from Premiere Pro to Resolve 16? If you lean heavily on After Effects, especially for motion graphics, Resolve simply can’t do those things as well. Video editors who also do photography and lean on Lightroom or Photoshop might also want to stick with Adobe. That said, it’s certainly possible to get a $10 per month Photography subscription (with Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom) and then use DaVinci Resolve to do your editing chores.
For most folks, I think the answer is yes. Feature for feature, Resolve can hold its own against Premiere and is, for now, faster and more stable to boot. Most importantly, it’s just $300 for the Studio version or free if you don’t need the fancier features. Just keep in mind the learning curve, particularly when it comes to color correction and effects.
Google Podcasts launched an iOS back in March, giving Apple users a way to listen to the likes of Dolly Parton’s America or The Engadget Podcast(wink). Today it’s getting its first update which, among the usual performance-improving bug fixes, includes support for CarPlay.
As you’d expect, this makes it easier to use the app while you’re driving, with a pared-back interface, large controls and easy access to your subscriptions. The app itself is pretty streamlined anyway, with just three tabs: Home, Explore and Activity.
Need a reason to sign up for yet another streaming service? HBO Max launches next week, but the surprise news is that in 2021, it will host a “Snyder Cut” of Justice League. For years a very loud segment of fans have clamored for a version reflecting Zack Snyder’s original vision of the DC team-up flick, and apparently execs at Warner will give them what they want.
HBO Max
Snyder said in an interview that this is “an entirely new thing” from the Joss Whedon-directed version that came to theaters. The Hollywood Reporter suggests it may arrive as a chaptered miniseries instead of a movie, and it could cost more than $20 million to finish. That’s a long way to go to answer a hashtag campaign, but it may reflect just how competitive the streaming wars are getting.
— Richard
Apple and Google’s COVID-19 contact tracing tech is ready
It’s not an app, it’s an API.
Apple/Google
Just a few weeks after Google and Apple announced plans to collaborate on developing Exposure Notification technology for their mobile operating systems, the software is ready. On iPhones, it’s a part of the iOS 13.5 update rolling out now, which also makes it easier to use FaceID while wearing a mask. For Android 6.0 or above, a Play Services update will deliver it in the background.
The notification tech works through Bluetooth, with phones exchanging and storing keys whenever they’re in range of each other. Public health agencies tie into the opt-in system with their apps, and if a user tests positive, it can alert people who may have been exposed. Continue reading.
Samsung made a Galaxy S20 Tactical Edition for the military
The phone itself is standard, but a ruggedized casing is also available.
As the name suggests, this smartphone is designed to meet the needs of the US military and federal government. It touts two layers of encryption strong enough to handle top-secret data and connects to tactical radios and mission systems out of the box.
There’s a night vision mode for use by someone wearing goggles, Stealth mode cuts off all wireless communication to disappear from the grid and its touch sensitivity adjusts to account for gloved hands. Continue reading.
Snag Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pro for $300 off at Amazon
Complete with the Magic Keyboard.
Amazon is selling the base version of Apple’s high-end laptop for $2,099 — a full $300 off. That nets you a six-core Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage and Radeon Pro 5300M graphics, or more than enough for everyday use and some heavy-duty tasks. Just be aware that you’ll have to wait until the system comes back in stock (June 9th as of this writing). Continue reading.
Volkswagen is switching up the way it sells its electric vehicles. The company’s dealerships will no longer be the primary point of sale for the ID family of EVs — instead, they will assume the role of an “agent” that facilitates the sale.
If you’re in the market for a VW EV, you can now place an order directly with Volkswagen and choose your preferred dealer. Instead of giving you the hard sell when you walk into the dealership, the dealer will now be focused on organizing test drives, facilitating the transaction and making sure you get the keys to your new wheels without a hitch. The price of the vehicle, plus the dealership’s commission, is fixed, which will bring some financial relief to dealers, too.
