The Zepp Z is a new premium smartwatch with Amazon Alexa support

Chinese wearables manufacturer Huami launched another smart wearables brand, called Zepp, earlier this year in September. The new brand debuted with two mid-range smartwatches — the Zepp E Square and Zepp E Circle — which were essentially the same device with slightly different screen sizes and shapes. Priced at $249, the Zepp E series offered a more premium design than its Amazfit counterparts, along with the same set of fitness tracking features. Continuing with this premium design trend, Zepp has now unveiled the Zepp Z smartwatch.

Zepp Z: Specifications

Specification	Zepp Z
Build	Titanium alloy case, leather strap
Dimensions & Weight	45.9 x 45.9 x 10.75mm 40g
Display	1.39-inch AMOLED display 454 x 454 pixels 326ppi 550 nits peak brightness 100% NTS color gamut
Sensors	BioTracker 2 PPG Sensor Geomagnetic sensor Gyroscope Air pressure sensor Accelerometer Ambient light sensor
Storage	256MB
Battery & Charging	340mAh Rated for up to 15 hours on a single charge 2.5-hour charge time
NFC Support	No
Connectivity & Location	Bluetooth 5.0 BLE GPS GLONASS
Water resistance	5ATM
Compatibility	Android 5.0 and above, iOS 10.0 and above

The new Zepp Z smartwatch features a 46.3mm unibody titanium alloy case that comes with an NTC nanotech coating for scratch resistance. The case houses a 1.39-inch vivid AMOLED display that covers 100% of the NTSC color gamut and offers a peak brightness of 550 nits. The circular dial is flanked by two buttons and a classic crown on the right edge, which let you control all of its features.

The Zepp Z packs-in a wide array of sensors that enable all of its fitness tracking features, including a BioTracker 2 PPG sensor, a geomagnetic sensor, a gyroscope, an air pressure sensor, and more. The fitness tracking features include 24/7 heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen level tracking (SpO2), sleep tracking, stress level monitoring, and 12 sports modes. The smartwatch also features the PAI health assessment system to help users easily understand their fitness tracking data.

The smartwatch is equipped with GPS and GLONASS for positioning, it’s water-resistant up to 5ATM, and it packs in a 340mAh battery that can last up to 15 days on a single charge. Much like the recently launched Amazfit GTS 2 and GTR 2, the Zepp Z comes with Amazon Alexa integration. In terms of customization, the Zepp Z comes with over 50 digital watch faces.

Pricing & Availability

The Zepp Z is priced at $349, and it’s already up for sale in the US on the company’s website. It’s available in a single color variant that comes with a titanium case and brown leather strap. As of now, Zepp hasn’t released any information about its availability outside the US.

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Here are the 7 new features OnePlus is adding to OxygenOS

OnePlus debuted the IDEAS program in March this year to get direct community feedback on OxygenOS. During its first run, users submitted over 5,000 ideas on the platform, with over 25,000 likes and more than 2,000 comments to help OnePlus pick the best ideas. The company chose 5 new features from these submissions, which were brought over to OxygenOS over the last few months.

After the successful beta trial, OnePlus announced IDEAS 2.0 in September this year. The second run just culminated a few days ago, and as per a recent post from the company, it was even more successful. IDEAS 2.0 received more than 7,300 submissions from 5,427 active community members, which generated over 12,000 likes and 8,800 comments. Out of all these submissions, OnePlus has now picked 7 new features that will soon make their way to OxygenOS. These include:

• Add an FPS counter option to Game Space
• Separate volume for each app and allow dual media playback
• Lockscreen customization
• Wireless file transfer from PC to OnePlus devices and vice-versa
• Power Diet — an aggressive battery saving mode that would greatly extend the battery life of OnePlus devices by limiting most non-essential apps and features
• Black, instead of the current gray, dark mode or an option to switch between either
• Partial screenshot

In response to the FPS counter idea, OnePlus said that it has been in the works for quite some time, and it will be released in a “future system update.”  The per-app volume controls idea was also in consideration, and OnePlus initially plans to separate the volume controls for media and notifications sometime next year. For the lockscreen controls idea, the company stated: “we’ve been working on the possibility of customizing components like AOD and the lockscreen. As this is an integral part of the whole OS plan, it takes longer to get it implemented.”

Talking about the wireless transfer idea, OnePlus stated that a solution was already in the works. However, the company didn’t share a definite release timeline. Similarly, OnePlus revealed that the optimized dark mode experience and partial screenshot features were already in consideration. But, as of now, there’s no release date for either. As for the Power Diet idea, OnePlus gave quite a vague response, that said, “We have also observed that when users are in scenarios where charging is inconvenient, the value of longer-lasting battery life takes precedence over a more comprehensive application usage experience. So, we also think it is necessary to implement such a feature. When users enable this feature, we will do our best to prioritize ensuring the battery life as much as possible.”

Much like last time, OnePlus has also shared a list of features that won’t be added to OxygenOS, along with a detailed response about why the company chose not to include the feature. Here are all the features that OnePlus won’t be adding to OxygenOS anytime soon (click on the links to see OnePlus’ response):

• Hole punch camera notification alerts
• Desktop mode
• Work with social media companies to improve camera optimization
• iOS 14 back tap gestures
• Preventing screen burn-in by subtle pixel shifting
• Customizable battery charge level
• Dual audio in Bluetooth
• Fingerprint customization
• Notification ring
• Improve the image processing
• Animations during accessory pairing and connecting
• Navigation bar customizations
• Replace the Google dialer with OnePlus dialer
• Notification count on icons (App badges)
• Battery health
• Classic layout on OxygenOS 11

OnePlus rejected the hole-punch camera notification alerts and notification ring ideas due to potential screen burn-in issues. The desktop mode idea was rejected once again because of the lack of “valid and valuable input” from the community. For social media camera optimizations, the company noted that the poor image quality was a result of compression algorithms used by third-party apps, and it couldn’t make changes in OxygenOS to address the issue.

The iOS 14 back tap gestures idea was dropped due to potential accidental touch issues. OnePlus didn’t adopt the pixel shifting idea as it has already implemented measures to prevent screen burn-in in OxygenOS 11. The customizable battery charge level idea was not adopted because OxygenOS already offers a similar “Optimized Charging” feature.

The dual Bluetooth output idea wasn’t selected as it had a “relatively limited range of usage scenarios,” and OnePlus didn’t pick customizable fingerprint animations as the idea was already reviewed during the OnePlus IDEAS beta run. You can see OnePlus’ responses to the remaining rejected ideas by following the source linked above.

As mentioned earlier, OnePlus hasn’t revealed a definite release timeline for 5 of the 7 features that it will be adding to OxygenOS. But we expect the company to share more details about these upcoming features in the near future.

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The OPPO Find X3 series launches in 2021 with end-to-end 10-bit color support

Color management on Android has been a tricky subject. Google added support for color management back in Android 8.0 in 2017, at a time when wide color gamut (WCG) displays had already proliferated across high-end smartphones. In the three years since, nearly every new Android phone now has color management support, and most new device launches have WCG displays. Third-party app support for color management is still rudimentary, however. Google’s push for color management across third-party apps hasn’t been as effective as Apple’s iOS. It means sRGB still remains the standard gamut on Android phones, although apps can choose to use DCI-P3. In the hardware front, one of the applications of wide-color gamut Apple used was to take 10-bit WCG photos with a wider variety of richer colors (1.07 billion vs. 16.7 million), starting with the iPhone 7 back in 2016. However, up until now, no Android phone has followed Apple’s lead here, as every Android smartphone camera continues to take 8-bit images in sRGB. This will change next year, as OPPO has announced that its next-generation flagship phones, the OPPO Find X3 series, will launch in 2021 with end-to-end 10-bit color support and WCG photography in the form of the Full-path Color Management System.

In a blog post in May 2019, Google stated that wide color photos were coming to Android. The company correctly noted:

“Android is now at the point where sRGB color gamut with 8 bits per color channel is not enough to take advantage of the display and camera technology. At Android we have been working to make wide color photography happen end-to-end, e.g. more bits and bigger gamuts. This means, eventually users will be able to capture the richness of the scenes, share a wide color pictures with friends and view wide color pictures on their phones.”

It’s been one-and-a-half years since Google’s announcement, and OPPO has become the first to announce support for wide color photography end-to-end. This has only become possible because flagship Android phones such as the OPPO Find X2 Pro, OnePlus 8 Pro, ASUS ROG Phone 3, and others now have 10-bit panels with support for wider color gamuts than sRGB. It has also only become possible because the underlying operating system is now ready when it comes to 10-bit and WCG photography support.

The aforementioned phones have had the theoretical ability to display 10-bit photos natively, but up until now, no device maker had actually enabled WCG photography capture end-to-end. OPPO has now become the first device vendor to make such an announcement, and for some display enthusiasts, it will be quite overdue as Android phones attempt to catch up to Apple’s multiple-year lead here.

OPPO has announced that its Full-path Color Management System will premiere as part of its 2021 flagship phones, the OPPO Find X3 series. The company says its system is the first Android color management system to support the full DCI-P3 wide color gamut and 10-bit color depth from capture, storage, and display. This will supposedly deliver an “outstanding viewing experience” with “authentic and accurate color reproduction.”

OPPO notes that its new color management system has been developed to support 10-bit image capturing as well as the HEIF (High Efficiency Image Format). OPPO acknowledges the future lies in WCG and high color depth, and with that end in mind, its R&D team improved the underlying system and hardware for color reproduction. The result is an end-to-end solution that covers all the steps from image acquisition to computation, encoding, storage, decoding, and finally display, supporting a HEIF image with 10-bit high color depth and the DCI-P3 wide color gamut.

The Full-path Color Management System adopted a higher specification algorithm and hardware to record color when capturing. OPPO’s R&D engineering promoted algorithms in areas such as distortion correction, multi-frame noise reduction (MFNR), and perceptual extreme super-resolution. The company also notes that it will support image sensors featuring Digital Overlap (DOL) HDR mode. The DOL-HDR technology synthesizes different exposure conditions into an image, which means more vibrant colors will be captured even when photos are taken against bright light.

OPPO then moves on to calibration, without which the hardware won’t achieve its full potential. The company was already proud of its work on the Find X2 Pro’s display, which has been acclaimed as a top-tier display. The Find X3 series will build on that. OPPO’s display calibration procedure enables a professional, digital film-grade color accuracy at around 0.4 JNCD (Just Noticeable Color Difference), which delivers a “consistently accurate display on the screen,” according to the company. Its proprietary algorithm also guarantees color gamut compatibility by adjusting the DCI-P3 with the D65 white point (6504K) at the center of the color space. (It’s worth noting that Apple was the first to implement DCI-P3 on mobile devices with the D65 white point and a standard gamma of 2.2.)

The 10-bit color depth tones down the artificial visual features brought about by gaps in colors when compared to the standard 8-bit color depth. It also further improves the color gradient to enhance the quality of visual content.

Apple has supported HEIF since 2016, but Android phones still continue to take photos in the older JPEG. HEIF maintains similar quality while having a size of around 50% of a JPEG image thanks to its better compression, which enables storage savings. The Find X3 series supports HEIF, and OPPO notes that the format fully supports static images, EXIF, depth information, and dynamic videos. The HEIF format can be further developed to ensure compatibility with respect to ultra-high color depth. (Here, OPPO presumably refers to the advent of displays with an even wider Rec.2020 color gamut support in the future.)

OPPO notes that it first sought to achieve a uniform standard with every screen showing colors in the same way to ensure accuracy and fidelity, and now, it wants to do more to meet user needs. In 2018, its R&D engineering team became aware of the challenges that smartphone users with color weakness faced. The team then initiated systematic research on color correction for a better visual experience.

Now, the company has introduced a comprehensive color correction solution. It says it has conducted a large-scale quantitative and qualitative study on users with color weaknesses, thereby enabling it to upgrade the color correction solution to OPPO Color Correction Solution 2.0. The company is joining forces with Zhejiang University with an aim to find the optimal solution to color correction by sampling potential users with accurate quantification of color vision test. The color correction system of the future will supposedly be highly user-centric. Users may be able to crate their own unique and personalized display by choosing colors from their smartphone’s color palette as well as testing and calibrating the system.

OPPO concludes that its Full-path Color Management System will be first available in its 2021 flagship Find X3 series. It’s fair to expect the technology to take quite some time to trickle down to lower price tiers.

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Samsung rolls out a new update to its 5 year old Galaxy S6 and Note 5

Support for the Galaxy S6 series and Galaxy Note 5 ended a few years ago, and considering their age, most users have likely upgraded by now. But that hasn’t stopped Samsung from introducing new firmware updates for these devices, extending their life for a little longer.

SamMobile on Tuesday said Samsung began rolling out firmware updates for the Galaxy Note 5 (firmware version N920SKSS2DTJ2) and Galaxy S6 series (firmware versions firmware versions G92xSKSS3ETJ1 and G928SKSS3DTJ3). The initial rollout took place in South Korea, with a wider rollout happening in Europe and Latin America.

SamMobile said the changelog mentions the inclusion of security-related stabilization code. However, the devices will continue to run Android 7.0 Nougat and the September 2018 security patch. It’s unclear if anything else of significance was changed. SamMobile suggests Samsung discovered a vulnerability that needed to be addressed immediately, hence the surprise update.

This isn’t the first time Samsung has introduced a surprise update to the Galaxy S6. At the beginning of last year, the company rolled out a January 2019 security update to the UAE variants of the Galaxy S6 series after a vulnerability was seemingly discovered.

Galaxy S6 Forums || Galaxy Note 5 Forums

Samsung’s Galaxy S6 series and Galaxy Note 5 were released all the way back in 2015, and since then we’ve seen several new Samsung flagship devices. Google, meanwhile, is now up to Android 11, so the market has progressed quite a bit since these devices were introduced. It’s likely most diehard Samsung fans have upgraded their device in the last two years. But, in case you haven’t, your old phone will live on a little longer with the new firmware update.

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Google Chrome 87 brings major performance improvements and tab searching

We’re just weeks away from a brand new year, but Google isn’t going on holiday just yet. The search giant on Tuesday introduced one final update for Chrome, which promises major performance improvements and changes to tabs.

Thanks to under-the-hood improvements, Google said Chrome 87 “represents the largest gain in Chrome performance in years.” That includes starting up 25 percent faster and loading pages 7 percent faster — all while using less power and less RAM. And that’s just the start.

Google has also prioritized how Chrome 87 handles tabs. The browser now prioritizes active tabs versus everything that’s open, which Google said will reduce CPU usage by up to 5x and extend battery up to 1.25 hours. Google this summer started testing throttling background JavaScript timers to improve battery life, and the company’s work has resulted in marked improvements, at least in internal testing.

 

Speaking of tabs, Chrome 87 now includes a tab search feature. It’s the same kind of search you’ve grown accustomed to across your favorite applications. When you click on search in Chrome 87’s toolbox, you’ll see a list of your open tabs. Start typing in a word and you should find the result you need. Google said tab search will be available on Chromebooks first, and on other desktop platforms soon.

Other performance improvements include a back/forward cache. Google said that people often visit a page and quickly hit the back button. With Chrome 87, a back/forward cache will make 20 percent of those back/forward navigations instant, with plans to improve that to 50 percent in the future. The feature was originally introduced in Chrome 86 as a flag, but now it’s on by default in Chrome 87 for desktop and Android.

Finally, Chrome 87 features a couple quality of life improvements, from a more powerful omnibox to cards in your new tab page. In the omnibox, you can type in actions like “edit passwords” or “delete history,” so you don’t have to jump into menus and find the relevant setting. As for the cards in the new tab page, Google said these will be for links you recently-visited. For now, the cards will focus on things like cooking and shopping, with plans for entertainment cards in the future.

All the new features are rolling out in Chrome 87 over the next few weeks.

Google Chrome: Fast & Secure (Free, Google Play) →

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Mozilla adds pinch-to-zoom support and HTTPS-only mode in Firefox 83

Mozilla has announced the release of Firefox 83, an update that introduces support for HTTPS-Only Mode. And, wait for it: pinch-to-zoom.

HTTPS-Only Mode will attempt to establish a full secure connection to the website you’re visiting. That means if you click on an HTTP link or your manually enter an HTTP address, Firefox 83 will use HTTPS instead. If a secure connection can’t be established, Firefox will ask for your permission before connecting to the website.

Firefox noted that most major websites today support the HTTPS protocol, which offers better encryption between your browser and the website you’re visiting. But there are those out there that are still using the HTTP protocol. There are also millions of legacy HTTP links, so HTTPS-Only Mode in Firefox 83 aims to provide users with a more secure connection.

Firefox said that there may also be the rare instance when a website is available over HTTPS but includes resources within the website that aren’t available over HTTPS. As a result, some websites may not look right or will malfunction altogether. If this happens, users can easily disable HTTPS-Only Mode by clicking on the lock icon in the address bar.

Firefox 83 also includes pinch zooming on Windows and Mac. If you’re on a Windows device with a touchscreen, you can easily pinch-to-zoom on websites all you want. The same goes with touchpads on Mac devices. It’s a feature that’s been available in competing browsers for years, but better late than never.

There are several other features included in Firefox 83, including keyboard shortcuts for picture-in-picture mode, support for AcroForm, and support for Apple’s new M1 chips. Firefox 83 has also been pushed out to Android devices.

If you want a more secure browsing experience and you’re a Firefox user, then you should download the latest update now. You can view the full Firefox 83 changelog below.

Firefox Browser: fast, private & safe web browser (Free, Google Play) →

Firefox 83 changelog:

New

• Firefox keeps getting faster as a result of significant updates to SpiderMonkey, our JavaScript engine, you will now experience improved page load performance by up to 15%, page responsiveness by up to 12%, and reduced memory usage by up to 8%. We have replaced part of the JavaScript engine that helps to compile and display websites for you, improving security and maintainability of the engine at the same time.
• Firefox introduces HTTPS-Only Mode. When enabled, this new mode ensures that every connection Firefox makes to the web is secure and alerts you when a secure connection is not available. You can enable it in Firefox Preferences.
• Pinch zooming will now be supported for our users with Windows touchscreen devices and touchpads on Mac devices. Firefox users may now use pinch to zoom on touch-capable devices to zoom in and out of webpages.
• Picture-in-Picture now supports keyboard shortcuts for fast forwarding and rewinding videos: use the arrow keys to move forward and back 15 seconds, along with volume controls. For a list of supported commands see Support Mozilla
• When you are presenting your screen on a video conference in Firefox, you will see our improved user interface that makes it clearer which devices or displays are being shared.
• We’ve improved functionality and design for a number of Firefox search features:
  • Selecting a search engine at the bottom of the search panel now enters search mode for that engine, allowing you to see suggestions (if available) for your search terms. The old behavior (immediately performing a search) is available with a shift-click.
  • When Firefox autocompletes the URL of one of your search engines, you can now search with that engine directly in the address bar by selecting the shortcut in the address bar results.
  • We’ve added buttons at the bottom of the search panel to allow you to search your bookmarks, open tabs, and history.
• Firefox supports AcroForm, which will allow you to fill in, print, and save supported PDF forms and the PDF viewer also has a new fresh look.
• Our users in India on the English build of Firefox will now see Pocket recommendations in their new tab featuring some of the best stories on the web. If you don’t see them, you can turn on Pocket articles in your new tab by following these steps.
• For the recently released Apple devices built with Apple Silicon CPUs, you can use Firefox 83 and future releases without any change. This release (83) will support emulation under Apple’s Rosetta 2 that ships with macOS Big Sur. We are working toward Firefox being natively-compiled for these CPUs in a future release.
• This is a major release for WebRender as we roll out to more Firefox users on Windows 7 and 8 as well as on macOS 10.12 to 10.15.

Fixed

• This release also includes a number of accessibility fixes:
  • Screen reader features which report paragraphs now correctly report paragraphs instead of lines in Google Docs
  • When reading by word using a screen reader, words are now correctly reported when there is punctuation nearby
  • The arrow keys now work correctly after tabbing in the picture-in-picture window
• For users on macOS restoring a session with minimized windows, Firefox now uses much less power and you should see much longer battery life.
• Various security fixes

Enterprise

• Enterprise Information

Developer

• Developer Information
• Developers can use the scroll badge in the Page Inspector to Debug scrollable overflow. Selecting the badge highlights elements that are causing overflow and marks them with the overflow badge

Web Platform

• This release adds support for conic gradients in CSS, helping colors to smoothly transition as you spin around the center, rather than as you progress outward from the center.

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Grab the Emerge Vartan Gaming Chair for $150 and support your back for long hours at the computer

Okay, I get it. There’s a big stigma against gaming chairs. I, generally, hold the same opinion! Gaming computer chairs tend to be brightly colored, oddly shaped, and just scream “some poor designer was told to make something that appeals to gamers but doesn’t know what on earth a gamer wants”. But the thing is, the chairs can actually be comfortable if you look for ones specifically made for those that spend all day, every day at their computers. And some even look alright, like the Emerge Vartan gaming chair.

This chair is available in four colors, and honestly, it doesn’t look all that bad! I really like the purple one, because it has darker purple and grey accents that are more subtle than a stark white or red. Right now, at Staples, all of the models of the Emerge Vartan gaming chair are just $150! This is 34% off the MSRP os $230, and it’s also available for free next day shipping.

You might be asking though, why a gaming computer chair, and why now? Well, many of us have been stuck inside now, working from home and continuing to do so for the foreseeable future. Many of us also now have new home hobbies that revolve around a computer, whether it be gaming, streaming online movie nights with friends, or any number of things. If you’re spending a lot of time sitting down, then it’s important to have a proper chair that can support you. A bad chair can do make than just make your workday suck–it can seriously mess up your back!

So, while the Emerge Vartan gaming chair may seem a little expensive, it has the comfort and support you need for long workdays. It can also recline up to 135 degrees, can be adjusted to your height needs, and is easy to assemble. The only real potential downfall to this chair is that it’s made from leather, so keep that in mind if you’re considering it!

Emerge Vartan Gaming Chair

Available in four colors, this gaming chair is comfortable and affordable! At Staples, this chair is also available for free next day shipping.

$150 at Staples

Looking for another type of chair? Staples has all sorts of furniture sales for you to take advantage of!

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