Cloud - Page 12 of 49

Xiaomi Mi 11 vs OnePlus 8T: Which should you buy?

(Pocket-lint) – For most people, buying the latest flagship usually means buying an iPhone or buying a Samsung Galaxy. But, there are some equally compelling powerful phones from other brands on the market too. Two of those are the latest from Chinese brands, Xiaomi and OnePlus. Those are – of course – the Mi 11 and the 8T.

Look down the spec sheet numbers and you might just conclude an easy win for the Xiaomi. But as many of us well know: numbers on spec sheets don’t tell the whole story, and there’s price to consider. Xiaomi’s premium model is more expensive. So which should you buy?

Design

Xiaomi: 164.3 x 74.6 x 8.1 mm – 196 grams
OnePlus: 160.7 x 74.1 x 8.4 mm – 188 grams
Xiaomi: Corning Gorilla Glass Victus on the front
OnePlus: Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the front
Xiaomi: Horizon Blue, Cloud White, Midnight Gray, Special Edition Blue, Gold, Violet
OnePlus: Aquamarine Green, Lunar Silver, Cyberpunk 2077 Edition

One thing that can be said about Xiaomi’s design is that the manufacturer has pushed the envelope when it comes to making its phone at least look different to others on the market. That triple layer camera housing with the contrasting ring and black pill-shaped under layer makes it instantly unique against the OnePlus, with its relatively standard rectangle housing.

In the hand, they don’t feel all that different though. Both feature a similar curved glass back, but the texture between the two specific models in the video above is different. Xiaomi’s frosted glass is softer to the touch, although it is ever so slightly longer, wider and heavier than the OnePlus, there’s not a lot in it, not enough to make a huge difference on a daily basis.

Turn them over to the front and you’ll notice a few more differences. Primarily Xiaomi’s curved glass on the edges. OnePlus went for a completely flat display, with only subtle curving at the bezel, which is similarly slim on both devices.

Saying that, looking closely you’ll notice that Xiaomi’s bezels are skinnier and that the punch-hole camera takes up a little less space in the panel.

While curved screens are technically more advanced than flat ones, Xiaomi’s implementation does mean it suffers from accidental touches.

Holding the phone in landscape we often found ourselves struggling to get deliberate touches to register as an unbeknown to us part of our palm was touching the edge of the screen.

Both phones support dual SIM setups, and neither phone has a microSD card tray, so you get the storage in the phone and that’s it. Which, in both cases is generous. You’ll get either 128GB or 256GB.

Display

Xiaomi: 6.81-inch 20:9 ratio AMOLED display
OnePlus: 6.55-inch 20:9 ratio AMOLED display
Xiaomi: QHD+ (3200 x 1400) resolution – 515ppi
OnePlus: FHD+ (2400 x 1080) resolution – 402ppi
Both: HRD10+ compatible and maximum 120Hz refresh rate

Look at the display specs and there’s surely one winner here? Well.. not quite. Xiaomi’s is the more advanced, technically, and has a sharper maximum resolution. That pushes it to more than 500 pixels per inch, compared to the 400 pixels per inch on the OnePlus. It is QHD over FHD after all.

That means on finer details when you look closely, the Xiaomi does look crisper. Despite similar peak brightnesses however, the OnePlus screen does seem a little brighter and more vivid with both pushed to maximum brightness.

The two phones offer plenty of calibration tools though, so you should be able to get them looking the way you want.

There’s really not a huge amount in it and – while Xiaomi’s is technically better overall – we’d be perfectly happy to game and watch movies and tv shows on either display. In fact, sometimes the flatter display is preferable. If only because none of your images are curved around an edge.

Both offer super smooth 120Hz refresh rates, so you’ll get smooth, sharp animation whatever you’re doing. Providing the content is optimised to run at those speeds.

Software

Xiaomi: MIUI 12 – based on Android 11
OnePlus: Oxygen OS 11 – based on Android 11

When it comes to software, we have to say OxygenOS 11 is a more reliable and less intrusive version of Android. Both are similarly fluid and fast with similar features like always on display when your phone is in standby.

However, Xiaomi has this habit of double-checking your Play Store apps are safe before installing, which can be a pain if you’re downloading apps in the background while doing something else. A popup screen takes over, interrupting whatever you’re doing.

More obtrusive however is that all apps are pushed to reserve battery mode by default, meaning unless you go into settings and give them unreserved access, you’ll miss notifications. If you don’t tinker in settings to allow them permanent ability to run, you have to physically open the apps to check if you have messages and updates.

Similarly, OnePlus seems a little more suited to one-handed use with its default apps at least, bringing controls down to a more thumb-able level.

Performance and battery

Xiaomi: Snapdragon 888 processor
OnePlus: Snapdragon 865 processor
Both: 5G support
Xiaomi: 8GB/128GB, 8GB/256GB and 12GB/256GB RAM/storage options
OnePlus: 8GB/128GB and 12GB/256GB RAM/storage options
Xiaomi: 4600mAh – 55W wired and 50W wireless charging
OnePlus: 4500mAh – 65W wired Warp Charge

With performance there’s not a huge amount to say, except that both phones are really quick and able to run the most demanding games and apps without a worry.

squirrel_widget_4145310

Xiaomi has the upper hand, since it’s using Qualcomm’s latest 888 processor, but with similar memory and RAM levels and speed, you likely won’t notice a huge amount of difference on a daily basis. Run a benchmark and you probably will, but you’ll never have to worry about demanding games with either phone.

Similarly, battery life will comfortably get even the most demanding users through a full day. You get similar battery capacities – it’s 4,500 vs 4600 mAh – on the two phones, although, OnePlus is the smaller of the two. Still, with its lower resolution display, it doesn’t seem to use it up quite as quickly when doing visually intensive activities. So with similar screen time, the OnePlus lasts a little longer.

When it comes to fast charging, OnePlus wins this one with its 65W warp charge that can completely refill the battery in under 40 minutes.

Still, Xiaomi’s no slouch and not only can it do a full charge in 45 minutes, it has fast 50W wireless charging too, provided you get Xiaomi’s bespoke compatible wireless charger. OnePlus features no wireless charging.

Cameras

Xiaomi: triple camera system
- 108MP f/1.9 wide main camera w/OIS
- 13MP f/2.4 ultra-wide
- 5MP f/2.4 macro
OnePlus: quad camera system
- 48MP f/1.7 wide main camera w/OIS
- 16MP F/2.2 ultra-wide
- 5MP f/2.4 macro
- 2MP depth
Both: 4K up to 60fps
Xiaomi: 8K up to 30fps
Xiaomi: 20MP 1080p selfie camera
OnePlus: 16MP 1080p selfie camera

While resolution and sensor sizes are different, the makeup of the two camera systems are similar. There’s a primary lens alongside the ultra-wide and macro lenses. OnePlus also has a depth sensor, which is essentially useless on its own. It’s just for extra data.

Now, neither phone has a telephoto lens, but both will let you zoom further using a digital zoom. Xiaomi’s lets you go pretty far too, but once you push either over the 5x zoom mark the results can pretty ropy.

The one thing we did notice was that – while both take sharp, vivid pictures in daylight – the Xiaomi’s were consistently darker and more contrast-heavy. Sometimes that made them appear too dark and crushed, with the OnePlus looking more life-like and natural. Other times, the OnePlus looked comparitively washed out.

As for macros – it’s tricky getting a sharp in-focus shot with the Xiaomi, but it can take fantastic looking macros if you get up close. Xiaomi’s tends to magify the macros a lot more, but more importantly, the macro shot on the Mi 11 consistently had a much nicer and smoother background blur. OnePlus was noisy and grainy and just looked harsh a lot of the time.

As for night time, both phones have a night mode you can use on the primary and ultra wide cameras, but the ultra-wides are nowhere near as effective at drawing in light on either camera.

Results were a little inconsistent, with the OnePlus often struggling to focus and evening out the minor hand shake. But when it did, it often delivered better colour, dynamic range and detail than the Xiaomi. However, the Mi 11 was more often better at focussing and producing the sharper image when the light levels got particularly low, even if the colours are a little cooler and washed out.

As for selfies, the Xiaomi seemed generally softer and a little less natural looking than the OnePlus in both daylight and at night using the screen as a flash.

Pricing and availability

Xiaomi: Pricing around €750/£750
OnePlus: Pricing from €549/£549

The interesting part of this comparison is looking at pricing. Xiaomi’s latest flagship – due to its higher spec in a few places – means you pay more for it. In fact, around £200/€200 in some places. Even the higher spec 12GB/256GB OnePlus model is cheaper than Xiaomi’s.

squirrel_widget_3490742

Xiaomi’s phone is brand new too, so you may struggle to find it as easily available in a lot of markets. OnePlus’ latest flagship has been on the market for a few months already and can be found direct through OnePlus or through partner carriers in a lot of countries. Or even through Amazon.

Conclusion

All in all, Xiaomi may have some features better than the OnePlus. The display for one stands out but – in a lot of ways that matter – the OnePlus more than matches it. The less intrusive software experience for one is a reason to choose it, as is saving money.

Still, the Mi 11 is a very capable flagship packed with potential. There’s no doubt it has a better display and camera system and maybe – just maybe – the software experience will improve when MIUI 12.5 arrives.

Writing by Cam Bunton.

Stadia version of Terraria is back in production after developer reconciles with Google

Earlier this month, Terraria co-creator Andrew Spinks announced that his studio Re-Logic would cancel a Google Stadia port. However, the developer announced today that the Stadia port is now back in development.

”As you may have noticed, we had a ton of issues to kick off the year stemming from the locking-down of Redigit’s entire Google account in early January,” Re-Logic said in a recent Terraria forum post. “After a month of pushing (and with the immense support of our fans), Google finally reached out and was able to provide a lot of transparency around the situation and to restore access to all of our accounts.”

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On February 8th, Spinks fired off a series of tweets expressing frustration that he was locked out of his Google accounts for weeks, which included losing access to his Gmail and Google Play account. Spinks first noted that he lost access to his accounts on or around January 16th.

Re-Logic has yet to announced when Terraria will launch on Google Stadia, but the game being back in development is good news for fans of Google’s cloud gaming service. On Friday, two reports from Bloomberg and Wired shed light on some of Google’s failures in building Stadia. And earlier this month, Google announced it was closing its in-house development studio.

Arlo Essential Video Doorbell Wire-Free review: Ding dong

(Pocket-lint) – Arlo is a big name in home security, with a wide range of cameras, so extending its offering to the front door makes a lot of sense.

Having originally launched an Audio Doorbell – which connected to an Arlo system – the obvious leap was to integrate video and audio to make it a complete doorbell viewing and answering solution, either as part of a wider Arlo system or as a standalone device to rival Ring.

Which is exactly what you get with the Arlo Essential Video Doorbell Wire-Free. But is it good enough to stand up against the competiton?

Design and installation

Doorbell dimensions: 47 x 143 x 37mm
Includes flat & angled mounting plates
Weather-resistant design
Battery powered

We’ve all become familiar with video doorbells following the rise of Ring, which dominates this market. The Arlo Essential Video Doorbell Wire-Free is larger than Ring’s equivalent device, so it’s a little less subtle on the door, standing out more. It’s both taller and thicker than Ring’s devices.

At the top of the Arlo sits the camera, while the large doorbell button is towards the bottom, encircled with LEDs which illuminate as someone approaches it.

Pocket-lint

The Arlo doorbell comes with both flat and angled mounting plates in the box, along with screws and plugs if you are mounting to a wall. In reality you can use any screws, but mounting is a simple case of screwing the mounting plate in place and then clipping the body of the device into place.

The camera body itself detaches from the backing plate via a pin release mechanism, the sort of thing you’d use to open a SIM tray of a phone. That needs to be considered when mounting, as you’ll need access to this hole on the top. That also means that anyone who wants to steal it only needs a bent pin, but they’d be doing that while being captured on camera.

The device is weatherproofed, too, designed to withstand rain.

Unlike with Ring, you’ll have to remove the entire Arlo unit to get to the battery inside. In some ways that’s easier, because you don’t have to mess around with a tiny screw or face plate. You can buy spare batteries too, making a quick change possible.

Pocket-lint

The battery version of the Arlo Doorbell can also be connected to existing doorbell wiring, with connectors on the rear – although we didn’t test this aspect of the device.

The Arlo Essential Video Doorbell Wire-Free doesn’t come with a chime – i.e. the ability to sound a ringer elsewhere in your home – so that’s something else you might consider adding. That will mean it can audibly ring in any room of your house, so you’re not dependent on your phone, or hearing the sound from the device itself on the front door. But also consider you can have it alert you via an Amazon Echo if you create a simple Alexa Routine.

squirrel_widget_4155062

Connectivity and the Arlo app

Hub or Wi-Fi connection
Setup via the Arlo app
No desktop app

Connecting to the Arlo Video Doorbell is much the same as connecting any other Arlo device. You’ll need to use the Arlo app on your phone or tablet and this will walk you through the process for both installing the doorbell and getting it connected.

The Arlo Essential Video Doorbell Wire-Free can connect to either Wi-Fi or an Arlo hub. Supporting Wi-Fi means you don’t have to be an existing Arlo system user to get started. If you have a hub and want to connect to that you also have that choice. The advantage of connecting to an existing hub is that you’ll then have the option for local video storage on microSD – so you don’t have to then have an Arlo Smart subscription to store video.

The doorbell then appears within the Arlo app. If you’re an existing Arlo user, that means it will sit alongside your other Arlo devices; if you’re new to Arlo and only plan to use have the doorbell then that’s all you’ll see in the app.

The app then gives you all the controls you’ll need for the device. That includes the option to disable the LEDs on the button when motion is detected, manage what happens when someone pushes the doorbell, change the video settings, set activity zones, and adjust the audio.

Pocket-lint

You also get control over the mode that you’ll use for the Video Doorbell. These will be familiar to Arlo users, but on the doorbell they only really define what happens when motion is detected. You might choose to remove motion alerts when you’re at home, in which case you can “disarm” the doorbell, keep them on all the time using “armed”, or have them turn on when you leave home using geofencing or according to a schedule – such as only at night.

You can create custom modes too, which will be more relevant to those with existing Arlo devices. It’s here that you can create a mode that, for example, turns on your Arlo Light when motion is detected on the Doorbell, or begins capture on another Arlo camera you might have.

This gives plenty of flexibility for what happens from Arlo’s end, but it’s worth noting that because you can link Arlo to other major smart home platforms – like Alexa, Google Home and SmartThings – you can also set up Routines on those platforms involving other devices. For example, turning on a Hue light when your Arlo doorbell detects motion.

One downside, however, is that there’s no desktop app. Yes, you can log-in through a browser, but when working at home, having a proper desktop app just for your doorbell makes everything easier. Ring has one and it’s something that’s currently missing from Arlo’s offering.

Do I need an Arlo Smart subscription?

Arlo’s original devices didn’t need a subscription. You got a week of cloud storage for free – and that was a major advantage over other systems. With the release of more advanced devices, Arlo has tied 30-day cloud storage and a range of advanced features to its Arlo Smart plans.

For a doorbell, you might question whether you need those extra features. You can run the Arlo Essential Video Doorbell Wire-Free without a subscription, but you lose the cloud storage of motion captures if you don’t have an Arlo Smart plan.

As we said above, if you’ve connected the doorbell to an Arlo hub, you can use the local storage option to record to microSD – but there’s no way of monitoring those backups from your phone, you have to physically remove the card and view it on another device. That might work for some, but we suspect part of the appeal of a connected camera is being able to look back at what’s happened on your phone and download the videos you want to keep.

Pocket-lint

Arlo Smart plans also drive other features – like AI detection of what’s been spotted, which can tell you if it’s a person, vehicle or animal. If you’re in a protracted argument about whether the neighbour’s cat is leaving deposits on your front lawn, this might be exactly the feature you need.

Arlo Smart also enables rich notifications, which will highlight what you’re looking at when those notifications appear on your phone.

The Arlo Essential Video Doorbell Wire-Free comes with 3-months Arlo Smart as a trial, so you can see how you get on and make your decision. We’ve generally found that Arlo products run smoother if you have a paid subscription, as you get access to all the features.

Without a subscription you can still live-view the video, get notification alerts, and will have the doorbell ring your phone when the button is pressed. And for some that’s all you’ll want – without ongoing costs.

Camera features and performance

180 degree view, 110 degree motion sensor
1536 x 1536 resolution, 1:1 aspect ratio
HDR, IR night vision

The big difference between Arlo’s doorbell and Ring’s is the camera. Arlo has gone for a 1:1 aspect, a square sensor behind that ultra-wide lens, rather than rectangular. The practical benefit is that you can see a lot more of the person at your door. Rather than just seeing a face, you’ll get a better head-to-toe view of that person.

Pocket-lint

Depending on the arrangement of your door and the surrounding area, this might be a lot more useful than some rival cameras. For us, it means you can see a lot more of the area surrounding the door and porch, rather than the wider view that Ring offers.

The doorbell is effective at detecting motion, often alerting you to motion just before the doorbell is pressed, so you can get a double notification. The detection for us turned out to be a couple of meters, so will detect people coming up the path, although it’s more effective as people get closer.

We’ve not had the same long-distance alerts that we’ve sometimes had from Ring, which included vehicles on the road when the sun was reflecting off them. Such sensitivity can be adjusted, as well as having the option to specify detection zones (another Arlo Smart feature) if you need to obscure something.

The quality of video capture is good, with HDR (high dynamic range) allowing the camera to balance out scenes when lighting is uneven. There’s IR (infrared) extending the skills to low-light conditions too. While darkness reduces the effective range, IR does paint the subject nicely when approaching the doorbell, so it’s still easy to recognise who it is at night.

The camera is a good wide-angle too, as we mentioned above, although on a doorbell this is less important than it might be on a security camera covering a wider area of view.

The experience of using the Arlo Essential Video Doorbell Wire-Free is excellent, with the video results generally better than some close rival products. Certainly, the 1:1 aspect offers a natural advantage giving a more useful view for objects closer to the camera, appropriate for a doorbell.

Calling your phone has an advantage

SIP calling
Rich notifications

One of the other advantages that Arlo offers is how the “ring” comes through to your phone. Rather than it being served up via a notification, it comes in as a SIP call. The technicalities don’t matter, but it means that when someone presses your doorbell, your phone rings like an incoming call.

You’ll see that someone has pressed the doorbell, leaving you to either accept that call – and talk to that person – or decline the call and just go and open the door.

When you accept the call, you’re shown the live feed from the door and you have the option to unmute the microphone to talk, or to use messages instead – with responses like “we’ll be right there” or “you can leave the package outside”, meaning you don’t actually have to talk to whoever is at the door. These options provide great versatility in how you answer the door – and you can use these whether you’re at home or not, the caller won’t be able to tell the difference. They’re also captured on the recorded video (as in the example above), so you’d have a record of the conversation.

If you’re already on a call on your phone, Arlo will burst in on that call too, so you’ll quickly have to multitask to either put your other call on hold or send a quick reply to whomever is at the door.

We’re also a fan of the notifications that Arlo sends through. These rich notifications are the same as you’ll get from Arlo’s other cameras (if you have an Arlo Smart subscription), telling you what type of occurrence has triggered the motion and giving you a preview thumbnail. That means you can glance at your phone and see whether you need to pay attention to it or not.

Battery life

The battery life on the Arlo Essential Video Doorbell Wire-Free has seen us through a month of use and still has about 50 per cent remaining, so we’re on course to get the best part of two months from it – and this includes several weeks around the 0°C mark.

Pocket-lint

Arlo says that you’ll get three to six months from it, so we’re not hitting that sort of figure – but it still compares favourably with other battery-powered doorbells. Warmer temperatures will undoubtedly extend the usage. And, of course, you can adjust various features to prolong the battery life.

Verdict

Arlo’s first venture into doorbells with the Audio Doorbell never really captured the spirit of what people wanted from a connected device. Fortunately, the Video Doorbell offers a lot more, rivalling and bettering competitors in a number of areas.

The downsides are few: the lack of chime in the box means you’ll have to fork out for one separately, while an Arlo Smart plan will see an ongoing cost to really get the best out if this model.

Yes, this doorbell is a little on the large side, but the calling mechanism and quick replies, quality of the video, and potential for integration into other systems – not to mention folding it into an existing Arlo system – make it rather easy to recommend.

Alternatives to consider

Pocket-lint

Ring Video Doorbell 3 Plus

squirrel_widget_236292

The Plus version of Ring’s video doorbell adds a unique function: Pre-Roll video. This will capture 4 seconds of black-and-white video before the motion was triggered, so you get a wider window of capture for any given event. Wide support from Alexa and other platforms, as well as a complete package from Ring itself, makes this video doorbell rightly popular.

Ring Video Doorbell 3 Plus review

Writing by Chris Hall.

Cloud Strife’s muscle mass on PS5: a very important investigation

Square Enix just announced Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, a PS5-enhanced version of FF7 Remake that includes graphical improvements like “improved textures, lighting, and background environments.” But some users on ResetEra noticed one other potentially huge graphical upgrade: Cloud’s famously skinny arms may have gotten a bit beefier.

Did Cloud get more swole for next-gen, like the PS5 itself?

Clearly, this warranted a full investigation.

Check out this image, from user Tyaren:

Image: ResetEra user Tyaren

And this GIF, from user Rickenslacker:

GIF: ResetEra user Rickenslacker

Convincing, right? These two images make a strong argument. But my Verge colleagues and I weren’t totally sure. Like our brothers in arms at Reddit suggested, it could be a trick of the improved lighting or slightly different angles in the images.

We needed sturdier evidence, and because we’re professional journalists here at The Verge, we knew we had to dig in deep to try to solve this question — like we did when comparing the tall lady in Resident Evil Village to other tall things. So we’ve spent the better part of an hour arguing about the issue in Slack, zooming in super closely on photos of Cloud’s arms, and poring over trailers frame-by-frame to find a noticeable difference in a video game character’s nonexistent muscle mass.

Unfortunately, a few side-by-side images from Square Enix itself made it harder to settle the argument. See for yourself in these screenshots captured from this official Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade video.

Image: Square Enix

We needed proof, darn it. Thankfully, my colleague Mitchell Clark had the powerful idea to colorize images from the PS5 and PS4 versions of the game and overlay them on top of each other. Check out the result in the video below (the PS5 version is red, while the PS4 version is blue). To me, this is the strongest evaluation yet.

Disappointingly, it also makes it appear as if Cloud’s arms haven’t changed in size at all from PS4 to PS5. Womp womp.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide if Cloud actually beefed up or not for his PS5 debut. But I think we can all agree on one thing: Cloud’s a lot more swole in both versions of Remake than he was in the original game.

Image: ResetEra user momerath

Xbox Live is down with users unable to sign in

Microsoft’s Xbox Live service is down, preventing users from signing in to the service. The Xbox Live problems started at around 3:15PM ET today, and Microsoft has confirmed it’s investigating the outage. “We are aware that users may not be able to sign-in to Xbox Live at this time,” says Xbox support. “Our teams are currently investigating to fix this issue.”

If you’re not already signed in to your Xbox, the sign-in process will fail with an error, preventing access to certain services like Xbox Party chat. Some apps may also fail to launch without the core Xbox Live services being online, and a number of games will also not launch correctly.

Microsoft has marked the Xbox Live issues as a “major outage” over at the company’s Xbox status page. The outage also means services like xCloud cloud gaming are offline, alongside access to multiplayer games.

We are aware that users may not be able to sign-in to Xbox Live at this time. Our teams are currently investigating to fix this issue. We will update here and on https://t.co/PzAdjUFMJj when we have more information to share!

— Xbox Support (@XboxSupport) February 25, 2021

This is the first big Xbox Live outage since issues occurred during the Xbox Series X and Series S launch in November last year. Xbox Live also went down a few times throughout 2020, particularly at the beginning of the pandemic when the service faced issues twice in a week as millions started social distancing.

The House’s three big ideas to take on tech power

Last year, House Judiciary Committee lawmakers topped off a yearslong investigation into anti-competitive behavior in the tech industry by bringing in some of the most powerful chief executives in the market. Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai headlined one of the biggest must-watch hearings last summer and they faced tough lines of questioning from lawmakers who (for the most part) did their homework, prepped with thousands of pages of evidence alleging illegal business practices.

Lawmakers shined a light on some of tech’s shady business practices, and now they’re getting ready to finish the job. On Thursday, the House Judiciary’s subcommittee on antitrust returned for a far less flashy hearing with experts. It’s the beginning of a second and far more important phase of the committee’s work, pinning down new rules that would address those practices.

On paper, Thursday’s hearing was about analyzing how big tech platforms act as gatekeepers and create barriers to entry — but really it was about testing out three new avenues for keeping tech companies in line and seeing which ones might gain support from tech-skeptical Republicans.

WHAT IT MEANS

Arguably, the most revealing parts of last year’s hearing with tech CEOs had to do with their abilities to shove competitors out of the market. Zuckerberg was pressed over an email from former Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom saying that the Facebook CEO would go “destroy mode” if Instagram didn’t sell. Bezos said he couldn’t “guarantee” that Amazon employees weren’t looking at data from independent sellers to help develop their own products. Cook and Pichai were both pressed on reports that they used their platforms to squash competition.

But at Thursday’s hearing, the subcommittee moved beyond calling out bad behavior and laid out three big areas where Congress could actually take action. They’re still general ideas instead of specific proposals, but you can expect to see these same ideas in whatever tech regulation bills come forward over the next few months.

The big three:

Data interoperability and portability: Users should be able to take their data elsewhere with ease. Example: Think about how you can move your phone number between carriers. Before the 1996 Telecommunications Act, that wasn’t always an option!
Nondiscrimination: Basically, a dominant platform shouldn’t be able to preference its own products over those of its competitors.
Structural remedies: Breaking apart different lines of business or platforms under one company.

Portability and interoperability rules are the measure that’s least threatening to tech companies. A bunch of those products were released in the wake of the GDPR, and it’s easy for Facebook and Google to develop more without touching their core businesses. Nondiscrimination is a little scarier — particularly for Apple and Amazon — but it’s still workable.

Some of those ideas might even get bipartisan support. In his Third Way report last year, Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) called for data portability and more funding for antitrust regulators at the Justice Department and FTC.

But the antitrust wing of the Democratic Party won’t be satisfied with a few new app store rules and a little more money for the FTC. In their recommendations last October, Democrats on the committee called for a kind of Glass-Steagall Act for the internet, breaking apart different lines of business in response to monopoly concerns. It would lay the groundwork for splitting off Instagram from Facebook or Amazon Web Services from Amazon — basically leveling the tech landscape by force.

This is the worst-case scenario for tech companies — and as much as Republicans complain about Jeff Bezos, they still largely oppose the idea. It’s hard to imagine a trust-busting bill attracting support from fence-sitters like Rep. Buck, much less the more tech-friendly members of the caucus. Just like in the stimulus and minimum-wage fights, Democrats have to decide whether to play for a bipartisan fix or push through a more progressive policy on their own. But judging from this hearing, Democrats aren’t ready to give up on a full-scale breakup just yet.

WHAT DIDN’T THEY ASK?

Amazon kicked Parler off its web hosting service after last month’s deadly attack on the Capitol. Parler was a popular platform with the rioters who stormed the Capitol, and without Amazon’s web hosting, the platform was effectively kicked offline until it could find a new company to host the site in mid-February.

Since Parler was deplatformed, some Republicans have turned away from Section 230 reform and toward antitrust as a remedy to their beef with a focus on Amazon. Republican FCC commissioners have used the incident to make shaky comparisons to network neutrality and cloud infrastructure. But after Parler went down, Ranking Member Buck tweeted that he would be “introducing legislation this Congress to hold Amazon accountable for their anticompetitive behavior.”

Amazon crushes small businesses. They cheat and steal. Now they want to join Google and Facebook in censoring.

I will be introducing legislation this Congress to hold Amazon accountable for their anticompetitive behavior. #BigTechReckoning https://t.co/lChxvMFFuZ

— Congressman Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) January 10, 2021

Here’s what I would have liked to hear from Republicans:

How do cloud services like AWS fit into antitrust reform outside of just providing an additional line of revenue for companies? What if Amazon deplatformed a nascent e-commerce platform using its services?
What are the ramifications of stripping companies like Amazon from their cloud services? Should this be included in any measures the committee proposes?

WHAT’S NEXT?

The House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on antitrust still has two more hearings to complete before they start filing legislation. They’re expecting to start introducing those bills this spring, but that doesn’t mean they’ll become law anytime soon. There will likely be even more hearings and a markup process before those bills get close to votes on the floor.

We also need to hear what the Senate is thinking. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), the chair of the Senate’s antitrust panel, introduced the Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act earlier this month that doesn’t do nearly as much as the House is considering for legislation. Klobuchar’s bill would provide antitrust enforcers with more resources to bring cases to trial and conduct extensive reviews of markets and merger effects.

Amazon’s head of Fire TV and Luna cloud gaming has left for Unity

Amazon’s head of Fire TV, Kindle, and its new Luna cloud gaming service departed the company this month. Marc Whitten has joined Unity as an executive on the company’s Unity Create business. Unity is a cross-platform game engine that many developers use to get their games running across multiple devices.

Whitten’s departure, spotted by Matthew Ball on Twitter, comes less than six months after Amazon launched an early access version of Luna, the company’s new cloud gaming service. It also comes during the same month Google announced it’s shutting down its in-house game development studios for Stadia. That’s left the writing on the wall for Stadia, as it increasingly looks like Google will focus on licensing the underlying tech it has built out to industry partners.

Amazon’s Luna is currently available on PC, Mac, iOS, and Android as long as you’re invited to try the service. Amazon has also expanded Luna to Fire TV devices without an invite, but it’s still limited to just the US right now. It’s not clear when Amazon plans to make Luna available more broadly.

Whitten confirmed his Amazon departure on Twitter yesterday. “I’m just digging in at Unity of course, but it is so much fun seeing the amount of energy, passion, and creator/user love here,” he said.

Before Whitten arrived at Amazon, he spent 14 years at Microsoft helping launch three Xbox consoles. Whitten left Microsoft in 2014 to take up the role of chief product officer at wireless audio company Sonos. He has spent the last nearly five years overseeing the Fire TV, Amazon’s Kindle devices, and the launch of Luna.

Amazon Luna cloud gaming now available on Fire TVs without an invite

Amazon’s cloud-gaming service, Luna, is now available to try for free in the US on select Fire TV devices without an invitation, the company has announced. Luna launched in early access last year, as an invitation-only service. Originally, customers also needed an invite to buy the Luna Controller, but Amazon now says it’s available to everyone.

Amazon’s FAQ says that users can get access to Luna on Fire TV by simply downloading the app. A list of Fire TV devices that are compatible with Luna is available on this Amazon support page. These include the Fire TV Stick Lite, Fire TV Stick (2nd & 3rd generation), Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV (3rd generation), Fire TV Cube, Toshiba Fire TV Edition, and Insignia Fire TV Edition.

Signing up for Luna gets you a 7-day free trial of the Luna Plus channel, which costs $5.99 a month thereafter during early access and includes games like Control, Metro Exodus, and Grid. There’s also a Ubisoft Plus channel subscription for $14.99 a month which includes titles like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

As well as Fire TV devices, Luna’s early access is also available on Windows, Mac, select Android devices, and web browsers on iPhone, iPad, Windows, and Mac, but only after receiving an invitation. “If you don’t have a Fire TV you can still request an invitation to access Luna at amazon.com/Luna,” Amazon’s post reads. The service is currently limited the US mainland, excluding Alaska, Hawaii, and US territories.

How to leave LastPass and move to another password manager

Ever since LastPass announced that it was tweaking its free tier to only allow a single category of device — mobile or computer — there’s been a lot of interest in finding alternatives among LastPass users. Luckily, once you do find an alternative, it’s pretty easy to pull your data from LastPass and upload it to another password manager.

What follows are instructions on how to download your LastPass data, and where to find instructions from several popular password managers that will help you upload that data to their services.

Export your LastPass data

LastPass allows you to export your data as a CSV or an XML file. If you’re planning to move that data to another service, then CSV is the far better choice. Since CSV stands for comma-separated values and is a plain text file, it’s a good idea not to hold on to it once you’ve moved your data to another password manager — or to put that file in a secure place where it can’t be easily read by someone else.

Before you start, you should be aware that the best (and really only way) you can export your data from LastPass is from its browser extension on a desktop or laptop computer. (You can technically do it from LastPass’ website, but as I’ll explain, it’s more trouble than it’s worth.) If you haven’t downloaded the extension for your browser (links for which are at the bottom of the LastPass webpage), go ahead.

Ready?

Click your extension icon and proceed to “Account Options” > “Advanced” > “Export” > “LastPass CSV File”

From your LastPass browser extension, click on Advanced….
…Export…
…LastPass CSV File

You’ll be asked to put in your master password to continue. If you think you may be interrupted at some point, and you’re working in a safe place (like a home office), feel free to ask it not to prompt you again for up to 24 hours.

Fill in your master password to download your data.

That’s it! LastPass will immediately download your CSV file.

If you really, really don’t want to install the browser extension, here’s how you can get your info from the LastPass website”

Go to LastPass.com and sign in to your account.
Click on “Advanced Options” in the left-hand menu.
Click on “Export” and enter your Master Password if asked.
If your experience is anything like mine, you should then see a comma-delimited list of all your passwords on a separate webpage. You can select all the content of the page by going to your top menu and selecting “Edit” > “Select All.” You can then copy the data and paste it to a text page using a word processor or other text app.

Once you’ve downloaded your info, you can upload it to the password manager of your choice. There are a variety out there, free and otherwise, and we’ve included a sampling below, along with their starting prices (if any) and links to their instructions on how to import your data. But first, we’re assuming that you’ll want to eventually delete your passwords from LastPass. Here’s how.

Delete your LastPass account

Once you’ve chosen your new password manager (and we strongly success you live with it for at least a week or so first), you can delete your account and data from LastPass.

Using your browser, go to the LastPass “Delete Your Account” page

The LastPass “Delete Your Account” page.

Click on the red “Delete” button.
Where you go from here depends on whether you remember your master password. If you do remember it, click on “Yes.” You’ll be given one last chance to download your data, will be asked to enter your master password, and asked why you are deleting your account. Then click on Delete.

Before you delete your account, you get a last chance to download your data.

If you don’t remember your master password, click on “No.” You’ll be given a chance to download your data and asked for your email address. You’ll be sent an email with a link that will let you delete the account.

In either case, remember there is no rush to delete your account. Make sure that you have a useable copy of your passwords and a new password manager that you’re satisfied with first.

Alternative password managers

What follows is a list of some alternative password managers and where you can find instructions for importing your LastPass data.

Bitwarden

Free version? Yes
Paid features start at $10 / year and include file storage, authenticator, two-step login, others.
Instructions for importing from LastPass

KeePass

Free version? Yes
No paid features
Instructions for importing CSV files. (Note: According to KeePass’ Import / Export help page, the app does have a specific import for LastPass that is accessible from within the app.)

LogMeOnce

Free version? Yes
Paid features start at $2.50 / month and include encrypted storage, additional password sharing, emergency access, live password tracker, others.
Instructions for importing from LastPass

NordPass

Free version? Yes
Paid features start at $1.49 / month and include syncing across devices, ability to have more than one active device, secure item sharing, others.
Instructions for importing CSV files. (Note: has separate instructions for exporting data from LastPass.)

1Password

Free version? No
Paid features start at $35.88 / year and include unlimited passwords, 1GB storage, email support, one year of item history, and others.
Instructions for importing from LastPass

RoboForm

Free version? Yes
Paid features start at $23.88 / year and include syncing across devices, cloud backup, two-factor authorization, shared folder, and others.
Instructions for importing CSV files. (Note: RoboForm has specific instructions for importing LastPass files to Windows and Mac systems; however, they include statements that separate apps are needed to export data from LastPass, which is no longer the case.)

Zoho Vault

Free version? Yes
Paid features start at $10.80 / year and include secure password sharing, password expiration alerts, cloud backup, and others.
Instructions for importing CSV files

The best streaming device to buy in 2021

If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Looking for a new TV gadget to stream all of your favorite entertainment? Buying an excellent streaming device is easier in 2021 than ever before — and the prices only continue to drop and get more appealing: $50 is the sweet spot if you want a streaming stick or set-top box that can do crisp 4K resolution, Dolby Vision / HDR, and immersive Dolby Atmos surround sound. Each of the picks below has its own strengths, whether it’s a snazzier interface, better voice controls, or a more comprehensive universal search for digging through all of your services. Depending on your wants, there are several good contenders, but the Chromecast with Google TV stands out as the best streaming device for most people.

Pretty much any 4K TV you buy today will come with a batch of built-in streaming apps. But they won’t always have everything. (For example, my LG OLED doesn’t have HBO Max.) So a dedicated streaming device is the best way to guarantee you’ll be able to watch that show or movie everyone’s been talking about. You can spend less money on entry-level Roku or Amazon streaming players, but you’ll be better off with one of our recommendations if you want your purchase to last.

The features and fantastic price of the Chromecast with Google TV make it the best streaming stick for most people.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

1. Chromecast with Google TV

The best streaming stick for most people

Google has done the best job figuring out what the home screen on a streaming stick should look like. That’s really the long and short of why the Chromecast with Google TV has taken the crown of best streaming player. With its new Google TV software, the company has taken a content-first approach that feels more focused and refined than what Amazon and Apple have managed in their own attempts to aggregate popular shows and movies.

On a Roku or Fire TV, my instinct is always to head right for the app where I want to watch something. But with the Chromecast, I’m equally happy browsing through Google’s rows of recommendations. The Google TV software always clearly shows where content is coming from — you can pick which streaming apps get factored into these recs — and it also provides helpful information (like Rotten Tomatoes ratings) at the surface level when you’re hunting for that night’s entertainment.

When you actually hit play, you’re punted over to Netflix or Prime Video or HBO Max just like always, but there’s no avoiding that. In terms of app selection, Google’s got all of the main players covered. You can still cast content to the Chromecast from your phone or laptop, and Google Assistant voice searches consistently work well and showcase Google’s accurate voice recognition.

Everything about Google TV feels tasteful, from the fonts to the way the background color subtly shifts to match the artwork of whatever content is highlighted. And the universal Watchlist, which lets you put together a list of stuff you’re interested in from various streaming services, is super convenient — especially since you can add to it from the web or your phone.

But not everything about the Chromecast with Google TV is perfect. The software can slow down from time to time, and some customers have encountered significant bugs that Google has tried to iron out with software updates. More annoyingly, despite the hardware supporting both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, there are still very popular apps like Disney Plus — which delivers both on other platforms — that aren’t doing so on the Chromecast. HBO Max says it does Atmos, but that hasn’t been my experience. Why? Who knows, but these inconsistencies are a mark against Google. And as for the Watchlist, some services like Netflix have already started removing their shows from it. Again, that’s something Google has no control over, but it does lessen the feature’s usefulness.

With its easy-to-use software, the Roku Streaming Stick Plus is the best streaming device for people looking for a good, simple option.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

2. Roku Streaming Stick Plus

The best streaming device for people who want to keep it simple

It’s hard to really complain about a Roku. The company’s streaming devices are about as simple and straightforward as they come. All of your apps are laid out in a big grid, which can make the experience feel a bit siloed — but there’s no beating that ease of use. And Roku has tried to touch up and modernize the home screen a bit with new sections like “Featured Free” to highlight content you can stream without any subscriptions.

Despite some occasional spats with content companies, Roku now has pretty much all of the entertainment you could want, including (most recently) HBO Max and Peacock. And the wonderfully neutral universal search remains one of the best aspects of the platform, favoring your existing subscriptions and free-to-stream options over making you pay money to rent or buy. And the company’s Roku Channel has grown into a legitimate streaming app of its own, offering a mix of ad-sponsored movies, TV shows, and live news for those days when you’re burned out on combing through Netflix or Amazon Prime Video.

The $50 Streaming Stick Plus remains the best overall pick among Roku’s hardware when you weigh price and performance. It gives you HDR, Dolby Atmos, and speedy performance. The main thing you’ll miss out on is Dolby Vision. If that’s a must, you should look at the $100 Roku Ultra set-top box instead, which also includes an Ethernet port for optional wired connectivity and a helpful remote finder feature. Plus, the Ultra’s remote has customizable shortcut buttons and a headphone jack so you can listen privately to whatever’s on-screen if you’re trying to keep quiet at night. (Other Rokus let you do the latter with the company’s mobile app.)

If there’s one area where Roku falls flat, it’s probably voice search. Your voice queries for specific shows or movies should work well enough, but Roku lags Amazon and Google when it comes to natural language interactions. (And forget about using your voice to control smart home gadgets or look up entertainment-related facts.) Still, the company is adding other perks to offset that weakness. Late last year, it added support for Apple’s AirPlay, letting you easily send content from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac to the TV screen. Speaking of Apple…

It’s more pricey than the competition, but the Apple TV 4K offers a top-notch user experience.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

3. Apple TV 4K

The best streaming device overall experience (for a steep price)

The Apple TV 4K is laughably overpriced compared to its competitors, but Apple’s set-top box still has its own set of appealing qualities. The interface is fantastic. It supports Dolby Vision and Atmos across a wide variety of services, has all of the important apps checked off, and also gives you add-ons like Apple Arcade and Apple Fitness Plus (if you pay for them) that you won’t find on other streaming devices.

Apps sometimes have a higher level of polish on Apple TV and are generally better about taking advantage of everything it can do. Another benefit of the Apple TV is privacy — to some extent. Apple itself isn’t obsessed with tracking your viewing data in the same way that a company like Roku is, but the streaming apps can still see what you’re doing. I generally think consumers aren’t particularly averse to sharing their streaming habits, but Apple’s privacy practices might matter to you.

Even with AirPlay now on Roku, the Apple TV still wins out for people deeply invested in Apple’s ecosystem. You can use HomePods as its speakers or connect two sets of AirPods for private listening with audio sharing. You can view the feed from HomeKit security cameras or see who is at the door if you have a HomeKit video doorbell. The Apple TV still makes it easy to tap into content on a Mac in your home, and services like Apple Music and iCloud Photo Library are right there in easy reach on the TV screen.

But there’s no forgiving the infamous remote, which is cumbersome to use and too easy to lose. And it’s more difficult than ever to recommend that you spend $180 on hardware that’s now several years old. Doing so isn’t wrong; you’ve just got to know why the Apple TV 4K is right for you.

The Fire TV Stick 4K checks off all the boxes for HDR support and costs just $50, making it the best streaming stick for people in Amazon’s ecosystem.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

4. Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K

The best streaming stick if you’re in Amazon’s ecosystem

Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K is yet another popular pick in that $50 range of streaming gadgets. The latest model added support for Dolby Vision, which made it the only product to offer everything HDR (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, HDR10+, HDR10) for such little money — until the new Chromecast came along.

The Fire TV Stick 4K’s software is similar to the Chromecast in that the home screen takes a content-focused approach instead of just throwing a grid of apps at you. Amazon tends to showcase its own Prime Video content more prominently than shows and movies from other services, but the newly revamped software goes a long way in improving the look and feel of the Fire TV. Alexa voice commands with the remote also work reliably, whether you’re saying “open Netflix” or asking to dim the smart lights in your living room.

Amazon offers most major streaming apps, but there are some frustrating omissions: Vudu — a good source of Dolby Vision movies — and Peacock are both still absent from the Fire TV platform.

There’s also the $120 Fire TV Cube to consider. It essentially doubles as a streaming device and small smart speaker. Rather than make you press and hold a button to speak to Alexa like with the Stick 4K, the Cube takes a hands-free approach and has beamforming mics that respond to “Alexa” prompts just like an Echo speaker would. It also features something Amazon calls Local Voice Control, which allows it to understand more spoken commands without needing help from the cloud. The Fire TV Cube has a more powerful processor than the Fire TV Stick 4K, making it the fastest of the Fire TV bunch, but the difference isn’t very noticeable.

When it comes to their streaming capabilities, the Fire TV Stick 4K and Fire TV Cube are on equal footing. And you could always put the money you save by going with the Stick toward one of those new sphere-shaped Echo Dots, which will sound far better than the Cube’s tinny built-in speaker.

Nvidia’s Shield TV is a powerful Android TV streaming box that’s popular with home theater enthusiasts.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

5. Nvidia Shield TV

Best streaming device for home theater enthusiasts and gamers

Home theater enthusiasts, gamers, and people who like to tinker with their streaming devices have loyally stuck with Nvidia’s Shield TV and Shield TV Pro for a reason. They can serve as excellent players like any of our other picks, but you can also go more advanced and use them for cloud gaming or set up a Plex media library (in the case of the Pro). GeForce Now and Steam Link probably do more to sell gamers on the Shield lineup versus something like Apple Arcade on the Apple TV.

The Nvidia Shields currently run Android TV with Google Assistant built in, but it’s expected they’ll eventually get the same Google TV experience that’s on the Chromecast. Nvidia’s AI-powered upscaling can eke out some extra detail from the shows and movies you stream, and I’d rate the included remote control (with backlit buttons, even) as the most ergonomic of them all.

But like with the Apple TV, the main hurdle here is the price. The Nvidia Shield TV costs $150, so you’re looking at spending $100 more than devices that offer most of the same functionality. You get Ethernet and a very powerful streaming device for the added premium, and you can push the Shield TV farther and make it do more than just about any of its competitors.

NASA’s Perseverance rover beams back first images from its wild landing

NASA just released a cache of tantalizing photos from its Perseverance rover after landing on Mars Thursday, with one showing the rover getting dropped off by the rocket-powered platform it used to gently descend on the Red Planet’s surface. Scientists are poring through hundreds of images and expect to release more — including videos and audio — in the coming days.

The first color image taken by Perseverance.

Photo: NASA/JPL

The SUV-sized Perseverance rover touched down at Mars’ Jezero crater at 3:55PM ET on Thursday, surviving a seven-month journey from Earth and a blazing hot, seven-minute plunge through the Martian atmosphere. A jetpack called Skycrane gently lowered Perseverance to the ground on a set of cables from 66 feet above the surface, and took a picture of the process. Once it landed, the rover then began snapping its own photos and beaming them back to Earth.

The number of photos from Perseverance so far is “more than I can count… a higher number than I can say on my hand,” Pauline Hwang, assistant strategic mission manager, said at a press conference on Friday.

Getting them back, she said, “was exhilarating, the team went wild … The scientists immediately just started looking at all those rocks and zooming in.”

A photo of Perseverance’s front right wheel, showing rocks in the background.

Photo: NASA/JPL

The photos already have scientists asking a slew of questions about Mars’ geology. One photo of the rover’s front right wheel shows in the background a few Martian rocks perforated with tiny holes.

“Depending on what the origins of these rocks is, the holes can mean different things,” Katie Morgan, the mission’s deputy project scientist, said. If the holes are of a volcanic origin, they could be tiny vessels left over from gases that escaped, called “vesicles.” If they’re sedimentary rocks, the holes could signal that they were shaped by a fluid.

“Really, we have to get our instruments out and look at these textures in fine detail to really help us make that determination,” Morgan said.

One of those instruments is called SuperCam, which sticks out of the top of the rover and looks like Perseverance’s robot head. SuperCam will target Martian rocks, zap them with a laser beam, and analyze the cloud of vapor it creates.

An image captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows Perseverance descending under its parachute moments before landing.

Photo: NASA/JPL

Another image NASA released on Friday was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a geology satellite circling Mars, showing Perseverance descending through the atmosphere under its parachute moments before touching down.

Adam Steltzner, Perseverance’s chief engineer, likened the trove of Martian images from the rover to the iconic first shots taken on the moon in the ’60s, and the first image of Saturn that “brought to life the experience of space exploration,” he said.

“How many people were brought into the act of exploring space by these fantastic, iconic images?” Steltzner said at the press conference. “Well, we can only hope in our efforts to engineer spacecraft and explore our solar system that we might be able to someday contribute yet another iconic image to this collection.”

Microsoft announces Office 2021, available for Windows and macOS later this year

Microsoft is announcing two new versions of Office today: a consumer Office 2021 version and Office LTSC for commercial customers. Office 2021 will be available later this year for both Windows and macOS, and similar to the previous Office 2019 release, it’s designed for those who don’t want to subscribe to the cloud-powered Microsoft 365 variants.

Microsoft isn’t fully detailing all of the features and changes in Office 2021 just yet, but the Office LTSC (Long-Term Servicing Channel) variant will include things like dark mode support, accessibility improvements, and features like Dynamic Arrays and XLOOKUP in Excel. Office 2021 will include similar features.

Don’t expect any major UI changes here, either. Dark mode is the obvious change visually, but Microsoft will still focus most of its interface and cloud-powered features on the Microsoft 365 versions of Office first.

Office LTSC is a clear recognition from Microsoft that not all of its business customers are ready to move to the cloud, though. “It’s just a matter of trying to meet customers where they are,” explains Jared Spataro, head of Microsoft 365, in an interview with The Verge. “We certainly have a lot of customers that have moved to the cloud over the last 10 months, that’s happened en masse really. At the same time, we definitely have customers who have specific scenarios where they don’t feel like they can move to the cloud.”

The new dark mode in Word.

Image: Microsoft

Those specific scenarios include regulated industries where processes and apps can’t change on a monthly basis, or manufacturing plants that rely on Office and want a locked-in time release. Microsoft is also committing to another perpetual version of Office for the future, but it’s changing up pricing and how these new versions will be supported.

Office LTSC will now only be supported for five years instead of the seven that Microsoft has typically provided for Office. Pricing for Office Professional Plus, Office Standard, and individual apps is also increasing 10 percent for commercial customers, with the Office 2021 consumer and small business pricing remaining the same.

The Office LTSC support timing aligns more closely with how Windows is supported, and Microsoft is also aligning its release schedules for both Office and Windows more closely as a result. Both of the next versions of Office LTSC and Windows 10 LTSC will be released in the second half of 2021. “They will be closely timed, although we don’t have the details yet for the Windows release,” says Spataro. “The idea is to bring them close together so that enterprises can deploy and manage them on a similar type of cadence.”

Microsoft is now planning to release a preview of Office LTSC in April, with a full release later this year. The consumer Office 2021 variant won’t be available in preview, though. Both of the new Office variants will also ship with OneNote and include 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

NASA is set for its most daring attempt to land on Mars in a search for ancient life

On February 18th, NASA will make a daring attempt to land a car-sized rover on Mars in its most complex mission yet to hunt for ancient extraterrestrial life. If it survives the plunge through the Red Planet’s atmosphere, the Perseverance rover will kick off the first leg of a grand relay race to capture humanity’s first cache of pristine Martian soil samples, among many other scientific objectives it hopes to score along the way.

What time will NASA’s Perseverance rover land on Mars?

Having traveled 293 million miles since its launch in July last year, the rover is now gearing up to execute the Solar System’s most grueling parking job ever. At around 3:48PM ET, Perseverance will begin its wicked seven-minute descent toward the Martian surface, hitting the planet’s atmosphere at speeds of roughly 12,100 miles per hour before being calmly deposited in a messy jungle of cliffs, massive boulders, and dangerously sandy pits at Mars’ Jezero Crater.

This illustration shows NASA’s Perseverance rover and its descent stage executing a “skycrane” maneuver for a safe touchdown at Mars’ Jezero Crater.

Image: NASA / JPL

In that fully autonomous landing sequence, the spacecraft carrying Perseverance will endure blazing heat, ditch its protective shell, and deploy a set of parachutes. As it approaches the surface, the spacecraft’s descent stage will fire onboard thrusters to slow itself down to a sedate 2 mph and hover some 66 feet above the surface. Then comes the “skycrane” technique: the descent stage, still firing its six mini rocket thrusters, will gently lower Perseverance on cables the rest of the way to the surface. Once the rover touches down, it’ll snip its cables, prompting the descent stage to take off, eventually landing far away from Perseverance.

How to watch Perseverance’s “seven minutes of terror”

To virtually join engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as they track Perseverance’s plunge into Mars, the agency will have live streams of NASA coverage and video and audio of mission control beginning at 2:15PM ET. Actual footage of the spacecraft’s landing will take about a week to beam back to Earth, but it’ll be worth the wait. Perseverance has 19 on-board cameras, and its landing gear has four, promising views of parachute deployment and other steps of its rapid descent.

If the landing choreography goes as planned, NASA would become the third spacefaring power this month to reach Mars after the United Arab Emirates and China. NASA has said some of the rover’s onboard instruments, like a tool that will try to convert Martian carbon dioxide to oxygen, are being tested to inform future astronaut missions to Mars under the agency’s Artemis program.

A high-stakes landing

Dozens of mission engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California have spent years planning, troubleshooting, mapping, and stressing over the seven-minute landing sequence. “Everything’s come down to that,” Al Chen, NASA’s entry, descent, and landing lead, said in an interview with The Verge. He calls his team of about 30 engineers working this week “glorified delivery guys.” But with a $2.7 billion rover, the stakes are much higher than your average drone-delivered Amazon package.

“We know that the rest of the mission, the surface mission and everything that comes afterward and the rest of the campaign, is depending on us. So we wanna make sure we don’t let anybody down,” Chen said. Making it even more nerve-wracking, an 11-minute communications delay between Mars and Earth means Perseverance will have to carry out its descent and landing all by itself.

Comparatively, NASA’s past Mars rovers had it easy. They also had to endure the infamous “seven minutes of terror,” but they got easier landing zones. NASA’s Opportunity rover was greeted by a flat, wide-open desert of the Martian Eagle Crater when it touched down in 2004. The Spirit rover’s Gusev Crater landing site and Curiosity’s site at the Gale Crater were similarly flat, dotted only with small rocks. A wholly different extraterrestrial landscape awaits Perseverance at the Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient river delta believed to bear traces of past life.

“We have this big 200-foot cliff wall going right through the middle” of the crater, Chen said. “There are a bunch of craters around the site that are full of sand, that even if we landed there it wouldn’t be safe to drive out of. And there are rocks in a lot of different places that we definitely don’t want to come down on.”

What will Perseverance do on Mars?

Why would NASA pick such a difficult region to land in? It’s “because the geology on Jezero crater is so exceptionally well-preserved,” said Briony Horgan, a scientist at Purdue University working on Mars Perseverance. Jezero’s 28-mile-wide diameter could be a goldmine for fossilized microorganisms, and its mix of different rock formations offers researchers a smorgasbord of potential samples. What’s more, scientists believe Jezero hosted a river delta about 3.5 billion years ago, preserving organic matter in muds long after it dried out.

“We think, based on looking at orbital data of the delta, that those muds that could contain signs of organic materials and life are actually preserved at the base of the delta at the cliffs,” Horgan said.

This is key for Perseverance’s primary mission: packing about 43 soil samples in cigar-sized tubes and depositing them across 5–10 different sites at Jezero. Those tubes will sit on the surface for years until a future “fetch” mission planned jointly by NASA and the European Space Agency arrives for pickup. That mission’s turn in the relay race will come in the late 2020s, when a fleet of four spacecraft and robots will work in concert to land on Mars, gather the sample tubes, and shoot a soccer ball-sized sample canister back into space for a journey home to Earth.

Perseverance’s secondary objectives include a mini-helicopter named Ingenuity. Detaching from the rover’s belly, the $85 million craft will attempt to fly in Mars’ ultrathin atmosphere up to five times during a month-long window that will begin a month or two after Perseverance lands. Using helicopter blades to traverse a planet with a much thinner atmosphere than Earth’s requires extra power and speed for the craft’s four-foot-wide propellers. If the flight demo succeeds as engineers hope, it would mark the first demonstration of vertical rotorcraft on another world and could unlock access to more volatile extraterrestrial regions that are too rough or slippery for more traditional grounded rovers.

An illustration showing NASA’s little Ingenuity helicopter carrying out its flight demonstration above the surface of Mars.

Image: NASA / JPL

Ingenuity, while weighing about as much as a half-gallon of milk, will have solar panels for power, its own communications hardware, and two cameras (one to record Martian landscapes during flight and another to help with navigation). Perseverance is also decked out with 19 cameras plus a few microphones that promise high-def audio of Martian wind. For engineers, the audio-visuals provide a means to monitor the rover’s instruments and make sure everything looks and sounds normal. A so-called SuperCam sticking out of the top of the rover — basically looking like Perseverance’s robot head — will fixate on Martian rocks, zap them with a laser beam, and analyze the cloud of vapor produced as a result.

Locating “tiny parking lots” on Mars

All that wild science and engineering hinges on a successful landing on Thursday.

Perseverance has 4.8 miles of cushion for its landing zone. For a mission millions of miles away to Mars, 4.8 miles is a tiny bull’s-eye, one that’s 10 times smaller than the flat surface the Curiosity rover landed on in 2012, and 300 times smaller than that of NASA’s first Mars rover, Sojourner, in 1997. Such tactical precision is made possible by two pieces of tech the other rovers didn’t have: a “Range Trigger” that will accurately shoot out Perseverance’s parachutes when it decelerates to 940mph during its descent, and an enhanced navigation system that links up with a Mars orbiter to calculate exactly where in Jezero the rover will land.

“It’s kinda like what people used to use in the car, looking out the car window and seeing what you see and then trying to figure out where you are by looking at your map,” Chen said. “We no longer need the entire [landing zone] to be a flat and boring parking lot of a runway, we just need tiny little parking lots that are interspersed that we can reach.”

YouTube TV is adding offline downloads and 4K streaming

If the monthly price for all of these streaming TV services is going to keep going up, the least they can do is throw in some new features and better video quality, right? That’s what YouTube says you can soon expect from YouTube TV; today, the company announced that in the coming weeks, the service will “introduce a new add-on package with 4K streaming, offline viewing, and unlimited concurrent streams at home.”

Unfortunately, a YouTube TV spokesperson didn’t have much else to share beyond the top-level news of these upcoming additions. It’s not clear whether there will be any limits on what channels or shows support offline downloads, nor is YouTube giving any examples of what content will be available in 4K. One would hope for some sporting events. Currently, customers have a maximum of three concurrent streams, but it seems like YouTube will be removing any such constraints so long as you’re viewing from home.

Offline viewing is pretty rare among the streaming TV apps. Hulu lets you download on-demand TV shows and movies to watch offline, but this doesn’t apply to recordings from its live TV service. Sling TV offers no such functionality, nor does AT&T TV.

The “add-on package” language suggests you’ll have to pay more than the standard $65 monthly subscription to access these features. YouTube TV raised its base subscription to that last June. But the company still advertises that, even as the cost increases, YouTube TV still doesn’t come with any hidden fees and offers unlimited cloud DVR space. The service has over 3 million customers.

Amazon is opening its first manufacturing line in India to produce Fire TV devices

Amazon is opening its first manufacturing line in India in a partnership with Foxconn-owned Cloud Network Technology, an India-based subsidiary of the Taiwanese electronics giant, Amazon announced on Tuesday. The partnership is part of an effort to work with the Indian government, which has embarked on a campaign to encourage companies to invest in the Indian economy to avoid roadblocks, like high import taxes to entering and competing in the country’s competitive and fast-growing economy.

The Indian government calls its campaign to encourage local investment and growth in India-based enterprises “Aatmanirbhar Bharat,” which translates to “self-reliant India” and has become a cornerstone of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic policy since its official introduction last year. “We welcome Amazon’s decision to set up a manufacturing line in Chennai, as it will enhance domestic production capacities, and create jobs as well,” said Ravi Shankar Prasad, the country’s minister for communications, electronics, and information, in a statement.

Tamil Nadu has been an essential partner for Amazon India & we are excited to launch our 1st manufacturing line in Chennai. This contributes directly to the local economy & showcases India’s ability to produce world-class products. @CMOTamilNadu @Guidance_TN @muruganandamias

— Amazon India News (@AmazonNews_IN) February 16, 2021

According to Amazon, the Chennai line will be capable of producing hundreds of thousands of devices every year, starting with the Fire TV line of streaming devices. The company says it will “continuously evaluate scaling capacity to additional marketplaces/cities depending on the domestic demand.” The announcement comes a year after Amazon said it would begin investing as much as $1 billion in local Indian businesses.

“Amazon is committed to partner with the Indian government to advance the vision of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat,” said Amit Agarwal, Amazon’s global senior vice president of Amazon India, in a statement. “We have pledged to invest US $1 billion to digitize 10 million small and medium businesses, help Indian businesses sell worldwide thereby enabling US $10B in cumulative exports, and create an additional 1MM jobs by 2025.”

Amazon’s heavy investment in India is more evidence of the country’s growing significance as both a prime market for Western consumer electronics and as a manufacturing center that can compete with China and other fast-growing production hubs. It’s also a sign that Modi’s aggressive foreign and economic policymaking is translating to successful infusions of outside investment, as Amazon, it seems, would rather create local jobs and work with established production partners than face potential restrictions on reaching Indian customers.