Bacteria harbor secret weapons against antibiotics

The ability of pathogenic bacteria to evolve resistance to antibiotic drugs poses a growing threat to human health worldwide. And scientists have now discovered that some of our microscopic enemies may be even craftier than we suspected, using hidden genetic changes to promote rapid evolution under stress and developing antibiotic resistance in more ways than previously thought. The results appear in a new paper in the journal Biomicrofluidics, from AIP Publishing.



In the paper, researchers from Princeton University in New Jersey describe how they observed two similar strains of E.coli bacteria quickly developing similar levels of antibiotic resistance using surprisingly different genetic mutations. Developing different solutions to the same problem shows the bacteria have a diverse arsenal of genetic "weapons" they can develop to fight antibiotics, potentially making them more versatile and difficult to defeat.


"Bacteria are clever -- they have hidden ways to respond to stress that involve re-sculpting their genomes," said Robert Austin, a biophysicist at Princeton who led the research team.


Realizing how effectively bacteria can survive drugs is a sobering thought, Austin said. "It teaches us that antibiotics have to be used much more carefully than they have been up to this point," he said.


Accelerating Evolution


Austin and his colleagues specialize in developing unique, fluid-filled microstructures to test theories of bacterial evolution. Instead of using test tubes or Petri dishes -- uniform environments that, Austin notes, exist only in the "ivied halls of academia" -- the researchers build devices that they believe better mimic natural ecological niches.


The team uses a custom-made microfluidic device that contains approximately 1,000 connected microhabitats in which populations of bacteria grow. The device generates complex gradients of food and antibiotic drugs similar to what might be found in natural bacterial habitats like the gut or other compartments inside a human body.


"In complex environments the emergence of resistance can be far more rapid and profound than would be expected from test tube experiments," Austin said.


From previous experiments with the complex microfabricated devices, the researchers knew that some ordinary, "wild-type" strains of E.coli bacteria quickly evolved antibiotic resistance. They wondered if a mutant strain called GASP, which reproduces more quickly with limited nutrients than the wild type, would develop the same type of antibiotic resistance when exposed to the same drug.


Secret Weapons Revealed


By sequencing the genomes of wild type and GASP bacterial colonies that has been exposed to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin (Cipro), the researchers found different genetic mutations could lead to similar levels of antibiotic resistance. For example, two different mutant strains emerged: one of the antibiotic-resistant GASP strains evolved in such a way that it no longer needed to make biofilms in order to survive stress. It did so by "borrowing" a piece of leftover DNA from a virus that infects bacteria. The other strain did not do this excision, indicating that in evolution the strains can hedge their bets.


Viruses routinely inject their own DNA into bacteria and sometimes DNA sequences remain that no longer seem to have any function in terms of viral replication. Under normal circumstances the leftover DNA may neither help nor hinder the bacteria, but in times of stress the bacteria can use the new DNA to rapidly evolve antibiotic resistant mutations.


The results demonstrate the subtlety and diversity of the tools that bacteria have to fight stress, said Austin. He wonders whether our remaining effective methods for killing bacteria, such as using ethanol to disinfect surfaces, are also vulnerable, and his team plans to test whether bacteria in their devices can evolve ethanol resistance.




Story Source:


The above story is based on materials provided by American Institute of Physics . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.



Everything You Need to Know About Today’s Apple Event


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Alex Washburn/WIRED



CUPERTINO, California—Today Apple unveiled a trifecta of new products that are surely sending worrisome ripples down the spines of the company’s competitors.


At a massive media event here at the Flint Center for Performing Arts, Apple announced two new large-screen iPhones, a new mobile payment platform, and an advanced touchscreen wristwatch. Judging by the numerous outbreaks of applause and the occasional standing ovation, the new products were met with great support by the huge audience of press, Apple employees, and VIPs from the entertainment, technology, and fashion industries.


But don’t worry if your eyes weren’t glued to the video livestream—or if you were one of the countless viewers who suffered from numerous drop-outs and technical problems and were left in the dark for much of the event. Here are the most important things you need to know about Apple’s big day.


The New iPhones: iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus


After a dramatic introductory video, Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller unveiled two new iPhone models today, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Both are styled with a smooth, brushed aluminum rear face that curves gently into the front face. They look like small iPads.


The iPhone 6 has a 4.7-inch display with a 1334×750 pixel resolution. The iPhone 6 Plus features a 5.5-inch screen with full HD 1920×1080 display resolution. Other than this size difference, the phones are essentially the same.


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Alex Washburn/WIRED



On the rear, they’ve got an 8-megapixel shooter with an f/2.2 aperture 8-megapixel camera. It’s got a new sensor and speedier autofocus. The 6 has digital image stabilization, but the 6 Plus also has additional optical image stabilization that uses its gyroscope and the M8 coprocessor to cancel out extra shakiness. The front-facing camera gets some new features like HDR and a burst-shot mode.


Inside, an A8 processor promises to be up to 87 percent more efficient than its predecessor, offering CPU processing power up to 25 percent faster and GPU speeds up to 50 percent faster than the iPhone 5s’ A7 chip. The M8 motion coprocessor, in addition to aiding in image stabilization, can now tell when you’re walking, running or cycling, and can give you credit if you’re traversing up and down stairs thanks to a barometer that detects changes in air pressure.


Both devices feature Touch ID home buttons and NFC (more on that in a sec). The iPhone 6 goes on sale Friday, September 19th starting at $200 on contract for 16 GB, $300 for 64 GB, and $400 for 128 GB. The iPhone 6 Plus starts at $100 more.


ApplePay, Apple’s Mobile Payment Initiative


“Payments is a huge business. Every day between credit and debit, we spend $12 billion, and that’s just in the United States,” Cook said to introduce what a huge space payments is—a huge space digital payments have yet to crack.


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Alex Washburn/WIRED



Working with American Express, MasterCard, and Visa, the new ApplePay system as been designed to work with over 220,000 merchants at launch, including familiar locations like Walgreens, Whole Foods, Macy’s, and Target. Using NFC, you simply tap your phone on a payment terminal to purchase things. It’s that easy. How it works is a bit more complicated though. It uses a combination of NFC, Touch ID, and a secure chip Apple calls the Secure Element. You add a card by snapping a photo of it, then getting verification from your bank. During a transaction, a unique device number, rather than the actual credit card information, is sent to the merchant along with a dynamic security code. Apple doesn’t collect your data—what you buy is between you and the merchant. And if you lose your iPhone, you can suspend payments with Apple’s standard-issue Find My Friends app without needing to cancel your actual credit card.


It will launch in the U.S. in October as an update to iOS 8.


Apple’s Wearable: The Apple Watch


The biggest question mark surrounding today’s event was whether Apple would actually unveil its long-rumored wearable computing product. The company did not disappoint. The Apple Watch is officially here.


“Apple watch is the most personal device we’ve ever created,” Cook said after receiving a standing ovation and a round of wild applause. Apple’s CEO calls it “a new intimate way to connect and communicate direction from your wrist.”


The timepiece, which is accurate to within plus or minus 50 milliseconds, is not just technologically impressive. It’s also quite stylish. The faces and the different hardware choices let you trick out the watch to match your own personal style.


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Alex Washburn/WIRED



The watch face looks very similar to a traditional watch, including a dial on the side that Apple calls the “digital crown” that translates movement into digital data. Apple kept some of the tech specs on the vague side—the product won’t actually ship until next year. What we do know is that the display is a sheet of sapphire, and inside is a custom designed chip encapsulated to protect the electronics. On the rear are four sapphire lenses which hold LEDs and photo sensors for detecting your heart rate.


With regards to looks, the Apple Watch is a bit of a chameleon. It comes in three editions: Apple Watch, Watch Sport, and Watch Edition. Apple Watch is the most basic, Watch Sport is more durable, and Watch Edition is more exotic and made of gold. There are six different straps you can mix and match to suit your needs: a quilted leather strap with a magnetic clasping band, a traditional leather buckle, a stainless steel link bracelet, and a mesh chain loop among the choices. The device comes in not just two band sizes, but two watch face sizes, to suit folks with different sized wrists.


But it’s not just the hardware that’s customizable. “With every breakthrough, Apple has also had to have a breakthrough in user interface,” Cook said. What Apple didn’t do, he says, is take the iPhone and shrink the interface and strap it on your wrist. The display is too small, and it would make for a terrible user experience. Instead the digital crown is a key part of the navigation experience, as are onscreen taps and swipes.


The menu screen is composed of bubbles of circular app icons you can arrange however you like, including grouping them by “neighborhood” of related apps. Twisting the crown zooms in and out on the group of apps. To open an app, you tap it. A feature called Glances lets you swipe upwards from the bottom of the screen to cycle through a customizable series of data screens. Siri is built into the watch, so you can dictate questions like “What movies are playing tonight?” A new feature called Digital Touch lets you select a contact then send a super-quick message just based on taps and drawings that your contact can then feel (via a vibration) when it reaches their wrist. It’s intended for messages that have a more personal context, and are a lot less wordy, than your usual text message.


The Apple Watch has a number of other apps including Maps, notifications from third party apps, and a lot of customizable watch faces. Third-party apps, like ones from American Airlines and W Hotels, are also on the way. A pair of Apple-built health and fitness apps use both the watch and your iPhone’s sensors to give you a holistic view of your daily activities, combining the features of a general activity tracker and an advanced sport watch.


The Apple Watch charges using an inductive charger that fits on the back of its rectangular face. There’s no word about exact battery life yet. Few details were given about pricing, as well. All we know is that the Apple Watch will start at $350, and that it will go on sale in early 2015.



Apple’s Watch Will Come With a Suite of Fitness-Tracking Apps


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In addition to being a wearable emoji-sender, heartbeat-sharer, and payment system, the Apple Watch will also be a fitness tracker. And although the watch won’t be available until early 2015, Apple provided a few details on how the wearable will track activity. The watch has its own accelerometer and heart-rate monitor, but it needs to be paired with an iPhone to track your distance traveled via GPS or Wi-Fi.


These features are of note because they add a new set of functions to Apple’s hardware stable, and they directly compete with offerings from long-time hardware partners who already make fitness tracking wearables like Jawbone, Fitbit and Garmin.


The Apple Watch has some standard features familiar to the fitness crowd. Its built-in Activity app has three modes, all of which display goals in a ring-shaped interface. In the “Move” display, it shows you how much you’ve been in motion during the day, gives you a running countdown to your 30-minute goal, and shows how many calories you’ve burned. The “Stand” display reminds you to stop sitting for at least a minute every 12 hours (see the photo above), and the “Exercise” ring will gauge harder-core activities like running.


Apple CEO Tim Cook talks about the new fitness-tracking capabilities of the new Apple Watch family.

Apple CEO Tim Cook talks about the new fitness-tracking capabilities of the new Apple Watch family. The company held a big media event in Cupertino, California on Tuesday morning. Alex Washburn/WIRED



There’s also a separate Workout app that can break your activities into more-specific groups, such as Running, Cycling, or Cross Training. All your stats and workout history are stored in a Fitness app, which gives you a dashboard of your workout sessions. You can share your workout stats with third-party apps via the watch’s Health app, too.


Even though all of that is standard-issue stuff for a fitness tracker, Apple’s HealthKit initiative is likely to play a major part in making all that workout data usable by other apps on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. The software package for developers will likely speed the growth of the ecosystem of apps built for the watch—though Apple has been largely silent on details about how or when those third-party apps will make their way onto its Watch.



Apple’s New Mobile Wallet Lets You Pay With a Tap of Your iPhone


Apple Pay will be accepted at more than 220,000 merchants

Apple Pay will be accepted at more than 220,000 merchants. Screenshot: WIRED



Apple’s new payment system Apple Pay lets people pay merchants using their iPhones. All of the major credit cards—American Express, MasterCard, and Visa—are on board, and will be accepted by more than 220,000 merchants at launch.


Using Apple Pay couldn’t be easier—simply tap your iPhone at a payment terminal. Apple CEO Tim Cook conceded that Apple isn’t the first to attempt replacing the card-based payment system we’ve known for decades, but so far no one’s had much luck.


“People have dreamed of replacing these for years,” Cook said. “But most have been a disappointment or not yet worked well enough for mainstream adoption.”


Instead of a card, Apple Pay uses the iPhone 6, the larger iPhone 6 Plus and the Apple Watch announced today. Want to make a payment? Tap your phone at a retailer’s payment terminal. The phone uses a combination of NFC, Touch ID, and a secure chip called the Secure Element to complete the payment. To add a card, simply snap a pic of it using the iPhone’s camera. After verifying with your bank, the card is added to Passbook. Apple doesn’t store the number, or transfer it to the merchant during a transaction. Instead, it has a device number that’s relayed during payments along with a dynamic security code. If you lose your iPhone, you can use Find My iPhone to suspend payments for that device without having to cancel your credit card.


Apple says that the banks included in Apple Pay make up 83 percent of all credit card purchases in the U.S., and it will be accepted by more than 220,000 retailers. Apple specifically called out Macy’s, Bloomingdales, Walgreens, Staples, McDonalds, and Whole Foods.



Everything You Need to Know About the Apple Watch


The new Apple Watch

The new Apple Watch Alex Washburn/WIRED



The wearable space just got bigger. Way bigger. Apple debuted its long-awaited wearable Tuesday, simply called Apple Watch.


There are actually three products: Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sport, and Apple Watch Edition. The differences between them are only apparent in the different materials (including aluminum, 18K gold, and pink gold) and wrist strap choices, which vary between feminine, masculine and youthful.


The Apple Watch starts at $350, and it will be available “early next year,” according to the company. Pricing for Apple Watch Sport and Apple Watch Edition were not announced at today’s event. The watch will require an iPhone to operate, but it works with the iPhone 5 or later and isn’t limited to just the new iPhone 6 devices.


The interfaces of all three phones are alike, and there are a number of standout features.


Instead of interfacing with the watch by touching the screen, which just gets your fingers in the way and blocks your view, you can navigate through the menus and apps by touching the crown. Twist it to zoom in and out of screens and menus. Press it and you go back to the home screen (just like on the iPhone).


There’s an additional button just beneath the crown. Tapping it brings up something Apple calls “Digital Touch” communication. It’s based around a list of friends you’ve communicated with recently. You can send small pictures and sketches to your friends with just a few taps.


The screen itself works much like a Retina display on iPhones and iPads, but it can also sense force. So the familiar two-dimensional touch input system gains a third, vertical dimension.


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Courtesy Apple



On the back, there’s a crystal with LEDs that can measure your heart rate—this adds health-tracking capability to the watch. Also on the back is a wireless, inductive charging mechanism. The charger attaches to the back of the watch via a magnet. There’s also vibrating mechanism on the back so you can get notifications and haptic feedback for each of your finger taps.


Raising your wrist awakens the display. When it pops to life, you see a simplified list of apps made just for the watch. There are also several watch faces to choose from. You get sporty, chrono-style faces, retro digital readouts, and even a whimsical Mickey Mouse face. You can customize the color of the face by rotating the crown, or swipe to change the contents of the face so it shows the date and other fields of information on its screen.


There are some health-tracking features to help you make your fitness goals for steps, calories burned, and so on. The watch also works with Apple Pay, the company’s new mobile payments system.


“We’ve been working on Apple watch for a long time,” Cook says. “It covered every discipline at Apple.”


Kevin Lynch, a new face on Apple’s media event stage who led the software effort, stepped onstage in Cupertino to give us the first live demo of the watch.


Apple wanted to build the watch so functions were easy to find and use. The menu screens are bubbles of circular app icons you can arrange how you like. You can arrange “neighborhoods” of apps. To open an app, you tap it.


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Apple also thought it was important to relay other information in a glanceable way. It does this using a new interaction it calls Glances, a swipe up from the bottom of the watch face. You can arrange these how you like, swapping through the water, the music you’re playing on other devices, et cetera. You can also send some sort of silly 3-D animated smiley face, allowing you to share a lot of emotion without doing a whole lot.


Siri is also built into the watch, so you can do things like ask what movies are playing tonight. You can use the crown or your finger to scroll through the list. There’s also a photo app. You can see an overview of photos, displayed in a grid-like Photostream, and you can use the crown to zoom into them, or swipe to scroll through them. You can pull up any collection of photos here.


In a map, you can pan around by swiping, you can also zoom out by rotating the crown. When you press the bottom left, it takes you back to where you are. There’s also a search command, you can search by diction or look through your favorites. Search a location like Whole Foods, you can get store information as well as directions for walking or driving.


A big key to whether the watch succeeds or fails is the buy-in of third-party developers. Using the new development software pack called WatchKit, developers can create rich, actionable notifications for the device. Apple has been busy with partnerships and client applications for the launch, as well. The watch can alert you to friend requests on Facebook. Twitter’s there too. For an incoming tweet, you can reply straight from the message. You can view things on your timeline, look at trending tweets, or tap the top to compose a tweet. For when you’re traveling, American Airlines has an app. You can even unlock hotel room doors at some hotels using the watch. You can also get notified when you’re walking near sight seeing spots you’ve pinned on Pinterest and get walking directions to them. The watch works with BMW cars, you can challenge friends to runs on the Nike app, and you can control things in your home using the Honeywell app.



Insecure Email Is Here to Stay: Let’s Fix It


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highwaycharlie/Flickr



In his thoughtful parsing of what email is and will become in The Atlantic , Alexis Madrigal writes that email is the “exciting landscape of freedom amidst the walled gardens of social networking and messaging services.” Email is easy, open, and ubiquitous. We spend as much as 80% of our workday in our email inbox and use email for important personal communication. The Radicati Group reported in 2012 that 144.8 billion emails are sent every single day. That’s 38 trillion emails a year. Email is here to stay.


Few would consider email to be a new technology. It’s been around for more than 30 years, but remember that it only started to take off in the 1990s alongside the Web. Most people started using it 20 years ago, and in three decades email hasn’t had much of an upgrade, especially when it comes to security.


Every email we send is insecure by default. While Google and Yahoo have taken positive steps to encrypt traffic, the basic protocols are still all plaintext, and forget about controlling the emails you compose after you hit send. While an email address routes your message to a recipient, there’s no ability to recall or encrypt messages baked into this 30-year-old standard.


Email is here to stay, but what’s also here to stay is the steady stream of gaffes and scandals created by the lack of security and control. Email is insecure by design. From Snowden’s leaks to Wikileaks, to every scandal that hits the newswire, all of these stories are rooted in email’s weak approach to securing information.


Case in point: just a few weeks ago Goldman Sachs mistakenly sent a sensitive email with account information to a random Gmail user because someone fumbled some keystrokes and sent to a “gmail.com” account instead of a “gs.com” account. The email contained such sensitive information that the only recourse Goldman had was to get a court order to require Google to retract the message. Just this month, the UK’s Information Commissioner “sounded the alarm” for lawyers in an attempt to get them to realize that unencrypted email is an unacceptable risk for privacy.


Recipe for Viral Success: The Embarrassing, Inadvertent Email


On a personal level, everyone who uses email understands the blunders and glitches that lead to sending an inappropriate email to the wrong recipient. Everyone understands what happens when people forward embarrassing emails to a larger group. While some have retreated to messaging apps that only allow messages to live for 10 seconds like Snapchat, most are still relying on email for both personal and professional communication.


Sending an unencrypted email with secret or embarrassing information in 2014 is not unlike placing a sensitive phone call to a small town in 1956 served by a shared “party” line that was typical for rural telephone service in the last century. Then as now, the potential for eavesdropping and for privacy violations is very much the same. The difference is that email blunders in 2014 are much, much riskier than a party line call was in 1956. An overheard phone call could lead to embarrassment or hurt feelings — an intercepted email can go viral.


From the Deranged Sorority Rant to a product rant from Bill Gates to Oxford University mistakenly emailing a list of the 50 worst performing students, this list could be extended to fill an entire page with illustrations of email’s inherent lack of security. Some of these incidents are famous, but most are not. The common theme is that they never needed to happen. If everyone agreed to start using sensible tools built atop standard email to give senders and recipients some semblance of control, these gaffes would be a thing of the past. Sure, we’d have less entertaining email scandals, but we’d all be more secure in the end.


Moving Beyond Trust, Securing Email


When you send an email, that email is plaintext and stored on someone’s servers. You are trusting the IT administrators at your company or your provider to not read through your email. When you send a highly personal email to a friend or loved one that contains information you wouldn’t want shared with the world, there’s absolutely no guarantee that your message is protected in transit or at rest — and, worse, there’s no ability to take back an embarrassing email sent to a recipient if something changes.


We need to use technology that can enforce access control and encrypt. When you send a message it should be cryptographically signed and verified as a matter of course. We need to make the idea of sending unencrypted emails that can’t be revoked or controlled seem as antiquated as an old telephone party line, and we have the technology to do this. Email needs an upgrade. Insecure standards need to be retired, and security and privacy need to be a priority. Whether you are motivated to act because of the security of your business or family, or you want to help put an end to government overreach and mass surveillance, it’s time to put our party line email system away and start encrypting end-to-end today.


John Ackerly is co-founder and CEO of the digital privacy company Virtru.



Penguins: The Ultimate Guide [Greg Laden's Blog]


There is a new book out on Penguins: Penguins: The Ultimate Guide written and edited by Tui De Roy, Mark Jones, and Julie Cornthwaite.


It is a beautiful coffee table style book full of information. All of the world’s species are covered (amazingly there are only 18 of them) and there are more than 400 excellent photos. The book covers penguin science (science about them, not by them). There is also quite a bit about their conservation.


The layout of the book is interesting. The last section of the book, by Julie Cornthwaite includes portraits of each species, and a compendium of interesting facts such as which is the fastest penguin, strange things about their bills, their odd moulting behavior, interesting color variants, how they “fly”, interesting mating facts, and what threatens them. Then there is a table organized taxonomically giving their status, population estimates, ranges, and main threats. Following this is a two page bird-guide type spread on each species, with a range map, photos, descriptions, information about their voice, breeding behavior, feeding behavior, etc. That is what you would expect in a book about penguins.


But the first, and largest, part(s) of the book provides its uniqueness. The first section, by Dui De Roy, covers penguins generally, or specific exemplar species or groups of species, to provide an overview of what penguin-ness is all about. The second section, edited by Mark Jones, consists of 17 essays by various experts on specific topics, such as how penguins store food, how they are tracked at sea, and penguin-human interaction. I would like to have seen more about penguin evolution (which is interesting) but the sparsity of coverage of that topic does not detract from the book’s overall quality.


If you are into birds, you probably don’t have a penguin book, so this will fill the bill. As it were. This is also one of those books that totally qualifies as a great present to give someone you know who has an interest in birds generally, or penguins in particular. I should also mention that there are a couple of pages in the back on where to see penguins. Warning: They don’t smell very good.


I recommend the book. The following video has nothing to do with the book, but there are penguins in it:



Meet Apple’s Super-Sized iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus


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As foretold by the rumors, Apple announced two new larger iPhone models today: the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Sized at 4.7-inches and 5.5-inches respectively, the phones sport a slick new style and landmark new features.


The iPhone 6 is priced at $200 for 16 GB, $300 for 64 GB, and $400 for 128 GB, with a two year contract. The larger iPhone 6 Plus commands a premium: $300 for 16 GB, $400 for 64 GB, and $500 for 128 GB. Both phones come in silver, gold, and black.


Pre-orders start this Friday, September 12, and the phones go on sale Friday the 19th.


Both phones sport new designs. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, with their larger displays, now feel reminiscent of a miniature iPad. The rear of each device is smooth brushed anodized aluminum that curves softly into its glass front face rather than being completely flat on the back with largely squared-off edges—the look the past four iPhones adopted. On the front, you’ve also got the familiar Touch ID home button.


The iPhone 6 has a 1334×750 display, the 6 Plus 1920×1080 display. That’s over 1 million pixels on the iPhone 6 and over 2 million on the iPhone 6 plus. These new display sizes use a new generation of Retina display Apple is calling Retina HD. The new reengineered displays use ion-strengthened glass on top, and on the bottom, an ultrathin backlight. Even with the larger display, Apple is promising the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will have equal or better battery life than the last generation of iPhones.


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Alex Washburn/WIRED



To use these big-screened phones, Apple’s introduced a few new software tricks to iOS. In the iPhone 6 Plus, the Messages app has a new horizontal split display. Stocks also has a two panel horizontal view, as does Mail. The keyboard takes advantage of the display area, too, and there’s a new horizontal homescreen view. These views obviously make better use of the increased screen real estate, but I wonder how easy it is to use with your fingers as you type.


You can also use swiping gestures for navigation in Mail, Messages, and Safari. There’s also a new gesture called reachability: If you double touch the home button, the display slides down so you can reach things at the top of the display without having to readjust your hand. This seems like a better solution than Samsung’s one-handed mode, but it’s still kind of awkward that it’s necessary.


Both phones will ship with iOS 8. Software updates will go out to older iPhones (the 4S and later) on September 17.


On the iPhone 6 line, Apple updated the camera hardware and software. Apple’s using a 8-megapixel camera with a f/2.2 aperture. There’s also a new sensor inside that’s an improvement over previous iPhone cameras, and a faster auto-focus. There’s the standard digital image stabilization at work in both phones, but in the bigger iPhone 6 Plus, there’s also an optical image stabilization system that uses the phone’s gyroscope and M8 processor to cancel out movements and shaking hands. Video is stabilized too, and there’s a new slow-mo mode that shoots at 240 fps.


Inside, a new A8 processor promises to keep things humming faster than any iPhone before, and the M8 chip has improved performance for motion-sensing and health-tracking. Working along side these updated processors is a new sensor: a barometer.


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Alex Washburn/WIRED




The 16 Coolest Things We Saw at Europe’s Biggest Gadget Show



Microsoft Nokia Lumia 830/730: New Lumias are here. The 830 is a mid-range, "affordable flagship" with a 5-inch display and 10-megapixel camera. It runs Windows Phone 8.1 Denim. The 730/735 is a cheaper "selfie phone" with a 4.7-inch OLED display and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera with a wide-angle, f/2.4 lens. These new Lumias are already available. The 730 starts at $200, and the 830 starts at $330. MAURIZIO PESCE



Microsoft Nokia Lumia 830/730: New Lumias are here. The 830 is a mid-range, "affordable flagship" with a 5-inch display and 10-megapixel camera. It runs Windows Phone 8.1 Denim. The 730/735 is a cheaper "selfie phone" with a 4.7-inch OLED display and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera with a wide-angle, f/2.4 lens. These new Lumias are already available. The 730 starts at $200, and the 830 starts at $330.


MAURIZIO PESCE



Aswy Levitating Bluetooth Speaker: Hundred of Bluetooth speakers were spread across the 25 halls of this year's IFA, but only one made me stop and stare. ASWY's floating speaker doesn't have the best sound, but it certainly looks intriguing as it levitates over a magnetic stand. Because there's a powerful magnet on the belly, you can also attach it to your fridge. It ships in November for $150. MAURIZIO PESCE



Aswy Levitating Bluetooth Speaker: Hundred of Bluetooth speakers were spread across the 25 halls of this year's IFA, but only one made me stop and stare. ASWY's floating speaker doesn't have the best sound, but it certainly looks intriguing as it levitates over a magnetic stand. Because there's a powerful magnet on the belly, you can also attach it to your fridge. It ships in November for $150.


MAURIZIO PESCE



De Longhi Multifry: It's a fryer that can also cook a perfect risotto, or even bake pizzas and cakes. The De'Longhi Multifry mixes and cooks your ingredients all in one place. And when it's fries time, it can fry 3.75 pounds of potatoes using just 0.5 ounces of oil. Choose one of four different models. Find it online around $200. MAURIZIO PESCE



De Longhi Multifry: It's a fryer that can also cook a perfect risotto, or even bake pizzas and cakes. The De'Longhi Multifry mixes and cooks your ingredients all in one place. And when it's fries time, it can fry 3.75 pounds of potatoes using just 0.5 ounces of oil. Choose one of four different models. Find it online around $200.


MAURIZIO PESCE



Dyson 360 Eye: It took Sir James Dyson's company 16 years to engineer the 360 Eye, its own powerful robot vacuum cleaner. A 360 degree camera sees, maps and navigates around your home while the internal vac sucks up particles as small as 0.5 microns. It lands in Japan next May, the rest of the world following shortly. No clue about the price. MAURIZIO PESCE



Dyson 360 Eye: It took Sir James Dyson's company 16 years to engineer the 360 Eye, its own powerful robot vacuum cleaner. A 360 degree camera sees, maps and navigates around your home while the internal vac sucks up particles as small as 0.5 microns. It lands in Japan next May, the rest of the world following shortly. No clue about the price.

MAURIZIO PESCE



Huawei Ascend Mate 7: If you're considering a bigger screen, Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is certainly one of the choices on the table: it features a HiSilicon Kirin 1.8 GHz octa-core processor and a fingerprint sensor on the back to unlock the device. The fully aluminium body has an f/2.0 13-megapixel camera capable of recording 1920 x 1080 HD video. MAURIZIO PESCE



Huawei Ascend Mate 7: If you're considering a bigger screen, Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is certainly one of the choices on the table: it features a HiSilicon Kirin 1.8 GHz octa-core processor and a fingerprint sensor on the back to unlock the device. The fully aluminium body has an f/2.0 13-megapixel camera capable of recording 1920 x 1080 HD video.


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Kobo Aura H2O: Kobo's new Aura H2O e-reader not only is waterproof, but also features a brilliant display. Its extra-large Carta e-Ink HD 6.8-inch screen has 1430 x 1080 pixel resolution at 265 DPI, and a traveller-friendly two months of battery life. Kobo's user interface has also been revised, and it's a little more "Kindley." On sale now for $180. MAURIZIO PESCE



Kobo Aura H2O: Kobo's new Aura H2O e-reader not only is waterproof, but also features a brilliant display. Its extra-large Carta e-Ink HD 6.8-inch screen has 1430 x 1080 pixel resolution at 265 DPI, and a traveller-friendly two months of battery life. Kobo's user interface has also been revised, and it's a little more "Kindley." On sale now for $180.


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LG G Watch R: Finally, a smartwatch that looks like a real watch. LG's first Android Wear gadget was bulky and weird, but the new G Watch R is rounded and sleek. Its 1.3-inch P-OLED display is fully circular with 320 x 320 pixels resolution and a 300-nit luminance that's bright enough for the outdoors. There's a heart-rate sensor on the back. It's launching in October and we expect it to cost around $200, maybe more. MAURIZIO PESCE



LG G Watch R: Finally, a smartwatch that looks like a real watch. LG's first Android Wear gadget was bulky and weird, but the new G Watch R is rounded and sleek. Its 1.3-inch P-OLED display is fully circular with 320 x 320 pixels resolution and a 300-nit luminance that's bright enough for the outdoors. There's a heart-rate sensor on the back. It's launching in October and we expect it to cost around $200, maybe more.


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Moto X and Moto G: While its much-awaited Moto 360 watch got most of the attention, Motorola also debuted the next generation of its phones. The Moto X is a premium 4G device; the Moto G is 3G only. MAURIZIO PESCE



Moto X and Moto G: While its much-awaited Moto 360 watch got most of the attention, Motorola also debuted the next generation of its phones. The Moto X is a premium 4G device; the Moto G is 3G only.


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Moto X and Moto G: The Moto X can be personalized with more colors and materials, like leather and bamboo. The new Moto G features a 5-inch HD display and frontal stereo speakers. Both will arrive in October. MAURIZIO PESCE



Moto X and Moto G: The Moto X can be personalized with more colors and materials, like leather and bamboo. The new Moto G features a 5-inch HD display and frontal stereo speakers. Both will arrive in October.


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Robomow MC Series: A Roomba for your garden. Robomow robotic lawn movers can cover up to 32,000 square feet cruising automatically. Just set the preferred grass height and it chomps away. The robot can also be remote-controlled from your iOS or Android device while you sip an iced tea on the sofa. Robomow is already available, starting at $1,100. MAURIZIO PESCE



Robomow MC Series: A Roomba for your garden. Robomow robotic lawn movers can cover up to 32,000 square feet cruising automatically. Just set the preferred grass height and it chomps away. The robot can also be remote-controlled from your iOS or Android device while you sip an iced tea on the sofa. Robomow is already available, starting at $1,100.


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Samsung Gear Edge: A Note 4 with a twist. Galaxy Note Edge's curved screen is super-brilliant and folds on the right side. We'll have to wait for third-party apps to support the edge display. For now, it has just a bunch of widgets: notifications, news feeds from Yahoo!, and the NFL, with pictures, links to your Twitter handles, or a menu of main applications. No announcement yet about a U.S. release date. MAURIZIO PESCE



Samsung Gear Edge: A Note 4 with a twist. Galaxy Note Edge's curved screen is super-brilliant and folds on the right side. We'll have to wait for third-party apps to support the edge display. For now, it has just a bunch of widgets: notifications, news feeds from Yahoo!, and the NFL, with pictures, links to your Twitter handles, or a menu of main applications. No announcement yet about a U.S. release date.


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Samsung Gear VR: The biggest surprise this year: Samsung's Gear VR. Developed in partnership with Oculus, the light head mount works as an accessory with the latest Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge. Put it on your face and it gives a surprisingly authentic stereoscopic 3D effect with 360-degree visuals. Currently in beta testing, the device is expected to ship at the end of the year for $200. MAURIZIO PESCE



Samsung Gear VR: The biggest surprise this year: Samsung's Gear VR. Developed in partnership with Oculus, the light head mount works as an accessory with the latest Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge. Put it on your face and it gives a surprisingly authentic stereoscopic 3D effect with 360-degree visuals. Currently in beta testing, the device is expected to ship at the end of the year for $200.


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Sony ILCE-QX1: Last year at IFA, we thought smartphone clip-on cameras were crazy enough to actually be a brilliant idea. A year later, they haven't made a splash. But Sony is giving it another shot with the ILCE-QX1. It features a 20-megapixel APS-C sensor, a pop-up flash, and an interchangeable lens E-mount. Will it catch on? Spend $400 and find out. MAURIZIO PESCE



Sony ILCE-QX1: Last year at IFA, we thought smartphone clip-on cameras were crazy enough to actually be a brilliant idea. A year later, they haven't made a splash. But Sony is giving it another shot with the ILCE-QX1. It features a 20-megapixel APS-C sensor, a pop-up flash, and an interchangeable lens E-mount. Will it catch on? Spend $400 and find out.

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Technics Premium Class C700 Series: The iconic audio brand is back in business. Technics' first new hi-fi product line in six years is made of classy brushed aluminum. The system includes a CD player, a network player with both digital and analog connections, an integrated stereo amplifier, and two stereo speakers. Available starting next December, it is rumored to be priced around $5,000. MAURIZIO PESCE



Technics Premium Class C700 Series: The iconic audio brand is back in business. Technics' first new hi-fi product line in six years is made of classy brushed aluminum. The system includes a CD player, a network player with both digital and analog connections, an integrated stereo amplifier, and two stereo speakers. Available starting next December, it is rumored to be priced around $5,000.


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Toshiba Smart Mirror: Start the day with all the information you need without reaching for your phone. It welcomes you with a cheery "Good Morning!" before showing you weather forecasts and your daily schedule, along with your fitness stats of the previous day like steps and distance, and calories burnt. It's still a prototype, and there's no evidence that Toshiba will endeavor to bring it to market anytime soon. MAURIZIO PESCE



Toshiba Smart Mirror: Start the day with all the information you need without reaching for your phone. It welcomes you with a cheery "Good Morning!" before showing you weather forecasts and your daily schedule, along with your fitness stats of the previous day like steps and distance, and calories burnt. It's still a prototype, and there's no evidence that Toshiba will endeavor to bring it to market anytime soon.


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It's an all-seeing eye for your home. Withings' HD camera pod does motion and noise detection, records cloud-stored videos, and sends phone notifications. It has 135-degree wide-angle zoom and night vision mode, and it also features crying detection if you want to use it as a baby monitor. Oh yeah, and it senses air quality, and measures temperature and humidity. Coming soon to Amazon and Apple Stores. $220. MAURIZIO PESCE



It's an all-seeing eye for your home. Withings' HD camera pod does motion and noise detection, records cloud-stored videos, and sends phone notifications. It has 135-degree wide-angle zoom and night vision mode, and it also features crying detection if you want to use it as a baby monitor. Oh yeah, and it senses air quality, and measures temperature and humidity. Coming soon to Amazon and Apple Stores. $220.


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