After breaking from Huawei, Honor has made the case that, in Europe at least, it is Samsung’s true rival in the Android space. In the last three years, it has offered flagship phones that are spec-for-spec the equal of whatever that year’s S-series is packing. Sadly, it’s also doing this at a time when the spec arms race is all but done, and it’s harder than ever to actually stand out amongst the crowd. The Magic 5 Pro doesn’t deviate from the template laid down by its two predecessors, so Honor can’t play on your neophilia as a reason to buy it. But there might be something in the sheer muscularity of its offering that could tempt you into making the switch.

The Magic 5 Pro is making its debut at MWC in Barcelona, and will be sold in both Europe and China. Design-wise, it’s close to its predecessor, but Honor says the new handset apes the sweeping, organic curves favored by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. Where the Magic 4 Pro had a fairly hard line around its camera hump – sorry, Eye of Muse – here the back cover pours itself into the bump quite seamlessly. It’s comfortable enough in your hand and light enough to hold, but you’ll need the case to keep things pristine. It’s available in fingerprint-magnet piano Black and Meadow Green, which looks nicer in person than it does in photos.

Honor

A sense of evolution, rather than revolution, continues along the rest of the spec list, with little major difference between the Magic 4 and its replacement. The “Quad Curved Floating Screen” is, like the Magic 4, a 6.81-inch, 120Hz, LTPO OLED display with a 2,848 x 1,312 resolution that curves into the frame. Honor says that the enhancements are mostly behind the scenes, with a new discrete display chipset for better video quality and better brightness. Whereas the Magic 4 could muster up 1,000 nits, its successor can crank out 1,300 nits, or 1,800 nits at peak.

Nestled inside is a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, up from the Gen 1 found on the Magic 4, matching the silicon inside the S23, which is paired with 12GB RAM and 512GB storage. Although Honor can’t call upon the same overclocking magic found in Samsung’s handset, it does say its AI-infused performance software will do a similar job. Sadly, I had all of ten minutes to spend with the handset and so there wasn’t the chance to do any serious stress testing. But history tells us that a handset this chock-full of gear is hardly going to be a slouch.

A 5,100mAh battery is powering the show here, a significantly bigger battery than the 4,500 found on the 4. This, I suspect, is the reason this handset is four grams heavier than the last one, but what’s a couple of grams between friends, eh? That cell will accept 66W wired or 50W wireless charging, if you have the necessary Honor SuperCharge stand in your home. As I said above, this is more or less what you’d expect with any Android flagship these days.

The major selling point for a handset like this is the camera, and Honor is doing its usual job here. Magic 5 Pro comes with a “Star Wheel” version of its “Eye of Muse” camera ring, packed with three beefy lenses jutting out from the back. First is a 50-megapixel, f/1.6 lens with a custom 1/1.12-inch sensor, the manufacturer of which I don’t yet know. That’s paired with a 50-megapixel, f/2.0 ultra-wide camera with a 122-degree field of view and a 50-megapixel, f/3.0 periscope telephoto with a 3.5x optical zoom and 100x digital zoom connected to Sony’s IMX858 image sensor. Less attention is given to the forward facing camera, which is probably the same 12-megapixel, f/2.4 unit paired with a 3D depth camera as found in the Magic 4 Pro.

(Those with long memories, or access to Google, will recall that the Magic 4 Pro’s telephoto lens had a quoted resolution of 64-megapixels. An Honor spokesperson said that the switch is down to an improvement in sensor size, and the new image engine will offer “far better light sensing.”)

Daniel Cooper

Supporting the headline trio is, again, an 8x8 Direct Time of Flight Sensor for laser focusing, a multi-spectrum color temperature and flicker sensor. Those will all add muscle to the handset’s upgraded image engine, promising faster capture, better HDR and higher quality computational photography. The company hinted about further improvements to the stills shooting, and while the video-shooting abilities garnered nary a mention, it’ll still output (compressed) “Log” footage using Honor’s proprietary Magic-Log format.

As for what you can do with those lenses, Honor is making the same noises it’s always made about its class-leading imaging. As well as a Dxomark score of 152, the company — before the handset was even announced – bragged that the Magic 5 Pro’s camera was good enough to capture a Guinness World Record in the making. And that its AI smarts were capable of plucking a single, perfect frame of a basketballer mid-dunk that was worthy of sharing.

Now, we must always treat these pledges as they’re intended, knowing that they mean nothing until we’ve tried to replicate those results ourselves. As we learned last year when we really tested the Magic 4 Pro’s promise of 4K video shooting, promises are cheaper than delivering.

One thing that’s clear about so many handsets these days is that companies are looking for marginal gains all over the package. For instance, Honor says the Magic 5 Pro has discrete Bluetooth and WiFi antennas which should boost download speeds and improve the reliability of your Bluetooth connection. It’s hard to see if those are current gripes with a wide number of users, but it’s good to see some thought put to improving matters.

And Honor has also revived a much-ballyhooed, rarely-loved gimmick feature in the form of air gestures. Now, you can control elements of your phone’s UI from a foot over the top of the front facing camera, when you’re trying to browse recipes with messy hands. Honor says that their return is thanks to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2’s additional power, which is capable of watching your hand movements without putting too much pressure on the system-on-chip.

Now, I only had about ten minutes of time with the handset, and there wasn’t a whole lot of stuff I could do to put it through its paces. I will say that I’m expecting the imaging performance to be a lot snappier than what was available on the demo unit, which felt a little sluggish. And that while nobody’s expecting any smartphone maker to reinvent the wheel, there’s fewer marks on offer for polish. As I said at the top, my initial impression of Honor’s Magic 5 Pro is of a handset that doesn’t deviate from the template laid down by its two immediate predecessors, but one that’s been polished to a very high shine.

Sadly, Honor was keeping details of the Magic 5 Pro’s price a secret until the conclusion of its press conference. And so, this section will be fleshed out as soon as we have the information about how much this thing will cost, and when you get it. But I suspect that Honor will need to trim its asking price if it wants to tempt away folks who, right now, have sworn their brand allegiance to Samsung.

It’s now going to be harder to land in “Facebook jail.” Meta says it’s reforming its penalty system so that people are less likely to have their accounts restricted for less serious violations of the company’s rules.

“Under the new system, we will focus on helping people understand why we have removed their content, which is shown to be more effective at preventing re-offending, rather than so quickly restricting their ability to post,” Meta explains in a blog post. “We will still apply account restrictions to persistent violators, typically beginning at the seventh violation, after we’ve given sufficient warnings and explanations to help the person understand why we removed their content.”

Previously, users could land in “Facebook jail,” which could prevent them from posting on the platform for 30 days at a time, for relatively minor infractions. Meta says that it sometimes imposed these types of penalties mistakenly due to “missed context.” For example, someone who jokingly told a friend they would “kidnap” them, or posted a friend’s address in order to invite others to an event, may have been wrongly penalized. These punishments were not just unfair for “well-intentioned” users, but in some cases actually made it more difficult for the company to identify actual bad actors.

With the new system, users may still be restricted from certain features, like posting in groups, following a strike, but will still be able to post elsewhere on the service. Longer, thirty-day restrictions will be reserved for a user’s tenth strike, though the company may impose more restrictions for “severe” rule violations. Facebook users will be able to to view their past violations and details about account restrictions in the “Account Status” seduction of the app.

Meta notes that the overhaul comes as a result of feedback from the Oversight Board, which has repeatedly criticized Meta for not providing users with information about why their posts were removed. In a statement following Meta’s new policy, the board said the changes were “a welcome step in the right direction,” but that “room for improvement remains.”

The board notes that the latest changes don’t do anything to address “severe strikes,” which can have an outsize impact on activists and journalists, especially when the company makes a mistake. The Oversight Board also said that Meta should provide users the opportunity to add context to their appeals, and that the information should be available to its moderators.

If you're looking to take the first step toward improving your home audio setup beyond your devices' built-in speakers, IKEA and Sonos' Symfonisk lineup is a solid way to get started. The range of WiFi speakers includes several products designed to blend into your home, including one designed to look like artwork. Even better, the Symfonisk picture frame is currently on sale for $195, which is $65 off the regular price, until February 26th. It's available in black and white.

The Symfonisk picture frame is part of the Sonos ecosystem, so it should play nicely with any other speakers you have from the company. It's compatible with AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect, and you can use it to play audio from a host of streaming services. Moreover, you can pair two of the speakers together for stereo sound.

In addition to having the option to wall hang the Symfonisk picture frame, you'll be able to flip out its feet and rest it against a wall or other surface. In truth, the "picture frame" descriptor is a little misleading, since you can't simply drop in your favorite photo of your loved ones. However, you can swap the front panel for a different look or use third-party services to print custom covers.

Microsoft launched its Bing AI chat product for the Edge browser last week, and it's been in the news ever since — but not always for the right reasons. Our initial impressions were strong, as it offered up workout routines, travel itineraries and more without a hitch. 

However, users started noticing that Bing's bot gave incorrect information, berated users for wasting its time and even exhibited "unhinged" behavior. In one bizarre conversation, it refused to give listings for Avatar: The Way of the Water, insisting the movie hadn't come out yet because it was still 2022. It then called the user "unreasonable and stubborn" when they tried to tell Bing it was wrong.

Now, Microsoft has released a blog post explaining what's been happening and how it's addressing the issues. To start with, the company admitted that it didn't envision Bing's AI being used for "general discovery of the world and for social entertainment."

Those "long, extended chat sessions of 15 or more questions" can send things off the rails. "Bing can become repetitive or be prompted/provoked to give responses that are not necessarily helpful or in line with our designed tone," the company said. That apparently occurs because question after question can cause the bot to "forget" what it was trying to answer in the first place. To fix that, Microsoft may add a tool that lets you reset the search context or start from scratch. 

The other issue is more complex and interesting: "The model at times tries to respond or reflect in the tone in which it is being asked to provide responses that can lead to a style we didn’t intend," Microsoft wrote. It takes a lot of prompting to get that to happen, but the engineers think they might be able to fix it by giving users more control. 

Despite those issues, testers have generally given Bing's AI good marks on citations and references for search, Microsoft said, though it needs to improve with "very timely data like live sports scores." It's also looking to improve factual answers for things like financial reports by boosting grounding data by four times. It's also "adding a toggle that gives you more control on the precision vs. creativity of the answer to tailor to your query."

The Bing team thanked users for the testing to date, saying it "helps us improve the product for everyone." At the same time, it expressed surprise that folks would spend up to two hours in chat sessions. They'll no doubt be just as diligent trying to break any new updates, too, so we could be in for an interesting ride until it's perfected. 

Plex now has the capability to skip intros and credits, so you don't have to sit through them if you don't want to. The streaming media service has introduced its new "Skip Credits" feature, a couple of years after a similar feature debuted for intros, and it shows up as a button at the bottom right corner of the screen. It appears the moment credits start rolling, allowing you to play the next episode in a series or to automatically jump to a mid- or post-credit scene in a movie with a single click. 

This new credit detection feature is available throughout Plex's entire free streaming catalogue, giving it a viewing experience similar to Netflix's in that regard. But you can also enable it for your personal collection, so long as you have Plex Pass subscription, which will set you back $5 a month or $40 a year. The company said it developed its own Skip Credits technology by training a machine learning algorithm to be able to detect markers like text and dark frames. It admits that the feature might still have a few hiccups and might not work as intended all the time, but it said those cases "should be few and far between."

If you want to enable Skip Credits for your collection, you'll need to have the latest Plex Media Server and perform "Analyze" on your whole library. Plex will then analyze your collection, say as a scheduled task and whenever new media is added, in order to identify when credits begin in your shows and movies. Since analyzing users' libraries to detect end credits use a lot of processing power — and "all that processing isn't cheap," the company said — Plex built a cloud-based repository where it will store users' results. It will allow you to get back your results in seconds if you need to do a clean install or to rebuild your whole library. 

Dead by Daylight features a roster full of memorable killers. If horror icons like Freddy Krueger and Pyramid Head aren’t your thing, you can turn to more original additions like Ji-woon, a K-pop star turned serial killer. The game’s newest killer fits in that latter mold. Adriana Imai, aka The Skull Merchant, is a wealthy tech executive who, when she’s not eliminating competition like any good monopolist, uses the skulls of her past victims to craft aerial drones to hunt her next kill. A bit on the nose? Definitely, but she looks to add something new to a game that has been around since 2016.

The Skull Merchant’s power, Eyes in the Sky, allows her to send up to four drones to scout for the survivors she’s tasked with eliminating. Once Imai finds her targets, she can use a hand claw to eliminate them. Alongside Imai, Dead by Daylight developer Behavior Interactive is adding two new survivors as part of the game’s upcoming “Tools of Torment” update. Thalita and Renato Lyra are siblings who hail from Brazil. Before they had the misfortune of being tossed into the hellscape that is Dead by Daylight's world, Thalita and Renato owned a kite-flying business that mentored kids in their local community. The two come with teamwork perks that prompt cooperative play.

Tools of Torment won’t introduce a new map, but it will come with a tweak to the game’s existing Shelter Woods arena that adds The Skull Merchant’s hunting ground. You can play the update starting on March 7th when it arrives on PC and consoles.

Verizon says its Fios 2 Gig plan, its fastest broadband service, is now available across New York City’s five boroughs. However, your mileage may vary since the company hasn’t clarified what portion of the areas are covered. A year ago, it began rolling out the service in “select areas” of NYC.

The Fios 2 Gig plan is part of Verizon’s fiber-optic network, which can be faster and more reliable than cable internet. The plan technically starts at $95 per month, but depending on your setup, your monthly fee could be as high as $120. That’s because the lower price is only available for existing Verizon Wireless customers on specific plans (5G Do More, 5G Play More, 5G Get More or One Unlimited for iPhone plans) who sign up for autopay. (Skipping autopay will add another $10 to your bill.) There’s also a $99 setup fee.

In addition, the company says the advertised pricing is only valid through April 12. However, it does promise a four-year price guarantee if you’re a new customer who hasn’t subscribed to Verizon Home Internet in the last 180 days.

The service’s wired download and upload speeds are symmetrical, and Verizon says you can typically expect between 1.5Gbps and 2.3Gbps for a wired connection. (As always, wireless streaming will be lower.) In addition, the Fios 2 Gig plan includes a router rental with up to three WiFi extenders, although you’ll have to request those — and self-setup customers only get up to two extenders. However, the company will let you rent or purchase additional ones.

In short, there is fine print aplenty, so read carefully before signing up.

Google Fiber is launching the 5Gbps internet plan it began testing in October. The service will initially cover four cities, but Google says the $125-per-month service will expand to other areas later this year.

The new plan is available today in Kansas City,West Des Moines and Fiber’s Utah cities. It has symmetrical upload and download rates, an upgraded 10 Gig Fiber Jack (the small box housing the fiber cable’s entrance into your home), professional installation, a WiFi 6 router and up to two mesh network extenders.

Although 5Gbps speeds could be overkill for most households, they could come in handy for creative professionals, gamers or others who need minimal latency or transfer large files frequently. For example, a 150GB Microsoft Flight Simulator download that takes 11 minutes at 2Gbps would only take about three minutes at 6Gbps (under ideal conditions, anyway).

The upgraded speeds are part of Google’s rejuvenated focus on Fiber. The company also recently announced its first network expansion in years. But, perhaps more crucially, it reestablishes Fiber as an industry disrupter pushing competitors to upgrade speeds and lower prices (maybe) on existing plans. Comcast already offers 6Gbps service in some areas, but it costs a whopping $300 and doesn’t include symmetrical uploads.

Google also reiterated that Fiber’s 8Gbps option, also announced late last year, is still “coming soon.” That service will also include symmetrical uploads and downloads.

Despite pumping the brakes on some growth plans and recently saying it would lay off more than 18,000 people, Amazon is still looking to expand its empire. The company intends to “go big” on its brick-and-mortar grocery store business, CEO Andy Jassy told the Financial Times.

Amazon bought Whole Foods in 2017 for $13.7 billion, but the company is far from dominating the grocery market like it has so many other sectors. The company's physical store division accounts for 3.4 percent of overall business and has grown only around 10 percent since the Whole Foods acquisition.

“We’re just still in the early stages,” Jassy told the Financial Times. “We’re hopeful that in 2023, we have a format that we want to go big on, on the physical side. We have a history of doing a lot of experimentation and doing it quickly. And then, when we find something that we like, doubling down on it, which is what we intend to do.”

Many of the layoffs Amazon recently announced were in its grocery division. It has closed several of its Fresh supermarkets and put plans to open new ones on hold as it tries to find a format and formula that works. Jassy noted that many Fresh locations opened in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and as such Amazon hasn't "had a lot of normalcy."

The physical retail business has struggled on other fronts. Almost a year ago, Amazon said it was closing all of its bookstores, 4-star shops and pop-up locations across the US and UK. The aim at the time was to focus more on the grocery side of things as well as physical clothing stores. However, Amazon took a $720 million hit last quarter due to slowing down its grocery expansion plans.

You might not have to pay much to bolster your smart home's security. Amazon is selling Blink devices for up to 43 percent off, including a Video Doorbell plus Sync Module for $60 (normally $85) — that's near an all-time low, You can also get the doorbell by itself for just $40 if you already have sync hardware. Most camera kits are also on sale, starting at $70 (normally $100) for the weather-ready Blink Outdoor.

Blink is effectively the budget counterpart to Amazon's Ring brand, but that's not necessarily a bad thing — you're getting a lot of functionality at a lower price. The Video Doorbell supports both wired and wireless connections, offers two-way audio, captures infrared footage at night and gives you the choice of either storing clips locally (on a USB drive) or in the cloud with a subscription plan. It ties into Alexa devices, too, so it may be your ideal doorbell you have an Echo Show.

The Blink Indoor and Outdoor models, meanwhile, remain our top picks for wireless security cameras. You get much of the same flexibility as with the doorbell, including a peak two years of battery life. Again, you'll have to invest in the Alexa ecosystem to make the most of these products. If you can live with that, though, you might not have many complaints.

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