If you’re into big phones, or phablets as they’re also known, we’ve just reviewed a standout. DT’s mobile editor Malarie Gokey has just spend some quality time with the new Samsung Galaxy Note 7, and she was impressed to say the least. The sleek android device features a 5.7-inch AMOLED screen, slim profile, a speedy Snapdragon 820 heart, 4 gigs of RAM with 64gigs or storage standard, and an iris scanner for security.
You can load in up to 256gigs of additional storage using a micro SD card and the phone is pretty much waterproof as well. There’s a 12-megapixel rear camera that takes great photos, but the coolest feature is the S-Pen stylus that tucks into the body. If you’re the arty drawing type – like Malarie is – this is definitely the phone for you. At $850 it ain’t cheap, but you get a lot for the money. Check out Malarie’s full review right here.
NSA hackers make big claims, are they true?
Some scary news from the dark side of the internet: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a hacker outfit called “the Shadow Brokers” is claiming they’ve lifted the NSA’s entire cyber warfare toolchest – and are offering it up online for sale. That’s a big claim to make but multiple computer experts say that router hacking code posted by the group as an example of what they have looks to be the real thing.
The Shadow Brokers say their efforts are aimed at “wealthy elites” and some of the tools appear to correspond to software described in documents leaked by Edward Snowden. Price for the entire package offered by the Shadow Brokers? One million bitcoin, or about 568 million dollars – well within the budgets of countries who’d love to see what the NSA uses to snoop around inside networks of other countries. So far, the NSA has had no comment.
At long last, it’s time to Minecraft in VR
While VR is still the hottest tech going among people who are… into VR, so far there’s been no killer app that might break the nascent tech into the mainstream. That may have just changed. On Monday, Microsoft, owners of Mojang, released a new version of Minecraft that can be played on the Oculus Rift. Perhaps no other game is so perfect for a VR system – and as you might imagine, the Minecraft demographic has “holiday VR retail bonanza” written all over it.
You’ll need the latest version of windows 10 to play, along with a fairly stout PC and a Rift headset, but if you’ve already got those bits, the VR version of Minecraft is a free upgrade. Oh, and good timing: the Oculus Rift also goes on sale today in Europe and Canada. Funny how that happens…
