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As far as other specs go, Sony continued the practice of cramming every possible top-notch feature into its flagship devices. The Xperia Z4 Tablet has an octa-core, Snapdragon 810 processor, a 2K display, 32GB of built-in memory, and is wateproof and dustproof up to IP68 specifications.

BARCELONA — Bicycle enthusiasts who are also gadget lovers got their fix of excitement Monday at Mobile World Congress, as Ford brought a pair of smart e-bike prototypes to the show.
Called MoDe:Me and MoDe:Pro, the bikes connect to your smartphone and offer navigation feedback via the handlebar grips, which vibrate when you need to turn left or right. The bikes can also alert you of any hazards lying ahead or behind, communicate with other vehicles and even charge your smartphone, which is placed in a cradle on the handlebar .

Both bikes are actually e-bikes, offering electric pedal assistance which is adjustable. When pedaling becomes too hard, the bike makes it as easy as you like, without completely taking over. In terms of specs, both bikes have a 200-watt motor with a 9-amp-hour battery, providing pedal assistance for speeds up to 25 km/h.























The main difference between the two prototypes — and they are really just prototypes at this stage — is the size. The MoDe:Me is a very compact, foldable city bike, while the MoDe:Pro is bigger and primarily aimed at urban commercial use (think: bike messengers). Furthermore, the bigger bike was built by a Ford team, while the smaller version was built with the help of bicycle manufacturer Dahon.
Of course, for all of this to work, you'll need the MoDe:Link smartphone app which, besides providing the location data for navigation, also enables you to control certain aspects of the bike. For example, with it you can turn on the signal lights, located in the handlebars.

Ford is not the first company to offer such a concept. Croatian startup Visiobike already has a commercial product, an e-bike that can connect to your smartphone, offering features such as rear camera, GPS tracking and security controls. Visiobike's offering is a full-sized mountain bike, however, while Ford's prototypes are much more compact.

The Olympus Stylus 1 has the look and feel of
a top-end camera, and despite not being an
interchangable lens camera with a huge image
sensor, it is one. It is styled like the excellent
Olympus OM-D E-M5, sharing the same EVF
and tilting touch-screen LCD. At its heart is a
12-megapixel 1/1.7-inch image sensor, larger than those
found in most long zoom cameras, and the integrated
28-300mm f/2.8 lens covers an impressive focal range
at a constant aperture. It’s a solid performer, and even
though its zoom lens doesn’t cover as long of a range as
our previous favorite, the 24x Panasonic Lumix DMCFZ200,
we’re naming the Stylus 1 as our new Editors’ Choice superzoom.

DESIGN AND FEATURES

Measuring 3.4 by 4.5 by 2.2 inches (HWD) and
weighing 14.2 ounces, the Stylus 1 is a bit larger than
most compact long zoom cameras. The Stylus has a
noticeably bigger lens that doesn’t collapse fully into the
body, and its excellent integrated EVF (the same
1,440k-dot LCD found in the OM-D E-M5, with a good
1.15x magnification) and 3-inch tilting rear touch
display (with a 1,040k-dot resolution) also contribute to
the extra bulk. The Stylus 1 has a unique lens cover; the
always-on cap (it can be removed to add a teleconverter
accessory) has four hinged doors that automatically
open as the lens extends. The 10.7x lens is a 28-300mm
f/2.8 design, which is an impressive range for a camera
with a 1/1.7-inch image sensor.
Olympus is targeting serious shooters with the Stylus
1, and as such has included a good array of physical
controls. There’s a programmable Fn2 button up front,
which is nestled inside of a switch that toggles the ring
around the lens to either act as manual focus control or
adjust shooting settings. There’s also a power zoom
control on the front, at the left side of the lens barrel.




























On top you’ll find a standard mode dial, a control dial for quick EV
adjustments, an additional zoom rocker (surrounding the shutter release), a
power button, and a record button for video capture. Rear controls include
buttons to set exposure compensation, control the flash, adjust the active focus
area, and control the drive mode. There’s also a programmable Fn1 button, and
the normal menu and playback controls.
The Stylus 1 has built-in Wi-Fi. The setup is identical for iOS and Android
devices: You scan a QR code that’s displayed on the camera’s rear LCD using
the Olympus Image Share app, and that installs a network profile for the SSID
the camera broadcasts. Once you’ve connected to that network you’ll be able to
transfer JPEG images and QuickTime videos to your phone. There’s also a GPS
function that geo-tags your photos—you’ll need to enable a location log and
make sure that your camera’s clock is set correctly to make this work.
Remote control is also available, and works just as on other Olympus
cameras. Your phone or tablet will show the Live View feed and you can choose
a focus point and fire the shutter. The app provides full access to automatic and
manual shooting modes, so it’s possible to adjust shutter speed, aperture, ISO,
and the focal length of the lens. The Wi-Fi is easy to use and the remote control
is one of the best I’ve seen. What’s missing right now is the ability to post
photos from the camera to social networks when a hotspot is available; you have
to transfer them to your phone and post from there.

PERFORMANCE AND CONCLUSIONS

The Stylus 1 starts and shoots in about 1.3 seconds, manages a very short
0.1-second shutter lag at its widest angle, and can focus and fire in just 0.6
second when zoomed to the 300mm setting. Focus does slow a bit in very dim
light; at its wide angle setting the camera requires about 0.9 second to lock and
capture a shot. The Olympus can capture photos at 7.6 frames per second (fps),
regardless of which image format you choose. It can manage that pace for 21
Raw+JPEG, 26 Raw, or 26 JPEG images before slowing. Writing all of those
images to a memory card requires 15.2, 8.8, or 8.4 seconds, respectively.
I used Imatest to check the sharpness that the Stylus 1’s lens is able to
capture. At its widest angle it is just a little bit on the soft side, scoring 1,782
lines per picture height on a center-weighted test at f/2.8; narrowing the
aperture to f/4 gets it to 1,860 lines (1,800 being necessary for a sharp image).
Images at the 28mm setting show 1.8 percent barrel distortion, which causes
straight lines to curve outward in images. That can be removed with some quick
work in Lightroom, but doing so will slightly narrow the field of view of your
image. At 60mm the lens is sharper and distortion disappears. It approaches
2,000 lines at f/2.8 and f/4. As you zoom in further it maintains about 1,900
lines through 200mm. It’s not until 300mm that images become a little soft,
about 1,500 lines at f/2.8, but narrowing the aperture improves the score there
to 1,840 lines.

Chromatic aberration was
an issue for some images. A
few of my test shots showed
quite a bit of purple and green
fringing around trees and
branches. It’s more noticeable in
Raw files than in JPEGs, and in
most cases is easily corrected in
Lightroom. But I did see some
instances where even Lightroom
struggled to remove the color fringing.
It’s more of an issue at wider angles.
Imatest also checks images for noise,
which can rob detail when shooting in
low light. The camera keeps noise under
1.5 percent through ISO 1600, which is
good. More impressively, even JPEG images
shot at ISO 1600 retain a good amount of
detail. As with any camera, you’ll get the best
results at lower ISO settings, but the Stylus 1
impresses through 1600. Noise is more
aggressive at ISO 3200; that detail is lost due to
the in-camera noise reduction. If you prefer a
slightly grainier image with more detail, noise
reduction can be set to low or disabled entirely via
the camera menu. You can also opt to shoot in Raw;
images contain an impressive amount of detail in that
format through ISO 3200, but look considerably worse
above that.

Video is recorded at up to 1080p30 quality in
QuickTime format. Video quality is very good; footage
is crisp and detailed, and the camera refocuses quickly
as the scene changes. But the sound of the lens zooming
in and out while recording is audible on the soundtrack.
There’s no microphone input, so you may want to look
elsewhere if video is a primary concern. The Panasonic
FZ200 is a better camera for recording video; it shoots
at up to 1080p60 in AVCHD format and includes
support for an external microphone. The Stylus 1 does have a micro HDMI
output to connect to an HDTV, as well as a standard hot shoe and a proprietary
USB port. An external battery charger is included; the Stylus 1 uses the same
battery as the PEN E-PL5 and E-PM2. The usual SD card slot is there, as is
support for SDHC and SDXC cards.


The Olympus Stylus 1 has a long list of pros: a long zoom lens with an f/2.8
aperture, a relatively large image sensor for a camera of its class, surprisingly
good image quality through ISO 1600, a sharp touch-screen display, an
excellent EVF, Wi-Fi, and a solid control layout. The lens does show a bit more
chromatic aberration than we’d like, but in most case the JPEG engine can
remove it, and Raw shooters can handle all but the worst cases with ease in
Lightroom. The FZ200 still wins out for video (and costs $100 less), and though
the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX10 is bigger and nearly twice the price of the Stylus
1, its 1-inch image sensor and Zeiss 24-200mm f/2.8 lens are both top-notch.
For now, however, the Stylus 1 is our favorite bridge-style superzoom camera.

DESIGN AND FEATURES

The new Mac Pro is an all-aluminum
cylinder measuring 9.9 inches tall and
6.6 inches in diameter, and weighing
10.93 pounds. Though it appears to be
burnished black in photos, Apple calls
its color “Space Grey”—almost a cross
between obsidian and polished chrome.
The chassis is formed whole from a
single billet of aluminum, shaped
through several advanced
manufacturing processes to have just
the right shape, feel, and finish. The
milled edges of the top and the window
for port access are not simply cut into
the metal once; they are then cut and
polished, for edges that are smooth to
the touch. The lock that keeps the cover
in place is almost invisible but smooth to operate.
It’s a futuristic look indeed; from the first unveiling to
the subsequent ads and private briefings, Apple has
pushed the idea that this is the design of the future.
Central to this sleek rethinking are two new concepts.
The first is Apple’s new Unified Thermal Core, which
leverages both materials and design for cooling hot
components. The Mac Pro’s internal components are
mounted onto a triangular aluminum frame that serves
as the primary heat sink for the processor and graphics,
with heat-dissipating vanes further enhancing cooling.
Sitting on top of the whole thing is an exhaust fan,
which pulls air up from intakes on the bottom of the
case and pumps it out through the top.
The second concept is one of peripherals
over upgrades. Apple’s new paradigm does
away with the easily accessible drive bays and
swappable graphics cards of previous models
in favor of an external, modular approach.
About all you can upgrade are the RAM in the
four DIMM slots and the PCIe-based flash
storage. Anything else you want to add must
be done via the rear ports: four USB 3.0, six
Thunderbolt 2.0 (each offering up to 20GBps
of throughput, for connecting up to three 4K
displays or six regular Thunderbolt displays,
external storage, and more), two Gigabit
Ethernet, HDMI, and headphone and audio
line out jacks. The rear panel containing these
ports lights up for easy visibility.
Finally, the Mac Pro has the latest wireless
connectivity options, with Bluetooth 4.0 and
802.11ac Wi-Fi, the new faster connectivity
standard set to eventually replace 802.11n.
This helps further futureproof the Mac Pro,
assuming the CPU and GPUs don’t ever need
an upgrade until you’re ready to replace the
whole system and hand it down.

CONFIGURATIONS

Every configuration of the new Mac Pro comes outfitted with a single Intel Xeon
E5 workstation-class processor, designed to offer plenty of raw processing
power with minimal latency and maximum throughput, along with two AMD
FirePro graphics cards. Unlike consumer graphics cards, which are optimized
for gaming and multimedia, professional GPUs are designed to offer powerful
and reliable processing for media editing and creation programs, engineering
tools (such as CAD), and to drive multiple displays for enhanced productivity.
The entry-level Mac Pro ($2,999) comes with a quad-core Intel Xeon E5
processor and 12GB of RAM, two FirePro D300 graphics cards (each with 2GB
of dedicated memory), and 128GB of local flash storage. At the other end of the
spectrum, a Mac Pro kitted out with the best of everything rings up at $9,566: a
12-core Intel Xeon E5 CPU, 64GB of RAM, two AMD FirePro D700 GPUs, and
1TB of flash memory.
Our $6,799 review unit fell somewhere in between, with a 3GHz eight-core
Intel Xeon E5-1680 v2 processor, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of flash storage, and two
AMD FirePro D700 GPUs (with 6GB of dedicated memory each).
Apple covers the Mac Pro with a one-year warranty, and offers 90-days of free
telephone support. Though this is the standard for Apple products, it falls far
short of industry norms, with other workstations from HP and Dell being
covered by three-year warranties. AppleCare+, Apple’s extended warranty
service, will extend that warranty and technical support up to three years from
the initial purchase date for $249.

SOFTWARE

The Mac Pro comes preinstalled with OS X Mavericks, which includes all of the
same iLife (iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand) and iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote)
software that comes with a new consumer-level Mac. This is basic business
software that you would need to purchase separately for a new Windows
workstation, but Apple now includes it for free with every new Mac. Also free is
the latest version of Final Cut Pro for taking advantage of the Mac Pro’s 4K
video capabilities with features such as the simultaneous editing of multiple
video angles, or the option of viewing footage in full 4K on one display while
editing said footage on another.

PERFORMANCE

Peel back the slick marketing and fancy design, and you’ll find that the Mac Pro
is still a potent work machine, built to offer the sort of performance that
professionals need. In CineBench, the Mac Pro scored 13.54—the best score
we’ve seen among single-CPU workstations. It easily outpaced the Dell
Precision T3610 (7.44) and HP Z420 (7.21), but fell behind the Lenovo
ThinkStation D30 (25.31), which uses two eight-core Xeon processors.
The Mac Pro also made short work of multimedia benchmark tests, finishing
Handbrake in 29 seconds and cranking through Photoshop in 3 minutes 3
seconds. The Photoshop performance isn’t shabby, but it is more toward the
middle of the pack than expected—the Lenovo ThinkStation
D30 edged ahead (2:55), and the Dell Precision T3610 fell just
behind (3:16).
With its two graphics cards, the Mac Pro also offered solid
performance in our Heaven 3D gaming test.
Set to 1,366-by-768 resolution, the Mac Pro pumped out 113 frames per
second (fps), ahead of Dell’s and HP’s workstations (which
scored 67fps and 40fps, respectively). The Nvidia-equipped
iMac came closer, with 108fps, and the dual-GPU
gamingoriented systems pulled further ahead, with Maingear’s GTX
Titan–loaded F131 Super Stock leading with 288fps. Even
when I increased the resolution to 1,920 by 1,080 and
cranked up all the detail settings, the Mac Pro still held its
own, its 41fps result putting it ahead of every workstation,
but again falling behind the high-end gaming rigs.
To push the Mac Pro a little harder than our regular testing does, I ran our
Heaven benchmark test again, this time ramping up as far past our regular
settings, with full 4K resolution (3,840 by 2,160, the maximum resolution
offered on the Asus PQ321 monitor), and detail settings maxed out. The frame
rates dropped to 10fps, but even during this test the Mac Pro was virtually
silent. The portable hard drive I plugged into the back made more discernible
noise than the system itself did. Although the Mac Pro didn’t get louder, it did
get warmer, with its exterior reaching 96° F, and air from the top exhaust
hitting 106°.

CONCLUSION

Beneath the blank, inscrutable surface of the Mac Pro, there’s a lot going on,
from the potent processor and graphics hardware to the completely new
approach to hardware expansion. The Mac Pro is expensive, its one-year
warranty and 90-day tech support terms are lackluster, and the lack of internal
expansion will force many professionals to change how they approach their
work. But the Mac Pro offers some of the most exciting updates to desktop
design we’ve seen, and backs it up with powerful professional-grade
performance. The system is our new Editors’ Choice for single-processor
workstations, and one of the best high-end desktops we’ve seen in years.

Sony is ratcheting up the camera phone wars
with the Android-powered Xperia Z1s. Available
exclusively on T-Mobile, the Xperia Z1s is a
waterproof smartphone with a 5-inch 1080p display,
just like its predecessor, the Xperia Z. The Z1s has an
upgraded camera with fun lens effects, a much larger
battery, and a faster processor. The camera still isn’t as
good as it needs to be, and there are some other minor
issues, but the Z1s is an excellent choice if you want a
speedy phone for multimedia or gaming that you can
get wet.

DESIGN, DISPLAY, AND CONNECTIVITY

The Xperia Z1s measures 5.74 by 2.79 by 0.31 inches
(HWD) and weighs 5.71 ounces, which makes it
noticeably larger and heavier than the 5.1-ounce Xperia
Z. It’s still quite attractive, though. The handset has
glass front and back panels, with an IP58-rated
waterproof coating that also supports finger tracking
underwater, and a smoked silver and black plastic band
wrapped around the edges. A covered charger port and
microSD memory card slot are on the left side, along
with a center-mounted docking port. The bottom edge
houses the speakerphone and mic behind a long
rectangular grille. On the right there’s a covered SIM
card slot, a circular silver power button, a volume
rocker, and a camera shutter button; the 3.5mm
headphone jack is on the top edge.
The 5-inch, 1080p Triluminos display looks sharp at a
very tight 441ppi, but not particularly vivid or bright.
There’s a prominent bezel at the top and bottom, with a
much thinner one on either side of the display; this
explains why the phone is unusually tall given the
display size. Typing on the on-screen keyboard is easy
in portrait mode.
The Xperia Z1s supports LTE and HSPA+ 42. Its LTE
modem is Category 4, so it handles the maximum
speeds of T-Mobile’s upcoming 20+20 LTE network. You also get
802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, NFC, and Bluetooth
4.0. In a series of speed tests, the Xperia Z1s averaged 12 to 14Mbps down and 7
to 15Mbps up in Midtown Manhattan on T-Mobile’s rapidly expanding 4G LTE
network. The Xperia Z1s also works as a wireless hotspot with the appropriate
data plan.

CALL QUALITY AND RECEPTION

Voice quality was mixed; we were hoping for an improvement over the Xperia
Z1’s inferior call quality, but we didn’t get it. Through the earpiece, callers
sounded trebly and a bit harsh. There’s plenty of gain available, but it’s not
pleasant to listen to. Transmissions through the microphone had the opposite
problem: They sounded muffled and indistinct, and the Xperia Z1s’s mic let
through plenty of Manhattan street noise. An iPhone 5s on T-Mobile sounded
much better in all cases; it suppressed background street noise, and my voice
was clear, crisp, and still warm-sounding in both directions. The Xperia Z1s also
supports Wi-Fi calling.
Calls sounded fine through a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset. Voice dialing
worked well enough over Bluetooth using Google’s built-in voice dialer. The
Bluetooth stack is buggy, though; sometimes it took a minute or more to pair
with the Jawbone Era, and once it froze up for a minute while searching for
nearby devices. The speakerphone sounded clear and distinct, but should go
louder than it does. The oversized 3,000mAh battery should be good for extralong battery life.

INTERFACE, APPS, AND MULTIMEDIA

Under the hood are a 2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor
with an Adreno 330 GPU and 2GB RAM. The Xperia Z1s runs Android 4.3 Jelly
Bean, and a KitKat upgrade is in the works, but there’s no confirmed release
date. Benchmark scores were excellent across the board; as you’d expect, the
Xperia Z1s is as fast as the Galaxy Note 3 and any top-end Android tablet.
You get five home screens to customize and swipe between. Everything looks
and feels smooth. Sony includes its own Walkman, Movies, and Album apps,
along with PlayStation and PlayStation Mobile for accessing your online PSN
profile, messages, and notifications. Sony is promising a number of “second
screen” PlayStation apps, and you can play PlayStation Mobile games with a
wireless DualShock 3 controller. You also get MobiSystems Office Suite, which
reads and edits Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, and Sony
Select, which froze on startup. There’s also a lot of T-Mobile bloatware, which
unfortunately cannot be removed.
There’s 32GB of internal storage, with 25.1GB free for your apps and media.
The microSD card slot works with cards up to 64GB in capacity. Music tracks
sounded clear and full through Plantronics BackBeat Go stereo Bluetooth
headphones, and the Xperia Z1s also played FLAC, OGG, and AAC files. Fullscreen movies looked sharp, if not exceptionally vivid, at resolutions up to
1080p, and the phone played all the usual formats including DivX and Xvid.
You can also display content wirelessly on a Sony Bravia HDTV.

CAMERA AND CONCLUSIONS

The 20.7-megapixel autofocus f/2.0 camera features a 27mm focal length,
image stabilization, and an HDR mode. It goes up to ISO 6400. The Z1s’ sensor
is larger than the Xperia Z’s and collects more light, and it can also do lossless
zoom up to 3x in a 5MP mode. There’s also a 2MP front-facing camera for
selfies and video chats.
Sony includes five apps dedicated to the camera: Info-eye, which scans books,
wine bottles, and other objects, and searches the Web for information about
them; AR (Augmented Reality) Effect, which adds costumes, glasses, flowers, or
even dinosaurs to your photos; Background Defocus, which lets you adjust the
depth of field for your photos; Social Live, which broadcasts live video on
Facebook; and Timeshift Burst, which grabs a series of 60 shots in rapid
succession and lets you pick the best one.
We’ve tested some 13- and 16MP camera phones in the past, including the
one on the Xperia Z, and they haven’t quite measured up to their ratings in
image quality. Sadly, that’s still true here. The Xperia Z1s takes fine pictures,
and they border on very good outdoors. But contrast is relatively poor, and flesh
tones can come out looking jaundiced indoors. And though Sony says the faster
processor helps with autofocus speed, the Xperia Z1s still takes longer to focus
and fire than the iPhone 5s—that and the Lumia 1020 are still superior cameras.
Recorded 1080p videos played smoothly at 30 frames per second from both
cameras, though you can’t tap to focus the way you can with photos. Image
stabilization was superb; I saw very little shaking in the
various videos I recorded with the Xperia Z1s. And you
can shoot photos and videos underwater, though the
sound will obviously be muffled.
The Xperia Z1s is still surpassed by the thinner and
lighter (if less rugged) Samsung Galaxy S4, which also
has a more vivid AMOLED display and its genuinely
useful TouchWiz UI layer and apps; the iPhone 5 has
the best app selection and a clearly better camera; and
the Motorola Moto X’s form factor falls nicely between
those of the iPhone 5s and Xperia Z1s. Even so, the Z1s
is a very good smartphone, and the only one on
T-Mobile to fuse a waterproof design with top-end
hardware. If that combination speaks to you, you can
buy it with confidence.