Social networks' failure to tackle cyber-bullying is risking the mental health of young people, a Children's Society survey has found.
Almost half of 1,089 11 to 25-year-olds questioned for the Safety Net report had experienced threatening or nasty social media messages, emails or texts.
Two-thirds said they would not tell their parents if they experienced something upsetting online.
However 83% want social media companies to do more to tackle the problem.
According to the Safety Net report, most of the respondents felt that there was a lack of consequences for people who engage in bullying behaviour online, in contrast to the offline world.
"Social media companies should take complaints more seriously. If someone reports something, they shouldn't take days to review it, they should literally just remove it straight away," said a 15-year-old girl, who responded to the online survey.
"The reaction from adults is just delete your account to stop the bullying, but that's taking something away from that young person's life for something that's not their fault."
The inquiry is calling on social media companies and the government to act to tackle cyber-bullying.
The inquiry is recommending that social media companies:
Respond to reports of bullying within 24 hours
Give young users clearer guidelines on how they should behave online
Take tougher action on those who break the rules
It also advises the government to:
Launch online safety lessons in schools
Require social networks to report cyber-bullying data
The inquiry found that cyber-bullying takes many forms, including:
persistent messaging
sharing embarrassing photos or information online
mass "unfriending" the accounts of the target being bullied
The 15-year-old female survey respondent said that young people today "kind of expect" to experience cyber-bullying.
"Nasty comments on the selfie, Facebook posts and Twitter posts, people screengrabbing your Snapchat story to laugh about it… I feel like it's something people don't take seriously," she said.
"But leaving just one nasty comment could really hurt someone."
The inquiry also found that social media is extremely addictive, with one in 10 young people surveyed admitting that they log on to social networks after midnight every night.
One respondent likened social networks to being "almost like a drug", and young people gave evidence to the inquiry that they felt judged and inadequate if they didn't have enough "likes" on posts or enough followers on their accounts.
The heaviest users of social media amongst the respondents were mostly likely to have low wellbeing and symptoms of anxiety and depression.
And those who had been bullied online told the inquiry that they would frequently check their account newsfeeds to see what else had been shared or said about them on the platforms.
"Cyber-bullying can devastate young lives, but to date the response from social media companies has been tokenistic and inadequate. It has failed to grip the true scale of the problem," said Mr Chalk.
"For too long they have been marking their own homework and it's time they become far more transparent, robust and accountable."
Carriers have kicked off the world’s biggest mobile phone tradeshow with calls for an “investment friendly framework” to fund rollouts of next-gen 5G network technology and level the playing field with Internet giants.
“We need a new mindset,” argued Telefonica CEO José María Álvarez-Pallete López, giving the first keynote of the morning here at Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona.
López went on to call for a “digital bill of rights” and for the industry to engage with ethical debates over the impact of connected technologies, including in areas such as privacy and machine ethics.
Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao also urged the “same rules for Internet players”, arguing that Facebook Messenger makes the tech giant “the biggest telco in the world” — yet one he said has “practically no obligation” in terms of the access it must provide to different groups of users.
“All of this much finish. We need to be treated all the same,” he added in a thinly veiled warning to governments eyeing 5G and thinking how they might reap the benefits of next-gen network investment to power efficiencies in their own service delivery.
The unspoken ‘if’ being — if you want us to make the big investments needed to build out 5G networks.
Colao also complained that spectrum is too expensive and said licenses should be granted for longer than 25 years — not shorter, as he said is currently being considered in Europe.
Discussions on public shared networks should be “parked”, he said ticking another item off his regulatory wish-list, and any public subsidy for 5G rollouts should be “neutral”.
If lawmakers adopted this approach the deployment of 5G and fiber would be a given, he claimed.
During the keynotes, several telco execs took time out to describe beneficial applications that could be enabled by 5G. Colao talked about a connected ambulance being able to be “the first step of the hospital”, for example.
And NTT docomo’s president and CEO Kazuhiro Yoshizawa also talked up 5G-enabled telehealth solutions supporting remote diagnostics when specialist doctors can’t see patients in person.
Yoshizawa also talked about 5G enabling construction machinery to be operated remotely from a control centre, rather than with a human driver in the cab. Which made for the slightly disconcerting vision of a visibly driverless digger carving up the landscape.
“Many businesses will need a large amount of video on the uplink,” he noted.
But while there was talk of 5G’s potential societal (and business) benefits, Colao had come to play Cassandra for the flip side: Warning about the risk of a growing technophobia undermining the case for 5G rollouts by eroding trust and support.
He also raised the “digital dominance” of tech giants Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google, noting growing concerns over how “big and powerful” these companies are, and over societally damaging problems like fake news.
Although he argued the real problem for telcos is people are becoming worried that AI technologies “empowered by broadband” might damage jobs and skills.
“We have to make it an opportunity to create more jobs — more expert jobs and mitigate this techno fear,” he warned.
Connected technologies risk “increasing inequality and decreasing social cohesion”, he added — suggesting too that such concerns have the potential to fuel damaging populism.
“We need as an industry to engage, to ensure we build better future for people and a better deal for citizens,” he said.
His suggestion for 5G purveyors to win friends and wider societal backing is to tie rollouts tightly to local needs.
And he called for the creation of regulation-free regions where 5G experiments can become practical examples showing what’s possible — pointing to Vodafone’s 5G trials in Milan as the kind of consortium of local partners needed to “test the future” but in a way that keeps communities of users engaged and on side with the benefits.
The Milan trial is a public private partnership involving 38 partners including universities and startups, he noted. “This should be the model,” he continued. “A locally managed innovation process so that local citizens can see the benefits.”
Regulation-free innovation areas would also be a way to attract startups to tackle local problems — and entrepreneurs are needed to play a key role in ensuring 5G gets associated with a “better future” for society as a whole.
“We need to start looking at technology not as an enabler of problems but as a way to improve the deal of citizens,” he added.
Samsung made the Galaxy S9 official and is already looking towards the next devices in the technology roadmap. Yesterday the Samsung mobile chief Koh Dong-jin, widely known as DJ Koh, said that the Galaxy X foldable phone is not a gimmick. Today he confirmed in an interview to WSJ that a voice-activated speaker with Bixby is indeed coming, likely in the second half of this year.
DJ Koh said pricing is not yet finalized, but the home appliance might come in different tiers. Right now Amazon and Google offer different form factors of more or less the same service, while Apple has just the HomePod.
Samsung expanding its voice service to third-party developers and smart homes is not news - the company shared its intentions back in October. Back then the Bixby SDK was pushed to limited beta engineers and from the looks of it, Samsung is already preparing for a launch.
At MWC 2018, Nokia unveiled its first-ever Android One phone, the 7 Plus. And unlike some of its previous offerings from 2017, this actually sounds rather promising.
The Android Oreo-based 7 plus features an aluminum unibody design, which houses a 6-inch full HD+ (2,160 x 1,080 pixels) 18:9 display between fairly slim bezels; a 16-megapixel shooter graces the top of the front fascia.
On the rear, you’ll find a dual-camera system created in partnership with Zeiss: there’s a 12-megapixel wide camera paired with a 13-megapixel telephoto snapper, allowing for 2x optical zoom as we’ve seen on numerous other models.
Under the hood, you’ll find a mid-range Snapdragon 660 processor, along with 4GB RAM, 64GB of onboard storage, a microSD slot for adding up to 256GB more, and a 3,800mAh battery. It charges via a USB-C port, and there’s also a 3.5mm audio jack.
With the 7 plus, Nokia has finally brought its design up to date. And since this is an Android One phone, you can expect fairly timely updates to the OS, shortly after they roll out from Google.
The handset will go on sale in April with a €399 (roughly $490) price tag, pitting it against the likes of some of Xiaomi, Motorola, and OnePlus’ better devices. That’s tough enough competition to test whether the old Nokia label still means something to phone buyers.
The original Apple TV is now considered “obsolete.”
iTunes will drop support for the “obsolete” first-generation Apple TV in May, Apple has confirmed.
Windows XP and Windows Vista are also being pushed out. Apple says that “security changes” will make these older products incompatible with the iTunes Store.
Introduced in January 2011, the original Apple TV is now more than 11 years old. Very few will still be in use today — and those that are won’t be of much use come May. Apple already considers the device “an obsolete Apple product,” and now it is dropping iTunes support.
After the change, you’ll need a second-generation Apple TV or later to access the iTunes Store. Those who are still running Windows XP or Windows Vista on their PC will also need an upgrade.
“Starting May 25, Apple will introduce security changes that prevent older Windows PCs from using the iTunes Store,” Apple explains. “If you have Windows XP or Vista PC, your computer is no longer supported by Microsoft, and you’re not able to use the latest version of iTunes.”
You will still be able to use older versions of iTunes in XP and Vista, Apple adds. However, you won’t be able to make new purchases from the iTunes Store, or redownload content you have already bought. Those running Windows 7 or later won’t be affected.
Chinese smartphone maker Vivo has unveiled a new concept smartphone called the APEX FullView, and the company claims that its invention will set the tone for the design language employed by its future smartphones. The Vivo APEX FullView rethinks various aspects of today’s mobile technology including the front-facing camera, all while boasting an unprecedented screen-to-body ratio. Furthermore, like the Vivo X20 Plus UD unveiled earlier this year at CES, the concept device adopts an in-display fingerprint scanner which eliminates the need for embedding this type of technology into a physical button.
The quest for thinner bezels is pushing Vivo toward a new design language, and the APEX FullView concept smartphone represents the company’s next step in that direction. According to the manufacturer, the concept phone has the thinnest side and top bezels in the industry yet, clocking in at 1.8mm. The lower bezel is slightly thicker measuring 4.3mm, and in overall, the device reaches a screen-to-body ratio of nearly 98-percent.
This is in part thanks to the adoption of a flexible OLED display and the way the device would embed internal microchips directly onto the flexible circuit board. It’s also interesting to note that the device doesn’t have actual physical speakers but instead relies on what the OEM calls Screen SoundCasting Technology which can apparently transform the entire FullView display into a speaker.
The way it works is by sending vibrations through the display, and this also contributes to thinner bezels, as well as lower power requirements, according to the OEM. The “speaker” would be powered by a new setup integrating a DAC and three amplifiers, and in turn, this would reduce the space requirements for the circuit board by nearly 60-percent compared to the Vivo Xplay 6. Theoretically, this can allow Vivo to improve other aspects of the device including its battery capacity while still providing better cooling.
One of the more unique features of the Vivo APEX FullView is the front-facing camera which doesn’t actually reside on the front panel but instead rises from the top bezel of the device whenever it’s needed, revealing an 8-megapixel shooter coupled with proximity and light sensor. Vivo didn’t reveal any availability details and at the end of the day, because this is a concept phone, it remains to be seen if all of these interesting ideas will eventually be translated into a commercial device.
Some experts warn that the internet is bad for your brain, but moderate usage may be good for you and your children.
The Motley Fool
Jeff Stibel, Special to USA TODAY
Last night, my wife and I placed an Internet time-limit app on my 12-year-old son’s iPhone. It seemed long overdue, but he threw the kind of stink I would have expected if we gave away our puppy.
We wanted to save his brain from technology and, of course, we had some safety reasons as well. In January 2013, a California girl made headlines for drugging her parents’ milkshakes with sleeping pills in order to use the Internet past her curfew. Perhaps coincidentally and not a minute too soon, that same year the American Psychological Association began recognizing Internet addiction as a disorder. The Internet, it seems, isn’t safe for children or parents.
There is a chorus of experts that claim that the Internet is ruining our lives. Their messages are appealing because we can relate. We lament that we no longer know our best friend’s telephone number and that our phone notifications keep us in a state of distraction. We can almost feel technology changing our brains.
It’s not just paranoia; technology does, in fact, change your brain. But so does everything else. The brain is highly malleable. From before our births all the way until our deaths, our networks of brain cells actually change due to outside stimuli. Everything changes your brain: practicing sports, playing music, reading, taking a walk outside, even sleeping.
Sure, says the skeptic, but those things change us for the good! The Internet is different because it is changing us for the worse. True?
The answer is more nuanced than yes or no. Studies have shown that increased Internet usage leads to decreased attention span, inability to focus and poor communication skills. But the same can be said of many new technologies, going all the way back to the written word. Socrates despised writing and believed it would bring down mankind. It certainly did diminish our oral storytelling skills, something that no doubt would have been perceived as a great loss at the time. But we also lost all written record of Socrates, except as told by his students. Clearly the greater loss in the end.
The positive benefits of technology almost always outweigh the negatives. The written word is an obvious example, but even something as nuclear as a nuclear bomb has arguably been positive (as of yet, anyway). It stopped a world war, created a renewable power source and generated countless innovations.
Every new technology has scared us and made us debate whether it was a net positive or negative for society: the printing press, the assembly line, the telephone, the radio, the television. The more time passes, the more the naysayers come around (or die out). These days you can’t find too many people who claim the printing press was a negative development, but at the time there were many.
But the Internet just feels different, doesn’t it? It feels like we’re losing our selfhood. I empathize with those who say it feels different now — it feels that way to me too — but every technology has always seemed “different” when it first came out. The internet and its accompanying smartphones and connected devices are nothing more than new technologies, and almost without exception, new technologies have ultimately brought more good than bad.
The disconnect in our brains
The disconnect lies within our brains. Technology is never good or bad; rather, how it is used determines its value. The key to the Internet is to separate the medium from the media. There are many things that are wonderful and valuable about the Internet: the efficiency of e-commerce, the ability to retrieve information, crowdsourcing and making the world more connected all come to mind. But there are many things that are dangerously distracting like texts and tweets.
Scientists from Oxford and Cardiff University recently conducted an extensive study of digital use titled “A Large-Scale Test of the Goldilocks Hypothesis,” in other words, testing whether there is an amount of digital consumption that is “just right.” They found that a sweet spot does indeed exist when you test technology use against mental health. Too much digital time correlates with lower mental well-being, but so does too little.
Moderate use correlates with the best mental health states, and I would add that focusing on positive content yields the best results. The researchers concluded that “moderate use of digital technology is not intrinsically harmful and may be advantageous in a connected world.” And that is exactly what my 12-year-old will now have to live with.
Jeff Stibel is vice chairman of Dun & Bradstreet, a partner of Bryant Stibel and an entrepreneur who also happens to be a brain scientist. He is the USA TODAY bestselling author of Breakpoint and Wired for Thought.
We finally managed to corner some Energizer representatives and they gave us a few specifics on the Power Max P16K Pro. First up, it actually tips the scale at 350 grams, so we were a bit off there, but not by too much. Charging is done using the USB Power Delivery standard and the battery can, apparently, be topped off in 90 minutes. Far less ideal, however, is the news that the phone can't be used as a power bank to charge other devices.
Still, that being said, the reps did stress that the device they brought along with them is a very early demo unit. They aren't exactly sure if and when it will go into production or what will change along the way. That king of explains why it doesn't and boot mystery still surrounding the camera setup, among other things. As far as we managed to gather, both the front and back secondary snappers will be leveraged for bokeh effects, not telephoto or anything else. Android 8.0 is also mostly confirmed, for whatever that's worth.
Original article follows:
In case you are not familiar with Energizer's mobile portfolio and the company name isn't descriptive enough, the brand specializes mainly in rugged and high battery-capacity devices. The newly announced Power Max P16K Pro, however, takes the battle with battery endurance to a whole new level, with a massive 16,000 mAh pack.
That looks pretty nice on paper and the PR team at Energizer clearly had a blast, coming up with the punny and technically correct "The most powerful phone at MWC" slogan. Still, we stopped by at the company's booth to try and see just how usable the Power Max P16K Pro actually is as a smartphone.
The experience was kind of a mixed bag and mostly what we expected. The 5.99-inch 18:9 device is a beast with almost unwieldy proportions. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts and insistence, we couldn't get any precise dimensions - a pretty important aspect, in our mind.
We stacked it up with an iPhone X and to the best of our math, the Energizer Power Max P16K Pro is about 15.2mm thick. It also felt understandably heavy. Say, about 300 grams, if we had to venture a guess. So definitely not reasonable by 2018 smartphone standards, but still actually pretty decent for a 16,000 mAh power bank, with an embedded Android phablet inside, if that makes any sense.
On a more positive note, despite its girth, the Power Max P16K Pro is conveniently shaped with plenty of sharp angles, so it actually provides a decent grip. Holding it up still feels like exercise, but at least it won't slip away and break the floor tiles.
That's the other thing, in typical Energizer fashion the Power Max P16K Pro feels really sturdy and looks like it can take a beating. The exposed bolts on the sides definitely reinforce that feeling, even though the body seems to be plastic. Probably a good thing too, seeing how it really doesn't need any more added weight.
Looking around the phone, we also spotted a 3.5mm audio jack, a dual camera setup on the back: 16 MP + 13 MP, complete with a dual-tone flash, as well as a pair of snappers on the front - 13 MP + 5 MP. That's one more selfie than the Energizer Power Max P600S, which other than battery and dimensions, looks pretty similar to the P16K Pro. So, naturally, we were excited to test it out.
Unfortunately, the demo unit Energizer had to offer was a dummy (or was bricked) so it did not power on. Quite disappointing since we wanted to see just how fluid of an experience the company managed to build around the Helio P23 chipset. While on the subject, we have to wonder if it was the best choice for making proper use of the humongous 16,000 mAh battery. But that can only be determined through testing.
Another question sadly left unanswered is just how fast the advertised 12V USB Type-C fast charging can top off the phone. And perhaps even more importantly, whether or not it can serve as a power bank to charge other devices on the go. Since the Power Max P16K Pro is advertised as running Android 8.0 Oreo and it does have a Type-C port, our best assumption would be that is should be able to switch between a client and host in the charging process.
With macOS 10.12 Sierra, Apple introduced a way to offload some of your Mac’s storage dynamically using iCloud. The Documents & Desktop option had the most impact, in that it could not just sync your home folder’s Documents and Desktop folders to iCloud and make them available through iOS, iCloud.com, and other Macs, but also delete the least-used and oldest documents from your Mac if local storage was under pressure. The copy kept in iCloud would be available on demand, so accessing an infrequent document retrieves it.
Macworld reader Chris is running up against this feature, because they use their Desktop for their active working documents. “Files I’m working on go there until finished, and then are moved to their various folders,” he writes. However, he often works with large Photoshop files. This leads to excessive syncing.
Chris would prefer to only sync his Documents folder, and wonders if there’s a way to do so. Unfortunately, Apple pairs Documents and the Desktop together. Even if you use the Finder spaces feature to create multiple desktops, macOS still stores the actual items in the same Desktop folder.
You could switch to another syncing service, like Dropbox, which only syncs the Dropbox folder, and store your documents there.
You could also use a regular folder to simulate what you rely on with the Desktop through these steps:
Create a new folder and place it anywhere.
Name it something identifiable, like “Working Desktop.”
Select View > Icons for a Desktop-like icon view.
Select Show > Show View Options, and set a background color or picture.
Add the folder to your sidebar so it can be reached from any open or save dialog.
Click the green full-screen button on the folder’s window in the Finder.
Create a faux Desktop folder to avoid syncing with iCloud.
Online review platforms are ubiquitous. Sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and others offer consumers a platform to publicly express their honest opinions on businesses. Everyone and their cousin knows justhow influential online reviews arein relation to purchasing decisions.
Consumers aren’t the only ones who can reap the benefits of online reviews. The businesses being reviewed are rewarded with factors like rating promotion, website integration, and avenues to interact with customers.
One of the most overlooked benefits to these types of third-party review platforms is search engine visibility. Google rewards businesses that have positive reviews posted on trusted sites. Numerous positive reviews indicate that a listing is highly appropriate for its users.
Google digs ratings and reviews
Not all review sites are created equally, and not all have relationships with Google (see here for a full list of Google Review Partners). As the search engine’s primary objective is to provide users with the most valuable and authentic information, ratings on trusted, third-party review sites play a significant role in determining a business’ rankings on the result pages.
While this directly correlates with the search visibility of local businesses, where “local SEO” works to benefit their rankings in the local pack, based among other things, on the strength of their ratings, it also benefits brands and retailers that aren’t strictly “local.” Google derives brand signals from reviews and ratings, and this contributes towards your site’s domain authority.
One of the most attractive and eye-catching elements on any “SERP listing” – SERP being Search Engine Results Page – are the yellow stars, technically known as rich snippets for ratings.
When implemented properly, reviews of your company on Google-recognized third-party review sites will (more or less) increase the likelihood that your pages will be displayed with rich snippet stars, increasing chances of click-through from search. Empirical evidence shows that 150+ reviews over a 12-month period with an overall rating of 3.5 almost definitely gets your star rating to show up.
Again, this leads to a virtuous cycle. SEO experts have argued based on experimental correlation that when Google sees a click-through rate for a given position that is higher than expected, and the bounce rate (site exits) for those visits to the web page is not high, there is evidence that the web page ranks even higher for the relevant keywords.
Ignite Visibilityrecently published a micro-study that found strong correlations between click-through rates and Google positioning:
No surprise then, that SEO experts stress the importance of proactively getting your customers to leave reviews on varied platforms, including social media and industry-specific review websites.
Review platforms add authenticity signals
To benefit from the perceived authenticity that rich snippets with rating stars give your brand and product, utilizing credible third-party review sites is a highly-effective way to improve your search engine visibility.
Review platforms offer simple mechanisms for inviting customers to leave reviews. You (or, in some cases, anyone wanting to review your products or services) create a company page on the site to display their sentiment. As this page gathers ratings, it will be more likely to appear on Google for searches on your brand name, primarily based on the authenticity, reliability and “trust factor” of the review site in question. Eventually this page will push traffic to your site via a link.
Third-party review sites stand as the guarantor that the reviews collected are from real customers. From an SEO perspective, Google accepts that the third-party reviews are reliable and honest appraisals of businesses and their offerings. Assuming you get mostly positive reviews, Google’s algorithm will be inclined to place you higher in the results, as it will be more confident that your company is a good solution for the query entered. The confidence that Google attributes to the various third-party review platforms must be factored in.
How review sites improve your digital presence
Major review platforms can charge a monthly subscription fee so you can edit and maintain your page on their site in a way that is consistent with your Google My Business page as well as various “citations” found across the web, including on other review sites. This is very important for local SEO.
Paid-for pages on review sites let you collect reviews about your company, products and services, and present and promote them in an organized, professional way. As with most SaaS models, these review sites have different payment tiers, providing various options on integrations and level of support.
Importantly, they all offer code snippets that you can install on your site, from where you directly display your ratings to site visitors. These snippets also feed that information to Google and allow it to display the stars and ratings we see on organic search results as well as AdWords text ads.
Obviously, Google works to display the most trusted sites in its results, in order of their reliability. The question is, which review platform does Google see as the most credible? And which sites give more “SEO power,” in general, for businesses across the board?
I used SEO tool SEMrush to pull some data about the kind of traffic these review sites get, the keywords and terms they rank for in Google, and the actual value of these keywords (presented in comparison with each other of course). I also checked how they ranked in terms of overall web traffic, and found that all of these sites are in the top 100,000.
Here are the top ranked US review sites in terms of SEO power on Google.com:
While reviews on any of the five platforms listed above (and a bunch of others) will get you rich snippet stars that provide opportunities to make your appearance more eye catching on the SERPS, Trustpilot is the one that packs the most punch, based on traffic numbers, keywords, and overall popularity.
Trustpilot is not just limited to the US; it is a community-driven review platform spanning 65 countries. With 35 million reviews of 190,000 businesses, 45,000 new reviewers each day and 1 million new reviews each month, it is well ahead of the pack from an SEO perspective, with 3 times more SEO visibility than other platforms. Businesses also get a “TrustScore” – an algorithmic measure of customer satisfaction, based on customers’ reviews on the site. While TrustScore may not be the most compelling piece of data from a search perspective, it certainly impacts the way consumers behave and interact with brand websites.
That said, every review platform that has a respectable amount of traffic is certainly worth exploring for more than just the SEO value. Review sites are a key factor in developing a positive brand image and word-of-mouth. Positive results like rich snippet stars and SEO visibility can make a momentous difference in conversion rates. In a crowded space, the importance of each online review cannot be overlooked.
In conclusion
Getting registered on review sites is incredibly easy and reaching out to customers to leave reviews is even easier. For as powerful as online reviews are in modern marketing, expanding your business footprint across as many online channels as possible will serve you well in the long run.
This post is part of our contributor series. The views expressed are the author's own and not necessarily shared by TNW.
Xiaomi is one of those companies that isn't particularly well known in the West, despite being one of the largest phone brands in the world. The reason for that is, unlike Huawei, which has decisively broken into Western markets, Xiaomi either has little interest in selling outside of China, or it simply hasn't found the phone that could bust into this wildly competitive space.
That could change with the device known as the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S. Here's everything we know about Xiaomi's latest phone.
Design
Xiaomi is known for pushing out ground-breaking designs, and the Mi Mix 2S is expected to be no different. Renders fromGSMArenaandTech Updatesshow a gorgeous bezel-free phone that's almost all screen, with a front-facing camera asymmetrically placed in the top-right corner. Interestingly, there's no visible fingerprint sensor on the front or back of the device -- with some sources claiming that the phone will come with facial-recognition tech like the iPhone X, or an under-display fingerprint sensor -- but there's no real evidence of either of those yet. Only a select few phones have managed to include an under-display fingerprint sensor, and some of the largest names in the mobile world have tried and failed, so don't hold your breath for that feature. But facial recognition does seem more likely given that various Android phones have been using that technology for years.
The screen size is a hefty 5.99 inches, which shouldn't come as a surprise given how bezel-free the design is. Dimensions are not confirmed, but it's probably likely to be around the same size as the Galaxy S8, maybe a little larger.
Specs
Xiaomi's latest phone is very likely to be exceptionally powerful, even for a flagship phone. The Mi Mix 2S will be running Android 8.0 Oreo, and powered by Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 845, and come with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage, as announced by Xiaomi itself on Chinese news site Weibo. The inclusion of the Snapdragon 845c puts the Mi Mix 2S on an even footing with most of 2018's premium flagship smartphones, including the upcoming Galaxy S9, and assumed LG G7, while 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage is pure overkill on Xiaomi's part.
The poster above, from Xiaomi's Weibo post, is currently something of a mystery, though GSMArena claims that "273,741" is the AnTuTu benchmark software score for the device. To put that number into context, the mighty Samsung Galaxy Note 8 scored 167,946 on the same test, the LG V30 171,669, and even the iPhone's A11 Bionic processor only scored 222,462 on the AnTuTu test. If this is indeed a benchmark score, then it reveals the Mi Mix 2S to be exceptionally powerful.
All of the powerful specs above are backed up by a sizable 3,400mAh battery. That might sound large, but it will be powering a lot of powerful hardware, as well as that massive screen. While we'd expect it to last a day, don't expect it to last as long as some of the more impressive battery lives out there.
Camera
There are few details on what to expect from the camera. We can see from the images of the phone itself that the rear-mounted cameras will be vertically stacked and arranged into the middle of the device, not unlike the way a Nokia device would be set up. Details on the camera itself are scarce, but there have been mentions of two 12-megapixel cameras, one of which with an optical zoom. As noted before, the front-facing camera is found in the upper-right of the phone's screen, but there are no details on that camera save that.
Release
The Mi Mix 2S will be launching March 27, but it's worth noting that this is likely to be a China-only phone, which is a real shame for a phone this potentially powerful and attractive.
