Author: Danielle

Poor old Microsoft. It puts all that effort into building – and then launching – a new wave of Surface devices, including the Surface Pro 7 and Surface Pro X, but instead of making me want to rush out and buy one of its new products, instead I want hold tight. Then buy one of the older models.

That’s because, while the new Surface devices – especially the Pro X – look pretty good, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are coming up. Why does that matter? Because, in the many many years I’ve now been covering Black Friday (I think this will be my 1,245th), one of the things that has been pretty dependable (apart from riots at Walmart over crap TVs) is that Surface products, especially the Surface Pro line up, get some excellent deals.

So, usually around this time of year, I’d normally tell anyone who was thinking of buying a Surface Pro to wait a few more weeks and see what kind of Black Friday deals are available. A bit of patience can save you a decent chunk of change.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

New devices, big price drops

However, with Microsoft launching new Surface products, it makes it even more likely that the older Surface products will get price cuts as retailers look to clear out the older stock. Remember – Black Friday isn’t done because retailers are kind and want to give us a nice pre-Christmas gift,  but because they want to make a lot of money by shifting old (or crap) stock.

Now, the likes of the Surface Pro 6 and the Surface Laptop 2 are certainly not crap, but now that their successors are out, they are ‘old’. At least in the eyes of retailers.

We’ve already seen some decent Surface Pro 6 discounts in the UK since the Surface Pro 7 launch. I expect them to only get better the closer to Black Friday we get.

Minor upgrade

Another good reason for holding off until Black Friday and getting a Surface Pro 6, rather than a 7, is that in our early tests, the Surface Pro 7 isn’t that much of a huge upgrade compared to the previous model.

While that’s disappointing on one hand, it means you can buy the Surface Pro 6 without worrying about missing out too much.  In fact, the biggest thing you’ll miss, is the higher price tag.

So, thank you Microsoft for showing us lots of new goodies. But I’m going to hold off for a while…

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It’s true to say that BT Broadband isn’t the cheapest internet provider around and there are ISPs out there (wave hello to the likes of Vodafone and TalkTalk) that can undercut it with their most affordable broadband deals.

But a recent price cut has seen BT return to our good books – it’s brought its best value Superfast Fibre package down below the £30 per month mark for new customers. That’s excellent value when you consider that the average speeds are 50Mb – a nice upgrade from the cheapest fibre offered by other providers. It may not be Black Friday standard, but it isn’t far off.

And to add to the joy, BT is also throwing in a £40 ‘Reward Card’ to sweeten the deal further. So that’s a pre-paid Mastercard that you can use anywhere in store or online where it’s accepted…so pretty much everywhere!

Sound good? Discover more details below and beyond that our full broadband comparison chart of all of today’s best BT Broadband deals.

BT’s cut price fibre broadband deal

What are BT’s Reward Cards?

The Reward Card that BT sends out is a pre-paid credit card that you can use anywhere that accepts Mastercard. In short, that’s around a million shops, cafes and restaurants around the world, so you shouldn’t find it difficult to find places to spend, spend, spend.

It’s an old-fashioned chip and pin card, rather than contactless. But do make sure that you claim your Reward Card within three months of installation, otherwise you’ll lose out on all that cash.

Today’s best BT broadband deals

It’s almost time! England go into today’s game knowing that a win will seal a place for them in the 2019 Rugby World Cup quarter-finals. However, with wet conditions forecast and an Argentina team firmly in win-or-bust mode, it’s likely to be a hard-fought battle.

It’s a game you can watch live and in full no matter where you are in the world by following our England vs Argentina Rugby World Cup live stream guide below.

Coming into the game off the back of an impressive rout of the USA in their previous match, England will be further boosted by the return from injury of Mako Vunipola and Jack Nowell. And George Ford and Owen Farrell have been picked as Eddie Jones’s creative axis in midfield.

Having suffered an agonising defeat to France in their opening game, Argentina responded well with an accomplished 28-12 win over Tonga. Julian Montoya was the star of the show, landing three tries during Saturday’s game, and Los Pumas will be resting much of their attacking hopes on the hooker once again.

The two teams have faced each other on 23 occasions, with England coming out on top 18 times, while Argentina have won on four occasions. They last faced each other back in November 2017 at Twickenham, with the home side winning 21-8.

Don’t miss a moment of the action with our Rugby World Cup England vs Argentina live stream guide below.

How to watch the 2019 Rugby World Cup from outside your country

If you’re abroad for any of the Rugby World Cup and don’t want to miss out on catching the coverage from your home country, you’ll inevitably find it geo-blocked when you try to stream online. But don’t sweat. With the option of a VPN, you can tune into those fixtures no matter where you are in the world without resorting to some dodgy feed on Reddit. And best of all, it’s really easy to do (or read on for details on how to stream coverage from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA).

How to stream England vs Argentina live in the UK 

How to watch England vs Argentina: live stream in Australia

How to watch England vs Argentina live in New Zealand

(Image credit: Future)

Live stream Rugby World Cup 2019 match in Canada

How to live stream England vs Argentina in the US

• Hulu with Live TV $40 per month – Hulu with Live TV includes CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN.
• FuboTV $35 for the first month – FuboTV gives you the first month at a discounted rate but after that the price increases to $45 a month. The service includes CBS, Fox, NBC and the NFL Network but does not come with ESPN.
• DirecTV Now $50 per month – DirecTV Now includes CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN and for $5 extra you can add the NFL Network.
• YouTubeTV $40 per month – YouTubeTV gives you access to CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN.

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Chinese tech giant, Huawei, has just unveiled its latest powerhouse; complete with top-tier internals, a quad camera and an intriguing design with a new ‘Horizon’ display, but without Google Play Services onboard is there a place for the Huawei Mate 30 Pro among its competitors outside of China?

Price & Availability

Arguably the biggest question mark hanging over the launch of the Mate 30 Series was whether or not the phones would see release outside of China, at least until the company finds a way to circumvent the US court injunction currently hanging over it.

With the imposition still in place and Google Play Services decidedly absent from the phones’ Android 10-based user experiences, company CEO – Richard Yu kept schtum on stage about when exactly we could expect to see a Mate 30 Series phone on store shelves, despite the Huawei Watch GT 2 and Freebuds 3 which launched alongside them, being slated for an October 2019 release.

The company has stated that a rollout is in place, starting in Asia-Pacific markets next month and appearing in select European markets afterwards.

Despite all this ambiguity, Yu did still produce European pricing for the new devices during the launch, with the standard Mate 30 Pro (featuring 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage) coming in at a substantial €1099 (approximately £793), the 5G variant of the phone, with the same storage and memory, asking a further €100 of your wallet, at €1199 (approximately £1062) and the special Porsche Design edition Huawei Mate 30 RS, with its 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, costing an eye-watering €2095 (approximately £1855).

What’s that on the horizon?

The phone itself is a characteristically premium blend of glass and metal but things are a little different compared to previous Huawei flagships.

The new 6.53-inch ‘Horizon’ OLED display consumes the front and sides of the Mate 30 Pro’s form, with ‘Side Touch’ replacing its predecessors’ physical volume keys; letting you press or tap the angled edges of the display to manipulate various controls. You can also customise whichever buttons you’re interacting with, so they can serve multiple purposes – like a volume slider or a camera shutter key.

In practice, reliance on the double-tap gesture can be hit-or-miss. The fact that it allows for ambidextrous use is great but actually finding the sweet spot along the display’s aggressively-curved sides isn’t without trial and error. The haptic feedback is nice too, with satisfying clicks firing off as you slide your finger along the rounded glass as you push the volume up or down.

Aside from being unable to as easily interact with the volume controls in certain situations (e.g. through the fabric of your pocket), the placement of the Side Touch area is such that if you’re watching content in landscape, you still have to tap along the phone’s (now) top edge to summon the volume slider, which itself appears on the far right of the screen – making for some confusing user interaction.

It is, at least, nice that this touch-sensitive zone remains active even when the phone’s display is off, meaning you can adjust the volume blind, whilst listing to music, podcasts or other audio-only experiences.

As for the panel itself, it looks to be a pleasing entrant in Huawei’s ever-improving lineage of screens, although when viewed face-on there is a strange brightness drop-off effect that appears along the heavily curved edges of the display which is especially visible when on-screen content makes use of a white background – the rest of the time, however, it’ll likely go unnoticed.

While the pixel density isn’t as great as that of 2018’s Mate 20 Pro, under real-world conditions, you’ll likely be more than happy with the viewing experience offered up by this year’s Mate.

The OLED panel offers reliable outdoor visibility, great viewing angles and vivacious colours (helped by the default ‘vivid’ display mode in the phone’s display settings menu), with full support for the DCI-P3 colour space and Huawei’s typically robust display customisation options at your disposal.

Additional features like ‘Natural tone’ mimic Apple’s True Tone display technology in an effort to ensure consistent colour representation on-screen in the face of wildly varied ambient lighting.

The first square-jawed Mate

Looking beyond the display to the broader design, the Mate 30 Pro sports a far more squared appearance than practically any other Huawei phone in recent memory; more closely mirroring the design relationship found between Samsung’s most recent Galaxy S10 and Note 10 devices.

While its unorthodox 18.4:9 aspect ratio display assumes a shorter, squatter silhouette compared to its predecessor, in reality, it’s still a perfectly slender device, and with over a 94% screen-to-body ratio, there’s barely anything aside from screen to see when viewing the Mate 30 face-on, giving it a cutting-edge appearance.

That is, of course, save for the notch – a decidedly vestigial 2018 trope that only Apple and Huawei have appeared to have hung onto with their latest top handsets. In truth, between a notch and the added weight and compromised water resistance that comes with a pop-up front-facing camera (the Mate 30 Pro is fully IP68 certified), we’d take the notch, and Huawei has also managed to make it smaller than the one on last year’s Mate.

Despite the shrinkage, Huawei has still squeezed a sizeable 32MP front camera, paired to a 3D ToF (Time of Flight) sensor into the small bar at the top of the display, granting depth data to your selfies and more robust 3D face unlock – a feature that Huawei first implemented on the Mate 20 Pro that works impressively quickly in this second-generation iteration, even against low light conditions.

It’s also worth mentioning that an in-display optical fingerprint sensor also features, but its reliability is less than stellar, despite apparent responsiveness when it does work.

While the Horizon Display has led Huawei to kill the physical volume rocker, not every hardware button has disappeared from this latest Mate. The engineering team found just enough room to fit the Mate series’ signature red power button on the phone’s right side.

The company presumably wanted some physical controls in case the need to perform a soft reset or access the phone’s boot menu arose. The button is also pleasingly tactile, bordering on a novelty at this point. It should be said that the phone’s raise-to-wake functionality is also very responsive and convenient, especially when paired with face unlock.

There’s another big talking point on the back of the Mate 30 Pro in its camera setup. While it’s a multi-sensor array, as found on this year’s P30 Pro, as well as its direct predecessor, things look a little different this time around.

The raised squircle of a camera module that the Mate 20 Pro popularised (and looks as though might have influenced the designs of both the iPhone 11’s and Pixel 4’s camera setups) has been pushed out to a form a perfect circle, which in turn is surrounded by a concentric ring of textured glass that Huawei is calling the ‘halo ring’.

The whole setup is meant to evoke the classic Leica cameras that the Chinese company has so tenuously tied its premium phones to in recent years, however, we see a similarity that is far closer to home, in the form of the once cameraphone king, the Nokia Lumia 1020 (which technically manages to trump the Mate 30 Pro’s main camera sensor from a straight-up pixel count, as it happens).

While we might prefer the more rounded forms of Huawei’s other high-end handsets, the collective effect of the Mate 30 Pro’s distinctive display, squared frame and clean lines is one of power.

We haven’t been able to trial the new texture gradient finish shown off at launch, but the shiny glass back on the model pictured is characteristically fingerprint-prone and the overall look of the Mate 30 Pro isn’t as elegant as, say, the OnePlus 7 Pro. Nonetheless, this looks and feels like a powerful, premium device that should impress fellow geeks and tech aficionados.

New Emotion(s)

Despite those hard curves, gesture navigation through the new EMUI 10 user experience feels natural and comfortable, helped by the fact that Huawei has still managed to add a slight curve to the phone’s glass back.

The software experience (running atop Android 10) is a sleek refinement on Huawei’s previous releases of Emotion UI. Version 10 pulls in a softer colour palette, more complex interaction animations and cleaner overall interface design. Collectively, Huawei’s efforts seem worthwhile, as anything that clears up and renders EMUI less intrusive is to be commended.

The refined always-on display and the new system-wide dark mode are particular highlights – the latter looks great on that OLED display but kudos should also be awarded to the development team for the refined gesture-based features that reside within EMUI 10.

By removing physical hardware controls, some actions are easier said than done. Thankfully, by leaning into EMUI’s Knuckle Mode, being able to capture a screenshot or initiate split-screen multitasking requires only a simple double-tap or drag across the screen using your knuckle.

In the past, Knuckle Mode was best avoided, as it usually didn’t work, felt awkward to use and doubled actions accessible by alternative means, with the Mate 30 Pro’s hardware arrangement, you become far more reliant on this feature set and thankfully, it doesn’t let you down as it once would have.

Hey Google, where are you?

When it comes to the Mate 30 Pro’s (and Mate 30’s) software, the elephant in the room is Google’s absence from the experience on offer.

Despite Android still being the underlying operating system powering these new smartphones, Google Play Services is wholly absent, meaning no YouTube, no Gmail, no Maps and no Play Store out the box.

Huawei is hoping users will find most of the experiences that they’re after by way of the company’s own App Gallery app store but the options currently within said store are heavily influenced by China-specific trends at present, not to mention Google’s apps (along with many other popular western apps), understandably, don’t feature.

There was a glimmer of hope soon after launch; a workaround that, after investigation, made use of some questionable underpinnings. It facilitated the installation of Google Play Services, the Play Store and practically any app from said store, however, after only a week or so, this ‘back door’ has been firmly shut, with no discernable alternative currently on-hand.

The implications of launching a high-end device like the Mate 30 Pro in markets where the Play Store is an expected staple of the Android experience are severe. Irrespective of whether users are aware of Play Services’ absence before or after purchase doesn’t matter – it’ll likely anger a lot of people who have certain expectations from any Android smartphone that they might buy.

This issue reinforces the company’s ambivalence towards the exact rollout of the Mate 30 Pro globally, during its launch event. Huawei is likely trying to hold out until some progress with the US government is made, but with no clear resolution on the horizon, the company has had to simply continue releasing products to its schedule.

A higher power

Moving from software to hardware, the Mate 30 Pro is the company’s first device to use its new Kirin 990 chipset. Aside from the optional integrated 5G modem, the 7nm SoC (system-on-chip) includes various subsystems to handle everything from 4K HDR video processing to AI tasks, to managing storage more quickly and efficiently (UFS 3.0) than before; all with super-efficient power consumption.

From a performance standpoint, the Mate 30 Pro with its Kirin 990 and 8GB of RAM puts up a real fight. In artificial benchmarking, it falls behind the likes of the new Asus ROG Phone 2 and OnePlus 7T when it comes to graphical testing (no doubt as a result of their gaming-focused Snapdragon 855 Plus chipsets) but the gap is slight. General performance is among the best in the business right now.

In real-world use, aggressive automated power management habits are definitely at play; shutting down select background apps, sometimes to the detriment of the user experience. Luckily, EMUI 10 does grant plenty of fine-grain control over how apps and their resources are managed, so that, with a little tinkering, you can find the right power profile for your needs.

Big battery, fast charging

Using the default power setting and EMUI 10’s system-wide dark mode, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro proves a bit of a beast, with a full day of intense use, including extended periods of gaming and streaming video, consuming approximately 66% charge on a consistent basis.

The 4500mAh battery is undoubtedly among the largest in a current-gen flagship phone and better yet, the charging tech onboard means you won’t be waiting hours to fill that big power pack back up.

The same 40W SuperCharge speeds as found on the P30 Pro makes their return, able to juice the Mate 30 Pro from empty to 66% in just 30 minutes – meaning Huawei can borrow OnePlus’ iconic slogan of “a day’s power in half an hour”, based on our testing. A full charge takes an equally-impressive 70 minutes flat.

There’s also the matter of improved wireless charging (up to 27W) and superior reverse wireless charging (a feature introduced to the market on this phone’s predecessor – the Mate 20 Pro).

If you’re after a phone that lasts, the Mate 30 Pro has what it takes.

Four eyes

The sensor setup on the back moves away from the P30 Pro’s ludicrous zoom capabilities and instead places the focus on improving the video experience it offers – one of the long-standing shortcomings of the cameras on Huawei phones.

Footage is pleasingly smooth, thanks to that AI-assisted stabilisation, and it has to be said that artifcating and other latent issues with previous Huawei phones’ footage seem to have been addressed.

There’s also the matter of the camera’s party piece, which trumps Sony’s 960fps super slow-motion shooting with unprecedented 7680fps ultra slow-motion video capture.

More often than not it actually proved too slow for most of our test subjects but users will no doubt still find it fun to have around, even if the opportunities to use it effectively are infrequent.

Still shooting holds a lot of promise too, with the phone’s dual 40MP sensors on-hand for most shots, juggling a primary 27mm lens with an f/1.6 aperture and OIS (optical image stabilisation) alongside an 18mm ultrawide-angle lens with an f/1.8 aperture.

To add even greater versatility to the arrangement, there’s an 8-megapixel 80mm telephoto sensor, again with OIS, and a 3D depth-sensing module to help with edge detection and bokeh across both still and video – something Huawei was keen to shout about.

Generally speaking, shots look fantastic, with pleasing detail, dynamic range, contrast, stability and everything you could hope for. One thing to note is that Huawei’s AI-assisted image processing is enabled by default and has a bad habit of over-saturating and over-warming shots, so we suggest switching this feature off from the get-go.

You have the option to shoot in RAW when using Pro mode, there are some more creative shooting modes – both long-standing Huawei staples as well as new additions – and the company’s even gone as far as to include Osmo Mobile gimbal support from within the phone’s native camera app, a surprising bonus that highlights where Huawei sees the Mate 30 Pro’s cameras being put to good use.

Low light shooting is also a strong talking point with Huawei phones and it looks as though the Mate 30 Pro remains at the top of the pile in this regard. Side by side with its predecessor, the standard Night shooting mode retains impressive amounts of colour and edge detail while keeping grain and noise to a minimum. 

Verdict

Huawei’s Mate 30 Pro is unsurprisingly potent on paper and the new focus on video from the camera experience seems like a smart move, rather than simply building on the P30 Pro’s zoom capabilities. In almost every regard the phone has the ability to take on every other flagship smartphone of the moment but with the company’s current predicament, it might not even get the chance.

Despite Huawei’s plans to bring the phone to markets across the globe, the absence of Google Play Services is more than just a few missing apps. Even with Richard Yu’s plans to incentivise developers to build for Huawei’s App Gallery, the Mate 30 Series remains a cursed product line and, as it stands, only Trump’s government has the power to break that curse.

Two great Huawei phones that are still worth considering are the Huawei P30 Pro and the Mate 30 Pro’s predecessor, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro; both of which retain those all-important Google Play Services for the time being. Check out our reviews of both to find out more.

Read next – Huawei Mate 30 Review: Hands-on

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While there were few positives to take from their stinging 2019 Rugby World Cup defeat against Wales, Australia head coach Michael Cheika will no doubt draw inspiration from his side’s second-half comeback in his pep talk ahead of today’s clash with Uruguay. You can watch all the action live and in full no matter where you are in the world by following our Australia vs Uruguay Rugby World Cup live stream guide below.

It’s a match where both teams have plenty to prove. After impressing so much in their opening win over Fiji, the South Americans now look to nab third spot in Pool D after their defeat to Georgia.

As has been the way for many teams approaching their third game, Australia look set to rotate their starting line-up in a big way for today’s game. The most significant change sees 19-year-old winger Jordan Petaia drafted in, a move that will see the teenager become the first Australian player to make his international debut in a Rugby World Cup.

Uruguay will have to make do without hooker Facundo Gattas who is serving a three-match suspension following a nasty shoulder head challenge, while head coach Esteban Meneses  has made a number of unforced changes to freshen up his squad, with centre Andres Vilaseca set to skipper his country for only the third time.

You can watch all the action from pretty much anywhere on Earth by following our Rugby World Cup Australia vs Uruguay live stream guide below.

How to watch the 2019 Rugby World Cup from outside your country

If you’re abroad for any of the Rugby World Cup and don’t want to miss out on catching the coverage from your home country, you’ll inevitably find it geo-blocked when you try to stream online. But don’t sweat. With the option of a VPN, you can tune into those fixtures no matter where you are in the world without resorting to some dodgy feed on Reddit. And best of all, it’s really easy to do (or read on for details on how to stream coverage from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA).

How to watch the Wallabies in Australia

How to stream Australia vs Uruguay live in the UK 

How to watch Australia vs Uruguay live in New Zealand

How to live stream Australia vs Uruguay in the US

• Hulu with Live TV $40 per month – Hulu with Live TV includes CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN.
• FuboTV $35 for the first month – FuboTV gives you the first month at a discounted rate but after that the price increases to $45 a month. The service includes CBS, Fox, NBC and the NFL Network but does not come with ESPN.
• DirecTV Now $50 per month – DirecTV Now includes CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN and for $5 extra you can add the NFL Network.
• YouTubeTV $40 per month – YouTubeTV gives you access to CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN.

(Image credit: Future)

Live stream Rugby World Cup 2019 match in Canada

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Ask Google or Siri: “What is Taiwan?”

“A state”, they will answer, “in East Asia”.

But earlier in September, it would have been a “province in the People’s Republic of China”.

For questions of fact, many search engines, digital assistants and phones all point to one place: Wikipedia. And Wikipedia had suddenly changed.

The edit was reversed, but soon made again. And again. It became an editorial tug of war that – as far as the encyclopedia was concerned – caused the state of Taiwan to constantly blink in and out of existence over the course of a single day.

“This year is a very crazy year,” sighed Jamie Lin, a board member of Wikimedia Taiwan.

“A lot of Taiwanese Wikipedians have been attacked.”

Edit wars

Wikipedia is a movement as much as a website.

Anyone can write or edit entries on Wikipedia, and in almost every country on Earth, communities of “Wikipedians” exist to protect and contribute to it. The largest collection of human knowledge ever amassed, available to everyone online for free, it is arguably the greatest achievement of the digital age. But in the eyes of Lin and her colleagues, it is now under attack.

The edit war over Taiwan was only one of a number that had broken out across Wikipedia’s vast, multi-lingual expanse of entries. The Hong Kong protests page had seen 65 changes in the space of a day – largely over questions of language. Were they protesters? Or rioters?

The English entry for the Senkaku islands said they were “islands in East Asia”, but earlier this year the Mandarin equivalent had been changed to add “China’s inherent territory”.

The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests were changed in Mandarin to describe them as “the June 4th incident” to “quell the counter-revolutionary riots”. On the English version, the Dalai Lama is a Tibetan refugee. In Mandarin, he is a Chinese exile.

Angry differences of opinion happen all the time on Wikipedia. But to Ms Lin, this was different.

“It’s control by the [Chinese] Government” she continued. “That’s very terrible.”

‘Socialist values’

BBC Click’s investigation has found almost 1,600 tendentious edits across 22 politically sensitive articles. We cannot verify who made each of these edits, why, or whether they reflect a more widespread practice. However, there are indications that they are not all necessarily organic, nor random.

Both an official and academics from within China have begun to call for both their government and citizens to systematically correct what they argue are serious anti-Chinese biases endemic across Wikipedia. One paper is called Opportunities And Challenges Of China’s Foreign Communication in the Wikipedia, and was published in the Journal of Social Sciences this year.

In it, the academics Li-hao Gan and Bin-Ting Weng argue that “due to the influence by foreign media, Wikipedia entries have a large number of prejudiced words against the Chinese government”.

They continue: “We must develop a targeted external communication strategy, which includes not only rebuilding a set of external communication discourse systems, but also cultivating influential editors on the wiki platform.”

They end with a call to action.

“China urgently needs to encourage and train Chinese netizens to become Wikipedia platform opinion leaders and administrators… [who] can adhere to socialist values and form some core editorial teams.”

Shifting perceptions

Another is written by Jie Ding, an official from the China International Publishing Group, an organisation controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. It argues that “there is a lack of systematic ordering and maintenance of contents about China’s major political discourse on Wikipedia”.

It too urges the importance to “reflect our voices and opinions in the entry, so as to objectively and truly reflect the influence of Chinese path and Chinese thoughts on other countries and history”.

“‘Telling China’s story’ is a concept that has gained huge traction over the past couple of years,” Lokman Tsui, an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told BBC Click. “They think that a lot of the perceptions people have of China abroad are really misunderstandings.”

To Tsui, an important shift is now happening as China mobilises its system of domestic online control to now extend beyond its borders to confront the perceived misconceptions that exist there. Wikipedia has confronted the problem of vandalism since its beginning. You can see all the edits that are made, vandalism can be rolled back in a second, pages can be locked, and the site is patrolled by a combination of bots and editors.

People have tried to manipulate Wikipedia from the very beginning, and others have worked to stop them for just as long.

However, much of the activity that Lin described isn’t quite vandalism. Some – such as Taiwan’s sovereignty – is about asserting one disputed claim above others. Others, subtler still, are about the pruning of language, especially in Mandarin, to make a political point.

Should the Hong Kong protests be considered “against” China? Should you call a community “Taiwanese people of Han descent”, or “a subgroup of Han Chinese, native to Taiwan”?

It is over this kind of linguistic territory that many of the fiercest battles rage.

Coordinated strategy?

The attacks are often not to Wikipedia’s content, but rather its community of Wikipedians.

“Some have told us that their personal information has been sprayed [released], because they have different thoughts,” Lin said.

There have also been death threats directed at Taiwanese Wikipedians. One, on the related public Wikimedia Telegram Channel, read “the policemen will enjoy your mother’s forensic report”. And elections to administrator positions on Wikipedia, who hold greater powers, have similarly become starkly divided down geopolitical lines.

Attributing online activity to states is often impossible, and there is also no direct, proven link between any of these edits and the Chinese government.

“It’s absolutely conceivable,” Tsui continued, “that people from the diaspora, patriotic Chinese, are editing these Wikipedia entries. “But to say that is to ignore the larger structural coordinated strategy the government has to manipulate these platforms.”

Whilst unattributed, the edits do happen against the backdrop where a number of states, including China, have intensified attempts to systematically manipulate online platforms. They have done so on Twitter and Facebook, and researchers around the world have warned of state-backed online propaganda targeting a range of others.

Compared with almost any other online platform, Wikipedia makes for a tempting, even obvious, target.

“I’m absolutely not surprised,” said Heather Ford, a senior lecturer in digital cultures at the University of New South Wales, whose research has focused on the political editing of Wikipedia. I’m surprised it’s taken this long actually… It is a prioritised source of facts and knowledge about the world.”

Of course, every state cares about its reputation.

“China is the second largest economy in the world and is doing what any other country in this status would seek,” said Shirley Ze Yu, a visiting senior fellow at the LSE. “Today China does owe the world a China story told by itself and from a Chinese perspective. I think it’s not only Chinese privilege, it’s really a responsibility”.

Taiwan is itself locked in a messaging war with China, with its own geopolitical points to make and many of the misconceptions may be genuine ones, at least in the eyes of the people who edit them.

So does this amount to telling China’s story, or online propaganda?

At least on Wikipedia, the answer depends on where you fall on two very different ideas about what the internet is for. There is the philosophy of open knowledge, open source, volunteer-led communities.

But it may now be confronted by another force: the growing online power of states whose geopolitical struggles to define the truth now extend onto places like Wikipedia that have grown too large, too important, for them to ignore.

* The Chinese Embassy was approached for a comment but we did not receive a reply.

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This is your guide to the best Apple Watch prices and sales that are currently available online. Apple’s smartwatch is the most popular of its kind on the market, so finding the best deals can be a difficult task.

The Series 5 smartwatch was unveiled at the recent Apple Event and is available for pre-order now and will be in stores on September 20. The latest Apple Watch has a starting price of $399 / £399 for the GPS-only model and $499 / £499 for having both GPS and cellular. There’s also an Apple Watch 5 Nike version that’s priced at $399 / £399 and is available to pre-order in the US, but unlike the other models, it won’t be available in stores until October 4.

The announcement of the Apple Watch 5, has dropped the ‘standard’ price for the Apple Watch 4 and  Apple Watch 3, making it and other older Apple Watches more affordable, especially with additional discounts.

Below you’ll find all of the best Apple Watch sales we’ve found, from the Series 1 watch to the latest Apple Watch 5. We also threw in a few places to buy Apple Watch bands a little more cheaply than you can pick them up from Apple.

The best Black Friday Apple Watch deals and prices

While there are several fantastic offers to shop below, Black Friday 2019 (and Cyber Monday after) is always an excellent opportunity to score Apple Watch deals. Lucky for you, we’ve put together a guide on how to find the best Black Friday Apple Watch deals for the upcoming November sale event. We’ll also tell you what models will be on sale, what prices to expect, and when the sale begins.

(Image credit: Apple)

Apple Watch 5 GPS deals

OS: watchOS 6 | Compatibility: iOS | Display: 40mm and 44mm OLED | Processor: S5 dual-core | Onboard storage: 32GB | Battery: 18 hours | Charging method: Wireless | IP rating: IPX7 | Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, GPS