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To improve the security of its Azure cloud computing service, Microsoft is launching a new lab as well as increasing bug bounty rewards.

At this year’s Black Hat USA security conference, the company unveiled its new Azure Security Lab which is made up of a set of dedicated cloud hosts that security professionals invited by the software giant will be able to use to test for vulnerabilities and exploits in Azure.

In order to prevent hacking attempts and tests from disrupting Azure’s day to day operations, the lab is isolated from the main Azure framework. Additionally, Microsoft’s own internal security team will be available to work with researchers on their findings.

The company explained the benefits of isolating its new lab from Azure in an announcement, saying:

“The isolation of the Azure Security Lab allows us to offer something new: researchers can not only research vulnerabilities in Azure, they can attempt to exploit them. Those with access to the Azure Security Lab may attempt the scenario-based challenges with top awards of $300,000.”

Bug bounty

In addition to launching Azure Security Lab, Microsoft is also changing how the traditional Azure bug bounty program works.

Over the past 12 months, the company has awarded over $4.4m in bug bounty rewards and from today, security researchers will be able to earn up to $40,000 for sever Azure vulnerability reports.

Those looking for even bigger payouts need to look no further than the Microsoft Mitigation Bypass Bounty and the Bounty for Defense Programs where researchers can earn up to $100,000 for mitigation bypass reports and other severe vulnerabilities.

Microsoft has also now laid out Safe Harbor principles for security researchers where they can identify and report vulnerabilities and other security issues without the fear of legal repercussions.

Via ZDNet

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It’s official: the Apple Card will be available starting today, but only in a “preview rollout” for a select group of users, according to The Verge. A broad rollout will follow later in August for all US iPhone owners.

The preview group is comprised of folks who signed up for notifications on when the Apple Card would be available – if you happened to do that, expect an invite. It’s unclear just how big this group is, nor when the larger rollout will start.

The signup process is reportedly smooth: iPhone owners running the latest iOS 12.4 enter some personal information (address, birthday, income level, last four digits of their social security number), which is sent to Goldman Sachs (which backs the card) to approve/decline the application almost immediately, per The Verge. It’s reportedly as simple and quick as Apple’s video demonstrates:

Once approved, your Apple Card appears in your Apple Wallet, just like that. You can request a vanuted card be mailed to you, which arrives with an NFC tag that you tap on the phone to activate the card.

Apple Card info can be found, unsurprisingly, in Apple Wallet. Sift through the settings to find your card number, make a payment, or check your spending – all Apple has explained in a series of videos it uploaded here.

Global launch still unclear

This sudden debut isn’t a complete surprise: CEO Tim Cook revealed during an earnings call last week that the Apple Card would finally be released sometime in August. 

But it’s still unclear when it will come to markets outside the US. That likely has a lot to do with gaining bank support for those markets, as well as Apple’s insistence that the Apple Card have no late, annual, international or over-balance fees. 

In the meantime, more information continues to arrive about the card – like how it won’t allow folks to sign up with jailbroken iPhones or to use it for buying cryptocurrencies (or other cash-like transaction), according to its User Agreement.

We’ll likely know more as folks start using the Apple Card and revealing its intricacies.

• The Apple Card only works with iPhones for now, so here’s our best iPhone list

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Following the launch of the impressive Oppo Reno 10x Zoom earlier this year, the Oppo Reno Z is here to disrupt the competitive mid-range market. Offering a gorgeous design, eye-catching colour options, a bright display and great cameras for under £300, the Reno Z is certainly worth considering.

Pricing and availability

The Oppo Reno Z costs a very attractive £299 in the UK, and can be bought right now from Carphone Warehouse and , both on contract and SIM-free. Unfortunately, Oppo doesn’t currently have any retail partners in the US nor does it operate its own US store, so those in the States are out of luck unless you want to import it from overseas.

The price tag is impressive, especially when you consider what the Oppo Reno Z offers. The price puts it up against other impressive mid-range smartphones including the Xiaomi Mi 9T and Motorola One Vision, so it certainly has its work cut out.

For more mid-range options, take a look at our selection of the best mid-range smartphones.  

It doesn’t look like a mid-ranger

The Oppo Reno Z boasts the same overall look as the high-end Oppo Reno, and although there are a handful of changes to the design to make it more budget-friendly, we don’t think it compromises the premium look and feel that the Reno Z offers.

Like its older, more powerful sibling, the Oppo Reno Z sports a gorgeous curved rear that boasts, arguably, a better colour combination than the high-end smartphone. We’ve got our hands on the Aurora Purple variant and we’re nothing short of mesmerised by the colour and finish. It sports a blue-to-purple hue with a shiny finish alongside the Oppo branding strip that sits beneath the rear-facing camera setup, unifying the Reno range.

If the Aurora Purple finish is a little too in-your-face for your tastes, you’ll be happy to know that the Reno Z is also available in Jet Black in Europe. Those in China have a variety of amazing colour options to choose from, but it’s likely that they’ll never make their way to Europe.

One of the compromises of the Oppo Reno Z is the use of plastic instead of the multi-layer glass finish featured on the standard Reno, but it doesn’t look or feel cheap. One of the main concerns, especially with plastic phones, are the scratches that appear on the rear when placed on a table – it’s certainly easier to scratch plastic than glass, after all.

While it doesn’t completely protect the rear, the Reno Z features a ceramic O-Dot below the camera to slightly raise the rear when placed on a flat surface. It also helps protect the rear-facing dual-camera setup which, unlike most smartphones on the market in 2019, is completely flush with no noticeable camera bump. It certainly provides a clean, unrivalled look amongst mid-range and high-end smartphones alike.  

The biggest change in design is the lack of a pop-up camera, which many thought (us included) was synonymous with the Reno brand. The cool angled pop-up camera offers something slightly different to the likes of the OnePlus 7 Pro, but instead, the Reno Z sports a waterdrop camera. In the defence of the Reno Z’s front-facing camera, it doesn’t really intrude on the viewing experience as other front-facing setups, but it’s certainly not a completely bezel-less display. 

It shouldn’t bother most people, but it’s worth keeping in mind if you’re looking for a truly bezel-less smartphone experience.

The curved edges and 3D curved glass make the phone feel comfortable in the hand  – a key factor when using a smartphone with a whopping 6.4in display. It’s also lightweight at 186g, making it lighter than Apple’s similarly-sized iPhone XS Max (208g), although it’s a little heavier than the featherlight Galaxy S10 Plus (175g).

Most importantly, you’ll find a 3.5mm headphone jack alongside the USB-C port at the rear of the smartphone – no need to ditch those cables just yet!

It doesn’t perform like a mid-ranger

It’s hard to miss the 6.4in FHD+ AMOLED display of the Oppo Reno Z; it’s bright, crisp and with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio, it’s tall without being too wide to hold with one hand. It has great dynamic range with HDR10 support, making supported YouTube and Netflix content look just as amazing as it would on a HDR10-enabled TV. It’s also incredibly bright, measuring in at 399cd/m2 in our tests.

The display is tough, boasting Gorilla Glass 5 protection as well as factory-applied screen protectors on the front and rear of the smartphone to help keep them scratch- and blemish-free.

And, if you look closely enough, you’ll notice an in-display fingerprint reader near the bottom, which lights up whenever activated. It’s admittedly not the best-performing fingerprint sensor we’ve used, with the occasional misread, but it works well when combined with the (basic) facial recognition offered by the Reno Z. 

Beneath the display is where the mid-range design of the phone really starts to shine through. First off, it features a MediaTek Helio P90, which is comparable in terms of performance to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 710, alongside 4GB of RAM and 128GB of non-expandable storage. There is a variant with a boosted 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, but like the exotic colour options, that variant isn’t available outside of China.

Despite not sporting the most powerful internals, the Reno Z doesn’t feel sluggish or laggy during general use. It can easily handle multitasking via the built-in split-screen functionality, browsing through Facebook, sending emails and more. We did notice a bit of a stutter when quickly scrolling through media-heavy social media apps, but that’s common amongst even high-end smartphones.

The mid-range price tag isn’t indicative of the mobile gaming experience either, as even with PUBG Mobile running with High textures enabled, there was no noticeable lag or stutter when playing. We must admit that the more advanced graphic options (like Ultra textures and anti-aliasing) aren’t available, but unless you’re a hardcore gamer you’re unlikely to notice the difference.

The only notable difference is with load times, even with simpler games like Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. The extended load times can vary in time depending on the game, but we think it’s an acceptable compromise for the mid-range price.  

Take a look at our benchmarks to see how the Oppo Reno Z compares to the similarly priced Google Pixel 3a, Xiaomi Mi 9T and Moto G7 Plus alongside its premium sibling, the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom.

In terms of battery life, you’ll find a 4035mAh battery that is more than enough to get you through a day with standard use and have a bit of life left, as it has in our experience. That is a large battery to recharge, so the Reno Z also offers VOOC 3.0 fast charging support, although the souped-up battery isn’t included in the box – you’ll have to buy that separately.

Near-ideal camera setup

While it doesn’t offer the advanced features of the high-end Oppo Reno 10x Zoom, the camera setup on offer from the Reno Z is more than enough for the average consumer – although photography enthusiasts may be left wanting more.

Let us explain; the Reno Z features a dual-camera setup on the rear, comprised of a 48Mp f/1.7 lens and 5Mp f/2.4 lens that acts only as a depth sensor  – it has no other function than measuring the depth of the photo to improve focus and enhance Portrait mode photography.

The quality of the rear-facing camera is generally quite impressive for the price, offering well-focused, balanced and detailed imagery, and that continues with the performance of the Portrait mode. The Reno Z has impressive edge recognition – even when tracing hair, a problem area for most mid-range smartphone cameras – offering an impressively accurate bokeh effect on portrait images.  

While the main 48Mp sensor boasts an aperture of f/1.7 and a dedicated night mode, night-time photography is a bit hit-and-miss. While the performance is great in dark environments filled with ambient light – like a photo of a street in the evening – the camera struggles with true low-light environments. It’s also difficult to get a sharp image at night, with the lack of OIS or onboard AI to counteract the shakiness of your hand during the 5-second capture.  

Video-wise, the rear-facing camera setup offers [email protected] but with no kind of image stabilisation – electronic or otherwise. If you don’t mind the downgrade in resolution, you can also record video at [email protected]/60/120fps and while it doesn’t offer OIS, you’ll find EIS on offer to make recorded videos appear smoother and more professional.

On the front, you’ll find a 32Mp f/2.0 sensor embedded within the waterdrop cutout, offering high-resolution, detailed selfies perfect for social media and video calling, although, with the lack of a wide-angle offering, it might be a struggle to fit all your friends in a single selfie. You’re also able to record [email protected] video on the front-facing camera, although there’s no EIS on offer here.

A unique take on Android

The Oppo Reno Z, like the rest of the current Oppo range, ships with ColorOS6, based on Android 9 Pie – and while it isn’t bad, it’s about as far from Stock Android as you’ll get.

ColorOS6 offers a rather unique experience and, unlike most Chinese manufacturers with custom skins, it’s incredibly well polished and a joy to use once you understand all its nuances. It makes use of the gesture-based navigation system, although with ColorOS tweaks that let you switch apps as well as go back a step with the same gesture.

The notification shade is another unique element of ColorOS6, offering a rather colourful array of setting toggles alongside your notifications. These notifications can be split into two categories – standard and unimportant. Unimportant notifications can be found by tapping an icon in the notification shade, allowing you to keep your ‘main’ notification shade focused on important incoming notifications.

It admittedly takes a while to mark the different notifications that you receive, but it’s a much-beloved feature by us.

That’s a theme that’s continued throughout the operating system – it’s packed full of small tweaks that really enhance the day-to-day usage of the smartphone. We think ColorOS6 is one of the most polished and intuitive Android skins currently available, as long as you take the time to learn the nuances of the software.

Verdict

Although it doesn’t feature the cool pop-up camera featured on the high-end Reno variants, the Oppo Reno Z has a lot going for it – especially with a sub-£300 price tag. The design is elegant, sporting a gorgeous Aurora Purple finish, a completely flush rear camera setup and Oppo’s unique O-dot to keep the rear from getting scratched when placed on a flat surface.

Admittedly it’s made from plastic instead of glass like the premium variant, but it doesn’t subtract from the premium design on offer.

The internals provide decent everyday performance, and that extends to gaming too, with no noticeable lag in even demanding 3D shooters like PUBG Mobile. The large battery provides all-day life with average use, and 20W Fast Charge support provides a speedy recharge experience, although it doesn’t come with a fast charger in the box.

It doesn’t boast the high-end features of the standard Oppo Reno, but the 48Mp rear snapper performs well in most conditions, although it can struggle with night-time photography. Oh, and the 32Mp front-facing camera is more than enough for even the most avid selfie-taker.

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Audi’s first all-electric car, the E-tron, is due to hit the streets in 2020, and the company has announced that it will also be releasing an electric scooter to complement it for shorter trips.

The E-tron Scooter is distinctly odd-looking, with four wheels rather than the usual two and a broad deck that allows riders to stand side-on, skateboard style. It’s a bold design choice, but one that makes a lot of sense; electric scooters are tricky to balance on, and having four wheels solves the stability issues that can lead to crashes and parked scooters toppling into the streets.

As The Verge reports, Audi compares the E-tron Scooter experience to ‘surfing a wave’, as you cruise along the street, steering with one hand and signaling turns with the other.

Smooth surfing comes at a price, though, and Audi isn’t planning to take on the likes of Lime, Bird and Lyft with an affordable scooter sharing service. The E-tron Scooter is for private purchase only, and is expected to retail at €2,000 (around $2,200, £1,800, AU$3,300).

For context, the newly announced Bird Two scooter (which Bird itself modestly compares to the Ford Model T) will set you back a relatively bargainous $1,299 (about £1,000, AU$1,900).

Surf’s up

If you decide to invest in one of Audi’s new electric cars, you’ll be able to charge the scooter directly from its battery, and you may even be able to add one as an optional extra when you place your order.

With such a high standalone price, that might be the most likely route to E-Tron Scooter ownership. For style-savvy commuters, the Cowboy electric bike is almost identically priced, offers over three times the range on a single charge, and (sorry Audi) looks far, far cooler.

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For the first time in nearly a decade, a brand new MacBook Pro may be on the way. Rumors have been ramping up for months regarding a brand new 16-inch flagship notebook, expanding Apple’s laptop lineup beyond the 13- and 15-inch models its been selling since 2012. Here’s everything we know so far.

The latest rumor: 9th-generation Intel Core processor

MacRumors reports that IHS Markit analyst Jeff Lin says that Apple will use ninth-generation Intel Core processors in the 16-inch MacBook Pro. Code-named Coffee Lake, the processor has a 2.4GHz base clock speed, Turbo Boost of up to 5.0GHz, and supports up to eight cores.

Aple currently uses a ninth-generation eight-core Core i9 processor in its $2,799 15-inch MacBook Pro, but that processor is clocked at 2.3GHz, and supports Turbo Boost up to 4.8GHz.

As for Intel’s upcoming tenth-generation Ice Lake processor, it won’t be in Windows PCs until the end of this year—Apple always follows a few months behind. Macworld’s Jason Cross recently wrote about the tenth-generation Intel Core processor and what to expect for the Mac. 

16-inch MacBook Pro: Display

Obviously, a 16-inch MacBook Pro would represent the biggest Apple laptop since the 17-inch MacBook Pro was retired in June 2012. While we’re holding out a sliver of hope for the first MacBook with an OLED display, Apple will likely stick with LCD for the 16-inch model, reportedly sticking with the same True Tone Retina panel and bumping the resolution slightly to 3072×1920.

16-inch MacBook Pro: Design

With the first new size in eight years, it seems likely that Apple will also usher in a new MacBook design to go with it. Way back in February, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted the new model would have an “all-new design,” so we’re inclined to believe him, especially since his other two rumors at the time—a modular Mac Pro and a 31.5-inch display—were on the money.

But there have been few details about what that might mean. We’d love to see the latest DigiTimes report of bezels as thin as the iPad Pro come true—which would still leave room for Face ID—as well rounded display corners and a trimmer and lighter chassis. And while we’re dreaming, we wouldn’t be opposed to the return of the light-up Apple logo either, but we’re not holding our breath for that.

Dan Masaoka/IDG

16-inch MacBook Pro: Keyboard

The MacBook keyboard has been a source of headaches, hand-wringing, and hatred, and rumor has it that Apple has finally gotten the message. After trying to fix the butterfly keyboard several times over recent MacBook releases, Kuo is predicting that Apple will be abandoning the mechanism it introduced in 2015 in favor of the more traditional scissor mechanism. He reports that the new mechanism will use “a glass fiber for a reinforced structure” and will likely be thicker than the existing keyboard, but we’re willing to bet that no one will notice or care—as long as it’s quieter, more durable, and won’t be nuked by a speck of dust.

Details of a patent that shows something that looks very much like an entry-level Z-series camera emerged a few days ago, sending the internet into a frenzy of speculation that an entry-level mirrorless Nikon model would be shortly with us. 

Yet, with no official launch, no teaser campaign, no model spotted in the wild and no word from Nikon about what it’s up to, we don’t know much for certain right now. But we won’t be surprised if such a body materializes before long – it just makes sense.

What’s in a name?

The fact that Nikon launched its Z series with the Z6 and Z7 makes introducing models on either side of these easy to fit within a single-digit naming convention. 

That’s not to say the company will only ever limit itself to five more junior models than the two we currently have, of course, but a Nikon Z1, Nikon Z3 or Nikon Z5 – all of which have been rumored at some point – would make the hierarchy easy to understand.

Nikon did previously make it clear was that it would be concentrating on high-end mirrorless and DSLR cameras, rather than the more affordable end of the market. 

The fact that many others have also moved away from the affordable end shows how little interest there is in developing too broad a range of products for such a sector. But Nikon’s words don’t quite rule out a more affordable option to ease entry into the system – and right now, unlike Canon, Sony, Panasonic and others, Nikon doesn’t have any junior-level mirrorless offerings below its newer full-frame cameras. 

This is, however, more to do with timing than strategy, with Nikon having ditched its 1-series line, whose models were all priced well below the Z6 and Z7, last year. 

(Image credit: Nikon)

Sony has the upper hand here, not so much because of its breadth of offerings, but because they’re all part of the same system, making upgrading far easier for users. 

If you’re on a budget, the A5100, A6000 and A6300 are all vying for your attention. And if you feel the need to move to a full-frame body in the line, you can still use your lenses, albeit with a crop factor and a lower-resolution output.

The cheapest entry point into Nikon’s mirrorless line, however, remains the Z6 (pictured top), which may be at the more affordable end of the full-frame scale, but is still priced well into four-figure territory.

So, the idea of a cheaper alternative to the Z6 would interest many, be they existing Nikon DSLR users looking to make the switch, or those new to Nikon who haven’t been swayed by one of its competitors – and there’s plenty that could be culled from the Z6 to craft a more affordable proposition.

The patent’s images already suggest that the viewfinder will be dropped, which is the most obvious bit of hardware to omit from a more junior model, as rivals have shown. 

(Image credit: Design Watch)

Dropping 4K video recording, and using an APS-C sensor instead of a full-frame one, would be the other most likely changes between a new model and the two that exist, although the images within this patent appear to suggest that such a model would retain a tilting LCD screen – not having one would certainly be an odd omission on all but the very cheapest mirrorless camera.

Such a model would be less likely to use XQD memory cards too, as its feature set and target audience would place lesser demands on the memory card used. These cards are still expensive next to SD-type media, and many affordable SDHC and SDXC memory cards are fast and capacious enough to handle the demands of the average mirrorless model.

Patent ≠ release

It’s worth bearing in mind that patents are filed all the time by manufacturers for products that never end up materializing, which could be for various reasons. 

An idea may seem workable at first, but may not quite work out in practice when a prototype is designed, for example, or perhaps it ends up being too costly to manufacture.

It’s worth remembering the purpose of a patent – to protect some kind of new technology or innovation from competitors – rather than seeing it as a sure-fire sign of what’s coming. 

But with DSLR sales containing to fall, and mirrorless models gaining even more ground, it seems to make no sense that Nikon – or Canon, for that matter – will maintain both systems in the long term, despite any pledges to do so for the time being. 

In short, whether of not these images show a future Nikon mirrorless camera, the chances of the company having the Z6 as the line’s most junior member for much longer are slim.

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We’re creeping ever closer to the release of Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding and yet, with just three months to go, we’re still in the dark as to what exactly the game is about. 

However it seems we’ll be getting a closer look at the title during Gamescom 2019, according to Geoff Keighley. 

Keighley is hosting Gamescom 2019’s Opening Night Live, pre-conference stream live from Cologne that promises announcements and new content from the likes of 2K, Square Enix and Google Stadia (among many others).

In addition, Keighley has announced Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima will also be making an appearance during the show to “premiere a exclusive look at Death Stranding”.

Check out the tweet below:

Exited to announce @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN will be live in Cologne during @gamescom Opening Night Live on Monday, August 19 to premiere a exclusive new look at DEATH STRANDING. ONL will stream around the world across all major platforms! pic.twitter.com/HYD9UZXS1JAugust 6, 2019

Hopefully the new footage will explain a bit more about Death Stranding’s gameplay mechanics and what we can expect in terms of narrative. 

But this is Hideo Kojima we’re talking about, so don’t expect everything to be so straightforward…

How can I watch Opening Night Live?

We’ll be reporting live from Cologne during Gamescom 2019 week, but if you can’t be there in person then you can watch the Opening Night Live stream from the comfort of your home.

The livestream will be available to watch on Twitch on August 19 at 7pm BST / 11am PT / 2 pm ET / 8 pm CEST or August 20 at 4am AEST. 

Death Stranding will release exclusively for PlayStation on November 8, 2019.

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