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Samsung's Galaxy S9 is the way to wean yourself off of DSLRs
Facebook privacy settings make you work to stop the data sharing
Best Buy to Stop Selling Huawei Phones

Samsung's Galaxy S9 is the way to wean yourself off of DSLRs

Posted: 22 Mar 2018 06:14 AM PDT

Samsung has a new smartphone out, the Galaxy S9 (and S9+). It's the latest flagship from one of the top smartphone makers in the world, but this year's version has a lot in common with last year's model, at least on the surface. The big focus (lol) this year was on the camera, and for good reason: Samsung stepped up its game significantly in this department with this update, and it comes closest to any smartphone camera I've tried yet to replicating some of the aspects of traditional photography that I love.

Arguably, other smartphone cameras, and the Pixel 2 in particular, can produce better photos. The Samsung Galaxy S9 is basically on par with that industry leader when it comes to quality of photos when shot in automatic mode – in some situations, including a lot of low-light scenarios, the S9 is better, but in others, like when there are big lightning differences across the scene, Google's smartphone edges the Samsung. But either device (and the latest iPhones, if you're going beyond Android) is going to be a fantastic photographic choice for most smartphone buyers, and that shouldn't be a major concern when making a buying decision.

Where the Samsung Galaxy S9 really takes a leap forward is in bringing some of what has been so appealing about manual-friendly retro camera designs like those favoured by Fujifilm to the mobile realm. There are plenty of manual photography apps that do similar things, but the Galaxy S9 has its crucial dual aperture camera lens, which can manually switch from F/1.5 to F/2.4 in pro shooting mode. This gives you a noticeable degree of control over depth of field, or the effect of subtly blurring either background or foreground details depending on where you want to draw attention in the frame.

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It's this small, but crucial detail that really drives the appeal of the S9 for me. Without it, it'd be difficult to roundly recommend it as a major upgrade from last year's model, and hard to say that it can stand apart from the rest of the crowd, most of which now feature magnificent cameras.

The Galaxy S9 also produces pretty fantastic results with full-light photos outdoors, as you can see from the gallery, with vibrant, rich color that might be a bit artificial, but ultimately comes off looking like it includes the kind of minor boosts and tweaks I'd do while editing in post anyway. The video shooting is good, as well, though it lacks the degree of stabilization that Google's Pixel 2 can provide when filming while in motion.

On the Galaxy S9+ (which I didn't test, but spent a bit of time with ahead of launch), the dual-camera design provides even more balm for DSLR and mirrorless addicts, since it gives you access to that 2x manual zoom. But the standard S9 strikes a great balance in terms of portability, design and features, and honestly most people won't often use the zoom lens anyway.

Another key feature of the S9 is its new super slow motion mode, which captures brief clips at 960 fps at 720p resolution. I had fun with this, but found its automatic mode frustrating (it rarely detected motion when I wanted it to, and often went either too early or too late to get the moment). Turning that to manual was again more fun, for many of the reasons described above, and more interesting in terms of results produced, like the clip below.

Other new features, including the AR Emoji, are less well-executed and will probably enter the dustbin of history with a lot of other Samsung exclusive features. That's not necessarily a criticism however: Samsung trying a bunch of stuff and then introducing it into the wild for hundreds of millions of customers isn't hurting anyone (though mode switching on the S9 is super sensitive to casual left and right swipes, meaning AR emoji could come up accidentally) and sometimes crazy stuff they try actually works. AR emojis is not one of those.

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Facebook privacy settings make you work to stop the data sharing

Posted: 22 Mar 2018 05:01 AM PDT

Here's where you'll find the settings you need to keep your Facebook friends from sharing your data with random personality quiz apps. It can take around two dozen clicks through Facebook to make the settings more private.

CNET

How many clicks does it take to keep your Facebook data private?

That was the question I set out to answer when I created a Facebook account on Wednesday. Specifically, I wanted to discover what it takes to stop my Facebook friends from sharing data from my account (created under the alias Lauren Mapala, because I'd make a terrible spy).

In case you've somehow missed it, Facebook is under intense scrutiny this week after The New York Times, The Guardian and the Observer revealed that Cambridge Analytica -- a data consultancy that helps businesses and political parties "change audience behavior" -- had gotten its hands on personality data from tens of millions of Facebook users. That data came from an app created by University of Cambridge neuroscientist Aleksander Kogan. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday said Kogan's app was installed by 300,000 people, giving Kogan access to their friends' data, too. According to The New York Times, the total number of Facebook users affected could be more than 50 million.

It was all possible because Facebook allowed software developers to create apps that could collect information on a user's entire network of friends. The backlash over the mess prompted Zuckerberg to promise to do better. In a Facebook post Wednesday, he said, "We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you."

Facebook has said Kogan violated its terms of use when he passed along the data. It has since turned off the functionality that made such broad data collection possible.

"It's important to note that Kogan's app would not have access to detailed friends' data today," Facebook Vice President of Global Operations Justin Osofsky said in a statement over the weekend. In its review process, he said, the company rejects a "significant number" of apps for accessing too much user data.

But third-party apps can still collect limited information on users' friends.

You can prevent your friends from sharing your data with third-party apps, but you'll have to do a fair bit of clicking first.

That's because privacy settings on new Facebook accounts default to letting your friends share some of your information with third-party apps -- and it's likely you and your friends have no idea that's happening. It's a glaring example of something privacy experts have been saying for years: Companies make it too damn hard for regular users to control their privacy.

"You should not have to be a settings wizards to enjoy a popular platform in a safe and secure manner," said Gennie Gebhart, a researcher at the privacy-oriented Electronic Frontier Foundation.

A lot of clicks

So how many clicks does it take to protect Lauren Mapala's -- and your -- privacy from third-party apps? About two dozen, assuming my fictional Facebook self is a competent novice. I took the path that seemed most intuitive. I clicked on Facebook's "Privacy Tour," which took me through four slides, the last of which was about apps and personal data.

A screenshot of the last slide in Facebook's Privacy Tour. — The final slide in Facebook's Privacy Tour discusses signals that third-party apps can access your data.
CNET

This in turn led me to an FAQ about privacy on Facebook. One question asked, "How do I edit the privacy and settings for my apps and games?" The answer told me to go to my settings and then select "Apps" in the left menu.

Facebook's FAQ on its data policies tells users how to access and edit their privacy settings when it comes to third-party apps.

CNET

I suppose I could have gone to settings first, but how would new Facebook users know to head specifically to the Apps section? And my clicking wasn't done yet.

Uncheck, one-two

Once I got to the Apps settings, I needed to make some decisions: By default, Lauren was letting her friends share a lot of her Facebook data with third-party apps. To change that, I clicked to edit "Apps others use."

Here I saw that Lauren's Facebook friends were able to "bring with them" her information to other apps, which means those apps would have access to these categories of data:

bio
birthday
family and relationships
my website
if I'm online
posts on my timeline
my hometown
current city
education and work
activities, interests, things I like
my app activity

The only categories not selected by default are "religion" and "interested in." Third-party apps do have access to everything else, including Lauren's Liked pages, which for some reason currently includes only feminist Ryan Gosling.

Facebook lets third-party apps access these categories of information about you by default when your friends use those apps.

CNET

You might think unchecking all the boxes on this screen would prevent your friends from sharing your information. But you'd be wrong.

Below all those check boxes is a message from Facebook: "If you don't want apps and websites to access other categories of information (like your friend list, gender or info you've made public), you can turn off all Platform apps. But remember, you will not be able to use any games or apps yourself."

So the only way to keep third-party apps from getting any information about you through your friends is to opt out of using apps yourself. That's a problem for privacy-minded users, as mobile apps and websites increasingly allow users to authenticate themselves via their Facebook accounts.

TL;DR

Here's what you can learn from Lauren's 27-click journey through Facebook's account settings. To keep friends from sharing your information with third-party apps, go to Settings, select "Apps" from the left menu, and click on "Edit" under "Apps others use." Then uncheck all the boxes and hit save.

Next, ask yourself whether you can afford to avoid interacting with all apps on Facebook. If the answer is yes, then stay in the "Apps" section of settings and find "Apps, Websites and Plugins." Click "Edit," and then click "Disable Platform."

Whose (de)fault is it?

Gebhart said it shouldn't be Facebook users' job to navigate "this maze of obscure privacy settings." And please don't blame the users whose Facebook information wound up in the Cambridge Analytica harvest, she said.

"Their data was very much taken from them," Gebhart said.

In his post Wednesday, Zuckerberg said Facebook would be introducing a new tool to help users find what information apps can currently access about them. But Gebhart said the data should be protected by default, instead of leaving users to change settings to keep their information private.

It just shouldn't be up to individual users, she said. "That's Facebook's job."

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Best Buy to Stop Selling Huawei Phones

Posted: 22 Mar 2018 06:39 AM PDT

Dan Strumpf and

Dan Strumpf

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Stu Woo

The Wall Street Journal

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March 22, 2018 9:37 a.m. ET

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Best Buy Co. BBY -1.97% plans to stop selling phones in the U.S. made by Huawei Technologies Co., according to a person familiar with the matter, the latest blow for the Chinese cellular-electronics giant in the U.S.

Best Buy will cease selling Huawei phones in the next few weeks, this person said. Best Buy is one of several U.S. retailers, including Amazon.com Inc., that sell Huawei phones.

Huawei is the world's third-largest smartphone vendor by units shipped, but its share of the U.S. smartphone market has been tiny since a 2012 congressional report advised carriers against doing business with the Chinese tech giant over security concerns. Huawei has denied it is a threat. The report has made it difficult for Huawei to secure partnerships with the carriers that dominate access to the U.S. phone market.

Huawei ranks 14th in U.S. smartphone market share, with 0.2% of smartphones shipped in 2017, according to research firm IDC. Huawei also runs a lower-end brand called Honor, which has 0.1% of the U.S. market share for smartphones shipped in 2017.