Mini-review: Galaxy S5 Active doesn’t add enough to be worth buying

The Galaxy S5 Active isn't a bad phone, but it's not different enough from the regular S5.

Andrew Cunningham

Every new Samsung flagship is quickly followed by a shotgun blast of variants, in keeping with Samsung's "flood the market" hardware development strategy. Develop a flagship phone to appeal to most people (this year, the Galaxy S5), and then follow it with similar-but-distinct phones to fill every possible niche.

Enter the Galaxy S5 Active. We liked the Galaxy S4 Active when we reviewed it last year, mostly because it added some much-needed sturdiness to Samsung's slippery plastic and because it was waterproofed. While it had most of the same speedy internals of the S4, it also used an LCD display panel instead of AMOLED, a nice option for people who don't care for the latter screen technology. In short, the S4 Active was different enough from the vanilla S4 to be worth a look, but not so different that it lacked all the S4's most appealing features (a problem with variants like the S4 Mini).

But the Galaxy S5 is already waterproof. Its back already moves away from the smooth, slidey plastic of older Galaxy phones. AMOLED screen technology has improved to the point where it's not really any worse in direct sunlight than an LCD screen (and the S5 Active includes the same 1080p AMOLED display as the regular S5, anyway). Is this year's Active variant still worth a look, or will most people be better served by the standard S5?

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Candid camera, part 1: Five times video footage showed police misconduct

florriebassingbourn / Flickr

This is the first post in a two-part series looking at the contentious but increasingly relevant issue of recording police interactions. In this series, we offer up some case-study examples of situations where surveillance cameras have been used as a force for good.

We've often commented on the double-edged nature of persistent surveillance. On the one hand, constant surveillance can lead to various privacy and civil liberties abuses. But as the following stories show, widespread adoption of surveillance cameras by both law enforcement actors and civilians can also help hold both parties accountable.

This is especially true with police dashboard or wearable video cameras, currently being used by law enforcement agencies around the world, which are designed to record most interactions between police and citizens.

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Candid camera, part 2: Four times that video evidence exonerated cops

Kevin Lim/ Flickr

This is the second post in a series considering the contentious but increasingly relevant issue of recording police interactions. In this series, we offer up some case-study examples where surveillance cameras have been used as a force for good.

We've often commented on the double-edged nature of persistent surveillance. On the one hand, constant surveillance can lead to various privacy and civil liberties abuses. But as the following stories show, widespread adoption of surveillance cameras by both law enforcement actors and civilians can also help hold both parties accountable.

While cops have had mixed reactions to recording their interactions with civilians, many police departments have begun to adopt in-car and wearable video camera technologies. For example, The London Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) recently announced a one-year pilot project that equips cops with body-worn video cameras to be used during their interactions with the public. Likewise, across the pond, the Boston and Los Angeles Police Departments have installed self-monitoring systems on police cruisers. Dozens of other US police departments, including those in Fort Worth, Las Vegas, and New Orleans, have deployed wearable police cameras.

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How to design a Web application with a 40+ year lifetime?

Stack Exchange

This Q&A is part of a weekly series of posts highlighting common questions encountered by technophiles and answered by users at Stack Exchange, a free, community-powered network of 100+ Q&A sites.

Pete asked:

Currently, I am apart of a health care project whose main requirement is to capture data with unknown attributes using user-generated forms by health care providers. The second requirement is that data integrity is key and that the application will be used for 40+ years. We are currently migrating the client's data from the past 40 years from various sources (Paper, Excel, Access, etc...) to the database. Future requirements are:

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Illinois buys cell-tracking gear complete with NDAs, no-bid process

JimyJOp

Newly published documents show that in July 2008, the Illinois State Police purchased over $250,000 worth of "covert cellular tracking equipment" from the Harris Corporation. The federally funded gear likely includes a Stingray and related devices that track a phone's location and can also be used to intercept calls and text messages.

The 110-page set of documents represents yet another puzzle piece in the slowly emerging national picture of how such devices are acquired and used.

The document set also indicates that the Illinois governor's office signed off on the equipment purchase and authorized an exemption from the "competitive bid process." It includes a rarely seen Harris contract that uses language meant to keep the stingray purchase quiet. The documents, which cover a period between 2008 and 2012, were obtained through a public records request and were first published earlier this week by Scott Ainsile, a freelance "data pilgrim" based in the United Kingdom, with help from Heather Akers-Healy.

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The Lava Lamp Workspace

Lava lamps aren't just novel relics of the '60s and '70s. Lined up in a colourful collection, they can be pretty neat office accessories, setting a tranquil mood. More »

   

 

 

This Set Of AppleScripts Will Help You Organise Your Browser Tabs

We all know that having a lot of browser tabs open all the time is a bit of pain, even if you are managing them well. If you'd prefer to get those tabs organised, the Veritrope collected together a bunch of AppleScripts that can export your tabs to a text file, Evernote and more. More »

   

 

 

The Kit Kat Car Desktop

Reader ScoobSTi Doesn't Have an STi's Windows desktop is interesting, even if you don't care for car wallpapers. Check out those Android Kit Kat-themed icons and the Google search bar on the desktop. Here's how he set it up. More »

   

 

 

Share An Old iPod's Music Library Wirelessly Using An Arduino

If you have an old iPod collecting dust, DIY site Erroneous Data Projects shows off how to add Bluetooth to the iPod so you can share your music with an Android app. More »