How to make your photo uploads more popular: Take your clothes off and brandish a firearm

Have you ever wondered why the photos that you share on Facebook or Instagram don’t get as many likes as other people? Well, thanks to the work of MIT’s illustrious Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), there is now a computer algorithm can now tell you how popular your photos will be — and more importantly, how to make them more popular. You will be unsurprised to hear that the algorithm discovered that sex definitely sells — posing in a swimsuit or miniskirt virtually guarantees a bunch of likes/shares. Interestingly, the software also found that bold colors such as red, blue, yellow, and pink also garner more likes.

The research, carried out by Aditya Khosla of MIT’s CSAIL with friends from Ebay and DigitalGlobe, uses computer vision and machine learning to answer the age old question “What makes an image popular?” The researchers began with a massive corpus of 2.3 million images from Flickr, and then used deep learning (neural networks) and analysis of social cues to discover what exact combination of image features and social context makes an image likable. [Research paper, PDF]

First the software looks at high-level features, namely objects. Modern computer vision algorithms are very good at picking out and identifying objects in images. Unsurprisingly, objects such as miniskirts, bras, and guns have a strong positive impact on an image’s popularity. Most cuddly animals score a “medium positive impact” rating, while wild boars, dull-looking items of food, and other everyday objects create a “low positive impact.” Spatulas, plungers, laptops, and golfcarts actually create a negative impact.

How patches of color affect the popularity of a photo. Bright colors do well, while muted blues/greens do not.

There’s more to a photo than its semantic meaningful features, though — things like color, gradient, and texture also play a big role in deciding a photo’s fate. It turns out that both color gradients and patches of bright color can significantly boost an image’s popularity. In the graph above, you can clearly see that reds and yellows tend to do a lot better than muted blues and greens.

Finally, the algorithm looks at social cues — how many friends the uploader has, how many total views/likes the uploader has across all of their images, how long the uploader has been using the service, etc. It turns out that having a large number of friends/contacts, tagging, and the mean number of views, are key factors in deciding how popular an image will be.

The most shared photo of all time: Ellen’s Oscar selfie. If only Bradley Cooper was wearing a bikini. And Jennifer Lawrence was holding a composite longbow.

How to make your photos more popular

If you want to find out how your own photos score in terms of popularity, you can actually head along to Khosla’s website and try the algorithm out. It doesn’t perform any of the social analysis, though — just the high- and low-level features, such as the presence of objects, or specific patches of color.

Do not upload boring (or disgusting) looking food if you want your photos to be popular. Martha Stewart uploaded this one: 3 million followers, and yet it was only retweeted 24 times.

Alternatively, I’ve taken Khosla’s findings and turned them Sebastian’s 5-Step Guide To Uploading A Popular Photo:

1. Upload photos of people, not landscapes.
2. If you do upload photos of scenery or landscapes, make sure they contain pretty gradients and bright colors (sunsets!)
3. If you’re trying to take the perfect selfie, you should take most of your clothes off and hold some kind of firearm.
4. If you insist on uploading photos of food, at least try to make sure it’s bold, colorful food — not drab, pasty food like guacamole.
5. Be sure to tag/hashtag your photos adequately and appropriately (though you might hate them, generally the more tags you use, the more views you’ll get).

The UK will be the first to break even with fusion power, leading us towards a future of clean, infinite energy

The world’s best fusion reactor, situated in the heart of the merry,Hobbit-inspiring motherland of Oxfordshire in England, will soon attempt to become the first fusion power experiment to surpass the mythical “break-even” point. This experiment, known as the Joint European Torus (JET), has held the world record for fusion reactor efficiency since 1997 despite the USA’s recent laser-based fusion experiments at the National Ignition Facility. If JET can reach break-even point, there’s a very good chance that the massive ITER reactor currently being built in France will be able to obtain the holy grail of everlasting green power generation: self-sustaining fusion.

Way back in 1970, the European Community (a precursor to the European Union) decided that fusion power should be taken seriously. In 1977, after lots of planning, construction of the JET began at a former Royal Navy airfield near Culham in Oxfordshire. Rather uniquely for an advanced science experiment, JET was actually finished on schedule in 1983, and was officially opened in 1984 by fair old Blighty’s Supreme Leader Queen Elizabeth II. In 1997, 16 megawatts of fusion power was produced from an input power of 24 megawatts, for a fusion energy gain factor (usually expressed by the symbol Q) of around 0.7. No other fusion reactor, including the National Ignition Facility in California, has come close. (The NIF is hampered by the fact that its its ignition method — 500 terrawatts of laser power — is incredibly inefficient.)

The fusion chamber at the National Ignition Facility in California. Fusion reactors look pretty awesome, eh?

While JET itself is a fairly low-power experiment (38 megawatts), it’s still very exciting because it’s essentially a small-scale prototype of the massive (500 megawatts) ITER fusion reactor being built in France that will (hopefully) fuse deuterium-tritium (D-T) fuel by 2027. Over the last few years, JET has been upgraded with the ITER-Like Wall (yes, that’s its scientific name) — basically a wall of solid beryllium that can withstand being bombarded by ultra-high-energy neutrons and temperatures in excess of 200 million degrees.

After years of working with just deuterium, JET is now ready to use a deuterium-tritium fuel mix that will burn a lot hotter and have a better chance of reaching break-even. When ITER comes online in the 2020s, it will use a D-T fuel mix. Speaking to the BBC, JET director Steve Cowley said, “We hope in the next runs of Jet that we’ll approach a [fusion energy gain] of one.” (Q = 1). For self-sustaining fusion that can be harnessed for energy production, though, we need to reach a Q of 20 or more — we need a confinement method (magnets, walls) that is so good that very little external energy is required to keep the fusion reaction going. ITER is aiming for a Q of 5 or 10 — and if it proves to be successful, say in 2030 or so, then maybe we’ll finally be ready to produce a real fusion power plant.With this new wall in place, the scientists at JET think they’re ready to throw some D-T fuel into the tokamak, pump up the magnetic field, and pray that more energy is released from the fuel than was put in to start the reaction. The key to sustained fusion is keeping the plasma hot and focused — and a big part of that is using a wall that bounces the hot neutrons back into the reaction, rather than letting them escape and thus losing energy and heat to the environment.

Here’s hoping JET reaches break-even! I sure would like it if fusion became a reality, rather than continuing to hope that cold fusion isn’t some kind of parlor trick…

DNA Day: Celebrate the programming language of life with your own DNA test

Happy DNA Day! 61 years ago today, the molecular structure of DNA was revealed to the world in the pages of Nature. The double helix is now emblematic of the programming language of life, and our understanding of DNA has grown by leaps and bounds over the past six decades. To commemorate such an important landmark in the history of man, let’s take a look at some of the most recent developments in the field of genetic research, and maybe even get tested ourselves.

So, what has been happening recently in the realm of genetic research? More than I could ever cover in a single article, but some interesting news regarding Neanderthal geneticshas surfaced just a few days ago. On April 22, a fascinating study lead by Svante Pääbo (the world’s foremost expert in Neanderthal genetics) was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Based on the genomes of three neanderthals found in disparate locations in Eurasia, Pääbo and his team discovered that the genetic diversity in neanderthals pales in comparison to present-day Homo sapiens. It also appears as if the Neanderthal populations were relatively isolated and tiny, so gene flow was extremely limited for these groups.

On the very same day, an article was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Bthat proposes the idea that skin cancer from the sun’s damaging UV rays was actually adriving force in the national selection for dark skin in early humans. In the article, Mel Greaves delivers a compelling argument that the deadliness of skin cancer in young albino children in Africa and Central America demonstrates just how vital it was for early humans to develop dark skin. Despite earlier conjecture that skin cancer doesn’t kill early enough to play a major role in natural selection, this article outlines exactly how skin cancer seems to have shaped human evolution.

Earlier today, National Geographic and Family Tree DNA teamed up to release a brand new version of the human Y-DNA tree. This new tree of Y chromosome mutations has over 1,200 branches — almost double the number of branches that the Genographic Project was displaying before. With this much refinement, it’s now even easier to track the historical migrations of your distant ancestors. To celebrate this monumental roll-out, Family Tree DNA is offering a 20% discount on the 37-marker Y-DNA test and all individual Y-DNA SNP (single-nucleotide polymorphism) tests to help you get started on your own research.

Nat Geo’s Genographic Project is on the cutting edge of genetic anthropological research, and its test is available to any interested party for only $200. Just a few months ago, I had the pleasure to discuss the intricacies of direct-to-consumer DNA testing with National Geographic’s Dr. Spencer Wells, so take a moment to read the full transcript of the interview for more information. If you’re more interested in the realm of genetic genealogy and your more recent relatives, take a look at Ancestry.com’s AncestryDNA product. From now until April 27, you can save 20% on your very own DNA test, and potentially find living relatives from all over the world. Consumer DNA tests are more affordable than ever before, so don’t hesitate to jump in now.

AOL 2.0: How Facebook is bringing back the walled garden internet ecosystem

Yesterday, Facebook announced a new service that’s designed to drive breaking, journalist-verified news towards the eyeballs of interested users. Dubbed FB Newswire, it’s different from the standard personalized News Feed that shows you the activity of your friends and (increasingly rarely) the companies you may have liked or followed. This new service is meant to help put a broader swath of content in front of users who are interested in it, but with a promise of verified-true data rather than simply showing you “trending” stories. In doing so, the company is taking another step towards establishing itself as a modern-day AOL.

Don’t laugh. While it’s easy to sneer at AOL today, in 2000 it accounted for 10% of the global online population. The story of the brand’s decline and near-collapse is a classic example of both the innovator’s dilemma and dot-com era hubris, but AOL was the internet for millions of people. The company’s flaw, from Facebook’s perspective, is that it ran a pay-to-play ecosystem. As users gained expertise, AOL’s “user friendly” walled garden ecosystem became more of a hindrance than a boon, while at the same time its failure to aggressively adapt broadband encouraged consumers to hop to other ISPs.

Facebook is reassembling the components of a similar ecosystem, only with an ostensibly free service and an updated approach. Again, it’s easy to sneer at the company’s failures — it swung for the fences and missed badly with the Microsoft Kin (widely derided as the Facebook Phone). Last year, it introduced the Android-based Facebook Home — an Android application that tried (with varying degrees of success) to essentially re-brand a device as a Facebook extension. It’s attempted to co-opt email addresses, launched its own Messenger service (and bought WhatsApp for a cool $19 billion), and, of course, bought out Oculus VR, makers of the originally Kickstarter-funded Oculus Rift.

To some extent, this is what big companies do — they try to identify big trends, then get out in front of those trends to capitalize on emerging opportunities. What’s striking about Facebook, however, is the company’s increasing ability to shape the rise and fall of other corporations. Zynga’s fortunes were closely tied to FB’s initial lax policies on acceptable lead generation and advertising revenue and its fortunes have slumped as the rules tightened up.

Few will shed tears for Zynga’s troubles, but Facebook’s shifting advertising terms are cause for more concern. In the early days, companies and organizations were encouraged to sign up and use the platform to reach more people. Facebook has since pivoted on that stance, restricting the “organic” reach of many organizations. The term refers to how many users who have liked an organization actually see the things it posts to its own news feed.

This data, from Adweek, shows how changes to FB’s algorithms impacted traffic to various websites:

There are variants of testicular cancer that I like more than Upworthy, so you won’t catch me shedding any tears over its precipitous traffic decline, but even websites like the New York Times have taken significant hits. With FB Newswire, Facebook is clearly trying to cozy up to journalists and news media, but it’s also flexing its own muscle.

Of course, if you ask, Facebook will tell you that these changes are a response to feedback and that users were complaining about being inundated with meaningless drivel and constant “Like our page!” spam from companies. Is that true? Almost certainly yes. But limiting a brand’s organic reach doesn’t just improve user satisfaction, it also creates incentive for that brand to pay Facebook for advertising space.

Whose traffic is it?

Social media is essential to most websites these days. Even if you have an enormous built-in audience — and I don’t think anyone doubts that the New York Times has its own established readers — we refer to things as “going viral” if they catch fire on social media. Stories are routinely judged based on how often they are shared and how much conversation they stimulate.

In many ways, that’s great. Pulling in readers or traffic from Facebook, Reddit, or evencough Google Plus is an excellent way to extend the reach of a story or improve a conversation. But it has consequences — news sites are rightly paranoid of being little more than glorified Facebook portals with a scope and reach that are largely defined by a reliance on one social portal. If a social media site drives the majority of your traffic, it’s notyour traffic — it’s Facebook’s. (Read: The ultimate guide to staying anonymous and protecting your privacy online.)

It could be argued that this is merely a continuation of the trend Google began years ago; the company’s SEO rankings and page placement are instrumental in determining how much exposure a brand receives. Research shows that most people rarely click through to Page 2 and a healthy percentage of searchers never even scroll. With Google using an increasing amount of space at the top of search results for advertising, that’s the kind of statistic that gives SEO businesses heartburn.

The resemblance between Facebook and AOL could grow even stronger if the company’s plans for putting internet drones in the sky actually come to fruition; at that point, Facebook would actually be serving as an ISP of sorts. Even if they don’t, both companies built businesses on the idea of providing a content service that primarily functioned as an internet experience filter. AOL never prevented its customers from surfing the normal web, either through the AOL-included browser or via a standalone installation, and Facebook certainly has no plans to block its users from accessing other websites or social media. Nonetheless, it’s actively pushing to become the framework through which peopleexperience the internet — and by inexorable extension, a gatekeeper of the kinds of content that users see or don’t see. As our editor Sebastian Anthony presciently described way back in 2011, feeding so much information into a single service like Facebook or Google could have awesome results — but it could also be terrible as well.

The Forbes Five: Hip-Hop's Wealthiest Artists 2014

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AppId is over the quota

Back in 2007, Sean “Diddy” Combs teamed with Jay Z and 50 Cent to create a song titled “I Get Money: Forbes 1-2-3 Billion Dollar Remix.” Less than a decade later, rappers are closing in on ten-figure fortunes, and he’s the nearest of the bunch.

Diddy leads the pack with an estimated fortune of $700 million, an increase of $120 million over his net worth last year. The change comes largely from the addition of Revolt TV—the new, music-focused, multi-platform channel of which he’s the majority owner—to his already-hefty portfolio.

“Right now my focus is Revolt and making it the number one, most-trusted, most credible worldwide brand for music,” he told FORBES in a recent interview. “And  to get Revolt to be the quintessential definition of real time. I think that’s the future.”

Diddy has plenty of competition in the race to $1 billion. His top challengers are Dr. Dre, who ranks second with $550 million, and Jay Z, in third place with an estimated $520 million. The former leapfrogged the latter on this year’s Forbes Five thanks to a large stake in Beats By Dr. Dre, which he cofounded with Interscope chief Jimmy Iovine in 2008.

The company controls an astounding two-thirds of the premium headphone market, with annual sales reportedly in excess of $1 billion and growing. Private equity firm Carlyle invested $500 million for a minority stake last year, pushing Beats’ value past $1 billion and likely closer to $2 billion.

“Beats has a unique brand—it speaks to a nice young demographic, which is really interesting to marketers,” says Peter Csathy, former president of Musicmatch, an early digital music purveyor acquired by Yahoo Yahoo in 2004 for $160 million. “When I think about Beats, I think about it as a lifestyle, I think of it as a media company, not just a hardware and music-focused company.”

Full coverage: Hip-Hop’s Wealthiest Artists 2014

Jay Z’s fortune continues to grow at a healthy clip, too. He’s made multiple nine-figure deals in the past, including his $204 million Rocawear sale in 2007 and his $150 million pact with Live Nation in 2008. But much of his recent growth comes from Roc Nation, his record label and management firm that recently added a sports agency. The outfit gets a single-digit cut of pacts like Robinson Cano’s $240 million monster agreement.

(For more on Mr. Carter’s rise as a businessman, check out Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went From Street Corner To Corner Office).

Next Next up: Bryan “Birdman” Williams, whose net worth would be over $300 million if he didn’t share his fortune with brother Ronald “Slim” Williams. The duo cofounded Cash Money Records two decades ago; Cash Money continues to grow with a roster that includes Drake, Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne. Birdman has also diversified with Cash Money Content, GT Vodka and the YMCMB clothing line.

Rounding out the list is 50 Cent, who owes most of his fortune to his $100 million haul from the sale of Vitaminwater in 2007. Now he’s trying to repeat the feat with companies like SMS SMS Audio and SK Energy beverages. In the meantime, he’ll reboot his music career by taking his G-Unit Records independent and releasing new album Animal Ambition in June.

“It was getting pretty difficult to launch music that everyone was paying attention to at the same time,”  says 50 Cent of his final days at Interscope, the label that launched him to superstardom. “The company itself was going through so many changes that I didn’t really know the people involved in the projects anymore.”

In order to complete our Forbes Five list, we follow the same procedures we follow while calculating our list of the world’s billionaires: looking at past earnings, valuing current holdings, leafing through financial documents and talking to analysts, attorneys, managers, other industry players and even some of the moguls themselves—like Diddy, who already has his eye on the next generation.

“My advice to future entrepreneurs is to always know reality, to know what you’re getting yourself into, to know how hard it’s going to be, how competitive it’s going to be,” he says. “We’re in a time where the people that really work hard—and really believe in themselves, and really don’t give up on their dreams, no matter how many times they fall down—are the ones that are going to be successful.”

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Investment in technology is coming to the CEO

For the first time in almost ten years, the Directors believe that technology can make a difference. But it is the best of the CIO position to the business technology agenda?

Despite the industry hype that largely followed the set of arguments in the 2003 Harvard Business Review article by Nicholas Carr, "it doesn't matter".

Carr said that rather than use to gain an advantage, most companies should spend less on technology.

"In the years 2003-2007 Nicholas Carr's ideas were almost believed it," said Gartner fellow Mark Raskino. "Business has been about standardization and outsourcing, and was seen as a function of commodities. The directors hired CIOs to be more efficient. "

Changed his mind about the technology of the latest Gartner CEO and business executive survey shows Citi's head. Raskino said: "the Directors are really interested in technology as a factor in the business, which is something we haven't seen since 2001."

Gartner, the directors make their top five business priorities for 2014-15. The most obvious growth, costs and profit, the survey showed technology as the fourth highest priority for directors.

Raskino said that this shows that the Directors now want to take advantage of the digital era, with mobile, social, cloud, big data, and online strategy.

"Technology is the key," he said. "It's not about internal efficiency more."

Most of the technologies explicitly mentioned in the survey were those associated with the options front office/revenue win. Responses made it clear that the directors of the brains have been set up to use the technology for growth, rather than the internal cost and efficiency, said Gartner.

"CEOs want to get customers and staff, using technology," Raskino said. "They are looking for growth in the domestic market because emerging markets are slowing down and want to use digital marketing."

Is digital means, take a different approach on products and services. Google, for example, has set the agenda for the automotive industry by developing an autonomous car.

Gartner also asked respondents about their most important technology enabled investment in the next five years. This year, the top of the list is dominated by the "front-office" technology related options that are used to help in the area of sales and marketing. Gartner also noted a strong interest in the creation of the business operations in the cloud and in the use of data-driven decision making through business analytics, big data and science data.

The directors are on the way to defining their business strategies in the digital era. Gartner study found that some managers do not distinguish between an old-fashioned approach to it, and this new era. Raskino said that many are still on the page e-commerce from the perspective of their strategy, dating from the year 2003. According to Gartner, only a quarter of you really understand where it is going to be digital, the use of mobile commerce and the internet of things. "Several directors for the app [could be used] to run your car," Raskino said.

While the directors are trying to deal with this emerging digital era, the CIO is stuck in a time warp before the recession, cost control was considered to be the highest priority.

An overview of more than 100 C-level executives conducted by Wakefield research for Avanade announced that 37% of the budgets allocated for technology in 2014 is now controlled by the Business Department. This means that more than one-third of the total technology company is buying the business people who do not report to the CIO.

Digital leaders need agenda, and no current commercial head provides this creativity

Mark Raskino, Gartner

Raskino added: "If you look at the CIO strategic documents and strip off the logo, can be from any company. CIO business orientation includes the SLA and the function of the Department, rather than a business. Digital leaders need agenda, and no current commercial head provides this creativity. "

From CIO strategy perspective, the digital era could not buy off-the-shelf, Raskino said. "It is not a package of competencies, unlike ERP, CRM and supply chain management. There are no frames, organizational structure or people who can borrow from the consulting firm you how to change your business. "

The digital era is more about traffic patterns, such as, for example, whereas, as social or mobile technology is changing the bottom line. The return on investment is less clearly defined in comparison with traditional packaged IT solutions.

Raskino, warned that the role of the CIO is a type of cast. "CIO lived under the control of costs and they don't look like the agenda setters," he said. "It causes a lot of CIO.

"CIO order another package from the IT industry. Now the business has to be creative, and it's not for creativity and enhanced cooperation, therefore, the directors are hiring digital leaders. "

Directors need to CIOs who are agenda setters, Raskino said. It's all about leadership and directors need confidence in the ability of people to the digital agenda.

The directors will be difficult to hire the right people to carry out the role of the digital leader, Raskino said. "There are some digital leaders in retail and media who are doing the ' digital ' for 10 years, and occasionally it will be people from the business and consulting firm environment. But true talent is scarce and home talent takes time. "

For example, last October, McDonald's hired Atif Rafiq as your first digital Director (CDO). Luke was formerly CEO of the Kindle directly on Amazon and was taken to lead McDonald's global digital strategy, focusing on future growth in e-commerce, to modernize the restaurant experience and involvement with consumers across the digital landscape.

While the CDO role evolves, is largely considered to be a service function for the business. In fact, 35% of companies IT departments now mainly services provider, Avanade's research found. And it is extended to 58% over the next 12 months, which may not be good news for the CIO, is planned at the forefront of the digital era.

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Zebra Technologies to get the business to Motorola for $ 45bn.

Zebra Technologies has announced that it will acquire Motorola's Solutions ' business expansion for $ 3.45bn.

Manufacturer of bar code, RFID printing and delivery of software and hardware bought the company expand its product innovation.

Zebra said that moves more into mobility, data analysis and cloud computing space and aims to become a leader in the Internet of things and messages for the "connected age."

The acquisition will enable Zebra to expand geographically. The combined organization will have about 20,000 channel partners in more than 100 countries around the world.

Motorola today intends to concentrate all its efforts to stimulate their commercial communications for Government and public safety customers.

Greg Brown, Motorola Solutions Chairman and CEO, said: "last year, we have a thorough review of our strategy and concluded that the synergies between our Government and the Organization of the company were not as large as the value, we could create a singularly focused on the core of the Government and public safety business.

"In the future we will have the absolute purity of purpose and mission as we serve customers globally with our set of important communication solutions. This store is actually pronounced in his leadership of the industry, a strong pipeline, the long-term record of consistent profitability and cash flow, and a variety of opportunities for growth. "

It is expected that the transaction is completed by the end of 2014.

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iOS 8 may come with baked-in Shazam so you can ask Siri what's playing

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What's that track? Just ask Siri

Apple has plans to bake Shazam's music-recognition service directly into iOS, an interesting new report claims.

The plan is to incorporate Shazam into the software in the same way that Facebook and Twitter are, and to allow users to ask Siri what song is playing without opening the Shazam app.

Shazam declined to comment on the matter to TechRadar, however WWDC 2014 is just around the corner and it's possible we could see the new feature included in iOS 8 when it's revealed.

It's unclear right now whether Apple plans to offer up a new first-party app for all this music recognition data.

The information comes from sources speaking to Bloomberg, one of which also claimed that Apple's iTunes Radio is currently gearing up for a global release.

It was also reported that Apple is chewing over the idea of putting out iTunes Radio as a standalone app, rather than as just a feature built into the iTunes store as it currently stands.

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Updated: 10 best smartphones in the US

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AppId is over the quota

What's the best phone? Our verdict on the best smartphones - constantly updated

Sometimes choosing between two cell phones is easy. Just look at the specs and it becomes woefully clear that some phones (even those positioned directly against one another) aren't created equal.

But most of the time it's not as easy as just reading numbers. A phone is something you'll use everyday for two years (if you're lucky). It needs to be durable, adequately future-proof and feel right in your hand.

We have for you here our continually updated comparison of the top 20 best cell phones you can get in the US.

We've given you a brief overview of every phone and why we love it. But feel free to check out our incredibly extensive mobile phone reviews for a more in-depth look to decide for yourself which cell phone is best.

We're excited about the prospect of the HTC One, as it's still a premium Android handset despite its age.

We love that the functionality of the One, including the camera's UltraPixels and speaker's BoomSound. HTC has been very clever in the design of this phone and has really stepped up what a high-end Android handset should be. Metal and glass always look and feel so much better than cheap plastic.

The issues with the battery and storage do rankle somewhat, and do detract from an otherwise flawless performance from one of HTC's best phones out there.

If you can still get your hands on one at a lower price than the newer model, you won't be making a huge compromise.

Sony's come out here with a very strong message: we are back and we mean business. There's no hint of this being a niche Android phone - or by any means a cheap one.

Now the waterproof Z1S is carried by T-Mobile, with zero down on its contract-free plans. The Z1S features a beastly 20MP camera with the largest sensor you'll find on a mobile phone at 1/2.3", coupled with an f/2.0 aperture you'll get great shots in low light.

It's also running Android Jelly Bean, powered by a 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800, so this thing is certainly no slouch in the performance department. Moreover, you'll be getting a 5-inch 1920 x 1080 display and a 3,000 mAh battery. What more could you possibly want?

More memory storage? Not only does it come with 32GB on-board storage, but it supports microSD cards up to 64GB - perfect for those 20MP photos.

We are currently working on our Sony Xperia Z1S review, but in the meantime, you can check out the Xperia Z1S page on Sony's website.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is a phone that we really, really like. The combination of powerful innards, the market's best screen and a clever design ethos all combine to make a really strong contender for the handset you should be buying when you wander into your local phone emporium.

The Galaxy S4 shell isn't made of metal meaning it doesn't feel as premium, but what you're giving up in feel you're getting back in weight, removable battery and general hardiness - the combination of Gorilla Glass 3 and a plastic shell means this is one tough cookie.

The gestures are cool, and the touch-less experience amazing at times - in short, it's a wonderful phone you want to pull out of your pocket again and again and again, making it a worthy second place contender in this list.

The LG G2 is the beastly smartphone that is LG's answer to the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One. It's a massive, yet not entirely unwieldy, smartphone brimming with great specs.

The display and camera are really killer, and performance is incredible. It ate up every benchmark for breakfast, turned out great photos and dazzled us with its high-resolution display. Oh, and on top of that, battery life was a charm.

The button placement drove us insane for the first few days, and it wasn't pretty. It's incredibly frustrating and takes some time to get used to. Adjusting volume when on a call was relatively easy if you spent enough time feeling around for the volume keys, but adjusting volume for watching videos is a total pain.

There aren't too many flashy bells and whistles with the LG G2 but there aren't that many issues either, so you really can't go wrong picking one of these massive phones up.

Though it's pretty much a dressed up, slightly nicer version of the iPhone 5, the iPhone 5C at least has decent improvements and a low price tag - if the starting pay of $99 with a two-year contract is your thing.

The bright colors make the iPhone 5C look a bit childish but look beyond that, the 5C does feel structurally sound in the hand, no doubt helped by the steel frame hidden under the polycarbonate exterior, which makes us less concerned about it smashing.

While the screen size might not be anything special, the 1136 x 640 Retina display is present and correct on the 5C, meaning it has the same offering as both the iPhone 5 (and 5S). You'll even find the same A6 processor, 8MP rear camera, 1.9 MP front camera, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.

So what have we got so far then? Well, the iPhone 5C is a slightly overweight iPhone 5 with a plastic body, larger battery and a slightly lower price tag - meaning it's a great mobile device but don't expect it to be the 5S.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is quite similar to its predecessors, the Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note 2; you're going to get something that looks like a giant phone and a small tablet meaning it's definitely not a device a lot of people will be clamoring for - but that doesn't mean it's a bad phone - in fact, it's a really great phablet.

The Galaxy Note 3 has grown again since the 5.5-inch offering on the Note 2 to a palm busting 5.7 inches complete with a full HD, 1080 x 1920 Super AMOLED display.

The Note 3 has also retained the metal frame from the Galaxy S4, which runs around the edge of the device providing a rigid body and a more premium look. The leathery texture adds to the idea of high quality, though it could look a bit tacky to some. But it actually does give the phone a nice grip and solid feel.

The Nexus 5 and Moto X are so close that it's really more like an equal second place here, and the difference between the two is going to come down to personal preference.

It has a large, sharp display and excellent battery life with its 2,300 mAh unit. If there is anything lacking, it would be the camera, but since Google's latest update to it, it turned out to be a good enough shooter.

What really makes the Nexus 5 incredible is the top-tier hardware - 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800, 5-inch 1920 x 1080 display, 2,300 mAh battery, 8MP camera - all at a starting price of just $349 unlocked. You won't find anything in that pricing realm with these specs these days, which makes the Nexus 5 an even more killer deal.

Moreover, you're running Android 4.4. KitKat, the latest version of Android, and you'll be getting Google's updates as swiftly as they come.

The iPhone 5S is a phone that takes everything Apple has learned over the last six and a half years and put it together in an incredibly cohesive manner.

There's always an apathy with any kind of "S" device from Apple, as it's historically just the same thing made a little bit better, and it's true the advances on the iPhone 5S are few - but the ones that are there are very impressive indeed.

Below the surface, Apple has put together one of the most cutting-edge smartphones around, imbued with a top-end camera and a really innovative feature with Touch ID.

There's only so much that smartphone manufacturers can do to differentiate these days, and while Apple can't expect consumers to be wowed by the same shell, it can expect to get some interest in the sharp camera and gives a sense of relief with the new A7 chip.

Its performance is consistent, battery life is good and the camera is one of the best - if not the best all around - in the market.

The Galaxy S5 pushes that flagship Galaxy S line into the future, and with it, Samsung has listened to critics and decided to scale back on all the junk they stuff into the UI. The camera is good as ever, its processor more powerful and its design rich with plastic, as usual.

We love that it's one of the few smartphones that still allows swappable batteries and memory cards, which is huge in an age when 32GB isn't enough, and battery technology hasn't quite caught up with our needs and demands.

The large, high-res display is beautiful, and it's covered with strong, scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass. If you're in the market for an Android handset, this is pretty much amongst the top-tier devices for 2014. You really can't go wrong with it if you don't mind the plastic build.

The HTC One (M8) is probably going to remain our number one pick for the year. HTC managed to keep many of the beautiful design elements of the 2013, or M7, model. along with refinements to Sense UI that make the experience feel fresh.

Perhaps it's biggest shortcoming is its low-resolution camera, but we've already given our opinion on that: what you do with the camera is more important than the actual camera itself. One neat camera trick is that you can now choose your focus point after shooting a photo, thanks to that secondary camera.

The 2014 version, or M8 model, has a slightly larger display than its predecessor at 5 inches over 4.7 inches. With the same resolution, that brings the overall PPI count down, but even the most discerning eyes wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Moreover, the HTC One's processor gets a bump with the new Snapdragon 801. Overall performance on the device is excellent. Coupled with its design, UI and overall build quality, you can't get better bang for your buck in the Android space. The HTC One is the easy winner this year.

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