Feedly’s new Power Search is like Google for Stories
Feedly, the popular news feed reading app, has just updates its Power Search to increase speed, usability, and convenience. The search will collect info from 40 million sites, blogs, or magazines and find content related to you. Since 50 million new articles are added every day, you can expect to find exactly what you are looking for.
After asking a simple question, like, “Find stories about Lollipop,” you can choose to refine your results using filters, like “Only show me stories from TalkAndroid.com,” or “Only show me stories with a video.” If you are already a Feedly user, the searches can be applied to your saved stories or tags to make your Feedly experience even more personalized. The added filters make Feedly’s Power Search the best way to find written information tailored to you.
Source: Feedly Blog
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Amazon UK cuts price of Fire Phone by up to 75 percent for one day only
If for some reason you’re still mulling over purchasing an Amazon Fire Phone, now is your chance to snag one on the cheap — so long as you live in the UK and use O2’s network. Amazon is currently running a lightning deal for the device that drops the price down to £99 off-contract for the 32GB version, a savings of 75 percent. Additionally, you can pick up the 64GB version for a slightly more expensive £149, a 69 percent savings.
Sony to lay off 1,000 employees in smartphone division
Rough terrains seem to be ahead for Sony as the company is reportedly planning to sack 1,000 employees in its smartphone unit. The decision to shrink the workforce has sparked anxiety in electronics giant’s European and Chinese arms, which are likely to get most affected, reported Nikkei.
The Japanese multinational conglomerate had previously laid off 1,000 employees in its mobile division in October.
The Nikkei report further added that Sony’s mobile unit would see a shrink of 30 percent by next fiscal. It means about 5,000 employees will lose their jobs by March 2016.
The company, which is expected to make an announcement about its latest cuts on Feb. 4, lost approximately $1.26 billion last fiscal.
Source: Reuters
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Hotspot Shield update brings three new VPN protection modes
Hotspot Shield is one of the apps on our best VPN list, and it has an update rolling out today that will make it even better. Hotspot Shield version 3.0 is available now, free from the Google Play Store.
Version 3.0 brings on board three new protection modes to Hotspot Shield. The new Selected Sites, Smart Protection and Full Protection modes prove that the app is not just your run of the mill VPN tunnel. They want to do more than just let you watch BBC shows, or access your Gmail when travelling to certain countries of the world.
While the app is free to install and offers some functionality from the get go, the majority of top features will require in-app payments at a small monthly fee to unlock. Considering the extra security benefits of Hotspot Shield, it would be good to at least check out the app before shrugging it off for its costs.
Looking at those new features, the Selected Sites tool, as the name implies, allows you to control your VPN usage and settings on a per-site basis. Not a bad start. Smart Protection offers up automated controls for the new settings, including the ability to select which settings should operate over which wireless access point you access. Full Protection mode is pretty simple to explain, you gain full security coverage for all actions on your device.
One of the best parts is that Hotspot Shield can be setup to run at boot, turn off when your device goes to sleep, and ultimately run autonomously. This means that you do not need to worry about starting and stopping your VPN on the fly, just go about your day and know that you are secure.
If you are liking what you are hearing, go ahead and grab your copy of Hotspot Shield from the Google Play Store and see for yourself what the extra features have to offer. If you need a few pointers on how to put the tool to use, head over to their how-to pages.
Are you a fan of Hotspot Shield, willing to give it a go now that it has these new features or is it still too expensive for your needs?
Hands-On With the Reach79 Signal Boosting Case – Does It Work?
Earlier this month, we shared an iPhone case called the Reach79, which debuted at CES. The Reach79 case claimed to boost the signal strength and performance of the iPhone, improving battery life, reducing dropped calls, and improving download speeds, statements that were quite controversial in our forums.
Readers were understandably skeptical of the Reach79’s promise that it could deliver up to 2x stronger signal strength, so MacRumors decided to go hands-on with the Reach79 case to see if we could prove the company’s claims.
We’ve been extensively testing the Reach79 case on an iPhone 6 Plus for more than a week in various areas around the San Francisco Bay Area, but after several days of use, it remains difficult to conclusively say that the case improves signal in a meaningful way due to mixed test results. For a quick summary of what we found, scroll down to the “Bottom Line” section, or read on for our full results.
Our Testing
We used the Reach79 case on an iPhone 6 Plus connected to the AT&T network on multiple days, at multiple times, and in multiple locations, both indoor and outdoor. The phone was put into Field Test mode so that signal strength could be viewed as a raw decibel number rather than as dots or “bars,” in order to better determine if and when the case was improving signal. All testing was done in the hand or up against the head, which is how the case is designed to work.
We also tested with the Ookla Mobile Speed Test app to see if the case improved data speeds, but we were told that this is not a particularly reliable testing method due to the many factors that can affect data transfer.
If there’s one word that sums up our testing, it’s inconsistent. At times, when the Reach79 case was placed on the iPhone, signal definitely improved as evidenced by the raw numbers and speed tests, but just as often, putting the case on did nothing to improve signal, or even seemed to degrade it somewhat.
Read more 
Sony Announces Plans to Cut 1,000 More Mobile Jobs
More bad news comes from the Japanese tech giant this week, with a thousand more career casualties added to the already large number of layoffs these past few months.
In an attempt to cut losses and optimize its profits, Sony has made plans to cut another 1,000 jobs from its smartphone division in Europe and China. These job reductions come on the tail end of another 1,000 cuts in Q4 of last year. The job cuts reduce Sony’s total number of mobile division employees to 5,000—down 30%.
More information will be released in Sony’s April-December earnings report on Feb 4. This is bad news for lovers of smartphone competition. If Sony has to lay off workers in order to stay afloat in its market battles with Samsung and Apple, we can expect less innovation from the company in the coming months.
Source: Reuters
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Scientists 3D print cartilage to repair damaged windpipes
Believe it or not, scientists aren’t yet finished discovering new ways to 3D print body parts. A team at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research has developed a 3D printing technique that lets them produce cartilage for repairing damaged tracheas, better known to you and I as windpipes. They use an off-the-shelf 3D printer (in this case, a MakerBot Replicator 2X Experimental) to create a scaffold for the cartilage out of the same PLA filament you’d use for everyday 3D printing projects. After that, they cover the scaffold in a mix of chondrocytes (healthy cartilage cells) and collagen, ‘baking’ it in a custom bioreactor to make sure the cells grow properly.
The new approach is just a proof of concept right now, and researchers estimate that it could take up to five years before it’s helping to repair airways in humans. If it works as promised, though, it could do a lot for fixing not just tracheas, but other body parts. Instead of relying on either slow conventional reconstruction methods or expensive biological printers, you could use relatively cheap hardware to get replacements within hours. That, in turn, would both lower medical costs and let patients resume their lives that much sooner.
Filed under: Peripherals, Science
Source: MakerBot
Universal confirms full cast for Steve Jobs biopic
While there’s nothing shocking to come out of this, Universal Pictures has officially detailed the full cast of the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic in a press release today. The release basically confirms previous reports that the film will star Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs, alongside Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak, and Jeff Daniels as John Sculley.
Originally reported by SlashFilm, Universal also shared details about the film’s structure, confirming that it will indeed center around three major product launches throughout Jobs’ life.
Additionally, the press release confirms earlier rumors that Kate Winslet, Katherine Waterston, and Boardwalk Empire’s Michael Stuhlbarg are also a part of the movie’s cast.
Source: SlashFilm
Quad-Core 2012 Mac Mini Mysteriously Reappears on Apple’s U.S. Online Store
Apple today has mysteriously added back a 2012 model Mac mini to the Apple Online Store for $699. The over two-year-old machine still has the same hardware specifications as it did in 2012, including a 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 4GB of RAM and Intel HD Graphics 4000. The listing also shows that the computer ships with OS X Mavericks installed.
It is unknown if the outdated Mac mini has mistakenly resurfaced on the Apple Online Store, or if Apple intentionally reintroduced the model on its website. One plausible reason that Apple may be making this older Mac mini available for purchase again is to provide customers with a quad-core option, as the existing 2014 models are each powered by dual-core Intel Core i5 processors.
The entry-level Mac is listed as out of stock in the United States, and MacRumors could not find the model listed for sale elsewhere after spot checks of the Apple Online Store in Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and several other countries. Apple still offers a refurbished version of the same 2012 Mac mini for $589 on its website, although that model is also currently out of stock.
Microsoft accidently pushes 9932 build for Windows 10 Preview but fails to install
If you are using the Windows 10 Technical Preview, you may have had a few updates tonight. One of them is a Flash security fix to build 9926, and another is for the Windows 10 Technical Preview (KB3035129).
Interestingly, some users are also getting notifications for a 9931 and 9932 OS update. While at first this seems like good news as it implies new features and fixes, truth be told the update is meant for internal Microsoft testing only but it had been accidentally exposed. As a result, those attempting to install the update are met with a failure to install due to not having the proper credentials.
AIVAnet 