Stop getting video recommendations from YouTube for Android – CNET

On Android, the YouTube app has several alerts you can manage while mobile. Whether it’s being notified when someone you subscribe to has a new video, or getting a reply to one of your comments, the app will make sure you don’t miss a thing. But there’s a new type of alert in the list: Recommended videos.

According to the YouTube app, Recommended videos are those that you might be interested in based on what you watch. Well, sometimes your YouTube history isn’t an accurate depiction of your tastes. For example, if a friend links a video of something beyond your interest, you may watch it to be polite, but you also don’t need to be reminded of it with app recommendations. Thankfully, you can disable these alerts within the app, here’s how:

Step 1: Open the YouTube app and tap on the user silhouette near the top right. Make sure you see your profile here, otherwise you’ll need to log in.

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Screenshots by Nicole Cozma/CNET

Step 2: Tap the overflow menu in the top right corner and head to Settings > Notifications.

Step 3: Toggle the switch next to Recommended videos. While you’re here, check the rest of the notification settings.

Now you’ll be free of random video recommendations based on the other videos you’ve watched.

Turn off notifications from websites in Chrome on Android – CNET

Some mobile websites, like Facebook, will deliver push notifications to Chrome on Android so you don’t miss an update or reply. This usually comes in the form of a pop-up asking you to allow notifications. If you’re quickly scrolling through a site, it’s too easy to accidentally tap the pop-up.

Looking for a way to turn off these notifications for good? Here’s how:

In the top right-hand corner of Chrome for Android, tap the overflow menu. Head to Settings > Site settings > Notifications.

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Screenshots by Nicole Cozma/CNET

Here you’ll need to tap on the mobile address for the website that’s bugging you with notifications. Then, you can revoke this access two ways:

• Clear and reset all data and cookies associated with the website, which will log you out of it and discontinue notifications.
• Only disable the notifications by tapping on the bell icon and choosing Block.

Now you’ll only receive notifications from the websites of your choosing.

Looking for the settings in the desktop version? Check out How to turn off Google Chrome desktop notifications.

What you need to know about Nextbit Robin’s Smart Storage feature – CNET

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Jason Cipriani/CNET

The Nextbit Robin is a new breed of Android smartphone — one that manages its own internal storage as you load more apps or content onto the device.

Over time, the Robin’s Smart Storage feature learns your usage patterns and knows what apps, photos and videos you’re most likely to use or need.

When the 32GB of internal storage starts to run low, Robin will begin offloading some of those items to your Nextbit cloud account. Each Robin user has 100GB of cloud storage.

Using the feature is likely something most users won’t need or use for several weeks, if not months. But there’s a few things you should know beforehand.

Play

Identifying archived apps

The idea of an app being removed from your device but still being available is a foreign concept. Typically when an app is removed, it’s gone and all its data is gone with it. With the Robin, however, an archived app and its data is offloaded to your cloud account.

Whenever the Robin archives an app, the device will alert you to its actions. A notification will show up, telling you the number and name of apps that have been moved, as well as the amount of storage saved by archiving them.

Another easy way to identify when an app has been archived is that its icon will appear grayed out on your home screen.

Photos

When it comes to archiving your photos and videos, there’s no quick way to identify what is stored locally or in the cloud.

The Robin will keep low-resolution copies of the photos on your device, and can download the full image on demand.

So far, I’ve found the best way to trigger the restoration of a photo is to zoom in on it. A notification will show up, letting you know the image is being restored and a few seconds later (depending on your connection and size of the photo/video) you’ll have the full-resolution copy available.

Another tidbit worth mentioning when it comes to ensuring your photos and videos are backed up: As of right now, the Robin will only manage items stored in the device’s Gallery app.

Pinning apps

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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

As mentioned above, the Robin is supposed to learn your usage habits and archive only the apps you use the least. With that said, there’s bound to be an app or two you hardly ever open but want installed on the device just in case. Take, for example, Android Device Manager; this is an app you will hopefully never have to open or need, but if you do, you most certainly don’t want to discover the Robin has archived it.

With such a situation in mind, the Robin allows you to “pin” an app to the phone. In other words, with a quick gesture you can tell your device not to remove the app, no matter what.

To pin an app, swipe down on the app’s icon. The icon will get smaller, revealing a checkmark behind it. Once the app is pinned, you’ll see a notification letting you know it was successfully put on the safe list.

View storage levels

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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

At any time you can view your Smart Storage levels on the Robin. Open Settings on your device, then scroll down and select Smart Storage. The top storage meter is for your cloud account, while the bottom is for local storage on your Robin.

Tapping on either graph will further break down the storage allotment by category.

Another area you’ll want to familiarize yourself with in this settings screen is the Options section. Tap on the three-dot menu icon, and select Options. There you can enable or disable application or photo backup all together, as well as allow Robin to back up your device on just Wi-Fi or both Wi-Fi and cellular connections.

Restore an app

When you need an app that’s been archived, you can restore it by tapping on the icon. A progress bar will show up just below the icon, and a notification will be put in your notification shade.

Once the app is reinstalled, you won’t have to log back in to the app or go through any setup process. If everything worked as it should, you will be able to pick up on the exact screen you last left the app on.

I’ve discovered some apps such as Dropbox don’t remain logged in once removed from the device, however. Your experience will vary.

Get Gmail features for Yahoo and Outlook accounts on Android – CNET

Gmail may not be the only email provider you use, and that’s why Google added the ability to access other email accounts through their app. Unfortunately, those non-Gmail accounts didn’t gain access to the features that make Google’s version of email so great. Now Google is changing that by letting you Gmailify your Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail/Outlook.com accounts.

So what exactly is Gmailify? It’s a shorthand version of forwarding your email from other services to Gmail. That way, Gmail can offer you some of its best features. Here’s some of the perks you can expect, according to AndroidPolice, and how to set it up:

• Better spam protection
• Sorting into Gmail categories
• Advanced search capabilities
• Itineraries appearing in Google Now

Note: This feature is rolling out in Gmail version 5.11. If you are not on this version yet, you can download and install it from APKMirror.

Step 1: Make sure you have a Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail/Outlook.com email added to the Gmail app.

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Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET

Step 2: Head to Settings > tap non-Gmail account name > Link account.

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Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET

Step 3: You’ll see a setup wizard to Gmailify your other email account. You can choose which Gmail account you want email from that address forwarded/linked to.

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Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET

Step 4: Sign in and grant permission for Gmail to manage your account.

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Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET

Step 5: Finally, pick the email address you want mail to be sent from.

Should you change your mind in the future, you can disable Gmailify on your non-Gmail accounts, and continue using them as you did before within the app.

For more information (and a video), check out the Official Gmail blog.

Put weather info on the lock screen of Nextbit Robin – CNET

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Nextbit Robin smartphone with weather forecast enabled on the lock screen.

Jason Cipriani/CNET

In an effort to make the lock screen of the Nextbit Robin more useful, the company designed a clock that’s big and easy to read.

Just below the current time is the date, and, if you enable it, just below that you can view weather conditions for your current location.

However, you’ll need to activate the weather feature before weather information shows up on the lock screen. Here’s how:

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The process for enabling weather info on the lock screen of a Nextbit Robin.

Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

• Launch the Settings app.
• Scroll to the bottom of the list and tap on Date, time, & weather.
• Next, tap on Weather settings.
• Finally, slide the switch to the On position.

You can also customize how often you’d like the device to refresh weather conditions, keeping in mind the more frequent it checks the more battery the service will use.

After enabling the feature, you can exit the Settings app and lock your device. It took a few seconds for the weather to show up just below the time for me, so don’t panic if it doesn’t show up instantly.

It’s a small touch, but one that’s easy to appreciate if you’re like me and find yourself unlocking the device countless times a day to check the weather.

Play music from your iTunes library without opening iTunes – CNET

My iTunes library sits untouched for long stretches of time. Part of the reason is I primarily use streaming services to listen to music these days, but part of the reason is iTunes itself. I just don’t like using the once-great, now-bloated application.

If you have a particular song buried in your iTunes library that you want to hear, there is a way to play it without touching iTunes. Let iTunes continue its slumber and instead turn to Spotlight search.

Open Spotlight by clicking on the magnifying-glass icon in the menu bar or by hitting Command-spacebar. Search for the song you want to play and in the results panel on the right you will see information about the song plus an album cover. Mouse over the album cover and you will see a play button. Click it to play the track.

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Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

You can close Spotlight and go about your business, and the song will continue to play. You can return to Spotlight, where your search query will remain along with a pause button if you want to stop the song. You will need to use Spotlight to stop the song because the media control keys at the top of, say, a Macbook’s keyboard do not work when playing a song in Spotlight.

Also, you cannot queue up multiple songs or an album or a playlist in Spotlight but must play songs one at a time. For times when you want to listen to a song or two from your vast iTunes library, however, using Spotlight search is the quickest and easiest way to go.

For more, discover other tricks in Spotlight for OS X El Capitan.

(Via Lifehacker)

4 things to make with a Keurig beyond just coffee – CNET

Keurigs and other single-cup coffee makers simplify the coffee-making process to a single button press. But when you break it down, all they really do is heat up water to nearly boiling and shoot that water out.

Once you realize this, you can start making new things with your coffee maker, including sweet desserts and breakfast.

Here are four things you can make with your Keurig that you never thought of before!

Oatmeal

Okay, maybe you thought of making oatmeal with your Keurig before. It’s pretty obvious. All you need to make oatmeal is a little hot water and just the right amount of oats.

Getting the right consistency can be tricky, though, so it’s best to pull the water into a measuring cup and add it to the oats slowly to zero in on the proper mixture.

Nature Valley also released oatmeal bistro cups specifically for use in Keurigs in 2014.

Soup

If you’re short on time for lunch, you can also use the Keurig to brew up some hot soup.

As weird as that sounds, Campbell has released K-Cup Homestyle Chicken Broth and Noodle Soup and Southwest Style Chicken Broth and Noodle Soup. Progresso, Heinz, Kettle Kups and other soup brands also released their own lines of K-Cup soups.

Typically, these Keurig-ready soups come with a K-Cup component and a packet, which contains the noodles and other solid ingredients. Pop the K-Cup into the Keurig, empty the packet of noodles into a bowl or large mug and press Brew.

Rice and pasta

A less official way to make a quick meal with your coffee maker is to make some pasta or instant rice. This method takes a little more attention to detail and takes much longer than a typical Keurig brew cycle.

Jami Karow on Pinterest explains how to make rice with the Keurig:

• Place a measuring cup under the Keurig and select the smallest brew setting on the Keurig.
• Use equal parts water and instant rice. So if you use 1/2 cup (118 milliliters) of instant rice, pour 4 fluid ounces (118 milliliters) of water into the mug with rice.
• Cover the mug and let sit for 5 minutes.

The same method can be used to make various types of pasta, such as Maruchan Ramen Noodles, Easy Mac, Cup Noodles and even non-instant pasta. Depending on what you’re making, the time and amount of water needed will vary. And additional water may need to be added halfway through keep the temperature from dropping.

Affogato

You can also make a nice treat or dessert for your guests with little more than a Keurig, some coffee and a scoop of ice cream. Here’s how:

• Place a coffee or hot-chocolate K-Cup in the Keurig.
• Add one or two scoops of vanilla ice cream to the coffee mug and place it under the Keurig.
• Choose the 6 fluid ounce (177 milliliter) brew settings and press brew.

This is called an affogato — ice cream or gelato “drowned” in coffee. It’s quick and easy to make, and a perfect way to top off a delicious dinner with friends.

How to connect Lifx bulbs to the Amazon Echo – CNET

Chris Monroe/CNET

You may have heard that the Amazon Echo recently received a massive upgrade in functionality, adding over 1,000 features, including the ability to order Domino’s Pizza, stream Spotify and control your Ecobee thermostat.

A new feature you may not have heard about is official Lifx support. Lifx has finally joined the ranks of Insteon, Philips Hue, SmartThings and Wink with native Amazon Echo support.

However, the setup process isn’t exactly straightforward. Here is how you can connect your Lifx bulbs to the Amazon Echo.

How to set up Lifx bulbs with Echo

Unlike Philips Hue or other natively supported smart devices, Lifx support is not prominently displayed under the Connected Home menu in Settings within the Amazon Alexa app. This makes setup a bit more tricky, but it should only take a few minutes to pair all Lifx bulbs in your hours with Echo.

First, you will need the Lifx app installed on your phone and at least one Lifx bulb added to your Lifx Cloud account.

• Open the Lifx app on your phone and scroll to the bottom. Under the Integrations section, tap the Amazon Echo button.
• In the web page that is opened, login to your Amazon account. Tap Authorize to give Echo access to your Lifx bulbs.
• Next, open the Amazon Alexa app, go to Settings and select Connected Home.
• Scroll to the bottom and tap Discover devices. The app will scan your wireless network and should Lifx discover all connected Lifx Bulbs, and they will appear in the device list.

All Lifx bulbs in your cloud account should now be accessible via the Echo. In order to control the bulbs better, you will need to create new groups for your Lifx bulbs. These groups are separate from the groups created within the Lifx app, but you can use the same names for the groups. It’s best to keep the names simple, such as Living Room, Office or Bedroom.

With this, you can use commands like “Alexa, turn office lights on.” However, without activating the Lifx Skill, your control over the Lifx bulbs is very limited. To enable this, go to the Skills section within the Alexa app. Search for Lifx and tap Enable. In the window that opens, login to your Lifx Cloud account and authorize the connection.

With this enabled, you are given better control over the lights. You can say things like “Alexa, tell Lifx to change office lights to full brightness,” or “Alexa, tell Lifx to make living room lights blue.”

Here’s everything the Amazon Echo can do…

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IFTTT integration is still relevant

The ability to control Lifx bulbs with the Echo isn’t entirely new. Before the update, you could set up various recipes with IFTTT to control not only Lifx lights but a host of devices around your house with very specific and unnatural spoken commands.

For example, I created a few different recipes for Echo and Lifx with IFTTT. One of them activates the Video scene from my Lifx app by speaking, “Alexa, trigger video lights.” This switches the lamp in the back of my video set to violet and 50 percent brightness.

To accomplish the same thing with native integration, I have to say, “Alexa, tell Lifx to turn my office lights to violet,” then I have to phrase another command to set the brightness. While it has a higher success rate and faster response time, it’s far more wordy and unnatural to say.

Not to mention, with IFTTT integration, a single phrase can trigger multiple recipes. The “Alexa, trigger video lights” command could also be programmed to turn the AC off with Nest, toggle the rest of the lights in the apartment off and turn off any other particularly noisy appliances that are plugged into smart switches.

While I have mostly switched over to the native commands, I still use the IFTTT integration to tie multiple actions to a single Echo command.

How to lower the volume of your Mac’s startup chime – CNET

If you use a set of external speakers with your Mac, you may notice that the chime you hear as your Mac starts up comes not from the external speakers but from your Mac’s internal speakers.

If you’d like to adjust the volume of this startup chime — or mute it altogether (not recommended) — there is way to make this adjustment without changing the volume level of your external speakers.

OS X provides two volume sliders, one for the internal speakers and one for external speakers (or headphones) when attached. If you have speakers attached to the audio port of your Mac, the volume buttons on your keyboard adjust the volume of these external speakers. And if you go to System Preferences > Sound and click on the Output tab, you’ll see that the volume slider at the bottom of the panel is for your external speakers as well.

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Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

Unplug your speakers, however, and this volume slider (and the volume buttons) instead controls the volume level for your internal speakers. This arrangement allows you to set the volume at different levels for external and internal speakers. So, you can lower the volume of the startup chime, plug back in your external speakers and continue to rock out at a high volume.

Although there is a check box to mute the sound of either the external or internal speakers, I would not recommend muting the internal speaker because the startup chime can alert when your Mac isn’t feeling well. There is a handful of different startup tone patterns when your Mac is experiencing a problem, and you wouldn’t want to miss such a warning.

(Via Lifehacker)

7 essential IFTTT recipes for the Amazon Echo – CNET

Even with over 1,000 new features, the Amazon Echo can’t do it all. There are still a ton of services and devices that the Echo doesn’t play nicely with.

However, with the help of IFTTT, the Echo can be used to control countless online services and third-party devices that aren’t officially supported.

Discover some of the best uses of IFTTT for Amazon Echo users below!

Find my phone

If you have the habit of misplacing your phone when you’re at home, rest easy knowing you can use the power of IFTTT and the Echo to never lose your phone again.

In essence, all you have to do is create an IFTTT recipe that triggers an alert on your phone when you say a specific phrase to the Echo, such as, “Alexa, trigger find my phone.”

If you’re an iOS user, you’re limited to IFTTT sending a push notification to the IF app on your phone or calling you. If your phone is on silent, you’re somewhat out of luck.

On the other hand, if you own an Android phone, you can link two recipes to the same command for Echo. The first recipe will set the ringtone volume of your Android phone and the second can either call your phone or begin playing music.

Set the mood

One of the best uses for the Echo is controlling your other smart home devices. Recently, Amazon added native support for even more smart-home devices, but it doesn’t cover everything. So if your smart-home device is compatible with IFTTT but not Echo, you can use IFTTT to get the job done.

Additionally, if you want to control something more specific, such as a preset scene with your Lifx or Philips Hue bulbs, you will need to use IFTTT to do that.

Visual timer or alarm clock

Getting a bit more creative, you can use the various native functions of the Amazon Echo to trigger different events with your lights.

For example, if you use the Echo as a timer or an alarm clock, you can use an IFTTT recipe to change the color of the lights when the timer or alarm goes off to ensure you don’t miss the alarm. This is especially helpful if you’re going to be on the other side of the house or even outside where you may not hear the alarm go off.

Toggle power for your TV

With SmartThings or a smart-home remote like Harmony, you can actually have the Amazon Echo power on your television and home entertainment system. Just connect your SmartThings or Harmony account to IFTTT and create a trigger phrase for the Echo, like “Alexa, trigger TV time.”

Add grocery list to Todoist/Reminders

If you’re as bad at making a grocery list as I am, this recipe is for you.

With IFTTT, you can create a recipe that adds all newly added items to your shopping list to Todoist, iOS Reminders or a note in Evernote. Then, to build you shopping or grocery list, all you have to do is say something like, “Alexa, add eggs to my shopping list.”

Each of these items will be added to the app you actually use for shopping lists. The same can be done with adding to-do items with the Echo.

Lock the door

If you have one or more smart locks around your house, you can use Echo to make sure all the doors are locked at night before going to bed, even if they aren’t officially supported by Amazon.

All you will need is a lock that is compatible SmartThings. Create a recipe for a specific phrase for the Amazon Echo, such as, “Alexa, trigger door locks.” IFTTT will then send the command to lock every exterior door to your house and save you from having to check each door individually.

Add your favorite team’s next game to Google Calendar

If you don’t want to forget your favorite sports team’s upcoming game, you can ask Alexa when their next game is. Using an IFTTT recipe, you can have the time and date of the next game added to your Google Calendar, Todoist or other app of choice, automatically.

Bonus: Multiple recipes at once

One of the greatest features of IFTTT recipes is the ability chain several recipes together or trigger multiple recipes with the same action. For example, with the single phrase “Alexa, trigger home,” you can:

• Turn on your Android phone’s Wi-Fi
• Turn on your Android phone’s ringer
• Turn on living room lights
• Set temperature
• Power on the entertainment system
• Remind me to take out the trash