Move It puts a smart mini gym in your room

Eons ago, I used to go to the gym several times a week, but nowadays I can give you hundreds of reasons for why I no longer do so. Meanwhile, my beer belly is slowly engulfing my belt, and that’s never a good sign (I really should have joined the Engadget Fitness Challenge). This is pretty much the kind of scenario that Hong Kong’s Eggplant Technologies is targeting with its Move It smart fitness apparatus, which has just launched on Indiegogo ahead of its August shipment. In a nutshell, this is a four-in-one compact gym kit that you can leave in one corner of your home, and it comes with a mobile app that not only coaches you, but also lets you meet and challenge other fellow Move It users around the world.

When put together, the Move It assembly — available in either red on black (pictured) or black on white — comes in at about 40cm tall, 38cm wide and 21cm deep — about the same footprint as one or two pairs of dumbbells. Thanks to the aluminum and plastic parts, the kit weighs just around 3kg in total, so you won’t break your back when you move the set around.

Move It consists of four main parts that cover your basic cardio and muscle training needs: An ab wheel, a jump rope, a pair of pushup stands and a resistance band. We’re told that these have all been stress-tested, in case you’re concerned about how durable they are. When idle, these parts can be hung onto the strong plastic vertical frame which also has a slot in the middle for your phone or tablet — you may want to look at your rep counts on the screen.

The two smart handles — packed with Bluetooth radio, RF radio, gyroscopes, accelerometers and capacitive sensors — can be stored in the micro-USB charging cradle underneath; they can apparently operate non-stop for up to ten hours on one charge. To start your workout, just plug the handles into your desired equipment and the system will recognise what you’re holding.

It’s worth noting that the four parts also have extra sensors to help detect your particular workout type. For instance, the pushup stands use a combination of pressure sensors and IR sensors to cover both downward and upward movement, and they can detect whether you’re doing standard pushups, wide pushups or narrow pushups using the handles’ RF radio. The resistance band parts feature tension sensors that are similar to what’s inside digital luggage scales, and it can automatically detect six workout modes like left/right arm extension, shoulder extension, should fly rotation and more.

The skip rope modules have integrated IR-based counters, and combining these with the handles’ sensors, it can tell whether you’re doing standard jump, reverse jump or criss-cross jump. Last but not least, the ab wheel has its own pressure sensor and IR sensors (for distance measurement), and with help from the handles, it can detect standard rollout, left side rollout and right side rollout; it knows the required force and travel distance based on your weight and height.

On the software side, Eggplant has created some training programs in partnership with professional fitness coaches to provide real-time voice guidance, and it’ll even tell you if you need to push harder. Obviously, you can also use the app for just simple rep counting, time tracking and calorie tracking. Everything is stored in the cloud, and you’ll get a stats report on a daily and weekly basis. You can expect more advanced programs to be added in the future, though they’ll likely require subscription plans. Ivan Ho, CEO of Eggplant and former Microsoft software engineer, also expects personal trainers to utilize Move It to track their clients outside of lessons, as they will be able to add their own custom programs.

Then there’s the fun part. On top of the usual training modes, the Move It app also lets you connect with fellow users around the world (OK, a bit like Tinder), find a real-time workout buddy for some motivation, and even send challenges to friends or teammates. Say you’re in the mood for a push-up battle, just pick a challenge type (like a one-minute pushup count), send a request to your friend, do your part first, and when your friend is available he or she will then do it as well, and finally you’ll both see the game result. Ho says there will be many more challenge options available in the near future, so stay tuned.

Move It is already live on Indiegogo and the current base price is $159, which seems a pretty good deal given the quality of the early hardware I played with last week. Not to mention the wide range of exercise options and the extra software features to come as well. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to somehow go burn off the calories from the pizza and coke I just had for dinner. Oh, the shame!

Source: Indiegogo

New Version of ‘January 1, 1970 Bug’ Can Brick Pre-iOS 9.3.1 Devices Over Compromised Wi-Fi Networks

Security researchers Patrick Kelley and Matt Harrigan have uncovered a new way to exploit the infamous January 1, 1970 bug that was found to be the cause of bricked iPhones in February. Despite Apple’s patch of the original issue in iOS 9.3, Kelley and Harrigan discovered the way in which an iPhone constantly looks for trusted Wi-Fi networks could lend itself to the malicious bricking of a Wi-Fi enabled Apple device, without the user even knowing it was happening.

In a hypothetical example described by Krebs on Security, if a user confirms that a network called “attwifi” is a trusted connection, any subsequent network they come into contact with boasting the same name will connect with their iPhone. That way, when users revisit the same location frequently, they never have to fiddle with going through the Wi-Fi set-up process again. But the feature could be used to silently weaponize the 1970 bug, connecting users to similarly-named networks they’ve never encountered and altering the date and time stamps of their iOS devices.

In their research, Kelley and Harrigan used this feature of iPhones and iPads to build a nefarious Wi-Fi network, harnessing the requirement of iOS devices to occasionally connect to a network time protocol (NTP) server to keep date and time in sync. Once a user connected to their thought-to-be trusted network, the iPhone would reconfigure its software to update the date and time information from Kelley and Harrigan’s own NTP date, which they specified as January 1, 1970.

Harrigan, president and CEO of San Diego-based security firm PacketSled, described the meltdown thusly:

“One thing we noticed was when we set the date on the iPad to 1970, the iPad display clock started counting backwards. While we were plugging in the second test iPad 15 minutes later, the first iPad said it was Dec. 15, 1968. I looked at Patrick and was like, ‘Did you mess with that thing?’ He hadn’t. It finally stopped at 1965, and by that time [the iPad] was about the temperature I like my steak served at.”

Harrigan and Kelley coordinated with Apple when they discovered their findings to avoid preempting the company’s promise of a fix for the bug, and possibly encouraging its malicious use in the wild. As such, the company has fixed the issue and anyone running iOS 9.3.1 will be protected from the new iteration of the 1970 bug. Older iOS releases, including the original iOS 9.3 update, are still susceptible, however.

With the release of their research, the two security experts are understandably encouraging users to update their iPhones and iPads as soon as possible, and have created a video to better explain the issue.

Related Roundup: iOS 9
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The complete list of Alexa commands – CNET

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa, is infiltrating your home, beach trips and even your ride to work. Now that there are three ways to talk to Alexa — with Tap, Echo and Dot — you mind find yourself talking to her a bit more often.

The list of commands is expanding rapidly, as is the number of third-party services and devices that Alexa officially (and unofficially) supports.

Here is the (almost) complete list of Amazon Alexa commands.

Summoning Alexa

By default, Amazon’s connected speakers have the same wake word. All you have to do to queue up a request is say, “Alexa.” In the Amazon Alexa mobile application or at echo.amazon.com, you can change the wake word to either Amazon, Echo or Dot, depending on which speaker you have.

If you have an Amazon Tap, press the button on the speaker to wake Alexa. Unfortunately, even when cradled, the Tap doesn’t have a wake word.

The complete list of Alexa commands

The list of Alexa commands is expansive and grows with every new service or device it supports. Alexa isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty great at understanding natural language. So you don’t always have to speak the commands exactly as you see them below. Many commands work when worded several different ways or even with words omitted.

More Alexa tips & how-tos

• Which devices work with Alexa?
• Alexa tip: Wake up to any song on Spotify
• Use Alexa to send text messages

When you consider the possible third-party commands through Skills, the list goes on even further. To learn individual skills are capable of, visit the skill’s page from the Amazon Alexa app or echo.amazon.com. You can also say, “Alexa, open [name of skill].”

Here are all the native Alexa commands.

Basic commands

• Ask for help: “Alexa, help.”
• Mute or unmute: “Alexa, mute” or “Alexa, unmute.”
• Stop or pause: “Alexa, stop” or “Alexa, shut up.”
• Change volume: “Alexa, set volume to 5,” “Alexa, louder” or “Alexa, turn up/down the volume.”

Media controls

• Play music: “Alexa, play some music.”
• Queue specific song or artist: “Alexa, play music by [artist].”
• Play Spotify music: “Alexa, play on Spotify.”
• Play Pandora station: “Alexa, play [artist] station on Pandora.”
• Play a radio station: “Alexa, play [radio station] on TuneIn.”
• Play an audiobook: “Alexa, play [title] on Audible,” “Alexa, read [title]” or “Alexa, play the book, [title].”
• Resume the last played audiobook: “Alexa, resume my book.”
• Skip audiobook chapters: “Alexa, next chapter” or “Alexa, previous chapter.”
• Set a sleep timer: “Alexa set a sleep timer for 45 minutes” or “Alexa, stop playing in 45 minutes.”
• Song information: “Alexa, what’s playing?”
• Music controls: “Alexa, play” or “Alexa, next.”
• Restart song: “Alexa, restart.”
• Add a song to your Prime Music library: “Alexa, add this song.”
• Like or dislike a song on Pandora and iHeartRadio: “Alexa, I like this song” or “Alexa, thumbs down”

Time and date

• Set an alarm: “Alexa, set an alarm for 7 a.m.” or “Alexa, wake me up at 7 in the morning.”
• Set a timer: “Alexa, set a timer for 15 minutes.”
• Check timer status: “Alexa, how much time is left on my timer?”
• Ask the time: “Alexa what time is it?”
• Ask the date: “Alexa, what’s the date?”
• Ask when the next alarm is: “Alexa, when’s my next alarm?”
• Cancel an alarm: “Alexa, cancel my alarm for 2 p.m.”
• Snooze alarm: “Alexa, snooze.”
• Check dates: Alexa, when is [holiday] this year?”

To-do and shopping lists

• Add task to to-do list: “Alexa, add go to the grocery store to my to-do list” or “Alexa, I need to make an appointment with the doctor.”
• Create a new to-do item: “Alexa, create a to-do.”
• Check calendar events: “Alexa, what’s on my calendar for tomorrow?”
• Add an event to a calendar: “Alexa, add [event] to my calendar for [day] at [time]” or “Alexa, add an event to my calendar.”
• Create a shopping list: “Alexa, add eggs to my shopping list” or “Alexa, I need to buy laundry detergent.”
• Check your shopping list: “Alexa, what’s on my shopping list?”

News and weather

• Ask for your Flash Briefing: “Alexa, what’s my Flash Briefing?”
• Check headlines: “Alexa, what’s in the news?”
• Check weather: “Alexa, what’s the weather like?” or “Alexa, will it rain today?”
• Get a weather forecast: “Alexa, what’s the weather going to be like this weekend?
• Get traffic information: “Alexa, what’s my commute look like?” or “Alexa, what’s traffic like?”

Here’s everything the Amazon Echo can do…

1 – 5 of 20

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Entertainment and food

• Find movies in nearby theaters: “Alexa, what movies are playing?” or “Alexa, what action movies are playing tonight?”
• Get information on movies playing: “Alexa, tell me about the movie [movie].”
• Discover nearby restaurants: “Alexa, find me a nearby pizza restaurant.”
• Get operating hours or a phone number for local businesses: “Alexa, find the address for Bank of America” or “Alexa, find business hours for Harris Teeter.”
• Get IMDb rating: “Alexa, what is the IMDb rating for [movie or TV show]?
• Get casting for a movie or show: “Alexa, who plays in [movie or TV show]?
• Find out who an actor is: “Alexa, who plays [character] in [movie or TV show]?
• Find an actor’s latest work: “Alexa, what is [actor] latest movie?
• Find out who sings a particular song: “Who sings the song [song name]?”
• Get the names of band members: “Who is in the band [band name]?”
• Get album information: “What year did [band] release [song or album]?”
• Find popular music from an artist: “Alexa, what’s popular from [artist]?”
• Sample music from an artist: “Alexa, sample songs by [artist].”
• Find a particular album or song: “Alexa, find [song or album] by [artist].”

Math

• Convert units: “Alexa, how many [units] are in [units]?”
• Convert units: “Alexa, how many [units] are in 2 [units]?”
• Basic math: “Alexa, what’s 5 plus 7?” or “Alexa, what’s 56 times 33?”
• Advanced math: “Alexa, 70 factorial.” (Warning: Alexa will list numbers you didn’t know existed for about a minute.)

Definitions and spelling

• Get the definition of a word: “Alexa, what’s the definition of [word]?”
• Get the spelling of a word: “Alexa, how do you spell [word]?”

Sports

• Check the results of a finished game: “Alexa, what was the score of the [team name] game?”
• Ask if a team won: “Alexa, did the [team name] win?”
• Ask when the next game is scheduled: “Alexa, when do the [team name] play next?”

Purchasing

• Reorder essentials from Amazon: “Alexa, buy more deodorant” or “Alexa, reorder deodorant.”
• Order an Amazon Alexa device: “Alexa, order an Echo,” “Alexa, order an Echo Dot” or “Alexa, order an Amazon Tap.”
• Add an item to your cart: “Alexa, add garbage bags to my cart.”
• While listening to music in Amazon Music: “Alexa, buy this song” or “Alexa, buy this album.”
• Find new music to purchase: “Alexa, shop for new music by [artist].”
• Purchase a song or album from an artist: “Alexa, buy [song or album] by [artist].”

Voicecast

• Send current listening to a Fire tablet: “Alexa, send that to my Fire tablet.”
• Send to a different profile’s Fire tablet: “Alexa, show this on Alex’s Fire tablet.”

Smart home

• Turn off or on lights: “Alexa, turn on the lights” or “Alexa, turn off the living room lights.”
• Dim the lights: “Alexa, dim the lights to 50 percent.”
• Adjust temperature: “Alexa, raise the temperature one degree.”
• Set temperate: “Alexa, set the temperature to 72.”
• Discover smart home devices: “Alexa, discover my devices.”
• Pair a Bluetooth device: “Alexa, pair” or “Alexa, Bluetooth.”
• Connect to a Bluetooth device: “Alexa, connect to my phone.”
• Disconnect from a a Bluetooth device: “Alexa, disconnect from my phone.”

Profiles and user accounts

• Switch profiles: “Alexa, switch accounts.”
• Check which profile is active: “Alexa, which profile is this?”

Search

• Get Wikipedia information: “Alexa, Wikipedia: [subject].”
• Tell Alexa to continue reading a Wikipedia entry: “Alexa, tell me more.”
• Ask a general question: “Alexa, how tall is [person or object’s name]?”
• Ask a general question: “Alexa, how many people live in America?”

Easter eggs

Alexa comes chock-full of easter eggs and jokes — the list is long. Ry Crist covered the strange world of Alexa Easter eggs recently, noting some of the more popular or prominent commands you can speak to Alexa to prompt a snarky or humorous response.

• “Alexa, beam me up.”
• “Alexa, set phasers to kill.”
• “Alexa. Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.”
• “Alexa, my name is Inigo Montoya.”
• “Alexa, I want the truth.”
• “Alexa, party on, Wayne.”
• “Alexa, show me the money.”
• “Alexa, what’s the first (or second) rule of Fight Club?”
• “Alexa, surely you can’t be serious.”
• “Alexa, are you sky net?”
• “Alexa, party time!”
• “Alexa, when am I going to die?”
• “Alexa, what is your quest?”

For even more, check out this Reddit thread dedicated to Alexa Easter eggs.

How to build a VR-ready PC – CNET

The Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are here. But your PC has to be pretty powerful to use these cutting-edge VR headsets. If your PC is lacking performance, don’t worry. We’re going to show you how to build a VR-ready PC.

Getting started

Building a PC is simpler than you might think. You simply:

1. Pick out the right components

2. Plug them into the correct slots

3. Install your operating system.

We’re not going to rehash that entire process here, because CNET’s Dan Graziano wrote a comprehensive three-part guide that covers all the PC-building bases.

But when it comes to building a VR-ready PC, not any old component will do. We’ve spent hours piecing together parts, quizzing hardware manufacturers and speaking to VR developers to figure out the best parts for you — both today and into the future.

Then, we sat down to build a VR gaming rig.

(We got a little help from PC component vendor Newegg, which provided the CPU, GPUs, motherboard, memory and liquid cooling system for our computer after we finished our research.)

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CNET’s Future-Proof VR Gaming PC.

Josh Miller/CNET

Here’s what you need to game in VR

As you read through this guide, you’ll see up to three options for each major component of a VR-ready PC. If you just want to comfortably play every VR title today, you’ll be just fine with the bare minimum.

If you pick the parts we actually used, you should be well-equipped for next year’s titles and beyond. We wanted CNET’s Future-Proof VR Gaming PC to be ready for anything.

Future-proof PCs tend to be pretty large, but if you want a small, cool and quiet computer that’ll easily fit your office or home, be sure to look for our mini PC options.

You can also simply skip down to the bottom of this story for our full parts list.

A graphics card

The bare minimum:

• Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 970 or AMD’s Radeon R9 390 ($320, £280, roughly AU$420 each)

For a mini PC:

• Asus Mini GTX 970 ($360, £280, roughly AU$470) or AMD Radeon R9 Nano ($500, £450, roughly AU$650)

What we used:

• Two Nvidia GTX 980 Ti graphics cards ($1,300, £1,040, roughly AU$1,700)

The graphics card is the heart and soul of any VR-ready gaming PC, and unless you’ve picked up new hardware recently, yours might not be up to snuff. Both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive recommend starting with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 970 or AMD’s Radeon R9 290, and these graphics cards offer the bare minimum performance you’ll need to get a pleasant experience. More importantly for VR, the right graphics card will keep you from feeling sick — it’s all about the frame rate.

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Two Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti GPUs. We used two, and it’s definitely overkill.

Josh Miller/CNET

To hit smooth, satisfying gameplay on a PC, you’ll generally want your games at a frame rate of 60 frames per second. That means your PC is capable of pumping out 60 images every second; dip too far below that, and you’ll encounter staggered, choppy visuals.

For virtual reality, 90 frames per second is the holy grail. With high-resolution displays this close to your face, any lag or choppiness in movement is going to be magnified. Worse still, if the action doesn’t react in time with your motions, you could end up feeling nauseous. And keep in mind, virtual reality needs to render the action twice — once for each eye.

Truth be told, you can do that with a single $320 graphics card right now. (We checked.) Current VR titles don’t support more than one GPU at a time (although a dual-GPU system will still work fine with VR), and even a $500 (£420, roughly AU$650) GTX 980 can be overkill for the initial crop of VR games. If you’ve got extra money to burn, we’d recommend saving it for a future graphics card instead. New GPUs released over the next year may come with features that specifically reduce lag for VR experiences.

All that said, popular development platforms like Unreal Engine 4 will be incorporating Nvidia’s tech to link two graphics cards together, and there’s also no guarantee that game developers will stick to the system specs that Oculus and Valve recommend. So we opted for a pair of $700 Nvidia GTX 980 Ti graphics cards to effectively nuke future VR games from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

Note: If you go the AMD route, you’ll be looking for the R9 390, the successor to the R9 290. It’s better.

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Intel’s high-end Core i7 Skylake processor requires newer motherboards and memory.

Josh Miller/CNET

Processor

The bare minimum:

• Intel Core i5-4590 ($190, £160, roughly AU$250)

For a mini PC:

• Intel Core i5-4690K ($225, £230, roughly AU$300)

What we used:

• Intel Core i7-6700K ($350, £300, roughly AU$455)

The CPU or central processing unit is your gaming rig’s brain, and while the graphics card will be doing most of the heavy lifting in virtual reality, you’ll still need a CPU that’s up to the task. Recommendations for both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive start at Intel’s Core i5-4590, a solid mid-range part that’s a little long in the tooth, but still plenty capable.

But capable isn’t good enough for our future-proofed rig, so we’re heading right to the top of Intel’s stack with the Core i7-6700K. This processor throws a few wrenches in the works. It’s using a new socket type, which means we’ll need a new motherboard to support it. It also supports DDR4 RAM. No self-respecting future-proofed PC should be without the latest in speedy memory, but that’ll inflate the price of our build further still.

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The Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 motherboard.

Josh Miller/CNET

We’ve also picked an unlocked processor. That’s what the “K” at the end of the processor’s name means. An unlocked processor means we can overclock (manually speeding up the card’s internal processor beyond that intended by the manufacturer) if we want even more power. You might actually be able to get away with an even less powerful CPU if your graphics card is up to snuff, but if your goal is future-proofing, you’ll want to aim higher.

For a mini PC build, you’ll notice we still recommend an older i5-4690K chip. There are two reasons for that. First, we weren’t able to find a small motherboard for Intel’s newer Skylake processors with enough user reviews for us to trust it. Second, we figured if you’re going to build a mini-PC, you’ll probably pick liquid cooling to keep it quiet, and if you’re going with liquid cooling you might as well take advantage of the ability to easily overclock that CPU, too. If you’re ever a few frames short of the 90fps you need to feel comfortable in VR, it could come in handy.

Why no AMD CPUs? VR experts told us that right now, they’re not up to snuff when it comes to something called single-threaded performance, which is how fast the processor can work on any single tiny task put in front of it.

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James Martin/CNET

Memory (RAM)

RAM is fairly cheap, and more RAM generally means your PC can do more things at once before it bogs down. You’ll want a bare minimum of 8GB of DDR3 ($40, £30. roughly AU$50). VR game developers tell us that more than 8GB is probably overkill for now.

Our future-proofed rig is going a different route: we used a single 16GB stick of DDR4 RAM ($90, £60, roughly AU$130). DDR4 RAM is fairly new, and pricier than DDR3, but it’s required for newer processors. 16GB will give us plenty of oomph for now, and we can easily double it to 32GB as prices come down.

For a mini PC, you might as well go for 16GB of DDR3 ($60, £60, roughly AU$80) since it’s likely to go up in price as DDR4 takes over, and it may be harder to reach inside a tiny mini PC case to swap out memory sticks when the time comes to upgrade.

Power supply

Power supplies are the unsung heroes of most PC builds, and getting a great one will save you a lot of headaches down the road. Power supplies are available in a wide range of wattages: you’re going to have to pick the one that will provide ample power for the components you’ve settled on. We recommend using PCPartPicker to keep track of the components you pick and estimate how much power you’ll use, but if you need a specific pick we’d suggest Corsair’s 500-watt CX500M power supply ($60, £60, roughly AU$80) as the bare minimum.

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Josh Miller/CNET

Our future-proofed rig takes things quite a bit further: We used a massive 1,200W power supply from SeaSonic that comes with stellar reviews. This amount of power will be overkill for most users, but it gives us the opportunity to use three giant graphics cards if future VR games wind up using them, and it provides an incredibly stable source of power if we decide to do any overclocking in the future.

Besides, power supplies tend to outlive every other PC component. A good power supply is an investment.

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Josh Miller/CNET

And the rest

I’ve left out a number of key components here, but they’re not exactly specific to virtual reality. You’ll want a motherboard that will support your processor and your upgrade goals — our Gigabyte GA-Z170X Gaming 7 ($200, £180, roughly AU$260) has room for three graphics cards, supports DDR4 RAM and has a Thunderbolt 3 port for external graphics if you ever need them.

You’ll need enough hard drive space to store your games and operating system; a $50 magnetic hard drive will be fine as a bare minimum, but we stick to speedy solid state drives (SSDs) on all of our PC builds. You’ll get a lot more storage space out of a traditional hard drive, but an SSD will make your entire system feel faster. We used a speedy 500GB SSD, paired with a reliable 2TB 7200RPM standard hard drive for storage. That’s more than enough space for now.

Pick a case that works for you. Maybe it makes allowances for airflow, or quiet performance, or one that just looks cool. Our Corsair 760T has loads of space to work inside, and a full actual window to look inside — what’s the point of getting sweet hardware if you can’t look at it from time to time? Here are some popular cheaper options.

We just used monitors, mice and keyboards that were lying around because they’re no good to us in VR. And of course, you’ll also need an operating system — we’re rolling with Windows 10.

Building a PC isn’t hard, but it isn’t a cakewalk, either. (There are some easy ways to trip up.) Here’s wishing you the best of luck in your PC building adventure!

Want to see all these parts in a more digestible, browsable format? Take a look at our basic, mini and future-proof builds at PCPartPicker. Please note we’ve included US pricing and approximate conversions for AU and the UK.

VR PC Buying Guide

Core i5-4590	$190 (AU$250, £130)	Core i5 4690K	$225 (AU$290, £160)	Core i7 6700K	$350 (AU$455, £245)
AMD Radeon R9 390	$320 (AU$420, £225)	Asus Mini GTX 970	$355 (AU$460, £250)	2x GTX 980 Ti	$1,300 (AU$1,700, £910)
8GB DDR3	$40 (AU$50, £30)	16GB DDR3	$60 (AU$80, £40)	G.Skill Ripjaws V Series, DDR4 3200, 16GB (1x 16GB)	$90 (AU$120, £65)
Stock	n/a	Corsair H60	$60 (AU$80, £40)	Corsair H90	$90 (AU$120, £65)
500W Corsair CX500M	$60 (AU$80, £40)	Silverstone ST45SF-G	$90 (AU$120, £65)	SeaSonic Platinum-1200	$230 (AU$300, £160)
ASRock H97 Pro4	$80 (AU$100, £55)	Gigabyte GA-Z97N-WiFi	$130 (AU$170, £90)	Gigabyte G1 Gaming GA-Z170X-Gaming 7	$200 (AU$260, £140)
Samsung 850 EVO 250GB	$90 (AU$120, £65)	Samsung 850 EVO 250GB	$90 (AU$120, £65)	Samsung 850 EVO 500GB	$150 (AU$200, £105)
None	n/a	WD Black 2TB, 7200RPM	$120 (AU$160, £85)	WD Black 2TB, 7200RPM	$120 (AU$160, £85)
NZXT S340 (White)	$60 (AU$80, £40)	Silverstone Fortress FT03-MINI	$130 (AU$170, £90)	Corsair 760T (White)	$160 (AU$210, £110)
Windows 10 Home	$100 (AU$130, £70)	Windows 10 Home	$100 (AU$130, £70)	Windows 10 Home	$100 (AU$130, £70)
	$940 (AU$1,220, £660)		$1,360 (AU$1770, £950)		$2,790 (AU$3,640, £1,960)

With contribution from Eric Franklin.

How to scan Windows 10 QR codes with your phone – CNET

Here’s what we know: This summer, with the release of a major Windows 10 update, Microsoft will add QR codes to the Blue Screen of Death.

Here’s what we don’t know: Why anyone at Microsoft thought this was a good idea. (Never mind why the BSOD still exists at all; that’s a head-scratcher for another day.)

See, back in 2011, the Quick Response Code started appearing in a variety of places: product boxes, promotional flyers, business cards and so on. The idea was that with a flash of your phone’s camera, you could quickly access Web pages and other information. In other words, they were like bar codes, but with embedded Web links.

QR code of death?

Screenshot by Imgur/Microsoft

And they were the future, according to many a tech pundit. Soon, QR codes would be everywhere.

And then they went pretty much nowhere. The squiggly square boxes never caught on. No one understood them, and those who did didn’t find them particularly useful. Total fail.

So maybe it’s fitting that Microsoft elected to integrate a widely unloved technology into the most widely unloved Windows “feature.” Never mind that most users will have no idea what to do when that code appears on their screen.

QR Code Reader for Android

Scan, Inc.

Fortunately, it’s actually quite easy to use QR codes, and they could prove helpful in delivering troubleshooting help to users with PC programs — or at least more helpful than cryptic messages like “CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED.” All you need is an app that can scan the codes. They’re free and plentiful for all platforms; here’s a suggestion for each:

• Android – QR Code Reader
• iOS – Quick Scan
• Windows – QR Code Reader

What are your thoughts on Microsoft’s adoption of QR codes? Smart idea, or just extra confusion?

Eggplant Technologies Move It Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Eggplant Technologies

If you’re anything like me, you struggle to find time to hit the gym. Hong-Kong-based startup Eggplant Technologies learned this well when it launched in 2014. Too busy to fit in a workout, the team dreamed up an “all-in-one” product with built-in sensors that track your movements and transmit that data to a related Android or iPhone app.

Enter: Move It.

Move It, Eggplant Technologies’ inaugural product, launched on Indiegogo today. At first glance, this quirky gizmo conjures up memories of similarly counterintuitive-looking fitness crazes from infomercials-past. HealthRider, Nordic Track, Suzanne Somers’ assorted ThighMasters, the list goes on…

But Move It’s confusing compact design is actually modular, breaking apart into the different components pictured below — an ab wheel, a resistance band, two push-up bars and a jump rope.

Eggplant Technologies

In other fitness news:

• For its price, the best all-around fitness band
• Best sports headphones of 2016
• Apple Watch a year later: What owners really think

In addition to its four main parts, Move It also boasts battery-powered “interchangeable intelligent handles and sensors” that are supposed to send all of the details from your workout straight to the companion app. Not only is this app connectivity designed to motivate you with activity stats, how many calories you burned and tips on your overall form, it also houses an LED indicator that shows how much charge is left and more.

If having the app track your fitness isn’t enough, you can also access live and prerecorded gym sessions and interact with other users (Eggplant Technologies calls them “workout buddies”) through their profiles.

I’m not convinced that this contraption would make me any more likely to work out at home, but it does reveal a growing fitness-smart-home trend that goes beyond activity trackers to integrating app-enabled gym products into your home and your daily life. Prices for Move It start at $159 for the earliest backers and the team has a $30,000 funding goal. Find out more on Move It’s Indiegogo campaign page.

Move It Smart Home Gym Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

You can preorder the Move It smart home gym through crowdfunding site Indiegogo.

Aloysius Low/CNET

I’m the last person you’d expect to find in a gym, but if Move It has its way, I’ll be turning into a gym rat in the comfort of my home. The company’s eponymous debut product, the Move It smart home gym, is a set of training equipment and a pair of smart sensors that connect to your mobile phone. The gear makes an elegant package that wouldn’t be out of place in an upscale modern home.

Costing $229 (around £160 or AU$300), the Move It is currently available for pre-order via crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. It was designed by a bunch of Hong Kong Canadians with impressive pedigrees from the IT industry. The CEO, Ivan Ho, formerly worked for Microsoft and Chinese social network YY.com, while co-founder Oscar Wang has ties to the health industry.

So what exactly is it?

The four workout tools included in the Move It are a resistance band, an ab wheel, a jump rope and a pushup stand. While these are the most basic of fitness gear, the real smarts lie in a pair of handles that connect to the exercise gear. They have sensors such as a six-axis accelerometer, a gyroscope, a capacitive sensor, a pressure grip sensor and infrared for measuring distance. When you connect the handles to the gear, it automatically detects the form of exercise you’ll be doing and sends the data to the app on your phone. When not in use, all four tools as well as the handle are stored away neatly on the stand.

Based on my quick hands-on with the tools, Move It seemed pretty accurate, and through the app, you can select workout regimes designed by CrossFit trainers, or challenge your friend to a competition to see who can do more push ups. Move It says the real fun is scoring on the leaderboards, though given how lazy I am when it comes to exercising, I’d more than likely to just do the bare minimum just to get my money’s worth.

Ho claims the company got a friend who works at a BMW design studio to come up with its industrial looks, and I think this has really paid off. The company’s Indiegogo site goes live today, 13 April — in fact, it’s already passed its goal.

The Move It unfolds to become four pieces of exercise gear that should help you get fit.

Aloysius Low/CNET

Key specs

• 401 by 381 by 209 mm (15.8 by 15 by 8.2 inches); 3 kg (6.6 pounds)
• Exercise gear: Jump rope, ab wheel, resistance band, push up stand
• Comes with charger and smart handles
• Requires app for fitness tracking

PowerDVD 16 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Fershad Irani

Once upon a time, home theater PCs were a thing, and users armed with a TV capture card, a DVD drive and the Media Center mode built into Microsoft Windows formed what became known as the HTPC (Home Theater PC) community.

In today’s environment, that all seems like a distant memory. Windows 10 unceremoniously dumped Media Center, and most laptops don’t even include optical drives. Meanwhile, Blu-ray players cost well under $100 and streaming sticks under $50 — so who needs PC-based media software anymore?

Hard-core, old-school PC enthusiasts, that’s who. And to the rescue of this too-long-neglected group comes CyberLink, with PowerDVD 16. More than just DVD and Blu-ray playback, this new Windows video software supports 4K video, with some nifty “play to” casting tricks to boot. It will even support 4K Blu-ray playback — if and when compatible PC 4K Blu-ray drives arrive.

CyberLink

TV-friendly

It seems crazy, but for some reason it’s taken PowerDVD until its sixteenth iteration to include a dedicated TV mode. Taking a leaf from other HTPC interfaces that have come (and gone) before it — including Boxee and Windows Media Center — PowerDVD’s TV Mode offers an horizontally scrolling interface designed to be used in conjunction with the PowerDVD Remote for Android or iOS, or a mouse.

But TV Mode is merely the first item in PowerDVD’s bag of tricks. The software can also stream Blu-rays (and regular digital video files) to your Chromecast, Roku or Apple TV. The “Play To” feature currently supports 4K content (it will downconvert to a 1080p TV) and the company says it is working on streaming 4K Blu-ray discs. Native support for YouTube and Vimeo is on board, too.

CyberLink

The system currently supports DVD and Blu-ray, and a CyberLink representative confirmed to me that the software will support 4K Blu-ray once PC hardware becomes available (and the Blu-ray Disc Association releases a PC-based standard).

Power DVD Ultra is available now for $99, and upgrades for previous versions are available from $49. Power DVD Live and Pro are available for $44.99 for 12 months or $79.95, respectively, but don’t include the full feature set..

Fershad Irani

Australian and UK pricing have yet to be announced, but pricing for the full Ultra version converts to about£70 or AU$130.

Of course, anyone interested in PowerDVD and its features should also compare and contrast to Plex, VLC and Kodi.

Amazon Kindle Oasis Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Every couple of years Amazon introduces a new Kindle e-ink e-reader that’s smaller, lighter and faster. But with the arrival of the Kindle Oasis, Amazon’s thinnest and lightest e-reader ever, the e-reading pioneer may have to add a new adjective to the list: pricier.

The Oasis, the first Kindle to include a protective cover — a swanky leather one that integrates a backup battery no less — costs a whopping $290 or £270. It’s available for pre-order now and ships April 27. (Amazon doesn’t sell direct to Australia, but the US price converts to AU$380.)

For all that dough you are getting a completely redesigned Kindle that weighs a mere 4.6 ounces (131 grams) and measures 3.4 mm (0.13 inches) at its slimmest point. Amazon says the Oasis is 20 percent lighter and 30 percent thinner on average than the Kindle Voyage ($200, £170), which remains in the line along with the Paperwhite ($120, £110) and entry-level Kindle ($80, £60). (Those prices, at least for the Paperwhite and entry-level Kindles, are frequently discounted by Amazon.)

The Oasis is 3.4 mm at its thinnest point.

David Carnoy/CNET

To get that lighter weight, Amazon’s engineers equipped the new e-reader with a “featherweight” polymer frame plated with metal structural electroplating that adds rigidity. Also, the internal battery and electronics have been scrunched into an ergonomic hump on the backside of the device that allows you to hold the e-reader comfortably in your hand. The hump shifts the weight of the device so it’s better balanced and feels more like you’re holding a book with a spine. It does feel really light.

The other significant change is to the lighting scheme. Amazon says the built-in front light has 60 percent more LEDs and they’re embedded in the side of the display, not the bottom. I didn’t get a chance to formally compare the Oasis to the Voyage, but the light does appear a little brighter and splays more uniformly across the screen. I wouldn’t call it a huge upgrade, but it’s an upgrade nonetheless.

Amazon Kindle Oasis (pictures)
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Amazon says the Oasis’ new Paperwhite display is the first in a Kindle to use a 200-micron backplane that is “as thin as a single sheet of aluminum foil.” It’s been combined with a custom cover glass engineered from “chemically reinforced” glass for added toughness.

The text on the touchscreen e-ink display looks very close to what you get with the Kindle Paperwhite and Voyage. There’s the same sharp 300 ppi resolution and similar contrast. You can turn pages by touching the screen or press the physical page turn buttons on the side of the device.

You can choose between three case color options.

David Carnoy/CNET

It’s also worth noting that you can hold the device in your left or right hand while reading. Thanks to a built-in accelerometer, the screen automatically rotates the page and page turn buttons to match the hand you have the device in. Alas, the case isn’t waterproof, which isn’t a major issue, but with a name like Oasis and its high price, some people may expect to include waterproofing — especially those who like to read in the bath tub.

The battery cover, which comes in three color options, is pretty slim but obviously adds some weight to the device. It adheres magnetically and is easy to remove and slip back on, so you can easily take it off when you don’t need the extra protection. Amazon says the Oasis gets over 2 weeks of battery life on its own, and over 9 weeks when combined with cover.

It all adds up to the nicest e-ink e-reader that Amazon’s ever produced. That said, its high price puts it into luxury territory and will primarily appeal to Kindle devotees who don’t mind paying extra money to have the slimmest, lightest Kindle available.

Kindle Oasis’ key specs:

• 4.6 ounces and 3.4 mm at its thinnest point
• Latest-generation high-resolution 300 ppi Paperwhite touch-screen display
• Redesigned front light features 60 percent more LEDs and better uniformity
• 4GB of built-in storage (stores thousands of e-books)
• Included leather charging cover sticks magnetically to Kindle
• 1GHz processor
• 2 weeks of battery life on its own, over 9 weeks when combined with cover
• Read with either hand
• Battery cover comes in three color options
• 3G + Wi-Fi option is more expensive at $360 or £330

Meizu’s new Pro 6 is a deca-core beast of a smartphone with 10-LED flash

Meizu has unveiled the new Pro 6, an affordable flagship smartphone with jaw-dropping specifications. If you’re one to have hardware to boast about, you’ll definitely want to check out this deca-core powered smartphone with 10-LED flash. As an added bonus, this handset starts from around $390, undercutting competitor flagships.

The deca-core processor itself is made up of two A72 cores 2.5GHz, four A53 cores at 2.0GHz, and four more A53 cores clocked at 1.4GHz. What all this means is the phone should be able to power through the most demanding tasks, including multitasking and intense applications. Joining the CPU is 4GB of RAM, 32 or 64GB of internal storage, 5.2-inch 1080p AMOLED display, and a 2560mAh battery.

The camera is also rather interesting with a Sony IMX230 sensor on the rear with a 10-LED ring flash. Mega-pixels clock in at 21.16 with laser and phase detection focus. For the front, you have a 5MP shooter with a f/2.0 aperture. Other specifications include USB-C, Bluetooth 4.1, 4G LTE, and a Mali T880MP4 GPU clocked at 700MHz.

As touched on above, pricing for the 32GB starts at RMB ¥2499 (around $390) or RMB ¥2799 (around $430) for the 64GB variant.