The Toast 100% real wood skin for the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge review

Back in February I reviewed a real wood skin, by Toast, that covered the metal exoskeleton of my Huawei Nexus 6P. It was one of the coolest accessories I had used to date, and now I have another skin from Toast for my Samsung Galaxy S7 edge.

Most accessories that are designed to cover smartphones are usually hard plastic cases, like those from Spigen, or Urban Armor Gear.

About Toast

Toast is a relatively new company getting its start in 2012 by a man named Matias Brecher to which I had the pleasure of meeting him in person at CES 2016. My first impression was a good one. Similar to other people I know who own their own businesses, I could tell he took great pride and passion in his work. He was standing at the CES booth and actually applying real wood Toast skins to people’s personal phones.

In the 15 minutes I was at the booth, I did get a chance to speak with Matias. Even though he was tired from being on the CES floor for three days straight, he took the time to tell me about his company. He even told me he was the one who designed and cut my custom AG skin for the Nexus 6P.

Toast got its name by the process in which the designers engrave and cut with a laser that burns in a very precise manner. So Matias named his company after toast which also burns.

Toast is a true U.S. based company which does all of its business in Portland, OR. In just four quick years, they have already grown to a company of 10 where they handle every step of the skin creation process. They are very good people. Toast takes part in the 1% for the Planet program in which a minimum of 1% of Toast’s net proceeds are donated to help save the earth. It’s a rarity for such a new company to have a social conscience, but it does and I am happy to support a company like Toast.

Samsung Galaxy S7 edge Toast skin

Toast skins can be fully customized at http://www.toastmade.com where you can select from four different woods: Ash, Walnut, Ebony or Bamboo.

You first pick with the wood of your choice, followed by engraving options which costs an additional $5. If there is something you want designed that isn’t in the list, you simply need to let the designers know, and they can pretty much laser etch anything you want. For my skin, I went with Ash engraved with a skull and crossbones since I work with chemicals, and see that symbol on a regular basis. To round out the look of my skin, I added a front cover for an additional $10.

Installation, Fit and Usage

Skins and screen protectors are things I usually dread installing, because they’re a pain in the butt. The Toast skins are stiff since they are made from real wood, and they also have laser etched cutouts for areas where the phone curves. If you have the S7 edge, you know there are a lot of curves on the phone. The laser etching and high quality wood make installation of the Toast skin a breeze. All I had to do was wipe my device clean to remove oils and dirt, then peel off the backing to expose the glue, and wrap it around my phone. The whole process took less than five minutes.

In both of my experiences with Toast skins, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the skins fit perfectly. Every single cutout properly aligned with the volume buttons, SIM card slot, power button, 3.5mm audio jack, speaker, and charging port. The front skin matched up with the rear skin, and fit around the edges of the front display like a glove.

The Toast skin is about twice as thick as vinyl skins, which gives a little extra protection against drops and deep scratching. Wireless charging still works with this skin, and there are no issues with the fingerprint reader, or capacitive buttons on the front of the S7 edge.

The wood skin gives my slippery glass S7 edge more grip, and it helps protect against random scratches. A few of my friends who saw the skin, made comments about how cool and unique it looked. One even placed an order for a Toast skin for her iPhone. She loved that it looked different from anything else she had ever seen before. I agree with her assessment, and also love this skin by Toast.

Conclusion

If you want to be different from the crowd, I suggest you check out the real wood skins by Toast. I have two wood skins now, one for my Nexus 6P and one for my Samsung Galaxy S7 edge. I go through quite a few phones, but the ones with the Toast skins are my favorite. They look nothing like what everyone else uses to cover their phones.

Toast makes skins for a wide range of Android devices, including most Apple products. Learn more at http://www.Toastmade.com.

Disney Magic Kingdoms is a magical gaming ride for your school-aged child (review)

The experience that is the Disney universe is usually broken up into very siloed experiences, usually based on character. If you (or your child) wants a dose of Mickey Mouse, there usually isn’t any chance of getting a bonus Cinderella cameo thrown in. Monsters University characters aren’t usually on-screen with Toy Story figures. And so on.

So, what kind of draw would be a Disney game with many of its characters from multiple Disney stories paraded through a single gaming story line, on your phone or tablet? If you’re my 6-year-old daughter, it would be Christmas in April! That’s pretty much what you get with Disney Magic Kingdoms.

Developer: Gameloft.

Price: Free, with in-app purchases available.

Get it here:

• Google Play
• iTunes
• Windows

Overview and Gameplay

This game is essentially a very controlled-path role-playing game. The entire Disney magic kingdom is cursed by powerful evil, and it’s up to the main hero (Mickey Mouse, duh) to undo the spell step-by-step using collected magic and tokens, while releasing his Disney sidekicks, giving each a bit of screen time, along the way. If you ever played Super Mario 64 back in the day, the initial scene & animation looks an awful lot like that.

Playing the game, it honestly (and obviously) is meant to be geared to the grade school crowd. It’s very tutorial intensive (“push here!”; “swipe here!”) during the first several levels. But once you’re out of the initial stages, the game is generally pretty straightforward and simple for a youngster to enjoy. It’s pretty rinse-and-repeat as you go through the levels, but again that is exactly what it’s trying to be.

One thing that didn’t jive with the little-kid interface (and another noticeable nod to Nintendo) was the rather large amount of bubble text/dialogue one has to wade through with a series of clicks. Yes it is wordy, but the verbiage was also kind of intense considering the anticipated audience. My 1st-grader is a pretty good reader, but I need to stay close while she plays it as there is at least one word per bubble that she doesn’t have a chance in pronouncing. Plus the terms used are placed at (my opinion) important plot points, meaning if I let her just skip over them she would lose quite a bit of the story. It makes it difficult to simply allow her to play & enjoy the game in good conscience.

Graphics and Sound

Here the game hits its high notes. Cutting to the chase, you get genuine Disney characters, animation, and background music throughout. This alone is probably enough to keep kiddos entranced for good long time.

What we liked:

• Authentic Disney characters and animation.
• Authentic Disney music and graphics.
• A parade of Disney characters that you help free from the confines of a curse through gameplay.

What could use improvement:

• Less and easier text, geared more toward the target audience reading level.
• Perhaps a bit more variety, though my daughter is still playing it.

Conclusion

This Disney game is  a winner, solely based on its authentic use of characters and music that have been proven winners with the kiddos for decades.  While the gameplay could use some more thought, it’s hard to argue the squeal my youngster makes every time she frees Goofy from an evil curse.

Intel’s Apollo Lake chips promise slimmer, beefier budget PCs

Intel’s Atom-based processors have gotten much better at delivering a lot of bang for the buck, but there’s still little doubt that you’re using a low-cost system. PCs like HP’s Stream series still tend to be thick, carry a meager amount of RAM and rule out intensive tasks like 4K video. You might not have to make quite so many sacrifices going forward, though: Intel has offered a peek at Apollo Lake, a next-generation system-on-a-chip that promises to inject some life into the budget category. It’s not only more compact, but efficient enough that PC makers can afford to slim things down without as many compromises — they can use smaller batteries without hurting battery life, for instance. The more inclusive design (should also save several dollars (around $5-7) in parts that can be rolled into more RAM, better displays and similar upgrades.

There’s more than size and cost savings, of course. Apollo Lake borrows the graphics technology from Intel’s Skylake architecture, which brings full hardware-based 4K video playback and an overall boost to visual performance. It’ll also help drag lower-cost computers into the modern era with richer support for technologies like USB-C.

Intel isn’t yet revealing clock speeds, pricing and a few other key details for its new platform, but it’s promising Celeron- and Pentium-branded processors in the second half of 2016. They won’t make you forget about higher-end Core CPUs when they ship, but they might just raise the bar for computing — that starter laptop or tablet won’t be as likely to choke on basic duties.

Via: AnandTech

Source: Intel

Keep it simple with these watch faces for Android Wear

Sometimes you just want some simplicity for your smartwatch..intro

It’s time again for another Android Wear watch face round up, and this time we’ve collected five fantastic and simple watch faces for you to check out. It’s easy to get caught up in all of our technology, and feel overloaded from the amount of information constantly being thrown at us. These watch faces aim to keep things simple, and make it easy to get the information you need at a glance.

If you’ve been pining for some simplicity, come check these out!

Animated

Since Spring seems to be taking it’s time getting to us, having a breath of fresh air on your watch isn’t a bad idea. If that’s the case, then Animated Watch Faces ought to be on your list. It’s a simple watch face, but one that still gives you plenty of information at a glance. This includes the date, time, battery power, and even a snapshot of what the weather is currently like.

Animated watch faces give you access to a few faces for free, and you can buy more from within the app if you see one that catches your eye. Each background has it’s own animation that will play every time you wake your watch up. There are also a number of options you can access by opening up the app on your phone. These include things like choosing between 12 and 24-hour formats, the mode of the date readout, and whether the weather and battery are shown on the watch face.

Download the Animated Watch Faces (free with in-app purchases)

Relaxing Thoughts

The Relaxing Thoughts Watch Face manages to blend comics and watch faces in a really neat way. You’ll be able to see the time, date, and your battery percentage, all written out in the thought bubbles of various characters. It stays simple while still giving you access to some fun features. and making sure that you have at least the basics of info you need while on the go.

You can choose the color of your background, pick from 5 different display languages, and decide which character will be living on your watch face. All of the options are available in a single menu on your smart watch. There is a list starts with your language preference, then turns into your background color, before finally giving you the options of which character to display. The one thing to remember is that the time is always written out in words, so instead of 4:30 you’ll see half past four.

Download the Relaxing Thoughts Watch Face ($0.99)

Fuji Watch Face

If you enjoy cute but minimal watch faces, then the Fuji Watch Face should be right up your alley. The only information that you’ll find displayed are the date, and the current weather. What you will get is a beautiful Mt. Fuji that comes with multiple different backgrounds, as well as several different animations. While there aren’t many options, you do get access to a few right from your smart watch.

Mt. Fuji dominates the screen of your watch, but you’ll find a digital readout of the time on the upper right side of your screen. Just underneath the time is an icon showing you the weather. The background of this watch face changes dependent on that weather going between a sunny, rainy, cloudy, or night time theme. There are also timed animations of Mt.Fuji erupting, Sakura falling, and a Shinkansen passing. The only options you’ll find are to manually switch between themes, or to adjust how often animations occur.

Download the Fuji Watch Face ($0.99)

Elegant Binary

The Elegant Binary Watch Face lives up to it’s name. It doesn’t display much information, concerning itself only with giving you the time, date and your current battery percentage. It does this in a way that’s quite pleasing to the eye, and offers you access to plenty of settings from your smartwatch. These include being able to toggle features on and off, change the color, and adjust the size of the information that is being displayed.

While the time is displayed digitally in gigantic numbers, there is a second way to tell the time. Colored dots fill in two rows, with accompanying numbers. By adding the numbers of the filled in dots, you’ll get the time.The top row displays the hour, with the minute displayed underneath. The date is at the top of the screen, but it’s quit small which can make it hard to read. Your battery percentage is just below the time, at the bottom of the screen.

Download the Elegant Binary Watch Face(free)

Meter Watch face

The Meter Watch Face is super simple, and really only concerned with giving you one piece of information. You won’t find any settings or features for this watch face, and the only information that is displayed is the date and time. That time layout takes up the whole of your smartwatch screen to give you the most up to date timestamp with three animated meters that run nonstop.

The top meter gives you the day of the week, and the day of the month and is the slowest moving meter. Dominating the middle of your screen is the hour and minute displayed in a 12-hour format. The third meter takers up the bottom of the screen and runs the fastest, showing the passage of seconds. Altogether you get a very simple, but interesting watch face to tell you the time.

Download the Meter Watch Face(Free)

So there you have the best simple watch faces we have to offer this go around. Did you see a watch face you liked, or is there a watch face you think we should be talking about? Be sure to sound off about in the comments below and let us know all about it!

Samsung Pay now supports Regions Bank

If you’re in the Southeast and use Regions Bank, know this — you’re now supported by Samsung Pay. That means you can now add your puke green debit card or any of your Regions credit cards to Samsung Pay.

And, well, that’s it. The big deal here is that, first, there are a ton of Samsung phones out there, with the GS7 and GS6 lines (and the Note 5) supporting Samsung Pay. The second is that Samsung Pay supports that newfangled MST thing wherein you can use your phone to pay anywhere you’d normally swipe a card — meaning that you can use it in far more places than you could Android Pay or Apple Pay. (On the other hand, that sometimes leads to interesting interactions.)

More: Samsung Pay supported banks

Thanks, @Jbkhd24, for the heads up!

AC editors’ apps of the week: Eat24, CraveTV, Pixel Dungeon and more

Our weekly app picks

It’s Appday Sunday and that means we’re back with more of our favorites to share. Every week we bring a handful of great apps to the table and share them with everyone. Sometimes they are new apps, sometimes old standards, but every time they are apps we love to use.

Give these a look and then take a minute to tell us all about the apps you are using and love so we can give them a try. We all find some of our favorites right in the comments on these posts!

Russell Holly — Eat24

I usually think of mid to low quality pizza places when I think delivery, and as a result I’m not usually big on the concept. Going and enjoying the restaurant is worth it for what is usually much higher quality food, at least in my area. At least, that’s what I thought before checking out Eat24. It turns out there’s a bunch of places around me that will deliver all kinds of great food, which is awesome when I’m accidentally still at my desk at 7PM.

At the very least, I found a new Falafel place in my area thanks to this app. Who knows what you’ll find.

Download: Eat24 (Free)

PLAY icon pack — Ara Wagoner

Google Play has decided to overhaul their family of app icons. The new triangular play-button icons were a bit dividing between users, but it’s not like we’ve never seen that style before. We’ve seen it in Google Play’s commercials for years. And even while Google itself is still slowly rolling out the new icons themselves, icon packs have these new icons today, and then some.

Enter the PLAY icon pack, which play-fully homages the new line and show sus what all our apps would look like in the Play style. And if you’re looking to get your hands on a copy for free, head over to the contest in our theming forum where we’re raffling off a few PLAY promo codes.

Download: PLAY icon pack ($1.65)

Companion Safety App — Jen Karner

It’s no surprise that walking home alone at night can be dangerous. I’m not sure about any of you guys, but there was a time when I was walking several miles home from work at midnight. Since I’m a paranoid creature at heart, I’d usually call or text one of my friends to let them know I was on my way home, and then when I got there. It was a safety measure, so that if anything did happen, somebody would know. The Guardian Companion App is built to be that safety phone call.

When you start a trip you’ll enter your destination, and then add a person who you want to notify of your trip. They don’t need the app to be your guardian, but they will need to accept being your guardian. Once they do, they’ll receive info about where you are, and a notification when you reach your destination. It’s an easy technological fix to the 2am walking home drunk phone call, and helps to keep you safe. Considering how dangerous the world can be for anyone, this is a great way to keep yourself just a little bit more protected from the crazies out there.

Download Guardian Safety App (Free)

Daniel Bader – CraveTV

Over the past year or so, two new streaming services have sprung up in Canada to take on the incumbent, Netflix, which is subscribed to by nearly a fifth of all Canadians.

One of those services, CraveTV, just became available to anyone with an internet connection for $7.99, a small price to pay for access to the HBO and Showtime back catalogue, as well as every episode of Seinfeld and South Park. Bell, CraveTV’s owner, has also done a great job licensing some unique and lesser-known shows like Hulu’s Casual and Amazon’s Bosch, both of which I’ve voraciously consumed over the past few weeks.

While the Android app itself is still rough in a couple of places, it has Cast support and variable streaming quality. What else do you need?

Download: CraveTV (Free) (.cta .large}

Andrew Martonik — Univision Deportes

The North American soccer leagues are up and running, and if you’re a fan of either Liga MX or MLS you’ll want to load up the Univision Deportes app for live games. MLS has one game a week guaranteed to be on UDN, and of course you can watch all of your favorite Liga MX games as well.

Naturally you’d prefer to catch the games on a bigger screen, but I keep Univision Deportes loaded on my tablet for viewing live games on the go, or catching up with highlights. Just like most apps of this type you’ll need to sign in with a cable subscription for live games, but chances are if you have cable your package includes UDN. If it does, give this app a look.

Download: Univision Deportes (Free)

Jerry Hildenbrand — Pixel Dungeon

The name pretty much says it all. Pixel Dungeon is a rogue-like dungeon crawler done in the pixel art style because everything is better done in the pixel art style. Play as a warrior, mage, rogue or huntress and work your way through level after level of glorious labyrinths, killing (or being killed) by the foul creatures who have moved in. Be warned — Pixel Dungeon is hard. Even at level one it’s hard. Expect a challenge.

Besides being an awesome way to make you feel like your twenty-first century phone has turned into an old Famicon, Pixel Dungeon has no permissions, no ads and is completely open source. It’s also a lot of fun. Give it a try.

Download: Pixel Dungeon (Free with in-app purchases)

Yelp gives you quotes for home services

Yelp is normally the service you use when you want to escape the home, but now it’s aiming to be your go-to source for help in the home. It just launched a feature that gives you price quotes for all kinds of services, ranging from car repairs to event planning to plumbers. The option highlights those businesses that are most likely to respond quickly, and you can even bulk-message companies to quickly find out who has the best deal. Quotes are available now on the web and in the iOS app, and they’ll be accessible within the Android app very soon.

This isn’t as complete as Amazon Home Services, which lets you pull the trigger on a request. Money still has to trade hands the old-fashioned way before you can get that sink fixed. However, it could shift Yelp away from its reputation as a restaurant finder and make it useful even at those times when you’re bent on staying in.

The only big catch at the moment is for businesses. While quotes are strictly opt-in, that response time measurement might hurt smaller shops that can’t always afford to respond right away. Yelp’s move may inadvertently favor the outfits that can get back to you quickly, even if their service isn’t always as good as that of the smaller contractors.

Via: BuzzFeed News

Source: Yelp Official Blog

Amazon Echo can answer questions about your kid’s health

Amazon Echo’s voice assistant has gained a handful of new skills, including the ability to answer questions about your kid’s health. It now has access to KidsMD, a new app powered by info prepared by doctors from Boston Children’s Hospital. You can ask it about various symptoms like fever, coughing or headache if your kid’s experiencing any, as well as age- and weight-specific dosing guidelines for various medications. Just say “Alexa, ask KidsMD about [symptom]/dosing.” The feature sounds especially useful if you’re frantically dealing with a sick child and don’t have time to pick up a phone to do a Google search.

Alexa can also call professional home service pros for you via HomeAdvisor. You can either ask it to launch the app or tell it to ask HomeAdvisor for someone specific, like a plumber or a carpenter. The voice assistant could make missing Coachella this year hurt less, as well. Simply ask it to play the Coachella Playlist in Prime Music. Finally, you can ask it to recite a haiku for you on April 17th if you want some bite-sized poems to mull over on the International Haiku Poetry Day.

GoPro announces VR video app and livestreaming tools

It’s been a busy few days for GoPro. The firm officially took the wraps off its six-camera Omni VR rig last week, snagged one of Apple’s top designers, and partnered with over 100 companies with its new developer program. Today, the company revealed it’s launching a channel for 360-degree/virtual reality videos called “GoPro VR,” along with a version of its HEROCast wireless streaming tool for VR (called LiveVR). We also learned how much that Omni rig will set you back: $5,000 for a bundle with everything you need (six cameras, Kolor software, smart remote, cables, memory cards, etc.). If you already have enough GoPros in your kitbag, you can buy the rig on its own for $1,500, with pre-orders opening tomorrow.

GoPro VR will launch tomorrow (Monday) on the web, along with VR headset-friendly iOS and Android apps in their respective stores. The platform will host curated GoPro VR video content, similar to how its existing on-demand video channel works for “regular” footage. The spherical/VR video content will initially come via its sponsored athletes and artists, but it’s likely some user-generated content will follow once there’s enough of it. GoPro technically already had a VR video platform, as it inherited Kolor Eyes, when it acquired the video stitching software of the same name. GoPro VR, then, appears to be the logical rebranding / development of that. If you can’t wait until tomorrow for the launch, then dive in to the video below on YouTube for a pretty solid taste of things to come.

These announcements are all part of the company’s line-up for the NAB show that starts on Monday. This is also where GoPro will show early demos of live, wireless VR streaming — or “LiveVR.” Details on this are sparse right now, but essentially it appears to be an extension of the HEROCast system, souped up to handle the extra throughput of the multiple cameras used in Omni. The LiveVR system will be used as part of the company’s partnership with the MotoGP, along with other sporting events in the coming months.

When GoPro revealed the final design for Omni, we knew it would cost upwards of $3,000 — as that’s how much the cameras alone would set you back. The company today confirmed the whole package will in fact cost $5,000, this includes everything you need to get going (memory cards, cables and Kolor editing software etc.). If you’re bringing your own six cameras, then you can buy the rig on its own for $1,500. The rig is more than just a frame for the cameras, it has specific hardware that makes all six cameras operate as one, which is presumably superior to chancing it and starting all of the cameras together with a remote.

That price might seem pretty steep, but it’s relatively affordable compared to the 16-camera Odyssey rig, which costs $15,000 all in — not that you can technically buy one of those, even if you wanted (it’s currently invite only). Other products such as Nokia’s all-in-one Ozo will set you back a whopping $60,000, and Facebook’s Surround VR camera cost the company a reported $30,000 to make. Those two are pro rigs, newcomer Orah is a closer rival to the Omni. The small, four-lensed “4i” camera will cost $3,600 — somewhat cheaper than Omni — but can’t be disassembled into separate cameras, and has fewer optics.

While Omni still might be out of most amateur’s budgets, GoPro at least appears to be making the whole production process for VR video as simple as possible. Omni is designed to work with the company’s own Kolor video stitching software, and a partnership with Adobe means Premier Pro CC and After Effects will natively handle the 8K/30FPS spherical video files that Omni creates. Combine this with the new VR video destination, and GoPro’s army of content makers, and arguably, all of a sudden, the company has one of the most complete virtual reality video ecosystems out there.

The virtual reality industry in general is pretty much unfolding right in front of our eyes. Samsung with its Gear VR has made headway in normalizing VR headsets as a consumer product, but the mobile giant’s reach only extends as far as users of its phones. Facebook owns Oculus, arguably the biggest name in VR, but that is still prohibitively expensive for many users, as is rival hardware from HTC. Mark Zuckerberg has made it clear that virtual reality plays a big role in Facebook’s future, but with no consumer product of its own for content creation, that part of the equation is still mostly up for grabs. There are many options for consumer-level 360-degree cameras, but none have yet been able to dominate the market.

Until today, GoPro hasn’t been explicit about how it plans to tackle VR video, with Omni and Odyssey and the acquisition of Kolor only providing basic clues. Rumors the company might release a VR-friendly version of its standard camera have so far proven untrue. With the launch of GoPro VR, LiveVR and the availability of Omni, it’s at least showing a little more of its hand.

Source: GoPro