Drake Announces Apple Music as a Sponsor of Upcoming ‘Summer Sixteen’ Tour

Drake and Apple have been in a partnership since the launch of Apple Music last summer, with the artist contributing his own Beats 1 radio show to the streaming service and recently announcing that his upcoming album, Views From The 6, will be exclusive to Apple Music and iTunes for one week. In an Instagram post today, Drake confirmed his partnership with Apple will continue into live music as Apple Music will sponsor his “Summer Sixteen” tour (via The Verge).

The tour kicks off July 20 in Austin, Texas, and features the artist Future as a co-headliner with Drake. In the brief Instagram announcement, no specifics were given regarding the nature of Apple Music’s sponsorship of the tour, besides the decorative inclusion of the Apple Music logo on the Summer Sixteen poster. The partnership could open the possibility for the streaming service to give fans some kind of exclusive glimpse into Drake’s performances, akin to Taylor Swift’s 1989 World Tour documentary released last December.

Those interested in tickets for the Sumer Sixteen tour will be able to purchase them beginning April 29. The tour will visit over thirty cities in the United States and Canada, ending on September 17 in Vancouver. One of Drake and Future’s well-known songs, “Jumpman,” was used by Apple in a recent Apple Music ad starring Taylor Swift.

Tag: Apple Music
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2016 MacBook Review Roundup: SSD Performance is Much Improved, Lack of Ports and 480p Camera Are Still Negatives

When Apple announced a refreshed 12-inch Retina MacBook last week, it provided several publications with review units to get a look at the changes in the new machine. We’ve gathered up a range of these reviews below to highlight the general release reaction to the new 2016 MacBook.

The MacBook is identical in design to the 2015 MacBook, but it includes a faster SSD, improved Skylake processor with better graphics, longer battery life, and a new Rose Gold color option. Many of the reviews focus on these improvements while also calling out missing features that many were hoping for, including an increased number of USB-C ports, Thunderbolt 3, and an improved FaceTime camera.

Engadget’s Dana Wollman says Apple’s claim of 25 percent better graphics performance and extra battery life “are indeed accurate.” With the SSD in the 1.2GHz 512GB machine, Wollman saw read/write speeds of 947MB/s and 845MB/s, respectively, significantly improved over the 738.2 and 451.7MB/s speeds of the year-ago model.

In everyday use, I had no problem juggling all my usual apps: Slack, Spotify, TextEdit, Photos, Notes, Messages, Maps and Chrome, with nine pinned tabs and a handful of unpinned ones. Apps were quick to launch, and I thankfully didn’t notice any of the hiccups that sometimes plague slower machines; it kept up as I hopped between pinned browser tabs, for instance, which not all laptops do. […]

How similar is the updated MacBook to last year’s model? Put it this way: I was strongly tempted to assign it the exact same score. In the end, I decided it deserved a slightly higher number as a way of acknowledging the extra hour of battery life and considerably faster disk speeds.

Ars Technica’s Andrew Cunningham said the 2016 update isn’t going to please people who disliked the 2015 MacBook given its single USB-C port. Those who held off from purchasing the 2015 MacBook might be interested in the 2016 model given its speed improvements, though, and with the SSD, encrypted performance is much improved. Ars Technica has a wide range of benchmarks that are worth checking out.

If you’ve already got a 2015 MacBook, this one is usually faster but won’t run circles around it. Its CPU, GPU, and storage performance is in the neighborhood of a MacBook Air from two or three years ago. This new release is a solid upgrade for anyone with a Mac from, say, 2010 or earlier, but it’s not a high-powered workstation.

If you thought you wanted a MacBook but didn’t buy one because you were worried about the speed, the new model’s GPU and storage in particular are improved enough that they might tip the scales.

Laptop Mag’s Mark Spoonauer says the 2016 12-inch MacBook “better than its predecessor” but “still involves compromises.” He highlights the improvements in the 2016 MacBook but notes that Apple didn’t fix its biggest shortcomings – port availability and low-res FaceTime camera.

The 2016 MacBook is certainly an improvement over its predecessor. It’s significantly faster, especially if you opt for the Core m5 model, and it lasts an hour longer on a charge, all while being extremely portable. I also continue to love the Retina display and don’t really mind the flat butterfly keyboard. However, for this kind of money, I would really like to plug in a power cable and a second device sans a dongle, and I believe anything in this price range should be able to power two external monitors.

The Verge’s Dieter Bohn said the new MacBook feels about 25 percent faster. He also covers the new “vibrant” Rose Gold color, which can look “either kind of bronze or incredibly pink.”

Geekbench 3 pegs the speed improvements on raw processor operations at around 20 percent, but disk-write speeds using Blackmagic saw bigger improvements, as much as 80 or 90 percent faster (reading speeds look like smaller, incremental improvements). Overall, the thing feels about 25 percent faster to me. […]

My hunch is that if you were worried that the last MacBook was too underpowered for you, the new MacBook will only assuage your concerns by, well, 25 percent or so.

Additional Reviews: CNET’s Dan Ackerman, Mashable’s Christina Warren, and TIME’s Lisa Eadicicco.

Apple is selling the new Retina MacBook on its website, with prices that start at $1,299. Orders placed today will be delivered in approximately a week, but many retail stores around the world have the machines in stock for immediate purchase.

Related Roundup: Retina MacBook
Buyer’s Guide: MacBook (Buy Now)
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Add 128GB of flash storage to any PC for under $30 – CNET

The cloud is great and all, but local storage is still important. That’s typically where you store your media libraries, to say nothing of the data you’ll still need access to when you can’t get online. (Hey, it happens.)

So here’s the problem: Many a modern PC — especially if it’s of the Chromebook, MacBook, Ultrabook or Windows tablet variety — comes with a smallish amount of solid-state storage. Maybe a 32GB or 64GB SSD seemed sufficient at the time; now you’re wondering where the heck you’re going to store all those surprisingly large PowerPoint presentations.

Good news: There’s an easy, effective and inexpensive way to add extra space: a low-profile or “leave-in” flash drive. And as of this morning, they’ve rarely been cheaper.

Samsung

To wit: Amazon is shipping the SanDisk Ultra Fit 128GB USB 3.0 flash drive for $28.79, shipped free for Prime subscribers. The drive is currently out of stock, but you can still order it. The turnaround time is listed as 1-3 weeks. Also, be aware that its price has fluctuated within the last few days — on Friday it was around $31 — so it could jump up again.

Don’t want to wait? Amazon also has a very similar Samsung Fit 128GB USB 3.0 flash drive for $34.99. Those are amazing prices for drives of this capacity. It wasn’t long ago that they cost considerably more.

What the heck is a “leave-in” drive? Simple. It’s one that’s small enough to stay plugged into a USB port full-time, even as your laptop or tablet goes in and out of a travel bag. Because it only protrudes by a few millimeters, there’s very little risk of accidentally snagging it or knocking it loose.

As you can see from the above photo of the ever-so-slightly larger Samsung drive, that’s a sharp contrast to its competitors. The standard flash drive tends to stick out like a sore, well, thumb drive.

For many years my primary PC was a Samsung Series 9 with a 128GB SSD, and I was constantly bumping into the local-storage ceiling. A deal like this would have allowed me to literally double the available storage for just $30-35. That’s a very low cost for plug-and-play simplicity.

Granted, flash drives aren’t quite as fast as SSDs, but at least these ones deliver USB 3.0 speeds. The SanDisk drive also has a nice security perk: it comes with an encryption utility that lets you password-protect any folders. (If you’re not interested, you’ll be glad to know this shovelware can be deleted.)

There are plenty of other low-profile drives out there, some even smaller than these. The key takeaway here is that you can now add a mountain of extra flash storage to your PC or tablet with a minimum of fuss and expense. That’s a wonderful thing.

See only the people you want in your Facebook feed – CNET

Screenshot taken by Alina Bradford

Don’t be one of those people that complain about their Facebook feed. Be proactive and use these tips to create the perfect feed.

Get rid of annoying people

Are you tired of every Tom, Dick and Harry showing up in your feed? You probably know that labeling people as acquaintances can make them appear less, but labelling everyone can take forever if you already have hundreds of friends. Instead, use the friend organizing tool.

The tool will automatically create a list of people you don’t typically interact with. If someone you actually like pops up on the list, then click on their photo to deselect them. Then click on the “Add to Acquaintances” button and the unwanted people will be filed as acquaintances and you won’t see them in your feed.

Get your friends and pages back

Do you have the opposite problem and feel like you’re not seeing enough people in your feed? Try this:

1. Go to the Facebook Interests page.

2. Click on the “+ Add Interests” button.

3. Click on the “+Create List” button.

4. Use the tool to find all the pages and people that are dear to you. Click on the pages and friends that you’d like to add to your list and click “Next.”

6. Choose a name for your list.

7. Choose who can see your list and click “Done.”

Now that your list is finished, you can check it instead of looking at your regular feed. Just scroll down to the “Interests” category on the left side of your feed and click on your new list. Everything and everyone that interests you will have fresh posts in the feed, while your regular feed will remain uncluttered.

MetroPCS offers two lines with unlimited talk, text and 6GB of 4G data for $60 a month

T-Mobile’s no-contract carrier subsidiary MetroPCS has launched a new promotional offer. This one gives customers two lines, each with unlimited talk, text and data and 6GB of 4G speeds, for a total of $60 a month.

T-Mobile says:

That means you can walk into a MetroPCS store and get 2 lines with unlimited talk, text, data, and 6GB of 4G LTE data for just $60 a month – and just $30 a month for each additional line, up to 5 lines – when you port in at least one number from another wireless company (3GB per line if you don’t port a line). And, you can keep that sweet deal for as long as you’re a customer. As always with MetroPCS, what you see is what you pay – taxes and regulatory fees are included.

The promotional deal begins today for a “limited time” but a specific end date was not announced.

HTC and Under Armour bringing UA HealthBox to Canada in May

HTC and Under Armour are bringing the UA HealthBox kit to Canada this May.

Available May 23 for $549.99 CAD, the UA HealthBox features three HTC-designed, Under Armour-operated health products: the UA Band, which tracks steps, heart rate, sleep, and calories; the UA Scale, which tracks weight goals; and the Heart Rate, a chest strap that accurately tracks heart rate during runs. All of the data is tracked by the UA Record app, available for Android and iOS.

The bundle also comes with one year of membership to Under Armour’s MyFitnessPal and MapMyFitness health social networks.

Earlier this year, our Andrew Martonik had many positive things to say about the bundle in his review:

Each of the products in the HealthBox is executed extremely well. The UA Band is light, comfortable and tracks your activities as well as any simple wearable can. The UA Scale is beautiful, and offers effortless tracking of your (and your family’s) weight and body fat percentage. The UA Heart Rate might be a tough sell at first, but once you get over the awkwardness of it it’ll become second nature. And of course you can’t forget the UA Record app, for without it none of these products would be worth your time — tying everything together into a central place completely makes the experience of the HealthBox.

HTC and Under Armour do plan to sell the products separately. Both the UA Band and Scale will run $229.99 CAD, while the Heart Rate will go for $99.99. Pre-orders go live today.

See UA HealthBox at Under Armour

Parents guide to games consoles: How to make Xbox One, PS4 and Wii U safe and secure

As entertainment technology offers children more ways to connect, it is important parents understand the risks and how to safely get the most out of these devices in the home.

Before even starting or choosing between the different games consoles therefore, it is important to know what kind-of connected interactions and services are available on them.

If you understand what each console is capable of, and how to limit a child’s access, you can rest safe in the knowledge that the new console is being used responsibly. Forewarned is forearmed, so to speak.

Parents guide to games consoles: Streaming video

Beyond the interactive gaming experiences, apps and services are available on each of the main consoles, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Wii U. They enable users to stream video and audio from a wide range of providers and share voice, video and recorded gameplay content.

This can range from spoken communication with other players in a game to sharing images on social networks. They can also access video content via video streaming apps, such as Now TV, BBC iPlayer, Netflix and Amazon Video.

Which of these features parents are comfortable with for their children will vary from family to family. Therefore, it’s important that parents spend time with the console when it first enters the home – before the kids are let loose on it – to set-up accounts and access for each family member.

Parents guide to games consoles: Set up profiles

While each of the main consoles have different systems to offer families control over what can and can’t be accessed, the basic theory is the same throughout.

Usually grouped under the parental controls section of the console, you can specify what content can be accessed by children. Entering a password for the settings, or in some cases setting up user accounts or profiles for children, enables you to lock the PEGI and BBFC age ratings you are comfortable with. We’ve listed the locations where you can find exact instructions for each console below.

This means that children will need to ask for permission before accessing more mature content and creates a positive context for discussion around a game before it is played.

Parents guide to games consoles: Keep an eye on “friends”

These settings also enable parents to specify what other services can be accessed, such as internet browsing or sharing content with other users.

Part of this also enables you to limit how friend requests are dealt with – another important aspect of staying safe while gaming.

All consoles are social machines these days in that they allow users to build up and communicate with friends. Sometimes that’s actual friends who also own the same console, but often can be just other gamers your child has met online.

These can be restricted through the parental controls, so you can limit what type of people your child can talk to online, hide a child’s profile, or stop others contacting him or her at all.

As many safe and friendly games have online features, we find it is okay some interaction for older children, but maybe restrict what kind of friends they can make and how public their profile is. You can often limit the acceptance of online friends to other children you already know – school friends perhaps.

Parents guide to games consoles: Make games a family event

Alongside these protections it’s also important for parents to consider how and when games are played in the home. Many families choose to keep gaming in the shared social spaces rather than bedrooms. This not only makes it easier to keep an eye on content but also results in more of the family playing together and getting more from the games they enjoy.

Setting up separate users for each child enables parents to keep tabs of how long they play each week and what content they are accessing. The player history is another useful tool for conversations around finding a balance between screen time and other activities.

Parents guide to games consoles: Study the age rating descriptions

Finally, understanding more about the games being played by children is important. The PEGI ratings are expanded by the Games Rating Authority’s consumer information. This not only outlines why a game has a specific rating but also offers a succinct account of the gaming experience.

The GRA works with AskAboutGames to create Parent Quick video guides for all the PEGI 16 and PEGI 18 games released. These combine the ratings description with matching action from a game to offer parents an easy, swift guide to what matters.

Provided consoles are set-up correctly and parents take the opportunity to engage with their children’s gaming diet, this can be a hugely positive aspect of family life.

Played together, and with the appropriate restrictions, video-games offer a safe, secure and positive pastime.

Further reading about parental controls for games consoles and other important resources:

• PlayStation 4 parental controls
• Xbox One parental controls
• Wii U parental controls
• Games Rating Authority
• Ask About Games
• Internet Matters

At internetmatters.org parents can find all the advice they will need to keep their children safe online. Designed specifically for parents, the site offers a wealth of up-to-date, unbiased information and advice about how to deal with online safety. Parents can learn about the latest issues and technologies, get great tips on how to talk about online safety with their children and get the best advice on dealing with issues and taking action. Created with experts, Internet Matters provides detailed information, but also signposts to best-in-class resources from individual expert organisations. Our goal is to ensure parents can always access the information that they need, in a format that is clear and concise.

Microsoft’s mobile Windows keyboard arrives on iOS

If you want to live-tweet Game of Thrones from an iPhone while keeping your snacking hand free, you have a new option. Microsoft’s Word Flow keyboard has arrived to rival Apple’s iOS, after the software giant teased it earlier in the year. The Windows Phone version is generally well-liked, but iPhone and iPad users will actually get more options. The one-handed “arc mode” is curved to be more suitable for thumb use, for instance, and you can select a custom photo to use as a background.

Other features include word predictions and suggestions that improve over time, contact integration and the option to tap or swipe. Microsoft, which now owns SwiftKey too, has been testing the updated app for a while with Windows Insiders, and reportedly plans to release it on Android. It’s now available to all for free on iOS at the App Store.

Via: The Verge

Source: Microsoft (App Store)

Lionsgate deal brings big-name movies to Steam

You’ve had pretty slim pickings for major movie rentals on Steam (unless you really like Mad Max), but that’s changing today. Lionsgate has reached a deal with Valve to put over 100 of its movies on Steam, including flicks you’ll definitely recognize — the Hunger Games, Saw and Twilight movies, for example. Availability might vary where you live, but the prices are at least right. You’re usually looking at between $4 to $5 for a 48-hour rental, depending on how big a title you’re hoping to watch.

Steam’s movie catalog is still far from complete without the support of other major studios. However, this is still a big deal. It represents a shift away from the service’s near-exclusive focus on games and toward a general-purpose store. In that sense, it’s competing more directly with the online stores of Apple and Microsoft than game providers like GOG — it wants to cover all your digital entertainment desires, not just feed your Dark Souls addiction.

Via: Variety

Source: Steam, Lionsgate (PR Newswire)

Chase adds support for Android fingerprint logins

Hot on the heels of Bank of America’s latest Android app, Chase now supports Android’s fingerprint scanner as well. You’ll need Android 6.0 Marshmallow to use the feature, and the company also says that its app doesn’t support every Android phone with a fingerprint scanner (given the many different implementations out there, that makes sense). While your fingerprint will get you into Chase’s Android app, you’ll still have to plug in your password to access some features.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Chase supports Android Pay yet, according to several posts on Reddit. That’s a particular shame, because it supported Google Wallet for years.

Via: Reddit

Source: Google Play