Feit Electric HomeBrite Bluetooth Smart LED System review – CNET

The Good HomeBrite’s scheduling controls are about as comprehensive as you’ll find with Bluetooth LEDs, but the app is still intuitive and straight-forward to use. You’ll also find a greater variety of bulb shapes than you will with competing smart bulb lines, including bulbs for chandeliers, recessed lights, and outdoor fixtures.

The Bad The bulbs don’t offer much of anything by way of third-party compatibility, which means that you can’t sync them up with motion detectors, smart hubs, or voice control platforms. The app is also a bit sluggish at times.

The Bottom Line For basic automation, these Bluetooth bulbs will do the trick, but if you want your lights to work as part of a larger connected home setup, look elsewhere.

Visit manufacturer site for details.

Hubs. Who needs ’em?

Not Feit, that’s for sure. Last year, the manufacturer gave me an early look at its line of HomeBrite-branded smart LEDs that use a Bluetooth mesh network to sync up with your phone and with each other. That means you don’t need a control hub plugged into your router in order to control the things.

The obvious limitation with Bluetooth bulbs is that you need to be within Bluetooth range (about 50 feet) in order to interact with the lights on your Android or iOS device. With some Bluetooth bulbs I’ve tested — most notably, the C by GE Life and Sleep LEDs — that also means that prescheduled lighting changes won’t work when you aren’t in range.

Connect with Feit’s Bluetooth-enabled HomeBrite…
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Fortunately, that isn’t the case with Feit’s bulbs. They’re smart enough to remember your schedules even when you aren’t home, and if you’ve got multiple bulbs, they’ll stay synced while you’re away, constantly pinging and re-pinging each other to help keep track of your settings.

Couple that with the fact that HomeBrite’s lineup includes bulbs that don’t commonly come with built-in radios (a candelabra LED and an outdoor-rated PAR38 floodlight, for instance), and you’ll start to see the appeal of these lights. With HomeBrite’s baseline bulbs selling for a relatively low $15 each, I think they might make sense for anyone looking for simple lighting smarts in a fixture or two. However, a lack of compatibility with third-party systems along with glitchy, imperfect performance in my tests has me stopping short of recommending them outright.

The BR30-, B10-, A-, and PAR38-shaped HomeBrite LEDs.

Chris Monroe/CNET

Basic specs

The HomeBrite lineup consists of five options:

• A common A-shaped bulb for $15
• A B10-shaped candelabra bulb for $19
• A BR30-shaped floodlight for $20
• A weather-rated PAR38-shaped outdoor floodlight for $30
• A recessed fixture retrofit kit for $35

I tested each one out in our lighting lab, where we use a spectrometer and an integrating sphere to measure things like brightness, color temperature, and the way heat build-up affects each bulb’s performance.

The HomeBrite bulbs were a bit dim for my tastes, with the A-shaped bulb coming in at 672 lumens, well below the 800 or so that you’d expect from a common 60W incandescent. The candelabra bulb was on the dim side, too, with 277 lumens to its name — slightly below average in the candelabra class, at least among 40W replacements.

The bulbs did an impressive job with heat management, though. All LEDs will see slight performance dips in the first hour or so of use as the bulbs heat up. Each of the HomeBrite bulbs saw less of a dip than average, with none of them ever dipping below 90 percent of their initial brightness. That’s a very good result, and one that speaks well to Feit’s hardware.

NASA’s use of HoloLens puts you on Mars with Buzz Aldrin

I got a ticket to Mars.

At the end of an exhibit hall at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, a Microsoft representative punched my orange ticket. I was ready to strap on the company’s augmented reality headset for a holographic stroll on the neighboring planet. I was one of eight HoloLens-wearing visitors in a group at NASA’s Destination: Mars installation at Build. While the demo was open to a limited audience last week, it will open its doors to all visitors at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida this summer.

Inside a pitch-black room, stars twinkled in every direction I looked through my headset. Within seconds, I heard a male voice behind me. I turned to look in the direction of a life-size and lifelike hologram of Buzz Aldrin, the legendary Apollo 11 astronaut. Standing on the rusty red surface, he welcomed the group to the planet and proceeded to give us a tour. Many arms in the room stretched out to touch him but only cut through the light projection of his NASA jacket.

Halfway through the experience, Erisa Hines, a Curiosity rover driver at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, showed up on the planet. Her holographic avatar, dressed in dark denim and high boots, introduced the six-wheeled vehicle that has been gathering data on Mars since 2012. As she talked about discovering specific formations based on the rover’s findings, a small white arrow simultaneously popped up on the screen to make me look at a large rock before pointing me to a drilling site.

“We didn’t concoct this environment for people to look at,” Dr. Jeff Norris, lead mission operations at JPL, told me later. “It’s not a theme park ride. This is what Mars really looks like. People are looking at it the same way as many of our scientists are looking at it.

Destination: Mars is an offspring of OnSight, a missions control software that helps JPL scientists navigate the surface of the planet with HoloLens. Through a collaboration between NASA and Microsoft, which kicked off early last year, the software works with the headset to project an accurate 3D visualization of Mars. “When scientists put the HoloLens on and Mars fills out the room around them,” said Lorraine Bardeen, GM Windows and HoloLens experiences. “So they get up, walk around and say, ‘Oh, actually we were going to go that way but there’s a dip that would’ve gotten the rover’s wheels caught in. Let’s go around that way.’ They wouldn’t see that from the 2D images.”

Prior to OnSight, scientists have worked with two-dimensional information, images stitched together for scientific planning and estimation. “They have spent years being trained for this. They’re optimized to understanding those images but it’s still challenging,” said Bardeen. “With augmented reality, they’re able to avoid challenges they wouldn’t have realized were coming.”

Because AR is a medium that modifies a user’s reality, it’s easy to compare its applications to VR. While the use cases may sound similar, they’re not interchangeable. “We use HoloLens for OnSight because we wanted the scientists, who we’re building the tools for, to be able to use other tools in conjunction with it,” Norris pointed out. “So when they’re on the surface of Mars, they can look up and see where things are but also do things on their computer at the same time.”

Having successfully employed the device internally and even sending a couple of headsets to the International Space Station, bringing the holographic experience to tourists and space enthusiasts in Florida seems like a natural step forward. “This is the best way for us as scientists and engineers to look at the planet but this is also the best way to involve the public in what’s happening in the journey,” said Norris. “Space exploration feels so abstract to people when they’re just looking at the picture or a video. But this allows us to speak to the part of their brain that will make them realize that this is a real place. We greatly respect the innate ability and desire to explore. We want to unburden and unlock that.”

While both VR and AR have the power to solve specific problems and unlock immersive experiences, in some use cases like a public installation, one medium is more effective than the other. Where VR creates a full, deep immersion AR can build shared experiences. The ability to have a personal moment as you view the spectacle of space through your headset is only made greater when you hear other people in your group “ooh” and “aah” at the same sights. “It’s very important to us that it’s not a solo experience,” said Norris. “We want the group to be self directive, crisscrossing in the room and pointing together. We needed to have an untethered device like HoloLens to be able to do that.”

NASA’s use of the device is transforming the way scientists are studying an alien surface. It validates the visual capabilities of Microsoft’s technology. Imagine being able to experience the solar system with a legendary astronaut in addition to reading about it, seeing your future holographic home in your architect’s office or collaborating on a design project in real time over Skype.

But outside of Microsoft’s initial partnerships with NASA and Case Western Reserve University (where HoloLens is being tested in a medical setting), the landscape of applications is wide but mostly barren at the moment. The infancy of the medium is its biggest challenge right now. “For Destination: Mars we were figuring out how to render a full-scale person and the Mars terrain together, within the performance constraints of the device,” said Norris. “But also how do we tell a story about Mars where people can look anywhere they want but also attract their attention to things that are exciting. We had to find a balance between leaving them alone and drawing them in.”

The inclusion of Aldrin and Hines in this narrative keeps the viewer engaged in the experience. “I’m hoping that the way we connect participants with Mars, we will also connect them with the explorers,” said Norris. “Mars is a real place and real people are exploring it. Maybe this will help people think, “I can be a part of that exploration.” I think if we achieve that then destination mars was successful.”

Back in the dark room installation, Aldrin stepped back in to view to conclude the holographic journey on Mars. He talked about the future of space exploration as he drew the group’s attention to a human-built camp. All HoloLens-wearing heads in the room followed his lead to find two astronaut figures in the far distance, overlooking the vast expanse of the tawny planet. Within moments, a space shuttle blasted into space with a rumbling sound. I turned my head up, way up, to follow its fire trail cut across the dark sky. As I watched it fade into space, I suppressed the lump in my throat before slowly making my way out.

[Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Microsoft]

Yahoo expands sports streaming with daily MLB games

Opening Day is like Christmas for baseball fans, and Yahoo is giving them another reason to celebrate. 180, to be exact. Yahoo Sports announced today that it will stream one Major League Baseball game per day throughout the 2016 season. That’s right, you’ll be able to tune in free of charge to a daily matchup until the postseason begins. Each game will have commercials and, unfortunately, will remain blacked out in local markets as is typically the case with MLB broadcasts. There will also be plenty of analysis with Yahoo’s Big League Stew baseball blog.

If you’ll recall, Yahoo has live sports streams for NFL, NHL and PGA Tour under its belt. However, this is the first season-long daily schedule the company has offered, though the hockey games stream on a weekly basis. Ready to tune in? You can browse the full list of April’s scheduled games right here. If you don’t mind paying for a subscription to watch any game you want, there’s always MLB.TV for a more robust slate of action from the diamond. And it’s a little cheaper this season, too.

Via: Wired

Source: Yahoo Sports

How to survive an iPhone with only 16GB of storage – CNET

Let’s all agree that Apple continues to be cruel by equipping its entry-level iPhones with only 16GB of storage. Surely the company could afford to make 32GB the baseline without negatively impacting its bottom line.

That said, we can also agree that, for a variety of reasons, you might be among the countless users who end up with a 16GB iPhone. Maybe it was all you could afford, or there was a deal that was too good to pass up. Perhaps you simply misjudged how much storage you’d need once you started shooting HD video or downloading YouTube vids for offline viewing.

Whatever the case, it’s possible to lead a normal and productive iPhone life even with such a paltry amount of space. You’ll just need to make a few adjustments, and maybe throw a few bucks at the problem.

1. Know your space hogs

With space at a premium, it’s crucial you learn what’s consuming the most of it so you can act accordingly. Here are the biggest offenders:

• Photos and videos
• Music and podcasts
• Games

Needless to say, the more unnecessary apps and media you can delete, the more space you’ll have for the stuff you do want. To get a precise snapshot of your iPhone’s space hogs, tap the Settings app and then choose General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage. In a moment you’ll see the likes of this:

Lara Croft must “GO” indeed! Games can quickly consume your available storage, so keep only the ones you play regularly.

Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET

Lara Croft Go takes 1.1GB?! And I hardly ever play it? Sorry, Lara, you gotta go. I can always download you again when the mood strikes. And that’s a good thing to remember: You can install games and other apps on as-needed basis; not everything requires permanent residence.

What’s more, consider Web-based alternatives to space-hogging apps. On my iPhone, for example, Facebook puts me in the hole a whopping 660MB. It’s also a battery hog, so deleting the app in favor of the browser version will help me on two fronts.

2. Consider your pixels

With every new iPhone, Apple touts higher-resolution sensors for capturing photos and videos. That’s good news for quality, bad news for storage: More pixels means larger files.

The irony is that most of our photos get viewed on our phones or shared via Facebook or Instagram, where mammoth megapixel counts aren’t necessary. Heck, even 1080p video is overkill for viewing on a phone or tablet; your mini-movies would look nearly as good (and consume less space) at 720p.

To that end, consider venturing into Settings > Photos & Camera, scrolling down to the Camera section and tapping the Record Video option. If you were shooting at 4K or 1080p/60fps, try downshifting to 1080p/30fps or even 720p. Chances are good you won’t notice much difference — you will save a lot of storage.

Recording video at a lower resolution can save you a lot of space.

Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET

Unfortunately, Apple’s Camera app doesn’t let you take lower-resolution photos. For that, look to third-party camera apps like perennial favorite Camera+.

3. Put the cloud to work

As noted above, photos and videos will fill up your 16GB faster than Taylor Swift can fill up a stadium. Fortunately, iOS can help: its Optimize iPhone Storage feature offloads your photos to your iCloud account, keeping “optimized” (read: low-resolution) versions on your phone while storing the full-resolution originals online.

To enable this feature (which, in slightly vague terms, kicks in only “if your iPhone is low on space”), tap the Settings app and then choose iCloud > Photos. Make sure your iCloud Photo Library is toggled on, then tap Optimize iPhone Storage. It may take some time before this optimization is complete, and it’s hard to say what it’ll net you, space-wise, but this is a helpful feature when you’re out of room and desperately need to snap some photos.

Enabling Optimize iPhone Storage can free up a lot of space.

Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET

One consideration, though: The free 5GB iCloud account Apple gives you will probably prove insufficient to house all your media. Fortunately, it’s not expensive to expand that storage, with Apple charging 99 cents, 79p or AU$1.49 monthly for a tenfold increase (50GB).

Of course, if you’re already paying for cloud storage elsewhere, apps such as Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive can sync your photos to your cloud account, allowing you to delete them outright from your iPhone. In fact, Flickr gives you a whopping 1TB of free storage for your iPhone Camera Roll.

When you deploy one of these apps, however, make sure you enable the “background upload” setting (which is usually disabled by default) so that photos get synced even when you’re doing other things. Unfortunately, this option may require location services to be enabled for that app, which can impact battery life.

4. Try a magic trick

If you’re so low on space you can barely even snap a photo, let alone install a new app or update iOS, there’s a weird trick that might help you reclaim hundreds of megabytes, or even a few gigabytes.

In a nutshell, it works like this: You’re going to try renting (and downloading) a movie that your phone doesn’t have space for. Then you’re going to try it again, and perhaps even a few more times. As evidenced by the reader comments in my original post, to say nothing of my own experience, this really works.

Why? Call it an oddity of iOS. A space oddity, if you will. (See what I did there?)

5. Add external storage

The Leef iAccess lets you add potentially unlimited storage in the form of microSD cards. Just beware there are some limitations on what you can do with it.

Leef

As we’ve already established, Apple is cruel — which helps explain why iPhones don’t have memory-card slots. That means if you want to offload photos and videos or carry around a large library of music and/or movies, you’re sunk. Right?

Wrong. You can indeed add extra storage to an iPhone (or iPad) — it just has to be external. This can take the form of a plug-in drive (not unlike a USB flash drive) or a wireless media hub. Each has its own pros and cons.

Take the Leef iAccess, a $50 or £38 microSD card reader that plugs into your iPhone’s Lightning port and wraps around the rear (to better accommodate cases). It can read and write to cards as large as 128GB, a considerable amount of extra space for any iDevice. And it lets you capture photos and videos directly to a card, bypassing your storage-strapped phone altogether. (Another option, the slightly less versatile Leef iBridge, comes with a fixed amount of storage. It starts at $60 or £40 for 16GB.)

Similar solutions include the HooToo iPhone Flash Drive ($50 for 32GB), which includes a USB 3.0 plug at the opposite end for easy media transfers from your PC, and the SanDisk iExpand. These drives offer two key benefits: They’re plug-and-play simple and they don’t need to be charged.

However, they leave a plug sticking out of your phone. If you don’t want that added bulk, consider a wireless media hub. Same idea (onboard or memory-card storage), but with a Wi-Fi rather than Lightning connection.

For example, the Western Digital MyPassport Wireless comes in 1TB and 2TB flavors. It can back up your iPhone photos and lets you access music, videos and other media. But prices start at around $150 or £130, and it’s a bit too bulky to carry in a pocket.

Ravpower

If you want a more mobile-friendly solution, check out something like the Ravpower Filehub, a wireless SD-card and USB-drive reader that sells for $30-$40 or £30. As an added bonus, it’s also a Wi-Fi hotspot and mobile charger.

Just take note of a key limitation with all these options: You can’t play DRM-protected music or videos, of the kind you might purchase from iTunes or download from Spotify. External storage works only with your own media.

6. Fly to China

Hey, hackers, makers and everyone else who’s handy with a soldering iron: Why can’t you pry open an iPhone and replace the memory chips with higher-capacity versions?

Apparently there’s at least one shop in China offering to do exactly that. A couple months ago, a story made the rounds about a 16GB-to-128GB upgrade that cost only about $60. Just one problem: The exact location of this shop wasn’t identified, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to get this service without actually going to China.

I suspect if this process worked reliably and was truly affordable, we’d see it in iPhone repair shops closer to home. But I’ve found no evidence of any service anywhere that will let you drop off (or ship) an iPhone and get more internal storage. Which is too bad, because I suspect any enterprising tinkerer could make a small fortune off that.

If you’ve found any other ways to survive a 16GB iPhone, share them in the comments!

The Android April 2 security patch is live – here are the details you need to know

The Android security patch dated April 2, 2016 is up and running — factory images are available and code is being updated.

Google has released the details surrounding the April 2 security patch for Android, completely mitigating issues described in a bulletin several weeks ago as well as a slew or other critical and moderate issues. This one is a bit different from previous bulletins, with special attention paid to a privilege escalation vulnerability in versions 3.4, 3.10 and 3.14 of the Linux kernel used in Android. We’ll discuss that further down the page. In the meantime, here’s the breakdown of what you need to know about this month’s patch.

Updated firmware images are now available for currently supported Nexus devices on the Google Developer site. The Android Open Source Project has these changes rolling out to the relevant branches now, and everything will be complete and synchronized within 48 hours. Over the air updates are in progress for currently supported Nexus phones and tablets, and will follow the standard Google rollout procedure — it may take a week or two to get to your Nexus. All partners — that means the people who built your phone, regardless of brand — have had access to these fixes as of March 16 2016, and they will announce and patch devices on their own individual schedules.

The most severe issue addressed is a vulnerability that could allow remote code execution when processing media files. These files can be sent to your phone by any means — email, web browsing MMS or instant messaging. Other critical issues patched are specific to the DHCP client, Qualcomm’s Performance Module and RF driver. These exploits could allow code to run that permanently compromises the device firmware, forcing the end user to need to re-flash the full operating system — if “platform and service mitigations are disabled for development proposes.” That’s security-nerd speak for allowing apps from unknown sources to be installed and/or allowing OEM unlocking.

Other vulnerabilities patched also include methods to bypass Factory Reset Protection, issues that could be exploited to allow denial of service attacks, and issues that allow code execution on devices with root. IT professionals will be happy to also see mail and ActiveSync issues that could allow access to “sensitive” information patched in this update.

As always, Google also reminds us that there have been no reports of users being affected by these issues, and they have a recommended procedure to help prevent devices from falling victim to these and future issues:

• Exploitation for many issues on Android is made more difficult by enhancements in newer versions of the Android platform. We encourage all users to update to the latest version of Android where possible.
• The Android Security team is actively monitoring for abuse with Verify Apps and SafetyNet, which will warn the user about detected potentially harmful applications about to be installed. Device rooting tools are prohibited within Google Play. To protect users who install applications from outside of Google Play, Verify Apps is enabled by default and will warn users about known rooting applications. Verify Apps attempts to identify and block installation of known malicious applications that exploit a privilege escalation vulnerability. If such an application has already been installed, Verify Apps will notify the user and attempt to remove any such applications.
• As appropriate, Google Hangouts and Messenger applications do not automatically pass media to processes such as mediaserver.

Regarding issues mentioned in the previous bulletin

On March 18, 2016 Google issued a separate supplemental security bulletin about issues in the Linux kernel used on many Android phones and tablets. It was demonstrated that an exploit in versions 3.4, 3.10 and 3.14 of the Linux kernel used in Android allowed devices to be permanently compromised — rooted, in other words — and affected phones and other devices would require a re-flash of the operating system to recover. Because an application was able to demonstrate this exploit, a mid-month bulletin was released. Google also mentioned that Nexus devices would receive a patch “within a few days.” That patch never materialized, and Google makes no mention of why in the latest security bulletin.

The issue — CVE-2015-1805 — has been patched completely in the April 2, 2016 security update. AOSP branches for Android versions 4.4.4, 5.0.2, 5.1.1, 6.0, and 6.0.1 have received this patch, and the rollout to the source is in progress.

Google also mentions that devices that may have received a patch dated April 1, 2016 have not been patched against this particular exploit, and only Android devices with a patch level dated April 2, 2016 or later are current.

The update sent to the Verizon Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge is dated April 2, 2016 and does contain these fixes.

The update sent to the T-Mobile Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge is dated April 2, 2016 and does contain these fixes.

Build AAE298 for unlocked BlackBerry Priv phones is dated April 2, 2016 and does contain these fixes. It was released in late March, 2016.

Phones running a 3.18 kernel version are unaffected by this particular issue, but still require the patches for other issues addressed in the April 2, 2016 patch.

April security patch now available for the BlackBerry Priv

The April security patches are now available for BlackBerry Priv owners. Those who purchased their phones from ShopBlackBerry may have already received the update on March 23, but now more carriers are pushing it. This update patches the latest round of vulnerabilities that Google discovered, keeping your phone even more secure.

BlackBerry has posted additional details about the update as well if you wish to check those out. To check your phone for an update, head into the Settings, About phone and check for update. Be sure to let us know in the comments once you’ve received it.

The Best in-ear headphones

Our editors share their picks for the best in-ear headphones available today!

Choosing a pair of in-ear headphones is tough. We all have different tastes, budgets, and needs. So we rounded up a group of people used to making tough choices — our Mobile Nations editors. They’ve shared the in-ear headphones they’re using and, more importantly, why!

Phil Nickinson – Bose QuietComfort 20 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones

If you spend any amount of time on airplanes, you need noise-canceling headphones. And the QC20 from Bose will change your life. It’s active noise-cancellation, which means there’s a small, thin box toward the bottom of the cable that houses the battery and electronics. It’s a little clunky, but that’s the price of admission.

It also has to be charged periodically — I’ve only ever done it before a big trip, and maybe before heading home, if it’s going to be a particularly long flight. But it charges over microUSB, so that’s easy enough.

The result is night and day. Music no longer has to be turned up dangerously loud. Voices are easy to understand. Engine noise all but disappears. It’s actually almost disorienting at first. But you’ll soon find you can’t live without it. And I haven’ even mentioned the sound quality. (It’s Bose. It’s good.) Priced at around $299, these aren’t cheap headphones, but they’re excellent. I don’t fly anywhere without them.

See at Amazon

Daniel Bader – RHA T10i

RHA is a relatively unknown company, but it makes high-quality in-ear headphones with extremely good sound quality and enviable designs.

The T10i was, until early 2016, the company’s flagship in-ear monitors, featuring flat (but customizable) sound characteristics (via replaceable filters, emphasizing treble, bass, etc.), and easy-to-mould over-ear hooks for comfortable wear.

Though expensive at just under $200, the T10i’s come with multiple ear tips in both silicone and memory foam, and have a long warranty in case anything happens to them.

See at Amazon

Daniel Rubino – Bose SoundSport In-Ear Headphones

I use them for exercising as I do not have to recharge them (problem with wireless). They look good, are super comfortable, and have excellent sound quality. I have the Microsoft ‘green’ ones as they stand out and I can easily find them in my gym bag.

See at Amazon

Richard Devine – RHA T10

The slightly less expensive companion to the T10i, the main difference to the T10 is the lack of an in-line remote. Otherwise they’re the exact same earbuds with great sound and the ability to swap out the filters in the middle to add more bass or more treble as you so desire. The sheer multitude of different sized tips included in the pack as well means you’re sure of getting a good fit, even with odd ears like mine.

The T10s are so comfortable it’s ridiculous. I wore these almost completely straight through a 13 hour flight with no discomfort whatsoever. There is an element of passive noise cancellation, so noisy plane engines aren’t totally going to drive you mad, but active cancelling is about all I wish these phenomenally good earbuds had.

They’re not cheap, but they’re absolutely worth the money. A blend of sheer comfort and great sound quality means they’d be tough to replace for me.

See at Amazon

Mike Tanasychuk – Apple Earpods

For in-ear headphones that just come with a device (iPod or iPhone), they have to be some of the best-sounding headphones I’ve ever used.

The bass tones are very rich and warm and the mid and highs are balanced really well. All levels sing out nicely and it’s really easy to hear harmonies and to separate tracks. Whenever I’m trying to learn a drum or guitar part, these headphones more than do the trick. They may not be much for noise cancelling, but I’ve never had any decline in audio quality because I’ve cranked ’em.

They also seem to last the longest out of any in-ear headphones I’ve used. The plastic doesn’t feel cheap; the rubber cord is formidable and won’t tear (at least, it hasn’t for me); I can usually get a couple years out of a pair.

See at Amazon

DJ Reyes – BlackBerry Premium Headset WS-410

I prefer in-ear headphones rather than over-the-ear ones for travelling because they’re easier to carry around and slip into a pocket. I’ve tried many over the years but there’s one that beats all others – the BlackBerry Premium Headset.

They’re the ones that come in the BlackBerry 10 device boxes. I use them not so much for the sound quality, which is good enough for me still. Not for the noise cancelling function because it doesn’t have that feature but because they fit and don’t fall out of my ear. They fit securely in my ear, in-part thanks to wing-hoop on the ear piece that helps to secure it in place. On top of that, these headphones are not the kind that have to go into my ear canal. Even with those wing tips that come with other in-ear headphones, they never fit in my ear, no matter what size piece I use. Perhaps I’m wearing them wrong but I’ve never really got on well with the ones that have to go into the ear canal, those always pop out.

The in-line microphone and one-touch button comes in handy when I need to take a phone call and the flat wire design means I don’t have to spend time untangling them when I want to use them. I may upgrade to the slightly better model which includes volume keys but for now this WS-410 model suits me just fine.

See at Amazon

Michael Fisher – HTC Active Earbuds

A design that’s dust- and water-resistant (and therefore pocket- and sweat-resistant). Textured metal housings and eye-catching yellow trim. A three-button control collective for music and phone calls. And the buds magically come together when brought back to back thanks to the power of magnets.

It’s tough to make earbuds stand out in 2016, but HTC does it with the Active Headset. Toss in respectable sound quality, a comfy in-ear feel and a reasonable price point, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a better set of buds for your rainy-day hiking trips.

See at Amazon

Android Auto expands to 18 new countries, plus Puerto Rico

More people around the world will be able to start experiencing Android Auto, as the feature is now available in many more countries across the globe. In all, Android Auto has expanded to a total of 18 new countries (and one territory, for good measure) across Latin America, Europe and elsewhere, including:

• Argentina
• Austria
• Bolivia
• Brazil
• Chile
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Dominican Republic
• Ecuador
• Guatemala
• India
• Panama
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Puerto Rico
• Russia
• Switzerland
• Uruguay
• Venezuela

If you call one of the above home and your car is sporting Android Auto, you should be able to start taking advantage of the feature right away.

HTC Vive is the VR system that has won your hearts

In last week’s poll we asked which VR system you are the most excited about. There are options out there whether you’re interested in VR on your computer, your video game console, or even your phone. With this much variety involved, we wanted to know where your interest in pointed. Of all the VR systems out there, the HTC Vive seems to be the one that caught your eye.

The HTC Vive slid into first place with a solid 24 percent of the vote. Just behind it, in second place with 21 percent of the vote, was “I’m not that interested in VR right now”. The Gear VR took a solid third place with 18 percent of the vote. Playstation VR managed to snag a solid 16 percent of the vote, letting it coast easily into third place. The Oculus Rift snagged 13 percent of the vote to take fifth place in our poll, and “I haven’t decided yet” picked up 9 percent of the vote landing it in last place. While the HTC Vive took 24 percent of the poll landing in first place, it’s also worth pointing out that 30 percent of you are either uninterested in VR, or still trying to decide on the best system for you.

Did your favorite system win out in our poll? Are you vibrating with excitement about the HTC Vive? Let us know all about it in the comments!

Amazon says a new ‘top of the line’ Kindle is coming next week

A new Kindle is coming.

Amazon, the company that makes the Kindle-brand of e-readers and tablets, has announced it will introduce a “top of the line” Kindle sometime next week. Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, revealed the news on Twitter, explaining the upcoming model will be a new, eighth-generation of Kindle products. The Kindle Voyage, which released in October 2014, leads the seventh generation of Kindle devices.

The Voyage is a 6-inch slate with an E-Ink display. We currently have no detailes about the eighth-generation Kindle, including whether it is an update to the Voyage or something altogether different, but Bezos said it is “almost ready”. Amazon typically releases new products as soon as they’re announced, so we can assume this new Kindle will be available to order through Amazon next week, alongside its unveiling.

Heads up readers – all-new, top of the line Kindle almost ready. 8th generation. Details next week.

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) April 4, 2016

Amazon has been making some progress in its hardware department as of late. After launching the ill-fated Fire Phone a few years ago, it faced a lot of criticism over how it is spending money as well as investing time and resources into developing its own hardware products, but the Kindle line has consistently been a good hit for the company. Also, Amazon has found more recent success and critical acclaim with Echo.

Echo is a Bluetooth-connected speaker that Amazon makes and sells. It’s loaded with a personal-assistant feature called Alexa and serves as a direct portal to Amazon.com, as customers can use Echo to order new products through the site. In fact, many of Amazon’s devices are designed with the Amazon.com retail experience in mind. Amazon basically uses them to funnel goods to its customers.

It’s therefore no surprise to see Amazon is eager to update Kindle, as people can use the device to not only order physical goods from Amazon.com but also to buy digital things like Kindle books or Audible audiobooks. Some Kindles even serve up adverts to users.

Stay tuned to Pocket-lint’s Amazon hub during the next week for breaking news from the company.