Microsoft now offering Surface Membership Plans
Microsoft has quietly introduced a Surface Membership Plan that allows small businesses to keep up with the latest Surface hardware and buy the devices on a monthly payment plan. Starting at $32.99 per month, business users get “the latest Surface devices, accessories, support, and training.” The membership plan includes the current generation Surface Book, Surface Pro 4, and Surface 3, but it also comes with free upgrades when newer models become available.
As Thurrott.com points out, the membership program follows the iPhone Upgrade program that Apple introduced last year. The Surface memberships also include setup, personal training, in-store tech support, an extended service plan and Accidental Damage Protection. The monthly costs vary, depending on the model and whether you stretch out the payments over 18, 24 or 30 months, but the cheapest is a basic Surface Pro 3 for $33 per month over 30 months. The most expensive will run you about $221 per month for a tricked-out Surface Book with a 1TB hard drive, 16 GB RAM, Intel i7 processor and dual GPUs.
That also means, at the end of the installments, you’ll have shelled out about $3,978 for that Surface Book, versus $3,448 for the same machine with just a two-year service plan and no other bundled deals (or $3,199 if you live on the edge and skip the service plan). For the budget Surface 3, the membership plan works out to $990 total over two and a half years, versus $600 for the device with no extras.
One other thing to note here: the plans are meant for business customers and not individuals, although you can still sign up to order only a single device, rather than a whole fleet. Also, in order to be approved for the membership plan, you’ll have to go through Microsoft’s financing partner LiftForward to handle all the monthly payments and credit applications.
Lexus nav systems are acting up nationwide
As upgraded systems bring cars closer to other connected devices, it’s inevitable that they suffer from some similar issues. Today many Lexus owners were afflicted by a problem that saw their head units stuck in some kind of reboot loop. Derik Gutowski posted a video of the sequence on YouTube, showing it start to boot before showing a purple screen and then beginning the cycle again. On a Lexus owner’s forum, posters suggest (as apparently directed by dealers) pulling the battery cable for ten minutes, which forces a manual reset and gets things working again.
Many of our owner’s vehicle head units stopped working. We are working around the clock to find a solution. Stay tuned for more information
— Lexus (@Lexus) June 8, 2016
Lexus tweeted that it is working “around the clock” on a fix, and a spokesman told Bloomberg that the problem may have been caused by an application in the software updates it delivers via satellite. Of course, requiring a battery pull to reboot is one thing when it’s your laptop or phone, and an entirely different feeling on a $40,000+ luxury vehicle and the responses of owners show it.
Comment from discussion Help – Stereo won’t load up in ’16 is200.
Source: Club Lexus, r/Lexus, Lexus (Twitter)
SpaceX aims to relaunch one of its rockets this fall
SpaceX is gearing up for something huge this fall. Elon Musk announced on Twitter that the Falcon 9 that launched the Thaicom 8 communications satellite is back in the hangar with the three other first stages that made it safely back on the ground. In the same tweet, he revealed that the company is planning for its first reflight in either September or October. The private space corp originally aimed to relaunch a rocket in May or June after its first successful barge landing, but that was obviously too soon to be feasible.
Since Musk just announced this new timeframe, it’s still unclear what the reusable rocket will ferry to orbit. It already has potential customers, though, including Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES, which already expressed interest in launching one of its products aboard a reflight.
Fourth rocket arrives in the hangar. Aiming for first reflight in Sept/Oct. pic.twitter.com/TqW8d6Cc3U
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 7, 2016
Source: Elon Musk (Twitter)
Withings Announces New ‘Body Cardio’ Scale Able to Assess Cardiac Health
Withings today announced the launch of its latest connected health product, debuting the Body Cardio, a scale that incorporates Pulse Wave Velocity measurements to give users an overview of their cardiac health.
According to Withings, the Body Cardio represents the first consumer scale that uses Pulse Wave Velocity, a measurement of the velocity at which a person’s arterial pulse propagates through the body. It can detect arterial stiffness caused by problems like high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and has a strong correlation with stroke, heart attack, and other cardiac events.
PWV analyses are traditionally conducted in clinical environments and generally reserved for those diagnosed with high blood pressure or other chronic diseases. For the first time, Body Cardio brings this capability to the home scale, computing PWV based on the user’s age and time it takes for blood to flow from the aorta in the heart to the vessels in the feet.
Body Cardio, along with its app, Health Mate, provides the user with the evolution of its PWV (m/s) over time and with an indication of whether their PWV is normal, optimal or at risk.
Design wise, the Body Cardio is slim and sleek, measuring in at 0.7 inches with a flat aluminum base for stability and heat-tempered glass for durability. Available in black or white, the Body Cardio is accurate on any surface, from wood floors to carpet. A built-in rechargeable battery is able to last up to a year between charges.
In addition to providing details on cardiac health, the Withings Body Cardio also measures weight and gives users information on body mass index, body composition, and standing heart rate. Body composition measurements, done through biometrical impedance, are also a new addition to the Body Cardio. Past Withings scales, such as the Smart Body Analyzer, offered fewer features.
The Body Cardio, like all of Withings’ health related devices, connects to the company’s Health Mate app to deliver information like weight trends over time for long-term health-related tracking.
The Body Cardio is available starting today from the Withings website and from Apple retail stores for $179.95. Later in the summer, the Body Cardio will also be available from additional retail partners.
Withings is also releasing an updated “Body” scale, able to measure weight and body composition. Body sells for $129.95 and is available from a variety of retailers.
Tag: Withings
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Microsoft Takes Inspiration from Apple, Launches Surface Upgrade Plan for Businesses
Microsoft today launched the Microsoft Surface Membership, an upgrade plan for Surface devices that allows business customers to “get the latest Surface devices, accessories, support and training.” The new plan was first spotted by Thurrott.com (via Engadget). The plan is similar to Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Plan.
The Surface Membership is available for three Surface devices with payment plans that can be spread over 18, 24 or 30 months. The Surface 3 is $32.99 per month for 30 months, $37.99 per month for 24 months, and $48.99 per month over 18 months. The Surface Pro 4 is $51.99 per month for 30 months, $58.99 per month for 24 months, and $70.99 per month for 18 months. The Surface Book is $79.99 per month for 30 months, $89.99 per month for 24 months, and $108.99 per month for 18 months.
All Microsoft Surface Memberships come with Surface accessories, which include the Surface Type Cover for the Surface 3, both the Type Cover and pen for the Surface Pro 4 and the Surface Pen for the Surface Book. Members will also get phone and in-store tech support, one-on-one personal training, in-store discounts on future hardware and software and the Microsoft Complete for Business Extended Service Plan with accidental damage. Finally, users will be able to upgrade to the latest Surface devices when they launch.
Apple announced the iPhone Upgrade Plan last year alongside the iPhone 6s, allowing customers to pay a monthly fee for their devices and upgrade every year. Apple’s plan is also limited to iPhones and does not include discounts for future hardware, though it does include AppleCare+. However, Apple’s plan is open to all sorts of customers rather than just business users.
Microsoft isn’t the first company to follow Apple’s lead in device upgrade plans. Shortly after Apple announced the iPhone Upgrade Plan, Samsung began planning an upgrade plan for its Galaxy phones, officially launching the service in March 2016.
Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Surface, iPhone Upgrade Plan
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How to share Live Photos on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – CNET
If you have an iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus or iPhone SE and you enjoy the Live Photos feature that captures a few seconds of video when you snap a photo, then sooner or later you will create a Live Photo worth sharing on social media.
Your sharing options for Live Photos, however, are limited. Facebook supports Live Photos, but only your Facebook friends using the Facebook iOS app and running iOS 9 will be able to make the picture move. Even then, they’ll have to notice the little Live Photo icon in the lower-right corner and 3D Touch or (on older devices) press-and-hold on the photo to put it in motion.
For Instagram and Twitter, neither supports Live Photos.
If you want to share a Live Photo to a wider audience on Facebook or to any audience on Instagram, you need to convert a Live Photo to a video. For Twitter, you can use either a video or a GIF.
Convert Live Photos to GIFs or videos
Two free apps make it easy to convert Live Photos to videos or GIFs: Lively and LP Converter. (Each app also lets you grab a still frame from a Live Photo to share as a photo if you don’t like the image that your iPhone selected.)
Lively
Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET
Lively is free but adds a watermark to GIFs and still photos that you export from the app, though movies you export avoid the watermark. An in-app purchase of $2.99, £2.29, or AU$4.49 removes the watermarks.
The app lets you trim the start and end points of a GIF or video, and for GIFs you can play the action backward or have it autoreverse so you end up back at the beginning each time it plays. You can also adjust the playback speed and choose one of two export sizes.
LP Converter
Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET
LP Converter is free, not to mention ad-free and watermark-free. It doesn’t provide any trimming tools but offers edit tools for GIFs to adjust the playback speed and set a file-size limit. There is also a slider to adjust the frame rate and resolution of GIFs; lowering the frame rate increases the resolution and vice versa.
With either app, you can save your creation to your iPhone’s Camera Roll, and then from there share it with the world.
Heads-up: GIFs you save to your Camera Roll will not show any movement when you view them using the Photos app, but as soon as you attach one to a tweet, the GIF begins to play.
Because I use Instagram and Facebook more than Twitter, I prefer Lively to LP Converter because it offers more edit tools and doesn’t watermark the videos. For free and watermark-free Live Photos-to-GIF conversion, give the LP Converter a try.
Google wants to be your GIF maker
Google jumped into the Live Photos-conversion game today with its free Motion Stills app.
Like Lively and LP Conversion, Motion Stills lets you save Live Photos as GIFs or videos for wider sharing options. It doesn’t feature any edit tools for trimming or adjusting playback speed, but it does let you combine multiple clips in a single video. And Google trumpets the app’s “advanced stabilization and rendering” abilities.
If you are new to Live Photos, then learn how to get the most out of Live Photos.
Remove a cork from inside a wine bottle with cable ties – CNET
While there are dozens of ways of breaking into a bottle of beer when you lose your bottle opener, things are a bit more tricky when it comes to removing a cork from a wine bottle without a corkscrew.
You can place the bottle in a shoe and bang in against a wall for a while, drill into the cork to remove it, or worst case scenario, you can simply push the cork down into the bottle. With the latter method, since the cork is buoyant, it floats and won’t obstruct the flow of wine out of the bottle. But if you need to reseal the bottle later, how do you get the cork out?
That’s where YouTube channel Hacks World’s nifty trick comes into play. It requires some strapping (the thin, strong plastic webbing used in shipping crates and boxes). Most people, however, don’t have strapping just lying around, so I tested it with cable ties and it works just as well.
Here’s how it’s done.
What you’ll need
Enlarge Image
Taylor Martin/CNET
For starters, you need a wine bottle with a cork inside — not in the neck, where it’s supposed to be, but floating atop the wine. This might happen when a cork breaks or if your need for a glass of wine is too great and you’re too impatient to find a corkscrew.
To remove the cork from inside the bottle, you will need something long, thin and strong. I used two long cable ties that were connected to create a loop. If you don’t have any cable ties that are long enough, you could add a third or fourth to reach the cork.
You may also need some patience. Don’t drink the wine inside the bottle just yet, because the more wine you have, the easier it will be to remove the cork. You need to keep the cork close to the bottle’s neck, which will help orient the cork properly.
Removing a cork from inside a wine bottle
Start by taking the two cable ties and connecting them to one another. This will make an oval-like loop, which you will use to fish out the cork.
Pinch one of the ends of the loop together and thread it into the neck of the bottle. Use the loop to move the cork into an upright position. I found it much easier to do this by tilting the bottle, but be careful not to spill the wine.
Enlarge Image
Taylor Martin/CNET
The idea is to loop the cable tie under the end of the cork. Once both sides of the cork are wedged between the cable ties and the neck of the bottle, friction will help you remove the cork. The friction between the cable ties and glass is much lower than that of the friction between the cork and cable ties, making it fairly easy to pull the cork back out of the bottle.
Getting everything lined up will take some finagling and some trial and error. And pulling the cork out all the way requires some brute force, which is why it’s helpful to connect both ends of the cable ties. Pulling on a closed loop is much easier than pulling on the loose ends of the ties. Just make sure to secure the bottle so it doesn’t smash, as the cork will release with some force once it’s reached the opening.
If you’d like to see it in action, here is the original video, in which Hacks World uses strapping instead of cable ties.
Now, if you don’t have a corkscrew on hand, you’re no longer out of luck. Just push the cork into the bottle and fish it out with cable ties or strapping with relative ease.
Google’s new Motion Stills app turns Live Photos into GIFs – and here’s how
Google has released yet another iOS app.
The unique thing about this app is that it can convert Live Photos into shareable GIFs and movie montages. The app is called Motion Stills, and it essentially gives iPhone owners new ways to play with and share Live Photos. It also uses video stabilisation magic to make your photos less shaky. Here’s everything you need to know about this new app, including how it works.
What is a Live Photo?
First, let’s cover what a Live Photo isn’t… A Live Photo isn’t a video but rather a 12-megapixel photograph. When you snap a Live Photo, your camera actually captures motion 1.5 seconds before and after the still, which results in a brief animation of sorts. You can take them with an iPhone 6S or iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone SE, or 9.7-inch iPad Pro, and you can play them back with 3D Touch or a long-press on any iOS device.
What is Motion Stills?
Motion Stills is a new iOS app from Google Research. Google has described the app as a “virtual camera operator” for your Live Photos. Google basically added its video stabilisation technology to the app to “freeze the background into a still photo or create sweeping cinematic pans”.
Is there an example available?
Check out this Motion Stills example provided by Google:
How do you use Motion Stills?
Download the Motion Stills app from the Apple App Store. It’s free, but because it uses Live Photos, you need Apple’s newest iPhones to run the app. Once you download the app, you will see options to convert a Live Photo into a GIF or video clip. You must first create the Live Photo using your device’s native camera app. After Motion Stills does its thing, you can share your creation via SMS, social media, etc.
The idea is that, with Motion Stills, you can turn your photos into GIFs that loop forever, or you can stitch them together into movies. Apart from letting you create GIFs and combine multiple clips into a movie montage, Motion Stills also allows you to share your GIFs in any messaging app and browse through your Live Photos stream. And all this doesn’t require an internet connection.
Motion Stills will also stabilise the camera movement of a Live Photo for a steadier shot with less visible shakiness. Google basically said it perfected its stabilisation technology after stabilising hundreds of millions of videos and creating GIF animations via Google Photos, an app we reviewed and highly recommend to anyone looking for new ways to discover their photos.
How does this stabilisation tech work?
Here’s how Google explained the stabilisation technology behind Motion Stills:
“Our algorithm uses linear programming to compute a virtual camera path that is optimized to recast videos and bursts as if they were filmed using stabilization equipment, yielding a still background or creating cinematic pans to remove shakiness.
Our challenge was to take technology designed to run distributed in a data center and shrink it down to run even faster on your mobile phone. We achieved a 40x speedup by using techniques such as temporal subsampling, decoupling of motion parameters, and using Google Research’s custom linear solver, GLOP. We obtain further speedup and conserve storage by computing low-resolution warp textures to perform real-time GPU rendering, just like in a videogame.
Short videos are perfect for creating loops, so we added loop optimization to bring out the best in your captures. Our approach identifies optimal start and end points, and also discards blurry frames. This fixes “pocket shots” (footage of the phone being put back into the pocket).
To keep the background steady while looping, Motion Stills has to separate the background from the rest of the scene. This is a difficult task when foreground elements occlude significant portions of the video. Our novel method classifies motion vectors into foreground (red) and background (green) in a temporally consistent manner. We use a cascade of motion models, moving our motion estimation from simple to more complex models and biasing our results along the way.”
Want to know more?
Check out Google’s blog post for more details.
Build the next great iOS app with this coding mastery bundle
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If you’re among the latter, the iOS Coding Mastery Bundle will put you in direct command of the tools, tactics, and skills required to achieve your iOS app-building dreams. You can now pick up 104 hours of top-rated iOS development training for just £27.41 ($39).
The iOS programming game is exploding, with new apps changing the way we engage with the world at an incredible pace. Through the seven courses included in your iOS Coding Mastery Bundle, you’ll explore iOS 9 development, design, Swift, core data, layouts and more, as well as tried and true methods for submitting your creations to the App Store.
The iOS Coding Mastery Bundle includes:
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- The Bitfountain Immersive iOS 9 Design Course
- The Bitfountain Core Data Immersive Course
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- The Bitfountain Guide to Submitting to the Apple Store
- The Bitfountain iOS 8 with Swift Immersive
Your instructor for six of the courses is iOS development instructor Eliot Arntz, who leads highly rated coding bootcamps in the NYC area. Whether you’re a first-time developer or are simply looking to update and sharpen your skills in iOS development, the iOS Coding Master Bundle is the perfect framework for app-building success. Get it today for 83 per cent off from Pocket-lint Deals.
Worldwide access, top-level security: Hotspot Shield Elite VPN lifetime subscription is 59 per cent off
Modern Web access has become nearly ubiquitous, and enabled us to transition more and more of our lives into the digital realm. But if you don’t take steps to secure your data, you’re left open to attacks from hackers ready to compromise your privacy at a moment’s notice.
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