5 great silicone bands for the ZenWatch 2
What are some great silicone bands for the ZenWatch 2?
While the ZenWatch 2 comes in two different sizes – 18mm and 22mm – any watch band with an extra set of pins, regardless of its size, should work with the ZenWatch 2.
While there are plenty of customizable, fun options for the watch face itself, what about picking out a band that works seamlessly for you and the watch? Here are a five great silicone bands and straps for the ZenWatch 2 that are worth checking out!
- Barton watch band
- Benchmark band with stitching
- TRUMiRR silicone buckle band
- Purple silicone watch band
- MODE b&nd by Hadley Roma
Barton watch band
Bright, durable, and modern, Barton’s watchbands are made from a high-quality silicone rubber that work flawlessly with your ZenWatch 2 in either size. You have the option to pick from 18mm or 22mm bands on the Amazon page.
This waterproof watchband is perfect for people who like to wear their watch as they’re doing some physical activity, and if your Barton band gets dirty at all, it’s designed to be super simple to clean.
The watchband comes with two stainless steel bars to secure your watch to the band, and is eight inches long; there’s quite a bit of room to adjust no matter the size of your wrist. The watchband comes in five vibrant colors, including orange, white, bright blue, green, and black, so there are plenty of colorful options to pick from!
See at Amazon
Benchmark band with stitching
A classic approach to the traditional watchband, Benchmark’s navy silicone rubber strap with sharp, white stitching is not only stylish and nice to look at, it’s practical, waterproof, and a great accessory for the ZenWatch 2.
Made with a soft silicone rubber and a stainless steel buckle, the Benchmark strap comes with a spring bar tool that lets you change and customize your watch bands day-to-day, so if you get sick of one style, you can easily switch to another.
The watch strap is eight inches long, but works for people with smaller wrists as it can be adjusted accordingly. The classic white stitching along the band makes this strap a beautiful accessory to pair with almost any outfit or sense of style.
See at Amazon
TRUMiRR silicone buckle band
Though not as flashy and eye-catching as some of the other bands on our list, the TRUMiRR silicone buckle band is a distinct minimalist accessory for your ZenWatch 2. Sometimes, less is more!
This watchband comes in two different styles: a jet black, more patterned, raised silicone that imitates the style of traditional stainless steel watchbands and a smoother, more modern looking black band with horizontal lines running its entirety. You can pick from either option in the link below.
The TRUMiRR is made from a flexible, comfortable, water-resistant silicone rubber and can be easily adjusted with the stainless steel buckle to fit all wrist types.
See at Amazon
Clockwork Synergy silicone watchband
Made from a high quality, thick, and durable silicone with removable pins for quick-change, customizable access, Clockwork Synergy’s purple silicone watchband is a comfortable and slick looking accessory to pair with your ZenWatch 2.
This watch band is very simple and minimalist, so you won’t have to worry about extra patterns or logos junking up your wrist. The same watchband also comes in a few different colors, including black, grey, brown, royal blue, and hunter green. You can even choose the buckle color and pick from stainless steel, brushed steel, yellow gold, rose gold, or PVD black.
The Clockwork Synergy strap is easily adjustable with eight sizes, so whether you have a tiny or enormous wrist there’s bound to be a comfortable option for you.
See at Amazon
MODE b&nd by Hadley Roma
Bright, bold, and beautiful: MODE’s b&nd by Hadley Roma in seafoam green is bound to make a statement once it’s paired with your ZenWatch 2!
The MODE band is easy to clean and is moisture-resistant, so you don’t have to worry about dirtying it up if you’re doing some physical activity. The entire band is also 100% hypo-allergenic, so if you have severe skin sensitivity issues, it may be a good option to look at.
While most smartwatches are changed with pins, the MODE band comes with a slide button that easily attaches the strap directly to your ZenWatch 2 without any additional tools or fiddling. All you have to do to change to the MODE is snap your band into place using only your hands and you’re good to go!
See at Amazon
What’s your favorite?
Is there a silicone watchband that you just can’t get enough of? Let us know which ones are your favorites to wear with the ZenWatch and why in the comments below!
You’ve got questions, Michael Fisher’s got videos (and the fastest growing new tech channel on YouTube!)
Over 30,000 youtube subscribers in less than a week… and MrMobile is just getting started!
It’s been a whirlwind 10 days in MrMobile’s Boston studios, where we’ve been focused on crafting the biggest YouTube debut party the mobile tech space has ever seen. In less than two weeks, I’ve published an introduction video, two smartphone reviews, a preview of the hottest electric car ever to hit the road, a look at a “work phone” that’s also a pretty sweet vacation device, and a mobile accessory I’ve wanted since before Bluetooth was invented.
The response thus far has been overwhelmingly positive, and I’d like to thank everyone who helped push the MrMobile YouTube Channel to over 30,000 subscribers basically overnight. Don’t despair if you missed the initial launch celebration, though! To help you get up to speed, we’ve embedded every single MrMobile video in this post. Click around to see what catches your eye, and when you’re done catching up, hop on over to the MrMobile Channel page and hit that Subscribe button; we still need your help to hit 50K, 100K, and all the milestones that lay beyond!
Warning: You may get addicted watching these MrMobile videos!
This Rugged Work Phone is Perfect for Vacation Too
The Best Android Phone You Can Buy [Summer 2016]
Tesla Model 3: The Model S/X Test Drive That Sold Me On The Hype
Bluetooth Star Trek Communicator Review: A Trekkie’s Dream Come True
OnePlus 3 Review: Killer Flagship
Follow MrMobile Everywhere
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Android Central 295: Nougat Unlocked
There’s no such thing as a slow week in the Android world. And in the span of a single morning we’ve gotten both the nickname for Android N — Nougat — and a long-overdue unlocked version of the Samsung Galaxy S7 in the United States.
Plus we weigh in on some recent stories that probably have been blown way out of proportion, and we answer some excellent questions via email.
Thanks to this week’s sponsors:
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Podcast MP3 URL: http://traffic.libsyn.com/androidcentral/androidcentral295.mp3
Using your Chromebook with an external monitor, mouse and keyboard
Let’s turn that Chromebook into a bigger work (or fun) station.
One of the most wonderful things about Chromebooks is how simple they are — you don’t have to buy additional accessories to make them work, they just do most of what people want out of the box. But perhaps you have additional needs … like using a larger external screen, necessitating having an external keyboard and mouse in the process.
Sound like something you need to do? Well it’s not tough to figure out, actually — we’re going to lay out a handful of tips for getting your Chromebook up and running with an external monitor, keyboard and mouse.
Monitor
Just about every Chromebook comes with a full-sized HDMI port — take a look around the edges and you’ll quickly know whether or not you have one. If you do, you can connect your Chromebook to any modern monitor or TV with a cheap HDMI cable and be on your way. Some Chromebooks may have smaller micro- or mini-HDMI ports … but don’t worry, those cables are easy to find, too.
If the monitor you want to connect to doesn’t support HDMI (hey, plenty of projectors out there still use VGA), it’s easy enough to get an adapter that takes the HDMI out of your Chromebook and changes it to VGA or DVI as you need. Future Chromebooks will use Mini DisplayPort, and we’ll be looking at the same situation — adapters will handle the transition to whatever monitor you have.
Monitor settings
Once you plug your monitor into your Chromebook, it will start displaying an extension of your desktop immediately. But of course you’ll probably want to tweak the settings a bit so it does exactly what you want it to for the best experience.
Click the status area (that’s where your Wi-Fi and battery icons are) and you’ll see “Extending …” or “Mirroring …” with the generic name of the display you’re plugged into. Click the name, and you’ll be taken to a settings page where you can tweak how you want your displays to work. Click one of the displays to edit its settings — such as resolution and orientation — or click and drag the screen to tell the computer how the two screens are oriented.
Chances are you’ll want the second display to be the “primary” display in this situation, but if you’re just using it as an extended desktop, without a keyboard and mouse, you may want to keep the Chromebook as the primary display. Same goes for mirroring versus extended — you’ll know right away whether you want the external monitor to duplicate what’s on the Chromebook or be its own display.
If you need to quickly switch between mirroring and extending your desktop, you can hold ctrl and press the full-screen button (f4 on a traditional keyboard) to toggle between the two.
Consider Casting instead
If you don’t have high performance demands, and want to keep things clean and free of cables, you can also choose to Google Cast your screen to either a Chromecast or Android TV that’s plugged into your monitor of choice. Install the Google Cast extension, and so long as you’re on a Wi-Fi network with a compatible Google Cast target turned on, click the status area (that’s where your Wi-Fi and battery icons are) and you’ll see a “Cast devices available” option — click there, and you’ll have an option to just Cast one window you have open, or Cast your entire display.
This works great for showing off video, pictures or webpages on a big screen, or even as a secondary monitor to show yourself some static information, but won’t work well if you have to do a lot of typing or manipulation of what’s on the screen.
Mouse
Just like monitors, Chrome OS is perfectly ready to handle connecting a mouse to save you from using the trackpad 100% of the time. Whether you like wired or wireless, you can plug in or connect your mouse and be up and running in a matter of seconds.
The one thing to keep in mind here is if you happen to prefer those fancy mice that have optional software for controlling special buttons, wheels or interactions with the mouse (Logitech comes to mind). Those software suites are designed for use with Windows and Mac computers, and won’t install on Chrome OS. That doesn’t mean that the mouse won’t work, it just means that you won’t have fine control over extra non-standard buttons and wheels. For most folks, this won’t be an issue at all.
USB mice
When it comes to USB mice, there’s really nothing to do but plug in the connector — whether that’s a cable or a wireless receiver — and go. You’ll still be able to control the pointer speed in the standard Chrome OS settings.
Bluetooth mice
To connect a Bluetooth mouse, make sure that your mouse is turned on and pairing mode is enabled (the process will differ between mouse models). On your Chromebook, click the status area (that’s where your Wi-Fi and battery icons are) and click on Bluetooth — look for the model name of your mouse, and the devices will pair in short order.
Just like the trackpad or a USB mouse, you’ll able to adjust the pointer speed in the standard Chrome OS settings.
More: Best wireless mice for Chromebooks
Keyboard
Getting an external keyboard for your Chromebook is the one part of this equation that can take a little extra thought. Just like adding a mouse, you can plug in or connect any USB or Bluetooth keyboard to your Chromebook, but you have to remember that Chrome OS uses a non-standard keyboard layout, with special keys in replacement of the function row and some switches elsewhere (like having search instead of caps lock). While you can use any keyboard you have laying around, you should consider a Chrome OS-specific keyboard if you’re going to buy a new peripheral anyway.
USB keyboards
Just like a USB mouse, Chrome OS can handle USB keyboard the instant you plug them in.
A few different manufacturers make Chrome OS layout wired keyboards, like this one from Dell and another from Samsung. You can also often find bundles with a USB mouse as well.
Bluetooth keyboards
Connecting a Bluetooth keyboard is just like connecting a mouse. You’ll have to put the keyboard into a pairing mode, open up Bluetooth settings on your Chromebook and then select the keyboard from the list of available devices. You’ll be prompted to type a sequence of numbers on the keyboard, and press enter to pair.
There are also a selection of wireless keyboards out there with Chrome OS layouts, like this one from ASUS that will be particularly nice if you plan to keep your Chromebook plugged into a large display and will be several feet away with the keyboard.
Sony Xperia X Performance review: $700 worth of disappointment
Oh, Sony. The company has tried time and again to craft a smartphone that would find success in the US, and time and again it has fallen short. But when Sony pulled back the curtain on a batch of new Xperia X’s at Mobile World Congress earlier this year, I allowed myself to get a little excited. Maybe these were the right phones at the right time, I thought, and maybe a company whose products I otherwise respected would find the foothold it was looking for. After being underwhelmed by the standard Xperia X last month, I still held out hope that the high-end Xperia X Performance would be the phone Sony needed.
Long story short, it’s not. Don’t get me wrong: It’s a serviceable device, and in many ways it’s actually very nice. The thing is, a $700 smartphone should be able to deliver some modicum of excitement to the person who owns it; the X Performance mostly just leaves me cold.
Hardware
Even though the X Performance is the most high-end of the four Xperia phones Sony plans to launch in the US, you wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at it. In fact, do yourself a favor: Don’t put an Xperia X Performance down next to a regular Xperia X, because you’d probably never tell them apart. From the 5-inch, IPS LCD display up front to the 23-megapixel camera around back, these two devices are nearly identical. Well, until you spill a drink on them, at least. The X Performance picks up where previous Sony flagships left off with an IP68-rated chassis that helps it shrug off dust and water with ease, even when you stick it under a soda machine and let sticky stuff like Coke fly.
Beyond that (and as the name implies) we’re basically looking at an Xperia X with a faster quad-core Snapdragon 820. That has its ups and downs, though: The chipset, paired with 3GB of RAM, gives the X Performance flagship-level horsepower, but the phone still suffers from some irritating design quirks. For one, you’d think a modern flagship phone — one that costs $700, no less — would have a fingerprint sensor for quick and easy authentication. Nope! The international version has one, but we Americans have to do without. Meanwhile, the placement of the volume buttons beneath the sleep/wake button on the right edge just seems dumb. Unless you’re a professional finger contortionist, it’s really difficult to hold the X Performance in your right hand and turn the volume down. It might be a mainstay of Sony’s “OmniBalance” design language, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a bad idea.
It’s not all frustrating, though. The X Performance’s fit and finish are lovely, and there’s something alluringly … friendly about its look. There’s a physical, two-stage camera button sitting below those tricky volume keys, and it’s generally a joy to use. On the other edge is a SIM/microSD card tray you can pull out with just your fingernail, instead of having to rely on a paper clip you had to scrounge for. That tray, by the way, will take memory cards as big as 200GB, which is helpful, since 12GB of the X Performance’s 32GB storage allotment is eaten up by system software. Since the X Performance comes with a more powerful processor, it has a bigger battery than the normal X too, if only just. Think: 2,700mAh instead of 2,620mAh.
Display and sound
I liked this 5-inch, 1080p IPS LCD screen when I first saw it on the Xperia X, and my feelings about it haven’t changed. It’s a generally great panel, capable of bright, vivid colors and deep blacks. We have the one-two punch of Sony’s Triluminos display tech and its X-Reality engine to thank for those colors, though you have the option to tweak the screen’s white balance and saturation settings if the defaults aren’t your speed.
While the screen Sony used hasn’t changed, though, the context around that display couldn’t be more different. A 1080p panel is fine for an ostensibly mid-range phone like the Xperia X, but some of the most impressive flagships we’ve seen this year came with Quad HD displays. Remember, this is a phone that costs $700 — if Sony could squeeze an honest-to-goodness 4K screen into the Z5 Premium, why couldn’t it have tried to at least match its competitors with a screen running at 2,560 x 1,440?
Resolution aside, I really can’t complain about the X Performance’s screen. The speakers, on the other hand, leave a little more to be desired. There are two drivers baked into the Xperia’s face for stereo sound, and most of the time audio comes out clear, if a little spacious. The phone’s maximum volume falls short of some competitors’ too — though, really, you probably weren’t going to use this thing to run your next party playlist anyway. Curiously enough, you can make up for that lack of oomph a bit by putting it down on a table instead of holding it. Seriously! A selection of show tunes I played seemed noticeably meatier when the X Performance was sitting face up on a wooden table. Or, you know, you could just plug in a pair of headphones. If you do, you’ll be prompted to go through an “automatic optimization” process that didn’t seem to do much during my week of testing.
Software
While earlier Xperia phones didn’t receive software updates in a timely manner, there’s nothing to worry about here: The X Performance ships with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. As usual, it’s obscured somewhat by Sony’s custom interface, and it can be pretty damn polarizing. For the most part, I’m fond of Sony’s use of bold colors and minimal changes to the core Android experience. Those changes aren’t minimal enough for some, though; my new colleague Cherlynn is no fan of Sony’s changes, stylistic or otherwise. Sure, you’ll have to contend with a few widgets enabled out of the box, but for the most part Sony has done well staying out of Android’s way. My only real gripe: Swiping right in the app launcher brings up a search screen with recommendations for apps you should download, and some of them are sponsored. Ugh.
That’s not to say the X Performance doesn’t come with extras. The upside to Sony’s not having an overbearing carrier partner this time around is that there’s no carrier bloatware in sight. Instead, the few pre-loaded apps here are welcome additions: The SwiftKey keyboard is enabled by default, for one, and the PlayStation app is there for those who want to control their PS4’s. Still, you also get an undeletable copy of AVG Protection that you’ll probably never use, and a Sony app called Sketch lets you doodle on photos you’ve taken. Why did we need this? It’s a mystery for the ages. If it were up to me, all high-end Android phones would just ship with stock Android. Since that obviously will never happen, we’ll have to keep dealing with custom UIs painted on top of Android. At least Sony’s is among the least troublesome.
Camera
As mentioned, the Xperia X Performance has the same cameras as the bog-standard Xperia X, which means it has the same issues too. First, the good: The 13-megapixel selfie camera is pretty great, and the 23-megapixel main camera can snap some vibrant, detailed photos in well-lit conditions. It’s fast to lock on to targets too, if not quite as fast as Samsung’s Galaxy S7 line.
For situations with moving subjects, you’ll be glad to know you can tap the target on-screen to make the focus follow it. (In my experience, it’s good for babies, so-so for cats and kind of lousy for cars.) And there’s really something to be said for having a physical shutter button, one that you can half-press to focus on something. They’re more or less passé at this point, but as far as I’m concerned, the more physical controls, the better. If you require even more control, you can switch into a full manual mode that allows for adjustments to white balance, exposure and more.
Things get a little less pleasant in the dark, where you’ll start to see a fair amount of grain and soft edges appear. Sony tried to mitigate this from the get-go by setting the default image resolution to eight megapixels with oversampling. This mode basically tries to squeeze the data of a 23-megapixel photo into an 8-megapixel still, but it isn’t enough to give the Galaxy S7’s a run for their money. And while the X Performance typically does well in bright light, there’s such a thing as a situation that’s too bright. When that happens, you’ll notice colors start to get washed out. Oh, and you won’t be using the Xperia X Performance to shoot 4K video — another flagship feature that’s missing here. The 1080p videos the phone records are middling too, so I’m not really sure what Sony was trying to accomplish here.
And then there are the camera apps, which Sony uses to inject some silly fun into an otherwise cut-and-dried camera experience. These range from AR applications that put dinosaurs smack in the middle of your office to masks that cling to your face through the selfie camera to a beautiful sketch filter that turns the world around you into an art student’s homework assignment. The only problem is that these features can cause the phone to overheat; when they do, the camera app force-closes to keep things from getting out of hand. At no point was the phone uncomfortably warm, and I guess I’m glad it acted the way it did, but I can’t remember the last time a first-party feature forced a device to behave so drastically.
Performance and battery life
Thankfully, the Xperia X Performance manages to live up to its name: It feels as snappy as other flagships I’ve tested recently. That’s all thanks to the Snapdragon 820 chipset thrumming away inside, along with 3GB of RAM and an Adreno 530 GPU. As usual, my week testing the X Performance involved lots of Slack messages, emails, podcasts and camera use, not to mention playing Real Racing 3, Mortal Kombat X and Hearthstone. The verdict: mostly great. Aside from those moments when using the camera made the phone overheat, I saw only occasional moments of slowdown while multitasking. The Xperia X Performance has 1GB less RAM than most of its rivals, which probably accounts for those occasional hiccups, but it’s also worth noting that Sony’s flagship was basically spanked when it came to benchmark tests:
HTC 10
Samsung Galaxy S7
OnePlus 3
AndEBench Pro
12,637
16,673
14,168
13,841
Vellamo 3.0
3,307
4,876
4,285
5,202
3DMark IS Unlimited
26,070
26,747
28,529
30,058
SunSpider 1.0.2 (ms)
710
608
1547
699
GFXBench 3.0 1080p Manhattan Offscreen (fps)
37
48
45
48
CF-Bench
40,252
49,891
51,227
41,653
SunSpider 1.0.2: Android devices tested in Chrome; lower scores are better.
As it turns out, the 2,700mAh battery in the X Performance is a mixed bag. When putting it through our standard video rundown test (looping a high-definition video with the screen brightness set to 50 percent and WiFi connected), the phone lasted only nine hours and eight minutes. That’s about 50 minutes less than what we squeezed out of the OnePlus 3, and hours behind the HTC 10, LG G5 and both versions of the Samsung Galaxy S7. Thankfully, the X Performance fared better with daily use. I’d normally get a full day of work out it, with notable bumps in longevity on days I didn’t use the camera much. If I was smart about what I used the X Performance for (note: this rarely happens) and used the included Stamina mode, I could get it to last for almost a day and a half. This is one area where the normal Xperia X outshines its more powerful cousin: I could keep that thing alive for nearly three days of light usage on a single charge. Guess that Snapdragon 820 can get pretty thirsty.
The competition
The Xperia X Performance is a phone with a flagship processor and a flagship price tag, but I’ll be blunt: It’s a terrible deal. Sorry! Between the average camera, underwhelming battery, questionable design choices and lack of a fingerprint sensor and 4K video recording, this phone is a hard sell. You’re better off spending your $700 on a Galaxy S7 or an HTC 10, or even a OnePlus 3 and a fancy dinner. One could even make the argument that you’re better off buying a year-old Sony phone like the Z5 Premium: It has a stunning 4K display, shoots 4K video and boasts a bigger battery for far less than $700. Sure, you’d be giving up an improved front-facing camera and the latest version of Android, but some people probably wouldn’t mind the trade-offs at all.
Wrap-up
If anyone from Sony is reading this, here’s a serious question: What were you trying to accomplish with the X Performance? It’s a perfectly passable flagship, but is this really the sort of flagship you want your name attached to? I don’t mean to be overly harsh, because in most ways the Xperia X Performance is an adequate phone. The bigger issue is whether a phone that costs $700 should really just be “adequate.” I’d argue no. Sony’s competitors are busy innovating just to maintain some sort of edge over one another, be it Samsung devoting resources to building first-class cameras, HTC constantly refining its approach to software or LG basically throwing caution to the wind. And here’s Sony, with a smartphone that costs just as much as the others and brings nothing new to the table. The Xperia X Performance is far from a bad phone; it’s just halfhearted, and that won’t get Sony anywhere.
MoviePass tests new prices, aims to reach a $20 plan
MoviePass, the subscription service that lets you see one theatrical film every 24 hours, has come under fire after testing out new pricing options with some customers, which are significantly more expensive and restrictive than existing plans. The complaints also come on the heels of this week’s announcement of a new CEO: Mitch Lowe, a Netflix co-founder who later moved over to RedBox.
While the service typically starts around $30 a month (though it varies by market, it’s $45 monthly in NYC), a select group of users have received emails saying their plans will move to $40 or $50 a month with a limit of six films. For truly unlimited viewing, they have the option of paying $99 a month, a price significantly above anything MoviePass has charged before. Previously, MoviePass subscribers could see one film a day on their base plans, the only restriction was they could only see each film once.
“We’re trying to understand all the different considerations about different price points,” Lowe said in an interview today. He stressed that the company is only testing new pricing with an incredibly small portion of its subscribers, and these messages don’t reflect new rates for all customers.
In particular, he discovered that the $99 plan won’t work at all. “Our goal was to try to see what the uppermost limit was and we definitely found that that was too high,” he said. While it might seem unfair to loyal customers to simply throw expensive new rates at them, Lowe defended that method, saying that it’s “the only way to really get a valid test… If you give people a choice, they almost always take what you’d expect, so you don’t learn anything.”
MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe
MoviePass plans to test out different rates with existing and former customers, and it’s launching a new campaign to entice new users soon. There will be surveys to figure out what people think, as well. Lowe says he wants to find the ideal price point for MoviePass that people would actually love, similar to his “all you can eat” Netflix plan from 1999, and Redbox’s dollar nights, which he launched in 2003.
“My goal is to get a $20 price point, I’m looking for what’s going to be super attractive there,” Lowe said. “There’ll be options, but people will be able to choose from various price points that will give them different levels, so people will ultimately be able to pick and choose what’s best.”
Lowe doesn’t know when MoviePass can offer a $20 plan yet, but he’s exploring many different options. It likely won’t just be about discounted tickets, he also mentioned perks like special screenings reserved just for MoviePass members.
As a MoviePass member and unabashed cinephile, I’ve seen the price jump from $30 a month to $45 in NYC, but even that wasn’t enough to make me abandon ship. Ticket prices are insanely high here — typically starting around $15 for a 2D film — so anything that helps to cut down costs is still valuable. But there have definitely been months where I’ve second-guessed my membership, especially when I don’t even use it for $45 worth of tickets.
MoviePass has had a rocky start. Announced back in 2011, some theaters were quick to reject it during beta testing, and it took a while to get them onboard. The company officially launched in 2012, but it took two more years for it to support 3D and IMAX shows (something it still only does in two markets).
Still, MoviePass has plenty of potential left. “I’m hoping we can create a model that will get more people going to the movies,” Lowe said.
Apple says Spotify wants ‘preferential treatment’ for iOS app
It didn’t take long for Apple to respond to Spotify’s claim that it’s using App Store approvals a way to handle competitors. In a letter obtained by BuzzFeed, Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell described the allegation as “troubling” and that Spotify was “asking for exemptions to the rules we apply to all developers.” Sewell went on to say that the streaming service was “publicly resorting to rumors and half-truths about our service” with its statements about App Store policies being designed to squash competition.
Reports surfaced yesterday that Spotify’s counsel Horacio Gutierrez sent a letter to Apple last week to let the company know what it thought about a pending app update being held up. The streaming service is taking issue with the App Store’s 30 percent fee for use of its billing system for subscriptions that applies to all developers. In other words, if users sign up through Spotify’s iOS app, they’re charged $13 a month instead of the usual $10 to cover the fee. Sewell explained that Apple treats all app devs the same across games, e-books and both video and music streaming, and more specifically that those terms didn’t change when Apple Music launched and Spotify became a direct competitor.
“Ironically, it is now Spotify that wants things to be different by asking for preferential treatment from Apple,” Sewell said. He went on to reiterate that nothing about how the system is set up violates antitrust laws like Gutierrez argued in his own letter last week. What’s more, the Spotify app that’s currently available in the App Store actually violates the company’s guidelines.
“I would be happy to facilitate an expeditious review and approval of your app as soon as you provide us with something that is compliant with the App Store’s rules,” Sewell said.
Neither Apple nor Spotify responded to Engadget’s request for comments on the matter.
Via: The Verge
Source: BuzzFeed
UN rights council condemns the disruption of internet access
The United Nations Human Rights Council has had enough of state-sponsored attempts to restrict internet access and punish people who use the internet as a space for free expression. The council on Friday passed a resolution that reaffirms and expands its previous stances upholding internet rights across the globe, noting, “The same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression.” Today’s resolution is non-binding, but it can be used as support in future cases of online human-rights violations.
The resolution condemns violations including torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention and gender-based violence enacted against anyone expressing themselves on the internet. Additionally, the HRC “condemns unequivocally” any attempt to intentionally restrict access to information online and calls on all nations to halt such practices.
Recently, Vietnam was caught blocking internet access amid political protests and during Obama’s visit to the country. Other governments, including those of Russia, China and Turkey, have restricted the internet during times of political unrest or in an effort to block “scandalous” content. Turkey signed its name to today’s resolution.
This is the HRC’s third online-rights resolution since 2012 and the first to include language about blocking internet access, The Hill reports. The resolution also notes that online privacy is essential to realizing the right to freedom of expression, and it recognizes the need to remove disparities in internet access between women and men. Particularly, it stresses “the importance of empowering all women and girls by enhancing their access to information and communications technology,” promoting their digital literacy, and encouraging them to pursue careers in IT fields.
Good news today: @UN Human Rights Council affirms online rights, condemns internet disruption and shutdowns. #HRC32 pic.twitter.com/nuxvJxOJx8
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 1, 2016
Via: The Hill
Source: The Hill upload
Cybersecurity forecast: Heavy smug
When you think of rockstar hackers and infosec pundits, I’m sure it’s easy to imagine people who are humble, kind and patient, and never look down on anyone who would reuse a password.
Okay, maybe infosec isn’t known for doing benevolence all that well when they need to communicate with those not in the know about computer security. And when they do, they seem to prefer to do it from a stage and safely behind the title of “expert.” Case in point: the much-ballyhooed talk being given at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where professor at Rochester Institute of Technology Josephine Wolff is making a case today for punishing people when they’re not good at computer security.
For “Who Should Safeguard Our Data” Professor Wolff seems to think the sheep need to be taught a lesson. Specifically, she’s proposing to the elite thought leaders gathered at Aspen that the careless should be punished for getting hacked or for being in the vulnerability chain, even if unknowingly.
The underlying reason for swapping out the carrot for the stick is that, according to Wolff, the only way to get Internet users to take things seriously is to make them pay. Specifically, to create “concrete penalties and consequences” for what she calls our “liability” and “complicity” in “participating in bots, falling for phishing attacks, failing to install security updates, and other basics of computer hygiene.”
She explains more in a little pre-Aspen piece called Should the Careless Be Punished for Getting Hacked? that was framed with the subhead, “A computer security expert grapples with how to better protect us from cyberattacks.”
In a tone that’s not at all reproachful, Wolff suggests that botnet and ransomware victims, or those who click “links and attachments in those phishing emails and carelessly surrender their login credentials or the contents of their hard drives” might be well-meaning. Yet these witless yet earnest idiots, I mean, us, “play an enormous and devastating role in many (perhaps most) of the major cybersecurity incidents that occur today.”
Like, maybe instead of presenting Aspen attendees like Secretary of State John Kerry, Vice President Joe Biden, and Mitt Romney with bad ideas for computer security policy, we could instead present the powerful upper crusts with innovations around teaching basic security practices to the greater public. Or we could talk about influencing enterprise decision-makers to allocate big budgets into security-savvy employee trainings.
Better yet, we could press the bigwigs at Aspen to push for digital privacy and security lessons in public schools. Because maybe, just maybe, it might be the jobs of computer security “experts” to make users smarter and safer, and places of heavy influence like Aspen might be a place for crazy ideas such as this. Rather than more of the smarter-than-you, smug, and dangerously reductive mentality that’s alienating hackers and infosec from the very people they’re supposed to be helping in the first place.
Unless it’s easier to adopt an us-versus-them mentality, and then throwing a user screwed by unknowingly becoming part of a botnet in jail becomes a pretty attractive way of waging someone’s perverse infosec class war. Wolff was clear to make a distinction between those who are targeted by “sophisticated” attackers, and everyone else whose mistakes earn her description of “stupid.” Because enforcement is challenging, she extrapolates, in her apparent class system of hacking victim crime and punishment. She’s not doing the growing perception of hackers, computer security “experts” and infosec academics as smug jerks any favors.
Don’t worry, Professor Wolff finds this all as distasteful as we do. “All of these are questions worthy of greater discussion and debate––as unpalatable as it may seem, at first glance, to contemplate the possibility of individual liability for unintentional complicity in computer crimes.”
Knowing the infosec “expert” juggernaut and how it rolls along, I’m sure there will be a good number of people who agree with the professor. There are definitely a lot of hackers and infosec personalities who might think punishment would be better than doing the work of figuring out how to actually help people who don’t know the first thing about security. I mean, when someone’s calling you an expert and giving you a sliver of fame or notoriety, it’s far easier to fall into lockstep with Wolff as she characterizes commoner, I mean users, as liable for being complicit with their “poor computer hygiene” and “stupid mistakes.”
Maybe I’m being harsh. But let’s not forget that for every Wolff, there’s a Facebook CEO, a Google CEO, and a Spotify CEO who make “stupid” mistakes and practice “poor computer hygiene” by reusing passwords, and got hacked. One has to wonder where these rich and powerful men would end up in Wolff’s world, though I doubt it would be the same as everyone else.
And that’s the problem here, isn’t it? Everyone’s getting hacked, and everyone’s security is critical. So it’s more urgent than ever to fight bullshit like Professor Wolff’s, because our security is just as important and equally as vulnerable to the same things as the richest and most powerful people in the world.
And you shouldn’t be punished for not being a security professional, especially by so-called “experts” who talk about pastoral responsibility while completely missing the point about who they’re supposed to be protecting.
US Senate finally dumps BlackBerry
The US Senate’s Sergeant at Arms (SAA) announced earlier this week that staffers would no longer be able to request new BlackBerry OS 10 devices for official work. That includes the Q10, Z10, Z30, Passport and Classic. In their place, the SAA is offering use of the Samsung Galaxy S6 on Android or the 16GB iPhone SE.
Existing BlackBerry users won’t be left high and dry, should they decline to transition to another OS. BlackBerry support will continue for the foreseeable future and replacement devices will be available for however the SAA’s current stock of 610 mobile devices last.
This is a significant moment in BlackBerry’s history. I mean, the company used to utterly dominate the mobile device market thanks to its focus on security, email (remember, this was before messaging and social media took off) and a physical keyboard (again, this was the era before Swiftkey).
iOS and Android did manage to catch up to the BlackBerry OS within a matter of years, resulting in the company’s precipitous decline and subsequent flirtations with bankruptcy.
But the wheels of government turn slowly — especially when it comes to the adoption of new technologies. Even after the general public — and the President himself — abandoned BBOS for competing systems, BlackBerry handsets persisted on Capitol Hill for more than a decade. But not anymore.
Source: Bomble
AIVAnet 