HTC Desire 530 now on sale at T-Mobile and HTC.com
The mid-range HTC Desire 530 smartphone is officially on sale in the U.S. The phone can be purchased unlocked on the company’s website for $179, or you can get it from T-Mobile for $159.99 without a contract. T-Mobile is also selling it for $0 down and $6.67 a month for 24 months.
The Desire 530 was one of number of smartphones that were first revealed by HTC during the 2016 Mobile World Congress trade show in February. The 5-inch Desire 530 has an interesting “micro-splash” design for its case that is supposed to give each phone a completely unique pattern of dots. Inside there’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 processor, 1.5GB of RAM, 16GB of onboard storage, an 8 megapixel rear camera and a 5 MP front facing camera. Audiophiles can experience the phone’s “BoomSound” enhancements.
The HTC Desire 530 is also supposed to go on sale via Verizon Wireless at some point in the near future.
Check out our hands-on impressions of the HTC Desire 530
See at T-Mobile
See at HTC.com
The 2016 RNC was celebratory and friendly, both online and off
Donald Trump has, whether knowingly or not, tapped into some deep-seated bigotry still lurking just beneath the surface of this country. I do not know if Trump agrees with the openly racist people he retweets or if he’s merely aping the language and memes of the alt-right for political gain. As many have discovered, though, Trump’s most vocal supporters on Twitter are often unabashedly anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist and racist. The question for me as I prepared for the 2016 Republican National Convention was, would these newly invigorated hate groups suddenly feel as safe expressing themselves face-to-face as they do online?
I’m happy to report the answer is no — mostly, anyway. The 2016 RNC certainly wasn’t without incident or ugliness, but by and large the crowds were peaceful and respectful, and the hate groups did not find the Republican Party waiting for them with open arms in Cleveland.
Using a tool called Hyp3r, Engadget collected every tweet and Instagram that was geotagged from the official convention venues. We scoured the data looking for slurs, overtly racist language and echoes (more on those below) and came up empty. Hyp3r pulls in tweets from only users with the location enabled on their devices, so it’s not a comprehensive collection of 140-character missives, but our data suggest that Trump’s white-supremacist contingent didn’t make it to the convention floor. Or, at the least were very discreet about their more radical beliefs.
On Twitter, white supremacists can hide behind the anonymity of their screen name and use an obscure marker called an echo — literally just a series of parenthesis ((()) — to target people for an army of trolls. Sometimes those attacks are just insults and memes, but they sometimes turn violent. Countless people have received death threats, especially Jewish journalists. I’m not even Jewish and even I have even been on the receiving end of threats and harassment after tweeting unflattering things about Donald Trump. Multiple times I’ve been told I would soon find myself in an oven.
Second time today someone has threatened to put me in an oven. @realDonaldTrump supporters are the best. pic.twitter.com/N8X6oSdkDF
— Terrence O’Brien (@TerrenceOBrien) March 25, 2016
In person, though, such overt racism is considered deeply taboo. Indeed, expressions of these sentiments at the convention, both in person and on social media, appeared to be few and far between. And they were often quickly snuffed out. Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa found himself on the receiving end of criticism from both sides of the aisle after he suggested on MSNBC that nonwhites had contributed little to civilization. And Illinois delegate Lori Gayne had her credentials stripped after she posted a photo of a police sharpshooter with the caption “Our brave snipers just waiting for some N**** to try something. Love them” on Facebook.
Supporters watch Donald Trump speak on a giant screen outside the Quicken Loans Arena.
Some delegates I spoke to expressed concerns that this might violate Gayne’s right to free speech, but all of them condemned the language. That includes Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider, who told the Chicago Sun-Times that the GOP, “has zero tolerance for racism of any kind and threats of violence against anyone.”
A group of Cruz delegates from Washington I interviewed also suggested the tone on the floor did not reflect that of Trump’s most virulent supporters online. While they did accuse Trump delegates of bullying and said they had heard at least one threaten violence against a delegate from another state, they had not overheard anything overtly racist or anti-Semitic on the floor. This came as a relief because many of the Washington delegates were part of the “Never Trump” movement. They were in part motivated by what delegate Selena Coppa called Trump’s sounding of a “dog whistle” for white supremacists.
So does that mean the bigots all stayed home?
Not quite. There was a small collection of openly hostile hate groups in Cleveland this week; they were confined to the streets outside the convention center. But even there they were merely a very vocal minority. A small group of protesters had set up in Public Square most of the week declaring that Allah was Satan and that “all true Muslims were jihadists.” One man paraded up and down 4th, right outside the convention center, with a sign declaring that “Jews DO run the media.” I witnessed a man offer a Hitler salute and chant “Sieg Heil!” though I suspect he was simply trolling, and there were several members of the anti-immigrant group Soldiers of Odin on the ground and well as a handful of high-profile white supremacists.
But I watched a Trump supporter talk down the man screaming “Sieg Heil.” And it’s not as if the Soldiers of Odin were greeted with cheers when they arrived at Public Square.
Could it simply be that everyone was on their best behavior because they were out in public and the eyes of the nation were focused on them? Perhaps. But I’m choosing to believe that tone at the convention truly reflected the beliefs and attitudes of the rank-and-file party members.
The rhetoric from the stage during the RNC was predictably ugly and chances are, next week’s Democratic National Convention won’t be much better. But that sort of partisan red meat is mostly for show. The people in the streets and on the convention floor were polite and friendly. The air was celebratory, not hostile.
A Trump supporter and Black Lives Matter protester jam outside the Quicken Loans Arena.
I’m not going to pretend to agree with the politics of Donald Trump or the Republican party, but months of watching the campaign play out mostly through the lens of social media had left me despondent. A week in Cleveland has me feeling a little more hopeful. Most of the vitriol online didn’t spill over into the streets at the RNC. Face-to-face it seems we’re able to still realize that, even if we disagree about how to get there, we all share common goals as Americans.
The ‘Station’ desk cradles your body and gut-punches your wallet
Our computers have rapidly shrunk from room-size behemoths to hulking desktops to the svelte laptops that now dominate modern offices. What haven’t changed much are the tables and chairs that the computers (and we) sit on. A new integrated workspace from the Altwork company, appropriately named the Station, has been designed to replace both pieces of furniture while giving you more flexibility in how you interact with your computer. I was recently able to get a butts-on demo of the Station, and the only contortion I had to perform was wrapping my mind around its massive price tag.
At first glance, the Station resembles a fancy dentist’s chair with a pivotable tabletop attached to the front. Its leg rest coils under the seat like an inverted scorpion’s tail when not in use but will nearly straighten when fully extended. The entire thing rides on casters and weighs only 210 pounds (without a monitor), so it is relatively easy to move around and reposition. That’s not something one could easily do on an old-timey rolltop. Additionally, the tabletop, monitor stand and optional upper laptop mount are all adjustable for maximum ergonomic efficiency. This allows you to “fit” the Station to your specific needs, and once you do, these settings can be saved in one of four user-programmable presets.
The Station can transform between four basic functional positions. It can serve as both a conventional seated desk and a standing desk. If you swing out the monitor and tabletop, it becomes a collaborative workstation. And if you get serious about your workflow, the Station’s “focus” position will put you flat on your back with the monitor and tabletop (not to mention your keyboard and mouse) suspended above you. When I was seated like this during a recent demo, it was quite comfortable, though I didn’t feel more productive so much as just really silly and self-conscious. The fact that I was splayed out on this thing like a portly harbor seal in the middle of a crowded We Works probably didn’t help either.
The focus position carries other pitfalls as well. Like, where am I supposed to put my coffee cup? Oh, it goes on the $650 side table that Altworks is hawking as an accessory item? Yeah, OK. What’s more, you’ll need to affix magnets (you know how they work) to the bottoms of your keyboard and mouse to prevent them from sliding off. And great googly moogly, does this thing take forever to fully recline — 30-plus seconds by my count — so if you want to work in focus mode, you’d better block out a couple of minutes to get situated and pray that you don’t have to get up from there until you’re done.
Then there’s the price. You’re going to need a second job to afford one of these things. The standard model, which comes in either of two frame colors (gray and a slightly darker gray), will retail for a whopping $5,900. That doesn’t include the $650 side table, it doesn’t include the $175 upper laptop mount and it sure as heck doesn’t include a computer monitor; that’s just the workstation itself. Now, if you want to get fancy with upholstery, seat-back and frame color options, you’re going to want the “Signature” model. It’s $6,900. Yeah, nearly seven grand for a device that transforms into both a standing desk and impromptu medical exam table. Sure, you get a $2,000 discount if you pre-order one before Saturday, July 30th, but that’s still a sizable investment just to replace your current office furniture.
Cyanogen reportedly cuts jobs as it changes course
The Cyanogen team formed a company with hopes of becoming the third major mobile platform, but it looks like the custom Android developer is scaling back its ambitions. Sources speaking to both Android Police and Recode claim that Cyanogen is making “significant” job cuts, laying off about 20 percent (around 30 people) of its staff. Reportedly, this is part of a “pivot” that will focus on apps, rather than an entire operating system like Cyanogen OS. Whether or not that involves the firm’s MOD platform, its Apps Package or something else isn’t apparent.
Chief executive Kirk McMaster turned down Recode’s request for a comment, so we wouldn’t expect either confirmation or immediate answers as to what’s coming next.
A change in direction wouldn’t be completely shocking. Although CyanogenMod is still a staple of the Android enthusiast world, Cyanogen OS hasn’t had many customers. You probably know Cyanogen’s ill-fated partnership on the OnePlus One, and the rest of its deals haven’t exactly set the world on fire — a one-off Lenovo phone and the cheap-but-cheerful Wileyfox Swift are among the examples. Simply put, many device makers are content with either creating their own Android variants or going with stock software. There may not be a large market for licensing a custom Android release from someone else.
Source: Android Police, Recode
How to verify your Twitter account on Android
Getting verified on Twitter with an Android phone is as easy as filling out a form.
Twitter recently opened up its verification procedure to anyone who wants to attempt to convince the company they are worth that coveted blue checkmark.
While it’s still unclear how Twitter decides how one gets verified — those approved are “accounts of public interest,” according to the company — the steps to get there are now much clearer.
How to get verified with your Android phone
Head to Twitter’s official verification page in your Chrome browser.
Sign in to the Twitter account you want verified (if prompted).
Read the information and tap Continue.
Tap Next after verifying the account in question is the one you want verified.
Enter between two and five websites to help Twitter identify your account.
Enter up to 500 words to tell Twitter why your account should be verified.
Tap Next once you are happy with your entries.
Review your request and press Submit.
Once you submit your request, Twitter will then take some time to deliberate and will contact you over email to deliver the good, or bad, news.
What next?
If for some reason your request for verification is denied, you must wait 30 days to apply again — hopefully with a more convincing argument. Got questions? Leave a comment below!
Six vehicles powered by coffee, saltwater, sewage and other crazy fuels
By Cat DiStasio
When it comes to advances in automotive technology, the search for alternative fuels is pretty exciting. Of course, you’ve heard about biodiesel engines converted to run on used vegetable oil that sputter out little more than water and the faint smell of French fries. However, there’s a slew of vehicles out there that run on all sorts of other fuels too. There’s an electric car powered by caffeine, as well as a hot rod that runs on air. Other curious fuel sources include plain old saltwater, crude made from algae, and (inevitably) there are even a number of vehicles designed to run on biogas generated from livestock waste (or, in layman’s terms, cars that run on poop). Although some may be smellier than others, these inventive energy sources offer an intriguing alternative to conventional fossil fuels.
The saltwater-powered racer
Electric cars are popping up everywhere, which is great news for the environment since these vehicles don’t emit harmful greenhouse gases. Most, though, need to be plugged in to recharge their batteries every once in a while. Nanoflowcell’s Quant e-Sportlimousine is different, because it runs on a special type of fuel made from saltwater. The gull-winged luxury car was made street legal in its birthplace of Germany, and it proves that alternative fuels don’t have to mean giving up performance. The sports car can accelerate to 62 miles per hour in just 2.8 seconds.
The Carpuccino runs on coffee
The adorably named Carpuccino created a worldwide “buzz” when it first launched because the car, like so many of us, is fueled by coffee. BBC’s Bang Goes the Theory retrofitted a 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco to run on coffee grounds, which are burned to create hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Capable of traveling at a perfectly respectable speed of 60 miles per hour, the Carpuccino has to stop every 60 or so miles so the driver can empty soot and tar from the car’s filters, so it’s perhaps not the cleanest running vehicle ever. But with the equivalent of 56 espressos per mile, it’s still pretty hot stuff.
Toilet Bike Neo
To raise awareness for its environmental policies, Japanese company Toto created the “Toilet Bike Neo,” a really strange-looking motorcycle with a toilet fitted where the seat should be. The three-wheeled bike runs on biogas created from livestock waste, which is to say this motorcycle is 100-percent poo-powered. A single tank of biogas lasts up to 180 miles on the 250cc trike, but that seems like an awful long way to travel while sitting on a commode. Toto doesn’t have plans to produce more toilet-seated motorcycles, but the trend of biogas bikes might be something worth investigating.
The supercar made from veggies
The WorldFirst F3 race car built by the Warwick Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre has a body made from potatoes, a steering wheel of carrots, seats made from soybeans, and — the icing on top –runs on chocolate and vegetable oil. With the addition of a catalyst that destroys emissions as it drives, this is one green ride that shows off the true power of plants — well, that and its top speed of an incredible 125 miles per hour.
A LEGO car that runs on air
This life-size hot rod is powered by air, and it was constructed almost entirely from LEGO bricks. Steve Sammartino and Raul Oaida raised money online to fund the Super Awesome Micro Project (SAMP), which incorporates 500,000 pieces and a few load-bearing elements. Even the four orbital engines were constructed out of LEGO bricks. The car’s 256 pistons allow the car to run on air and, so far, the team has driven the LEGO car up to 20 miles per hour.
The world’s first algae-powered car
The world’s first algae fuel-powered vehicle was a plug-in hybrid Toyota Prius named the Algaeus. It debuted in 2009 on the streets of San Francisco, and the green car set off on a cross-country trek that promised to consume only 25 gallons of algae-derived ‘green crude’ without any modifications to the gasoline engine. The car was part of a cross-country caravan of green vehicles, and the trip was filmed for FUEL, a documentary about America’s dependence on foreign oil. Algae fuel is still quite a bit more expensive than gasoline, but energy companies are working to bring costs down and power more vehicles with the little green organisms.
New in our buyer’s guide: All the phones (just the good ones)
It took us a while, but now that we’ve reviewed the Moto Z, we think we’re done testing flagship phones until the iPhone 7 or next Galaxy Note come out (whichever arrives first). With that in mind, we can now confidently say that the following phones belong in our buyer’s guide: the Samsung Galaxy S7, the HTC 10 and the iPhone SE. (Sorry, LG, maybe next year.) While we were at it, we also inducted the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive VR headsets, since we likely them more or less equally. And, in the less-expensive realm, we added the Roku Streaming Stick in the A/V category. Head over to our buyer’s guide hub for all the details on these and many more. That’s it for now, but stay tuned — who knows what we’ll add after the next gadget-reviewing frenzy.
Source: Engadget Buyer’s Guide
GE GAS18PSJSS Top Freezer Refrigerator with Autofill Pitcher review – CNET
The Good The Autofill Pitcher is a unique feature that works well and seems practical for daily use — a rarity with top freezers. Despite the plain-looking design, the fridge feels sturdy and well-constructed.
The Bad Storage space is cramped to begin with, let alone with the Autofill Pitcher taking up space on the top shelf. Cooling performance was also pretty unexceptional.
The Bottom Line The Autofill Pitcher is a borderline ingenious fridge feature, but the GAS18PSJSS isn’t well-rounded enough to be a top pick.
As refrigerator categories go, top freezers are the least exciting. They’re safe, they’re simple and they typically miss out on the kinds of cool features and eye-catching designs you’d expect to find in fancier, French-door models.
Enter GE, which saw an opportunity to stand out by giving the $1,000 GAS18PSJSS top-freezer fridge an intriguing new feature that you won’t find anywhere else. It’s called the Autofill Pitcher, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: a pitcher that the fridge will automatically fill with fresh, filtered water whenever you dock it in place on the top shelf. It’s an admittedly cool feature that works well and makes a lot of sense, especially if you already like to keep a pitcher of filtered water on hand on the fridge.
The Autofill Pitcher is appealing enough for this appliance to earn my approval, but it’s really all the GAS18PSJSS has going for it. It’s a smallish refrigerator for the price, it was fairly mediocre in our cooling tests and, like most top freezers, it isn’t anything special to look at. Autofill is worth it, but only if you can forgive this fridge’s shortcomings.
GE’s Autofill Pitcher top freezer is a glass-half-full…
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As soon as you dock the pitcher in place, Autofill will begin filling it up.
Chris Monroe/CNET
A killer filler pitcher feature
If you’re wondering why no one thought of an auto-filling water pitcher before now, you should know that this isn’t the first time we’ve seen it. The Autofill Pitcher was actually the very first project to come out of FirstBuild, which is essentially a collaborative, open-door R&D department for GE. Back then, the Autofill Pitcher was a DIY retrofit kit that you could buy and incorporate into your existing GE fridge.
“We hypothesized that people in the maker movement would be willing to take a refrigerator and drill a hole, tag on our electronics, and add this feature,” said GE director of Research and Development Natarajan “Venkat” Venkatakrishnan when I interviewed him for a piece in CNET Magazine. “It didn’t go so well. We made about 15 and we sold about 4.”
GE didn’t give up on the idea, though — and it’s a good thing. The Autofill works like a charm, filling the pitcher to the brim in about 30 seconds. And don’t worry about overflowing: The dispenser shuts off automatically when the water level hits a clever floating sensor at the top of the pitcher. There’s also a timer at play, so if the water runs for longer than usual for some reason, it’ll shut off on its own before flooding your fridge. I’d advise patience, though — if you pull the pitcher out of place halfway through a fill-up, the dispenser dribbles.
Top-freezer fridges for around $1,000
| 13.5 cubic feet | 17.6 cubic feet | 14.2 cubic feet | 15.2 cubic feet |
| 4.0 cubic feet | 6.2 cubic feet | 4.1 cubic feet | 6.1 cubic feet |
| 17.5 cubic feet | 23.8 cubic feet | 18.3 cubic feet | 21.3 cubic feet |
| Stainless Steel | Stainless Steel | Stainless Steel | Stainless Steel |
| No | Yes (+$100) | No | No |
| No | Yes | Yes | No |
| 399 kWh | 501 kWh | 363 kWh | 443 kWh |
| $48 | $60 | $44 | $53 |
| $2.74 | $2.52 | $2.40 | $2.49 |
| $1,000 | $1,200 | $1,100 | $1,100 |
| $900 | $1,075 | $850 | $900 |
Still, it’s a great feature, and one that makes a lot of sense if you’re already used to storing a pitcher of water in the fridge. With Autofill, you’ll never need to nag your kids or your roommate to fill it back up after emptying it.
Nexus 5X price cut to £169 at Carphone Warehouse
Cheapest UK price yet for the LG-made Nexus.
We may be rapidly approaching new Nexus season, but there’s still time to pick up a great deal on last year’s models — specifically, the LG-made Nexus 5X, which has already been discounted by various U.S. retailers. And now Brits can get in on the action, with Carphone Warehouse selling the 5X for £169 SIM-free.
That gets you a 16GB Nexus 5X in ice blue. Stump up £229 for the 32GB model and you’ll have a choice of blue or white backs for the handset. Contract deals are also available, starting at £28 per month with nothing to pay upfront, but with SIM-free pricing this low there’s little incentive to get locked into a two-year contract.
The 5X lacks the hardware muscle of its heftier sibling, but with the latest software updates it’s still a decent buy, currently occupying the top spot on our list of best cheap Android phones.
See at Carphone Warehouse
Nexus 5X
- Nexus 5X review
- 5 things to know about the Nexus 5X
- Read the latest Nexus 5X news
- Learn about Nexus Protect insurance
- Learn about Project Fi
- Join the Nexus 5X forums
- Nexus 5X specs
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Recommended Reading: Social media’s effect on the truth
How technology
disrupted the truth
Katharine Viner,
The Guardian
Stories spread around Facebook and Twitter before they’re even confirmed to be true. By the time they are or aren’t, it doesn’t matter. The news already made its way around the internet. Facts are often overlooked and confirmation is something sought only after a tweet is fired off. This piece from The Guardian takes a look at how we got here.
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How to fix flying There are a lot of headaches when it comes to air travel. This series from Popular Mechanics looks at possible solutions to the most pressing issues. |
Obsidian Entertainment: Survival, success and independence CEO Feargus Urquhart discusses a 13-year career in game development that includes work on Fallout and Knights of the Old Republic. |
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Harley Quinn breaks out in ‘Suicide Squad’ We’re still a couple of weeks away from the debut of the next DC Comics film, but The Wall Street Journal takes a look at how Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn makes the leap from The Joker’s lady to “a franchise player.” |
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