SanDisk Extreme 64GB is yours for just £17 on Amazon

Amazon is selling the SanDisk Extreme family of microSDXC cards, in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB variants. This promotion is part of Amazon’s Lightening Deals and will be ending at 2p.m. BST. The 64GB option is usually £30.99, but for the limited time it’s only £17.49.

The cards support up to 90MB/s and 40MB/s for read and write speeds, ideal for media storage and speedy transfers. So if you wish to save up to 44% on storage for your phone, tablet, PC and other devices, be sure to check out the deal before the promotion ends.

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Xiaomi’s latest smartwatch is the $120 GPS-enabled Amazfit

Xiaomi rolled out a smartwatch for kids earlier this year, and the vendor is now following up with a version for adults. Dubbed Amazfit, the wearable is manufactured by Xiaomi’s ecosystem partner Huami, the same company that makes the Mi Band.

Xiaomi has been offering wearables in the Amazfit line since September 2015, with the smartwatch becoming the latest addition to the series. The Amazfit watch doesn’t run Android Wear, but Xiaomi says that it will interface with the Mi Fit app to show activity and usage statistics.

The watch offers a 1.34-inch display with a resolution of 300 x 300, and runs on a 1.2GHz processor along with 512MB of RAM. You get 4GB of onboard storage, and the 200mAh battery is touted to last five days on a full charge, or 30 hours if you have GPS enabled. There’s also a heart rate sensor at the back, and Xiaomi has inked a deal with Alibaba to bring the AliPay digital wallet to the watch.

The ceramic bezel features scratch-resistant material, and you have the option of switching out the 22mm bands and adding your own. The Amazfit is certified IP67, making it resistant to dust and water.

As is the case with all Xiaomi products, the Amazfit smartwatch is priced very aggressively, with the watch slated to go on sale in China from August 31 for ¥799 ($120).

How to set up the iris scanner on the Galaxy Note 7

How do I set up the iris scanner on the Galaxy Note 7?

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 is one of the best phones of the year. Aside from its great design and incredible feature set, it has one big thing that sets it apart: an iris scanner.

Here’s what it is, and how to set it up.

What is an iris scanner?

Simply what it sounds like: a tool that scans your eyes — or more specifically, your iris. It is used for biometric authentication, for logging in to your phone and various secure features within the phone, such as the Secure Folder.

The iris scanner uses two distinct pieces of hardware to achieve an accurate scan: a small, front-facing camera sensor; and an infrared sensor, that helps measure the unique aspects of your eye like its shape and depth. Combined, these prevent photos or other static interpretations of someone’s face from being used to dupe the system.

Should you use an iris scanner?

Iris scanning is an alternative to other forms of authentication, particularly the Note 7’s fingerprint sensor. It doesn’t replace any way of logging in, but can be used in conjunction with other secure login methods like a password, PIN, or pattern. The Note 7’s iris scanner is not always as reliable as its fingerprint sensor — both I and Andrew Martonik have had issues with it in anything but ideal lighting conditions — but it’s also accessible in situations where the fingerprint sensor isn’t a viable option. Use the iris scanner when your finger is wet or inside gloves, or when it just makes more sense to hold the phone upright.

How to set up the iris scanner

Setting up the iris scanner is easy, and can be done in one of two ways: the first time you set up your Note 7, or any time thereafter, through the Settings menu. We’ll be showing you the way to set it up the second way, but these steps also apply to the initial setup, as well.

Pull down on your notification shade.
Tap the Settings icon.

In Settings, scroll down and tap on Lock screen and security.

Tap on Irises.
Enter your pin code, password or pattern.
Read the instructions and tap Continue.

Go through the remaining steps to set up iris scanner.

Once completed, tap Turn on.

Optional step: Enable Web sign-in and Verify Samsung account.

That’s it! You can now access the iris scanner by turning on your phone and swiping up on the lock screen.

How to improve the reliability of the iris scanner on the Galaxy Note 7

Samsung recommends a few things to make sure the iris scanner works well every time you turn on your phone.

• Take off your glasses (or avoid wearing colored contacts)
• Hold the Note 7 25-35cm (9.8-13.7 inches) from your face
• Hold the Note 7 parallel to your eyes, making sure to look at the camera, not the screen
• Keep your eyes open fully throughout the scan
• Avoid scanning in direct sunlight
• Ensure both the IR sensor and the iris scanner camera lens are clean from smudges and scratches

Your turn

What has your experience been like with the Galaxy Note 7’s iris scanner? Let us know in the comments below!

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How to decipher those “rugged” ratings on your phone

How do I tell what those IP ratings on my phone really mean? Just because a phone is rugged doesn’t mean it will survive a dunk in the pool.

Several of the companies that make Android hardware build them a little bit tougher or more resistant to the hazards of daily life. It’s a big selling feature. If you’re an enthusiast and bought a recent phone from Samsung, Sony, Kyocera or Sonim, you probably know at least a little bit about them. What those numbers represent can be important or even a deciding factor when spending the cash on a new phone.

You’ll usually see “ruggedness” described with an IP rating or a MIL-STD rating. Those are standards (loose ones in some cases) that determine how resistant something is the elements — things like shock (both electrical and physical), temperature, air pressure, and a host of other things that want to ruin your phone.

The ratings and certifications were developed long before the invention of cellphones — they cover things like valves and electrical boxes. But more recently, they do apply to phones, and not just the ones that are built like tanks. Let’s break each rating down a little so you know what they really mean.

Ingress Protection

No, not the location-based game from those Pokemon guys, ingress protection refers to the ability for a product to prevent foreign objects — usually liquid and dust particles — from getting inside. And while the term IP usually stands in for ingress protection, it actually stands for International Protection, as in an International Protection Marking.

Never run your phone through a car wash to test its IP rating. Seriously.

The IP Code is designated by the initials IP followed by two digits and the presence or absence of an K. The K is something we’ll never encounter on small portable electronic devices; it refers to something that can withstand high-pressure, high-flow spray jets, like a car wash sprayer nozzle. In that situation your phone would be toast.

(Never run your phone through the car wash, unless it is one of these and you don’t mind breaking the car wash. We’re kidding. Don’t run even the Nokia 3310 through a car wash, people.)

The digits each represent a resistance rating. The first number stands for the level of solid particle protection (and is mandatory). The second number stands for liquid ingress protection (and is also mandatory). If a tested and certified device is not rated in either category, the number will be replaced by an X. Here’s how the numbers stack up.

Solid particle protection

Liquid ingress protection

In addition (because this wasn’t confusing enough) the IP Code has letter designations for additional protection. Like any K rating, you’ll never see these on a cell phone but I’m putting them here because we’re going to be complete. Deal with it.

Additional protection designation

Yes, the “f” is not capitalized, and “Weather resistant” doesn’t tell us anything at all. We didn’t write the specification. Like everything else that happens now, I am going to blame Phil.

So when you buy a phone like the Galaxy S7 that has a rating of IP68 you can put it in a vacuum and dust can’t get in, or let it sit in more than one meter of water forever, right? Nope.

Phones sent to a testing lab passed. Yours might not.

The dust protection rating leaves zero wiggle room. The S7 is dust proof under any conditions a human being can be in. The liquid ingress protection of 8 is “specified by the manufacturer”, and Samsung says submersion up to 5.0 feet for up to 30 minutes.

Cool, let’s go play with it in the bathtub and take videos of a rubber duckie versus GI Joe Wet Suit Frogman battle royale. This will be epic.

Not so fast. Samsung also says your device is not impervious to water damage in any situation, which is a total buzzkill.

The Galaxy S7 phones used for testing and certification were able to withstand dust intrusion under any circumstances up to and including a vacuum, and immersion in water 5-feet deep for a half hour. Your phone might not. The certification facility can’t test every phone. The people who made it should be willing to talk about the warranty if you have an issue, though.

Lil Wayne can afford a dump truck filled with Galaxy S7 edges. Can you? Be smarter than Lil Wayne.

MIL-STD

This is a U.S. Military standard that specifies how something will fare against the environment during its lifetime. Android phones, watches and other electronics often carry the MIL-STD 810G certification, which means it was tested in a lab under conditions that simulate a gigantic list of environmental variables and still worked. Some of the things that are tested include temperature extremes, altitude, thermal shock, fungal ingress and being frozen solid. It’s an exhaustive list, and if your phone passed these tests you can expect it to survive anything, including a week with Bear Grylls, right?

Nope.

In essence, this certification is basically meaningless. For starters, the testing procedures clearly state that you only have to test simulated environments, which doesn’t mean it will withstand the real thing. If that’s not enough of a red flag, the fact that whoever does the testing gets to decide how anything is simulated and that the thing being tested doesn’t even need to pass should be. And feel free to see what happens to a phone with a battery when you freeze it and then thaw it out.

Ride with me in my way back machine, where we can see Dr. Conrad H. Blickenstorfer, Ph.D. explain it perfectly.

The MIL-STD-810G does not mandate standards or set minimum goals for the various tests; for the most part it simply describes how testing is to be conducted. This leaves considerable room for interpretation, and it is therefore important for manufacturers of rugged notebooks to provide detailed information on what tests were conducted, how exactly they were conducted, what the results were, and what those results actually mean. The claim that a product is “MIL-STD-810G tested” is not enough, and prospective customers should ask for more detail.

Saying something is MIL-STD 810G tested without providing a copy of the testing parameters and results means the same thing as “feels faster” or “excellent camera.” Never use this as a factor in your decision to buy an electronic device.

Seeing IP numbers and Military toughness ratings on a phone you buy is generally a good thing. Not all individual devices will pass all real-life testing, but someone somewhere made it a little tougher than normal.

Having an IP-spec phone is great protection against accidents like spilling a beer, and a MIL-STD 810G phone will probably fare an icy snowbank or fungal garden better than one without. Just remember, taking your phone scuba diving or spelunking just might mean time on a different phone with whoever handles the warranty.

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Google Cast now hardbaked into Chrome

After two years of beta testing, Google has baked its Cast functionality directly into Chrome.

For the last couple of years, you could mirror content in a Chrome browser to a compatible device using a Chrome Extension, but the feature is now part of the browser permanently.

You no longer need to install anything other than the browser itself to be able to use Cast. And those who already have Chrome should find that their browser has updated automatically.

Whenever you are on a site that supports Cast, such as Netflix, and you are on the same network as a Cast-enabled device, you will see the icon appear. Alternatively, you can Cast any website to your TV by selecting the dedicated option from the Chrome menu.

• Chromecast 2 review: Make any TV smart, effortlessly

There are plenty of devices out there that support Cast these days; Google’s own Chromecast dongles do of course, but also Android TV boxes, such as the Nvidia Shield box, and televisions. The Chromecast Audio will also work with music sites.

Google has also made improvements to the Cast quality from the Chrome browser. Casting sessions in HD are now available in order to sharpen up the experience.

Hopefully, with this change we might see a further update to the company’s own Cast products sometime soon.

iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus cases arrive in stores, amazing leak confirms two major features

We know that Apple plans to launch something on Wednesday 7 September and are 99.9 per cent certain it will be at least two phones: the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. We now have confirmation of a couple of the much-rumoured features as licensed cases have started to arrive at stores in the UK and Pocket-lint has received a pic of one in the flesh.

A Gear4 protective case for the iPhone 7 has been spotted at a popular phone outlet in the UK. Our source sent us the picture as proof.

The trusted source also confirms that the headphone jack is no more, as long suspected. Instead, it has just a hole at the bottom for the Lightning port. The camera slot on this specific case is similar to that on an iPhone 6s equivalent, but we’ve also been told that the iPhone 7 Plus case has a larger camera cut-out, again suggesting that the oft-repeated rumoured about a double-lens camera is true.

• What to expect at Apple’s September 2016 event: iPhone 7 and more
• Apple iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus: Release date, rumours and everything you need to know
• Apple iPhone 7 vs iPhone 6S vs iPhone 6: What’s the rumoured difference?

We can’t mention which store in which the picture was taken, but can confirm that we have verified its validity. It is likely that multiple outlets have received the same stock in preparation for launch day next week.

There’s no mention of an iPhone 7 Pro, but as we’ve been hearing less and less about the potential third device of late, it’s highly possible it won’t be part of the forthcoming media briefing.

Apple HomeKit preview: Is Apple’s smarthome system ready to shine?

After what seems like years of planning, especially in the fast moving world of gadgets, Apple’s solution to getting your smarthome devices talking to each other has finally arrived.

Launching with iOS 10, Apple’s dedicated Home app – which is the interface to HomeKit – will, for the first time, allow you to automate your home with over 100 different compatible devices – ranging from smart connected plugs to window blinds that can be closed by using your voice. 

• Apple HomeKit and Home app: What are they and how do they work?
• What works with Apple HomeKit?
• Siri, turn off my lights: Philips Hue with Hue Bridge 2.0 tested

First debuted in 2014 with iOS 8, HomeKit promised to deliver a common protocol alongside secure pairing and the ability to easily control individual or groups of devices throughout the home – including integration with Siri. Two years on and Apple is about to release a dedicated app alongside a big push by third-party manufacturers to get HomeKit truly into homes.

Is HomeKit in 2016 it the smarthome solution to rule all things?

Apple Home review: One app to rule them all

The experience centres around the single Home app. Although HomeKit-compatible devices have been available in some guise for some time, this is the first time Apple has given iPhone and iPad control via its own all-in-one dedicated app.

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The idea behind the Home app is that rather than devices silo-ed within their own dedicated apps, HomeKit devices are able to talk to each other across a unified secure platform. One app to rule them all and all that.

The app itself is simple, yet powerful. Broken down into three main areas – Rooms, Scenes and Automations – you can quickly access all the HomeKit devices in your house, view them room by room, or create automations based on specific triggers. 

The homescreen in Home is like Mission Control in Apple’s Mac-based OS X operating system. Key details are given, favourite scenes listed and favourite accessories accessed. Regardless of whether you have one device or 35, they are all here to be picked at the touch of a button.

The interface is easy to use and a longer press (using Force Touch on the iPhone 6S) allows you to access the selected HokeKit device to make changes – say, brightness if it’s a connected light bulb, or further information if it’s a temperature sensor.

Apple Home review: Rooms and Scenes

The Home screen is fine for those with only a handful of HomeKit devices, but is likely to soon get cluttered if you have more. Realising that, Apple has created Rooms.

Breaking down your HomeKit devices by room makes a lot of sense, allowing you to effectively zone your gadgets into logical groups. A quick swipe to the right in the Home app moves you to the next room you’ve got setup. A nice touch is that you can replace the background image with a photo (say of that specific room) and of course change the name – you don’t have to stay with “Kid Bedroom 3”.

Within Rooms you can also create something called Scenes. These allow you to control different gadgets created by different manufacturers at the same time, but restricted to a single room in your house.

Scenes can be anything from simply saying “Movie Night” to allow you to create the perfect mood for watching a film in your living room, to something more serious like automatically having all the lights in your house turn on and the front door unlock if a HomeKit compatible smoke detector goes off.

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The winning element here is when you’ve got more than one smart device by more than one manufacturer in a given room. That’s where the system really shines.

With an array of different devices available, or in development and coming to the market soon, you can soon allow yourself to run away with what is and will be possible in the future. It’s no longer the stuff of sci-fi movies. Come September, it will be a reality.  

Scenes are easy to create and Apple gives you four default offerings to get you started, including “Good Night” (that could be set to turn everything off) or “I’m Leaving” (which could also be set to do the same as you walk out the door). The real power, though, comes in creating your own custom scenes with your own array of accessories.

Want to make it so when you close the door to the nursey the lights dim and music starts playing? That’s all possible – and really without you having to do anything other than setting up the rules for it to happen. Want to make it so you never come home to a dark house or need your keys if you’ve got your phone? That’s possible too.

It’s sounds corny, but the possibilities really are endless.

Apple Home: Hey Siri, it’s Movie Night

Apple has also layered Siri into the Home mix, allowing you to voice command orders at your iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, or even Apple TV to get your instructions heard. While many third-party products are compatible with separate apps outside of the Apple experience, you’ll only be able to use Home on Apple products.

Each HomeKit device can be referenced separately, as a Room or Scene, with Siri doing very well to understand many of the requests you are likely to throw at it. Say “Good Night”, and that scene would automatically kick in, for example, which is ideal if you are already tucked up in bed. Saying “Good Morning”, could turn on your kitchen lights and start the coffee machine. Nice. 

Using Apple TV and you can use its remote, to save getting the iPhone out, and it’s clever enough to understand that saying “Movie Night”, isn’t going to pop-up some random movie, but instead perhaps dim the lights, close the blinds, and maybe turn up the heating so you can snuggle in for the evening. If only there was a HomeKit popcorn maker.

Apple Home review: Automations

Apple also lets you to set Automations based on time, location, sensor (i.e. when it detects something) and accessory (when it is controlled). However, you’ll need remote access via Apple TV or a home-based iPad for these to function – something we’ll cover in more detail below.

Philips

Setting-up Automations means that you can have lights turn on and the curtains close at a set time, or your front door unlock as you approach your house.

Where Automations might struggle is that they aren’t yet able to offer nuances to specific requests, like understanding who’s still in the house, or whether one automation wrongly overrides another – like turning on all the lights when you come home after a session in the pub and everyone else has gone to bed.

At this stage it seems like you will have to make sure your Scenes are setup correctly to avoid awkward moments with other members of your household. 

Apple Home review: Connecting away from home with Apple TV and iPad

Apple has concentrated on making the system as secure as possible – and that does have its side affects.

This stringent security system means HomeKit devices will have to be on either the same wireless network or within Bluetooth range to use all the dedicated HomeKit features, like Siri or automations. That’s a potential problem if you aren’t at home, although you might find that you can use a product’s own cloud service instead (which kind of defeats the point, but is there as a backup).

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If you want to keep within the Apple Home experience, the obvious and cheapest way of doing this is to install an Apple TV running tvOS 10 – as it can act as a constant connection hub, regardless of where you and your iPhone or iPad are.

You can also opt to use an iPad running iOS 10 too (handy for countries where you can’t get Apple TV), as long as you don’t take it out of the home. Taking it out of the home or turning it off will terminate your HomeKit access, but it does offer another way to get remote access without necessarily having to immediately buy an Apple TV (if you don’t have one). Apple is unsure whether you’ll be able to do the similar trick with a spare or older iPhone, but that might change for release. 

Apple Home review: You’ll need HomeKit-enabled devices

If you’ve already got some smarthome devices in your house they won’t automatically work. Some, like Philips Hue, are upgradable by replacing the Hue Bridge, but others like the security camera Canary will have to be completely replaced with the HomeKit-enabled Canary Plus when it eventually comes out.

Whether manufacturers will offer an upgrade path is yet to be seen, but it does punish early adopters.

Then there are other devices that won’t be HomeKit at all. Google-backed Nest hasn’t announced any plans to allow Apple users to integrate the intelligent thermostat into the HomeKit eco-system, for example. That might change if the system takes off, though.  

First Impressions

Apple Home is the company’s attempt to unify the smarthome by delivering a single app that works efficiently with HomeKit-enabled devices – without having to dip into multiple apps. That could be, say, automatically turning on the kitchen lights at sunset, or starting up a fan when the temperature in your town gets to a certain level.

You could argue that there are a number of work-arounds for this already though. Many smarthome devices offer their own remote cloud experience, or there’s the IFTTT service (If This Then That) which allows you tap into a number of smarthome devices and have them perform tasks based on actions from other services.

However, different APIs via IFTTT don’t offer the same security protocols as Apple. It’s this point about security which is why you will have to own an Apple TV or at-home iPad hub should you want to use the Home app when away from home.

What Apple Home really gets right is the “one app to rule them all” approach. And it really starts to shine above and beyond dedicated device apps when you pair multiple devices together. It’s at that moment everything snaps into place.

If Apple has its way, it won’t be long before your home is very smart indeed. Now all we need are the HomeKit-enabled devices.

The compact Yuneec Breeze drone is built for 4K selfies

Yuneec is known for high-end drones with features like 4K and collision avoidance, but is going straight for Joe Consumer with its latest model. The Breeze is a $500 compact drone with five flight modes and an on-board 4K camera, making it ideal for types who want high-quality aerial selfies.

Yuneec didn’t reveal many specs, but CEO Tian Yu did say it it includes “Ultra HD and flight mode capabilities of our top end drones.” Judging from the lifestyle pics, one of those is almost certainly a “follow-me” mode so that newbie drone users can focus on posing. As for the camera, if it’s anything like the one on its high-end Typhoon Q500 4K model, it will be decent, though not quite as good as DJI’s built-in 4K cameras.

The Breeze comes with an app to let you control the flight, see a live stream, and take photos or video. Once the it’s over, you can download them to your phone and post to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Instagram or WhatsApp. It doesn’t appear to break down in any way for easier transport (other than the folding propellers), but certainly looks small enough to throw in a backpack.

The selfie drone market is pretty small right now — Ehang’s GhostDrone 2 Aerial, for one, runs $600 with a 4K camera. Other models, like the Nixie and Hexo+, have yet to ship. That makes the $500 price tag for the Yuneec Breeze look pretty reasonable, and you can actually buy one starting today.

Kim Dotcom will be allowed to stream his extradition appeal

The extradition case for Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom can be streamed on YouTube, a New Zealand court has ruled. The German internet entrepreneur — now living in Auckland, the nation’s largest city — and three of his former colleagues began a six-week hearing earlier this week to appeal a December court decision that allows them to be extradited to the US to face conspiracy, racketeering and money-laundering charges.

Over the past few days, Dotcom and his lawyer Ira Rothken had argued that the hearing should be streamed as it was a “public interest” case. US officials tried to block the request, suggesting that it could reveal sensitive information and influence jurors. However, the New Zealand judge — who had asked for opinions from other media and didn’t receive any objections — approved the petition, making it the first New Zealand court case to be streamed in its entirety when it appears on YouTube on Wednesday.

To appease the court, the video will be broadcast with a 20-minute delay. This will allow any evidence that has been suppressed by the court to be removed. Dotcom’s lawyer is pleased: “It’s very important that the entire world gets to see the courtroom,” says Rothken. “The Internet isn’t run by any one nation, so we thought the solution itself would come from the Internet.”

Before it was seized, Megaupload was one of the web’s most trafficked websites. Officials argue it earned Dotcom and his colleagues over $175 million and cost copyright owners more than $500 million. The defendants believe they can’t be held responsible for the illegal actions of its users, an statement often used by torrent sites, but US officials have relentlessly pursued them in hope of a landmark copyright conviction.

Should Dotcom and his counterparts be found guilty, they could face lengthy prison sentences. But that hasn’t fazed the German: he intends to launch a new version of Megaupload and a new digital currency later this year.

Use the live stream to find and expose US Govt misconduct & lies in my case. I’ll retweet your research & videos. Let’s have some justice!

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) August 30, 2016

Source: Reuters