The Mercedes-Maybach S650’s top feature is exclusivity
It’s nothing new for Mercedes to make a luxury car, but its new Maybach S650 cabriolet takes things up a notch (or three). Only 300 are being made, each individually numbered, and only 75 of those are headed to the US. With a pricetag likely in the region of $300,000 this isn’t the most expensive vehicle you can buy, but the German car maker is adding in enough design spice and under-the-hood goodies to make it one of the most desirable. At least for those that don’t flinch at the price.
If you do happen to have the resources, and are in the market for something to rival your buddies’ Rolls-Royce Dawn, or maybe a Bentley Continental, then the hardest decision will likely be which of the three color ways to choose (Zircon Red, Cote d’Azur Blue and Diamond White). Whichever hue you go for, you’ll be getting a 6.0 liter twin-turbo V12 under the hood.
As you can imagine, the paint and motor-muscle come with a slew of extravagant design touches, which include Swarovski crystal in the headlights (also found in the S-Class S65, upon which this is based), and bespoke custom leather luggage to match your interior. As for tech? There’s the same dual-display setup as found in the aforementioned S-Class, along with the Burmester sound system to get you started. Of course, you can expect the lucky 300 buyers will also get access to Mercedes’ mbrace connected Concierge platform.
The Maybach line is all about luxury though, and that’s basically what the S650 is, a yacht for the road. And we kinda mean literally, as its cabin is inspired by the Mercedes-designed Silver Arrow. The S650 is the Mercedes-Benz for people that want to out-luxury other Mercedes-Benz owners, a market the car-maker appears more than happy to cater to. We’re sure there’s at least 300 of them.
Twitter Introduces QR Codes for Sharing and Following Accounts
Twitter today introduced Snapchat-style QR codes, which are designed to make it easier to find and follow friends on the social network. Each Twitter QR code is unique to an individual Twitter user, so when scanned, it’ll bring up the person’s account.
To access your Twitter QR code, you’ll need the official Twitter app for iOS. In the app, go to your profile, tap on the gear icon, and select the “QR Code” option to generate your own personal QR code or scan someone else’s code.
Scanning a QR code is as simple as using the iPhone’s camera to either scan from a secondary screen or an image you’ve saved to the camera roll. You can follow MacRumors on Twitter by scanning the below code with your iPhone and the Twitter app.
QR codes were first made popular by Snapchat as a quick way to find your friends without having to search for them, but they may not be as popular on Twitter because the QR code settings are buried so deeply within the app.
Twitter’s QR codes are currently rolling out to users and may not be immediately available for everyone.
Twitter for iOS can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Tag: Twitter
Discuss this article in our forums
Almond 3 Smart Home Wi-Fi system review – CNET
The Good As a single Wi-Fi router and smart-home hub, the Almond 3 succeeds with easy setup and decent speeds. It works with a ton of smart devices and includes voice-activation via Amazon Alexa.
The Bad As a Wi-Fi mesh system, the Almond 3 is unreliable, buggy and expensive.
The Bottom Line The Almond 3 is a good router and smart-home hub, but we couldn’t get our unit to work as a mesh network solution. We recommend the Eero or Netgear Orbi instead.
Visit manufacturer site for details.
Let me be straight up: As a single router or smart-home hub, the Securifi Almond 3 is isn’t bad. It has decent speeds, is easy to use and set up, it’s reasonably priced at $150, and it has seamless voice activation, thanks to its Amazon Alexa integration. The problem is, Securifi wants it to be more than just a good router/smart-home hub combo.
If you purchase the Almond as a Wi-Fi system or mesh network, it comes with three identical router units for $400. The first unit serves as your main router while the other two extend the first router’s signal, blanketing your large home with Wi-Fi. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.
View full gallery
The Almond 3 system includes three identical units.
James Martin/CNET
Wi-Fi systems like the Eero and Netgear Orbi promise expansive Wi-Fi coverage with simple setup and maintenance. And while both the Eero and Orbi deliver on this promise, the mesh network features on the Almond 3 feel tacked on and are buggy as hell.
The Almond 3 is trying to be many things. It’s perfectly fine as a single router or smarthome hub, but utterly fails as a mesh network with too high a price tag, an unreliable connection and an antiquated and buggy interface.
So what’s the Almond 3?
As a router and smarthome hub, this is a midlevel 802.11ac Wi-Fi router. It doesn’t offer the fastest Wi-Fi speed but it’s more than fast enough to deliver any residential internet connection. What makes it different from other routers, however, is the fact it comes with a touch screen — similar to the Starry — and a built-in one-volume-level speaker that works as an alarm (like a digital alarm clock). Apart from Wi-Fi, it can also work with other smart-home devices such as security sensors via a popular wireless standard for home automation called called ZigBee 1.2 and is compatible with hundreds of web-connected devices .
The device is small, but in my trial it’s still powerful enough to cover a small home, say, about 1,500 square feet, with a strong Wi-Fi signal as long as it’s placed in the middle of the living space.
As a Wi-Fi system, one of the three units works as a router and the other two as extenders, effectively extending the range of the Wi-Fi network. When all three are used together and placed at optimal distances from one another, they create a mesh network that can cover up to 4,000 square feet with a Wi-Fi signal.
View full gallery
The Amond 3’s touch screen remain the same, whether or not it’s working as a router or an extender.
James Martin/CNET
Archaic touchscreen, a messy mix of interfaces
You can control the Almond 3 from three different platforms: the touchscreen on the device, a separate mobile app that you’ll need a phone or tablet to access, and a web interface via your home computer. The problem is, no single platform gives you complete control. Instead, you need to use all three to customize the system.
That would be bad enough, but it’s compounded by a device that appears to be using the same touchscreen technology as the original Almond released four years ago. So don’t expect a modern phone-like experience here. It’s more like a Palm Treo and is as archaic as the product shots you can see at the previous link. In fact, Securifi included a stylus with the Almond 3, because your fingers just aren’t the best tool for this product.
So yeah — this is not the kind of touchscreen you’d expect from a modern device. But since some features can only be accessed from the screen, you unfortunately won’t be able to avoid it.
Buggy setup and management for a mesh network
While most routers take about 30 seconds to boot up, the Almond 3 takes a full three minutes. With the multiple restarts required to complete the setup process, you’ll easily spend about half an hour before you can start using a single unit of the Almond 3, which is not too bad.
Adding additional units to create a Wi-Fi system proved to be frustratingly time consuming, however, simply because it just didn’t work most of the time. There’s a wizard on the touchscreen to enable this process, and everything happened as intended — until the last step where it was supposed to take “up to three minutes” for the two units to connect. Five minutes went by and nothing happened, and then it timed out, prompting me to reset the satellite unit to its factory default settings and start from beginning. The second time I tried it, the same thing happened. Finally, on my third try, it worked. But I had no idea what I did wrong on the first two attempts.
Other annoying oddities
The router’s screen is supposed turn itself off after being idle for a couple of minutes. But that only happens if you leave it at the the Home screen. If you go to the Status screen, for example, it will stay on forever, even if I have set a password to lock it.
When one of the Almond 3 units is being used as a satellite, clearly it’s not functioning as a router. However, all of the router function icons still appear onscreen. When you tap on one of them, you get a message telling you the feature isn’t available.
Maven offers free birth control prescriptions via digital doctors
Two days after Donald Trump was elected to be the next president of the United States, searches for the term “IUD” rose more than four times across the country, according to Google Trends. Searches for “Planned Parenthood” and “birth control” similarly spiked as women in the US began preparing for an uncertain future. After all, Donald Trump and his running-mate, Mike Pence, have spoken out against protections for women’s reproductive rights and against the Affordable Care Act, which requires insurers to cover intrauterine devices and other forms of contraception. With a Republican Congress, there’s a path for Trump to repeal the ACA outright.
In response to these concerns, Maven, a New York-based startup that received $2.2 million in funding last year, is offering free digital appointments with a women’s health practitioner now through the end of the year. These appointments include a prescription for birth control and information about IUDs.
“It is unclear how access to women’s healthcare could change in 2017,” the company’s site reads. “At Maven, one thing we believe will never change: getting birth control easily and affordably is a social imperative. Now through the end of the year, speak to one of our women’s health practitioners for free and get your prescription immediately (or get your questions about IUDs answered).”
The Maven system offers doctor appointments via video or private message. We recently tested out an online doctor app based in the UK and found the process to be exceedingly convenient and convincing.
In another show of digital support for women’s reproductive rights, people have taken to Twitter this week with stories about the benefits of birth control, using the hashtag #ThxBirthControl. The Twitter campaign was started by the non-profit online birth control support network, Bedside. More than 20,000 people have taken things a step further by donating to Planned Parenthood in Mike Pence’s name.
Source: Maven
New social site Gab is getting popular with the ‘alt-right’
Last night, Twitter took the bold move of banning a number of white nationalist “alt-right” users on the same day it said it would finally start cracking down on hate speech. But where oh where will the trolls go? Once possible option is Gab, a relatively new social media site cut from similar cloth as Ello — but even before yesterday’s bans, it was already taking on a reputation as a haven for the alt-right. Now, it seems that those feeling alienated on Twitter may be flocking to Gab in a big way.
Judd Legum, editor-in-chief at ThinkProgress, tweeted earlier today that he was number 130,699 in Gab’s waiting list — that’s up significantly from the 42,000 or so Wired reported in September. Of course, not all of those users are white nationalists, but a quick Twitter search shows plenty of people associated with the alt-right telling others to go sign up for Gab.
Waitlist for “Gab,” a white nationalist Twitter alternative, now over 130,000 people pic.twitter.com/DblqQ3X3Fl
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) November 16, 2016
The site makes no bones about being a “free speech zone” — the homepage has an image of the first amendment. (Of course, it’s worth noting that the first amendment has literally nothing to do with Twitter deciding how it wants to run its business. The site is under no obligation to let users espouse hateful views, but let’s not let logic get in the way here.)
Get on #Gab. No #SJWs, no censorship and you can #SpeakFreely without getting shadowbanned and censored.#Twexit #TwitterPurge pic.twitter.com/1u1d2sSqSD
— gab.ai/DukeNukem (@DukeNukemSez) November 16, 2016
It’s not terribly surprising that Gab has attracted attention from the alt-right — its founder Andrew Torba is an avid Trump supporter, although he recently told Buzzfeed that he identifies more as a Christian and conservative Republican. “I do not identify as alt-right,” he said. “I don’t know why people label me.”
It’s also worth noting that Torba was just kicked out of startup incubator Y Combinator for violating its harassment policy. Torba says he was banned for tweeting “build the wall” and that he was generally attacked at his time there for his views, but Y Combinator partner Kat Malanac said Torba was removed for “speaking in a threatening, harassing way toward other YC founders.”
Regardless of the Y Combinator conflict, the Twitter chatter surrounding Gab certainly shows the site is finding an audience. Whether or not anyone will want to actually interact with that audience remains to be seen. But if the alt-right flocks to Gab and builds itself a little bubble, it’ll just turn into another place where misinformation spreads like wildfire. Particularly because the site already says it is completely “censorship free” — which means the people running Gab will have even less incentive to fight fake news than a site like Facebook.
Source: Judd Legum (Twitter), Vocativ
Grab a speedy charge in the car with this $4 charger!
Right now you can pick up Aukey’s Quick Charge 2.0 car charger for just $4 at Amazon with coupon code JPEQHDZY, a savings of $6. This Quick Charge 2.0 charger will ensure that whether you have a 10 minute or two hour commute you get as much of a charge on your phone as possible so you don’t run out of battery during the day. The built-in safeguards will prevent any damage to your phone or tablet while charging it up to 75% faster than a standard charger.
At this price you may want to buy a couple of them to have around or to give as gifts. You’ll want to ensure you have one in each car in your household so that everyone can stay powered up while on the go. Remember, you need coupon code JPEQHDZY for the full savings here.
See at Amazon
Todoist Smart Schedule is adding AI smarts to your task lists
The best to-do app gets better with new feature.
Todoist, the popular cross-platform task management platform, has announced a shiny new feature it’s calling Smart Schedule, bringing some AI smarts into your daily planning.
Smart Schedule at its core will suggest completion dates for your tasks based on a number of key factors such as your current task load, past behavior and estimated urgency. It says it’s in response to “snowballers,” users who frequently just keep redating their overdue tasks and procrastinating on them. Smart Schedule is designed to help set realistic deadlines in the first place so this doesn’t happen.
I, of course, have never continually redated my Todoist list. Ahem.
The full list of features includes:
- The user’s habits: Based on when users have assigned and completed tasks in the past, Smart Schedule suggests futures dates for similar tasks. For example, if a user usually assigns tasks containing the word “read” for Fridays, Smart Schedule is more likely to suggest Friday for future reading tasks.
- Estimated task urgency: Drawing from a meta-analysis across all Todoist users, Smart Schedule estimates the relative urgency of any given task. For example, “read book” will be assigned further out than “fix bug”.
- The user’s upcoming task load: Smart Schedule takes into account all upcoming tasks and distributes recommended due dates accordingly to even out the load.
- Workdays versus weekends: Smart Schedule learns which types of tasks can be done on weekends, and which should always be scheduled during the work week (for example, “Finish draft” or “Check email”).
- The user’s estimated “End of Day”: Based on past behavior, Smart Schedule estimates when a user usually stops completing tasks and will stop suggesting “Today” as a due date.
- A user’s daily goals: Todoist allows users to set and track daily and weekly goals for the number tasks they want to complete. Smart Schedule will suggest due dates to help a user meet those goals.
Best of all the feature is rolling out from today on all platforms. Grab it now from Google Play at the link below.
More: Best To-Do List App
AIVAnet 