Roku tips and tricks: 14 things you probably didn’t know you could do

You’ve landed yourself a Roku device and want to know its hidden features. No problem.

To help you get the most of your set-top box, we’ve rounded up 14 cool things you likely didn’t know were possible on the Roku platform. For instance, we’ve included a tip on how to stream local media from your devices.

We’ve also mentioned tricks like how to rearrange your streaming channels or transform your TV screen into a cracking fireplace. Check out them out below.

Rearrange your streaming channels

When you add streaming channels, they are automatically arranged by default on your home screen. But you can rearrange them to how you prefer. Just select the channel from your My Channels section, then click the options button (*), and select Move channel.

Add a new theme to your home screen

The default Roku theme is pretty shade of purple, but if you’d like to switch it up, go to Settings, then Themes, and try one of the other free themes (including Graphene, Decaf, Nebula, or Daydream). Roku also recently added a Themes category to the Roku Channel Store.

Transform your TV with a screensaver

Like themes, Roku offers extra screensavers under settings (Settings > Screensaver). You can also go to the Screensavers category in the Channel Store to get even more screensavers, such as Presto’s cracking fireplace.

Use your mobile device as a remote

Every Roku player comes with a physical remote.

But if you lose it or for whatever reason don’t feel like using it, you can use the Roku mobile app for Android or iOS as a powerful Roku control center. Once installed on your mobile device, it lets you browse, add, and rate channels. You can also use it to enter text using your device’s own keyboard, or stream content from your mobile device. It even works with all Roku players.

Voice search without the remote

The new Roku 3 and Roku 4 each have a physical remote with a mic and search button for voice-searching.

You can use it to find movies, TV shows, actors, and directors from nearly 20 top streaming channels, including Netflix and Hulu Plus. But this feature is also available through the Roku mobile app for Android and iOS and is supported by current-generation players and Roku TV models.

From the Roku mobile app, select Search from the main menu, and then “Voice” to get started. Go here for more detailed instructions.

Rename your Roku players

Those of you with multuple Roku players in your home can log into your Roku.com account and rename your devices, making it easier for you to differentiate your players when using the Roku mobile app or casting from Netflix or YouTube.

Click Rename under the My linked devices section and follow the prompts.

Instant replay captions

Have you ever watchED a movie and couldn’t understand a character’s dialogue due to mumbling? Simply press the replay button and the subtitles will pop up. But you have to enable the feature first (Settings > Captions > click on “Instant replay”).

Record antenna content

Roku offers channels beyond streaming services. For instance, Simple.tv and Tablo TV allow you to watch, pause, and record live TV (over-the-air TV programmes via an antenna) on your Roku player or Roku TV model. 

Screen mirror from your your phone

Similar to Apple’s AirPlay feature, Roku lets you mirror stuff from your phone to your TV. Check out Roku’s screen mirroring beta for Microsoft Windows and Android devices. It provides an easy way to mirror videos, apps, web sites, and more from your device to a TV via your Roku.

You can learn more about how to started with Roku’s screen mirroring beta from here.

Stream music, photos, and videos from your phone

Roku’s mobile app (for Android, iOS or Windows Phone) doubles as a remote control. It’s also loaded with features, such as Play On Roku, which lets you to stream music, photos, and videos saved on your phone to your Roku.

Just click “Play On Roku” from the pull-down menu in the mobile app, and then choose the type of content you wish to stream. Keep in mind you can use other apps while streaming, but if you’re mirroring, everything you see on your phone display will appear on your TV.

Play files from your local network or USB drive

Some Roku players have a USB port so you can plug in a USB drive and play back personal video, music, and photo files stored on the drive. You just need the Roku Media Player channel to do so. The channel also lets you play back files from a DLNA server on your local network.

Learn more about which files the Roku Media Player supports from here. The Plex and MyMedia channels will also let you stream personal media.

Cast from YouTube and Netflix

YouTube and Netflix both feature a cast button that allow you to send video from those apps to your TV. Download the apps to your phone as well as your Roku Player, and then tap the cast button from the mobile apps. Your devices must be connected on the same Wi-Fi network.

Expand storage capacity for channels

If run out of storage space for channels on your Roku player, insert a microSD card into the microSD slot on the back of the unit.

It can only be used to store channel information, thus enabling your Roku to load channels faster. It can’t be used to store video files or other content. When the card is installed, the card will automatically be formatted.

Go here to learn more about installing a microSD card on a Roku. 

Add private channels

Did you know there are unofficial channels you can install to your Roku player?

Private channels are not displayed publicly because they might have adult content, still be in beta, or maybe they’re an unofficial third-party channel for a service without an app. You won’t find them when you browse the channel store, so you’ll need to install them with a code or link.

Private channels can be added through the Roku website. Sign into your Roku account, then go to the My Account page, and select Add a Private Channel under Manage Account. You can then enter the channel access code and select “Add Channel”. You can find private channels to add through sites like channelstore.roku.com, RokuGuide.com, StreamFree.tv, and RokuChannels.tv.

Want to know more?

Roku offers this cheat sheet with 101 other helpful tips and tricks.

Samsung may turns its hand to wireless in-ear headphones for Galaxy S8

We’ve seen it time and time again, Samsung and Apple being in constant competition with one another. Where one goes, the other tends to follow, or go one better. Apple has recently released the AirPods, a pair of wireless in-ears with a proprietary W1 chip that lets them instantly connect to an iPhone or iPad.

• Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Edge: What’s the story so far?

Now, fresh rumours are suggesting Samsung will produce its own pair of wireless in-ear headphones. It’s not clear if they will be bundled with the phone, or sold separately.

The S8 is expected to ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack, like the iPhone 7, and use USB Type-C for audio instead. USB Type-C audio should allow for higher quality audio to be passed through a wired connection. But because it will use USB C, you won’t be able to connect your current headphones, so you’ll either have to get a pair that will use the bespoke connection, or get a wireless Bluetooth pair.

There’s a slight chance the new in-ears will use Harman audio technology following Samsung’s acquisition earlier this year for $8 billion, but this has yet to be confirmed.

• Apple AirPods review: Wire-free future or design disaster?

Other features, such as one to rival Apple’s W1 chip, haven’t been confirmed either, but hopefully we’ll hear more details around MWC in February.

Here and MobilEye team up on self-driving tech for automakers

There are so many companies working on autonomous car tech that we’re now seeing the inevitable next phase: partnerships and consolidation. Case in point is a tie-up between MobilEye, the sensor maker that supplied sensors to Tesla before a messy split, and Here, the mapmaker Nokia recently sold to a German automaker consortium. The idea is to package Here’s HD Live mapping software with MobilEye’s hardware and sell it as a third-party automated platform to any interested car manufacturers.

MobilEye had a very public falling out with Tesla, accusing the EV maker of “pushing the envelope” in terms of safety. Elon Musk’s company in turn said that its former supplier tried to block tech it was trying to develop in-house. Meanwhile, MobilEye has made other deals with BMW, one of the owners of Here, and Delphi, the auto parts company started by GM.

With the tie-up, Here will use MobilEye’s so-called “roadbook,” a cloud-based map of the world’s roads derived from crowd-sourced vehicle sensor data. That”ll give Here’s HD Live mapping system access to “landmarks and roadway information to assist in making a vehicle more aware of — and better able to react to — its surroundings,” the companies say. MobilEye, in turn, be able to store its raw sensor data in Here’s open mapping platform, making it easier to update and maintain the roadbook.

Here points out that autonomous vehicles need precise and up-to-date map data, and thinks it can “accelerate that work with MobilEye.” In turn, MobilEye says it wants to create a “world HD-map standard” with Here, “with the objective of eventually launching an industry-wide initiative.” Considering the huge number of players now in the self-driving game, however, it’s hard to see any kind of “industry-wide” buy-in on proprietary tech at this point.

Source: Mobileye

Sex at CES: An uncomfortable coupling

When I arrived at the Las Vegas Convention Center in January 2012, CES was a sexless desert of 4K TVs, second-tier smartphones and (yawn) Ultrabooks for days. I’d heard stories about scantily clad porn stars co-mingling with the same dumpy tech dudes who continued to stalk the show floor, their oversized polo shirts tucked into ill-fitting khaki pants.

Tech veterans recalled days spent rubbing elbows with adult film stars and nights stuffing dollar bills into g-strings. But from where I was standing, in a sea of brightly lit displays and air-borne illness, there was nothing sexy about the world’s biggest technology showcase.

For nearly three decades, porn co-existed with tech either formally in the “adult software” section of CES, or informally at the Adult Entertainment Expo (AEE). But AEE and CES were an uncomfortable coupling. Like a fuck buddy who says he loves you when you’re banging, but hides you from his friends, CES never fully acknowledged its relationship with the sex industry.

When Paul Fishbein, the founder of AVN (organizer of AEE), first came to CES in 1984 he was a total noob. He’d recently graduated from Temple University with a degree in journalism, and as an employee of an early video store, saw a rising demand for adult movies. In February 1983, eight years after Sony set off one of history’s most publicised format wars with the introduction of Betamax, Fishbein published the very first copy of Adult Video News (AVN), a consumer guide to the budding porn industry.

“None of these people had ever seen an adult film. Because, before home video you could not see adult movies, except if you went to a theater or you had Super 8 films, or went to an adult book store,” Fishbein says. “So, all of these new customers were looking for adult films. And they were asking us, ‘Can you recommend an adult movie, we just got our new VCR?’”

Soon after publishing the first issue, Fishbein started receiving subscription requests from neighborhood video stores across the United States. AVN proved more popular with retailers than consumers, so Fishbein took his small consumer newsletter, packed with interviews of stars and directors, and refocused it as a trade publication, a sort of X-Rated Variety.

By the time he arrived at Chicago’s McCormick Center for CES in the summer of 1984, Fishbein had found his niche and had already published the first iteration of the AVN awards, the so-called Oscar’s of porn, as a print-only supplement. That year, he shared a table in the adult software section of the show with legendary cult filmmaker Russ Meyer who was there distributing films and signing autographs.

The cover of the July 1986 issue of Adult Video News, featuring Nina Hartley and a fire hose.

The presence of adult videos at CES seemed an obvious fit. As the home video market took off, so did the porn industry. VHS and Betamax players were the hardware, and porn, their (hardcore) software. As VHS gained acceptance over Betamax, the legend of porn as a technological kingmaker solidified, but Fishbein and other adult exhibitors never really felt welcome at CES.

“CES put up signs saying, ‘Warning: Porn stars are using these bathrooms,’” adult film star Ron Jeremy recalls. “Like, you know, we’re letting you know that these diseased, herpes-riddled stars are using the same toilets.”

While hardware manufacturers were given prime real estate on the Las Vegas Convention Center floor, Fishbein says, adult video companies were tucked away in the back of the Sahara hotel, roped off from the rest of the conference.

“Literally, you had to leave the convention center and find your way to the Sahara if you wanted to see the adult people,” Fishbein said. “The adult people always felt like second class citizens because they were paying top dollar for the exhibit space, but they weren’t sure they were getting all the traffic.”

After years of being on the outskirts of CES, AVN’s customers started pushing for a stand-alone tradeshow. In 1998 AVN broke away, taking porn’s biggest players with it.

“It made us feel kinda good, like, look you screwed us a little too much,” Jeremy said. “Now you can kindly go fuck yourself.”

From 1998 to 2011, the Adult Entertainment Expo ran concurrently with CES, giving porn a dedicated platform and tech executives an X-rated escape. CES attendees were given free entrance to AEE, providing a captive, sex-hungry audience for the porn industry and the opportunity for big business deals.

At its peak, AEE was a wall-to-wall circus of mulleted muscle hunks, bleach-blondes with beach-ball boobs and slack-jawed onlookers. Women teetering on razor-thin stilettos sprawled across card tables, perched atop bar stools and swung around free-standing stripper poles, occasionally stopping to pose for a picture or sign an autograph.

God, it’s that puppy exuberance of conventioneers let loose with a bunch of girls in skimpy outfits.

Kelly Holland, CEO Penthouse

Image Credit: Getty Images

Penthouse CEO Kelly Holland, then a documentary filmmaker, recalls interviewing Nina Hartley, famous for her voluptuous posterior, while she was bent over a table at AEE. A line of eager CES attendees trailed behind her, waiting to cheese it up with her butt.

“God, it’s that puppy exuberance of conventioneers let loose with a bunch of girls in skimpy outfits,” Holland said. “There’s very little that approaches that level of exuberance, actually. You take that many nerds and technology geeks with pocket protectors and pens and jam them into tight quarters with a bunch of porn stars and you’ve never seen so many beaming smiles. They’re like kids in Disneyland, really.”

But just like a kid on a cotton-candy sugar high, the porn industry came crashing down in the late noughties. A combination of free porn flooding the internet and the onset of the great recession led to the undoing of the industry’s Hollywood-style studio system.

“It was a real watershed moment, because it was a confluence of bad things all happening at once, Fishbein says. “It was a shit storm.”

He describes AVN at the time as a bloated business with too many products, too many employees and mounting debt. The combination of stress and a personal tragedy led Fishbein to sell his stake in 2010. Under new management, the show’s organizers chose to move AEE, now commonly referred to as AVN, to a date later in January, driving a wedge between porn and technology’s premier events. Fishbein says the move was a huge mistake and refers to a now diminished AVN as a “flea market.”

“It was a ghost town for AVN for the first two or three years,” Holland says. “It was a horrible, tragic, pathetic show. I always felt sorry for the vendors that were there — we weren’t exhibiting at the time — because they were just standing in these booths and there was no one there. Everything looked forlorn and desolate.”

The show has since reestablished itself as a sort of Comic Con for porn, but the absence is glaring. AVN needed CES to drive attendance (we reached out for exact numbers but did not receive an answer in time for publication). CES on the other hand, saw record turnout in its first year going solo, but there was clearly something missing.

From the time that Fishbein established AEE as its own show, the Consumer Electronics Association had taken a hard stance against adult exhibitors. With the shows no longer occupying the same week, there’s practically zero visibility for the sex industry at CES.

The days of taking lunch breaks with James Deen and Jenna Jameson were done, but there were still plenty of sexual outlets for the suits at CES. About an hour outside of Las Vegas, in a small town called Parhump, Nevada, a handful of brothels line a dirt road. Sheri’s Ranch, sits near the end of that road, just past the world famous Chicken Ranch, “where the west is still wild.” Inside, as many as 25 “legal courtesans” entertain guests in themed rooms and bungalows year-round. This is the “unofficial brothel of CES.”

Sheri’s Ranch earned that title presumably because of the upswing in business the brothel experiences every year during CES. Dena, the ranch’s madame says conference attendees have frequented this and other brothels between lunch breaks or after the show floor closes since she can remember, but after AVN and CES split, there was a significant surge in business.

“I think it was a distraction having [CES] when AVN was going,” Dena says. “So, instead of, driving an hour to come see us where you can do it legal, they were hitting the after parties for AVN or trying to pop in there to rub elbows with some porn stars.”

Dena says the ranch takes on a “bachelor party feel” during CES, with clients ready to escape the buttoned-up confines of the convention. The show’s official stance prohibiting adult companies has created a censorious oasis in the middle of sin city, but sex has been making a quiet comeback at CES, starting with a family-run sex toy company from small-town New Hampshire.

OhMiBod’s Best of CES award winning device, Love Life Krush.

In 2011, OhMiBod, a burgeoning toy company run by husband and wife team Brian and Suki Dunham, was looking for a mainstream platform for its iPod-connected vibrator that let users screw to their own beats. After an initial rejection, the Dunhams petitioned the CEA and eventually made their way onto the show floor.

“I think it was great,” Brian Dunham says. “They said, ‘Let’s give it a try and if it works, great. If it doesn’t work and we get a lot of blow-back, then you know, you probably won’t be invited back.’”

The CEA let OhMiBod in under the same conditions as other exhibitors, prohibiting the “showing of film, photos, games or other software in the exhibit area which are deemed objectionable, including explicit or simulated sex, nudity or violence.”

According to Suki, OhMiBod was “tucked back in a corner” between Taser International and Yahoo! and didn’t feel completely welcome.

“We did, I think, get kind of checked on,” Suki Dunham says. “And I find it funny, because of course many of the tech companies hire talent for their booth, and they hire certain talent to get people interested in what they have to show, even if it’s, whatever it is, new tech in automotive. There’s talent there, meaning women that are very good-looking and all, you know, dressed up or sexy or whatever. We would never do that in our booth, because that that would be counterproductive for us, because we’re trying to push the ball forward, and to me that makes us regress.”

Sex was present at CES, but it wasn’t the same tits out, dick swinging sideshow that AEE once provided. Sex at CES was a decidedly more sterile affair, unless of course, it came in the way of booth babes selling also-ran HDTVs. The Dunhams say reactions continue to be a mix of juvenile giggles, knowing nods and genuine interest.

“We still get, every year, the comment, ‘Aren’t you at the wrong show?’” Suki Dunhams says. “Meaning that we’re not at AVN. People feel uncomfortable about sex. It’s really funny, but some men still act like 10-year-old boys when it comes to sex.”

Despite the sideways glances and juvenile commentary, CES is a big money maker for OhMiBod. In its five years at the show, the company has secured big distribution deals with retailers like Target and Brookstone, mainstream press coverage from publications like Wired and last year’s Best of CES Awards win for “Best Digital Health and Fitness Product.” It might seem that CES has warmed to sex as a legitimate money maker, but the recent addition of adult film studio Naughty America comes with a caveat that shows how little has changed since Fishbein first attended in 1984.

In an official statement a CTA spokesperson said, “When making decisions on any CES exhibitor, the Consumer Technology Association first determines if the exhibit/product fits into one of our stated product categories. In the case of Naughty America, we determined that the product truly fit under Virtual Reality, and helps demonstrate the range of content and usage for this ground-breaking technology. As a rule, adult content/products are not allowed on the CES show floor and do not fit into a defined product category. At CES 2017, Naughty America will be in a private meeting room, not featured on the show floor.”

Like the porn studios that came before it, Naughty America will be cordoned off, far from Samsung, Sony and tech’s other major players. Meanwhile, many argue that the next big shift in computing, virtual reality, could benefit from porn’s mass appeal in the same way that VHS did in the early days of home video. It’s impossible to quantify porn’s impact on technology, but this quiet codependence is far from over.

“The whole dialog around sex is always so uncomfortable so no one is ever going to proclaim how they respect the adult industry or how valuable it is to driving their technologies forward,” Holland says. “Did someone from Google come to talk to me about VR? Yes. Did they make me swear on a bible that I would not talk about it and identify them? Yes. Was Panasonic uncomfortable when their CTO was there about his involvement with me? Yes. But did he fly over from Japan to sit on a set with me? Yes. So people are pragmatists. You know? They’re not gonna upset their boards, they’re not going to shake up their consumer base.”

Facebook is building a tool to hunt copyright infringing videos

YouTube isn’t the only site record labels are taking issue with when it comes to copyright infringement. Financial Times reports that music publishers want Facebook to license music that gets posted on its site and take down any user-submitted videos that contain copyrighted content. The first step is said to be handling all the copyrighted material that’s posted to the site’s News Feed in the form of cover songs and other footage. As part of the effort, Facebook is said to be working on a copyright identification system, similar to YouTube’s Content ID, to help police what’s published.

Financial Times explains that once the ID system is in place, Facebook will work with record labels on a licensing deal for all the music that’s available on the site. Those talks are said to be in the early stages and a final agreement isn’t expected before this spring.

The music industry has been taking issue with YouTube for years, claiming that the site doesn’t adequately compensate artists and rights holders for the content it hosts. Earlier this month, the video site announced that it paid $1 billion in ad revenue to the music industry in the last year. Facebook has revenue deals in place with publishers, but doesn’t currently have any licensing agreements for music. As you might expect, labels want a piece of that ad money like they’re receiving from YouTube for having their music available to users.

According to a National Music Publishers’ Association op-ed on Billboard this fall, the songwriters’ trade group said it identified nearly 900 videos that contained 33 top songs on the music charts at the time. Those clips garnered well over 600 million views total, so it’s easy to see why the music industry wants to be compensated for having its material on display in Facebook videos.

Via: FACT, Billboard

Source: Financial Times

Samsung Again Rumored to Be Exclusive Supplier of 5.8-Inch OLED Displays for 2017 iPhone

Samsung Display has again been rumored as the exclusive supplier of OLED panels for the 2017 iPhone, according to new claims made by sources in the Taiwan supply chain (via DigiTimes). Back in April, The Korea Herald reported that Samsung would supply Apple with OLED panels in 2017, furthering rumors from as early as January that Apple and Samsung were in talks for an OLED manufacturing partnership.

Next year’s iPhone is said to come in 4.7-inch, 5.5-inch, and 5.8-inch sizes, with the last model believed to be the only iPhone with an OLED display. The OLED version’s actual touch-sensitive screen real estate may in fact be closer to 5.5-inches, or possibly 5.1- and 5.2-inches, if the rumor of a curved display is true.

Samsung’s current estimates place the company at manufacturing 20 million units per month, according to the supply chain sources. The company’s shipments of OLED units are estimated to reach 590 million by 2019. As for benefits, OLED screens can be brighter, clearer, and lead to more energy efficient iPhones.

Samsung Display will become the exclusive supplier of AMOLED panels for use in Apple’s new iPhone devices to be launched in 2017 and can supply 20 million units in maximum a month, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers.

Apple will launch 4.7-, 5.5- and 5.8-inch new iPhone models in second-half 2017, with TFT-LCD panels to be used in the former two models and AMOLED for the 5.8-inch one, the sources said. Global shipments of the AMOLED iPhone in 2017 are estimated at 60-70 million units, the sources noted.

In a separate DigiTimes report posted today, Wistron is believed to be a potential third partner for the manufacturing of the 2017 iPhone, following Foxconn and Pegatron. Wistron was previously rumored to be part of Apple’s diversification in its supply chain this year, but it seems like the company was left out of iPhone 7 manufacturing. In the past, Wistron helped supply the iPhone 5c and iPhone SE.

Related Roundup: iPhone 8 (2017)
Tags: Samsung, digitimes.com
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Best iPad Pro 12.9 keyboards: Turn your Apple tablet into a laptop alternative

It’s time to get a keyboard for that fancy Apple iPad Pro you’ve just bought or been given as a nice little, but not little at all, pressie.

Apple’s most powerful and priciest iPad to date, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, has a starting price of £679, and is claimed to be a device that is capable of replacing laptops. It has a faster processor than the other iPads (except the smaller iPad Pro), with a new 64-bit A9X and M9 combination under the hood, which Apple claims rivals most portable PCs.

• Apple iPad Pro 12.9 review
• Apple iPad Pro 12.9 cases

The Cupertino company also pitches this device at the business, multitasking-focused user. In order to turn this powerhouse into a productivity machine that can support your workflow however, you’ll have to connect it to a keyboard.

There aren’t quite as many keyboards out there as there are cases, the latter of which you can find here, but we have rounded up a few that will help you type out those emails, spreadsheets, and notes.

As usual, we will keep updating this feature and adding more as they catch our eye so keep checking back if one of the lovely options in the gallery doesn’t tickle your fancy.

Emporio Armani Connected preview: Simple and sophisticated

Fossil has been busy stirring up the smartwatch world, launching a number of devices over the last year in collaboration with several fashion companies. The latest to join the party come from Diesel, Kate Spade and Emporio Armani.

Like the other two fashion brands, the Emporio Armani collection opts for the hybrid path seen on the previously launched Skagen Connected. Here are our first impressions.

• Kate Spade Hybrid Smartwatch preview
• DieselOn Time preview

Emporio Armani Connected preview: Design 

The Emporio Armani Connected smartwatches follow the design route of some of the company’s best-selling timepieces, adding Fossil’s wearable technology to make them a little smarter than the classic models.

Simple but sophisticated, the Emporio Armani Connected smartwatch is available in five models, comprising a stainless steel case with a stainless steel bracelet, a black case with a black bracelet, a rose-gold case with a brown leather strap, a stainless steel case with a blue leather strap and a gun metal case with a black leather strap.

Pocket-lint

All the models within the collection offer a premium build with a simple watch face. The two bracelet models have a black face, the rose gold model has a white face, the blue leather strap model has a silver face and the gun metal case has a navy face. Despite the colour differences, the face design is the same however, with unnumbered lines representing the hours, the Armani logo sitting in place of 12 o’clock, a sub-dial in the bottom left of the display and the Emporio Armani Connected logo positioned above the hands.

Like both the Diesel and Kate Spade hybrid smartwatch options, the Emporio Armani Connected smartwatches have a stainless steel underside with a slit for changing the coin-cell battery and there are three functional buttons on the right-hand side of the casing. These buttons are more subtle than on the Diesel models, offering a more streamlined finish, which once again coincides with the brand they represent. Armani is going for a smarter, more sophisticated look compared to the chunky but cool Diesel option.

Pocket-lint

Emporio Armani Connected preview: Features

As the Emporio Armani Connected smartwatches are hybrid smartwatches, rather than Android Wear like the Michael Kors models, features are more limited. What you lose some functionality, you gain in subtlety and the result is that none of Fossil’s latest fashion smartwatches look like smartwatches, which some will love.

Compatible with both Android and iOS, the Emporio Armani Connected connects to a dedicated app where you’ll be able to set certain preferences and filter smartphone notifications. You can set alarms, control music or take a photo on your smartphone directly from your wrist, as well as get vibration alerts or dial changes for specific smartphone notifications.

Pocket-lint

The Emporio Armani Connected smartwatches will also keep track of your activity, calories and sleep, allow you to set goals and automatically change time zone when you travel. The coin-cell battery also means you won’t need to charge your watch every night, as you do with Android Wear smartwatches and the Apple Watch.

You won’t be able to take calls or read a text message, but you will be able to see a second time zone immediately with a press of the middle function button, or see your activity progress with a push of the top button. Activity is shown via the top of the sub-dial, while the date is shown at the bottom of the sub-dial.

First Impressions

The Emporio Armani Connected is a smart, sophisticated and well-built hybrid smartwatch. Like the Kate Spade and Skagen options also offered by Fossil, it offers an option for those who like the idea of getting more out of their watch but who aren’t quite sold on a fully-fledged smartwatch.

Being hybrid, it misses out on some of the features offered by Android Wear devices or the Apple Watch, but the Emporio Armani Connected looks like your typical Armani watch and that’s where it will gain the hearts of those who want to be stylish and smart.

Availability is yet to be confirmed, but the Emporio Armani Connected will be available from £259.

The blue screen of death is going green for Windows testers

If there’s one color guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of Windows users, it’s blue. But as one Twitter sleuth has discovered, the iconic and always alarming “blue screen of death” is going green, and not because Microsoft is feeling festive. The new crash screen was spotted in a recently leaked preview version of Windows 10 (build 14997, to be exact), which isn’t expected to be formally released until early next year. Microsoft’s Matthijs Hoekstra has confirmed the color change is specific to test builds released through the Windows Insider program, which makes sense. Where bugs and crashes are reported, Microsoft will immediately be able to distinguish between problems with consumer Windows 10 builds, and those found on early, less stable preview builds.

Microsoft already improved the amount of info the blue screen of death conveys earlier this year, adding scannable QR codes to these error messages to help users troubleshoot their particular problem. This new green screen isn’t the only noteworthy change discovered in the leaked preview build thus far. Microsoft also looks to be adding a night mode in the display settings, which will reduce the amount of sleep-hating blue light coming out of your monitor in the evenings. A new “game mode” has also been found that will reportedly starve background apps of resources to boost gaming performance (but not your skill level, unfortunately).

Via: The Verge

Source: @Chris123NT (Twitter)

iPhone 7’s Lack of ‘Compelling’ Features Convinced Most Galaxy Note7 Owners to Stay With Samsung

In a recent piece by The Wall Street Journal, hardware analyst Stephen Baker commented on the state of holiday sales figures for both Apple and Samsung. While many believed Apple would have it easy this season due to Samsung’s Galaxy Note7 crisis, Baker said that “Apple’s own lack of a wowing product this year” meant that woeful Note7 owners opted for other high-end Galaxy phones, and not the iPhone 7.

“Most of those who bought or wanted to buy a Note 7 opted for a different high-end Galaxy phone,” Mr. Baker said. “Samsung was able to fend off other Android competition, and Apple, too, thanks to Apple’s own lack of a wowing product this year.”

Apple decided to not release the first weekend sales numbers for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus back in September, because it felt the results were “no longer a representative metric” due to demand outweighing supply. Samsung officially halted sales of the Galaxy Note7 worldwide in early October, but another industry analyst, Chetan Sharma, continued Baker’s thread by commenting on the iPhone 7’s lack of “a compelling enough feature set,” which wasn’t enough to convince owners of potentially exploding Note7 devices to switch ecosystems.

“Apple has the strongest ecosystem, with its hardware, software and app and content stores,” said consumer tech and mobile industry consultant Chetan Sharma. “IPhone users looking for an upgrade stick with Apple. But in a year when Samsung dropped the ball in a huge way,” he said, Apple “didn’t have a phone with a compelling enough feature set to lure Samsung owners away.”

Earlier this week, Yahoo-owned mobile analytics firm Flurry released data surrounding the top device activations by manufacturer between 12/19 and 12/25, confirming that Apple was again at the top of the list with 44 percent activations, while Samsung came in second at 21 percent. In comparison to the previous year, Apple dropped from 49 percent and Samsung climbed slightly from 19 percent.

Ultimately, the two analysts admitted that both Apple and Samsung “made mistakes this year that cost them growth.” Sharma said that “the timing couldn’t have been worse for Samsung and it couldn’t have been better for Apple. But the truth is neither company capitalized this year.”

In the first few days of December, financial firm Oppenheimer summed up the current negative cloud surrounding Apple — fueled by mixed-to-negative consumer reception and its first revenue decline since 2003 — and stated that the company could be heading into a “decade-long malaise” if it doesn’t turn things around.

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Tags: Samsung, Galaxy Note 7
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