How to fix a broken Galaxy S7 edge screen

Here’s what you need to know if the screen on your Galaxy S7 edge breaks.

Chances are you will break the screen on your phone one day. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, you have it to look forward to. They’re glass — which is pretty fragile — and we carry them around all day every day in our pocket or bag or even in our hand. No matter how careful you are, your phone is bumped and squished and dropped. If you break the screen on your Samsung Galaxy S7 edge you’ll want to get it fixed. Here’s what you need to know about repairing or replacing the screen.

Get a good screen protector

If the display is badly scratched or has hairline cracks but still works, you can usually get away with covering the whole screen with a good glass screen protector. Think of this as a way to delay the inevitable worsening of cracks in the glass or damage to the actual display. Over time, the cracks will get bigger and those dark pixels will expand, but a glass screen protector will really slow things down and gives you a smooth surface while you’re waiting.

Finding a glass screen protector that fits the Galaxy S7 edge well can be difficult. It took a while for them to hit the market, and a good many of them have horrible reviews or have been discontinued. The problem is the curved edge and curving a new piece of glass to fit it perfectly while still being easy to apply. Luckily, there is one that most people seem to love.

See the Zagg Glass Curve

Getting it repaired

This is the route that most of us will take. Having people who know what they’re doing when it comes to taking expensive phones apart is generally a wise decision. But finding the right people to do the repair can be a little tricky.

If anyone besides Samsung fixes your phone you’ll lose your warranty and water resistance.

The first thing to do is take it back to the place you bought it from and see what they have to say. For most of us in North America, that means a carrier store. No matter the carrier, they will be able to help get the phone repaired or replaced under insurance or a warranty. They can start the official repair process, and even if they need you to call Samsung yourself it’s smart to have a record of talking to the folks whose name is on the device first. Be sure to mention any warranty from your credit card or third party program, and let them know if you or purchased the Samsung Protection Plus package.

If you bought your phone outright, you’re going to be mostly on your own here. Don’t worry, that’s not a big deal in this case. Get things started by starting a repair ticket at Samsung.com or calling Samsung customer service at 1-800-SAMSUNG (726-7864). They’ll get the paperwork started and tell you where and how to send your phone to them, give you an estimate of the cost and let you know approximately how long it’s going to take. Generally, it costs about $250 and takes 14 days. The web is full of folks with horror stories, but those aren’t the rule and you likely won’t have any surprises if you send it off to Samsung.

There are also plenty of other places that repair Samsung screens, and there’s a good chance you even have one within driving distance. There are also some good nationwide options for people in the United States, and we can recommend two:

• UBREAKIFIX is a well-known company that has both walk-in and mail-in service. Visit their website to see if you have a local store or your options for sending it in. This is also the company Google uses for their Pixel repairs for Project Fi insured phones.
• Office Depot has a lot of locations that do phone repairs for Samsung phones. Their work has a full one-year warranty and they offer a price match guarantee with same-day service in many cases. They don’t handle mail-in repairs, but it’s worth a look to see if you have one of their repair centers in driving distance.

If you decide to go local, ask around and see which service the local phone reps at your carrier store use. Also, make sure you get a confirmation of any guarantee and warranty up front and in writing from any place that’s going to take your phone apart. Most local “fix it” centers for cell phones have a person or two who is pretty good at doing things like fixing screens, but it’s always better to be sure of everything in advance.

Do it yourself

If you’ve got the know-how and the patience, you can repair the screen on your GS7 edge yourself though we don’t recommend it. Like most newer phones, the Galaxy S7 edge isn’t very repair-friendly but the display can be worked free of the adhesive.

We’re not saying it’s easy. There’s always the chance you’ll break something else taking a phone apart or that you won’t be able to get it back together again. You’ll need to start from the back and disassemble everything between the back cover and the display, including removing the mainboard itself.

There are plenty of in-depth tutorials about changing your GS7 edge screen on YouTube. You should start with Jerry Rig Everything’s video where he repairs the screen and charging port.

You can pick up a kit that includes the complete digitizer and screen assembly if you want to try and do this yourself. It’s not cheap (at the time of this writing it lists for $274.99) but doing it yourself does mean you don’t have to send your phone off and wait.

See at FixEZ

Have questions?

Do you have questions about getting your screen repaired? Or if you know of a good repair option in your neck of the woods, or can tell us how your repair went we’d love to hear it!

Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge

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Best Samsung Gear VR games with controller support

What Gear VR games need a controller?

Samsung built the Gear VR so it didn’t have to rely on a separate controller, and most of the time that is awesome. The touch panel on the side of the headset lets you move around quickly and swipe to perform many different actions in apps and games, and it’s a lot of fun. Sometimes, either because you don’t want a single arm getting tired from playing for an extended period of time or because you want to be a little more discreet, a controller is what you need.

Here’s a quick look at the games we like best when played with a Gear VR controller in hand, so you can have more fun in VR for longer.

Read more at VR Heads

ZTE’s $199 eye-tracking Hawkeye phone will have 2016 specs in late 2017

Here’s what Hawkeye will have.

ZTE will be bringing its crowdsourced Hawkeye smartphone to the U.S. and much of the world in September if it can hit its enormous $500,000 Kickstarter goal (as of writing, it’s raised just over $30,000). When ZTE revealed the eventual name of ‘Project CSX’, it gave us some ideas of how the phone would separate itself (eye-tracking technology), and what it would cost ($199), but we were without most of the other relevant specs. Now we have them.

The Hawkeye phone will be, for its entry in late 2017, an entry-level device, with a 5.5-inch 1080p display, a Snapdragon 625 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a dual-camera setup featuring 12MP and 13MP sensors at two different focal lengths. A 3000mAh battery will keep things moving all day, and the USB-C port will charge at Quick Charge 2.0 speeds. We also know that the supported LTE bands will keep the phone out of Verizon and Sprint, but will support Band 66 for T-Mobile and Freedom Mobile’s growing AWS-3 networks.

So nothing particularly interesting about the Hawkeye’s specs on paper, but it will be very interesting to see how the whole thing comes together when it debuts in September or October.

What should you ask for when demoing VR?

What are the experiences I should ask for when I demo VR?

Say you’ve found a demo station near you and you plan to head down — what will you ask to see when you get there? Many demo stations have a set number of experiences you can try, and you’ll probably be on a time limit. To help you get the most out of your demo, here are the best experiences to try depending on your taste.

Read more at VR Heads!

Save $30 on a Daydream View at Verizon right now!

Right now you can pick up a Daydream View for just $50 at Verizon, a savings of $30 from its regular price. The carrier is offering all three colors at the discount, so you can pick between slate, snow, and crimson. The Daydream View allows you to experience tons of great VR content right from your phone wherever you are, and doesn’t have a huge initial startup cost. If you’re looking to dabble into the world of Virtual Reality, this is a great way to get started!

Verizon is also offering free shipping on all orders right now, so be sure to get your order in before the price jumps back up again. Which color will you be picking up? Let us know in the comments!

See at Verizon

Google Home vs Amazon Echo: Which has the better speaker for music?

Which sounds better, Google Home or Amazon Echo?

For those of us without dedicated stereo systems in the house, smaller connected speakers are great. Some of them are portable enough to follow you around the house with its own battery, while others connect to the wall and focus on delivering the best possible audio you can get from a Bluetooth or Chromecast Audio connection (which isn’t super great, but that’s a story for another time).

Connected Home speakers, like Amazon Echo and Google Home, aim to improve that home audio experience while offering a ton of other tech inside. For the most part they do a good job replacing your average $100 Bluetooth speaker, but if your goal is to get the best possible sound for your space there’s going to be some clear differences between these systems.

Here’s everything you need to know about choosing between Amazon Echo and Google Home, assuming all you are looking for is a decent speaker to play music with.

Amazon Echo

Where most speakers have been designed to be set up somewhere and pointed in the direction you want to hear sound, Amazon Echo has been built to push sound in every direction. The speaker grille on this cylinder wraps all the way around, because the speakers in this system are actually pointed down at the surface it is resting on. You can basically set this speaker anywhere and ensure you get the same audio quality everywhere, but because the speaker needs to be connected to power you’re likely to position it near a wall.

Amazon claims Echo includes a 2.5-inch woofer for bass response and a 2-inch tweeter for higher notes, and combined they deliver great sound. What this means in the real world is Echo is fantastic at spoken word podcasts (and Alexa, obviously) as well as most instrumental music. You aren’t going to get a deep bass feel from this speaker, even if you’re up close, but for a speaker its size the woofer/tweeter layout means Echo can get very loud before audio sounds distorted. This is great for larger spaces, but less useful for your average bedroom or kitchen.

See at Amazon

Google Home

It may look like Home and Echo are built similarly with a wraparound speaker grille, but in fact Google’s speaker is designed to be tucked away against a wall or in a corner. If you lift Home out of its bottom shell you’ll see what looks like three speakers, with a Micro-USB port in the back for diagnostics. Standing behind Google Home clearly sounds different as a result, but if you’re sticking this on a shelf or on a corner end table that’s not going to matter to you.

According to Google, Home includes a 2-inch driver with a pair of 2-inch passive radiators, which allows for clear highs and rich bass. What this means in the real world is a speaker that can deliver solid mids and a little more bass than you’d expect. Google Home isn’t the most crisp speaker ever when it comes to spoken word podcasts, but music from these speakers has a healthy amount of body as long as you keep the volume under 75%. Trying to crank Google Home up to 11 will quickly introduce distortion, which makes this speaker less ideal for larger spaces but is better than average in most other spaces.

See at Best Buy

Which is better?

There’s a few things to keep in mind when deciding “best” in this situation. Amazon Echo is able to get much louder than Google Home without distortion, and handles spoken word and most instrumental music better. As a single speaker it is perfectly capable, but the speaker placement makes everything sound farther away (insert echo joke here). Google Home will fill a room with music that sounds like it is coming from a more expensive speaker, but if you’re trying to fill a large space with music or you’re big into podcasts, this isn’t the best experience.

Each problem with the design of these two speaker systems has a solution offered by the manufacturer. Amazon realizes not everyone’s speaker tastes are identical, so the Echo Dot can connect to whatever speaker you want. Google Home is built on the Google Cast framework, which means you can connect multiple Google Home or Chromecast audio speakers together and create a whole-home stereo system you control with your phone.

Either solution would be a functional workaround for whatever your personal needs are, but if we’re looking at the capabilities of a single speaker it’s clear Google Home is the best speaker for music and Amazon Echo is the best speaker for just about everything else.

Amazon Echo

• Amazon Echo review
• Echo Dot review
• Top Echo Tips & Tricks
• Tap, Echo or Dot: The ultimate Alexa question
• Amazon Echo vs. Google Home
• Get the latest Alexa news

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Google Home

• Google Home review
• These services work with Google Home
• Google Home vs. Amazon Echo
• Join our Google Home forums!

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Should we get our hopes up again for cloud gaming?

“We, in no way, take credit for the idea.”

LiquidSky CEO Ian McLoughlin knows video game streaming isn’t a new concept. For years, various companies have promised players they’d be able to load up any game on any device via cloud streaming. Play the latest Fallout on an Android tablet or boot up the new Witcher at max settings on a four-year-old MacBook Air. It sounds too good to be true, and since the early 2010s, it has been.

LiquidSky is the latest company to promise low-latency game streaming. The premise is simple: Play any game you own on any Windows, Mac, Android or Linux device, no matter how outdated or powerless it may be. Every LiquidSky user gets access to a unique SkyComputer, where he or she can install new games, including titles like Overwatch and League of Legends, on a virtual high-end PC, or access their existing libraries from Steam, Battle.net, Origin and others. Play any of these games on any device at any time.

Once again, it all sounds too good to be true. McLoughlin is well aware of this fact. As a programmer and creator of LiquidSky, he’s studied the turbulent, cash-sucking history of video game streaming services.

The most famous example is OnLive, a cloud gaming service that ended up $40 million in debt before finally disappearing in 2015. However, LiquidSky isn’t just copying OnLive’s model in a new technological era. McLoughlin thinks he knows where OnLive went wrong structurally — and how to fix it.

“Those guys are pioneers,” he says. “But there comes a time when you are pushing a rock up a hill, so to speak.”

OnLive and other streaming services, such as Gaikai or Nvidia’s GeForce Now, have traditionally used custom servers to handle each user’s heavy lifting. This means the companies install physical servers at crucial locations around the world, and as demand increases, the number of servers also has to increase. It’s a scalability problem, McLoughlin says.

Just look at what happened to OnLive: The company employed a 1:1 concurrency model, which essentially meant there was a series of desktop PCs in a warehouse each hosting one user at a time. Eventually, the company was able to host two or three players at a time, but it was an unsustainable system from the beginning.

“You have a million users flood in, you buy all these servers with massive capital up front, and those users are in different locations. There’s too much latency, and the only games you can play are Lego Batman and Lego Star Wars,” McLoughlin explains. “So you’re left with this massive data center that you can’t do anything with, so they started essentially giving things away for free. Even then, they couldn’t get the users to enjoy the catalog. It was too soon before its time.”

McLoughlin attempts to solve this problem with software rather than more hardware. LiquidSky has partnered with IBM to take advantage of the growing public-cloud ecosystem. All of the data center sites listed on LiquidSky’s website are actually IBM locations, allowing the company to scale in real time at a relatively low cost.

For example, 40,000 people in Turkey recently attempted to access LiquidSky at the same time, and the nearest IBM bare metal server cloud automatically responded to handle the demand, McLoughlin says.

“We knew we weren’t going to be able to take custom hardware and scale it around the world to get close to our users,” he says. “But this big shift happened in the past 10 years in terms of public clouds, and now you can actually use public clouds like Amazon and IBM and the Microsoft Azure Cloud to do high-performance computing, which is enough to get to the point of running a game. That’s sort of where we started building this technology.”

On top of advances in cloud computing, the streaming industry itself has ballooned in recent years; services like Netflix and YouTube have fundamentally changed the way everyday people consume content. Streaming is now commonplace, which means service providers have had to improve their own systems to keep up with demand.

“Them having so many users accessing video content just forced the networking companies to upgrade their routers to stop all the loss from happening,” McLoughlin says.

These factors — the availability of public clouds and vastly improved upload speeds in homes — provide fertile ground for a service such as LiquidSky to take root. Plus, McLoughlin has figured out a way to make LiquidSky free to access, something that existing services like PlayStation Now or GeForce Now don’t offer.

McLoughlin is banking on 2017 to be the year of cloud gaming. It looks like the global technological infrastructure is finally ready to support high-quality, low-latency video game streaming, and major names like Samsung and Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy are throwing their money behind LiquidSky. McLoughlin courted these investors, in part, by proving LiquidSky can work in the real world.

Over the past two years he’s tested out his streaming infrastructure on roughly 1.2 million devices, covering everything from Android smartphones to gaming desktops. That’s another big issue facing streaming service providers — within the PC space, the sheer number of unique devices (and related bugs) is staggering.

When developers build games for the Xbox One or PlayStation 4, they know the precise specs of each console and can focus on tailoring their games to the hardware. This isn’t the case with PC development. There are countless custom PC configurations in the world, and they can each produce unique glitches. Even McLoughlin’s own MSI gaming laptop crashes when he attempts to boot up Battlefield 1 through his SkyComputer, even though his rig can definitely play that game easily on its own.

Device fragmentation is one reason LiquidSky has been in beta testing for two years. In late February, the service will finally start rolling out to the public and the true cloud-streaming trial will begin.

If all goes well, LiquidSky won’t stay contained in the gaming world. McLoughlin dreams of unifying the technology industry through cloud computing. Just like he’s attempting to make every Windows, Mac, Linux and Android device run the same games in the same way, he eventually wants to make cross-platform functionality standard across all industries.

“We want to build a place where you can go in and just click something and it opens,” McLoughlin says. “It doesn’t matter whether it was designed for Android or Windows or Linux or a smart TV; you just click it and it opens. And then you go to a different device, you log into the Sky or it’s already logged in, and you’re right where you left off in that application. That’s sort of how we see this evolving.”

But, for now, the future starts with gaming.

Baidu hires former Microsoft executive VP as it focuses on AI

China’s most popular internet search company has picked up a new group president and COO. Previously at Microsoft and Yahoo (and an authority in artificial intelligence), Dr. Qi Lu might be just what the company needs. Baidu’s profits have slipped from parts of its internet business and Lu will help lead Baidu’s efforts in AI, which already include a smartphone assistant and self-driving cars. The company is already using AI to match advertisers with customers online, but has find new ways to grow after new advertising regulations in China hit its ad business hard.

It still dominates China’s internet search, where it holds an 80 percent market share. In comparison, Google claims just 64% of the US’ web searches. Tech giant Alibaba is also starting to tap into search and ads. Dr. Lu will join Andrew Ng, a former Google executive who founded the company’s artificial-intelligence unit. In a press release, Baidu said that AI was a “key strategic focus for the next decade”. Last year, the company launched a $200 million fund to focus on AI, augmented reality and deep learning.

Baidu has also announced that it will work with mapping company Here to expand its maps into Europe and further. It also opened an augmented reality research lab in Beijing, and is already working with the likes of BMW, KFC and L’Oreal. Including Lu’s hiring announcement, all three announcements were made in the last 24 hours.

The company has already forecasted a 4.5 percent dip in revenue for the last quarter — its full-year earnings report should land next month. In the release, founder and CEO Robin Li said that: “With Dr. Lu on board, we are confident that our strategy will be executed smoothly and Baidu will become a world-class technology company and global leader in AI.”

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Baidu

Atmospheric ‘lens’ could shield troops from laser weapons

How do you defend yourself against laser weapons when they fire at the speed of light? BAE Systems has an idea. It’s developing Laser Developed Atmopsheric Lens technology that, as the name suggests, uses lasers to temporarily ionize the atmosphere to create lens-like structures. If you’re facing a laser attack, you just have to form a lens to serve as a refractive shield. The technology could protect both aircraft and land-based forces from deadly blasts, and it could fill other roles as well.

BAE expects LDAL to be useful for reconnaissance, for instance. You could use it as a magnifying glass to get a clearer look at the enemy than you would with conventional sensors. The lensing system could also create mirages that fool enemies who are still looking for a target to strike.

The technology is very early, to put it mildly. The company imagines LDAL going into service sometime in the next 50 years, which can feel like an eternity in the military world. However, it’s scientifically feasible — the big question is simply whether or not laser weapons will dominate the battlefield to the point where atmospheric lensing is practical.

Via: Wired

Source: BAE Systems

ING Direct Surveying Customers About Apple Pay in Australia

ING Direct appears to be sending a survey about Apple Pay to its customers in Australia, according to a tipster who sent us the photo below.

While the bank has yet to officially accept Apple Pay, the survey suggests support could be imminent for its “Orange Everyday” debit and credit cards.

ING Direct Australia had nearly 420,000 customers with Orange Everyday accounts open as of December 2015. Here’s a list of Apple Pay banks in Australia.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
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