Save 15% on any accessory or case from Otterbox right now!

Right now you can save 15% on any single item at Otterbox with coupon MN15OFFOB, making it even more affordable to add some great protection to your phone or tablet. Otterbox has been around for a few years and is well-known for its protective cases for phones like the Google Pixel XL, Samsung Galaxy S7, and many others. Recently the company started offering some more stylish, thinner options, like the Symmetry line and even offers tempered glass screen protectors for select devices.

Whether you want to pick the colors and design your own protective case, or just want something a bit slimmer with some style, there is likely a case to meet the design you have in mind. You can also find a number of different chargers, armbands, and more. This coupon is only good for a single item, so be sure to pick the one you want and use code MN15OFFOB to save 15% on the purchase. Which case will you be picking up? Let us know in the comments!

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Top 9 things to know about the NVIDIA Shield Android TV

The Shield is the most exciting box in the Android TV space, and there’s a lot to learn about it.

Before NVIDIA got into the Android TV game back in 2015 the market was lacking a true top-of-the-line offering. Now in 2017, the second generation box is still leading the pack as the go-to set top box if you want the absolute best the Android TV platform has to offer. With powerful internals, great peripherals and big time gaming chops, it can be the choice for so many people who are willing to spend the $199 for one.

We have nine things you should know about the Shield Android TV, whether you’re still thinking about picking one up or already have it at home.

It’s made for 4K and HDR video

Just about every set top box has a model that can handle 4K, but you don’t always have 4K resolution and HDR like the Shield Android TV offers. If you have a 4K HDR TV then this will be one of the boxes on your short list — the specs inside can handle silky smooth video even with the latest standards, but just as importantly it also offers 4K HDR content from Netflix and Amazon Video.

Sure you’ll still watch a majority of things in 1080p or in 4K without HDR, but knowing that the Shield Android TV is ready to go for anything new that comes is great. And considering how well NVIDIA has supported its original Shield Android TV even after its predecessor arrived, you shouldn’t have any issue using this for a long while.

You can use any USB or Bluetooth peripheral

When you buy a Shield Android TV you’re not just stuck with what’s included in the box — dual USB 3.0 ports on the back and Bluetooth inside let you expand it in many ways. When it comes to adding extra peripherals to the box, if it has a USB-A plug then you can pretty much count on it working. Whether that’s a keyboard and a mouse, a USB flash or hard drive, gaming joystick or web cam — plug it in and it’ll play nice.

That also extends to Bluetooth, where you can pair a set of headphones or your own game controller even if it isn’t from NVIDIA. Of course the app or game you intend to use with it will need to support it, but knowing that you can extend your system with other standard peripherals is great.

Old Shield Wireless Controllers work just fine

The newly redesigned Shield Controller is a big step forward from the original, but it’s important to know that if you already have older version of the controller they’ll work just fine as well. There are differences in the button layouts and overall feel, but everything will interact with the system (and more importantly, games) just how you expect.

If you connect your old Shield Wireless Controller it’ll likely update your controller’s firmware (which will happen automatically) so it can interact fully with the Shield Android TV, but after that you’ll be loading up some great multiplayer gaming.

The new Shield Remote isn’t rechargeable

NVIDIA redesigned its Shield Remote and Shield Controller, making overall changes for the better on both peripherals. The new Shield Remote is included with the box, whereas it used to be a $50 add-on, but it also made a big change to how it’s powered. Rather than being recharged over Micro-USB like the controller, the remote is powered by two coin cell batteries that offer one year of battery life.

Assuming you keep the Shield Android TV for over a year, or use the remote a ton, you can swap out the batteries — but with typical use NVIDIA says you won’t have to worry about that more than once every 12 months. That’s undeniably a better situation than having to plug in your remote every week or two, and it means you aren’t going to constantly pick up your remote only to find out it’s died sitting on the table.

There are now notable differences in the Shield Pro

With the newly redesigned Shield Android TV, NVIDIA has kept around the higher-end “Pro” model for those who need a little more from their set top box and are willing to shell out an extra $100 for it. The Shield Pro has the same larger form factor as the first-gen box (meaning it also has nicer external hardware, for what it’s worth), and that means it has also retained a few features: a 500GB hard drive, an SD card slot and an IR receiver for use with universal remotes.

For those who plan to use their Shield Android TV for lots of local media storage or have a dependency on an IR-based universal remote, that Shield Pro may seem like a great deal for an extra $100. Chances are most people will be better off with the standard $199 base model, though — weigh the options before making a buying choice.

Adoptable storage may be in your future

If all you’re looking to get out of the higher-end Shield Pro is more storage, you may be better off saving your $100 to just buy an external drive for the standard Shield Android TV. Even though it no longer has an SD card slot, the Shield can still accept USB drives to vastly expand its 16GB of internal storage.

That means you can plug in an external hard drive if you want lots of storage, but most people will probably manage with just plugging in a USB flash drive. Any flash drive that’s USB 3.0 will work, but we have a handful that we recommend for the best experience. For less than $50 you could add 128GB to your Shield Android TV — that’s a great feature.

Android TV has come a long way, but still needs some help

Android TV has gained lots of polish, small features and dramatically more apps since being introduced at Google I/O 2014, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. The interface is pretty slick, intuitive and even a bit customizable, but the app experience still isn’t great across the board.

Thankfully you’ll now find most of the big names like Netflix, Amazon Video, HBO GO, Hulu, ESPN, Fox Sports Go, Sling TV, Plex and Kodi. But the apps aren’t all of the high quality you may expect from a set top box, and they still all live in their own silos to be opened one at a time and used independently with their own interfaces and quirks. There’s still a bit of a learning curve, for sure.

The ability to use Google Cast definitely helps fill in any gaps you may have, though, with the Cast experience from mobile apps on your phone or tablet sometimes being smoother and simpler than using a native Android TV app. We recommend to always give the local Android TV apps a try first, but just remember that Casting from your phone may be an option as well.

This is THE set top box for gaming

NVIDIA does its best to close the gaming gap on Android TV with three different plans of attack. The first is a robust (and growing) set of NVIDIA-exclusive native Android titles, typically ports of older well-known games that used to require a big and bulky console to play. They’re designed to work with the Shield Controller, and run great on the box’s hardware.

NVIDIA’s three-pronged gaming approach makes a compelling offering.

The next is GeForce Now, which is an innovative system that lets you stream big-name titles from an NVIDIA server directly to your Shield Android TV. Assuming you have enough bandwidth (not always a given), you can play games in 1080p 60 fps with great responsiveness. It costs just $7.99 per month and includes over 60 titles, and there are additional brand new games for sale as well.

The final pillar of the gaming story is GameStream, which requires an NVIDIA-powered gaming PC on your local network. With some configuration, you can stream hundreds of the latest games from your home PC to the Shield Android TV.

NVIDIA has a complete list of the games available across all three platforms right here.

Once you have GeForce Now and GameStream configured it’s a near-seamless experience no matter where your games are coming from, and they’re all listed together in your gaming library. The bottom line here is that this is the set top box to get if you’re going to be gaming — the others just don’t compare.

You can tweak the green LEDs

This is perhaps the smallest of the tips here, but it needs said because you probably wouldn’t go looking for it yourself. You may notice when you wake up your Shield Android TV that the slice of angular green plastic on the top of the box lights up — and it turns out you can change the intensity of that light as well!

Head into your Settings, System, LED Brightness and set it between high, medium, low and off. The new Shield Android TV still has some green to it even when you have the LEDs set to “off” because the plastic itself is tinted, but when you turn the lights off it isn’t distracting in the way that the “high” setting can be in a dark room.

NVIDIA Shield Android TV

• Read our Shield Android TV review
• The latest Shield Android TV news
• Shield vs. Shield Pro: Which should I buy?
• Join the forum discussion
• Complete Shield Android TV specs

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T-Mobile offering free Hulu for a year to some disgruntled DirecTV Now users

T-Mobile will never stop taking shots at its competitors.

Late last year T-Mobile took a swing at AT&T to offer a free year of the DirecTV Now streaming service for those who switched carriers … but unfortunately, DirecTV Now has had a pretty rough start loaded with service interruptions and bugs. To make amends, T-Mobile is now offering a year of Hulu for everyone that previously look it up on the DirecTV Now deal in 2016.

If you switched to T-Mobile late last year to get this deal, T-Mobile will send you a notification to get the free Hulu subscription. Simple as that.

Every former AT&T customer who signed up for a free year of DIRECTV NOW will receive a notification from T-Mobile in the coming weeks with a unique code good for a free year of Hulu Limited Commercials service.

An added bonus is that through T-Mobile’s Binge On service, Hulu streaming doesn’t count against your data cap. For a double bonus, T-Mobile is letting you keep the DirecTV Now subscription as well just in case it gets its act together and makes things work later in 2017.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella joins Starbucks’ board of directors

Starbucks has long had a fondness for technology in its coffee shops, and it’s now reflecting that philosophy in its directors. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has just joined the Starbucks board, giving the restaurant chain a major voice from the technology industry. While it’s not clear just what got Nadella on to the board (besides his clout in Seattle-area business), he doesn’t mince words about his potential contribution — he believes his “years of experience” in tech will play an important role.

Notably, Nadella hasn’t been quick to join other companies’ boards. His only other major board membership is at the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, which he joined in 2016.

Just how this will influence Starbucks’ strategy isn’t clear. Nadella is a board member, not an executive, so he won’t be directly calling the shots. However, board memberships have a habit of influencing what companies do — Apple’s Tim Cook has been on Nike’s board since 2005, remember. While you probably aren’t about to order a grande latte with your HoloLens any time soon, it won’t be surprising if Nadella nudges Starbucks toward more extensive uses of tech.

Source: Starbucks

Agriculture Department lifts USDA gag order after public outcry

That didn’t last long. Less than a day after the US Department of Agriculture issued an internal memo dictating that its main research division “not release any public-facing documents” the agency has rescinded that order, according to emails obtained by Buzzfeed.

Under the rule, those public-facing documents would have included “news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content.” This gag order operated in the same vein as Trump’s attempts to silence the EPA, National Park Service and Department of Transportation and Department of Health and Human Services. However, after a day of strident and vocal backlash against the rule from both the scientific community and American public, the department relented.

As Chavonda Jacobs-Young, administrator the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS), told Buzzfeed the order — which was originally written by Sharon Drumm, chief of staff at ARS — should never have been sent in the first place because it was not properly vetted by USDA leadership. “The ARS guidance was not reviewed by me,” Michael Young, the acting deputy administrator of USDA, told the Washington Post. “I would not have put that kind of guidance out.”

As such the gag order is to be “immediately rescinded” and the ARS will follow the USDA’s existing rule to get approval from USDA leadership before answering questions “related to legislation, budgets, policy issues and regulation.”

Source: Buzzfeed

Facebook no longer personalizes trending news topics

Facebook vowed to alter how it handles its Trending topics feature as part of its bid to curb fake news and accusations of bias, and you’re seeing two major changes on that front today. To start, it’s adding headlines and sources next to those topics. You’ll now have context as to why a subject is blowing up without having to click a thing. However, the bigger shift is in how Facebook decides what you see — it’s no longer personalizing stories to match your interests.

From now on, everyone in a given region will see the same topics. This is to make sure you “don’t miss important topics” that wouldn’t otherwise show up in your News Feed, Facebook says. And rather than base trends around activity for a specific article, it’s looking at how many articles are discussing the same subject. You should see hot topics surface quicker, and encounter a “broader range” of news than you saw before.

The move should help Facebook expand its Trending section to more countries, since it helps take human editors out of the equation and can shift the attention to local publishers. However, it should also address concerns that Trending can be an echo chamber that reinforces your existing views. Whatever shows up will reflect what’s popular for the larger Facebook community, not just within your social circle. This will likely downplay interesting niche stories that previously got attention, but it might just help expand your horizons.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Facebook Newsroom

Xbox One update will ditch the console’s signature Snap mode

The Xbox One’s Snap mode was a major selling point on launch — it was supposed to your console into a multitasking powerhouse that lets you play a game while watching TV or tracking achievements. It’s a resource hog, however, and Microsoft now believes that it’s time for a change. The company’s Mike Ybarra has revealed that Snap is disappearing in order to boost performance. It’ll improve multitasking, memory demands and “overall speed,” he says. It’ll also clear resources for “bigger things,” although Ybarra offers no clues as to what that means.

Snap should disappear with the next big Dashboard update, which emphasizes performance and a redesigned Guide that fulfills some Snap tasks (such as background music controls). It doesn’t mean that simultaneous on-screen apps will never come back, though. Now that the Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs can sometimes run the same software, there’s a strong incentive to run games and more functional apps at the same time. It may just be a question of how you run them.

Via: The Verge

Source: Mike Ybarra (Twitter)

Apple to Build 200 Megawatts of Solar Energy in Nevada Through NV Energy Partnership

Apple and Nevada energy company NV Energy today announced a new agreement that will see the two partnering to build 200 megawatts of additional solar energy in Nevada by 2019, which will support Apple’s data center in Reno, Nevada.

NV Energy will soon enter into a power purchase agreement for the solar power plant, and in the future, Apple will dedicate up to five megawatts of power to NV’s upcoming subscription solar program.

Image of Apple’s Reno data center via the Reno Gazette-Journal

“Investing in innovative clean energy sources is vital to Apple’s commitment to reaching, and maintaining, 100 percent renewable energy across all our operations,” said Apple’s vice president for environment, policy and social initiatives Lisa Jackson. “Our partnership with NV Energy helps assure our customers their iMessages, FaceTime video chats and Siri inquiries are powered by clean energy, and supports efforts to offer the choice of green energy to Nevada residents and businesses.”

Apple has expanded its Reno data center multiple times over the course of the last few years, and is working on a second data center at the same location. Apple’s data centers, including the Reno center, are powered by renewable energy, much of which is derived from solar panel farms located nearby the centers.

Apple started building a Reno solar farm back in 2013, and will now expand on it.
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Galaxy Tab S3 leaks reveal Samsung’s next iPad rival

Samsung may finally be ready to launch its long-awaited Galaxy Tab S3. It was expected to be released way back in September at IFA 2016, but alas, nothing showed up. Since then, specifications have allegedly been uncovered by Weibo, and picked up by Sammobile.

• Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 review: A genuine iPad rival?

Weibo’s source claims the iPad rival will come with Samsung’s own Exynos 7420 processor, backed up by 4GB of RAM. However there has since been a conficting report from GFXBench, which says the Galaxy Tab S3 will in fact be powered by a Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor, along with 4GB of RAM.

It’s hard to say right now which processor will be used. Samsung did use it’s own for the Galaxy Tab S2, and the Exynos 7420 is one of the company’s latest. We’ll have to wait for more spec leaks or the official unveiling to find out for sure.

The GFXBench specs also reveal a 2048 x 1536 9.7in display and Android 7.0 Nougat out-the-box.

The Weibo posting says the Galaxy Tab S3 will get UFS 2.0 (Universal Flash Storage) which should result in a slight boost in speed when accessing files and opening apps. Elsewhere there should be a fingerprint scanner and USB Type-C port, there’s no word on whether it will come with a 3.5mm headphone jack. Considering the Galaxy S8 smartphone is expected to hold on to port, we’d hazard a guess and say the tablet will too.

The rear camera is said to be 12-megapixels and internal storage should be 32GB, just like its predecessor.

Sammobile has previously said there will be two version of the Galaxy Tab S3 in terms of screen sizes. The only one we know about so far has a 9.7-inch display. The Galaxy Tab S2 was available in 9.7 and 8in variants, so we expect Samsung to carry this through with the S3. There is also said to be Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi with LTE variants, too.

• Apple iPad Pro 9.7 vs iPad Air 2: What’s the difference?
• Samsung Galaxy S8 vs S8 edge: What’s the story so far?

There’s no official word on when we can expect to see the Galaxy Tab S3 appear, but with Mobile World Congress fast approaching, we’d hope for an unveiling or at least an update soon.

HoloLens is helping engineers visualize building blueprints

With its ability to give the real world a digital assist, mixed reality can be much more useful than the insular cocoon of VR. Microsoft is showing again how HoloLens can help designers via a collaboration with the University of Cambridge’s construction IT lab. “We’ve never been able to bring 3D models from buildings and bridges off our screens and onto the real structure,” says Cambridge’s Ionnis Brilakis. Using the HoloLens, however, engineers can overlay a design onto a real world bridge or building (or vice-versa), making inspections simpler and safer.

The researchers showed two potential use cases for the HoloLens. In the first, called “automated progress monitoring,” inspectors can actually “bring the design information to the construction site” via Microsoft’s HoloLens Sketchup Viewer, says grad student Marianna Kopsida. That way, they can visualize relevant engineering data onsite in order to check building progress and take corrective actions where needed.

In the other scenario, inspectors take high resolution photos on the building site, bring the data back to the office, and overlay it onto a 3D model of the project. “This copy is fully textured, data-rich and an exact replica that can be used for condition testing … to find problems with the structure,” says Cambridge researcher Philipp Huethwohl. That would let inspectors avoid physical inspections, keeping them out of danger and allowing bridges and other structures to remain open.

The research shows that Microsoft is positioning HoloLens as a professional tool and not just a cool way to play Minecraft. Having worked on construction sites, I can imagine the amusement if an inspector were to show up in a VR headset, not to mention the impracticality of mixed reality compared to using real plans. Nevertheless, the device has already shown tons of promise for design and architectural visualization, and given that projects will be fully digital, why not take that data into the field, too?

Source: Microsoft