How to replace Shield Android TV remote batteries

When your remote batteries finally die, swapping them out is a quick task.

NVIDIA redesigned its TV-style remote that comes with the new Shield Android TV so it’s no longer rechargeable, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In turn, you get a remote that gets one year of battery life with average use, meaning you don’t have to think “is my remote charged?” when you go to turn on your TV.

But after a year of use — or perhaps a bit less if you use it a ton — you’ll want to replace the integrated batteries. Thankfully it’s a job that only takes a few minutes and will cost you just a couple of dollars once you know the right batteries to buy.

The batteries you’ll need

Before you can replace the batteries in your remote, you’ll need to buy new ones. The new Shield Remote requires coin cell batteries that you aren’t guaranteed to find in your local drug store, but you can always find them online or at a specialty electronics store (if one still exists near you). The specific version you need is a CR 2032 3V battery, and you’ll need two for your remote.

You can get a two pack for less than $2 on Amazon, so this is an extremely small investment. A reminder when buying batteries online is to check the expiration date if possible — some specialty batteries can often be old and not work very well.

How to replace them

To replace the batteries in your new Shield Remote, pick it up and look at the bottom for the little circular button in the middle — you’ll press that to open the battery tray. You’ll need to use a pretty small implement in order to press the button — I’d recommend a ballpoint pen or perhaps the tine of a small fork — but once you do it’ll pop right out.

Pull the tray out and gently remove the two batteries. Make note of the direction the batteries sit in the tray — the lettering denoting the battery type will be facing you. Once you have them settled in their slots, slide the tray back in snugly and it’ll click closed.

And that’s it! You now have another year of use in your Shield Remote. It’s that easy.

NVIDIA Shield Android TV

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We’re celebrating 10 years of CrackBerry here at AC!

THE RETURN OF CRACKBERRY KEVIN… ON AC?!

It’s hard to believe that 10 years ago, Kevin Michaluk laced up his boots, walked to the local internet cafe and wrote Matrix levels of HTML to get CrackBerry.com up and running (that is what happened, right?).

Well, CrackBerry is still very much alive, and while its output has slowed with the changing nature of BlackBerry the company, it still has hundreds of thousands of diehard readers visiting every month.

‘Mercury’ is the perfect throwback to the halcyon days of QWERTY phones, but running the most powerful mobile OS on the planet.

Many of those readers now also visit Android Central on a regular basis after BlackBerry made the necessary changes to keep itself afloat, first with the Priv then the DTEK50 and DTEK60 — and soon, the ‘Mercury’!

We’re expecting the BlackBerry ‘Mercury’ to be fully unleashed at Mobile World Congress, almost 10 years to the day that CrackBerry.com opened its virtual doors, and to celebrate this momentous occasion, CrackBerry Kevin — yes, that Kevin — is coming out of retirement! You can expect him to be very active on CrackBerry, of course, but because ‘Mercury’ is an Android phone, AC wants to get involved, too. That means tons of coverage on the home page, through social media, and in the forums, going over every aspect of the brand new phone.

If you haven’t checked it out already, we have a wicked hands-on review of the BlackBerry Mercury from CES earlier this year, and while we don’t know everything about it, we know a few things.

First, that it’s the perfect throwback to the halcyon days of QWERTY phones, this time running the most powerful mobile OS on the planet (sorry, BB10 lovers ❤️).

Second, it’s getting all the fans excited for the renewed BlackBerry Mobile, which is now separate from BlackBerry the software company. Of course, the ‘Mercury’ will run BlackBerry’s homegrown flavor of Android 7.0 Nougat, and we’ll be here to dissect all the subtle changes and improvements over the already-great Marshmallow build.

From CrackBerry:

TEN YEARS is a HUGE milestone, and I want to make sure we celebrate 10 Years of CrackBerry this February in true CrackBerry fashion. To me, and to the many of you that weighed with ideas on how we should celebrate, that means bringing back the same crazy energy we had in our early years, both here on the “blogs” and within the CrackBerry and broader BlackBerry Community. Expect crazy giveaways, crazy podcasts, crazy videos, crazy confessions (untold stories of the years gone by), stories highlighting our amazing community members, and way, way, WAY more.

We’re excited to share some of that love, and a few of those giveaways, here on AC! Because even though we operate independently, all the Mobile Nations channels work very closely to ensure that you get a 360-degree view of the mobile ecosystem. With BlackBerry Mobile exclusively releasing Android phones from here on out, look for AC and CB to work even more closely in the months and years ahead. To start, Kevin will be helping us out with some of the ‘Mercury’ coverage, and the rest of the AC team is looking forward to getting our hands on the phone when it is finally unleashed.

Better start exercising our thumbs again!

The Good ‘Ole Days of CrackBerry Are Coming Back for our 10th Anniversary!

Coin officially shutting down product support by end of next month

Coin will be shutting down product services and support as of February 28.

The end is nigh for Coin cards, secure smart payment devices that allow you to store information from up to eight credit, debit or gift cards onto one, digitally secured, wallet-sized card.

Coin had already begun shutting down all their business operations since Fitbit officially acquired the start up back in June of 2016. Now, just seven months after the sale, the company took to the company blog to officially announced that product service and support would be shutting down as of February 28th:

“Effective from February 28, 2017, the Coin product services will officially be shut down. As a result, support through the Coin website or through social media channels will no longer be available.

“If you have a working Coin device, it will continue to work for the duration of the device’s battery life, which is two years from activation date. Please note that functionality will be reduced as a result of the February services shutdown.

For example, the Coin mobile app will no longer work once product services are shut down. Among other things, this means that you will not be able to add or change the cards that are stored on your Coin device.”

If you’re still using your Coin card, you will definitely want to make your final arrangements and shuffle around the cards you plan to be using before that drop dead date, as you will still be free to continue using your Coin cards at your favorite supported merchants until its internal battery finally bites the dust. However, if anything goes haywire after February 28th, you’re officially out of luck.

Also worth noting is that, as of today’s date (January 31), Coins will no longer be covered by or eligible for warranty exchanges.

Fitbit bought Coin for their compact use of NFC technology for secure in-store payments. While neither the Fitbit Flex 2 or Charge 2 featured NFC capabilities to allow you to pay for things with your fitness tracker, we should hopefully start to see the tech included in the next round of product updates — or perhaps in a brand new Fitbit-branded smartwatch?

Google boosts Snapseed by adding a Curves tool and fixing Face detection

It’s as if Google finally realized that a real photo-editing app has Curves.

Snapseed is getting its first major update of the year. The photo-editing app, which Google purchased from Nik Software back in 2012, finally features a Curves tool, which helps provide precise control over the brightness levels and varying colors of the picture you’re editing. And with smartphones becoming almost as capable as the some of DSLRs, this is a welcome feature for those who may not want to carry laptop with them just to edit photos on the road.

Google has also improved Snapseed’s face detection feature. If Snapseed fails to detect a face, for instance, you can essentially ask it to “try harder.” And if you’re hoping to get a bit kooky with your captions, the Text tool now lets you choose where to wrap lines.

You can read all the details of the Snapseed update at the official Google Plus post on the matter. Or you can wait for the app update to hit your device.

Sky, Discovery Channels agree on new deal at the last moment

After much hubbub, Sky and Discovery have come to an agreement.

The two media companies — hours before their previous contract was set to expire, which would have seen TLC, Animal Planet, Eurosport, and more pulled from Rupert Murdoch’s Sky — have announced terms on a final deal for 12 channels. It’s actually the same one offered to Discovery more than a week ago, but thanks to feedback from its viewers, Discovery has finally accepted the proposal.

• What is Sky Q, how much does it cost and how can I get it?

Discovery Communications confirmed the last-minute contract agreement on Twitter on Tuesday. Also, via a statement on its website, the American company gave credit to “the best fans in TV” for pushing the deal along: “We wanted you to be the first to know that we have reached an agreement which means all your favourite channels and programmes will be staying on Sky.”

Under the pact, channels like Animal Planet, Discovery HD, Discovery History, Discovery Home & Health, Discovery Science, Discovery Shed, Discovery Turbo, DMAX, Eurosport1, Eurosport2, Investigation Discovery, TLC, and Quest will not leave Sky on 1 February.

Sky, Europe’s largest pay-TV platform, has 22 million customers in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, and Austria. It also announced Tuesday that it struck a deal with PBS America and is adding over 1,000 hours of programming from channels like History and National Geographic.

GOOD NEWS! All our channels are staying on Sky. We can’t thank you enough for your patience & support. Best fans in TV! #KeepDiscovery pic.twitter.com/twy8PQqBp0

— Discovery Channel UK (@DiscoveryUK) January 31, 2017

‘Witcher’ developer forum hack exposed 1.8 million gamers

If you’re a big enough The Witcher fan to have joined CD Projekt Red’s official forums, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Members signed up to Have I Been Pwned have received emails warning them of a reported hack in March 2016 that compromised over 1.8 million forum accounts. Passwords were encrypted, thankfully, but you’re encouraged to change your login just in case. The issue isn’t so much the actual threat as the lack of notifications — for many, this is the first sign that something went horribly wrong.

As it turns out, the game developer posted about the breach on its forums in mid-December. It touched on many of the details back then, including the encrypted passwords and that it’s a “now-obsolete” database. However, the info stayed tucked away in the company’s official The Witcher news sub-forum, where not many people are likely to go (let alone pay attention to security issues). Even a follow-up complaint on January 31st of this year got moved to a technical support forum where it’s unlikely to be seen. Users are wondering: why didn’t CD Projekt Red email everyone, even if didn’t think the breach was serious?

We’ve asked the company for comment and will let you know if it has something to add. With that said, it’s clear that there’s some room for improvement. Forum hacks certainly aren’t unheard of, but it shouldn’t take several months to put up a forum post, let alone 10 months for most users to find out. If the passwords hadn’t been secure, the damage could have been extensive.

Via: ITPro

Source: CD Projekt Red (1), (2), Have I Been Pwned

Return to Vvardenfell in ‘The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind’

Have you ever been caught up in an Elder Scrolls Online adventure only to look around, yearning for more scrolls of an elderly variety? Well, it looks like your prayers have just been answered as Bethesda just announced that Morrowind is coming to Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) on June 6th.

Imaginatively titled ESO: Morrowind, this expansion takes players back to the island of Vvardenfell, the setting for the seminal Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Existing players can upgrade to the Morrowind edition for $39.99, while new players can get access to both the expansion and existing ESO content for $59.99.

There’s also a digital and a physical collector’s edition, available for $79.99 and $99.99 respectively. While the digital collector’s edition will grant you access to a flurry of exclusive in-game content, the physical version includes a rather badass-looking 12-inch Dwarven Colossus statue, a 176-page book, a map of Morrowind and the obligatory exclusive metallic game case.

So what can gamers expect from this new expansion? Well, Morrowind promises over 30 hours of new story content, a “brand-new” zone (Vvardenfell), a three-team PVP mode (Battlegrounds), a further player class and an additional Trial. Thankfully, it also offers an easy entry point for new players, allowing the uninitiated to jump straight into the Morrowind expansion without having to complete any previous ESO content.

As a purchase includes the original game, newbies will also get instant access to hundreds of hours of older content so they can catch up on what they’ve missed. Like the rest of ESO, this expansion requires no subscription fee. While the game initially launched on PC with the traditional subscription-based MMO pricing model, Bethesda eventually relented, asking gamers just for a one-off payment once the game moved to consoles.

ESO Morrowind is available to pre-order now on PS4, Xbox One, PC and Mac with a pre-order netting players access to ‘The Discovery Pack’ – a collection of exclusive in-game bonus items that includes a cute dwarven war dog pet. For more information on the various different editions available, check out The ESO online store.

Casey Neistat’s Beme service shuts down following CNN deal

And just like that, YouTube star Casey Neistat’s brief stint in mobile apps is over… for now, anyway. As promised, the social video service Beme is shutting down on January 31st following CNN’s acquisition of the app in the fall. You can download an archive of all your clips to preserve them for posterity, but the software will likely have stopped working by the time you read this. The team has hinted that it’s working on “something new,” but you’ll have to look for an alternative if you want to share your life in short snippets.

Beme had a relatively short history, and was defined as much by who was making it as what it did. Neistat first unveiled the app for iOS in July 2015, and it was very much a reflection of the document-everything strategy from his daily video blogs at the time. Its signature trick was the ability to record 4-second clips just by putting your phone to your chest (to cover the proximity sensor), theoretically removing the barrier between you and whatever you were experiencing. With a massive potential audience (Neistat has millions of YouTube subscribers), Beme didn’t have much trouble getting some initial uptake.

The problem: it faced both sagging interest and fierce competition. It wasn’t until June 2016 that a finished public release arrived, and there were major interface revamps as the Beme crew tried to figure out an interface that would keep users hooked. Neistat helped spike demand whenever he mentioned the app in his blogs, but use tended to fade soon afterward. And how was Beme going to lure users away from Instagram and Snapchat, both of which have close-enough video sharing features and much larger communities?

There are some upsides. It’s entirely likely that the lessons learned from Beme will rub off on whatever the developers do for CNN. And even if they don’t, the app may teach other developers a thing or two: having a famous name attached to your project can help its chances, but it still needs to be polished and engaging enough to stand on its own merits.

Source: Marc Wieland (Medium), (Twitter)

Netgear WiFi routers are vulnerable to more security exploits

Netgear’s WiFi router security woes aren’t quite over yet. Researchers at Trustwave are drawing attention to two vulnerabilities that lets anyone recover your router’s administrative password, opening the door to botnets and other hostile takeovers. You’re only susceptible to internet attacks if you’ve enabled administration from outside the network, but anyone who can connect to the local network can take advantage of it. And there’s a real chance that you’re affected — about 31 models are at risk, including higher-end models like the Nighthawk X8 you see here.

The good news? Netgear has been diligent about patching the security hole. As of the report, 19 models (plus a cable modem) already have firmware updates that will fix the flaws. You can also avoid the issue on unpatched routers by manually enabling password recovery and turning off remote management. You won’t have to worry if you’re attentive, in other words. The larger concern is that there are many potential targets. With “hundreds of thousands” of affected routers in the wild (and at least some of them accessible online), it wouldn’t take much for an intruder to cause chaos.

Via: TechCrunch, Tom’s Guide

Source: SpiderLabs Blog, Netgear

ACLU signs on with Y Combinator after $24 million donation

The ACLU, in an average year, fundraises around $4 million. After stridently opposing Trump’s unconstitutional immigration ban last weekend, the civil liberties watchdog was rewarded by the American public with a windfall of donations totalling $24 million — six times its average annual income. On Tuesday, startup accelerator Y Combinator announced that the ACLU is enrolling as part of its Winter 2017 class to figure out how to best utilize this monetary windfall.

The ACLU’s enrollment will give the organization access to YC’s mentorship program which specializes in teaching companies how to best spend their money to attract top talent, make sound infrastructure investments and generally grow both its user base and donor lists. What’s more, enrollment in this program will grant the ACLU access to YC’s network of industry connections afford it the chance to participate in YC’s Demo Day in March. YC will also provide a degree of financing to the civil liberties group, though it will not take an equity stake as it normally would since the ACLU is a nonprofit.

This is an interesting move for Y Combinator, which has been under fire for months for not severing its business ties to Peter Thiel, a staunch Trump supporter and advisor to the administration. YC President, Sam Altman, has defended that decision. “Thiel is a high profile supporter of Trump. I disagree with this,” Altman tweeted last October. “YC is not going to fire someone for supporting a major party nominee. That’s a dangerous path to start down.” That said, public pressure on this issue is clearly having an effect. Over the weekend, Altman published a post on his personal blog calling for tech companies to speak out against the administration’s policies.