10 Amazon Echo Commands You Must Try
Speak, Alexa, and Enter.
The big feature with every connected speaker is the ability to speak and get something interesting in response. Right now, the connected speaker with the most spoken word features is without a doubt Amazon Echo. The Alexa platform is full of amazing skills and features just waiting for you to enable and test, but that list is considerably longer than most people have time to sort through.
Here’s a look at my favorites, the Amazon Echo commands everyone should try!
Control Time
Alarms are a big part of how I use Amazon Echo. “Alexa, set an alarm for 6am” is right up there with “Alexa, set a timer for 45 minutes” when I tell my kids it is time for quiet reading time. You can set quick alarms and timers for anything, and as long as you’re within earshot of the system, the timer on it can be a lifesaver.
Buy Stuff
Your Amazon Echo can order just about anything available on Amazon, and sometimes you’ll find there are actually sales that are only available by ordering through your Echo. The best part is that Alexa looks at your previous orders, so when you say “Alexa, order more toilet paper” it will confirm you want more of the brand you most recently purchased.
Echo can also be used to track existing orders, so you know whether the FedEx truck is going to be there for you today.
Drinks on Me
Alcohol and Amazon go surprisingly well together. Wine drinkers can call upon the MySomm Skill and say “Alexa, ask Wine Gal to recommend a wine for tacos” and get some thoughts on what you should buy.
Not into wine? The Bartender lets you say “Alexa, ask the bartender, what’s in a Moscow Mule?” and get everything you need in return.
Kitchen Control
Your Echo is the perfect kitchen companion. It will answer any question you have about measurement conversions when you’re trying to tweak a recipe, and if you’re not sure what to make you can ask Trending Recipes for the best new things.
Just say “Alexa, ask Trending Recipes for a recent recipe” and you’ll get a detailed breakdown of something new to make!
Rules Czar
Family Board Game Night is a lot of fun, right until you’re playing the family version of Monopoly with no paper rules and everyone has a different idea of how things work.
Board Game Answers lets you step in and say “Alexa, ask board games how much money everyone starts with in Monopoly” and you’ll get started smoothly.
Find my Phone
When tearing your living room apart looking for the phone you are absolutely sure you set down a few minutes ago, Where’s My Phone is a little closer than your computer.
Just say “Alexa, ask Where’s My Phone to find my phone” and it’ll start ringing for you in a couple of seconds.
Shut Up!
Sometimes all you really want from your Amazon Echo is silence. If loud music is playing or Alexa is in the middle of a lengthy explanation you don’t want to hear, just say “Alexa, Shut Up!” and you’ll get some silence in return. Or, if you just want some background noise, say “Alexa, volume one” and get back to work.
Amazon Echo
- Amazon Echo review
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- Top Echo Tips & Tricks
- Tap, Echo or Dot: The ultimate Alexa question
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- Get the latest Alexa news
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Samsung Galaxy S8 in pictures: Renders and leaked photos of the next Galaxy
All eyes will be on the Samsung Galaxy S8 when it launches later this year. Everyone is all too aware of the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7 and the issues it suffered with the battery, so the Galaxy S8 has to do a lot of things right to regain consumer confidence.
- Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus: Release date, rumours and everything you need to know
Going by the many rumours we’ve already heard about the upcoming flagship, it may well do just that. As has been the case for the past few years, there’s expected to be two versions of the Galaxy S8, but this time round, both are said to come with curved edges as it’s been seen as the more popular option amongst customers.
But what will the phones actually look like? Until they’re officially unveiled, we don’t know for sure, but as ever, that hasn’t stopped designers coming up with their own renders and drawings to show what we could expect.
Some of them are a little out of the ordinary, while others could be incredibly close to the real deal.
Venya Geskin 1
Graphic designer Benjamin Geskin shared some images on his Twitter account in January of what he thought the Galaxy S8 would look like based on rumours at the time. These images showed a screen that dominates the front of the phone, some Samsung branding at the bottom and a single-lens rear-facing camera. The renders don’t however show any physical buttons around any edges, and while they do show a slightly curved screen, the whole phone relatively straight edges.
Venya Geskin 1
Geskin followed up his original renders with a new set that did come with physical buttons on the side, with what appear to be power and volume keys all on the left side. The rear camera has stayed as a single lens, but the flash has been moved from the side of the lens, to at the top of the phone.
Venya Geskin 1
As we approached the end of January, rumours started to appear suggesting Samsung will fit the Galaxy S8 with a dedicated, side-mounted button to access its personal voice assistant, Bixby (originally thought to be called Viv). Venya Geskin once again shared a series of renders that included this button, as well as a slightly more curved screen and more rounded edges. The flash has moved to the left side of the camera, and a new square cut-out has appeared on the right hand side.
- What is Bixby? Everything you need to know about Samsung’s personal assistant
Samsung Display
Samsung Display may have given us an early glimpse of the Galaxy S8 during a promotional video for its new smartphone screen. The phone in the video had incredibly thin bezels and no physical home button on the front, which followed all previous rumours for the device. The only thing that contradicted everything else that had been said of the phone up to that point was it featured a flat design, rather than curved.
CNET Korea
CNET Korea obtained some leaked schematic drawings of both the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, which also showed this new array on the rear of the phone. The drawings explained that the new cut-out to the right of the camera would be for a fingerprint scanner, as it’s where the right index should naturally lie when you hold the phone.
OnLeaks x GearIndia
In early February, Twitter tipster @OnLeaks teamed up with GearIndia to produce a stunning set of rendered images that offered the most likely depiction of the final product. The phones in the renders feature curved screens, curved edges all round, a USB Type-C port, 3.5mm headphone jack – at one point it was claimed Samsung would ditch the headphone port in favour of USB Type-C audio, but those rumours have since been quashed – a single speaker.
- These amazing Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus renders give us our clearest look at Samsung’s next flagship
On the right you can see a button that should be for Bixby and on the left hand side are the volume keys. The renders also take into account the rear-mounted camera with fingerprint scanner positioned next to it.
A photo claiming to be of a real Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone appeared on Chinese social site Weibo, a site where many phones have been leaked before. The photo shows a phone with practically identical features to the ones we’d seen in recent renders, further cementing the idea the S8 will have a screen that will dominate the front of the phone.
‘Orange is the New Black’ season five premieres on June 9th
House of Cards isn’t the only show Netflix is soon bringing back for a new season. The streaming service revealed today that another one of its hit originals, Orange is the New Black, will be premiering its fifth season on June 9th. Last year, Netflix said the series created by Jenji Kohan would be around for quite a while, after announcing it had been renewed for three more seasons (five, six and seven).
In addition to new episodes of Orange is the New Black, Netflix is also debuting Bill Nye Saves the World on April 21st. The new talk show will feature panel discussions, science projects and correspondent reports about “wide-ranging” topics. Altogether, it looks like Netflix viewers have a busy season of binge-watching ahead.
Lenses made from nanomaterials get closer to replacing glass
Researchers recently showed off breakthrough nanomaterial “metalenses” that could replace bulky glass optics. There was one problem, though — it only worked on a single color at a time, meaning your smartphone could only do arty, monochromatic photos. However, the same team at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), has unveiled a new material that works on a spectrum of colors from blue to green, opening up potential applications in specotroscopy, sensing and imaging.
As before, the metalenses are made up of sub-hair-width sized “nanopillars” made from titanium dioxide. By arranging them in specific patterns, they refract light towards a common focal point like a regular lens. Unlike glass optics, however, the materials are ultra-thin. That could one day lead to much less bulky cameras, smartphones and eyeglasses, to name a few applications.
By tweaking the shapes and patterns of the nanopillars, the Harvard team eliminated “chromatic aberration” or color fringing that normally requires bulky optics to fix. The end result is an ultrathin material without optical flaws than could potentially be manufactured more cheaply than a glass lens. “This platform is based on single step lithography and is compatible with high throughput manufacturing techniques such as nano-imprinting,” says PhD student and co-first author Zhujun Shi.
Metalenses also have the potential to resolve finer detail than regular lenses, down to 400 nanometers. Though limited to wavelengths between 490 to 550 nanometers (blue to green, roughly), that makes the latest materials suitable for scientific instruments as well as specific types of imaging. Obviously, it won’t work for cameras until it can handle the complete spectrum of light from red to violet, around 390 to 700 nanometers. Once that happens, it’ll be a game-changer for devices of all kinds.
Source: Harvard SEAS
‘Avatar’ attractions are coming to Walt Disney World in May
Disney CEO Bob Iger has announced that the entertainment giant will soon be opening a park based on James Cameron’s Avatar. From May 27th, visitors to Disney World Orlando will be able to explore a large area based on the hugely successful sci-fi movie, imaginatively entitled “The World Of Avatar”. Based in the park’s Animal Kingdom, fans of everything blue will be able to experience the family-friendly water ride “Na’vi River Journey” and motion simulator ride ‘”Avatar Flight of Passage” as well as Avatar-themed bars, restaurants and gift shops.
In the same report, Iger also revealed that the much anticipated “Star Wars Land” will be coming to Disney’s Hollywood Studios in 2019. While no new info was given on what fans can expect from “Star Wars Land”, during an ABC Disneyland special last year, Harrison Ford revealed the concept art for the world and a few tidbits about the rides.
Interestingly, the rights to the Avatar franchise are actually owned by Fox. When James Cameron first approached that studio with the film in 2006, it initially passed on the project, only greenlighting the production after Disney showed interest a few months later. It was this previous interest in the project that led to the two companies agreeing on an exclusive licensing deal for an Avatar-themed park in 2011. Avatar 2 (the sequel now almost eight years in the making) is scheduled to release in December 2018.
Source: Variety
Samsung factory fire triggered by discarded batteries
Samsung just can’t catch a break when it comes to batteries. The company reports that faulty lithium batteries and other waste products triggered minor fire at a Samsung SDI factory in Tianjin, China on February 8th. No one was hurt, the company says, and it’s largely business as usual at the plant. You won’t have to worry about (further) delays for the Galaxy S8, then.
Even so, this definitely isn’t the kind of news Samsung wanted to hear right now. The company only just answered lingering questions about the Galaxy Note 7’s battery woes — it doesn’t need a battery-related factory fire reminding customers of its problems over the past few months. That’s doubly true when the tech giant had blamed its own SDI affiliate for some Note 7 battery flaws. It’s safe to say that it may take a while before Samsung can leave its painful memories behind.
Source: Reuters
3D stereoview ‘VR’ hellscapes from the 1850s
Not long after photography was born, someone figured out that showing each eye slightly shifted views of the same image makes you think you’re seeing a three-dimensional scene. That idea gave birth to stereoscopic imagery, 3D movies and, eventually, VR. (Victorian stereoscopes even look like steampunk versions of modern VR headsets).
While most early “stereoviews” were black-and-white scenes created for tourists (or porn, of course), French publishers François Benjamin Lamiche and Adolphe Block took the medium in a surreal direction with their “Diableries” depicting hellish scenes. The image above is part of a collection on sale at New York’s Swann Auction Galleries on Valentine’s Day.
Clay miniatures were sculpted in elaborate detail by unknown artists, then photographed using a stereoscopic camera. Artists hand-colored the delicate albumen paper prints with excruciating care, so that the hues matched on both eyes to maintain the 3D illusion. They placed the prints into cardboard frames that could be used with sterescope viewers of the day (below), then applied backing tissue. Pinholes were often poked into eyes, costumes and other parts of the images, then colored to make them glow when struck by light.
Because of the relative opacity of the tissue, the Diableries appear black and white from the front, but turn an infernal technicolor when illuminated from behind. Whoever scores the (beautifully preserved) set at auction will get electric scenes of “Madame Satan” in her boudoir, skeleton bicyclists bringing Mr. and Mrs. Satan back from a shopping trip and a war scene with a flag that says “destruction and fire.”
The images aren’t just meant to be amusingly horrifying (they are that), but also parody the French “bourgeoisie” upper class, the politics of the times and the horrors of war. There are a lot of comedic touches, with a sign at the entrance to hell that says “speak to the concierge” and another for a drink stand that reads “refresh yourself while passing through.”
The lot is up for sale at an price estimate of $600-900, but you might be bidding against Queen guitarist Brian May. Together with a French and US expert, he wrote a book called Diableries that’s accompanied by a Google Cardboard-like sterescope viewer. They also produced Android and iOS apps (complete with a special May-penned soundtrack) but you’ll need a special viewer to see them in 3D.
Via: Hyperallergic
Source: Swann Auction Galleries
Entertainment Network ‘Epix’ Debuts App for Apple TV
Entertainment network Epix today launched an app for the fourth-generation Apple TV, allowing anyone who is subscribed to Epix through a cable provider access to the service’s collection of premium film and television content (via Variety).
For those who haven’t signed up for Epix yet and download the Apple TV app, they can get a four week free trial to test out the service, but afterwards will have to go through the same cable TV provider sign-up process if they wish to continue using Epix.
Although it’s taken a few years to launch, Epix CEO Mark Greenberg mentioned in a statement that the company is now “proud” to have its catalogue of content available for Apple TV users. The content includes around 2,000 movies and original television shows like “Berlin Station” and “Graves.”
“Apple has been a renowned leader in shaping the digital landscape and I’m proud to make our content available on Apple TV,” Mark Greenberg, Epix’s president and CEO, said in a prepared statement.
The Apple TV app will allow Epix users to watch live TV, add videos to a queue, browse movie trailers, and more. Those interested in ordering Epix can visit the company’s website to find out how to do so through compatible paid-TV providers.
Related Roundups: Apple TV, tvOS 10
Tag: Epix
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T-Mobile and Verizon Are Basically Tied in Network Speeds and So-Called ‘Availability’
Verizon is fighting back against T-Mobile’s recent attempts to steal the network spotlight as the so-called “Un-carrier,” according to the results of OpenSignal’s latest State of Mobile Networks report published today.
Verizon regained a statistical tie with T-Mobile in overall network speeds, with an average download speed of 14.63 Mbps versus 14.7 Mbps for T-Mobile, according to OpenSignal. The metric factors in combined 3G and LTE speeds, in addition to the availability of each network technology, which can affect overall speeds.
Meanwhile, T-Mobile came within 2 percentage points of Verizon’s lead in nationwide 4G LTE availability, according to OpenSignal. The report found T-Mobile customers had an LTE connection available to them 86.6% of the time, up from 83.2% in August 2016, compared to Verizon’s leading 88.2% availability.
It is important to note that OpenSignal’s “availability” measurement does not reflect geographical or population-based coverage.
OpenSignal’s ‘Availability’ measures the proportion of time users have network access. By continually measuring whether users have a connection or not we are able to extend our assessment of networks to account for what happens when users are indoors and when they are moving around. We build up a holistic, user-centric measurmement of networks that expresses how users experience them.
The two carriers won or shared every award in every category of the report, leaving AT&T and Sprint with zero accolades.
Verizon still appears to have the faster network in a number of metro areas, including Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.
Verizon ranked highest in speed in 14 of the 36 cities we analyzed, compared to four cities for T-Mobile and one for AT&T, but in seven other metro areas the speed contest between Verizon and T-Mobile resulted in a statistical tie. In three other cities we recorded a draw between AT&T and either Verizon or T-Mobile, while in the remaining markets, we saw ties between three or more operators.
Verizon had the lowest average LTE latency, the delay data experiences as it travels between points in the network, at 59.84 ms, compared to 61.28 ms for Sprint, 61.56 ms for T-Mobile, and 65.62 ms for AT&T. T-Mobile had the lowest average 3G latency at 115.76ms, according to OpenSignal.
OpenSignal said it parsed 4.6 billion measurements collected by 169,683 smartphone users in the fourth quarter of 2016 to gauge the 3G and 4G performance of the “Big Four” networks in the United States: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Read the full report for the complete results and methodology.
Tags: T-Mobile, Verizon, OpenSignal
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Flipboard for iOS Updated With New Deeply Personalized ‘Smart Magazines’
News-focused iOS app Flipboard today announced an update that introduces a new UI which creates custom, curated magazines based on various user “passions.” The Version 4.0 update is said to be a direct response to the overabundance of news sources — from magazines to online outlets and social media — and serve as a way to “effortlessly get you to the things you love.”
The heart of the new update is a featured called “Smart Magazine.” Here users can search and specify specific passions and topics they care about (photography, movies, etc.), and Smart Magazine will create a digital collection of up-to-date stories and news on each topic, and continuously update the section as new stories break. The new tool is said to be curated “by experts and enthusiasts.”
Flipboard 4.0 is a response to our ever-growing ecosystem of publishers, Flipboard Magazines, topics and more. With over 30 million magazines created, thousands of publishers on our platform, and tens of thousands of topics—plus input from social networks like Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn—we re-imagined Flipboard to more effortlessly get you to the things you love.
Long-time readers who follow lots of content should find a more streamlined experience, while new users will be able to dive right into their passions with minimal setup.
Users will be able to pick from a collection of sub-categories once they search for a Smart Magazine passion to follow, and a learning algorithm will improve Flipboard’s news aggregation features over time. On the Home carosuel users can have up to nine Smart Magazines.
Flipboard originally launched on iPad in 2010, and then on iPhone in 2011, accompanied by a Tweet from Phil Schiller who remarked that the app was “very nice.” Since then, Flipboard has gained a bevy of competitors in the online news aggregation space, including Apple News. In 2015 one competitor, Zite, bowed out of the race and encouraged fans to migrate to Flipboard in its stead.
At the time of writing, the update hasn’t hit the App Store yet, but it should appear later in the day. Flipboard is available on the iOS App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Tag: Flipboard
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