Digital Offers: Learn to code with Python for only $22.50

Just about everything relies on some type of code nowadays. Cars are computerized; we use computers all day long, and we’re glued to our smartphones from sunup to sundown. Python is a major coding language for apps and it’s an excellent tool if you’re wanting to enter the field of software development, especially if you want to build apps for a living.

Use code LEARN50 for additional savings! Learn More

But you can’t just learn to code with Python overnight. You need training, and Python may not be offered at your college of choice. Or, you already have a full-time job and don’t have the time to attend classes, day or night. You need online courses and you need to be able to take them at your leisure — even if that means it takes a couple years.

The Python Power Coder Bonus Bundle is a great way for you to get started and to learn to build apps from scratch and learn web programming, as well as other applicable skills that you can use to forge your career as an app developer or programmer. You’ll get lifetime access to eight courses, totaling roughly 70 hours of content, and you’ll build 17 apps during your studies.

Were you to go anywhere else for these courses, you’d end up paying over $700. But right now through Android Central Digital Offers, you’ll only pay $22.50 for the whole bundle when using the code LEARN50. That’s eight courses, over 600 lessons, and about 70 hours of content for over 93% off.

Save 93% on this bundle for a limited time! Learn More

It’s a great time to get into the world of app development and programming for the web, but you first need the tools to get a foot in the door. Python is one of the biggest coding languages when it comes to apps and learning to use it and use it well is an invaluable asset right now. But don’t pay over $700 for courses. Get the Python Power Coder Bonus Bundle for only $22.50 with code LEARN50 through Android Central Digital Offers.

Microsoft rolls out Skype Lite in India with support for biometric authentication

Skype Lite is designed to work on slow cellular connections in India.

After Facebook Lite and YouTube Lite (which is dubbed YouTube Go), it is now Microsoft’s turn to roll out a 2G-friendly version of Skype in India. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella showed off the app at an event in Mumbai earlier today, highlighting the fact that it was built at Microsoft’s development facility in Hyderabad and tested extensively in India.

Skype Lite lets you make audio and video calls to other Skype users, with the service automatically switching to HD calls once it detects that it’s on a fast connection. The app itself is lightweight, coming in at just 13MB, and comes with SMS support, along with a built-in filter that blocks spam messages. You’ll be able to easily track the app’s data usage, and it also features chatbots that provide the latest news or sports scores.

To facilitate adoption in India, Skype Lite is available in seven regional languages: Gujarati, Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. One of the key features of the app is Aadhaar integration, which allows the service to hook into the government’s vast database (over 1 billion) of registered users to verify their identity. Microsoft is touting the Aadhaar integration for virtual interviews, wherein a recruiter can authenticate an interviewee by requesting their Aadhaar details. The integration will go live in June 2017.

For now, Skype Lite is limited to the Indian market, and there’s no information to suggest it will be heading to other markets.

Grab an LG V20, Samsung Galaxy S7 or S7 edge for just $360 at T-Mobile

Right now at T-Mobile you can grab an LG V20, Samsung Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge for just $15 a month, or $360 full price, which is a savings of more than $300 on any of the phones. The discounts here are instant, so you don’t have to wait for a rebate card to be mailed to you or monthly credits to appear on your bill. T-Mobile has already started pushing the Nougat update out to both Samsung phones, and the V20 of course launched with it, so you’ll be able to run the current version of Android on either option without a problem.

• LG V20
• Samsung Galaxy S7
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge

This offer is only available for a limited time, so if you want to pick one up be sure to grab one now! You can take advantage of this as a new customer, or an existing one.

See at T-Mobile

For more great deals on tech, gadgets, home goods and more, be sure to check out our friends at Thrifter now!

Best Science apps for kids

Science is awesome, and with these apps your kids will learn that too!

Children are like little sponges that can soak up the world around them. While that includes the mannerisms of their parents and their environment, this is also when you have a chance to show them the wonder of science and have them get excited about it. While there are plenty of different ways to go about getting your child excited about science, you should definitely remember that there are plenty of apps out there specifically made to introduce children to the wide world of science — from learning about genetics through fun games to finding new science experiments that can be done with household supplies!

Here are the best science apps for kids:

• Kid Science Amazing Experiments
• Alchemy-Genetics
• Animal Kingdom Science for Kids

Kid Science Amazing Experiments

One of the easiest ways to get your kids intrigued about the wide world of science is by showing them some cool experiments. That’s exactly what this app is made for. It has access to a bunch of different experiments that can be done safely within the confines of your home. This interactive app will first show you how to complete experiments, by having you complete them on the screen using step-by-step instructions. As you complete an experiment, the next one will become open to you.

While the app does focus on what is happening on-screen, it uses experiments that can be easily built in the real world as well. This means that your child can complete an experiment in the game, and then you can help them to recreate it in the real world. Many children learn through action, so by being involved in the experiment, they’re able to see how everything works. The amazement on their little faces when they see how things happen is worth the mess just about every time.

If Kid Science Amazing Experiments is right up your child’s alley, then it’s also worth checking out their other educational apps. These include a variety of other science learning apps for kids, like learning body parts or more advanced experiments to try out.

Download: Kid Science Amazing Experiments (free)

Alchemy – Genetics

Making learning fun is the easiest way for children to learn something new, because it keeps them interested and engaged. Alchemy-style games follow a basic premise: by combining one or more items, you can create something new. Alchemy – Genetics takes this premise and puts a little spin on it. In this game, your goal is to combine different animals in order to discover new breeds. You start with just 3 animals, with over 500 to discover. Your child will need to figure out which combination of the animals you have already discovered will allow them to find new creatures, and every animal you can unlock within the game is a real animal.

Now there isn’t much instruction when you get started. You’ll see a chart up at the top of the screen showing which animals you are trying to combine, with a small television screen to the right, which will show the newly discovered animal after a successful combination. At the bottom of the screen, you’ll see three beakers — by tapping on them you can get instructions on how to play, as well as hints to help you find new animals. Tapping on the pink beaker to the left will give you instructions and controls for playing the game. The purple beaker in the middle will show you all the animal species that you have unlocked and are able to use in combinations. The blue beaker on the right will give you hints about animals you can unlock using the animal species you already have open to you.

While Alchemy – Genetics can be a little bit difficult to get started with, it’s fun and easy to play once you get going. As your child unlocks new animal species, they will learn about animal species, traits used in genetics, and how animals can evolve into something new and strange. For anyone with a budding Biologist or Geneticist on their hands, this is a great option to continue fostering a love of Science. If you aren’t a fan of ads, but your child falls in love with the game, you can get rid of them by upgrading to the full version of the game for $0.99.

Download: Alchemy – Genetics (free, premium version $0.99)

Animal Kingdom Science for Kids

Animals are all around us everyday, and they’re a walking, breathing example of how amazing Science can actually be. If your child is constantly asking questions about animals, then this may be the app to get them more involved. Your child will have to answer questions in order to rescue animals. These questions ask things like where an Alligator moves fastest and what a Fish uses to breathe. While they will need to be able to read and answer multiple choice questions, these are not mind-bending zinger.

After they have finished a quiz, they will have rescued one of the animals available in the menagerie of beasties within the app. That animals will now show up in their Safari screen, where they can see the animals they have managed to get to safety. To unlock each of the 12 animals, they will need to complete a new quiz with new questions. While some of the questions can be a little bit tricky, this is a game that should be easily doable for those in Elementary school or who have already picked up reading without a problem.

There are a good number of ads on this app, but if your child is playing on a tablet instead of a phone, then they are far less distracting and in the way.

Download: Animal Kingdom Science for Kids (free)

Conclusion

Getting your child interested in Science doesn’t have to be a difficult task. After all, inquisitive little minds are always asking questions, and science can help them find the answers for themselves. Whether they need a visual experiment to see science fundamentals in action, or they’re content with learning about animals via quizzes on their screen, there is definitely an app out there to help get them engaged.

Do you already have a favorite science app for your kids? Is there an excellent science app for children that we failed to mention here? Be sure to drop us a comment below and tell us all about it!

Every Chrome VR site you can visit through Google Daydream

Now you can browse the internet in VR with the help of Daydream.

It’s hard to believe that it’s only been two years since VR rejoined our cultural consciousness, since it seems to be everywhere these days. Previously the only way to enjoy VR with your phone was by downloading Cardboard or Daydream apps from the Play Store. However it looks like those days are quickly coming to an end. If you missed the news this week, Google has announced that you will be able to browse Chrome with a Daydream headset. It’s up to individual sites to implement Chrome VR, but there are already a ton of great experiences that you can check out in VR from Chrome.

Read more on VRHeads.com

Which smart lights should you use with Amazon’s Alexa?

Alexa, turn off the Bedroom lights.

When you think about making your home “smarter”, the first thought is usually towards the thermostat or your front door — things you have to drop everything to interact with. Lights are usually high on the connected home list, because for most people, using lights has been a part of everyday life since birth. Light switches are usually available as soon as you enter a room, and most people look for the cheapest possible way to light their home without needing to constantly replace bulbs.

There’s a lot more to lighting your home than flipping a switch, though. Connecting your lights to your home, especially a home ready to use Amazon’s Alexa service, makes a huge difference. Here’s how you choose the right lights for you and Alexa!

Not all connected lighting setups are created equal

Step one for connecting your lights to Alexa is looking at your current lighting and deciding what needs to change. This is going to be a little different for everyone, but there are a few general options available.

Make your bulbs smarter — if you’re currently running whatever was cheapest at the hardware store and have never considered LED lighting at all, all of your bulbs will likely need to be replaced. This leaves you with a lot of options, but will end up being fairly expensive no matter what route you go.

Make your light switches smarter — If you already have nice LED lights in your house, you may not need to replace your bulbs at all. There are smart light switches that will connect to your existing wiring and talk to Alexa in a way that lets you control entire rooms without replacing a single bulb.

Make your outlets smarter — If you have rooms in your house that don’t have wired lighting, and you already have lamps and bulbs you like, there are smarter power outlets that will talk to Alexa and allow you to control the lights in that room without replacing bulbs or light switches.

Do you know which upgrade you need to make? Lets take a look at the best hardware for your situation!

The best way to make your bulbs smarter

If you’re replacing all of the light bulbs in a particular room, you want lights that will quickly connect to Alexa just the way you want. You also want something that will make it easy to grow beyond a single room without a lot of extra effort. Here are the options available to you!

Philips Hue

Philips has been working on connected lighting longer than just about anyone else, and its Hue brand has a wide selection of lighting options to choose from. This includes standard lightbulbs, downlights, accent lights, and modular LED strips that can be added to just about any environment.

Hue bulbs are available in a standard white light option, as well as a fully configurable color solution, and have more third-party support than any other lighting setup right now.

See on Amazon

TP-Link

Connected bulbs are expensive, even when compared to standard LEDs. While it’s nice to know these bulbs will basically function forever, it’s still a lot of money up front to make your home lighting smarter. The TP-Link LED bulbs make this a little easier to swallow with a noticeably lower per-bulb cost.

There are fewer options available through TP-Link, but if all you want is a way to connect lights through Alexa, these bulbs are a great way to fill your house with smarter lights.

See on Amazon

The best way to make your light switches smarter

If you’re already really happy with the lighting in your house and just want the lights to respond to your voice through Alexa, it’s possible you only need to replace your light switches. Smart switches can replace your existing switches with physical on, off, and dimmer functions but also connect that wiring to your home so you can use apps or voice to control everything.

Lutron Caseta

These switches make it easy to connect entire rooms to Alexa and are considerably less expensive than replacing all of the lights in your house. The replacement switch will work similarly to your existing switch and comes with a remote control so you can adjust the lighting without leaving the couch or shouting at Alexa.

This is the best option for people who have already put some thought into the temperature and brightness of the bulbs in their home and just want a little more control without walking over to the switch.

See on Amazon

The best way to make your outlets smarter

Some rooms aren’t big enough to justify a complicated dimmer switch and aren’t wired with light sockets in the ceiling. You plug in a lamp or two and it is enough to fill the room. While this is a great excuse for lighting a room entirely on floor or ceiling mounted LED strips, a more practical solution is to make your outlets a little smarter so the outlet itself is acting when you speak to Alexa.

GE Lighting Control Receptacle

The best connected home tech is the kind that disappears entirely while doing the cool thing you want it to do, and GE’s receptacles do exactly that. These outlets are installed just like any other outlet, with a final step that allows you to connect to Alexa so you can voice control the outlet on and off.

It’s simple, inexpensive, and can be used for a lot more than just lights if you were so inclined.

See on Amazon

SmartThings Outlet

If you only have one lamp you want to connect to Alexa and you aren’t interested in doing any installations, it doesn’t get much easier than the Samsung SmartThings Outlet. You plug it in, tap the button, and sync the outlet to an app on your phone. That app shares the connection with Alexa, which allows you to control the power headed to whatever is connected to that outlet.

This is the best way to quickly connect a lamp to Alexa and is simple enough that anyone can do it in minutes.

See on Amazon

Enlighten us

Are you already using smart lights, switches, or outlets? Which do you use? Let us know in the comments below.

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

Amazon

ICYMI: Bulletproof origami shields and hoverbikes

Today on In Case You Missed It: Finally, the best part of Return of the Jedi is becoming a reality. Hoversurf Inc. is building actual hoverbikes for folks to ride. Well, not right away. It’ll be a few years before you can buy one. But at least we can start saving all your nickels and dimes for a time when we can go barreling through the Redwoods like Luke and Leia.

Meanwhile researchers at Brigham Young University have created an origami-inspired bulletproof shield for law enforcement. The 55 pound foldable cover has 12 layers of Kevlar, deploys in five seconds and can currently stop bullets from handguns like the .357 Magnum. Not bad for a prototype.

As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.

Microsoft creates a low-data version of Skype for India

Skype’s place as the original gangster of internet messengers means that it’s never had to watch its weight, until now. Microsoft has put the app on a diet to announce Skype Lite, a slimmed-down messenger designed for countries like India. You’ll win no prizes for guessing that the Android app will heavily compress images and video and is intended to work reliably even on India’s 2G wireless infrastructure.

Microsoft is proud of its new creation, and is boasting that Skype Lite was “built in India, for users in India.” The app also has a bundle of India-specific features, including SMS filtering, mobile data and WiFi usage monitoring and local Skype bots. The company is also working on bringing India’s national identity scheme, Aadhaar, into the app to enable callers to verify who they are speaking to. Skype Lite also supports seven languages, including Gujarati, Hindi and Urdu, and is available to download right now.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Google Play, Microsoft

Our digital future as a ‘Forest of Numbers’

Over the next ten years, we’ll see ever-faster chips, artificial intelligence and exponentially more data. Forest of Numbers, an exhibition by architect Emmanuelle Moureaux at the National Art Center of Tokyo (NACT) gives viewers a chance to contemplate that future by gazing into what looks like a never-ending string of digits. Careful observers will also spot two girls and a cat, showing that there’s humanity buried somewhere in our digital future.

NACT is an “empty museum” without a permanent collection — exhibitions merely pass through the expansive 14,000 square meter space. It was a hit from the start, however, welcoming over a million visitors just three months after opening in 2007 with an exhibition of works by French impressionist Monet. It’s appropriate, then, that NACT is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a dreamy piece by expat French architect Moureaux.

Emmanuelle Moureaux Architect

A Tokyo resident since 1996, she’s known for using rainbows of colors as architectural elements. Her technique is called “shikiri,” which means dividing or creating space with color. She uses hues not just for cosmetic reasons, but as a way to create three-dimensional layers within spaces. The technique is inspired by the density and colors of Tokyo’s complex streets and traditional Japanese elements like sliding screens.

The NACT exhibition hews to that theme, filling the 6,500 square foot “White Cube” special exhibition gallery room with 60,000 numerical figures. That’s divided into ten layers representing the next decade from 2017 to 2026, each with the four numbers from 0 to 9 of its respective year. The digits range across 100 colors from yellow to violet, as part of Moureaux’s “100 colors” theme exhibited at sites in Japan, the US, Spain and elsewhere.

Hanging the 60,000 colored numbers required the cooperation of 300 volunteers, according to the description on Moureaux’s site. Given how dramatic the piece is, it’s unsurprisingly been widely shared on social media, helping draw 20,000 visitors during the ten days it was exhibited. (See the video here.)

Apple’s Presence in Cambridge Office Confirmed, Reportedly Centering on Siri Research

Over two years ago it was reported that Apple was planning on opening a new R&D office in Cambridge, England, and after that multiple reports suggested that the company was primarily working on Siri research at the location.

Besides a few job posts Apple never formally admitted to being the occupant at 90 Hills Road in Cambridge. This week, however, Cambridge News has spotted confirmation of Apple’s presence in the city, in the form of the Apple logo appearing on signage outside of the office building.

For the last two years Apple has been tight-lipped about its office in Cambridge, but now it seems the iPhone maker is ready to come out of the closet.

The tech giant has repeatedly refused to confirm it is operating out of 90 Hills Road, next to the entrance of the Botanic Gardens. But now its iconic logo has appeared on signage outside the building.

News of the office in Cambridge began in November 2014, and then one year later in November 2015 Cambridge News reported that Apple was hiring staff in the area to work on Siri. That rumor came in the wake of Apple’s acquisition of the UK-based startup VocalIQ, which specializes in speech technology and finding ways for users and computers to have a more natural dialogue.

Now, it is believed that more than 30 employees — including former staff from VocalIQ — are at work at the Cambridge office. Today’s report states that the workers at 90 Hills Road are “developing new versions of Siri to compete with the likes of Amazon and Google.” Last month, industry sources stated that Apple is working on “enhanced Siri” capabilities for future iPhones, citing another Apple acquisition (machine learning startup Turi), while also mentioning the company’s desire to best its competitors in the AI assistant space.

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