Save an extra 70% on all eLearning courses during our annual ‘Dream Big’ sale

We’ve had some great deals on online tech courses already this year, but if you’ve been holding out for a deep discount, you’ll be happy to know our annual “Dream Big” sale is here. Any online courses already on sale will have an extra 70% taken off when you use the code LEARN70 at checkout.

Get an additional 70% off these courses when you use the code LEARN70 at checkout! Learn more

There are a ton of courses on offer here, but there are three that really stand out for their popularity, practicality, and price.

The Complete Android N Developer Course – Build 17 apps

• Regular discount price: $17
• Today’s price: $5.10
• Best for learning a to code a great Android app

Ever have an idea for an Android app that you’d love to see but have no idea how to turn that into a reality? Whether you want to make something simple or complex, this great developer course is something you’ll definitely want to check out. $5 is the cost of many existing apps, so to think that you could invest that into your own app that could make money at some point is a no-brainer decision.

Make your own Android app Learn more

The Complete Web Development Course

• Regular discount price: $29
• Today’s price: $8.70
• Best for understanding web development

So much of our time is spent on the internet these days, and that means there is a ton of opportunity there. From designing websites to coming up with the next big social network, it all requires an understanding of web development to get started. This great course will help you get started with the basics and pick up some of the needed skills to put you on your way to launching a site of your own.

Discover the beauty of web development Learn more

Become a Professional Python Programmer

• Regular discount price: $39
• Today’s price: $11.70
• Best for learning a versatile programming language from scratch

Python is a programming language that will get you into the world of web development, data analytics, and game development; it is truly versatile. To cover everything you need to know, this course has 291 lectures and 34.5 hours of content, including everything from the absolute basics all the way up to developing your own flappy bird clone. At only $11.70, there’s really no better time to get started with Python.

Take the next step on your way to a lucrative programming career with Python! Learn more

LG Watch Sport vs. LG Watch Style: What’s the difference?

There will be plenty of Android Wear watches in 2017, but LG has the latest crop to look at.

Lots of people are getting excited about Android Wear 2.0, and that means answering the next inevitable question: do I want the LG Watch Sport, or the LG Watch Style? Though both watches run the new software and launched at the same time, they are on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of size, hardware and capabilities.

For those who are trying to get acquainted with the two new watches from LG, and perhaps make a decision between the two, we have all of the information you need.

Size and design

It doesn’t take long to see the design differences between these two watches. The Watch Sport is big and … well, sporty. The Watch Style is sleek, compact and unassuming. Before looking at any of the features, a majority of people will have a better feel about the Watch Style just in terms of how it will fit on their wrist. When it comes to the Watch Sport, and its over 14 mm thickness, fewer people will feel comfortable with such a hunk of metal at the end of their arm.

More: LG Watch Sport specs

The Watch Sport’s display sits larger at 1.38-inches across to the Watch Style’s 1.2-inches, but also has a larger case around including protruding lugs with integrated bands that can’t be replaced. It should also be noted that the Watch Style’s three color options — silver, titanium and rose gold — offer far more choices in terms of looks, particularly once you factor in being able to replace the bands with any you choose.

More: LG Watch Style specs

All of that aside, the base internals are near identical. Both watches run on the latest Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor, and though the Watch Sport technically has more RAM at 768MB to the Watch Style’s 512MB, the extra overhead needed for the cellular radio takes up much of that extra room. The displays have different resolutions, but are the same great quality P-OLED panel and both offer automatic brightness without a “flat tire” at the bottom.

Hardware and features

Beyond just the looks, there are clear feature differences between the two smartwatches. The LG Watch Sport is filled with far more, including LTE, GPS, NFC for Android Pay, a speaker and a full-fledged heart rate sensor. The LG Watch Style doesn’t have any of that. The smaller watch doesn’t have the room for all of the extra frills, and even misses out on the extra customizable hardware buttons that the Sport has — all you get is the rotating crown that doubles as a button.

More: LG Watch Sport review

Aside from hardware-dependent features, though, you do get the complete core Android Wear 2.0 experience on the Watch Style that you find on the Watch Sport. Thanks to the similarities in hardware and display, software and apps will look great and operate with the same speed on either one.

More: LG Watch Style review

Finally, the watches use different types of chargers that match their overall size. The LG Watch Style uses a small magnetic charger puck that’s roughly the size of its case and snaps on the back, while the Watch Sport uses a large charging cradle to accommodate its fixed bands. This may not be a huge deal, but if you travel a lot it could be of concern to you.

Which one is for you?

As you can tell, there isn’t a whole lot of overlap in terms of the markets for these two watches. There’s a core of smartwatch fans — or extra-active people — who will appreciate the extra features of the LG Watch Sport, but most who want something that looks and feels great while offering all of the basics will prefer the LG Watch Style.

Android Wear

• Everything you need to know about Android Wear 2.0
• LG Watch Sport review
• LG Watch Style review
• These watches will get Android Wear 2.0
• Discuss Android Wear in the forums!

HTC is offering up to $250 off during its ‘Seven Days of Sappiness’ sale

HTC is currently discounting a number of its phones and accessories as part of a ‘Seven Days of Sappiness’ sale. Whether you are looking for a new phone, a set of USB-C headphones or some accessories to match your new phone, HTC has got you covered here. You can score $150 off the HTC 10, $200 off the HTC One A9, and $250 off the HTC One M9 for a limited time. The JBL headphones plug right into your USB-C port, and right now they are just $99.

The phones are all available in a variety of colors so you can find the right one for your needs, and of course HTC includes its UH OH Protection and free shipping with all purchases. This deal is a limited time offer so if there is something you want, be sure to grab it before the stock sells out.

See at HTC

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

Everything we know about the Vive Tracker

HTC recently introduced the Vive Tracker – a new way of bridging the gap between VR and the real world. Here’s everything we know about the device so far.

One of the HTC Vive’s most promising technologies in 2017 is the Vive Tracker – a device designed to add a new level of immersion to movement input in VR. Here’s what you need to know about the Vive Tracker ahead of its launch later this year.

Read more at VR Heads!

Sprint makes third, fourth, fifth lines on its new Unlimited plan free

You get a free line, and you get a free line, and you get a free line!!

In Sprint’s latest push to haul in new customers, the yellow carrier announced a new Unlimited talk, text, and data plan that was $50 for one person, $40 for the second line, and $30 for each line after that. Well, lines three, four, and five just got a lot cheaper for a limited time. 100% cheaper, to be exact.

Sprint has announced that it is making five Unlimited lines cost the same as two, making it much more enticing for families to make the jump. Now, if you recall from the plan’s announcement two weeks ago, this is a plan that is not without compromise. It’s only available for new customers, and if you don’t have autopay set up, it’s an extra $5 per month. Sprint has also joined the “mobile optimized video” club of reducing video to 480p to help keep data use down, and can bump down your data speeds during heavy usage times and on congested cell towers, so if you live in a busy area, this might not be the plan for you.

If you live in an area with good Sprint coverage and are looking to switch, this promotional offer could be quite a steal. If, however, you live somewhere where that “1% reliability difference” matters, then it doesn’t matter how cheap the unlimited plan is. It’s still Sprint.

Best Sprint phones

Adidas miCoach merges with Runtastic’s app, no longer accepting memberships

Sports giant Adidas bought mobile fitness startup Runtastic in August 2015 in a deal worth a reported $220 million (£153 million). At the time, Runtastic said nothing would happen to its own app and services. Today, that promise has been confirmed as Adidas has revealed it is shutting down its own miCoach service and focusing on Runtastic’s instead.

• Adidas buys European fitness app startup Runtastic, will remain as if for now

If you’re a MiCoach user, you’ve still got plenty of time to use the service, as it isn’t going anywhere until 31 December 2018, but you won’t be able to sign up to a new membership with it from today.

Instead, you can sign up to Runtastic, which you can use to set running goals based on weight loss or distance, and the service also has GPS tracking and voice coaching functions. You can compete with friends to see who has run the furthest distance each week or month, and those same friends can even send you messages of encouragement during your own workouts.

Adidas has set up a transition service for any miCoach users who wish to migrate to Runtastic. You’ll still need to sign up to a new Runtastic account, but you can link your miCoach account and sync all your workout data across to the new service. 

Runtastic currently boasts 200 million downloads and 100+ million registered users, following Adidas’ takeover and subsequent commitment to the service, expect those numbers to rise.

• Runtastic Moment smartwatches show that fitness tracking and style can go hand-in-hand
• Android Wear 2.0: What’s new in the major software update for watches?

Runtastic has also been announced as one of the standalone apps that will work with Android Wear 2.0 watches that have built in GPS and cellular connectivity, so you won’t need to take your smartphone out with you when running.

How to enable WhatsApp’s two-step verification on iPhone and Android

WhatsApp recently implemented two-step verification in its popular messaging app for both Android and iOS, and you’re going to want to enable it as soon as it’s available for your phone. 

Two-step verification, also often called two-factor verification, is a feature implemented in many popular communication apps and services. Most email providers have it, as do Twitter and iTunes, and it essentially buts an extra obstacle in the way for people wanting to log in to your personal accounts. It does this by requiring a second step to logging in to your account, usually through sending an SMS to a verified phone number of your choice. 

Needless to say, having it switched on is much safer than not having it at all, even if it makes logging in take a few seconds longer. 

Enabling WhatsApp’s two-step verification on iPhone

Open WhatsApp on your iPhone, hit “Settings” in the bottom corner.
Go to “Account” then “Two-Step Verification”.
Tap “enable” and then you’ll be asked for a six-digit passcode.
Type in your chosen passcode, then repeat it on the next screen.
In the next screen you’re asked for an email address, which you also have to repeat just in case you need to reset your password. 

Enabling WhatsApp’s two-step verification on Android

Open WhatsApp on your Android phone, hit the three-dot menu icon in the top right corner, then tap “Settings”.
Go to “Account” then “Two-Step Verification”.
Tap “enable” and then you’ll be asked for a six-digit passcode.
Type in your chosen passcode, then repeat it on the next screen.
In the next screen you’re asked for an email address, which you also have to repeat just in case you need to reset your password.

That’s it, you’re done and have added an extra protective layer on to your WhatsApp account. 

Once you’ve enabled the security measure on your phone, you carry on using your WhatsApp as normal. The only thing that changes now is that if you register WhatsApp on a new phone linked to the same phone number, you’ll be asked to type in your Passcode. 

ICYMI: MIT built a water claw and there’s a new VR rollercoaster

Today on In Case You Missed It: MIT’s Soft Active Materials Lab showed off its gold-fish-catching hydrogel claw. The robot hand is made entirely of water and is completely invisible when submerged. The lab is hoping the hydrogel hands will be able to conduct delicate surgeries inside humans.

In stuff-inside-humans-but-probably-not-for-long news, Six Flags is debuting the New Revolution Galactic Attack mixed-media rollercoaster. Riders will wear Samsung’s Gear VR headset while on the coaster. The amusement-park company says that the headsets and ride are in sync so people won’t get sick. Hopefully they’re right because nothing ruins a day at the park like flying vomit.

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

Valve is working on three ‘full’ VR games

Valve is still making video games! But they’re probably, almost certainly not Half-Life 3 (I know it’s hard, but we have to let it go.) During a media roundtable, Valve founder Gabe Newell confirmed that the company is working on three new titles for VR. Not just little experiments either, like the room-scale mini-game collection The Lab. Real, proper video games. “When I say we’re building three games, we’re building three full games, not experiments,” he said, according to Eurogamer. Few other details were disclosed, such as whether the team was working on new or existing IP.

Newell did explain why the company had returned to video game development, however. Now that the HTC Vive is on the market, Valve is in a position to develop hardware and software simultaneously. Like Nintendo, this gives it an advantage over typical game studios. “This is something that [Nintendo designer Shigeru] Miyamoto has always had,” he said. “He’s had the ability to think about what the input device is and design a system while de designs games. Our sense is that this will actually allow us to build much better entertainment experiences for people.”

Valve’s support makes sense. For VR to thrive, it needs compelling software. Headset sales are low right now, so it can be tough to persuade developers to make new, tailored games for the platform. Valve, on the other hand, has a huge incentive to make VR a success given its role with both the hardware (the Vive) and distribution (Steam). The company is passionate about VR, so it should come as no surprise that it has teams working on software. The question, of course, is what those new games will look like. It’s been a while since Half-Life 2 and Portal 2 came out…

Source: Eurogamer

Android Wear 2.0 uses offline AI for its smart replies

One of the new features on Android Wear 2.0 is Smart Reply, which suggests responses to messages that you can quickly tap if you’re busy doing something else. In its research blog, Google explained that the feature uses on-device machine intelligence, so it works even if you don’t have an internet cloud connection. While the researchers initially thought doing that would be impossible, the “Expander” AI team saw it as a unique opportunity.

“[We] returned to the drawing board to design a completely new, lightweight, machine learning architecture — not only to enable Smart Reply on Android Wear, but also to power a wealth of other on-device mobile applications,” the team wrote.

It tried using current neural net tech and so-called graph learning, but the models didn’t fit on a smartwatch and attempts to limit the number of replies “did not produce useful results,” they wrote. In an attempt to make it more compact, the researchers built a simpler system that groups messages requiring a similar responses, like “Hey, how’s it going?” and “How’s it going buddy,” rapidly and with a low memory hit.

From there, it uses “semi-supervised graph learning” that checks your replies to messages, word and phrase similarity and other factors to predict the best possible replies. The entire model, including the training, resides and performs “completely on device,” the team notes. “The model can also be adapted to cater to the user’s writing style and individual preferences to provide a personal experience.”

The researchers were surprised at how well it works on Android Wear devices, which aren’t renowned as computing powerhouses, and plans to use the AI algorithms behind it to “enable completely new applications in the months to come.” As with Google’s very similar Gmail-based smart replies, however, be sure to only use it when needed — even with AI smarts, the person on the other end can tell it’s not you.

Source: Google Research