The pocket-sized Kado Wallet is the world’s thinnest phone charger

Why it matters to you

Smartphone chargers don’t get much more portable than the credit card-sized Kado Wallet.

Battery life is still a major bugbear for most smartphone owners. What do you when you don’t have a charger with you? Do you lug around a portable battery pack? Though they’re definitely getting sleeker and more compact, you may prefer something smaller still. The Kado Wallet is easily the slimmest phone charger we’ve ever seen. It’s so svelte, in fact, that you can slot it into your wallet.

There are two parts to this charger. One has fold-out prongs, so it can be plugged into a standard power outlet. The other has a coiled cable that you can pull out to plug into your phone. It feels about the thickness of three credit cards, and it’s very light.

More: The best portable battery chargers

The Kado Wallet comes with a 2-foot-long Lightning, MicroUSB, or USB Type-C cable built in, but that’s not all, because you can also slide the charger apart in the middle to reveal a USB connection that allows you to plug it into a laptop or computer for data transfer.

The maximum power output is 10 watts, so the charger will support some of the latest quick charge capabilities. The Kado Wallet will be available this summer and is set to be priced around $40 to $50. It’s not the only slimmed-down charger Kado has been working on. The company is focused on making charging easier and more portable.

“We call it the vicious cycle of mobile immobility, because we are always looking to increase our mobility, and in order to do so we increase the charger speed, but this increases the charger size,” Kado co-CEO Itay Hasid told Digital Trends. “We want to create truly portable solutions to keep your gadgets charged.”

Kado has also developed a portable wall charger for your laptops and tablets. The Kado Sleeve is the width of a pencil and sports two USB ports at one end. Fold it in half and you’ll reveal the prongs to plug into a standard wall outlet. It’s a 70-watt charger and can be used to charge up two devices simultaneously. It’s also expected to go on sale this summer and it will cost around $100.

These slim chargers are impressive, but what we’d really like to see is a portable charger with a built-in battery that could fit in our wallets. According to Kado’s Co-CEO, Itay Hasid, it’s in the works. We’ll keep you posted.

The pocket-sized Kado Wallet is the world’s thinnest phone charger

Why it matters to you

Smartphone chargers don’t get much more portable than the credit card-sized Kado Wallet.

Battery life is still a major bugbear for most smartphone owners. What do you when you don’t have a charger with you? Do you lug around a portable battery pack? Though they’re definitely getting sleeker and more compact, you may prefer something smaller still. The Kado Wallet is easily the slimmest phone charger we’ve ever seen. It’s so svelte, in fact, that you can slot it into your wallet.

There are two parts to this charger. One has fold-out prongs, so it can be plugged into a standard power outlet. The other has a coiled cable that you can pull out to plug into your phone. It feels about the thickness of three credit cards, and it’s very light.

More: The best portable battery chargers

The Kado Wallet comes with a 2-foot-long Lightning, MicroUSB, or USB Type-C cable built in, but that’s not all, because you can also slide the charger apart in the middle to reveal a USB connection that allows you to plug it into a laptop or computer for data transfer.

The maximum power output is 10 watts, so the charger will support some of the latest quick charge capabilities. The Kado Wallet will be available this summer and is set to be priced around $40 to $50. It’s not the only slimmed-down charger Kado has been working on. The company is focused on making charging easier and more portable.

“We call it the vicious cycle of mobile immobility, because we are always looking to increase our mobility, and in order to do so we increase the charger speed, but this increases the charger size,” Kado co-CEO Itay Hasid told Digital Trends. “We want to create truly portable solutions to keep your gadgets charged.”

Kado has also developed a portable wall charger for your laptops and tablets. The Kado Sleeve is the width of a pencil and sports two USB ports at one end. Fold it in half and you’ll reveal the prongs to plug into a standard wall outlet. It’s a 70-watt charger and can be used to charge up two devices simultaneously. It’s also expected to go on sale this summer and it will cost around $100.

These slim chargers are impressive, but what we’d really like to see is a portable charger with a built-in battery that could fit in our wallets. According to Kado’s Co-CEO, Itay Hasid, it’s in the works. We’ll keep you posted.

DT Daily MWC Day Zero: LG G6, Huawei P10, Moto G5 Plus, Samsung Galaxy Tab S3

The sun was out in Barcelona, Spain, shining on the many companies holding press conferences at Mobile World Congress today. While the show itself opens its doors on Monday morning, most of the major new releases have been revealed, which means we have new smartphones from LG, Huawei, and Motorola. Samsung is also at MWC 2017, but it hasn’t brought the Galaxy S8, and instead came with a new tablet.

LG G6

LG launched the LG G6 and pulled off a miracle with the slick new device, because the screen may be large at 5.7-inches and boast a unique 18:9 wide aspect ratio, but the phone itself is really compact. This means LG could have fun with the user interface, and it added clever new camera modes so you can see previews of shots you’ve taken and use an Instagram-ready square-picture mode. LG never forgets the camera itself, either, and both have wide-angle lenses. We’re waiting for U.S. launch dates, but it won’t be long.

More: Huawei Watch 2: Our First Take

Huawei P10

Huawei is back after impressing us with the Mate 9 at the beginning of the year, this time with the beautiful P10. It has a dual-lens camera co-developed with Leica on the back, designed for taking amazing pictures of people, with a clever new portrait mode. Leica has also worked on the selfie camera, so pictures of yourself will also look great, plus the phone’s design really stands out thanks to a range of stunning colors. A U.S. release isn’t in the cards, though, and prices start at 650 euros in Europe.

Moto G5 and G5 Plus

MWC isn’t only about expensive phones. Lenovo’s Moto brand has two Android 7.0 Nougat phones that could end up costing you only $230. The G5 Plus is the one coming to the U.S., and it has a 5.2-inch screen with a 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, and a 12-megapixel camera; all wrapped in a smooth plastic body. It’s coming out at the beginning of March.

More: Nokia’s back with three new phones, and one old-new phone

Samsung Galaxy Tab S3

If Samsung didn’t bring the Galaxy S8 to Mobile World Congress, what did it show off? It’s the Galaxy Tab S3 tablet, and it’s an alternative for anyone who doesn’t want to buy an iPad Pro. Made from glass and metal, it has a 10-inch AMOLED screen with HDR, for showing really high contrast video. An S Pen stylus is included, and a keyboard accessory is available, but pricing and the release date are a mystery for now.

The show begins properly tomorrow, and we’ll be back with all the latest news, so join us then.

Satellite maps provide a new way to track deforestation

There’s no question that deforestation is a problem, as it affects everything from climate through to biodiversity. But gauging the severity of deforestation isn’t easy — simply measuring lost forest cover doesn’t tell you the effect it can have on a given area. That’s where technology might save the day. Researchers have developed a new technique that uses satellite maps to track forest attrition distance, or the widening gaps between forests that can affect the environment. The overhead data can show whether tree losses are relatively mild, occurring in patches among other trees, or whether they’re serious enough to create larger distances between forests.

As Harvard’s Aaron Ellison notes to the New York Times, this approach will only do so much to tackle deforestation. There are already methods (such as studying large forests as a series of smaller ones) that can pick up on some of the subtler losses of forest cover. However, this might just help identify the most damaging instances of deforestation, offering some guidance on which areas need the most help. It’s not the same as replanting forests or reducing the rate of deforestation, but it could get the ball rolling on efforts in areas that might otherwise be overlooked.

Via: New York Times

Source: PlOS One

Apple Store at Pentagon City to Reopen March 4 With Next-Generation Design

Apple has announced that its retail store at the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City shopping mall in Arlington, Virginia reopens on Saturday, March 4 at 10:00 a.m. local time. The store, which originally opened in August 2005, has been closed for renovations since September 25 of last year.

Apple Pentagon City has expanded into adjacent storefronts (Image: Jordan Sheckman)
Apple Pentagon City will be the iPhone maker’s latest retail store to be updated with its next-generation design introduced in 2015.

The newer look often includes wide, open spaces with some combination of indoor trees, large glass doors, touch-sensitive sequoia wood tables and shelves, seating areas for community events, large 6K resolution video screens for product marketing, and light boxes extending the length of the ceiling.

Related Roundup: Apple Stores
Discuss this article in our forums

MIT’s ‘Super Smash Bros.’ AI can compete with veteran players

For expert players, most video game AI amounts to little more than target practice — especially in fighting games, where it rarely accounts for the subtleties of human behavior. At MIT, though, they’ve developed a Super Smash Bros. Melee AI that should make even seasoned veterans sweat a little. The CSAIL team trained a neural network to fight by handing it the coordinates of game objects, and giving it incentives to play in ways that should secure a win. The result is an AI brawler that has largely learned to fight on its own — and is good enough to usually prevail over players ranked in the top 100 worldwide.

Lead researcher Vlad Firoiu tells our TechCrunch colleagues that the SSBM AI is at once very calculating and knowingly reckless. It will sometimes turtle (that is, refuse to attack) until it’s sure there’s an opening, but it will just as readily leap off the stage when it sees an opportunity for a quick but relatively risky victory. And since this is AI, it has reflexes that humans can’t usually match.

This doesn’t mean that you’re going to see the neural network participating in formal competition, like you saw with Google’s DeepMind. It doesn’t know how to deal with projectiles (rendering it useless with many SSBM characters), and you can make it panic if you hide in the corner. However, this is a good demonstration of how deep learning AI can cope with new environments. It also suggests that game developers could use neural networks to provide a serious single-player challenge at the highest skill levels, giving pros a way to practice when similarly-ranked rivals aren’t available.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: ArXiv.org

Don’t let them see you sweat in the boardroom with GANT’s Tech Prep line

Why it matters to you

When you’re under pressure, you might sweat a little bit. But with GANT’s Tech Prep line of clothing, no one will ever know.

When you’re climbing that corporate ladder, you know to never let them see you sweat. And now, you can get some help from your clothes. Thanks to GANT’s new Tech Prep line, the American lifestyle brand promises professionals that they will never be not comfortable.

In fact, that’s the name of the company’s latest campaign. As part of “Never Not Comfortable,” GANT is highlighting how its Tech Prep line, complete with new fabric features and hidden technology, will keep wearers cool and collected in even the most stressful of situations.

“The clothes we wear today are not designed for the active lifestyle we are living — that’s why we created the Tech Prep feature,” said GANT CMO Brian Grevy. “You get your favorite preppy look, never compromising on style, comfort or the hand-feel of the shirt, but with all the tech features that enables you to jump straight from your bike into a meeting feeling.”

So what’s all this technology GANT speaks of? First of all, Tech Prep clothing comes with hidden quick dry, breathable, and wicking benefits, all integrated into your business-ready clothing. Think of it as athleisure for the office, but with a preppier look (because as cool as you are, you probably shouldn’t be wearing yoga pants to the boardroom).

More: When body warmth alone won’t cut the cold, these electric clothes crank up the heat

Tech Prep clothing is made of a special fabric with three features. First off, the high-performing microfiber polyester promises to be quick drying, moving sweat away from your body to the fabric’s surface, where that moisture will evaporate. Second, Tech Prep pieces are woven in such a way that promises to let air and body heat flow through the fabric, which means that you won’t suddenly feel like you’re suffocating underneath your collar. Finally, GANT promises that each Tech Prep garment “actively absorbs humidity from the skin and transports it from the body to the outer surface.”

And all this is done without compromising style. You can buy GANT’s Chambray Shirt, the Prep Check Shirt, and the Blue Stripe Shirt all for $125 at www.gant.com.

Verizon wins top honors in latest RootMetrics study, besting T-Mobile

Why it matters to you

Mobile service providers are always jostling to take top honors in various performance tests, and in the latest from RootMetrics, it’s Verizon who’s been crowned king.

If you’re waiting on a definitive answer when it comes to which mobile service provider is the fairest of them all, you’re going to have to wait a bit longer. As per the second-half 2016 review of Mobile Network Performance in the U.S. report from RootMetrics, it’s Verizon that reigns supreme. These results fly in the face of an earlier OpenSignal report that gave T-Mobile reason to celebrate. So it really is just a matter of perspective when it comes to determining which company is best.

RootMetrics offered up its seventh iteration of the report earlier this week with hopes to equipping customers with “a holistic look at network performance across all the spaces of a consumer’s mobile life.” The study looked at the entirety of the country, each of the 50 states, as well as the 125 largest metropolitan areas across the U.S. The company determined that Verizon is best when it comes to mobile performance nationally. Big Red, actually, was dubbed the best provider in every category of mobile network performance testing, the second year in a row it has won this honor.

More: The Best Unlimited Data Plan: Verizon vs. T-Mobile vs. AT&T vs. Sprint

“Today’s connected consumers use their smartphones for almost everything,” said Annette Hamilton, director at RootMetrics. “While mobile networks continue to compete in order to determine how they stack up against each other, the real question is how they perform against their subscribers’ needs. Based on the latest RootMetrics mobile network performance results, it’s clear that all four major mobile carriers are racing to provide an excellent mobile experience — which makes consumers the real winners.”

Indeed, despite Verizon’s dominance, RootMetrics noted a number of impressive achievements and improvements from Big Red’s three main competitors; AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. AT&T, for example, deployed the greatest amount of LTE spectrum among all carriers across the 125 metropolitan markets RootMetrics tested. Sprint, on the other hand, is the only carrier using Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology for all its voice traffic, which RootMetrics calls a “robust technology for carrying voice traffic.” And T-Mobile is credited with utilizing the newest codec rate for VoLTE, Enhanced Voice Services (EVS), which RootMetrics says is the most efficient manner of hosting voice traffic.

So rest easy, phone owners. No matter who you’re giving your business to, you’re probably in pretty good hands.

Best adult apps in VR

Finding adult apps for VR is easy, finding awesome adult apps in VR can be more difficult.

Porn in VR is all over the place these days. In fact, all you have to do is a quick Google search and you’ll find plenty of websites and apps that can give you what you’re looking for. Not all adults apps are awesome though. So instead of slogging through the internet and hoping you find an awesome app, we’ve done the work for you. Below you’ll find the best apps in VR for adult entertainment.

Read more at VRHeads.com

Sony has sold nearly 1 million PlayStation VR headsets

Ever since PlayStation VR, speculation has been rampant: is console-based virtual reality here to stay, or will it die an early death? Apparently, its near-term future is secure. Sony’s Andrew House tells the New York Times that the company had sold 915,000 PSVR headsets as of February 19th, just over four months after its October 13th debut. That doesn’t sound like much for a company that has sold tens of millions of PlayStation 4s, but it’s well ahead of expectations — Sony had hoped to reach the 1 million mark by mid-April. Sales might have been better still if the company hadn’t been purposefully cautious with production, leading to shortages centered primarily in its home turf of Japan.

Play time in VR is also going up, House adds. While many PSVR experiences are short, Resident Evil 7’s support for VR throughout the entire game has doubled the average play length. In other words, it’s a technology that may be hitting its stride as developers learn to craft more than tech demos and mini games.

It’s not certain how well that stands in comparison to PC-based VR headsets. However, SuperData Research estimates that there were 243,000 Oculus Rift units sold through the end of 2016, and 420,000 HTC Vive units. If the real figures are reasonably close, that makes Sony the leading VR maker on the planet despite having a smaller amount of time to build its user base.

A sales victory wouldn’t exactly be surprising. PSVR requires a much smaller investment than its rivals — even if you splurge on a PS4 Pro and a full VR bundle, you’re spending far less than it takes to get a high-end PC VR headset and a computer powerful enough to handle it. And that’s not including the physical space you need for room-scale VR experiences with PCs. Combine that with a healthy game library and console VR is likely to remain the front-runner for a while, at least until prices for headsets and VR-worthy PCs drop to the point where they’re no longer luxuries.

Source: New York Times