Google is now making its own podcasts, and the first one is really good

Google is getting into original podcasts, and you should listen.

I’m obsessed with podcasts. When I’m not writing or listening to music, I’m usually walking down the street with someone’s voice in my head (😱). And increasingly, podcasts are big business. Companies like Slate, Gimlet and even we here at Mobile Nations have made a pretty good dent in the universe with series that appeal to every type of person.

Well, after Spotify announced that it was getting into the original podcast business, Google has followed up with its first series, and it’s pretty darn good. Hosted by one of my favorite podcasters on earth, Hrishikesh Hirway, the series is called City Soundtracks, and it pairs great bands or artists and the cities that inspire them. The first three episodes are available now, and they range from R&B superstar Kehlani touring around her home town of Oakland, California, to (my favorite) Spoon giving Hirway the lowdown on Austin, Texas.

Hirway hosts two other notable podcasts, Song Exploder, which asks an artist to break down a song into its individual components, and The West Wing Weekly, where he goes through every episode with Joshua Malina, who played Will Bailey from season four until the series’ end in 2006.

It’s unclear what Google’s intentions are for its original podcast content; one show with three episodes isn’t likely to sway anyone to sign up for Play Music over Spotify (especially given Spotify’s considerable investment in its own original media), but it’s hopefully the beginning of a consistent output of worthy shows.

Google Play Music: The ultimate guide

How to manually set your IPD in PlayStation VR

How do I change my interpupillary distance in PSVR?

Unlike the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, PlayStation VR doesn’t have a slider or a dial on it that lets you physically set the interpupillary distance (IPD) in your headset. Instead, PSVR has software that takes a picture of your face and lets you move crosshairs onto your eyes. The rest is all handled automatically. Unfortunately, this process isn’t quite exact, and it might take you quite a few tries to actually get it right.

Why worry about IPD? If it isn’t right, your image can be blurry, resulting in eye strain and headaches. To get the perfect IPD and a perfect image, Reddit user Vlaid created a chart that shows how to manually (yet not physically) change the interpupillary distance in PlayStation VR. It works great and is much more precise than relying on the software.

Read more at VR Heads!

Best Solar Chargers for Your Phone

What’s the best solar charger for my phone? Wait, there are solar chargers for my phone?!

Our yellow Sun is what gives Superman his powers, so of course it can also keep your phone charged while you’re on the go! It’s almost weird, right? Using nature to keep technology working. What a beautiful melding of the old and the new! If you can’t find an outlet (because you’re camping or whatever) then grab a solar charger and take advantage of the biggest battery Earth has!

Note: Yes, the Sun is powerful. No, the Sun will not charge a solar battery bank/charger or your phone as quickly as a wall outlet. You will have to be patient with these.

• Anker PowerPort Solar Lite
• Dizaul
• Voltaic Systems Amp
• Ayyie

Anker PowerPort Solar Lite

The Wirecutter’s top choice for best battery bank also belongs at the top of our list. Anker makes excellent charging products and the PowerPort Solar Lite fits in well. This 15W charger is very thin (0.7 inches folded or 0.2 open) and lightweight (12.5 ounces), making it perfect for long treks where lightening your load is imperative.

This solar charger is so efficient that you can charge two devices simultaneously, and it can charge at up to 2.1 amps in direct sunlight, making it about as fast as regular chargers under ideal conditions. Without an actual battery, you don’t have to wait for the PowerPort to charge up — just grab it and hit the trails.

See at Amazon

Dizaul

Diuzaul’s solar charger is one of Amazon’s best sellers and 73% of its reviews are 5 stars. Its size makes it ideal for camping or hiking, and it’s waterproof, so if you’re traversing waterfalls, you won’t kill it. The 5,000mAh battery is handy just in case you have to hide from a bear in a cave (worst place to hide, by the way) — just don’t expect it to charge quickly. By opting for a smaller solar charger, you do compromise on the size of its solar panels, meaning it’ll take quite a while to charge fully (even in direct sunlight). That being said, if you’re looking for a portable option that can hold on to a charge in battery form, then definitely check it out.

See at Amazon

Voltaic Systems Amp

Voltaic Systems’ Amp solar charger is a neat little device that features a removable 4,000mAh battery, which can be charged by sunlight or via USB. The Amp has two solar panels that are waterproof and covered in a self-healing plastic that can withstand some abuse (kind of like some screen protectors). About 3.5 hours in direct sunlight should fully charge your phone (according to Voltaic Systems), which is pretty quick for most solar chargers, but that is probably under ideal conditions, so you’ll wanna be patient with this one, as with all solar chargers.

Designed for the rugged life, the solar panels and battery are housed in a rugged and lightweight, water- and UV-resistant fabric made from recycled soft drink bottles.

If you need your solar charger to withstand a bit of the rough and tumble, go with the Amp.

See at Amazon

Ayyie

At about the size of a larger phone, the Ayyie solar charger is another awesome option made with portability in mind. This charger is perfect for the happy wanderer, being water, shock, and dustproof, and it features a two-LED flashlight with multiple settings, including S.O.S. Five indicators will show you the status of the internal 10,000mAh battery, and once full, you’ll be able to charge most phones at least twice. Again, a smaller unit means smaller solar panels, so it’ll take a long time to fully charge the battery on Sun juice alone.

See at Amazon

Got a favorite?

Do you have a great solar charger for your phone? Let us know which one in the comments below!

Semen, centrifuges and a personal journey in male fertility

In August 2012, I came into a neon-pink shot glass. Nine months later, a baby was born.

I’d never planned on having a child of my own — and to be clear, I still don’t — but when two of my best friends started looking for a donor, I jumped on the opportunity. For those of us who can’t have children with our partners through good old-fashioned sex, the path to pregnancy is complicated and expensive. After careful consideration, my friends decided on what’s commonly referred to as the Turkey Baster Method. I would masturbate into a sterile collection cup and pass the resulting semen to my friend who would draw it into a syringe and deliver it to his wife. She would then plunge it into her vagina.

Because they lived in Texas and I lived in California and turkey basting isn’t quite as foolproof as straight-up penis-in-vagina insemination, a lot of research and careful timing went into preparing for the moment that I found myself jacking off in their guest bedroom. We knew she was fertile as a result of a comprehensive physical, but it wasn’t until after our second attempt that we considered that I might be shooting blanks. My spunk was ultimately fruitful, but for a while, we had our doubts.

My spunk was ultimately fruitful, but for a while, we had our doubts.

So, I set off to have my semen analyzed. There were piles of paperwork, bunk referrals and uncomfortable conversations with closed-minded doctors. I’d spent days driving all over the Bay Area before ending up with my pants around my ankles in a UCSF collection room. Ultimately, my sperm was healthy and in great supply, but it was the most complicated, time-consuming orgasm I’d ever had.

Fast-forward four years and a small Bay Area startup is attempting to make that process a little easier, decreasing the time and money spent on simple sperm analysis. According to Chief Scientific Officer Greg Sommer, Sandstone Diagnostics aims to “revolutionize consumer health care,” and it’s starting with male fertility, specifically an at-home sperm-analysis kit called Trak.

“Trak allows guys to collect their sample and get a measure of sperm count in the comfort of their own home,” Sommer said. “Today’s alternative is really going to a fertility clinic or urology office for a clinical semen analysis, and for a lot of reasons, embarrassment and privacy — and lack of understanding — men simply aren’t going in. At least, not early on as a couple tries to conceive.”

Sandstone’s solution is a small, hockey-puck-shape, double-A-powered centrifuge that whirls a small amount of semen around on a small propeller. The force created from that rapid rotation separates the seminal fluid from sperm and offers an FDA-approved reading of a man’s sperm count in just 45 minutes. Unlike a traditional lab test, Trak can’t measure sperm motility (movement) or morphology (shape), and it’s not the only device of its kind on the market, either. You can pick up over-the-counter kits like Sperm Check for around $30 at most pharmacies, but these tests only provide a positive or negative result while Trak can tell you where you fall on a fertility spectrum.

Sommer says the real advantage isn’t just in saving men embarrassment, time and money, but in what Trak does with the information it provides. Using the app, men can enter information about their health and lifestyle, receive tips on how to increase their sperm count and track fluctuations over time.

It’s a seemingly low-tech device but, as Stanford University urologist and Sandstone consultant Michael Eisenberg told me, Trak is a potential game-changer for diagnosing infertility in men because, you know, masculinity is so fragile.

“If you look at good data on infertility, about half the time, it’s men; half the time, it’s a woman. But usually in this country, women seek care first,” Eisenberg said. “I think that is because usually, they’re having a, a gynecologist they’re used to going to, and they have a relationship and so … that conversation sort of begins there. I think also, there’s just a historic lack of knowledge, I guess, about the whole process. And a lot of people think fertility tends to be a female problem.”

The American Society of Reproductive Medicine says men contribute to 40 percent of infertility cases, and Eisenberg estimates that 20 to 25 percent of the time men in infertile couples will never seek care. It’s amazing to think how much time and money could be saved if those men would just loosen up and jizz into a cup.

We ordered takeout while the enzymes turned my semen from a thick, sticky substance into a runny, cloudy sperm soup.

Anyway, the proof is in the pudding, or in this case, the semen, so I gave Trak a spin. I’d already been through the needlessly complicated process of having my sperm analyzed in a lab. If Trak could simplify that process for other men and at the same time teach them something about what’s hanging between their legs, I thought, it might actually justify that $200 price tag.

According to Eisenberg, sperm concentration is highest when a man refrains from ejaculating for two to five days. I rarely go more than 24 hours without an orgasm, so I was near ready to explode by the time 48 hours had passed. I pulled out the collection cup — the same sort used for takeout at fast-food restaurants — and read through the straightforward step-by-step guide to collection and analysis. Just as the nurses had done before my sperm analysis the manual recommended that I refrain from using lube or condoms during collection (why you’d do the latter is beyond me, but hey, different strokes for different folks) as they can kill healthy sperm.

I was far more comfortable in my bathroom than the sterile environment of the UCSF collection room, and my phone offered a much more expansive spank bank than the clinic’s bootlegged porn collection. I remember quite distinctly feeling distracted by the thought of all the men who’d come before me on the collection room’s small, uncomfortable couch and by what was happening on the other side of the locked door. Of course, the nurses in the office were all professionals, but knowing that they knew I was in there rubbing one out was more than a little unsettling.

At home, I had my own expectant audience. Our camera crew was waiting outside to film the results, but just being able to masturbate in a place that I’d done it so many times before put me at ease. I fired up my favorite Tumblr and within five minutes, I’d unloaded a sufficient-enough sample for the test and swirled the sample around to combine it with enzymes in the bottom of the collection cup. From there, it was just a matter of waiting. We ordered takeout while the enzymes turned my semen from a thick, sticky substance into a runny, cloudy sperm soup. After the recommended 45-minute resting period, it was time to set the centrifuge into action.

I dropped the suggested amount into the small opening in the middle of the propeller, covered the hole with the provided sticker, snapped the propeller into place, shut the lid and turned the thing on. Within a few minutes, a flashing light indicated my sperm count was ready. I popped open the lid to find the simple white line created by my sperm cells indicating that I had optimal sperm count. Lucky for me and my bio-baby’s mama, I had more than 55 million sperm per milliliter of semen — ideal for baby-making. Men who fall between 15 and 55 million sperm per milliliter may have a harder time getting their partners pregnant; those falling below 15 million have an even lower chance and are encouraged to seek medical help. If my count had fallen below 55 million, I could have used the Trak app to identify ways to improve my count.

The app is heavy on data collection. Since it doesn’t connect directly to Trak’s hardware, you’ll be prompted to enter the results of your tests and the results of any other sperm analysis lab work you’ve had done, as well as answer a series of questions about your medical history and lifestyle. In order to make the most of Trak, you’ll need a pretty extensive overview of your health including cholesterol levels, blood pressure, blood sugar and hormones. I didn’t have any of these readings readily available and would have had to see my doctor to obtain them. It’s counterintuitive for an at-home diagnosis kit, but fits in with Sandstone’s ambitions. Sommer says, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the data it collects from the Trak app will factor into future generations of the device and the company’s broader strategy.

I entered as much information I had at hand, including my height, weight, waist size, eating, drinking and exercise habits and how often I expose my testicles to certain types of heat: saunas, baths, hot tubs, etc. I was then given a score on a scale of 1 to 100, rating my health, which, despite my optimal sperm count came in at 66 due in large part to the fact that I drink, smoke and toke daily. If I were looking to increase my sperm count, I’d be able to update these stats in addition to new test results to see how changes in my lifestyle might affect my count over time.

Ultimately, using Trak in the privacy of my home was a far easier process than what I’d experienced in the traditional medical environment. But its success hinges on a lot more than convenience.

At $200, it could prove inaccessible for many of the people it could help. It’s also the sexual equivalent of an apple corer or melon baller — a convenient but limited single-use device. After all, sperm count is only a fraction of the greater picture for male infertility. It may be a “headline parameter,” as Sommer put it, but it’s far from the sole factor in successful insemination. Trak is also facing an uphill battle when it comes to how we look at fertility as a society. It will have to overcome the deep-rooted sexual discrimination that has led so many couples to think of infertility as solely a female problem. Trak is a small step toward the futuristic DIY diagnostics symbolized by Star Trek’s Tricorder, but Sandstone is going to need to look beyond semen if it plans to revolutionize consumer health care.

Microsoft reminds us that So.cl exists by closing it down

Microsoft is shutting down So.cl, a quasi-social network launched by its FUSE Labs research division. In case you forgot (admit it, you forgot), it was never intended to be a competitor to Facebook or Twitter. Rather, it’s a strange hybrid that let you log in from Facebook, then share searches, images and collages and discuss them with friends. Some of the features were odd — for instance, you could create a “Video Party” with friends, but it wasn’t video chat, just regular chat about video clips.

So.cl launched in 2011, the same year that Google+ came along, during a time when it probably didn’t seem insane to launch a Facebook competitor. Coming from Microsoft Research, the site was first aimed at University students before it opened its doors to the wider public. It carried a tiled look to match the “Metro” design used for Windows 8 on mobile and desktop.

Much like Metro, however, nobody really used it, perhaps because it was never really clear what it was for. It ended up mostly being a site to share and discuss random stuff you found on the internet, something you can already do on Facebook. Unlike Facebook, though, it lacked basic features including the ability to just upload a photo.

In the end, it was a good real-life research experiment for Microsoft Research’s Fuse Labs, if nothing else. “In supporting you, So.cl’s unique community of creators, we have learned invaluable lessons in what it takes to establish and maintain community as well as novel new ways to make share, and collect digital stuff we love,” the team wrote. Now that Microsoft has a real social network with LinkedIn, maybe some of So.cl’s features will end up there.

Source: Fuse Labs

What the Spring 2017 Budget means for UK tech

The UK’s chancellor Philip Hammond has provided more details today on the National Productivity Investment Fund (NPIF), a project unveiled at last November’s Autumn Statement to support science and technology. The headline announcement is the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF), which falls under the NPIF and will be used to support electric vehicles, artificial intelligence and robotics. An “initial investment” of £270 million will be spent in 2017/18 to support what is being called “disruptive technologies.” These include “the development, design and manufacture of batteries that will power the next generation of electric vehicles.”

In addition, the money will be used for “cutting-edge” AI and robotics that can “operate in extreme and hazardous environments,” including nuclear energy, space and deep mining environments. So Wall-E, basically?

Today’s Budget also unpacked the government’s plans — again, hinted at in last year’s Autumn Statement — to support fibre broadband and 5G connectivity in the UK. Starting this year, the treasury has promised to spend £200 million on a suite of local projects that will “test ways to accelerate market delivery of new full-fibre broadband networks.” These include connection vouchers for businesses, new connections for schools, hospitals and other public sector buildings, and a push to bundle local public sector users “to create enough broadband demand to reduce the financial risk of building new full-fibre networks,” Google Fiber style.

We heard a lot about 5G at Mobile World Congress, however the super-fast network technology is still a way off. To accelerate its development, the UK government has put aside £16 million for a “cutting edge 5G facility” aimed at research firms. The Budget contains little detail about where it will be set up, or what it might look like, however. As for the government’s future plans, there’s just this throwaway line to consider: “Funding for future trials will be awarded on a competitive basis.” Make of that what you will.

Source: 2017 Budget

Period tracker secretly gives Iranian women access to vital info

A period tracker’s function is pretty self-explanatory, unless it’s an app called Hamdam that sprung out of IranCubator. According to Buzzfeed News, it was deliberately designed to be a Trojan Horse, an application masquerading as a period tracker meant to secretly provide Iranian women access to information that could prove vital to their health and security. They could use it to look for more info about birth control, women’s health issues, divorce, domestic violence, rape, sexual harassment and STDs. The app also notes the legal language they can use in a marriage contract to fortify their rights when it comes to child custody and the ability to work, to go to school or to seek a divorce.

IranCubator was a program created by United for Iran, a non-profit based out of Berkeley that aims to take advantage of smartphones’ rising popularity in the country. It accepts ideas for Android apps that promote social good in Iran from people around the globe, and it turns the best ones into real applications. The program’s first release was RadiTo, which airs programs from BBC and banned radio networks.

Hamdam was submitted by Soudeh Rad, a French-Iranian gender equality activist. She told Buzzfeed News that she came up with idea, because the information that reaches Iranian women tend to be “biased, heteronormative and male pleasure–centered.” To make sure it can serve as many women as possible, it uses language anyone in Iran can understand, not just those from the upper and middle classes.

While the application is already available from Google Play and Telegram, its developers plan to release an Android APK as well. That will allow users to download it from emails and other places on the internet in case it ends up getting censored or if their data connection is too slow. In addition, IranCubator promises that the application will keep users’ personal info and identities safe by storing their data on their phones. It’s not connected to a server and even disables the screenshot function.

Source: Buzzfeed News

The world’s largest solar farm, from space

Just over two years ago, California’s 550-megawatt Topaz Solar Farm was the world’s largest solar project. A year later, the 579-megawatt Solar Star farm, also in California, laid claim to the crown, and in 2016, India’s 648-megawatt Kamuthi Solar Power Project was top photovoltaic dog. However, China is now the leader of this planet-friendly competition, by far, with the 850-megawatt Longyangxia Dam Solar Park. All told, it can power 200,000 homes at the peak of production.

I could tell you that it takes up 27 square kilometers (10 square miles) of land or that it’s nearly as big as Macau, “the Las Vegas of Asia.” But to really grasp the scale, check out the above image snapped by NASA’s Earth Observatory on January 5th, 2017. It’s about as long from top to bottom as the adjacent Longyangxia Reservoir is wide, a distance of about 13 miles. “The numbers are just crazy,” a US solar executive told The Guardian in January. As shown in a 2013 image (below), that work was accomplished in just four years.

“The development of clean energy is very important if we are to keep the promises made in the Paris agreement,” said Xie Xiaoping, chairman of the company behind the solar park. China is by far the leading nation in solar power, having produced 66.2 gigawatts of electricity last year. By comparison, the US produced 40 gigawatts of solar power in 2016. That’s aided by the fact that China produces more solar panels for a lower cost than anywhere else.

China’s President Xi Jinping has promised an “unwavering” pursuit of clean energy, saying “our response to climate change bears on the future of our people and the well-being of mankind.” By 2020, it hopes to be producing 110 gigawatts of power from solar and 210 gigawatts with wind, boosting non-fossil fuel production to 20 percent of its total power output by 2030.

110 gigawatts is actually a 27 percent reduction from an earlier target, according to Bloomberg. Part of the problem is that China has had trouble adapting the new projects into its power grid. With its over-reliance on coal and critical smog problems in Beijing and other cities, groups like Greenpeace have criticized the reduced targets, despite all the investment.

The Longyangxia Dam Solar Park won’t hold the solar crown for long — a 2-gigawatt project with six million panels in China’s Ningxia region will come online in the next few years. All told, China plans to spend $360 billion on solar and wind energy by 2020, creating some 13 million jobs. In other words, its clean energy projects over the next three years would employ a third the population of Canada.

Source: NASA

No, Apple Isn’t Planning an April 4 Event, Unless by Pure Coincidence

Yesterday, a handful of blogs ran with a rumor speculating that Apple could host an event on April 4 given that was the date Apple’s online store listed for in-store availability of 12.9-inch iPad Pro models in the United States at the time. The rumor is likely false, however, and here’s why.

The problem is that Apple’s in-store Personal Pickup tool is generally not a reliable indicator of a specific launch date or Apple event. The in-store pickup date for 12.9-inch iPad Pro models is a rolling target, as evidenced by the April 5 date now shown just one day later. Tomorrow, it will likely show April 6.

The date shown is most likely just a rough approximation of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro’s current 2-3 week shipping estimate, plus a few extra days to reach the store. On February 9, for example, we reported that most 12.9-inch iPad Pro models were available for in-store pickup on March 3 at the time.

Apple could still hold an event on April 4, especially considering many of its past events have been on a Tuesday, but it would be purely coincidental.

Personal Pickup does confirm the 12.9-inch iPad Pro remains in tight supply, which can sometimes foreshadow an upcoming product launch. In January, however, Apple said it had an issue with one of its iPad suppliers that was not expected to be fully resolved this quarter, which could reasonably explain the shortage.

Apple is expected to launch at least a trio of new iPad Pro models in the near future, though, so an event might be announced soon enough. Japanese website Mac Otakara said Apple is planning a March event where it will unveil those new iPads alongside a 128GB iPhone SE, red iPhone 7, and new Apple Watch bands.

An all-new 10.5-inch iPad Pro with an edge-to-edge display and updates to the current 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch models are rumored. A new 7.9-inch model is a wildcard, as reports are conflicting about whether the iPad mini 4 will live on or be replaced by a lower-cost 9.7-inch model as predicted by KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Related Roundup: iPad Pro
Buyer’s Guide: 12.9″ iPad Pro (Caution)
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VUDU Confirms Apple TV App in Development, But Release Date Unknown

Streaming movie and TV service VUDU has confirmed that it is currently in the development stages for an upcoming fourth-generation Apple TV app, although the official launch timeline is unclear at this point. A Redditor spotted the confirmation from a VUDU engineer named Jake, who posted on the company’s forums in response to a user’s inquiry about the long-requested debut of a VUDU app for Apple TV.

In a separate thread dating back about a year ago, the same engineer explained the reasoning behind VUDU not prioritizing an Apple TV app. He mentioned that due to Apple’s strict policies preventing third-parties from selling movies in their apps, VUDU has instead focused on adding HD AirPlay streaming into its iOS app so users can use the company’s mobile app to stream all of their content to Apple TV. It’s believed that the same restriction has prevented Amazon from debuting Amazon Prime Video on Apple TV.

Forum member: Any chance of an AppleTV app being planned?
VUDU engineer: Yes, it’s in development. No, please don’t ask me for a date, I don’t know

With VUDU’s Apple TV app confirmed to be in development, it’s likely that the company will use the same tactic that it took with the VUDU iOS app [Direct Link] in finding a way to abide by Apple’s policy while still offering the crux of its services. On mobile, users can watch and download all of the movies and TV shows they want, as long as they complete the transactions on VUDU’s website first.

While that’s a hindrance for VUDU iOS users, it could work the same way for Apple TV watchers. Besides purchasing and renting movies and TV shows, VUDU acts as a storage vault for digital copies of films purchased in retail locations, if users choose VUDU as a storage space over other options such as iTunes.

For the Apple TV itself, Apple is rumored to be working on an updated 4K version of the device for potential release before the end of 2017.

Tag: VUDU
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