Mint SIM vs. Cricket Wireless: Which is better for you?

How does Mint SIM stack up against Cricket Wireless? Here’s our comparison!

Mint SIM and Cricket Wireless are mobile virtual network operators or MVNOs for short. At the end of the day, they’re “alternative carriers”, meaning that they’re not the Big Four (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint).

Switching to an MVNO can save you money because they simply lease coverage from one of the larger networks and resell it to customers. Plans are often prepaid, so you don’t have to worry about overages.

Let’s take a look at two major players — Mint SIM and Cricket Wireless — and see how they compare to one another.

• Mint SIM background
• Cricket Wireless background
• Mint SIM plans
• Cricket plans
• Best phones available from Cricket
• Which should you go with?

Mint SIM background

Who owns it? Ultra Mobile

Which network does it use? T-Mobile 4G LTE

How long has it been around? Since 2016

Tethering allowed? Yes

Cheapest plan: $35 for 1 month: 2GB 4G LTE, unlimited nationwide talk, text, and 2G data

Cricket Wireless background

Who owns it? AT&T

Which network does it use? AT&T 4G LTE

How long has it been around? Since 1999

Tethering allowed? Yes, $10/month

Cheapest plan: $30/month: 1GB 4G LTE, unlimited talk, text, and 2G data

Mint SIM plans

Mint SIM doesn’t operate with traditional contracts. You pay upfront for your term, which can be 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months, with “buying in bulk” saving you more money in the long run. All plans include unlimited nationwide talk, text, and data, though you only get so much 4G LTE per month. Unlimited international texting is included in all plans.

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Add-ons

As far as add-ons are concerned, Mint SIM’s selection is very slim:

Extra data:

• 1GB/month: $10
• 3GB/month: $20

International credit:

Mint SIM’s plans contain no international calling, though unlimited international texting is included. You can add international calling credit to your account in $5, $10, or $20 increments.

You can see a list of international rates here.

Cricket plans

All Cricket Wireless plans include unlimited talk, text, and data, but your 4G LTE access is metered and you can choose how much you want, per month. There are no annual contracts with Cricket; you pay on a month-to-month basis.

Add-ons

1GB of 4G LTE data:

$10/month. All remaining data expires at the end of your monthly plan cycle.

Tethering:

Turn your phone into a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot for $10/month. Uses data from your monthly high-speed allowance. Not all phones are compatible, so double-check first.

Cricket Protect:

For $7/month, Cricket protect covers you if your phone is lost, stolen, accidentally damaged physically or by liquid. You’re also covered for in-warranty exchanges and out-of-warranty mechanical/electrical problems. Deductibles vary from $10 to $250, depending on your phone model.

Click here for more info.

Deezer free trial:

Get a free trial to the music streaming service. Length of free trial is at least 15 days and depends on when you sign up and when your next monthly bill date falls. After the free trial, it’s $6/month.

Terms and conditions

Group Save Discount: Cricket gives you a monthly discount for each line you add to your account. Each line must have a plan of at least $40 a month. Lines with the $30 per month plan are ineligible.

• 2 lines: $10 monthly discount
• 3 lines: $20 monthly discount
• 4 lines: $30 monthly discount
• 5 lines: $40 monthly discount
• Up to $100 in total monthly savings

International texting: This only covered text messages to select countries and does not cover picture or video messaging.

Mexico and Canada roaming: Calling and texting while in Mexico and Canada are included, as well as calling between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Usage in Canada and Mexico cannot exceed 50% for texts, voice minutes, and data usage sent, received, or used. For example, if you send 100 texts in a month, no more than 50 can be sent to or received from Mexico and Canada.

Best phones available from Cricket Wireless

You can bring an unlocked phone to Cricket Wireless; just check compatibility first. If you don’t have a phone to bring, we recommend the following:

• Samsung Galaxy S7: $649.99
• iPhone 7 32GB: $649.99
• iPhone 7 128GB: $749.99
• iPhone 7 Plus 32GB: $769.99
• iPhone 7 Plus: 128GB: $869.99
• Samsung Galaxy S6: $499.99

Which should I go with? Mint SIM

From a purely price-conscious perspective, Mint SIM is the better option, especially if you have an unlocked phone of your own. T-Mobile’s network is solid and Mint SIM’s plans are straightforward. So long as you sign up for 3 months or longer at a time, you get a lot more data for your money.

If discounted phones and roaming in Canada and Mexico are important to you, then you’ll have to go with Cricket (if you’re choosing between the two). It just sucks that Cricket charges $10 a month for tethering, while Mint SIM offers it for free.

T-Mobile HTC One M9 Nougat update rolling out now

Better late than never, we always say.

The HTC One M9 on T-Mobile has started to receive its Nougat update, landing over three months after the unlocked model. No matter the timing, owners of the carrier version of the One M9 will be happy to see a large update land two years after the phone was released.

The update to Nougat comes in at a hefty 1.06GB, so be ready to download it over Wi-Fi and probably plug in to a charger for the whole process. If the update doesn’t hit you right away, don’t be alarmed — these things often take a little time to roll out to everyone.

Once you get your Nougat update, be sure to hop into the HTC One M9 forums to let everyone know how it’s going or get help with any issues you may be having!

Android Nougat

• Android 7.0 Nougat: Everything you need to know
• Will my phone get Android Nougat?
• Google Pixel + Pixel XL review
• All Android Nougat news
• How to manually update your Nexus or Pixel
• Join the Discussion

The hidden depth of mobile puzzle game ‘Where Cards Fall’

We’re sitting in a circle on the floor of a decadent San Francisco hotel lobby, crowds of people milling around the couches and stairways. The young men of Snowman, the studio behind Alto’s Adventure, watch as Sam Rosenthal sets up a small iPad, preparing to show off his latest game, Where Cards Fall. Rosenthal is the co-founder of the Game Band, a small Los Angeles studio working with Snowman to bring its new project to iOS, Apple TV and Steam this autumn.

Rosenthal flips through a slideshow of character designs, explaining the premise as he goes. Where Cards Fall is a top-down, 3D puzzle game that has players build houses of cards to navigate tricky environments. It follows a handful of teenagers over the course of 10 years, from adolescence to college and finally adulthood. The art is cartoonish yet polished, as if the designs of Oxenfree had been transformed into 3D.

Where Cards Fall is primarily a mobile game, but its mechanics and story are deeper than the genre generally suggests. This is why The Game Band teamed up with Snowman, a studio with a history of tapping into the potential of the mobile market.

In Where Cards Fall, the suburbs are filled with rolling hill-like platforms pockmarked with the tops of buildings that look perfect for leaping. Eventually, Rosenthal explains, the characters will leave this area for the cities and eventually the clouds, which are filled with floating houses, winged towns and towering skyscrapers.

For now, though, we’re sticking to the suburbs, just 45 minutes into the main game.

Rosenthal loads up the demo and a blaring alarm noise emanates from the iPad. Once the jarring sounds fade away, light music fills the air, a mellow yet bouncy jazz keyboard. A high-school-age character shuffles out of bed in a cheery digital world.

“We’re beginning with a section that most of us can relate to: being late for school in the morning,” Rosenthal says. “We like to play a bit with walk cycles and animations — we drastically reduced the speed here to make you really feel like ‘Oh, I’m groggy in the morning and not getting it together.’ But yeah, the game begins inside of the house of cards. I’ll take you outside in a second.”

The main character stumbles around the house, pulling on a bright oversize sweater and tight jeans, short brown hair sticking up wildly. I ask what the character’s name is.

I don’t realize it’s a loaded question.

“We actually don’t have a name for the main character, and there’s a reason for that,” Rosenthal says, tapping and dragging away on the screen. “All of our characters are nameless, because we want to tell a story with no dialogue at all to try to make it feel as universal as possible. But with the main character — this is something we haven’t actually talked about too much yet — but we specifically designed the character to be gender ambiguous so that players can figure out what they think they want the main character to be.

“There’s scenes in the game that will be a little bit more gender specific, like the dance and such, and we just let you dress up however you want, take whoever you want. Whatever is in your mind is what we’ll honor in the game.”

“I see that now,” I say. Looking again, the main character is perfectly ambiguous. I mention I had just assumed it was a girl.

“To be honest, it totally just came from our playtesters,” Rosenthal says. “We designed the character originally as a different design, and all of our girl playtesters were saying ‘she’ and all of our guys were saying ‘he,’ and we decided to run with that design.”

Rosenthal taps outside of the house, and the character opens the door. He touches the screen and the character moves toward his finger; he drags it and the character follows the path he’s laid out. The keyboard music keeps bopping away, light and contented.

Each platform will have its own unique control mechanic: haptic feedback and 3D touch on the iPhone, possible Touch Bar integration on the Macbook Pro and the ability to play the entire game with the Siri Remote on Apple TV. With the Apple Pencil, players are able to draw a path for their characters to walk down, winding up walkways and around corners. It’s specific, direct control. The game itself is seamless, with no distinct levels, which means it supports various play styles — quick bursts on mobile or longer play sessions at home.

On-screen, Rosenthal’s character is standing in the middle of a friendly, sunny day. He needs to get the character to a high-up platform, which means it’s time to start building some houses.

“The houses of cards do a lot of different things in this game,” Rosenthal says. “Their most primary function is that they can become platforms. You create platforms by spreading out a pile, and when I let go, it turns into a house of cards.”

Using his pointer finger and thumb, he picks up a pile of black-backed cards and positions it on the ground. He lets go and a house pops up with a quick shuffling sound, fully formed and ready to move into. But this isn’t The Sims, and Rosenthal isn’t building houses just for people to live in.

“I’ll use this as a bridge now to get further ahead.” He jumps to the newly formed rooftop and onto an adjacent platform farther up the path. “I can knock ’em down too. I’ll just pinch here.” He squeezes the house with his forefinger and thumb and, with a crinkling sound, it collapses back into a black pile.

“One neat thing about them is that I can also make them different sizes,” Rosenthal explains. “So if I pinch a little bit smaller, I get a smaller house of cards too.” He builds a house in the middle of a large gap. “But this isn’t going to help me just yet, because it’s still not tall enough. So I’ll put a little chimney on it with the other cards I have, and use that to cross.”

He pinches, drags and positions a small pile of cards on top of the existing house. It’s just enough to allow the main character to cross the gap.

With a shuffling sound, Rosenthal pinches his cards back into a pile. He pulls up a new stack of cards — the white markings on the back of this one are slightly different from the others he’s been using. It’s a flat-top, more industrial-style building.

“This is a different type of structure; you can see that with the icon on it,” Rosenthal says. There’s a quick swoosh-swoosh as he minimizes and expands a handful of buildings, creating makeshift bridges and adorable houses at the same time. He crosses another gap, his character jumping seamlessly from one platform to the next. The jazzy music hums in the background, picking up more sounds as we progress, adding tingling synthetic chimes and percussion.

He pauses the main character on a rooftop and says, “So this level isn’t as daunting as it seems. I just have to take it piece by piece.” He moves piles of cards around the map, shrinking and expanding them into different sizes, stacking them on top of one another.

Rosenthal sees the paths clearly; he knows exactly where to go. This game is his creation, after all. Every move is obvious to him, and he navigates the game like a magician, seeing opportunities I can’t. Where Cards Fall is a decidedly tricky puzzle game, asking players to visualize complicated paths forward and make the most of their physical resources.

From across the circle, Snowman producer Eli Cymet chimes in:

“What I really like about it — and I’ve talked to Sam about this a little bit before — is that when people see screenshots or trailers, I think there’s an inclination to say, ‘Oh, this is kind of like Monument Valley.’ And certainly that’s a comparison we’re honored to hear, but more actually for us it’s kind of like Portal. Because you have to sort of just look at a space and imagine what the movement through that space might be, in your head, and then use the tools you have to create that movement.”

Rosenthal agrees.

“Yeah, it’s very much a game about spatial awareness and imagining what a space could be. We play with that with the story too. The main character ends up being an architect, which is a profession that very much deals with that as well.”

He roams around the level, building more card houses, walking into a coffee shop and hanging out for a quiet moment on a bench, surveying the town. Eventually, a school bus comes into view.

“Now we’re starting to see what’s actually going on here. You’re going to school,” Rosenthal says. “A lot of the time in Where Cards Fall, the aim of the characters isn’t necessarily clear right at first. We want it to feel like the act of remembering. The puzzle-solving helps with that, but also, when we remember things, I think sometimes we remember what we’re doing before why we’re doing it. It’s kind of meant to seem like that.”

I’m not sure why — perhaps the mention of “school” quietly activates a long-neglected region of my brain — but I choose this moment, as the demo is wrapping up, to ask if there’s a way to die in Where Cards Fall.

“No death at all,” Rosenthal says. “It’s actually a really fun and interesting design challenge to work on a game where we couldn’t use that as an escape. I always feel like it’s important to justify any mechanic we include in the game, and if the characters are dying, we’d have to explain in the story why they’re dying all the time. We didn’t want to do that.”

Where Cards Fall prides itself on minimalism and player input. The main character is ambiguous, allowing anyone to project their own psyche onto the model; the world itself is open to exploration without fear of death or a shrinking timer, letting players run wild while they build their card houses. There are no discrete levels and no on-screen prompts directing players along the way.

However, the whole thing comes together beautifully, buoyed by a solid foundation: the puzzles themselves. No matter how fluidly Rosenthal flies through the suburbs, it’s clear that these spatial riddles are complicated, requiring multiple steps and the ability to plan ahead. This is a tricky game.

At one point in the middle of the playthrough, Rosenthal pauses for a moment and laughs. “This demo typically takes about half an hour, but I’m just blazing through it.”

He pinches and flicks and builds another card house. A new character opens the door from the inside. With a pinch, he collapses the structure and carries on.

Adidas will knit you a $200 sweater while you wait

In the sneaker industry, it normally takes around 12 to 18 months for a new clothing design to make it to store shelves. Adidas wants to shorten that wait to a matter of hours. To that end, the German fitness apparel company has opened a pop-up shop in Berlin that enables customers to design, manufacture and buy a customized merino wool sweater for 200€ ($215).

The process starts when the customer enters a darkened room where dozens of different designs and patterns are projected onto their chests. The customer picks their favorites, then adjust the color combinations on an adjacent touchscreen. To get the size right, the buyer can choose between the standard S/M/L sizing, or strip down to their skivvies for a 3D laser scan fitting. Once the order is in, the sweaters are machine knitted in the store, then hand-finished, laundered, dried and packaged for pickup — all within four hours.

This isn’t the first time that Adidas has tried to speed up its merchandise manufacturing. The company employs robots extensively throughout its operations and has dabbled in 3D printing. The “Knit for You” store has been open for a couple months now and reportedly sells around 10 sweaters a day on busy days. Adidas is currently looking at the store’s performance to determine if it will expand the service to other locations.

Source: Reuters

New Apple iPad 9.7 vs iPad Air 2: What’s the difference?

Apple has quietly released a new iPad on its online store. Simply called iPad, the new model replaces the iPad Air 2 as Apple’s standard tablet offering, sitting above the iPad Mini 4 and below the two iPad Pro models.

But while Apple may not be officially selling the iPad Air 2 through its online store, you can still pick it up at other retailers, so it remains a relevant product. 

We have put the specs of the new iPad 9.7-inch against the iPad Air 2 to see what the differences are and what changes have been made for Apple to introduce a revised version of the rather successful Air 2.

• Apple iPad Air 2 review
• Apple iPad Pro 9.7 review

New Apple iPad 9.7 vs iPad Air 2: Design

• New iPad is slightly heavier than iPad Air 2
• No Rose Gold colour option for new iPad
• Both tablets have same dimensions

The Apple iPad Air 2 measures 240 x 169.5 x 6.1mm and weighs 437g. It comes in three colours and it features Touch ID within the Home button. It’s thinner than its own Air predecessor, lighter, and it offers a solid design that is lovely.

The new Apple iPad 9.7 has the same design as the Air 2, and on the face of it, you’d assume they would be exactly the same. However the new iPad has put on a bit of weight, coming in at 469g on the scales for the Wi-Fi only model – making it heavier than the iPad Pro 9.7 at the same time – and 478g for the Wi-Fi and 4G LTE variant. In the real world, this weight difference likely won’t make much difference to your experience, but it’s something worth noting. 

The extra weight of the new iPad is represented by a slightly thicker frame, coming at 7.5mm compared to the iPad Air 2’s svelte 6.1mm, however both tablets are the same when it comes to height and width. They also have the same Touch ID sensor in the home button and same aluminium build. 

Apple has continued to reserve the Rose Gold colour finish for its Pro models, as the new iPad 9.7 is only available in the same Space Grey, Gold and Silver finishes as the iPad Air 2. 

• Apple iPad Pro 9.7 vs iPad Pro 12.9: What’s the difference?

New Apple iPad 9.7 vs iPad Air 2: Display

• Both have 9.7-inch displays
• New iPad has brighter Retina display

The Apple iPad Air 2 sits in the middle of the iPad line up when it comes to size. It has a 9.7-inch display in comparison to the 7.9-inch screen of the iPad mini and the 12.9-inch size of the larger iPad Pro.

The iPad Air 2 has a resolution of 2048 x 1536, which means it offers a pixel density of 264ppi. That’s the same as the original Air but the Air 2 comes with an anti-reflective screen, as well as a bump in contrast and colour. The latter aren’t hugely noticeable but the anti-reflective technology makes a big difference and overall the Air 2’s display is great.

The new iPad 9.7 has the same resolution as the Air 2, but Apple claims its now brighter, although fails to mention just how much brighter. We’ll have to wait until a proper side-by-side comparison to see if there’s any discernible difference. 

Once again, Apple has reserved the more premium screen features for its Pro models. There’s no True Tone display on the new iPad 9.7 and no anti-reflective coating. 

We’d expect the new iPad 9.7’s real world performance to largely emulate the performance of the iPad Air 2, which is no bad thing as the iPad Air 2 has one of the best displays on the market in its price bracket.

• What is Apple’s True Tone display?

New Apple iPad 9.7 vs iPad Air 2: Camera

• Both tablets have same front and rear cameras
• 8-megapixel rear camera with autofocus
• 1.2-megapixel front-facing FaceTime HD camera

The Apple iPad Air 2 features a 1.2-megapixel front camera, coupled with an 8-megapixel rear camera. As tablets aren’t as commonly used for taking shots as smartphones, this is more than adequate. It’s the same cameras as found on the iPhone 5S which means that while the iPad Air 2’s cameras are good, they aren’t as good as the iPhone 6S and therefore the iPad Pro 9.7.

Apple hasn’t made any changes to the cameras for the new iPad 9.7, again holding back from giving it the higher quality cameras found on the iPad Pro models. 

Regardless of what you think about using an iPad as a camera, the iPad Air 2 performs well. If you really want to take photos using your tablet, the Air 2 and therefore the new iPad 9.7 will hold you in good stead.

• Apple iPad Pro 12.9 vs iPad Air 2: What’s the difference?

New Apple iPad 9.7 vs iPad Air 2: Hardware

• New iPad gets A9 processor
• Same internal storage options

The Apple iPad Air 2 comes with the A8X chip and the M8 motion co-processor. This is supported by 2GB of RAM and there are internal storage options of 32GB and 128GB with no microSD support, as is the way with all Apple devices.

The new iPad 9.7-inch meanwhile has been given a slightly faster 64-bit A9 processor. It’s not quite on the same level as the A9X processor found in the iPad Pro, but it should provide a noticeable increase in performance over the iPad Air 2.

The new iPad 9.7 gets the same 32GB and 128GB storage options as the outgoing Air 2 and of course, there’s no microSD support. Apple has once again stuck to its dual speaker setup for the new iPad, so while sound quality will be good, it won’t be as powerful as the four speaker setup on the iPad Pro.

New Apple iPad 9.7 vs iPad Air 2: Software

• Both run iOS 10

Both the Apple iPad Air 2 and the new iPad 9.7 run on iOS 10, meaning the software experience will be almost identical across these two models.

The new model doesn’t come with any additional features, such as Apple Pencil compatibility, so in this instance the two will be completely identical.

• Apple iOS 10 review

New Apple iPad 9.7 vs iPad Air 2: Price

• New iPad 9.7 is £40 cheaper

The Apple iPad Air 2 starts at £379 and goes up to £499, depending on which storage capacity you choose and whether you opt for Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi and Cellular.

The new iPad 9.7 on the other hand, has a starting price of £339, stretching to £469 for the highest storage capacity and Wi-Fi and Cellular. 

New Apple iPad 9.7 vs iPad Air 2: Conclusion

The iPad Air 2 is a great tablet, and based on our experiences with it, we can have no problem with recommending the new iPad 9.7 before even testing it. The inclusion of an updated processor is a welcome one, and the fact Apple has left pretty much everything else unchanged, we can conjure up a good idea of how the new model will perform.

The fact that Apple has managed to update the iPad, and bring down its price is something not to be sniffed at. If you were putting off buying an iPad because you felt it was too expensive to join Apple’s ecosystem, now could be the best time yet.

• Apple iPad Pro 9.7 review: The tablet to beat all tablets
• Apple iPad Air 2 review: Lighter, faster, thinner, better
• Which iPad is best for you?

Google vows to pull ads from extreme videos and sites

Google has detailed new safeguards to ensure brands don’t have their adverts served against extremist content. The measures follow a wave of complaints and advertising withdrawals by the UK government, Audi and L’Oreal, among others, triggered by a Times investigation which revealed a number of adverts being shown alongside harmful and inappropriate videos on YouTube. In a blog post, Google said it would be taking “a tougher stance” and “removing ads more effectively” from content that is attacking people based on their race, religion or gender. It also promised to hire “significant numbers” of new staff to review “questionable content.”

Google will also introduce new tools for advertisers. These include account-level controls so that brands can avoid specific sites and channels. The company will tighten its default settings too so that ads are shown against content “that meets a higher level of brand safety.” Companies will still have access to a broader range of videos, but they’ll need to opt in. Google also mentioned new controls “to make it easier for brands to exclude higher risk content and fine-tune where they want their ads to appear.” It stopped short of explaining how these will work, however.

The company says it will get to the heart of the problem and address infringing content on YouTube too. “We won’t stop at taking down ads,” Philipp Schindler, Google’s chief business officer said. “The YouTube team is taking a hard look at our existing community guidelines to determine what content is allowed on the platform — not just what content can be monetized.” Google, of course, can’t control what’s published on the wider web, but it can specify where ads are shown via its advertising network. With YouTube, however, the company has end-to-end control, and has a responsibility to moderate the content that’s available to users.

“Recently, we had a number of cases where brands’ ads appeared on content that was not aligned with their values. For this, we deeply apologize.”

Google was summoned to the Cabinet Office last week after the UK government discovered its ads, including blood donation and Army recruitment campaigns, were being shown against extremist content. Matthew Brittin, chief of Google’s European operations, apologised at the Advertising Week Europe conference. He said: “I want to start by saying sorry. We apologise. When anything like that happens, we don’t want it to happen and you don’t want it to happen. We take responsibility for it.”

YouTube is already under fire for blocking LGBTQ+ videos with its Restricted Mode filter. It’s since apologised and promised to “fix” the problem, but not before viewers and channel owners have expressed their disproval. There’s also a debate around Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg and his controversial brand of comedy, which has included anti-Semitic jokes in the past. The YouTube star was dropped from Disney’s Maker Studios following a report by the Wall Street Journal, which highlighted a video where Kjellberg hires two men through Fiverr to hold a sign saying “Death to all Jews.” It’s triggered a larger discussion about a subset of YouTube’s creators, the content they’re uploading and its impact on viewers.

Google is one of many companies being criticized for its platform policing. The UK’s Home Affairs select committee grilled Facebook, Twitter and Google about their moderation practises earlier this month, branding them with a “terrible reputation.” Germany’s Ministry of Justice drew a similar conclusion last week, attacking Facebook and Google over their failures to deal with hate speech. These companies have long argued that it’s a difficult problem to solve, due to the sheer volume of content online, and insisted that their tools work most of the time. For a growing number of people, however, it seems this response just isn’t good enough.

Source: Google (Blog Post)

Three caught up in another embarassing data breach

A technical issue has given some Three customers access to another person’s account information, including their name, address, phone number and call history. The scale of the problem isn’t clear, but it’s likely to be small. Three says it’s received “less than 20” reports so far from customers, and is now investigating the matter. As the Guardian reports, the mistake has allowed a number of Three customers to view other people’s personal information after logging in to their account online.

A spokesperson for Three said: “We are aware of a small number of customers who may have been able to view the mobile account details of other three users using My3. No financial details were viewable during this time and we are investigating the matter.” For those affected, it represents a breach of their personal information. Mark Tommo Thompson discovered his involvement after he was called by a stranger who discovered they had access to his details. Posting on Three’s Facebook page, he described it as a “shocking breach of data privacy,” and demanded to know how many other people were able to view this information.

The system snafu follows an equally embarrassing data breach affecting 130,000 Three customers last year. Thieves used a stolen employee login to access basic account details, but no financial information, such as bank details, passwords, pin numbers, or credit and debit card numbers. Three men were arrested after they tried to use this information to obtain smartphones through the company’s standard upgrade system. At the time, Three CEO David Dyson said in a statement: “We believe the primary purpose of this was not to steal customer information but was criminal activity to acquire new handsets fraudulently.” The company has contacted everyone who might be affected, and the legal case is still ongoing.

NASA’s origami robots can squeeze into places rovers can’t

Imagine a Martian rover that can send small robotic minions to crawl into crevices or climb steep slopes — everywhere a full-sized vehicle can’t go to. That’s the scenario a team from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory hopes to achieve by developing small origami-inspired robots called Pop-Up Flat Folding Explorer Robots or PUFFERs. They’re made of printed circuit boards and can be flattened and stacked on top of each other on the way to their mission. Once they get to the location, they can pop back up and drive away.

PUFFER’s project manager Jaakko Karras conjured up its design back when he was experimenting with origami while working on robots at UC Berkeley’s Biomimetic Millisystem Lab. The team replaced the paper he used in his design with printed circuit boards and then 3D printed wheels for the machine. PUFFER’s latest set of wheels have treads and can inch forward one wheel at a time, so it can climb slopes. They can also fold over the robot’s body if it needs to squeeze into a tiny opening.

While the current prototype can already drive up to 2,050 feet on one charge and withstand extremely high temperatures, the team has more plans for the machine. They want to equip it with scientific instruments, which could make it as big as a breadbox. In addition, if it’s to explore Mars and other celestial bodies, it has to be autonomous and not a machine controlled remotely via Bluetooth.

Karras said PUFFERs “can do parallel science with a rover, so you can increase the amount you’re doing in a day.” Kalind Carpenter, who made the robot’s wheels, added: “If Curiosity had a stack of PUFFERs on board, each of them could go to separate spots, and the rover would just go to the most interesting one.”

Source: NASA

Android O teases big changes to save your battery

Google I/O is only a few months away — but just like last year, we won’t have to wait until then to get our first taste of what’s coming to Android. Today, Google is releasing a developer preview of Android O, just over one year after first dropping details on Android 7.0 Nougat. Just like last year, the company is highlighting a handful of major features and letting developers know how they can try it out. But as is often the case with preview releases, Android O is not ready for regular users and not for the faint of heart.

Judging from the info Google has released today, Android O doesn’t have a big, attention-grabbing consumer feature like split-screen multitasking. Probably the closest is a change to how the system handles notifications. Android will allow for new “notification channels,” which from Google’s somewhat-vague description sound like a way for developers to roll up various types of notifications into a bundle a user can browse. An example screenshot Google provided showed a news app with 10 different “categories” of notifications, so you can see all the tech news notifications in one shot. It’s the kind thing we’ll need to see in action to judge, but it could potentially help to simplify a messy notification window.

Another pretty major change is called “background limits.” While it’s not something a user will interface directly with, it could crucially save battery life, something Google has focused on in Android for a while now. Background limits will do just what it says: put limits on what apps can do in the background, across three main areas. Background services, location updates and “implicit broadcasts” will all be subject to automatic limiting by Android to help developers create apps that don’t trash your battery life.

Google’s initial release doesn’t give much info on how this will affect the functionality of apps, but the company admits that it’s a “significant change” to Android. Therefore, it’s providing a lot of documentation on what’s changing and how to make apps work in the new system — we haven’t had a chance to review it yet, but we’ll update this post with anything significant we learn.

Other features worth mentioning include a picture-in-picture mode for phones (the feature came to tablets last year), “adaptive” app icons that should look native to multiple phone launchers, better keyboard navigation for devices like Chromebooks and support for autofill apps. Google compares these apps to password managers; it sounds like it’ll be an improved way to manage all the info you get tired of having to enter over and over again.

Developers will be able to try Android O out in the official Android emulator, but if you want to try it on actual hardware you’ll have to download and flash your device. Google says that brave developers can do this with the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel C, Nexus 5x, Nexus 6P and Nexus Player. If you’re interested in building apps to work with Android O and Android Wear 2.0, that’s available in the emulator as well.

Android O isn’t being pushed out to the beta channel (where just about anyone can try it) just yet, so only try this if you’re really game for potentially wreaking havoc on your chosen device. For everyone else, Google says it’ll have a lot more details on Android at I/O in May — we’ll probably see the full beta release right around then, as well.

Source: Google

UK also bans devices from cabins on flights from Middle East

The UK has followed the US in restricting electronic devices on flights from several countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Though not identical to the measures implemented by the US, passengers on “select flights” coming to the UK from Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Tunisia will only be allowed to carry smartphones in the cabin. Any device bigger than 16.0 x 9.3 x 1.5cm, such as laptops, must be stored in checked, hold baggage. While the US ban went into effect today and will last for 96 hours, the UK government has not set an expiry time for its restrictions.

“The United States government made a similar announcement earlier today regarding flights to the United States and we have been in close contact with them to fully understand their position,” the announcement reads. “We will not hesitate to put in place measures we believe are necessary, effective and proportionate.”

While no explicit reason for the ban other than the generally beefing up security has been given either side of the pond, it’s the sort of temporary reaction you’d expect to a specific terrorist plot. Sources speaking to The Telegraph said the action is in response to UK agencies working with the same intelligence as their US equivalents, further substantiating that theory.

Source: UK government