How to turn off AMBER alerts on Android and iOS

You’ve probably been startled by the vibration or ringing of your phone, only to find out it was caused by a seemingly random AMBER alert. They’re only used when a child goes missing in your area, and they certainly do a good job at getting your attention. But you may want disable such geo-centric notifications for a number of reasons, most likely because you’re out of town or continue to receive them in the wee hours of the morning. All smartphones — be it Android or iPhone — receive AMBER alerts, and here we explain how to turn the notifications off. Then again, is knowing what’s going on in your local area such a bad thing?

More: How to block text messages in Android and iOS

Turning off AMBER alerts in iOS

In iOS, AMBER alerts are categorized as Government Alerts alongside Emergency Alerts, the latter which amounts to weather warnings or notifications issued by the President. Provided you’re using an iPhone 4S or later — and your carrier is AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile or Verizon — you should be able to toggle them on and off.

Step 1: Start by opening your Settings.

Step 2: Tap Notifications, then scroll to the bottom of the page to find the Government Alerts sections.

Step 3: Tap the toggles next to AMBER Alerts and Emergency Alerts to turn them off.

Turning off AMBER alerts in Android

The settings to adjust your AMBER alerts may be found in a different place depending on your Android phone. Below, you’ll find instructions for stock Android devices, the Samsung Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge, and the Samsung Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge.

Turning off AMBER alerts in stock Android

Step 1: From the Home screen, open your Settings.

Step 2: Tap the More option, followed by Emergency broadcasts.

Step 3: On the Cell Broadcast page, tap the box or toggle next to Show AMBER alerts to disable AMBER alerts. You can also disable alerts for Extreme threats and Severe threats.

Turning off AMBER alerts on a Samsung Galaxy

For a Samsung Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge or an S7 or S7 Edge (AT&T, T-Mobile)

Step 1: From the Home screen, open the Messages app.

Step 2: Tap More in the upper-right corner, then tap Settings.

Step 3: Tap Emergency alert settings > Emergency alerts.

Step 4: On the Emergency alerts screen, toggle off AMBER alerts, as well as Extreme alerts and Severe alerts.

For a Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge (Verizon)

Step 1: Go to Apps > Emergency Alerts.

Step 2: Tap Settings in the upper-right corner.

Step 3: Tap Alert types.

Step 4: Toggle off AMBER alerts. Here, you can also choose to turn off Extreme threats and Severe threats.

For a Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge (Verizon)

Step 1: Open Settings > Privacy and emergency.

Step 2: Tap Emergency alerts and select Settings in the upper-right corner.

Step 3: Tap Alert types.

Step 4: Toggle off AMBER alerts. Here, you can also turn off Severe alerts, Extreme alerts, and Emergency alert test messages.

Don’t want to pay extra for Oculus movies? Use these awesome alternatives instead!

There is no reason to overpay for your movies when you have options.

The Gear VR is comfortable enough that you can easily lay back and check out your favorite movies. Now Oculus Movies, is built right in so that you can purchase and watch the movies that you are really hankering for. However there is a bit of a catch here. That’s because purchasing a movie through Oculus Movies is actually a bit more expensive than it is anywhere else. Nobody wants to overpay for content unless they have to, and that’s definitely true here. Thankfully when it comes to checking out movies in VR, you have a few options to check out.

Read more at VRHeads

Play laser tag in the real world with this smartphone attachment

Playing laser tag is fun, but in order to do so, you have to go to a special venue, get specialized equipment and basically block off the entire day. With Proxy49’s Inceptor, however, you don’t have to. This little accessory combined with a game called Father.io essentially changes any smartphone into a mobile laser tag machine, without the need for a plastic toy gun attachment.

The device was funded on Indiegogo last year, but is just now heading into production. It has an infrared receiver and transmitter, a battery, plus a slew of different sensors that promise low latency as you’re running around dodging tags. It also has an LED to let you know whose team you’re on. The app, on the other hand, essentially uses your phone’s camera to help you see the world around you, and then it overlays graphics like target crosshairs and how many points you’ve scored.

We tried it out for a little bit at GDC 2017 in San Francisco, running around the perimeter of the Moscone Center. The app was definitely still in beta though, and accuracy seemed to be a little off. I also didn’t like it that I never knew how many hit points I had left and I couldn’t really tell how “hurt” my opponent was either. The folks behind Proxy49 tell me they’re still working on the app, and that the Inceptor could potentially be used with other games too.

Still, smartphone-powered laser tag is not a bad idea. I liked the augmented reality aspect of it — channeling Pokemon Go here a little — in that you could actually “see” your target in real life and fire at him or her. The fact that my screen flashed red when I “died” was a nice touch too.

You can pre-order the Inceptor on Indiegogo for $50 for a 2-pack, or if you prefer, you can get one for $30 each from Brookstone later this year.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from GDC 2017!

Uber’s solution to leadership woes may be a second-in-command

Uber is in a lot of hot water lately between Greyball, sexual harassment claims, a political uproar, an Alphabet lawsuit and CEO Travis Kalanick’s own outbursts. How is it supposed to get the ship back on course? If you believe sources speaking to The Information, the ridesharing outfit has a simple solution: hire a No. 2. Kalanick reportedly plans to take on a second-in-command that would “make key decisions” for the company. Think of this person like Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, or Eric Schmidt in Google’s pre-Alphabet days — a second voice that tempers the founder’s idealism with some business sense.

The company isn’t commenting on the rumor apart from acknowledging Kalanick’s recent remarks that he needs to “grow up” and is looking for “leadership help.”

If accurate, this may be as much in Kalanick’s interest as anything else. A second in command might silence some of those calling for the CEO to quit, reassuring them that the company’s success or failure isn’t solely attributable to him. The upshot, of course, is that this might help Uber avoid making some decisions it regrets later. You won’t necessarily see a dramatically kinder and gentler Uber, but it may find itself in trouble less often than before.

Source: The Information

Facebook Messenger bots are going to get a lot more verbose

Facebook’s next updates for Messenger have a big focus on bots. Yep, Zuck is still trying to make “fetch” happen with those. Anyhow, the newest bits for the platform are mostly about letting others know that a bit of text originated from. That means from a shared bit of bot text will allow you to start a conversation with said bot from your existing conversation window. Even if you’re using Messenger from desktop. In addition to a bunch of other developer-centric notes is word that the bot text limit has been doubled. So yeah, jumping from 320 characters to 640 means that the bots are about to get a lot more chatty.

Source: Facebook Developers

Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: Smart workbenches, cosmic fidget toys, and more

At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion crowdfunding campaigns on the web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there — alongside some real gems. In this column, we cut through all the worthless wearables and Oculus Rift ripoffs to round up the week’s most unusual, ambitious, and exciting projects. But don’t grab your wallet just yet. Keep in mind that any crowdfunded project can fail — even the most well-intentioned. Do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.

Nexus Workbench — compact, high-tech worktable

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Are you a maker, tinkerer or some other word that ends in “-er,” who requires a garage workstation to do your thing?  Do you occasionally look at existing workbenches and find yourself wishing they would borrow a bit more of their design language from the 1982 film Tron?  If you answered yes to both of these questions, you will probably fall head over heels in love with the Nexus workbench, a new Kickstarter project which launched on Tuesday.

“The Nexus workbench is a game-changer for the home garage, solving these problems with unique storing capabilities and a plethora of features,” Zeb Fish, founder and CEO of Garage Mastermind, told Digital Trends in an interview. “Using linear actuators, the Nexus effortlessly transforms from its generous 3-foot by 8-foot workspace position into its storage position, sitting less than six inches from the wall. This means when you’re not working on a project, you can tuck the Nexus out of the way with just the flip of a switch.”

The foldaway element is not the only exciting aspect of the Nexus. As well as space issues, most garages also lack adequate lighting and electrical outlets — which is where the workbench’s bright LED lights on its flex arms come into play. There are also eight integrated electrical outlets and the same number of USB charging ports, so you can charge batteries, power devices, and run your assorted power tools without having to stop to switch cords.

Find out more

Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: Smart workbenches, cosmic fidget toys, and more

At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion crowdfunding campaigns on the web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there — alongside some real gems. In this column, we cut through all the worthless wearables and Oculus Rift ripoffs to round up the week’s most unusual, ambitious, and exciting projects. But don’t grab your wallet just yet. Keep in mind that any crowdfunded project can fail — even the most well-intentioned. Do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.

Nexus Workbench — compact, high-tech worktable

Please enable Javascript to watch this video

Are you a maker, tinkerer or some other word that ends in “-er,” who requires a garage workstation to do your thing?  Do you occasionally look at existing workbenches and find yourself wishing they would borrow a bit more of their design language from the 1982 film Tron?  If you answered yes to both of these questions, you will probably fall head over heels in love with the Nexus workbench, a new Kickstarter project which launched on Tuesday.

“The Nexus workbench is a game-changer for the home garage, solving these problems with unique storing capabilities and a plethora of features,” Zeb Fish, founder and CEO of Garage Mastermind, told Digital Trends in an interview. “Using linear actuators, the Nexus effortlessly transforms from its generous 3-foot by 8-foot workspace position into its storage position, sitting less than six inches from the wall. This means when you’re not working on a project, you can tuck the Nexus out of the way with just the flip of a switch.”

The foldaway element is not the only exciting aspect of the Nexus. As well as space issues, most garages also lack adequate lighting and electrical outlets — which is where the workbench’s bright LED lights on its flex arms come into play. There are also eight integrated electrical outlets and the same number of USB charging ports, so you can charge batteries, power devices, and run your assorted power tools without having to stop to switch cords.

Find out more

5 songs you need to stream this week: Laura Marling, Ryan Adams, and more

Every week, there are thousands of new songs hitting the airwaves — and it’s just too much for your two ears to handle. With all those options, you can’t be wasting your time on tracks that deserve a thumbs-down click.

But don’t worry, we’re going to save you the hassle. We listen to some of the most-hyped and interesting songs each week, and tell you which are worthy of your precious listening time.

More: Spotify may upgrade its free account to give users more on-demand streaming

Here are our top five songs to stream this week. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our Spotify page for a playlist of our weekly picks, which can also be found at the bottom of this post.

Laura Marling — Nothing, Not Nearly

The latest song from British songwriter Laura Marling’s upcoming album Semper Femina features the skillful touch of Alabama Shakes producer Blake Mills. A simple 6/8 beat underlays this folky number, with rambling and poetic lyrics and a dirty electric guitar center in the middle. Like much of Marling’s catalog, this one is simple and subtle, the kind of thing you’ll come back to time and time again.

Ryan Adams — Streets of Philadelphia

On a recent trip to the U.K. to promote his latest album, Prisoner, Americana songwriter Ryan Adams shared a solo acoustic version of Bruce Springsteen’s Streets of Philadelphia on BBC radio, eschewing the heavily produced synth tones of the original in favor of simple vocal melodies.

Cadence Weapon — My Crew (Wooo) (Produced by Kaytranada)

Two Polaris Prize winners join forces on My Crew (Wooo), where a space-like beat from Canadian producer extraordinaire Kaytranada pairs with the quick-spitting style of rapper Cadence Weapon. The trap influence is apparent throughout the slow-rolling track, but the duo still manage to keep the song a bit higher brow than the genre’s typical fare, forming a song that’s suited to both deep listening and the dance floor.

Beach Fossils — This Year

Beautiful string melodies join acoustic guitars and a simple drum beat on the latest song from Brooklyn’s Beach Fossils. This one feels like a long lost Real Estate single — the kind of song that makes you want to put on your jogging shorts and run around in the cold spring air.

Hot 8 Brass Band — Can’t Nobody Get Down

New Orleans’ Hot 8 Brass Band made a special appearance on California’s KCRW radio this week, celebrating Fat Tuesday with a rash of high-energy second-line music. On Can’t Nobody Get Down, the energy in the room jumps through the screen, raising your spirit to full-on New Orleans party mode. All that’s missing is a tall, cool drink.

That’s it for now, but tune in next week for more tunes — and check out the playlist loaded with our recent selections below:

From the Editor’s Desk: Wrapping up MWC 2017

Even without a big phone announcement from Samsung, MWC was a wild ride.

Mobile World Congress is always crazy. This was my sixth year covering the Barcelona-based show, which each year lives up to its reputation of being a whirlwind of hype, announcements, events and surprises. It’s exhausting, but never a chore.

The absence of a big Galaxy S8 announcement from Samsung created a vacuum that just about everyone else tried to fill. In the Android phone space, that meant new flagships from LG, Huawei, Sony, BlackBerry and Nokia, along with the usual scattering of wearables, tablets industry buzzword-mongery (5G! — it’ll be great once we figure out what it actually is!)

For me, the winning phone of the show was the LG G6, which will be my daily driver for the foreseeable future. (Go read our review to find out why.) In the U.S., the G6 stands a decent chance of being the de facto (Android) alternative to the GS8 — though it’s pretty much inevitable that it’ll be steamrolled by Samsung in terms of sales and public mindshare.

LG will eventually be forced to lower the G6’s price, or get steamrolled by Samsung.

The G6’s greatest strength is that it’s no longer chasing gimmicks, and instead focusing on being a solid overall device, differentiated by one or two great features, like the extremely fun wide-angle camera and extra-tall display. Sooner or later, LG will be forced to compete with the Galaxy S8 on price — especially if, as listed by one retailer, it launches at £699 unlocked in the UK. Nevertheless, coming from what was basically a total dud in the LG G5, the G6 represents a promising return to form. LG is back in the game.

On a related note, some of background on the G6 review, since we were pretty early in publishing this time. Review timings involve balancing a lot of different factors: Sometimes you’ll be dealing with non-final software or hardware (whenever that’s the case, we’ll always say so upfront in the “About this review” section.) Sometimes there are pre-planned embargo times to hit, sometimes it’s less clear-cut.

With the G6, we went about as quickly as I’d want to for a new phone, pushing an initial review after a couple of days with it in Barcelona, and a good amount of time with it in Korea the previous week. For each phone we review the circumstances are different, but with the G6 review I think we struck a good balance between speed of delivery and depth of analysis. As always when we’re dealing with pre-release firmware, we’ll update our review once we have final builds in-hand.

Meanwhile, Chinese juggernaut Huawei brought us two pretty good phones and one pretty meh smartwatch. First, the not-so-great: The Huawei Watch 2, on a functional level, is perfectly fine. The problem is that the name places it as a direct successor to a very different wearable with very different priorities, and in design terms there’s just no way you can make a favorable comparison between the first Huawei Watch and its successor. One actually looks reasonably stylish, at least by smartwatch standards. The other is an ugly plasticky toy. (Incidentally, the pre-release paperwork inside our review device’s box mentions the name “Huawei Watch 2 Sport,” a monicker which may have made more sense.)

The problem with the Huawei Watch 2 is the name as much as the cheap, boring design.

The Huatch 2 Classic looks less objectionable, but does little to justify its eye-watering €399 price tag.

Huawei did a better job with its phones. The P10 Plus in particular, with its top-notch specs and promising f/1.8 camera, should do well in the UK, where it’ll be ranged on all but one of the major operators. (The smaller P10 will launch on all four, plus Carphone Warehouse.)

But I’ve been vexed by what seems to be an insane product decision from Huawei. As far as I can tell, neither P10 model has an oleophobic layer on its screen. (That’s a smudge-resistant layer included in all but the cheapest phones as standard.) Sure, there’s a factory-fitted screen protector on there out of the box, which many P10 buyers may leave intact. But if you want to use it without a screen protector, your display will soon become a maddening hellscape of fingerprint smudges. I’m currently trying to confirm with Huawei that retail P10s will also exclude the olephobic layer; if so, it’s a baffling decision, and perhaps a reason to pass on these phones altogether.

Trying to replace a button is the definition of over-engineering.

I’m also not keen on the newly relocated fingerprint scanner on the P10, nor the weird gesture input Huawei touts as an alternative to Android’s soft keys. (Single-tap on the scanner for back, long-press for home, swipe for recent apps.) Vlad Savov of The Verge makes a good case for the new gesture setup. My counter-argument is that trying to replace a button (a button!) is pretty much the definition of over-engineering. At least soft keys are still the default button configuration on the P10, in what appears to have been a last-minute change. (At a briefing a few days ahead of the announcement, we were told gestures were the default.)

Sony’s Xperia XZ Premium, which I got to fondle for a few minutes at MWC, is another nice-looking Sony phone which will probably fail to move the needle for the Japanese firm. The standout features include the Snapdragon 835 SoC — which, given that Samsung has first dibs on the chip, means the XZ Premium will ship in May at the earliest — and a 4K display which isn’t VR ready, giving it questionable utility.

Next to the likes of the G6, Sony’s new flagship is a boxy, bezely beast — and I’m still not sure what exactly Sony’s supposed to be doing better than anyone else, with the exception of pixel density. And then there’s the whole fingerprint sensor situation, which has Sony, because of bad business deals made some years ago, releasing an $800+ phone with a core feature disabled in software in the U.S. (Andrew Martonik has the scoop on that over here.)

It’s been a good couple of years since Sony released a phone that I found exciting in any way. It’s possible that the XZ, with its new camera features and unique mirrored chassis, will reignite that fire. But on the surface, this appears to be another incremental, half-yearly upgrade for the Xperia range.

Beyond the hype over new flagships, it’s been cool to see some of the genuine enthusiasm (fuelled as much by nostalgia as anything), around Nokia and BlackBerry. Both brands saw a resurgence at MWC, with Nokia promising well-built mid-rangers with software that doesn’t suck — your move, Motorola — and BlackBerry Mobile kicking off a new range of phones with a QWERTY device aimed squarely at the core CrackBerry enthusiasts, as well as enterprise and government.

I’m more optimistic about BlackBerry (Mobile)’s chances in the long run, especially if the KEYone is followed by a compelling display-centric device for normals that’s able to boast the same performance, software features and battery life. By comparison HMD’s pretty but under-specced Nokias have a mountain to climb — first of all, the brand has to clearly convey what’s special about a Nokia phone in 2017.

Other odds and ends for a post-MWC weekend:

• No really, you don’t say!?
• Smart move by Google brining Assistant to… basically everything. But I can’t help wondering whether this was the plan all along, or if Goog’s hand was forced by Samsung’s upcoming Bixby assistant, and the fact that Amazon’s sniffing around for Alexa partners.
• Between Android O and Google’s upcoming laptop plans, Google I/O should be big this year. I’ll see you in Mountain View this May!
• The Studiously Studio Meow Meow 3 is a pretty funny glimpse into the fake branding used in Huawei prototypes. Also see this P10 proto, with chimp-based branding.
• If you’ve got 20 minutes to kill, check out this extended cut of Andrew and I talking LG G6 in Korea for lots of juicy behind-the-scenes stuff.

That’s it for MWC week. Roll on GS8 launch season!

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After Math: Living Large

It was a big week for big shots. Bitcoin is now worth its weight in gold, a wayward Army drone channeled the Brave Little Toaster and Apple just saved half a billion dollars in court costs. Numbers, because stuff. And reasons. But mostly, stuff.