Verizon is offering trade-in deals on your favorite tech accessories

Verizon wants to help upgrade your tech accessories this April.

Carriers frequently offer trade-in deals to upgrade your smartphone, but Verizon is looking to extend that offer to some popular accessories by offering a pretty sweet trade-in deal on select products.

Running until the end of April, you can get a $30 Visa prepaid card when you spend over $149.99 on a new smart thermostat, fitness tracker, or speakers and recycle your old gear. With summer just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to upgrade your old thermostat to the latest Nest Thermostat or trade up your Fitbit to the latest Charge 2 model.

If you’re interested in snagging some new speakers for the summer, bring down that old Bluetooth speaker and upgrade to the UE BOOM 2. The UE Boom 2 is one of the best portable Bluetooth speakers you can buy and, conveniently enough, Verizon has them on sale for $149.99 — 25% off the regular price.

Once you’ve completed your trade-in, you’ll need to head to Verizon’s Promotion Center and use the promo code RECYCLE along with receipt info and UPC barcodes to read the full terms and conditions and submit your form to complete the deal. You can trade in multiple devices at one time, but trades must be like for like; your old fitness tracker for a new fitness tracker, your old school thermostat for a new smart thermostat, etc.

Will you be using this deal to upgrade your accessories? Let us know in the comments!

Google and partners create PAX: The Android Networked Cross-License Agreement

In an effort to promote growth and build a safe harbor against patent litigation, Google and some of its major partners have created PAX.

PAX is the latest cross-licensing patent initiative where members provide royalty-free use of patents that cover everything Android-related. The companies involved feel that this will help keep innovation coming, spur future growth, and protect against legal threats across the board.

PAX members currently include Google, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Foxconn Technology Group, HMD Global, HTC, Coolpad, BQ, and Allview. The members collectively own more than 230,000 patents worldwide. As more companies join, PAX will bring even more patent peace and value to its members through more freedom to innovate.

Android itself is free to use and over 400 partners are taking advantage of this. In 2016 there were more than 4,000 “major” devices running Android released and there are more than 1.6 billion people using them. That’s a big draw for any company, no matter how large or small it may be right now. An agreement like PAX can help them all focus on spending time and money to drive their business instead of in court.

In the end, this should be a boon for consumers as well. When companies feel free to use and develop new ideas and features without the fear of standing alone in the face of a legal battle, the things we buy get better and better. Look for more companies to join the PAX initiative as time goes on.

Google Play Store adds Indie Corner for discovering great indie games

Google wants to help you to discover the great games being made by indie developers.

You gotta love Google for all that it’s done and continues to do to support indie game developers — from running fantastic contests that shine a light on outstanding indie games for Android to giving away a paid app for free each week. Now, it has added a new home for the best indie games in the Google Play Store.

The Indie Corner is a new section within the Google Play Store where you can easily browse through the best indie games available for Android. The page is broken up into three categories: latest releases, Google’s own picks, and “indie masterpieces”, which features some absolute must-play titles from recent releases like Reigns to older classics like The Room Three and Smash Hit. Every game is rated four stars or higher (and deservedly so), so we may as well consider this the cream of the crop for indie Android games.

Featuring a mix of both free and paid apps spanning all genres, you’re sure to find your next favorite game on this list. We’ve bookmarked this page in our browser and you should too.

Check out the Indie Corner in the Google Play Store

Bang & Olufsen Beosound Shape is a wall of sound that you’ll definitely want

Danish speaker brand Bang and Olufsen is no stranger when it comes to marrying high quality audio and innovation, and its latest product has a great case to be considered the perfect partnership.

• Bang and Olufsen at 92: A closer look at how the luxury brand found its success

Called the Beosound Shape, B&O’s engineers have created what can best be described as a wall of sound. The system is made up of several hexagonal tiles, with six tiles making up one set.

Behind each grille is a different component, whether it be speaker driver, acoustic dampener or amplifier and electronics. The basic six-tile setup comprises four speakers, one dampener and one ‘master tile’ with the amplifier and brains of the system. One amplifier powers up to four speakers.

The tiles effortlessly mount to your wall and each is connected with cables that are cleverly hidden in tracks around the outside of the tile, but still hidden by the tile’s grille. The tiles also have air vents built-in around the edges to make sure they don’t overheat, and because all the tiles have them, they create a chimney effect when connected together, so air that passes through the bottom tile can make its way to the top one. 

From our brief listening time we were impressed with the sound quality on offer, but the Beosound Shape’s real party trick is with the audio algorithms its sound engineers have come up with.

With regular hi-fi speakers, you have a left channel and a right channel. If you move left or right of the middle ‘sweet spot’, then your brain will be able to distinguish which speaker is closest, and you’ll only focus on that one. 

Pocket-lint

The algorithms within the Beosound Shape eliminate that, so no matter where you are in the room, you’ll get the same sound going to your ears. It’s clever enough to separate the different frequencies and aspects of music too, so vocals for example will remain in the centre, while instruments will be placed around, as if you have a band playing in your room. B&O calls this effect, the “band on the wall”.

We were able to experience this in our hands-on session, and we have to say, it really does work. Switching between regular left and right stereo and then with the DSP activated, it was as clear as night and day how well it manipulated the sound. 

• B&O Beoplay A1 by Bang & Olufsen review: Bluetooth speaker bliss

Bang & Olufsen says you can have up to 44 speakers and 11 amplifiers in one system, so you best make sure you have a big wall to mount them on, and a wallet deep enough to pay for it. 

B&O has also made it incredibly easy for you to design your own system. You don’t need to be an audio whizz to understand and work out what tiles need to go where, as an online shopping tool will take the measurements of your room and recommend the tiles you need and where to place them.

You control the entire system via an application, which when we went to see B&O at its headquarters in Denmark, wasn’t ready for a full public showing. But the engineers say you’ll be able to access a myriad of streaming services and choose the speakers within your system to want to use. 

The Beosound Shape system actually connects to a separate box, called Beosound Core, that houses all the connections and handles online streaming services. From this box, which is also hidden behind a tile, you can connect via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, AirPlay and Google Cast.

• Bang & Olufsen BeoSound Moment wireless music system is fronted by touch-sensitive wood interface

It supports high-resolution audio up to 24-bit/96kHz and can work with other Bang & Olufsen and B&O Play products as part of a multi-room system. The Beosound Shape system will also accept digital optical and analogue sources, too, such as TVs and turntables.

B&O has made it so that the box can be switched out to keep up with any changes, in a similar way to Samsung’s OneConnect box that houses all the connections for its TVs. 

Pocket-lint

The Beosound Shape is very much a lifestyle audio product, B&O admits it’s not going after the audiophile with this one, but is for those who want to come home from a long day at work and put some music on in the background while they cook dinner or entertain guests, all in a stylish and effectively hidden package.

It’s an incredibly intriguing system and one we can’t wait to try out for ourselves. If you want to get the Beosound Shape in your own home, then prices start at €4,000 when it launches in August. 

Amazon Cash lets you shop online without a bank card – here’s how

If you don’t have a bank card, shopping online is nearly impossible.

People without access to credit and debit cards – including minors – are limited to using gift cards or throw-away refill cards when it comes to buying goods on the internet. Amazon, however, has introduced a new service that aims to change all that. The service is called Amazon Cash, and it essentially lets you apply cash toward your Amazon account balance so that you can finally have money to spend on Amazon.com.

Confused? Well, here is how it works.

What is Amazon Cash?

Amazon Cash lets you add money to your Amazon account balance. So, if you don’t have a bank card or a gift card hooked up to your Amazon account, you can use Amazon Cash to buy goods on Amazon.com.

How does Amazon Cash work?

Get your barcode

Go here to get your Amazon Cash barcode via text message. This barcode can be used every time you want to add money to your Amazon account balance. There is no need to generate a new code each time. When you generate your barcode on your smartphone, you have the option to save it to your digital wallet (for iOS users) or add a shortcut to your home screen (for Android users).

From the Amazon Cash barcode page in the Amazon App:

• iOS users: Select “Add to Apple Wallet” to store your Amazon Cash barcode in your smartphone’s digital wallet.
• Android users: Select “Add to Home Screen” to create a shortcut on your smartphone’s home screen.

It is not necessary to have a smartphone to take advantage of Amazon Cash, however. You can use Amazon’s print-at-home barcode option by visiting http://www.amazon.com/cash on a desktop browser and selecting “Get your barcode”.

Go to a store

You need to bring your Amazon Cash barcode into a participating store and show it to a cashier in order to add money to your Amazon account balance. You can only add an amount between $15 and $500 in cash during a single Amazon Cash transaction, but daily limits may vary by retailer. Funds are available immediately after the cashier hands you a receipt for your transaction.

Buy stuff online

Once you add money to your Amazon account balance, you can shop for millions of physical products and digital content on Amazon.com like you normally would if you had a bank card or gift card. In fact, Amazon said there is no difference between Amazon Cash and gift cards: “These are two different names for the same cumulative stored value balance you have available for use on Amazon.com.”

View your account balance

You can view your Amazon account balance here on Amazon.com.

Are there any fees?

There are no fees.

Which stores let you add Amazon Cash?

Amazon said it partnered with thousands of stores across the US, including CVS Pharmacy, Speedway, Sheetz, Kum & Go, D&W Fresh Market, Family Fare Supermarkets, and VG’s Grocery. A directory of all participating stores can be found at http://www.amazon.com/cash.

Where is Amazon Cash available?

At launch, Amazon Cash is only available in the US. As TechCrunch noted, more than a quarter of American consumers rely primarily or exclusively on cash, so this new service lets Amazon reach a wider audience in the States.

Want to know more?

Check out this Amazon Cash FAQ page.

US cracks down on the tech industry’s go-to work visa

The H-1B category of work visas is controversial for a few reasons, including how reliant the US tech industry is on it. But one of the biggest concerns is the idea that it facilitates the outsourcing of American jobs en masse to workers from other countries. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced it would make a more targeted effort to combat “fraud and abuse” of the system, and the new measures revolve around focusing on-site spot checks on employers that look suspicious on paper.

You might recall the notorious case that put the H-1B visa category under intense scrutiny. A 2015 New York Times article detailed how American IT employees at Disney were made to train their foreign replacements, who were hired on H-1B visas, before getting laid off. Those workers later sued the company, as well as consultants HCL and Cognizant, for replacing US workers with foreigners — an act that is illegal. HCL and Cognizant are outsourcing companies that help organizations find and employ foreign workers, as well as secure the necessary authorization documents for the candidates. Such outsourcers game the balloting system by submitting multiple applications per candidate, so they have a higher-than-normal chance of getting one of the hard-to-get visas.

The measures described by the USCIS today include focusing on-site visits on H-1B-dependent companies, employers that cannot be validated with commercially available data, as well as “Employers petitioning for H-1B workers who work off-site at another company or organization’s location.” That last one appears to specifically address such outsourcing companies, who typically petition for workers of other organizations. This means that tech giants like Google and Microsoft might have less reason to fear the impact of these spot checks, as they are legitimate organizations, hire plenty of Americans alongside immigrants, and most likely carry out their own recruitment.

According to a news release, these steps allow the USCIS “to focus resources where fraud and abuse of the H-1B program may be more likely to occur, and determine whether H-1B dependent employers are evading their obligation to make a good faith effort to recruit U.S. workers.” These random and unannounced visits will continue nationwide, except there will now be a clearer focus on making sure the employer is legitimate.

While the announcement may cause some H-1B holders to worry, the USCIS said that these site visits “are not meant to target nonimmigrant employees for any kind of criminal or administrative action but rather to identify employers who are abusing the system.”

Source: USCIS

Google WiFi helps keep you off the internet at night

Settling in and letting go of screens for dinner or bedtime can be a struggle for both kids and adults. Scheduling time to focus somewhere besides the internet, then, might make a lot of sense. Google’s WiFi router now has a feature that can help you pause the signal in your home so you can get to bed or take care of important IRL things without the sweet distraction of WiFi.

Using the Google WiFi app, you can tell your Google WiFi to shut down at specific times in your daily schedule, like “Bedtime” or “Homework.” When the time comes, the router will pause the internet just for the devices you tell it to, making sure that keeping your kids off the internet won’t stop you from working.

Of course, Apple’s routers already have a way to set up time limits, but you need to use desktop software to make it happen. Google’s new WiFi feature is available today and should make it easier to set up a schedule if you need force yourself to put down the Snapchat at night. Sleep well!

Source: Google

This connected vibrator’s camera is disturbingly easy to hack

While your microwave definitely isn’t spying on you, it’s always important to make informed choices about which connected devices you bring into your home. Case in point: the $249 Svakom Siime Eye, Wi-Fi-enabled vibrator — which comes with a built-in camera for livestreaming and, according to security researchers at Pen Test Partners, an interface that can be easily hacked by anyone within Wi-Fi range.

The “hack” is remarkably simple, Motherboard reports, because the smart dildo creates a Wi-Fi access point with the easily guessed default password of “88888888”. Anyone picking up the signal can simply tune into the video stream, Pen Test founder Ken Munro explained, but with a little extra work researchers were able to access the device’s web server, root the device and set it up for a remote connection. According to Munro, his team attempted to contact the company about the problem for months before making their findings public.

While the Siime Eye was most likely aimed at users who want to broadcast some intimate uses for the device, giving neighbors and anyone in Wi-Fi range easy access to its stream poses an obvious security and privacy risk. It’s also not the first sex toy to compromise its users’ personal information. Last month, Standard Innovation, makers of the We-Vibe line of connected vibrators, settled a class action lawsuit for violating users’ privacy. As it turned out, We-Vibe toys were collecting and sending “highly intimate and sensitive data” back to the company’s servers without the user’s permission.

Via: Motherboard

Source: Pen Test Partners

Nintendo Switch owners report yet another issue: warping

The Nintendo Switch is the fastest-selling console in the company’s history, sure, but it hasn’t been all roses. For example, gamers have encountered significant problems with the dock and Joy-Con controllers. But wait, there’s more: Remember when the iPhone 6 famously experienced bending issues in 2014? Now, it’s the Switch that has warping troubles.

As TechnoBuffalo notes, console owners like Reddit user _NSR and others commenting on the thread are reporting that their machines are noticeably bowing, particularly after being used in docked mode. _NSR speculates this could be because the console works harder while outputting video, so it gets hot enough that internal components become more likely to expand. On the plus side, the bending doesn’t seem to affect the Switch’s functionality.

Nintendo has yet to comment on the issue, but the company is repairing affected consoles, according to a Reddit commenter. That’s nice, but this seemingly constant stream of Switch problems is still a bummer. We’re enjoying our consoles very much, but it looks like questionable quality control means that some people aren’t getting as positive an experience as others.

Via: TechnoBuffalo

Source: Reddit

How NASA’s future robots will explore frozen worlds

Delivering a rover to the surface of a distant icy world like Jupiter’s moons Europa and Titan is only half the challenge. Once on the surface, the robotic explorers will have to contend with intense space radiation, plunging temperatures that drop to hundreds of degrees below zero and miles upon miles of ice before hitting the subsurface oceans that astronomers suggest may contain life. But NASA has a plan.

“Robotic systems would face cryogenic temperatures and rugged terrain and have to meet strict planetary protection requirements,” Hari Nayar, of NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory, said in a statement. “One of the most exciting places we can go is deep into subsurface oceans — but doing so requires new technologies that don’t exist yet.” That’s why, as part of its Ocean Worlds Mobility and Sensing study, the JPL has been developing the tools future rovers will need to successfully scout frozen planets and moons.

The first challenge will be making it through the ice. Europa’s frozen crust, for example, is estimated to be anywhere between 6 and 12 miles deep. If NASA underestimates the crust’s thickness, the rover could expend all of its available energy before breaking through, bringing the mission to a quick and inglorious end. So, rather than use conventional “melt probes” which inefficiently radiate heat to bore through ice here on Earth, the JPL is instead is developing a thermally insulated device that employs a chunk of heat-source plutonium to act as the energy source. A rotating blade at the bottom of the probe would chew through the ice below it, pushing the ice chips it produces through the device’s body where they melt against the plutonium. The melt water can then be funnelled back up to the rover for biosignature analysis.

These rovers will also need to traverse the surface, not just burrow into it. The JPL has studied the effects of intense cold and vacuum on ice formation and found that ice actually behaves like grains of sand under such conditions. They pile up into berms and dunes, like the frozen deserts of Mars, only colder. Luckily, NASA’s already got nearly two decades of experience with that sort of strata and should be able to adapt the same sorts of wheels that Spirit and Opportunity utilized.

Saturn’s moon Enceladus is studded with gas vents and fissures, blowing material from the moon’s interior out to the surface. These are ripe for exploration but future rovers are going to need pretty long arms to safely reach down into them. To that end, the JPL is developing a number of grippers that can extend far beyond the 8-foot reach of the Mars rovers. The agency is working on both a foldable boom arm that can pick up objects 30 feet and a projectile launcher that shoots a sampler as far as 164 feet.

But don’t expect to see these systems outside of a NASA lab anytime soon. “In the future, we want to answer the question of whether there’s life on the moons of the outer planets — on Europa, Enceladus and Titan,” Tom Cwik, who leads JPL’s Space Technology Program, said in a statement. “We’re working with NASA Headquarters to identify the specific systems we need to build now, so that in 10 or 15 years, they could be ready for a spacecraft.”

Source: NASA