Google Wifi’s latest feature isn’t going to make your kid very happy

Google has updated its Wi-Fi router so that you can annoy your kids.

“Wi-Fi at home helps with special everyday moments,” Google announced on Monday. “But as we all know, sometimes these moments can turn into hours spent watching videos or browsing photos. That’s why we built Scheduled Pause, a new feature in Google Wifi”.

Scheduled Pause basically lets you pause the internet in your house, as long as you’re using Google Wifi as your router. With the new feature, you can automatically disrupt the Wi-Fi for everyday events like bedtime or homework so that your kids can better focus, Google contends. But, in reality, we think you’ll just end up upsetting your children who are itching to get online. Still, Google thinks this feature is a great tool for families.

The company noticed that people have trouble falling asleep at night because they check emails and surf the web late into the night. And many people, in and outside of Google, have told the company that they find screen time is a particularly common challenge for parents — “from getting kids to put down their favourite game to struggling to have dinner without eyes glued to devices.”

Google

Now, using the Google Wifi app, parents can tell their Google Wifi to shut down at a specific time in their daily schedule. When the time arrives, their router will pause the internet for specific devices, allowing parents and their devices to still get online while their kids stomp away and pout in the other room.

Check out Pocket-lint’s Google Wifi guide to see what else the mesh router can do.

Best Amazon UK Easter deals: Tablets, tech and home improvement treats

Easter is approaching and Amazon is going to be running daily deals right through from 4-17 April 2017.

There will be a whole range of things to buy across Amazon’s different stores, from shoes to home improvements, but we’re interested in the best Amazon Easter tech deals.

Here’s a pick of some of the bargains you can snap up on 4 April 2017, we’ll update as more deals are revealed throughout the Amazon Easter Deals period:

• ASUS 2-in-1 Transformer Mini Tablet, 30 per cent off – click here to get this deal
• TP-Link 1000Mbps Gigabit Passthrough Powerline Starter Kit, 27 per cent – off click here to get this deal
• Kärcher K2 Full Control Pressure Washer, 20 per cent off – click here to get this deal
• Braun IRT6020 ThermoScan Thermometer, 15 per cent off – click here to get this deal
• Huawei W1 Stainless Steel Classic Smartwatch with Leather Strap, 13 per cent off – click here to get this deal
• Epson Portable Projector, 10 per cent off – click here to get this deal
• SanDisk Extreme PRO 512 GB SDXC UHS-I Memory Card, 11 per cent off – click here to get this deal
• Linx 1020 10-Inch Tablet with Keyboard, 7 per cent off – click here to get this deal
• Bosch ALB 18 LI Leaf Blower, 43 per cent off – click here to get this deal
• Bosch AQT 40-13 Pressure Washer, 33 per cent off – click here to get this deal
• Vax Cordless SlimVac Bagless Vacuum Cleaner, 28 per cent off – click here to get this deal
• TP-LINK TL-PBG6700 Vivid Series 6700mAh Ultra Compact Power Bank, 26 per cent off – click here to get this deal
• Hoover TH71 BL02001 Blaze Bagless Upright Vacuum Cleaner, 19 per cent off – click here to get this deal

Some of these deals will run for 24 hours only, some will run until Amazon runs out of stock, so they won’t be available forever. Of course, if nothing tickles your fancy, you can always buy the Amazon Echo from Amazon for £149.99 or buy the Amazon Echo Dot from Amazon for £49.99.

We’ll be keeping our eyes out for interesting deals over the coming weeks, so check back and see if you can get yourself something other than chocolate this Easter.

HTC Viveport Subscription: How does it work and how much is it?

HTC has made it a lot easier on the wallet to try new VR apps.

HTC offers the Vive headset and Viveport marketplace. The company said Vive headset owners have access to more than 1,600 Vive apps, with over 30 new apps launching daily, but with some of these apps having hefty $19.99, $9.99, $7.99, etc, price tags, it can be expensive to experience virtual reality. You basically have to spend hundreds if you want to fully test the medium. But soon, that’s about to change.

• HTC Vive review: An experience that’s out of this world
• HTC is making a mobile VR headset unlike anything we’ve seen so far

HTC is launching the Viveport Subscription service. It has a monthly fee, sort of like Netflix. If you’re a paid susbscriber, you can choose from a pool of 50 titles and rotate your selection every month, allowing you to refresh your library without going broke.

Here’s what you need to know.

What is Viveport Subscription?

Viveport Subscription is a new, paid subscription service for HTC’s Viveport marketplace. The company has described it as the “first-ever subscription model for a VR app store,” and claimed it will give Vive headset owners a “new way to navigate the burgeoning VR app marketplace and continually discover new content for a low monthly fee”. Viveport Subscription will launch with a one-month free trial offer for all new users.

How does Viveport Subscription work?

Pre-register now

Go here to pre-register and be among the first to get access to Viveport Subscription. Everyone will receive a one-month free trial.

Navigate Viveport

HTC said Viveport Subscription will introduce a “new way to navigate the hundreds of apps currently available” on Viveport.

We will update this piece when we know more about how Viveport’s new navigation system works.

Choose your five

At launch, you will get unlimited access to 50 apps in the Viveport marketplace. You can choose five titles you want to play and then rotate them out of your selection for another five titles every month. A few of the apps include TheBlu, Richie’s Plank Experience, Everest VR, Fantastic Contraption, and Mars Odyssey. All apps in the service are also for sale, allowing you to try them before you decide to buy.

How much does a subscription cost?

Viveport Subscription costs $6.99 (about £5.60) a month per user. We will update this piece when we know official UK pricing.

Is that it?

As an added bonus, HTC is giving away Arcade Saga, a three-game package that normally costs $19.99 on Steam. And if you haven’t bought a Vive yet, the company is also cutting $100 off the standard retail price. Check out HTC’s blog and FAQ hub for more details.

Apple still hasn’t given up the idea of offering its own pay TV service

For years, Apple has been trying to develop a pay TV service.

Several reports going back to 2009 have claimed Apple is getting ready to launch a subscription-based streaming TV service that would offer around 25 channels, DVR, and live-programming. It’d cost between $30 to $40 per month and be available on iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV. However, according to a new report from Recode, Apple has resorted to considering a premium TV bundle that consists of three channels.

The bundle will combine HBO, Showtime, and Starz – three channels that cord cutters can already access individually for $15, $11, and $9 a month, respectively. But Apple wants to roll them into a single package that it would market as a standalone product for Apple TV and iOS devices. A deal is not yet in place, and it’s currently not known if Apple is trying to offer the bundle with a price discount.

In other words, there’s no word if the bundle would cost the $35 per month it already costs to subscribe to each network individually. We can’t imagine the networks agreeing to that, considering other networks aren’t willing to make concessions and have stalled on past negotiations (to the point where Apple has suggested it’s no longer trying to offer a channel service over the internet).

Also, networks like Dish and even Sony’s PlayStation have already delved into the web TV space, so Apple is facing obstacles on all sides. 

Electric skull cap helps brain cancer patients live longer

A skull cap that shocks tumors with low-intensity electric fields is helping people battle brain cancer. When combined with the oral chemotherapy drug temozolomide, it significantly improved survival rates in patients, according to a clinical trial presented at an annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research on Sunday.

The Optune medical device works by continuously delivering alternating electric fields to the brain. Researchers believe this has an anticancer effect because it blocks cell division. During the clinical trial, patients diagnosed with an aggressive cancer called glioblastoma were randomly assigned the Optune device and chemotherapy treatment, while others received chemo only. Those who used the cap had a median overall survival of 21 months, compared to 16 months for those who didn’t. The two-, three-, four-, and five-year survival rates for patients significantly improved as well: 43 percent versus 31 percent; 26 percent versus 16 percent; 20 percent versus 8 percent; and 13 percent versus 5 percent.

Dr. Roger Stupp, professor of Neurological Surgery at Northwestern University, is excited by the study’s findings. It’s been more than 10 years since any form of treatment was shown to improve survival for people with glioblastoma, he said. “When I started treating patients with GBM 20 years ago, the majority of patients died within less than one year and long-term survival was nearly absent,” he said in a press release. “Now, we see a meaningful improvement in survival at two years and beyond. With the combination of Optune and temozolomide, one out of seven patients is living longer than five years.”

As promising as the device may be though, it has a downside — it costs roughly $700 per day, the Associated Press reports. While most US insurers will cover it, Medicare won’t. But, oncology company Novocure, which funded the clinical trial, said it’ll pay for the treatment if need be. “We’ve never refused a patient regardless of insurance status,” Novocure Executive Chairman Bill Doyle told the AP.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: American Association for Cancer Research

Customer service on Twitter now includes location sharing

Twitter is one way to easily get some customer service. A simple tweet can often get a faster response than finding a customer support number or using email. The social network has a new feature to make support even more personal: Brands can now request and share location data with users via direct messages.

Imagine sending a direct message to your carrier when you have a problem with your phone. The brand manager will get your permission to receive your location data and then they can direct you to the closest store. This could make getting your needs met much faster than searching around your mapping app or Yelp.

Twitter has been beefing up its customer service features for a while now, including single-link feedback buttons and other tools. Wingstop even has an order form built into its direct messages for frictionless ordering. So far, restaurants TGI Fridays and Wingstop are using the location-based APIs, while other brands are sure to follow suit.

Via: VentureBeat

Source: Twitter

Bang & Olufsen’s modular speakers double as wall art

There hasn’t been a shortage of attempts at modular speakers, but how many of them would you be willing to place at the center of your living room decor? Not many, we’d wager. Bang & Olufsen, however, thinks it can do better. It’s introducing a wall-mounted speaker system, BeoSound Shape, that’s designed to be as artistic as it is functional. You can scale your system to the exact size and pattern you want, including color — a range of fabric options lets you be as flamboyant or subdued as you like. You need at least six modules, but B&O is promising that you can have a “practically unlimited” number of them if it suits your fancy.

You’re not giving up much functionality, either. One of the tiles includes a BeoSound Core hub that allows for AirPlay, Bluetooth and Chromecast streaming, and you can tie it into a multi-room B&O setup. The Danish firm is also promising that its mixing algorithm will produce a “crisp and precise” sound meant for your wall, and you’ll even get an online design tool that suggests ideal layouts.

As with most of B&O’s speakers, that combination of chic and cleverness will be expensive. When BeoSound Shape hits stores in August, a “standard setup” will cost about £3,400 ($4,245)… and it’s reasonable to presume that a large array will carry an even higher price tag. If you don’t want conventional speakers hogging your living room floor and want something that feels perfectly at home, though, this could be your best bet.

Source: Bang & Olufsen

YouTube pushes harder to tag videos ‘too offensive’ for ads

Weeks ago, an investigation by the Times revealed that plenty of mundane advertisements were unknowingly presented alongside extremist videos on YouTube, sparking outrage and a few companies to withdraw from the ad program. Google quickly vowed to take “a tougher stance” and “remove ads more effectively” from offensive content. But that didn’t stem the exodus quickly enough. Now, the search titan is reportedly allowing external firms to vet whether advertisement quality standards have been met.

Partners like comScore, Inc. and Integral Ad Science, Inc. will be allowed to monitor YouTube advertisements on a new “brand safety” reporting channel, a Google spokesperson told Bloomberg. It’s also expanding its definitions of offensive content: Whereas it previously included material attacking people based on race, religion and gender, it’s added a filter for “dangerous and derogatory content.” These include promoting negative stereotypes about certain groups and Holocaust deniers.

The toxic YouTube content mentioned in media reports only accounted for about one thousandth of one percent of total ads shown, Google Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler told Bloomberg. Now that one billion hours of video are watched on the platform every day, that microscopic ratio adds up, but it’s also a lot of content. To that end, the search giant added machine learning tools to its efforts, which has helped flag five times as much offensive content to isolate than before.

Source: Bloomberg

Seven corporate rebrand attempts even worse than ‘Oath’

Now that the Verizon-AOL-Yahoo! merger is finally nearing its completion, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong took to social media on Monday to unveil the combined organization’s new name: Oath. No, seriously. They’re calling it Oath. Yeah, like the promise. No, I don’t know why either, but that distant rumbling you hear? That’s the sound of the revamped moniker being ruthlessly dragged through Twitter by innumerable hot takes.

Yet for as unappealing and clunky as it is to call a company “Oath” — ugh, like listening to Donald Duck try to order breakfast — this isn’t quite the worst rebranding failure in the modern history of corporate marketing. Here are seven attempts to reinvent a corporate identity that have done more harm than good.

Ottm Watchbands: Unique artworks with a renewable source. (Review)

Ottm Watchbands started as a little IndieGoGo project with a relatively modest goal of $10,000 to make unique, wooden watchbands for smartwatches. It ended up raising three times that – a success by all metrics. Mark Adams – Ottm’s founder – oversaw production personally, living in China for three (freaking) months to make sure everything was perfect. The result is something pretty damned beautiful. Each band is unique, and comes in three different woods: Canadian Maple, Gabonese Zebrawood, and Indonesian Sandalwood. In addition, Ottm Watchbands also come in two form factors – Apple Watch and Pebble/Wear.

I had the pleasure of giving Ottm’s Gabonese Zebrawood a spin on my Moto 360 (2016), and at first blush, I was very impressed. The entire band is made of premium, precision cut hardwood links, with the exception of the standard, stainless clasp. The striped (get it? Zebrawood?), well-stained wood strikes a dashing figure alongside the dark aluminum of the 360, and the smooth finish it utterly flawless. I’ve always had trouble with watchbands out of the box, finding that most are too short for my fat-kid wrists, but Ottm’s came with plenty of length right out of the box (with two extra links, to boot!).

Fun-Fact: Quick-change springs are the bee’s knees. With no tools required, and less than a minute to completely change bands, it really blows traditional spring-pins out of the water.

A tool is included in the package to add or remove links – and while I was able to adjust the length without too much trouble by hand, I’m wary of having to use any kind of force on the wooden links. Which brings me to my next topic – just how sturdy is the Ottm wood? Will it stand up to the daily wear and tear of an office job? How about a more physically demanding one? Despite the lightweight nature of the band, I got the feeling that it can stand up to some punishment. As I wear it daily, I’ll let you all know if I run into any breakage – so far, I’m impressed.

I have exactly one item on my wishlist: I’d love to see a Build Your Own tool on Ottm’s website, where we can choose our wood, choose our form factor and finally, choose the color of the clasp on the band – as it stands, the band on the Zebrawood band is stainless, while my Moto 360 is black/gunmetal. It still looks great, and it’s a tiny gripe, but hey. Nothing’s perfect.

Ottm’s Watches can be purchased either from the source itself, or from Amazon. It should be noted that buying directly from Ottm also ensures that a tree will be planted for each order placed – I’m not sure if that’s the case with Amazon.

Either way, the bands cost between $29.99 and $49.99, depending on the wood and style chosen.