Protect your Galaxy S8 and S8+ with Spigen’s Protective Cases

Want to protect your Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus? Take a look at these great options from Spigen.

That beautiful glass on the new Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus will be prone to scratches and marks if you’re not careful. If you’re curious on how to protect your new Galaxy when you finally get it, here’s a closer look at Spigen’s more protective cases.

Tough Armor

If you’re looking for a phone that maximizes protection while keeping the slim profile of the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus intact, Spigen’s Tough Armor case is the ideal choice for you. It adds rugged protection and increased tactility to a phone that’s beautifully designed, but might also be slippery to hold. Spigen’s Tough Armor is available in four colors: gunmetal, black, coral blue, and maple gold.

The two-piece design fits securely around your phone, offering edge-to-edge protection and bezels around the screen and camera. The buttons are kept flush with the case, which should still provide good feedback and are easily accessible. The TPU body offers protection from drops and falls by providing some shock absorption, while the hard polycarbonate shell protects from scratches and scuffs. There’s also a built-in kickstand on the back, which has been reinforced this time around.

The Spigen Tough Armor is available for the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Samsung Galaxy S8+.

Neo Hybrid

Spigen’s Neo Hybrid case features a brand new look from the last generation, and personally, it’s my favorite looking case in Spigen’s updated lineup.

Still providing dual-layer protection but with a slimmer profile, the Neo Hybrid case is comprised mostly of a TPU body with a subtle polycarbonate bumper frame to reinforce the corners and the edge of the phone.

The first thing you’ll notice is how nice case feels in hand. While the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus is a smooth, silky feeling phone, the Neo Hybrid gives your device a more rugged, textured feel. This texture will no doubt give the phone a more solid feel in your hand, so you wouldn’t have to worry about your new Galaxy slipping away from you.

Another great addition to the Neo Hybrid case is the redesigned bumper. It now cuts into the back of the case instead of just going around the edges. This allows the bumper to lie completely flush with the TPU body, meaning you won’t have to deal with any sharp plastic edges when you’re slipping your phone in and out of your pocket.

The Neo Hybrid comes in a wide variety of colors; however, the gunmetal version is the only one you can buy right now —the other colors will be available April 10.

The Spigen Neo Hybrid is available for the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Samsung Galaxy S8+.

Rugged Armor

Spigen’s Rugged Armor is slim and flexible while maximizing its durability and resilience. Carbon fiber accents along both the top and bottom of the case look greatnwhile also providing much-needed texture when the phone is in your hand.

There are precise cutouts for all the ports along the bottom of the phone, so you still have easy access to everything you need and all the buttons on the side are also protected, so you don’t have to worry about dust and dirt getting into the hardware. The buttons are also slightly raised from the profile of the case, which helps you feel where they are when you’re not looking. Perfect for making sure you pull your phone out of the pocket the right way.

Much like Ford in the early days, you can have the Rugged Armor in any color you want, as long as it’s black.

Spigen’s Rugged Armor is available for the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Samsung Galaxy S8+.

Liquid Air

Made up of just a singular TPU shell, the Liquid Air case does have textured pattern on the rear of the case to improve your grip. Plus, all the ports are free and open, so you don’t lose any functionality of your phone and the buttons along the sides are all covered to protect you from dust.

The Liquid Air and Rugged Armor as super similar, the biggest difference is in appearance. The Liquid Air offers you a much more uniformed look and is perfect for people who love a more modest look.

Spigen’s Liquid Air is available for the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Samsung Galaxy S8+.

Which case looks best to you?

Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Encrypt your family: How to send safer, smarter messages

I just wanted my family’s messaging habits to be a little more secure. And the move was easier than I expected.

Nothing scares a parent more than letting their kid roam free — even just a little bit — online. I’m under no illusions that my daughters won’t run into something nefarious at some point, be it adult content, or a phishing scheme, or cyber-bullying. For the most part that’s all part of growing up. It’s just digital now, wherein back in my day (get off my lawn!) it was almost all analog.

Those are all things I can help educate against, though. Same goes for the basics — like having good password security.

What I can’t do anything about is the bad actors out there. True sniffing and hacking and what not. While I’m not quite ready to explain VPNs to my family, I have taken a couple of steps that should at least make things a little harder on anyone who targets us. (And, I’d argue, taking little steps instead of going full-IT on the folks you live with is probably the better route anyway.)

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Messaging

We’ve all used text messages, of course. But they’re hardly secure. Things get better if you’re in an all-iOS household, of course, because then iMessage gets thrown into the mix. That in and of itself is not a bad thing at all. But my household is mixed. (And platform-specific apps like iMessage are bad on principle anyway.) So it was time to move us to something new.

The wife and kid and I used Google’s Allo for a bit. It’s a very nice app. Runs great on Android and iOS. But nobody else we know uses it. (And it doesn’t do encrypted messages by default.)

I uninstalled Allo and Duo this week.Kinda surprised it too this long.

— Phil Nickinson (@mdrndad) April 5, 2017

Then we switched to Signal for a bit. Think iMessage, only for everyone. It does SMS text messages and secure, encrypted messaging, in a single app. It’s open-source, which is great. And it’s free. I like it a lot.

Ultimately we moved to WhatsApp, though, along with roughly a billion or so other people. And that’s mostly why. Signal is great, but we know more folks on WhatsApp. Both also have good web components, so you can type longer messages on a real keyboard.)

So if you need me, I’ll be on one (or both) of those. It’s certainly easy enough to switch at any time.

Also: Privacy matters more now than ever

Email

Email is a little trickier, and I’d argue maybe not quite as important. Not that I’m passing secret messages all day long — I just wanted an option for easily encrypting email if I so desired.

Encrypting the content of an email is a tradeoff between security and convenience.

So I went down the rabbit hole that is PGP is pretty quickly decided it wasn’t something I wanted to (or had any real reason to) mess with, to say nothing of trying to explain public and private keys to my 10-year-old kid. … (I think I’ll try to slip that in when it’s time for The Talk. But let’s face it, my kid’s probably already smarter than me anyway, right?)

The general consensus (both out there in the real world as well as here at AC) is that ProtonMail is a really good place to start. So I gave it a shot and quickly made it my personal email service. It’s got a free version, which might well be fine for you. But I went ahead and ponied up $48 for the yearly upgrade, which lets me use a custom domain.

The gist: It looks and acts a lot like Gmail. It’s got a nice web interface, and the Android and iOS apps are excellent.

It does the usual end-to-end encryption for messages sent to other ProtonMail users. And it’s super simple to encrypt messages to recipients outside ProtonMail. Just hit the little lock icon, add a password (that you’ll have securely shared somehow beforehand), and then send. The person who you send that message to will then open the decrypted email in a web browser.

It’s an extra step, yeah, and not one I use every day. Or even every week. But it’s available if I need it, and it’s easy to use. And that’s really all I wanted.

The bottom line

There’s no one right way to do more secure messaging. (There are a lot of really good ones, though.) And there’s no way to guarantee that you might not get hacked somehow. Brute force is still very much a thing, and social engineering is even easier.

I just wanted to make it harder on someone who might just be sniffing around to get into our lives. So for that we’ve turned to WhatsApp for messaging, and I’m using ProtonMail for email.

Now I just have to figure out the best way to get the family onto a VPN when they need to.

Modern Dad

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What is Facebook M? Facebook Messenger’s AI assistant explained

We are officially living in the age of assistants.

Following in the footsteps of Apple Siri, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana, and Samsung Bixby, Facebook has launched M. It is described as a “helpful assistant in Messenger, powered by artificial intelligence”. Facebook technically announced M last year as a small AI experiment, but now it’s bringing the feature to all Messenger users in the US. Here’s what you need to know.

• What is Facebook Stories and how does it work?
• What is Facebook Live, how does it work, and which devices support it?

What is Facebook M?

Facebook M is an AI assistant – much like any other proactive assistant currently available.

The only difference is that it doesn’t have a voice. It only offers suggestions by popping into an open Messenger conversation to “suggest relevant content and capabilities to enrich the way people communicate and get things done”, Facebook explained, adding that M is completely automated and is meant to suggest helpful actions in your chat. M might also expose you to features you didn’t know were available in Messenger.

What can Facebook M do?

M will automatically appear in any of your conversation when it recognises “intent in a conversation”. At launch, it will suggest or include the following actions: sending stickers, paying or requesting money, sharing your location, making plans, starting a poll, and getting a ride. Facebook said M relies on AI machine-learning techniques to suggest relevant actions that help you manage conversations or get things done.

How does Facebook M work?

To use M, just bring up a chat in Messenger with a friend or a group, like you normally would. You will see the M logo appear along with a suggestion when it recognises the appropriate time to serve up relevant and helpful information. And the more you use it, the more it can help, because like most assistants today, M can learn over time. Of course, you can always ignore or dismiss an M suggestion when you want.

When you say something like “thank you” in a conversation, M will suggest a fun sticker that represents what you just said. M can also recognise when you are discussing payments with someone and will give you the option of sending or requesting money. M can even bring up an option to share your location, or help you coordinate a plan or make decisions via group votes. It can also hail a Lyft or Uber.

Can you disable Facebook M?

Yes. If you don’t want M’s assistance, Facebook said you can easily mute it under M settings. We will update this piece when we’ve had a chance to test M and can fully explain how its settings works.

Where is Facebook M available?

Facebook has been testing M with a “small percentage of users for the past few months”, but starting 6 April, it is expanding the assistant to all Messenger users in the US. M is available in the Messenger for iOS and Android apps and will eventually roll out to other countries.

Is that it?

As M rolls out, Messenger users across the globe will also start to “see a redesigned way to compose messages”, Facebook explained. This update should offer easier access and will let you discover more Messenger features. For instance, you’ll be able to quickly share content like video and images directly from the text composer with a long press. Facebook is also adding a “More” tab.

This tab will let you quickly access Messenger features such as games, payments, share location, and rides.

Want to know more?

Check out Facebook’s blog post for more details.

Facebook adds ‘educational’ guide to counter fake news

Facebook has repeatedly come under fire over the last year as a distributor of “fake news”, despite repeated its protests that it isn’t a media company per se. The social network has taken a number of steps to push back against the influx of falsehoods, from hand curating articles to rejiggering its news surfacing algorithms, though none have done much to stem the tide so much as give Facebook something to crow about. On Thursday, the company continued that trend by introducing an “educational tool” that will live at the top of the newsfeed and provide tips on how to spot false reports.

The company teamed with the non-profit First Draft to develop the tool, which is being rolled out on a temporary basis to users in 14 countries. When someone clicks on it, the tool will redirect them to the Facebook Help Center and display information “including tips on how to spot false news, such as checking the URL of the site, investigating the source and looking for other reports on the topic,” according to a Facebook Blog post.

This is the latest in a series of rather weak attempts taken by Facebook to eliminate fake news from its network. The company claims in its blog post that “False news runs counter to our mission to connect people with the stories they find meaningful” and that “we know we have more work to do” yet it continually does the absolute bare minimum in response. This latest tool, like the “false news” reporting feature that debuted in December, is completely passive and relies exclusively on the user to take initiative.

It’s the same issue we saw with Facebook’s illegal gun sale debacle last summer: the company creates an environment that facilitates illegal and toxic activities, then throws its hands up when called on their actions and declares that it’s its users’ responsibility to clean up and police themselves.

The company has previously demonstrated that it is capable of applying technological solutions to the fake news problem. It has tested filtering in both Germany and France and tweaked its algorithms to shuffle untrustworthy articles lower in the news feed. Yet it continues to insist that its users take the lead.

Facebook has also announced that it is thinking about hiring third party fact-checkers to police its news as well. “A commercial relationship is something that’s on the table and that we are very open to,” Adam Mosseri, Facebook vice-president of product management for newsfeed, told The Financial Times. “It could depend on individual organisations, but we want to engage responsibly and if that means a financial arrangement, we are very open to it.” Again, Facebook is sidestepping its responsibility to manage its network and is instead simply alluding to the possibility of taking proactive action in the future.

Source: Facebook Blog

‘EVE: Valkyrie’ takes space battles to the ground in new update

CCP has revealed that it’s bringing ground-level skirmishes to EVE: Valkyrie for the first time. Announced during a Keynote at CCP’s annual EVE Fanfest, new map Solitude sees players battling it out on a remote planet as they weave their way through tight-knit passageways. Thankfully, the new map won’t cost players a penny, coming as a part of the game’s fifth free update : ‘Groundrush’.

Aside from Solitude, the patch will also add more variety to Valkyrie’s Weekly Wormhole events as well as making previously competitive-only modes Carrier Assault and Control, co-op. PC owners will be pleased to hear that the patch also adds in Steam Controller support.

I got to try a preview build at Fanfest, and the map added a welcome level of variety to online dogfights. Swapping the darkness and solitude of space for a brightly lit snowy landscape, the mix of wide open spaces and claustrophobic corridors added a new dimension to battles.Frantically maneuvering around Solitude with all the elegance of a drunken pigeon, I soon found myself soaring into some intense one-on-one skirmishes.

For those who have already played Valkyrie, the new free map offers a refreshing new aesthetic with a fun twist, rather than a revolutionary new approach to gameplay. Yet with multiplayer VR games like RIGS falling by the way-side, CCP’s commitment to providing players with more content will certainly be welcomed by PSVR owners.

Groundrush will be soaring its way onto PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive next Tuesday.

Sprint kills its ‘half your bill’ promo in favor of $50 unlimited plan

Sprint is going to axe its “Cut Your Bill in Half” promo. Until further notice, the carrier is offering something different: $50 for “unlimited” talk, text and data for a single line, $80 for two, $100 for three and $120 for four. The company’s chief marketing officer Roger Solé described this as a response to customers’ apparently overwhelming decision to use its existing unlimited plans. By his count, some 90 percent of subscribers were signed up for the unlimited plans. The aim, Solé says, is to declutter Sprint’s service offerings. But honestly, this is Sprint trying to sugarcoat the removal of its deeply discounted plan.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, it’s also almost assuredly a way to start recouping losses. Solé said that the carrier has boosted its user base thanks to the previous promotion. Now, the time has come to eke some more cash out of the reported nearly two million customers its picked up since.

Sprint’s been bleeding money for what seems like forever. Closing stores, laying off employees, giving the president credit for business moves that were in the works way before last November and even hiring Verizon’s old pitch man in an attempt to bring the carrier back into the black haven’t worked for it yet. But maybe this rate plan switch-up could change its luck a bit.

Source: Sprint

FDA clears 23andMe to warn you about potential health risks

Good news for everyone who wants to do at-home DNA tests: 23andMe has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration to tell customers if they’re at risk for 10 potentially debilitating diseases. “These are the first direct-to-consumer tests authorized by the FDA that provide information on an individual’s genetic predisposition to certain medical diseases or conditions, which may help to make decisions about lifestyle choices or to inform discussions with a health care professional,” the watchdog agency said in a statement. Previously, the FDA had stopped the company from offering this information back in 2013. The FDA softened its stance a bit in 2015.

The conditions in question are Parkinson’s disease, late-onset Alzheimer’s, Celiac disease, Alpha-1 antitypsin deficiency, early-onset primary dystonia, factor XI deficiency, Gaucher disease type 1, G6PD, hereditary hemochromatosis and hereditary thrombophilia.

“This is an important moment for people who want to know their genetic health risks and be more proactive about their health,” 23andMe CEO and co-founder Anne Wojcicki said in a statement. “The FDA has embraced innovation and has empowered individuals by authorizing direct access to this information. It is a significant step forward for 23andMe and for the adoption of personal genetics.”

What the clearance doesn’t cover are using the tests as a diagnostic procedure for things like BRCA (gene mutations that can lead to breast and ovarian cancer), which would result the preventative removal of a woman’s breasts or ovaries.

What the clearance doesn’t cover are using the tests as a diagnostic procedure for things like BRCA (gene mutations that can lead to breast and ovarian cancer), which would result the preventative removal of a woman’s breasts or ovaries. The FDA stresses that users should still consult a physician before taking any treatment steps and that these tests shouldn’t replace professional diagnoses.

The FDA’s reasoning for its approval seems sound, though. “Authorization of the 23andMe genetic health risk tests was supported by data from peer-reviewed, scientific literature that demonstrated a link between specific genetic variants and each of the 10 health conditions,” the statement says. “The published data originated from studies that compared genetic variants present in people with a specific condition to those without that condition.”

This clearance could pave the way for more companies to offer genetic testing of their own. The FDA says that following a one-time FDA review, the proposed exemption would “allow other, similar tests to enter the market as quickly as possible and in the least burdensome way.”

That doesn’t mean Theranos is going to suddenly regain legitimacy. After all, you need sound science as a basis for this, and that’s allegedly the opposite of what CEO Elizabeth Holmes and Co. had on offer.

Via: The Verge

Source: FDA, 23andMe

Explore Japanese gaming culture in 360 degrees with MatPat

Matthew Patrick is best known as the guy on YouTube who uses math, science and rabid curiosity to build intense, unexpected narratives from the stray plot threads of movies and video games. As the Game Theorists’ MatPat, he asks if Mario is secretly a sociopath and questions if Sega’s blue hedgehog really is the fastest mascot in gaming — and then backs up his allegations by covertly teaching viewers about actual psychology and the speed of sound. Now he’s expanding his passion for making entertainment educational with a travel show called The Global Gamer. Oh, and he’s doing it in 360-degree virtual reality — and you can watch the launch exclusively right here on Engadget.

The Global Gamer is one part passion for travel and one part YouTube content deal. “It was a converging of a lot of worlds,” Patrick told Engadget. The idea for a gamer-orientated travel show had been germinating in his mind for a while. “My wife and I were really passionate about traveling internationally and experiencing new cultures,” he said. “If we could translate those experiences through the lens of gaming and get other people — younger, digital-first audiences — excited about learning about different cultures through the lens of gaming, that was kind of our goal with this series.” When Google approached The Game Theorists about working on a show for its Daydream initiative, The Global Gamer seemed like the perfect fit. With Google’s 8K Jump VR cameras, the program could do more than just show gamers other cultures around the world — it could bring them along for the ride.

Despite the backing of Google’s Daydream team, 360-degree video is a relatively new idea, and Patrick is well aware of its growing pains. “Honestly, this whole thing is a big experiment,” he says. From his work on the 360 segments of GameLab — his YouTube Red show — Patrick knows that VR videos have significantly lower engagement than traditional 2D viewing experiences. The audience just isn’t sure how to approach the content. “They start to suffer from decision fatigue,” he says, “and their minds start to wander because they have to be an active participant in the 360 experience.

“It goes to that whole idea that they’re deciding what they’re looking at at any given point,” he says, likening the production of 360 video to directing for the theatrical stage. The camera captures everything around the scene, not just its focal point. “You can’t necessarily control where the audience is looking at any given moment, but you always want to have a clear throughline of action or movement or sound to guide them.”

The Global Gamer does this by deftly balancing the 360-VR experience with a more traditional viewing paradigm. Yes, this travel adventure is best when viewed through a phone or browser to explore the 360 environment, or, better still, in a VR headset like Daydream — but if you pull the video up on a TV, you won’t miss out on the core experience. If the subject of a scene walks out of view, something appropriate almost always fills the space, be it a bisected scene that matches the ongoing narration, a graphic that illustrates the point or just a pop-up window in the center of the screen showing viewers what they would be seeing if they had followed the subject out of frame.

This makes the content work without the 360 trick, but it’s still an experience tailor-made for immersive viewing. Patrick’s journey between the shrines and cultural practices of old Japan and the arcades and fashion worlds of modern Japan is cut so the viewer almost feels like she’s hanging out with a friend in a tour group. As the video walks through the busy marketplace of Senso-Ji temple, the viewer has the option to look away from Patrick’s narration and explore the shops, admire the shrine architecture or watch the tourists gawk at the 360 camera driving the experience — all while listening in on the conversation of her digital peers.

“It’s our hope and our goal that we were able to create something that’s compelling enough to get people excited about immersing themselves for that long of a period, with each episode being 20 minutes or so.” Patrick admits that’s a long time, but stresses the importance of figuring out how to make a 360 documentary format that works for long sessions.

If it turns out that the show can’t keep viewers hooked for that long, The Global Gamer may fall back to a traditional format, but the immersive elements aren’t going away. “If we do end up seeing that, a 20-minute watch session for an episode is still a lot to ask of a viewer right now with the technology currently as it is, let’s dial that back to a more traditional 2D and select a really great couple of shots from the shrine, or put them in the middle of a kendo battle … either way, it works for the format. It’s really just kind of basing it off what the audience is ready for.”

In any case, Patrick doesn’t see the series ending anytime soon, even if he does tweak the format. “At this point, gaming is an international language,” he says. “But the way that individual cultures choose to game really says a lot. The types of games they like to play really says a lot about their cultural backgrounds.” For Japan, the show explored the roots of Japanese culture and how that connects to rhythm games, but Patrick has plenty of other ideas — including a look behind South Korea’s thriving eSports industry, how Brazil’s love of football ties into a culture built up around FIFA video games, and how Australia’s strict censorship laws drastically change the gaming experience for locals.

“These stories have never been told because gaming was never really considered a serious topic of research and exploration and, quite frankly, cultural identity,” Patrick said. The popularity of online programming around games is changing that, however. “It’s an interesting filter to look at all these different countries.”

MatPat’s Global Gamer can be found on The Game Theorists YouTube channel, with the first episode debuting right here on Engadget.

Wink to send a text with these experimental earbuds

We’re always looking for new ways to control our mobile phones without using our hands, whether we’re driving or at work. Voice control is fine but not always welcome in quiet spaces. The next frontier? Facial expressions. Imagine winking to pause your music while in the car, or smiling to text a smiley face. It could even help those with motor disabilities, too.

In a new German study, earbuds were fitted with electrodes that can detect changes in the shape and electrical fields inside your ear canal as you make different faces. The system can detect five separate expressions so far with 90 percent accuracy: smiling, winking, turning your head to the right, opening your mouth and even making a “shh” sound.

NewScientist notes that consumer-grade versions of this tech will need to make sure, for example, you don’t accidentally send out messages every time you smile. Context is key, of course — it might only trigger a text when you’re in a messaging app.

Using headphones to track changes in electrical fields isn’t a brand new concept. Bragi launched a pair of buds that turn your whole face into a touchpad last November, but they only identify taps, not more subtle gestures like a wink or a nod.

For those with mobility issues, having a way to manage your technology in a normalized way can be a big win. But the rest of us will benefit, too. Telling your phone to block a call or send a quick message with a wink or tap on our face feels like the next step in human-machine interaction.

Via: New Scientist

Source: Denys Matthies

YouTubers will need at least 10,000 views to make ad money

YouTube has been busy tweaking its service and community lately. It just rolled out a live TV-streaming feature, and recently moved to better identify offensive content to prevent ads from being displayed on those videos. The latest update to its Partner Program slaps a 10,000 channel view minimum requirement on creators before it will allow ads to be displayed on those sources’ videos. In a few weeks, the company will roll out a review process to evaluate new applicants for the partner program. These steps are designed to weed out illegitimate channels and prevent them from earning ad money off the service.

In a blog post, YouTube explained that the 10,000 threshold provides enough information to “determine the validity of a channel” while ensuring “minimal impact on our aspiring creators.” It encourages beginners to check out its Creator Academy for tips on how to produce original content and grow an audience. Those who had already been making money from ads despite not having collected 10,000 channel views will get to keep their earnings. After today, however, that source of income will be shut down.

Once you gain the followers needed, you can apply for the partner program to start earning all the advertising dollars from YouTube slapping commercials on your content. That is, of course, as long as you’ve passed the review and follow community guidelines.

Via: The Verge

Source: YouTube