Canada strengthens net neutrality with zero-rating crackdown

In a victory for net neutrality, Canada’s telecom regulator has ruled against a carrier offering ‘free’ music streaming as part of a zero-rating scheme. Quebecor’s ‘Unlimited Music’ allows premium Videotron subscribers to use select streaming apps, such as Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal, without the data counting towards their monthly allowance. Many believe this type of scheme violates the principles of net neutrality, which argue all data should be treated equally. If certain apps are ‘free’ to use, others — which could offer a superior experience, but simply don’t have the cash to be involved in a carrier’s program — are put at an unfair disadvantage.

Clearly, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) supports this view. In its ruling, the watchdog said the scheme created an “undue and unreasonable disadvantage” for services that weren’t included, such as internet radio stations. It argued the plan was also unfair to Videotron subscribers who were ineligible for the scheme, as well as customers who are eligible but prefer other services. “Rather than offering its subscribers selected content at different data-usage prices, Internet-service providers should be offering more data at lower prices,” Jean-Pierre Blais, chairman of the CRTC said in a statement.

Videotron said it was “disappointed” in the regulator’s decision, and felt the scheme was necessary to set itself apart in the market. It will now study the decision, which “directs” the carrier to fall in line with the Telecommunications Act by July 19th, 2017. Videotron says customers who use Unlimited Music can continue doing so “until further notice.”

CRTC’s ruling isn’t a blanket ban on zero-rating. As Bloomberg reports, it could have ramifications for larger telecom companies such as Telus and Rogers Communications, however. Alongside the Videotron decision, the regulator has published a “framework” for assessing “differential pricing practices,” or zero-rating. Precise rules, it says, would quickly become outdated due to the fast-paced nature of the industry. Instead, it hopes a rigorous set of criteria, including “the impact on internet openness and innovation,” will be enough to judge companies on a case-by-case basis.

The stance is in direct opposition to the US. Ajit Pai, the new chairman of the FCC, called net neutrality a “mistake” at Mobile World Congress in February, preferring a “light touch” to internet regulation instead. Subsequent reports by Reuters and the Wall Street Journal have hinted at a soon-to-be-announced rollback of net neutrality rules created under the Obama administration. The reversal will likely strip the FCC of its powers over internet service providers and transfer them across to the FTC. Canada, it seems, is keen to strike a different regulatory path.

Via: Bloomberg

Source: CRTC

Apple Celebrates Children’s Day in Turkey With New Billboard and Ad Campaign Fueled By ‘Young Talents’

Apple CEO Tim Cook today tweeted out a message as a means of celebrating National Sovereignty and Children’s Day in Turkey, which will take place on April 23. Cook’s tweet includes a picture of a few billboards that are up in Turkey, which showcase photographs taken by “young talents” within the country in order to celebrate the national holiday.

Türkiye’de Ulusal Egemenlik ve Çocuk Bayramı’nı genç yeteneklerin çektiği müthiş fotoğraflarla kutluyoruz. #23Nisan #iPhoneileçekildi 🇹🇷 pic.twitter.com/VUqrUjH92G

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 21, 2017

Additionally, over the past few days Apple has been uploading a few new videos to its Turkish YouTube channel, all celebrating Children’s Day as well. Using the “Shot on iPhone” campaign, each new ad includes a short video clip that has been taken by kids aged ten to eleven years old.

The newest video, uploaded yesterday, includes a slow-motion shot of seagulls.

The other Children’s Day Apple ads include Shot on iPhone videography with unexpected perspectives, animal close-ups, and more slow-motion shots.

The Shot on iPhone campaign has been running for years now, and Apple frequently uses the strategy to celebrate specific national holidays. Earlier in February, the company created a Carnival-specific video for its Brazilian YouTube channel to showcase “the diversity, variety and freedom of expression of Carnival.” Since the iPhone 7 launched, Apple’s ads have mostly focused on the improved photography capabilities of the smartphone.

Tags: Apple ads, Tim Cook, Turkey
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Santander Bank in U.S. Now Supports Apple Pay With MasterCard Branded Credit and Debit Cards

Santander Bank recently announced that it is launching Apple Pay support to its customers in the United States for the first time, allowing any MasterCard branded credit or debit card distributed by Santander to be added to Apple’s mobile wallet. After being added in Apple Pay, Santander MasterCard holders can use the service on a compatible iPhone to pay at participating retailers, purchase items within apps, or shop on the web.

Santander said that Apple Pay is one of many customer-focused innovations it has launched over the past few months, which include an update to the company’s mobile app that added in a mobile check deposit feature as well as Touch ID log-in support. Additionally, the company mentioned that more updates will continue to roll out throughout 2017.

Santander Bank’s 2.1 million customers are principally located in the northeast U.S., including Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Santander has already introduced Apple Pay support to its customers in Spain and the United Kingdom.

“Our customers have been telling us that they want to do more on-the-go digital banking using their mobile devices,” said Michael Cleary, Santander’s Head of Consumer and Business Banking. “At Santander, we pride ourselves on listening to our customers. We’ve responded to their feedback by investing more resources in our mobile banking platform and upgrading the digital tools and services customers need to truly bank anywhere with Santander, and Apple Pay is a great example of that innovation.”

The bank has set up a new Apple Pay webpage on its site to guide users through the steps needed to add a credit or debit card into the Wallet app on iPhone and iPad. As with all other Apple Pay-supported banks, the service is available on iPhone 6 and later, iPhone SE, Apple Watch, the late 2016 MacBook Pro, and iPad mini 3 or later within apps and Safari. Macs introduced in 2012 and later can also be used, but checkout will have to be confirmed through an Apple Pay-enabled iPhone or Apple Watch.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
Tag: Santander Bank
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Shrimp from the Sahara sounds crazy, but it may be the future of aquaculture

Agriculture has come a long way in the past century. We produce more food than ever before — but our current model is unsustainable, and as the world’s population rapidly approaches the 8 billion mark, modern food production methods will need a radical transformation if they’re going to keep up. But luckily, there’s a range of new technologies that might make it possible. In this series, we’ll explore some of the innovative new solutions that farmers, scientists, and entrepreneurs are working on to make sure that nobody goes hungry in our increasingly crowded world.

Seafood is a big part of humanity’s diet, and it’s been that way for a very long time. According to archaeological evidence, Homo sapiens mastered the art of fishing somewhere around 40,000 years ago — and we’ve been eating seafood ever since.

The only problem, of course, is that nowadays there are significantly more people eating seafood than there were 40,000 years ago. There are so many seafood eaters on the planet now that we’ve passed the point where naturally bred fish can sustain us. So now, we farm our seafood — just like we farm wheat, corn, and potatoes.

We don’t just do it a little bit, either. Globally, aquaculture — the practice of breeding fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and aquatic plants — supplies more that 50 percent of all seafood produced for human consumption.

That number is expected to increase. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, approximately 75 percent of the world’s fisheries are either exploited or depleted due to fishing, which will likely lead to the complete depletion of currently fished stocks by 2048. That means that over the next 15 years, we’ll need to produce an additional 40 million metric tons of farmed seafood in order to meet demand.

One-fifth of the world’s mangrove forests have been destroyed due to the expansion of shrimp and fish farming.

That’s a huge challenge given our current aquaculture practices, which are often inefficient, volatile (susceptible to disease), and damaging to the environment. So how do we scale production and avoid amplifying our existing problems?

The answer, of course, lies in science and technology. Right now, researchers and environmentalists all over the globe are working on a host of potential solutions that might provide a sustainable stock of farmed seafood that tastes great and won’t harm the environment.

In this article, we’ll explore one of the most promising ideas to come out of this effort: a revolutionary closed-loop shrimp farming technique that ditches the open ocean in favor of man-made inland pools where farmers can better control environmental conditions.

Shrimp Farming: A Brief History

The shrimp industry is a textbook example of the struggles our aquaculture system currently faces.

When commercial shrimp farming exploded in the 1970s, small-scale inland farms were launched to meet this demand and supplement the harvesting of the wild shrimp stock. These farms now supply more than 55 percent of the world’s shrimp, with a collective market value of more than $10 billion. Shrimp farming shows no signs of decline and has the highest growth rate in the aquaculture industry, expanding by 10 percent each year.

This steady increase in production is not without controversy. Farming is mostly concentrated in tropical areas where it takes between three and six months to raise market-sized shrimp. But land in tropical zones is limited, so farmers often clear-cut valuable, ecologically sensitive coastal habitats to create man-made pools for their shrimp.

That’s not good. According to a study by the U.N. University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health, approximately one-fifth of the world’s mangrove forests have been destroyed due to the expansion of shrimp and fish farming. These mangroves grow in salt marsh areas and provide valuable habitats for the spawning of wild fish species and other aquatic animals. They also absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and serve as a protective buffer from coastal storms.

But it’s not just mangrove depletion that’s causing concern. Commercial shrimp farms also face a number of health issues. Farm shrimp are typically one of two different species: Penaeus vannamei (Pacific white shrimp) and Penaeus monodon (giant tiger prawn). These two species are highly susceptible to disease, and infections can often wipe out entire harvests in one fell swoop.

To combat these crop-destroying infections, Asian farmers often use antibiotics and other chemical treatments designed to prevent the spread of disease. The only problem is that, due to the overuse of these antibiotics, farms now face a growing threat from antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

A Healthier and More Eco-Friendly Alternative

Luckily, there’s a small group of entrepreneurs who are risking it all to show the world there is a better way to farm shrimp. This revolution is taking hold in the United States, where several small-scale shrimp farms are now using a sustainable, zero-waste method to produce healthy, eco-friendly shrimp for local markets.

This zero-waste farming revolution is fueled by an innovative aquaculture technique called “Biofloc technology,” which allows nutrients to be recycled and reused in a closed-loop system.

New-age aquaculture farms can be located anywhere there’s sufficient indoor space.

In this system, shrimp are grown in climate-controlled indoor tanks that provide highly favorable conditions for them. As the shrimp grow and produce waste, microorganisms are introduced to detoxify the water and remove shrimp poop from the system. These microorganisms are then kept in check by zooplankton, which consume these detoxifying bacteria. The zooplankton, in turn, become food for the shrimp, allowing farmers to provide a portion of the shrimp’s nutritional needs free of charge.

Because the shrimp are grown in enclosed tanks, these new-age aquaculture farms can be located anywhere there’s sufficient indoor space. It doesn’t matter where you set up shop — Biofloc tech can be used practically anywhere — from a small farming community in Maryland to the middle of the Sahara Desert.

These indoors farms also use their space efficiently. According to Marvesta Shrimp Farms founder Scott Fritze, the company can produce shrimp in a 5-acre facility that would occupy two to three hundred acres of an outdoor farm. Because of this small footprint and zero-waste design, the Biofloc system eliminates the habitat destruction, the damaging eutrophication from wastewater release, and other harmful effects of traditional outdoor shrimp farming. Indoor farming is so eco-friendly that the practice has earned a “Best Choice” award from Seafood Watch, a watchdog agency that evaluates the ecological impact of wild-caught and farmed seafood in North America.

Indoor shrimp stocks are also healthier than their outdoor counterparts. The self-purifying, closed-loop system makes it easy to regulate nutrient levels and control disease. As a result, indoor shrimp can be raised without the use antibiotics or fertilizers, producing an end product that is both healthier and safer for consumers.

(Video: KSU Aquaculture Research Center)

There’s even a geographical benefit. The Biofloc method allows farmers to harvest shrimp quickly, and transport them from tank to market in just a few hours. In the future, this could allow fresh seafood deliveries to areas that are currently sustained by imports from coastal regions and other countries.

The Future of Seafood?

Inland shrimp farming may sound like a panacea for the shrimp farming industry, but the method does come with its own unique set of challenges.

The first is a high startup cost. Not only does a prospective Biofloc shrimp farmer need an indoor facility, he also needs to provide adequate heating, large-enough tanks to support a shrimp population, and a circulation system that’s disease- and contamination-free.

On top of that, investors are often hesitant to pour money into these ventures — and for good reason. Even if a farmer does have the resources to start up a shrimp farm, the venture is risky. Despite being less-prone to disease than traditional farms, Biofloc operations still aren’t immune to infection. One disease outbreak can wipe out an entire harvest, putting the company’s financial stability at risk.

Slowly but surely, aquaculture is moving inland.

Despite these hardships, there are several companies making a go of it in the indoor shrimp farming industry.

One of the pioneers in the U.S. indoor shrimp market is Maryland-based Marvesta. Founded in 2003, the company rode a wave of success until an illness outbreak in 2013 nearly shut down operations permanently. The company rebounded, however, and recently partnered with RDM Aquaculture to expand its operation to commercial farmers who want to harvest shrimp.

Another startup, Sky8 shrimp farm in Massachusets, is leveraging its proximity to the ocean by using filtered seawater from the Gulf of Maine to give the shrimp a distinctive flavor and texture that can’t be matched by frozen shrimp.

And it’s not just big companies like Sky8 and Marvesta that are flourishing. There are dozens of smaller operations out there, including ECO Shrimp Garden in New York and Sherlock Shrimp in Iowa, who are finding niches for shrimp in their local communities.

Slowly but surely, aquaculture is moving inland.

Djingo unchained! Top mobile carriers take on Alexa with new AI assistant

Why it matters to you

Virtual assistants, and artificial intelligence, is now a major tech trend and mobile carriers are getting in on the game.

It’s not enough that Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana, Alexa, Bixby, and many other virtual assistants are on-hand every day, ready to help out with our every whim; there are still companies that think we need another one. The latest is named Djingo, and it’s a joint project between mobile networks Orange and Deutsche Telekom, which makes it a bigger deal than you may initially think.

Djingo has been announced at an event in Paris, France, and shown off as an Amazon Echo Dot-style speaker, but it will also be released as an app on devices, and there are plans to integrate it into a remote control for Orange’s set-top TV boxes. Unsurprisingly, it’s woken by an “OK Djingo” keyword, and the demonstration showed Djingo playing a requested audio track, and sending a tweet. It will also be able to make calls, send SMS, and control connected smart home devices.

So far, nothing new; but it’s the wide reach of Orange and Deutsche Telekom that makes Djingo djinteresting. Orange is the top mobile operator in France, and has networks throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. It also has stakes in major online companies including music streaming service Deezer, and video site Dailymotion. Orange is co-developing Djingo with Deutsche Telekom, and the two companies are working together on both the hardware and software. Deutsche Telekom also operates and backs networks throughout Europe, often under the T-Mobile brand, which it also uses in America. Both networks also operate television services.

There has been no announcement regarding where Djingo will launch, or if it will be pre-installed on smartphones released by any of the Orange and Deutsche Telekom networks around the world. However, the combined audience of both these companies is easily in the many hundreds of millions, and research estimates the artificial intelligence market could be worth at least $16 billion by 2022. It’s unlikely either will want to ignore the potential. Additionally, Orange says Djingo will be compatible with AI systems from Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM.

Amazon and Google may have a new challenger on their hands, but neither need lose sleep just yet. Djingo is still in the development phase, and is expected to be released in early 2018, plus Samsung has shown how hard it is to get AI assistants right first time out.

Grow your crops indoors with the Grobo automated garden — now shipping

Why it matters to you

Hydroponic gardening is all the rage these days, and you can grow just about anything (including weed) in the garden known as Grobo.

The local food movement is in full swing in urban environments across the country, and what could be more local than the food that comes from your own home? We know, we know — not everyone has the luxury of living on a farm or tending to an expansive garden, but now you don’t need to. Meet Grobo, a home growing system that promises to “take the guesswork out of successfully growing small crops of high-quality food.” And Grobo One has now begun shipping to its customers.

While you can’t exactly control the conditions of a traditional garden, with the Grobo, you become somewhat omnipotent. Customize your growing environment by using your smartphone and Grobo’s app to set the wavelength and spectrum (which is to say, color and intensity) of the 53 LED lights within the enclosure. The autonomous system will let you set and forget a watering schedule — up to eight times a day. And everything about the Grobo is eco-friendly, including its low energy consumption. In fact, running this indoor gardening system requires about the same amount of electricity as a ceiling fan.

“Hydroponics allows you to achieve larger yields in less time,” Grobo’s founders told Digital Trends, “With hydroponics, the nutrients are added to water so that the plant can easily absorb them rather than having to extract each nutrient from the soil.”

There’s no limit to the types of fruits, vegetables, and herbs you can grow with the Grobo. From your favorite salad greens to calming teas to seasonal fruits, Grobo invites its users to get creative with the system’s uses. And regardless of what you’re growing, the app will take care of all the heavy lifting for you. Simply select the plant you want to grow, and the Grobo system will run a preloaded and optimized grow recipe. And if you’re curious as to how your plants are doing during their growth cycle, you can check the Grobo app for variables like plant height, nutrient consumption, and more.

And although you can indeed grow any crop (Grobo told us that the product is “truly crop agnostic”), cannabis appears to be a particularly compelling choice — we hope only for legal growers although of course this home-based solution may attract non-legal growers as well.

“Cannabis currently provides the best ROI for customers,” Grobo’s founders told us. “With cannabis you can pay for a Grobo One within one year which is significantly faster than any other crop.” And for medicinal cannabis patients, Grobo can help automate the home growing process, saving folks many hours every week.

With regard to the eventual legalization of cannabis, Grobo seems optimistic for the future. “Over the next five to ten years as more producers become licensed and competition increases, cannabis quality will slowly improve and prices will slowly decrease,” the founders said. “By this point in time, however, we aim to have decreased the cost and increased the production of new Grobo systems enough that people will be growing cannabis alongside high quality fruits and vegetables in their homes.”

Article originally published in August 2016. Updated on 04-20-2017 by Lulu Chang: Added news that Grobo has begun shipping. 

Huawei CEO speaks on P10 memory + screen issues

Richard Yu blames supply chain issues for slower memory in some P10s, and static electricity for smudgy screens.

Storage speed in phones often isn’t heavily promoted, even in flagship handsets, but it’s something which can affect how fast a device feels. As Engadget’s Richard Lai reports, some Chinese Huawei P10 owners noticed slower flash memory performance in their devices — speeds in line with the older eMMC 5.1 spec, not the newer UFS 2.0/2.1. Unlucky devices with eMMC 5.1 chips would score significantly lower in storage benchmarks. In one test, P10s with the slower memory managed less than half the throughput seen by models with faster chips.

Huawei CBG (Consumer Business Group) CEO Richard Yu reached out on social network Weibo to address the issue, while also commenting on our biggest gripe with the P10, its lack of oleophobic coating on the display.

On memory speeds, Yu blamed a “serious shortage” of faster UFS 2.0 and 2.1 chips in the supply chain, which apparently led to Huawei having to fall back on slower, but more readily available eMMC 5.1 memory in some units. Now, it’s true that Huawei never included UFS on the P10’s spec sheet. However, customers could be forgiven for assuming the P10’s specs would line up with the Mate 9, a phone which shares the same Kirin 960 platform and was promoted as using speedy UFS 2.1 storage.

Yu insists that real-world performance isn’t impacted by the use of slower memory in some P10s, saying “a good real-life performance and experience” is maintained thanks to Huawei’s hardware and software optimizations.

Newer P10 batches will include an oleophobic coating, says Richard Yu.

As for why the P10 doesn’t have an oleophobic coating on the display — the smudge-resistant layer used in all other flagship phones to deter the buildup of smudges and grease — well, apparently a combination of Gorilla Glass 5 and static electricity is to blame. According to the Engadget report, Yu said that the touch panel in the phone’s Gorilla Glass 5 display had problems with the original oleophobic coating technique, where static buildup would interfere with the touch sensor.

That would explain why Huawei-built contemporaries like the Honor 8 Pro, which uses Gorilla Glass 3, still manage to include the coating. (In any case, we’d still argue that simply using different glass would’ve been a more acceptable compromise.)

Yu says that newer batches of P10 phones include the coating — made possible by a new coating technique that doesn’t lead to static buildup — and that customers in China could visit their local Huawei store to have the treatment applied to their device. It’s not clear what help that’ll be to anyone who’s bought a P10 outside of Huawei’s home market, though.

More: Huawei P10 + P10 Plus review

Google Photos: Ultimate Guide

Save memories, store and catalog your photos, make edits, and more with Google Photos.

Google Photos is more than just an app for storing your photos. While on the surface it’s primarily for backing up photos, there are more ways to edit and share hidden inside. You also have some serious control over every aspect of the photos. This goes from which folders get backed up, to the image quality you upload your photos to, to seeing the photos that you have shared in the past. It gives you a solid place to store and sync all of your photos so that you never lose one again.

• Getting started with Google Photos
• Sharing with friends
• Manage your photos
• Additional features

How to set up Google Photos

Google Photos aims to be your one stop shop for all of your Photos. Before you can start to take advantage of the many things you can do by using Google Photos, you need to know the basics. This includes things like choosing your image upload quality, understanding the Google Photos Assistant, and choosing which device folders get synced with Google Photos.

• How to set up Google photos
• What is Google Photos Assistant, and how does it work?

Share your photos with friends

Google Photos makes it so easy to share your memories and photos with friends, family, and colleagues. You have control over who can see the photos that you share, and even set up specific folders for sharing.

• How to share photos with Google Photos

Manage your photos

When it comes to keeping track of all of your photos, Google makes that easy for you to. You can create new folders, share specific folders, and even add to existing folders, or allow folks to collaborate and add their own photos to the folder you have invited them to.

• How to manage existing albums, and create new ones
• How to create collages, animations, and movies with Google Photos
• How to transfer your photos from an iPhone to Android

Additional Features

Google Photos has plenty of additional features that you might not have heard about. Just because features are hidden a bit under the surface doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t check them out, though. With powerful photo editing built right in, there are some things you may not have seen about Google Photos.

• How to edit photos in Google Photos
• The best part of a vacation is Google Photos

Are you a fan of Google Photos?

Google Photos delivers a great app that can be used to share, save, upload, and even edit, your photos. With plenty of features that are easy to use, it becomes a great storage tool for the photos you take every day. Do you use Google Photos for storing your snapshots? Be sure to drop us a line in the comments and tell us about it.

Best tips for extending the life of your phone’s battery

How do I make sure my phone’s battery lasts as long as possible?

Most of us never think about the battery in our phone until it dies. When everything is working properly the battery should not be a part of the Android experience, other than not lasting long enough because we never put our phones down. The only time we ever think about the battery is when we have to charge it.

How you do that charging can make a difference, though not nearly as much as some people think. Let’s have a look at the right way to take care of your battery and if it really matters.

Battery things

A few facts about your phone’s battery make for a great starting point. We need to know the basics before we dive into the rest.

Chemical batteries aren’t safe, but there is science trying to get them there.

The battery in your phone is almost certainly a single lithium-ion (also known as Li-ion, Lion or LiB) cell. Li-ion batteries offer what’s called a high energy density (power output compared to size), have almost zero memory effect and offer a moderate self-discharge rate. There are Li-ion batteries in all shapes and sizes, and while most of what we’re going to talk about apply to them all we’re going to focus on the one inside your phone.

The chemistry of your phone battery is usually lithium cobalt oxide-based. These types of cell offer a very high energy density but also pose some serious safety issues like the ones we saw with the Galaxy Note 7. While the actual composition can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, generally you have two electrodes (one carbon-based and one lithium oxide-based) encased in a pressurized foil pouch filled with a lithium salt dissolved in an organic solvent as the electrolyte paste.

Charged lithium ions move from one electrode to the other through the conductive electrolyte, which is flammable. The electrolyte gets very hot when the juice is flowing and a puncture of the foil can lead to a small explosion of very flammable fluid.

The Note 7’s silver lining

Some good things happened because of Samsung’s Note 7 recall.

As consumers, we’re more aware of the inherent danger of Li-ion batteries and Samsung is leading the charge (no pun intended!) when it comes to the science of smartphone battery safety. We’ll never know exactly what happened or why, but we can be sure that every phone leaving Samsung’s factories have been through a rigorous testing procedure and should be very safe. Hopefully, this can be a learning experience for all the companies who make our battery-powered things!

This is Samsung’s new 8-point battery safety check

The companies that make Li-ion batteries are always working on ways to make them safer without lowering the amount of energy they can store. Graphene, Sulfur, and Hexafluorides are just some of the chemicals being used to try and build a better battery, and every model made is safer than the last. But lithium-ion cells are still inherently dangerous. That’s why the battery in your phone is more than just a cell — it makes things a lot safer when you regulate things.

The battery inside your phone is a power cell as described above coupled with sensors and other parts like voltage regulators and an external connector. This electronic hardware monitors the electricity moving in and out of the battery as well as the capacity and temperature. They are there to shut down power instantly if they detect a short or dangerous temperature spike.

A lot of work went into making a battery for your phone that can deliver the power needed as safe as possible.

The memory effect

Battery memory effect is when the battery (not the cell itself) forgets the capacity that’s not regularly charged. It’s a weird concept that’s difficult to fully explain.

Li-ion batteries don’t have a memory effect.

If you charge your battery every time it goes down to 25% and then remove it from the charger when it reaches 75% every time, you’re only charging 50% of the capacity. The 0-25% that never discharged and the 75-100% that is never charged will be forgotten. This means that over time your battery thinks 25% is 0% and 75% is 100%. You are unable to use half of the battery in this case.

As crazy as it sounds, it’s true. But not for Li-ion batteries. You don’t need to worry about any battery memory effect for the battery inside your phone.

From zero to 100

The battery in your phone has a “zone” that provides as much charge as possible without doing anything that affects the lifespan of the battery too much. Completely draining a battery might cause it to die and not come back.The smarts in the battery and your phone work together to make sure this doesn’t happen. Overcharging a battery can cause heat that damages the cell inside it. Your phone and the battery itself work together to make sure this doesn’t happen, too.

Your battery and phone are smart and make sure you can’t fully discharge or overcharge things.

In a perfect world, you would keep your phone battery close to 50% charged at all times by micromanaging the time it spends on the charger to top it off when needed. This is because batteries have a useful life and it’s based on charge cycles.

A charge cycle is going from dead to full (inside that safe zone described above) one time. Most phone batteries are designed to last about 400 cycles. That means if you let it run to zero then charge it to full 400 separate times the battery will no longer be able to hold a full charge and it will take more of the stored charge to normally operate your phone. Eventually, you’ll notice that it takes longer to charge it and it doesn’t last as long as it did when it was new.

This will happen to every battery eventually, but small “top-up” charges that don’t heat things up as much have less of an impact than long charges. If you always run your battery down until it’s almost dead then plug your phone in until it’s full you’re putting more stress on it than doing a bunch of short charges. We can’t say the difference is so small it doesn’t matter, but we can say that it’s probably not worth the inconvenience of charging your phone five minutes at a time all day long.

Charging at night

If you plug your phone in when you go to bed and let it charge all night, it still won’t overcharge the battery. But it’s important to mention that you should never charge a lithium-ion battery unattended.

When the phone is fully charged the electronics in the battery tell your phone to stop sending electricity from the charger to the battery charging circuit. Power still comes in, it just doesn’t work at recharging anything and goes back out to the wall socket (electricity travels in an unbroken loop to and from the power source). If your phone is still powered on the battery will discharge because it’s being used. When it discharges to a certain point, charging starts again. This cycle repeats until you unplug it in the morning.

A lot of work was done to make sure the cell inside the battery doesn’t overcharge at any time. Even during the night while it’s on the charger. If you’re going to charge your phone overnight, make sure everything works properly and you’re charging properly. That means you don’t have the phone under a blanket or laying on the rug while it’s plugged in or have it in a thick sealed case that keeps the heat in. Plug it in (or put it on a wireless charger) somewhere that it won’t get tangled up in your bedclothes or knocked to the floor.

Storing your phone or battery

Charge your battery to 50% and turn the phone off. Check it once in a while and recharge it before it drops under 10%.

Your battery will discharge in the drawer over time.

Li-ion batteries have a moderate self-discharge rate. That means when they are not being used they still will lose their charge. All batteries do this and some types (lead-acid) are bigger offenders than others (lithium-sulfur). A battery can self-discharge to zero when it’s not being used even if your phone would normally shut down before you get there. Letting a Li-ion battery run down completely could cause it to not come back online, depending on the internal circuitry.

If you plan on storing a phone over the long term, drop a monthly reminder in your calendar to take it out, turn it on and charge it a little.

Recalibration

This means running a battery down to zero then charging it to full in one sitting. This is said to recalibrate the battery.

Recalibration won’t hurt anything but it might not do anything, either.

Laptops may benefit from a recalibration cycle if the battery level icon has the wrong reading. The software that controls this on a laptop is a good bit different from your Android, though. Some experts claim you need to recalibrate your battery from time to time or when you see an issue, but others say it won;t do anything.

Fully cycling the battery in your phone every once in a while isn’t going to break anything. It’s not something we recommend you do every day because of that charge cycle life we talked about up the page. If you think you need to do it to fix something, go for it.

Are wireless chargers bad for my battery?

Not really, as long as you’re using a quality charger of the right type.

They aren’t any better than charging over a wire, either. Charging a battery makes it hot. Heat shortens battery lifespan. Once the electricity from a wireless charger passes into your phone it’s handled the same way as a wired charger. Inside the battery where the chemical reaction is happening heat builds up no matter how you charge your phone battery.

Wireless charging is inefficient so it takes longer, but it also is less wear and tear on the USB socket on your phone. If you like the convenience of a wireless charger, go for it!

How about fast charging?

When using any fast charging method (Qualcomm Quick Charge, Adaptive Fast Charging, USB PD, etc.) you have a charger that is capable of supplying electricity at a higher voltage or amperage than normal. Your phone has programming on the circuit board that tells the charger how much electricity to deliver, and the charger has circuitry that listens and complies. Without both sides being able to communicate, quick-charging can’t happen.

Fast charging affects battery lifespan but nobody is sure exactly how much.

There is a lot of science behind quick charging. Most of it agrees that quick charging contributes to a faster decline of the battery’s lifespan. But nobody is able to measure exactly how much.

Quick charging is uber-convenient and has changed the way a lot of us use our gadgets. The best recommendation, in this case, is to use it wisely if you’re concerned that it affects battery longevity. Usually, that means you need a second charger, so make sure you buy one made by a reputable company.

Using another charger

Always try to use the charger and cable that came with your phone each and every time you need to charge it. If you need a replacement or an additional charger, buy the type the manufacturer recommends. Products are designed so that the different types of quick charging products can be used on phones that don’t support them (you won’t get fast charging speeds) but it’s still advisable to use the right quick-charge technology. If you’re unsure of which kind of quick charging your phone uses, online resources like our forums are helpful, or you can contact the manufacturer.

It’s also a good idea to buy new cables when you buy a new phone. Always. Charging technology change so fast that the cables you have been using for a few years might not meet the requirements and cables degrade from all the twisting and pulling they suffer through. Make sure the cables you buy match the specifications of the ones that came in the box and are made by a company you trust. Recycle your old cables and protect your expensive new phone.

Our recommended practices

• Charge your phone when it needs a charge and remove it from the charger when it’s finished. Don’t be afraid to use a wireless charger.
• Use quick charging sparingly if you’re concerned about its effect on battery lifespan. There is little immediate damage or danger from using the right charging method for your phone.
• Try to manually shut your phone off if the charge ever drops below 10% and leave it off while charging it for a few minutes.
• Never store a phone with a dead battery and check on a stored phone periodically.
• Don’t buy cheap chargers or cables from the gas station or that dude at the flea market. Use the type of charger the people who made your phone recommend.

You can make yourself crazy by worrying about the perfect way to charge your phone’s battery. All the technical details about how behaviors can affect the lifespan of the battery are true, but they are also very minor in scale. Charging and discharging a battery shortens its lifespan, but a battery is useless if it’s not charged so it can power something. It’s OK to baby your phone’s battery, but ultimately not necessary.

You can now book restaurants through Bookatable directly in Apple Maps

Since its rocky launch several years ago Apple Maps has come on leaps and bounds. It has added new features and updates regularly and the latest version of the application is almost unrecognisable from the version launched in 2012.

One new addition is the ability to book restaurants directly through Michelin’s Bookatable service in an Apple Maps extension.

More than 5,000 restaurants around the UK are signed to Bookatable, so if you click on the icon of one of them on Apple Maps you will be offered the chance of reserving a table.

It includes any of 54 different Michelin-starred restaurants.

In addition, Apple Maps now includes icons and place-holders for electric vehicle charging points around the country and Santander Cycles stands in London.

Search for either and all of the nearest will pop up with their own icons on the Maps screen.

Maps is now the most frequently used iOS app by Apple by far and is currently integrated into many other iPhone and iPad applications. It has been greatly updated since iOS 10 hit at the end of last year, with transport links for 40 metropolitan areas around the globe now covered, including all of China, Japan and Great Britain.

Even entrances to Tube and railway stations are listed so you know exactly which one to enter when you want to travel to a specific destination.