Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Smart wants to make oral care sexy with connected toothbrush

Philips is preparing to supercharge your oral care with the launch of a new connected toothbrush, the Sonicare DiamondClean Smart.

Revealing the new electric toothbrush at the IFA Global Press Conference 2017, the new toothbrush isn’t due to launch until the main IFA show in September 2017, but Philips was keen to point out that good health often starts with your mouth.

This isn’t just a toothbrush according to Philips, it’s an oral care platform. The new DiamondClean Smart evolves the existing Sonicare DiamondClean model with connectivity, with a smartphone app letting you monitor your cleaning.

Pocket-lint

Philips says that although electric toothbrushes are very good at cleaning, the app helps ensure you’re getting your oral care right and will use the app to show you where in your mouth you’re not cleaning properly.

The toothbrush itself is smart too. Not only will it offer four cleaning programmes and three intensities as you’d expect from a Sonicare brush, but it has sensors in the brush head, so the toothbrush knows what type of cleaning it should be doing.

The new Sonicare DiamondClean Smart will come with a charging glass and a travel case. No pricing or availability information has been confirmed, but we’ve seen it listed for a suggested price of $229.99. We expect it to be available later in 2017.

5 ways to ensure your passwords are always safe

Account hacking is a real and genuine threat, so making sure you have a safe and secure password for all your accounts is an absolute must. We are constantly told to try and avoid using the same password for everything, but remembering so many different passwords can be a nightmare.

Thankfully, there are software programmes and apps out there to handle that task for you and help keep you safe online. Let us run you through five of the best we’ve found to help keep account hackers at bay.

LastPass

LastPass

LastPass is available across the vast majority of internet browsers and mobile devices, and can be used on both Windows and Mac. It’s installed as an extension in your browser and appears as a button in the browser toolbar so you can quickly and easily manage your LastPass account.

While it will remember all your passwords for all your accounts, it does require you remember just one master password to login with, which shouldn’t be too hard at all. You’ll want to make this password as strong as you can, to prevent anyone from hacking in and stealing all your other passwords.

You save passwords to your ‘vault’, and you can either add them manually, or get LastPass to save them automatically the next time you login to a particular site or service.

If you want to change one of your current passwords to something different, you can, and LastPass can generate a random sequence of letters and numbers to make your account extra secure. And of course, you won’t need to worry about remembering the tricky sequence as LastPass will do that for you.

You can download the mobile app to your device as well, and all your saved passwords will sync across, just as long as you remember that all-important master password. While it will remember passwords for any websites you visit on your mobile device, you’ll need to pay a small monthly fee for it to remember passwords for your applications.

You don’t just have to save account passwords in LastPass though, as it can also be a place to store notes, Wi-Fi passwords or details of your driving license and you can save your debit and credit card details so you can autofill them in when you go to buy something online.

KeePass

KeePass

KeePass is a free-to-download, open-source password manager for Windows. You can install it on Linux and Mac computers, but you’ll need to run it through Mono, which lets you install Microsoft applications on different platforms.

There are unofficial ports available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry devices. We’ll be sticking to talking about the official version for Windows PC here.

KeePass works much in the same way as LastPass by storing usernames and passwords for different accounts in a database as encrypted files. You can also store notes and other file attachments.

The database of passwords is secured by a master password, key files and/or the current Windows account details, and everything is stored locally on your computer as opposed to in the cloud.

KeePass has a password generator to come up with super secure passwords to use for your different accounts and it supports a vast number of plug-ins, all of which can be seen on KeePass’s website.

Because of the slightly more difficult way to install KeePass on Mac and Linux-based systems, we’d say it’s only really a worthy contender for Windows users. 

Dashlane

Dashlane

Dashlane works in a very similar way to LastPass. It works across various browsers and mobile devices, and can generate passwords with up to 28 characters to make them virtually impossible to bypass. Dashlane will monitor the passwords you have saved for all your accounts, and will instantly let you know if any of your accounts are compromised.

When you first install Dashlane, it will scan the history of any internet browsers you have installed and check for any saved passwords. Whatever it finds it can then import. It’s a really handy way to get all your passwords saved instantly, instead of having to remember where you have accounts or manually saving them each time you login to a new website. 

When you login to Dashlane, you’ll need to enter your email address and then a security code that is sent to that email. Once you’ve put that in, you’ll then be asked for your master password. 

If any of your saved passwords are old and in need of a refresh, Dashlane can do so at the click of a button. Simply select the passwords you wish to change, press ‘change’ and they’ll be updated and saved with new ones. It can also tell you how safe your current passwords are, in this case of this writer, the passwords could definitely do with an update.

Unlike LastPass however, Dashlane can’t store passwords for applications on your mobile devices.

There is a Premium tier of Dashlane which gives you unlimited password syncing across all your devices, gives you a secure and encrypted backup of your account in the cloud and allows you to login to your Dashlane account from any web browser.

LogMeOnce Password Manager

LogMeOnce

LogMeOnce works as a browser extension, so can be used across Windows and Mac, as well as iOS and Android. Like the other password managers on this list, LogMeOnce can ask you for a master password to login, but it actually has password-less login set by default.

It’s available in separates guises for businesses and consumers, and instead of typing in a password, you need to pair your account with your smartphone. When you try to login through a web browser, you’ll receive a prompt on your mobile device so you can verify your identity.

LogMeOnce will either ask you for a PIN code, a fingerprint scan or PhotoLogin, which shows you a photo on your device, taken by the webcam on your computer. If you see a picture of yourself, you confirm it’s you and you can login.

It can generate passwords with 15 characters by default, and can tell you approximately how long a password you choose yourself could take to decipher. LogMeOnce also asks you to change your passwords every three months by default, but you can upgrade to the Ultimate tier to set this timescale to your own personal preference.

If you happen to lose your mobile device and someone else tries to login on it, LogMeOnce will automatically take a photo using both the front and rear cameras and send them to your online dashboard. You can then view the photos to see who has your phone, along with their GPS location and IP address.

The cloud dashboard interface, which gives you an overview of all the websites you have passwords saved for, isn’t as good looking as the likes of LastPass or Dashlane, but it gives you several tabs to store different passwords, such as ‘work’, ‘family’, ‘finance’ and ‘travel’.

There are three tiers available: Premium which is free, Professional which is $12/year or Ultimate which costs $39/year. 

Sticky Password

Sticky Password

Sticky Password is another browser tool that stores your password behind a master password key but can also rely on fingerprint authentication to log you into your account. It’s support across several platforms including iOS, Windows, Mac and Android, and has extensive browser support.

The free tier doesn’t let you sync data across your devices, that benefit is reserved for the Premium tier. With it, you can sync your password data to your devices via local Wi-Fi or via the cloud, you can also save an encrypted backup of your passwords to the cloud if you wish.

If you pay for the Premium tier, a portion of the money goes to help support endangered manatees, so you’ll be doing some good, along with keeping your accounts safe. 

We prefer the interface of LastPass and Dashlane, but Sticky Password is still easy and simple to use and is a great option for storing all your passwords in one place. 

The Morning After: Friday, April 21st 2017

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

Welcome to Friday, friends. A few changes are afoot at Engadget, Elon Musk has plans for brain-machine interfaces in a few years, and HTC made a phone that is rumored to be squeezable. Meanwhile, a high-end, WiFi-connected juicer with mountains of funding is also feeling the squeeze.

Changes aheadWe’re learning from our past to inform our future.

It’s not the weekend yet, but we have a letter from the new editor-in-chief, Christopher Trout walking down memory lane and laying out what you can expect from Engadget in the future. In short, “authoritative reporting on the tech industry and the people, products and ideas that power it.”

That’s one way to sell more camerasGoPro’s Fusion spherical camera is six GoPros in one

Facebook, isn’t the only one with a new 360-degree camera, as GoPro is announcing its 5.2K VR-capable Fusion camera. The spherical device that CEO Nicholas Woodman describes as “six GoPro cameras fused into one” will become available for pilot partners this summer, although details on wider availability and pricing are still TBA.

Meet NeuralinkElon Musk’s latest venture is all about connecting your brain to a computer

Elon Musk figures that for humanity to avoid becoming obsolete after the rise of AI, we’ll need to pursue a symbiotic relationship with technology. One way to do that will be via brain-machine interfaces (BMI) that connect people to computers and each other. By increasing the bandwidth of connections (beyond what verbal, written or gesture communication can do), Wait but Why’s Tim Urban explains that Neuralink could lead the rise of the “Wizard Era.” Musk predicts that it could have a product on the market for people with brain injuries within four years, although a device ready for people without disabilities could take twice as long to develop.

OopsJuicero offers refunds to its customers

If you spent $700 or $400 on a Juicero then we have some news — you can return it and get your money back. Of course, if you like the company’s system of custom produce packs and expensive press then you can keep them, but it’s a little tough now that Bloomberg showed they’re easily squeezed by hand. The company’s CEO laughably compared that hands-on technique to Keurig hacking, while also trying to convince the world why your juicer needs a WiFi connection.

Your new squeeze.HTC will unveil a squeezable ‘U’ phone in May

HTC has sent out a Save the Date for May 16th. Invites like this are typically shrouded in mystery, and this one’s no different. All the invitation says is “Squeeze for the Brilliant U,” though the blurry phone in the background and the company’s tweet gives us some idea of what it could announce. In the video, you can see a hand squeezing the edges of a phone, hinting that you’ll be able to interact with the device by giving its frame a squeeze. We don’t know why you would want to do that, but hey, innovation

‘Tiny Racers’ is basically ‘Micro Machines’ with some ‘GTA’ mayhem.‘Grand Theft Auto’ returns to its top-down roots next week

If Grand Theft Auto: Online’s last big event, the sophomorically named Cunning Stunts, stoked a flame in your racing heart, next week’s add-on might set it ablaze with nostalgia. For a few different reasons, no less. With April 25th’s “Tiny Racers,” the camera reverts to a top-down point of view like the GTA games of yore. More than that, Tiny Racers is a pretty overt homage to the Micro Machines series of stunt-minded arcade racers from the 8-and-16 bit era. In fact, it could be better than the incoming Micro Machines remake.

Happy Holidays!420

Need advice on the intersection of technology and marijuana? If you live in California, we have advice for buying legal weed online. Otherwise, you can just read up on the future of cannabis, as concentrates push the market towards a pure THC distillate.

It’ll seamlessly switch between accounts after you train it.Google Home can now recognize more than one person

Google’s Home device is late to the domestic AI assistant game, but it can do one trick that Alexa can’t right now: Tell family members apart just by their voices. Up to six people can link their Google accounts to one Home device, then train Google’s Assistant to recognize their voices. Once that’s done, it’ll be able to distinguish you from your spouse or other family members and give you pertinent info, like your schedule or traffic on your usual route.

But wait, there’s more…

• Samsung and Amazon counter Dolby Vision HDR with HDR10+
• Plastc’s smart credit card project goes under despite $9 million in preorders
• The Justice Department is reportedly preparing charges against Wikileaks’ Assange
• HBO is adapting ‘Fahrenheit 451’
• Penrose Studios’ third film ‘Arden’s Wake’ proves that social VR doesn’t have to be a gimmick.

The Morning After is a new daily newsletter from Engadget designed to help you fight off FOMO. Who knows what you’ll miss if you don’t subscribe.

Tesla’s app now reflects the company’s move beyond cars

By merging Tesla and Solarcity, Elon Musk has sought about creating an “end-to-end clean energy” solution that starts in the home and extends onto the road. The idea is simple: harness solar energy via photovoltaic cell-embedded rooftop panels, store it in giant batteries and then pipe it into the home or an electric vehicle. As it stands, Musk’s goal is on its way to being realized, but Tesla first needs to combine those individual components into one, and it’s starting with software.

The company’s mobile app and “My Tesla” website have recently been updated to include information on Powerwall installations and deliver real-time solar energy metrics. Users can also monitor their Model S or Model X vehicles, while checking to see where the electricity powering their appliances is coming from.

In October 2016, Tesla announced a new version of its Powerwall product. The wall-mounted pack includes two 14kWh lithium-ion batteries — double the capacity of the previous version — that can power a four-bedroom house for an entire day. Its built-in power inverter works directly with the company’s new glass solar roof tiles to convert sunlight into electricity.

According to Musk, those tiles will be available for installation this summer and will offer “two or three times the longevity of asphalt.” In fact, 2017 will be pretty frantic for Tesla: it intends to show off the finished Model 3 in July, unveil a semi truck in September and convert its Roadster into a convertible. But not before it fixes 53,000 Model S and Model X vehicles with potential electronic parking brake flaws.

Source: Electrek

UK drops plan to allow online guilty pleas for minor crimes

A government plan to introduce online convictions, allowing those who’ve committed petty crimes to plead guilty and pay fines without having to go to court, has been scrapped. The online option was provided in the Prison and Courts Bill, which has been de-prioritised as Parliament focuses on pushing through other legislation before the end of the current session, and ahead of the snap general election on June 8. In light of this, a public committee yesterday voted not to proceed any further with the bill.

The online conviction service was intended for minor, non-imprisonable offenses that have a pre-determined penalty, such as rail and tram fare evasion or fishing without the appropriate licence. Instead of having to appear in court, the idea was defendants could choose to plead guilty and then immediately pay the associated fines, legal costs and any other compensation, all from the relative comfort of their home computer. If all went well, the government was also considering extending the online option to similar cut-and-dry cases like certain driving offenses.

The plan wasn’t entirely without opposition. Some responses to a consultation on the measure argued it could jeopardise the right to a fair trial, though if wasn’t going to be mandatory, and defendants would’ve been able to challenge the case in court if they chose. The government, on the other hand, expected an online conviction system to lighten the burden on courts, giving them more time and resources to spend judging cases of greater intricacy.

Via: The Register, The Law Society Gazette

Source: Prisons and Courts Bill Committee

Galaxy S8 Camera Said to Beat iPhone 7 Plus in Low Light Conditions

Samsung’s new flagship Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones went on sale today in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, and Korea, as the company looks to rebound from last year’s Note7 debacle. Samsung will be encouraged by the record one million pre-orders it has already taken in Korea alone, while analysts are predicting global sales to reach at least 45 million units.

The 5.8-inch and 6.2-inch devices cost $725 and $825, respectively, which gets users an OLED screen that takes up 80 percent of the front of the handsets. Online reviews appeared earlier this week praising the phones’ Infinity Display, but several marked them down for the relocation of the fingerprint scanner to the rear of the devices, right alongside the camera lens.

The camera itself has received less coverage, as it’s actually the same 12MP dual pixel module as the one that appeared in last year’s Galaxy S7. However, Samsung has tweaked the software powering the f/1.7 lens in an attempt to improve image processing. To compare the results with those of the iPhone 7 Plus, Tom’s Guide posted a selection of side-by-side comparison shots taken with the two rival phones.

Overall, the Galaxy S8 came out on top, but only by a slight margin. Despite lackluster macro performance with the S8, both phones’ bright light results were said to be generally equal, but Samsung’s new device bested the iPhone 7 Plus in well-lit nighttime and low-light shots, offering “generally richer” colors, sharper subjects, and “significantly more detail” in indoor and outdoor tests.

Despite the higher megapixel count of the S8’s front-facing camera (8MP versus 7MP on the iPhone 7), Apple’s phone was deemed to take sharper selfie shots with richer colors, while the two phones were tied in 4K 30fps video tests, although the S8’s audio was said to be slightly cleaner.

Apple is thought to be testing a new dual-lens camera system similar to the iPhone 7 Plus for this year’s upcoming OLED iPhone, which will have a Samsung-made display. Rumors suggest the front-facing camera of the iPhone 8 will use a “revolutionary” 3D-sensing system capable of identifying the depth and location of subjects, which could be used for facial and iris recognition or in future augmented reality features.

Tags: Samsung, Galaxy S8
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Drone camera peers into an erupting volcano in Guatemala

Why it matters to you

It’s another great example of the growing uses of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Flying a drone into the flying rocks and ash of an erupting volcano seems like a guaranteed way of ensuring you’ll never see it again, but a team of researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge have so far benefited in a big way from such missions.

They’ve been using several bespoke fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to help them learn more about how and why volcanos erupt. Sending its sensor-laden flying machine over a highly active volcano in Guatemala recently, the team has been able to take accurate temperature, humidity, and thermal measurements from within the ash cloud itself.

Most spectacular, however, is the footage (above) captured by the drone’s camera as it soars high above the volcano and flies directly through the mass of material ejected into the sky above.

The remotely controlled aircraft was flown successfully beyond the line of sight at distances of up to 5 miles (8 km) away, and at 10,000 feet above the launch site.

“Drones offer an invaluable solution to the challenges of in-situ sampling and routine monitoring of volcanic emissions, particularly those where the near-vent region is prohibitively hazardous or inaccessible,” Dr Emma Liu, a volcanologist from the Department of Earth Sciences at Cambridge, said in a release. “These sensors not only help to understand emissions from volcanoes, they could also be used in the future to help alert local communities of impending eruptions – particularly if the flights can be automated.”

Liu says in the video that the team flew the UAVs a number of times across several days over the summit of Volcán de Fuego to “observe and measure rapid changes in the shape of the summit crater and in the style of the explosions in the run up to an eruption.”

In the next stage of the project, the drones will carry additional sensors to measure the volcanic gases being released from Fuego.

“By analysing the chemistry of these gases, and of lava, and building 3D models of the volcano’s shape and how this changes over time, we hope to improve our understanding of what is happening deep beneath the volcano, improving our ability to forecast when and how big the next eruption may be,” Liu said.

The researcher added that using drones to study volcanoes has enabled them to observe eruptions “closer than ever before, and take measurements that would otherwise never have been possible.”

The Pause Pod Is A Private Pop-up Space For A Spot Of ‘Me’ Time

Why it matters to you

We can all do with a break from time to time, and the Pause Pod could help maximize the benefits of your quiet time.

If the Pause Pod looks like a kind of one-person capsule where you can go to relax, de-stress, and chill out, that’s because it is.

Designed by a group of Sweden-based entrepreneurs, the Pause Pod is your private pop-up space, a quiet place to call your own wherever you happen to be.

The pod is constructed from a high-quality, light-reducing fabric and can be set up and folded back down in a matter of seconds. The clever design features three carefully placed ventilation openings for effective air flow, a mesh door, a fold-out leg compartment so you can lie down, and a small cord window so you can connect your laptop, chargers, or other devices to a power supply should you feel the need to stay busy while inside.

It also comes with an attachable LED reading light as well as four stakes so you can secure it to the ground if you’re outside. It includes a compact carrying bag, too, so you can take the five-pound Pause Pod pretty much everywhere you go.

Optional extras include an ear muff and eye mask hybrid to completely block out surrounding distractions, a mood lighting system featuring a “star-filled” night sky, and, should you want to enjoy a little visual entertainment while kicking back, a “Pod Cinema” tablet mount that attaches to the ceiling of your pod.

Finally, the pair are developing a relaxation app to aid meditation sessions and ensure you’re fully refreshed when you emerge from your pod.

Launched on Kickstarter just a few days ago, the Pause Pod quickly blasted through its $55,000 funding target, and at the time of writing has raised five times that amount from nearly 400 backers.

Early-bird backers pledging $120 will be able to relax in their very own Pause Pod as early as this October, with several other deals also offered if you’re quick. The pod will ship to anywhere the world, and is likely to come with a $200 price tag when it goes on general sale by the end of the year.

Elon Musk expects to have a brain-machine interface in four years

A couple of weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal revealed Elon Musk’s latest venture, Neuralink, and its plan for developing brain-machine interface technology. Now, Musk has invited Tim Urban of Wait But Why to write up an in-depth report of the company and what it’s working on. Neuralink is hardly the only company working on things that will plug into our brains, and earlier this week we got a peek at what Facebook is working on in the area. One new thing we know from this report, however, is that Musk and his team seem pretty close to making it happen — the SpaceX and Tesla founder figures they can have something on the market to treat severe brain injuries “in about four years.”

We are aiming to bring something to market that helps with certain severe brain injuries (stroke, cancer lesion, congenital) in about four years.

For something usable by people without a disability, Musk believes the timeline is more like eight to ten years. But, if the team can pull off the implantable, biocompatible wireless hardware it’s dreaming of, then humans could communicate with computers and even each other with only thought. Elon Musk has repeatedly spoken about the potential danger presented by artificial intelligence, and increasing the “bandwidth” of communication is, he says, a way for humans to be symbiotic with AI instead of being replaced by it.

As such, much of the write-up is devoted to a discussion of how the brain has developed to enable society as we currently experience, and what the “Wizard Era” of direct brain communication could be if Neuralink succeeds. So far, Musk’s strategy has worked effectively to build his rocket and electricity companies, we’re at least a few years away from finding out if the streak will continue.

Source: Wait But Why

Snap buys key patent to secure the future of its geofilters

Mobli, an Israeli company, patented the idea of adding filters to photos based on your location back in 2012, way before Snap started using them. Now TechCrunch says the ephemeral messaging app has purchased that patent for $7.7 million in order to make sure it won’t ever have an issue offering geofilters to its users. They’re some of its most popular offerings, after all, and were apparently responsible for $360 million of the $400 million revenue it posted last year. We’re guessing $7.7 million was a small investment to make to secure the future of the company.

TC says Mobli was originally in talks with Facebook for the sale. Some sources said the social network was 100 percent interested in buying, others said Zuckerberg and company had no idea what Mobli is. Either way, there might have been trouble in Snapland if Facebook got the deal, considering how hard it’s been trying to convert Snap’s audience lately. Since the messaging app managed to snag the patent, you can rest assured your favorite geofilters won’t go away.

Source: TechCrunch