ICYMI: Cadillac takes on Tesla’s Autopilot and a biometric thrill ride

Today on In Case You Missed It: When people think semi-autonomous driving, Tesla’s Autopilot system is usually the first thing that comes to mind. But Cadillac wants in on the robot-driving action. The automaker is launching it’s own system called Super Cruise on the upcoming 2018 CT6. The company says it’s the “industry’s first true hands-free driving technology for the highway.” The new semi-self-driving technology will not only keep track of the road, but also the driver to make sure that they pay attention even if they don’t have to have their hands on the wheel at all times.

Meanwhile Dutch artist Daniel de Bruin built a thrill ride that alters its behavior based on the rider’s biometrics. The Neurotransmitter 3000 is a 23-foot tall ride that speeds up or slows down depending on a person’s heart rate, body temperature and muscle tension. If the ride determines you’re too calm, it’ll speed up until it’s satisfied with the signals your body is sending out.

As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @strngwys.

Amazon FreeTime cheat sheets educate parents on kids TV

Nobody will judge you for not watching Dora or the 43rd Frozen short on Amazon FreeTime with your kids. Problem is, you won’t be able to talk about their shows, books or games with them if you have no idea what they’re about. Thankfully, Amazon has launched a new Parent Dashboard that shows how much time your kids spend on their media, along with a list of the books they’ve read, shows they’ve watched, apps they’ve used and games they’ve played. Now, that last bit is key to having a fruitful discussion: that list gives you access to Discussion Cards, which contain a summary of what each show, book, game or app is about.

Each card also has suggestions on what you can ask your kids, as well as activities you can do together. For instance, if your child read National Geographic Readers: Cats vs. Dogs, the card will list question suggestions like “What’s the difference between a canine and a feline?” In case your kid shows keen interest in dogs and cats, then you can take the card’s advice to volunteer at the local animal shelter. The cards sound like a really great way to initiate conversation with your child without having to spend precious time Googling for info.

Source: Amazon Parent Dashboard

WD’s G-Drive USB-C adds storage and power to your laptop

Apple’s courageous decision to equip the MacBook with just one USB-C port for charging and external storage forced owners to carry a pricey dongle if they wanted to do both at once. If you’re in that camp, or would rather not sacrifice a port on your MacBook Pro or other USB-C device, Western Digital has a drive that could make your day. The G-Drive USB-C gives you 4, 8 or 10TB of storage, while simultaneously charging your laptop with up to 45 watts of power.

The G-Drive USB-C has a max transfer rate of 195 MB/s, so it should handle 1080p and compressed 4K video. It’s also compatible with Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 Gen 1, USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 devices, and comes with both USB-C to USB-C and USB-C to USB-A cables. It can easily be reformatted to work on Windows, Western Digital said in a press release.

The drive is up for pre-order in the US at $200, $350 and $450 for the 4TB, 8TB and 10TB drives, respectively, and will start shipping later this quarter at retailers around the world. That’s a lot, but considering the price of USB-C adapters (up to $70 at the Apple Store), it could easily be worth it for MacBook owners who need storage and power at the same time.

Source: Western Digital

Spotify Coming To Apple Watch Thanks to Partnership With Third-Party App ‘Snowy’

Over the past few months, users on Reddit have been voicing excitement for a new app being developed and beta tested that would finally bring Spotify onto the Apple Watch. Called “Spotty,” and then “Snowy” when Spotify cited copyright concerns with the first name, the new app faced troubles with Spotify’s legal team who also referenced UI similarities to the company’s first party iOS app.

Because of this, news surrounding Snowy had slowed in recent weeks, but this week developer Andrew Chang gave users a big update: Snowy will live on thanks to an official partnership with Spotify itself. This means that Spotify will work with Chang to develop and add Apple Watch functionality and playlist pairing into the streaming music service’s main iOS app.

Hi all, thanks for your patience and understanding. I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be working closely with Spotify to bring Snowy to the Apple Watch as part of an official Spotify iOS app. Spotify’s powerful iOS SDK made it possible to develop Snowy, but I can’t wait to take things to the next level with the expertise and tools available at Spotify. While I can’t give any estimates as to when it’ll be available, you can rest assured that a Spotify Apple Watch companion app is in the pipeline.

Although a launch date is still unclear, when it debuts the new Spotify Apple Watch companion app will finally give Spotify listeners a comparable experience on Apple Watch as Apple Music subscribers have had over the past few years.

Chang didn’t confirm that every feature will make it into the final version of the app, but Snowy’s website currently lists features like offline playback so users can leave their iPhone behind and still listen to Spotify through the Apple Watch, multiple real-time complications support, Siri controls, and even hands-free gestures that enable music controls through “a flick of the wrist.”

In March, Spotify announced that it had hit 50 million paid subscribers, growing steadily from the 40 million it had in September 2016. As its rival, Apple Music has shown impressive growth since its launch in 2015, boasting 20 million paid subscribers in December 2016 and beating Spotify in the realm of monthly unique users thanks to Apple Music’s lengthy three-month free trial given to every new subscriber.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch Series 2, watchOS 3
Tag: Spotify
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)
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Huawei CEO doesn’t understand why smartwatches exist, and he has a point

Why it matters to you

Even smartwatch manufacturers are questioning why we need smartwatches, and it’s pushing them to make better and more useful devices.

“I am always confused as to what smartwatches are for when we have smartphones.” This is a statement many of us will have struggled with, perhaps as we ponder a smartwatch purchase, or admire one strapped to a friend’s wrist. Except it’s not any old statement. It’s a quote from Eric Xu Zhijun, current CEO at Huawei, the technology company that has recently launched a brand-new smartwatch for you to buy.

It doesn’t end there, as he went on to say he would never wear a smartwatch himself, and apparently reminds the smartwatch team every time they come to him with a new product to, “consider whether there are tangible needs in the market,” for this type of device. No one can accuse Eric of being continually on-message here, and although his words may sound at odds with Huawei’s branding and products, it’s actually a very real problem for smartwatch manufacturers and buyers.

More: Our review of the Huawei Watch 2

Smartwatch use in the United States hasn’t met projections, with some statistics showing the number of owners falling short of the estimates by at least a third, and a “lack of well-defined use cases” is to blame, alongside high prices. That doesn’t mean people won’t buy them, and data from Canalysis states sales will rise by 18 percent this year over 2016; but smartwatches still haven’t delivered on the many promises made regarding sales and attention made early on.

Huawei recently announced the Huawei Watch 2, a follow-up to the original Huawei Watch, which is widely considered to be one of the most attractive smartwatches yet seen. The sequel is considerably more masculine in its style, but adds new features including a SIM card slot, so it can act as a stand-alone device. This separates it from most other smartwatches currently available, and goes someway to answering Xu Zhijun’s questions on why we need one, by actually becoming a smartphone itself.

Superfluid accelerates in the wrong direction when you push it

Why it matters to you

Negative mass superfluid could help answer the secrets of the universe or, one day, make one heck of a cool desk toy.

It sounds impossible, but apparently it’s not: Scientists at Washington State University have created a superfluid that appears to move counter to the laws of physics.

That means that when you push it, it doesn’t accelerate in that direction, but rather accelerates backward instead.

“We have demonstrated that lasers can be used to design systems in which cold atoms behave as if they have a negative mass, [meaning that] if you push or pull them, they accelerate in the wrong direction,” Michael Forbes, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, told Digital Trends.

The fluid was created by reducing the temperature of rubidium atoms to almost absolute zero, at which molecules start to behave more like waves. This state was predicted by Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein in what is called the Bose-Einstein condensate. Washington State scientists then used lasers to interfere with the rubidium atoms to change the way they spin, which resulted in the effect of making them behave like they had a negative mass.

The work was described in a newly published article in the journal Physical Review Letters, where it is was given the recommendation of “Editor’s Suggestion.”

More: Everything you need to know about the magical magnetic goop known as ferrofluid

For now, the breakthrough remains unlikely to immediately affect your day to day life. You’re unlikely, for instance, to immediately get a superfluid desk toy that resists efforts to move in the direction you push it. As Forbes said, “These systems are [only] about 100 microns across. To realize the negative effective mass, one needs to embed the material in lasers, so at present, it is not obvious how to scale this up.”

That doesn’t mean there aren’t potential use cases, though.

“The field of cold atoms is advancing at an extremely rapid pace,” he continues. “Many of [these] cutting-edge experimental techniques quickly find practical application in quantum technologies such as high precision quantum sensing, quantum cryptography, and quantum computation. Having controllable access to a fluid that behaves as if it has negative mass may have some very interesting applications.”

One is that it provides a new tool for studying exotic material such as found in neutron stars, the early universe, and inside nuclei. These are systems which are extremely difficult to study experimentally, but could be simulated in a lab using cold atoms. The results may help refine theories related to nuclear physics — thereby shedding light on massive questions like the origin of the elements in our universe.

“Nuclear reactions have more terrestrial applications, but modelling nuclei is tricky,” Forbes said. “Unlike neutron stars, which are held together by gravity, nuclei hold themselves together. Cold atoms, however, need to have an external pressure to keep them together. With this negative mass effect, the cold atoms experience a form of self-trapping that we hope to use to study the behavior of self-bound systems.”

Samsung litters Britain with giant bezels to promote bezel-less smartphone

Dem Bezels

Samsung has crafted a series of 7-meter by 3-meter Galaxy S8 bezel sculptures and scattered them across picturesque parts of Great Britain.

Ironically, the enormous bezels are intended to promote the GS8’s Infinity Display — famed for having bezels which are not gigantic.

Bezels can be seen in St. Ives, Cornwall, London, Stonehenge and Bournemouth, among other places, framing locations which would probably look nicer were bezels not present.

Commenting on its bezels in a Korean blog post today, Samsung said “the bezel-less design, complete with Infinity Display, blends seamlessly with the British landscape.”

The real Galaxy S8, the bezels of which will not be large enough to block local beauty spots, will go on sale in the UK on April 28, with pre-orders arriving from April 20.

Here are more pictures of Samsung’s giant bezels:

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+

• Galaxy S8 and S8+ hands-on preview!
• Galaxy S8 and S8+ specs
• Everything you need to know about the Galaxy S8’s cameras
• Get to know Samsung Bixby
• Join our Galaxy S8 forums

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Sprint

How to edit photos in Google Photos

Editing your photos is a breeze with Google Photos.

Google Photos offers your one stop shop for all things related to your phone’s photos. You have storage for all of your new snapshots, an easy way to share, and plenty more. What you might not have realized is that there is a handy suite of editing tools built directly into the app. When you want to make sure those picnic photos look as awesome as possible before uploading them to Facebook or Instagram, these are the editing tools available to you.

• Filters
• Adjust light, and color
• Crop and rotate
• Undo edits

How to use Filters

Anyone who has spent time uploading photos to Instagram is probably pretty familiar filters. These specific effects allow you to adjust the entire photo with a single tap, overlaying the photo to look a certain way. In Google Photos you have access to 13 different filters that you can use. There are a variety of different ones here including an auto filter, and several black and white photos. To apply a filter all that you need to do is scroll through the options and choose the filter that you like the most.

Open Google Photos.
Tap the photo that you want to edit.

Tap the pencil icon at the bottom of your screen to open the editing tools.

Swipe across the filters and choose the one you want to use.
Tap Save, to save the filter on your photo.

How to use ‘Auto’ to make your photos look amazing with no work

The first ‘filter’ you can select in Google Photos is the amazing ‘Auto’ mode that tries to figure out the best combination of exposure, saturation and other settings. It doesn’t always work, but pressing on ‘Auto’ can have a big positive effect on your photos. Try it out!

Open Google Photos.
Tap the photo that you want to edit.
Tap the pencil icon at the bottom of your screen to open the editing tools.
Tap the Auto button and see the results.

How to adjust light, color and pop

Being able to adjust the white balance of a photo can be key to saving a photo that is too bright, or too dim, in equal measure. With Google Photos you actually get access to not just sliders that will let you adjust the light, but also color, and then “pop”.

With Light and color you have extra options past the initial slider bar. You’ll be able to adjust exposure, contrast, whites, highlights, shadows, and vignette for light. With color you can adjust saturation, warmth, tints, skin tone, and deep blue. Each option is available for use with a slider bar to ensure that you have the most control over the final product of your photo edits.

Open Google Photos.
Tap the photo that you want to edit.

Tap the pencil icon at the bottom of your screen to open the editing tools.

Tap the icon of slider bars at the bottom middle of your screen.
Use the slider bars to adjust the Light, Color or Pop of your photo.

Tap the arrow next to Light or Color to open up the advanced options.

Use the slider bars to make additional edits.
Tap Save at the upper right corner of your screen to save your edits.

How to crop and rotate photos

There are times when you take a photo and you need to adjust it a bit before you’re ready to upload. You may need to crop the photo to ensure there isn’t anything unsuitable for social media lurking in the background, or need to rotate the photo so that it’s lined up properly. You also have the option to change the scale of the photo.

Open Google Photos.
Tap the photo you want to edit.

Tap the pencil icon at the bottom of your screen to open the editing tools.

Tap the crop icon on the bottom right of the screen.
To adjust the angle of your photo use the slider bar at the bottom of the screen.

To rotate your photo tap on the rotate icon at the right of your screen.

To change the aspect ratio, tap the icon on the left side of your screen, and then tap the ratio you desire.
To zoom on your photo, pinch your fingers to zoom in.

To crop your photo use your finger to drag the corners of the photo to where you want them.

Tap Done to save your edits.

How to undo edits

There are times when you finish editing a photo and realize that something about it just looks off. Nobody wants to upload a photo that looks goofy thanks to over saturation, for example. That’s why it’s so easy to undo all of those crazy edits you just applied to your photo with just a tap of a finger.

Note: Google does not make permanent changes to any of your photos, so any edits can be undone for as long as the photo remains on Google Photos.

Open Google Photos.
Open the edited photo that you want to revert.
Tap the overflow icon that looks like three vertical dots at the upper right of your screen.
Tap undo edits to remove all edits and revert your photo to its original form.

Don’t forget Assistant

One aspect of Google Photos that is often overlooked is the incredible Assistant, which uses your photos to create GIFs, collages, stylized photos and more. It even groups together photos from a particular day.

Understanding Assistant in Google Photos

Google Photos makes editing easy

Google Photos is an excellent all around app for the photos that you take with your phone. It’s also got the editing tools that you need in order to make sure that your photos look as fantastic as possible before you upload them. Whether that means rotating and cropping a photo, adjust levels of light and color, or using filters to make your photos look otherworldly, Google Photos has you absolutely covered.

Have you used the editing tools within Google Photos? Is there an editing tool we failed to mention? Be sure to tell us all about it in the comments below!

Watch our video review of the billionaire’s phone

For most of us, it can be tough to justify the cost of buying a brand new high-end smartphone outright, especially with so many great affordable options. But at the other end of the spectrum — far removed from your standard $700 Android flagship — there are the luxury phones, like the Vertu Constellation.

The Constellation starts at a whopping $6000 (which in the grand scheme of Vertu phones is decidedly entry-level), and for that money you’ll get standard mid-2016 smartphone internals packed in extremely luxurious materials. But the price tag also gets your own Vertu concierge — as in an actual person — who’s ready to assist you whenever you press the ruby button on the phone’s outer frame. (And yes, being a Vertu, that’s a real, actual ruby.) Whether you need to round up a Hollywood make-up artist for your music video, or just find a nice steakhouse in downtown Manhattan, Concierge can take care of things.

Check out our video review for a closer look at the Android phone for movie stars, oil barons and royalty.

• Android Central on YouTube
• Vertu Constellation review
• From the archives: Vertu Signature Touch review

Cricket Wireless vs. Boost Mobile: Battle of the subbrands

These two MVNOs are a little different from the rest and can offer something most other MVNOs can’t: Unlimited LTE data.

Boost Mobile and Cricket Wireless aren’t like most MVNOs. Instead of buying service in bulk from another carrier and reselling it at a low price, they are actually owned by a bigger, more familiar name when it comes to cellular service: Boost Mobile is a part of Sprint and Cricket Wireless is owned by AT&T. This unique arrangement works well for every company involved and may even work well for you.

Let’s compare Boost Mobile and Cricket Wireless and see which might be better for you.

• Boost Mobile background
• Cricket Wireless background
• Boost plans
• Cricket plans
• Boost phones
• Cricket phones
• Which should I go with?

Boost Mobile background

Who owns it? Sprint

Which network does it use? Sprint 3G CDMA and 4G LTE

How long has it been around? Since 2001, acquired by Sprint in 2006

Tethering allowed? Yes with qualifying plans or as an add-on

Cheapest plan: $30 for 1 month: 2GB 4G LTE, unlimited nationwide talk, text, and 2G data

Cricket Wireless background

Who owns it? AT&T

Which network does it use? AT&T EDGE, HSPA+, and 4G LTE

How long has it been around? Since 1999, acquired by AT&T in 2013

Tethering allowed? Yes with qualifying plans or as an add-on

Cheapest plan: $30 for 1 month: 1GB 4G LTE, unlimited nationwide talk, text, and low-speed (128kbps) data

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Boost plans

Boost Mobile offers two tiers of single line and family plans: a 2GB LTE package and an unlimited LTE data package. Unlimited 4G LTE data is something most MVNOs don’t offer, but because it’s fully owned by Sprint, it’s one of the ways Boost can differentiate itself.

Price	$35/month	$50/month
With Auto Re-Boost	$30/month	No discount
Extras	Streaming music without data charges	Unlimited HD streaming for $20/month

Primary line price	$35/month	$50/month
Primary line with Auto Re-Boost	$30/month	No discount
Secondary lines (up to 5)	$30/month	$30/month
Extras	Streaming music without data charges	Unlimited HD streaming for $20/month

Note: Data is not shared between lines on a family plan. Each line gets its own allotment, based on its plan.

Unlimited plans use mobile-optimized streaming for video, games, and music. Full speed media streaming is available for an extra $20 per month.

Add-ons

Extra data:

• 1GB/month: $5
• 3GB/month: $10

International services

Todo Mexico Plus: $5 per month gets you unlimited calls to Mexico (including mobile numbers) and unlimited calls to all of Canada except the Northern Territories. You’ll also get 8GB of data roaming while you are in Mexico and calls from Mexico to the US are free. Unlimited international texting is also included.

International Connect PLUS: Includes everything from Todo Mexico Plus and unlimited calls to landlines in over 70 countries and 200 minutes of calls to mobile numbers in 50 countries.

International Minute Packs allow you to purchase a bundle of minutes to use for calling select countries. See this list for pricing and availability.

International Text Messaging can be added at the cost of $0.10 per text (inbound and outbound).

Media and entertainment

Unlimited plans use mobile-optimized streaming for video, games, and music. Full speed media streaming is available for an extra $20 per month.

Boost TV packages are available starting at $10 per month. See the list of channels and packages here.

Tethering packages

The $50 unlimited plan (single line and family) offers tethering. If you use the $30 plan you can purchase tethering packages: $25 per month for 1.5GB of LTE data or $50 for 10GB of LTE data.

Cricket plans

Cricket Wireless offers several tiers of service for people with different LTE data needs. Like Boost, their unique position as a company owned by AT&T allows them to offer unlimited data on the highest tier plan.

Cricket also does LTE (and HSPA “4G”) data a little differently than anyone else. Download speeds are capped at 8Mbps while using LTE and 4Mbps while using HSPA “4G”. Once you reach your monthly limit of high-speed data, download speeds will be reduced to 128Kbps.

8Mbps speeds are more than sufficient for doing anything but streaming a 4K video without buffering. Most users won’t be able to tell the data speeds are capped during normal use. But you still need to know.

Price (monthly)	$30	$40	$50	$60
With Auto Pay	$25	$35	$45	$55
Extras		Eligible for Group Save Discount	International texting, roaming in Canada and Mexico, eligible for Group Save Discount	International texting, roaming in Canada and Mexico, eligible for Group Save Discount

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Family Plan

Cricket also does family plans a little differently. If you have two or more qualifying lines on the same account you are automatically enrolled in what Cricket calls Group Save. The qualifying plans are: $40 with 3GB, $50 with 8GB, $50 with 5GB (grandfathered), $60 with 12GB (grandfathered), and Unlimited.

The discount you’ll receive depends on how many lines of service you have.

• The primary line is always full price
• The second line will get a $10 discount
• The third line will get a $20 discount
• The fourth line will get a $30 discount
• The fifth line will get a $40 discount

These discounts are cumulative. If you have three eligible lines, you save a total of $30. If you have five eligible lines you save a total of $100 each month, which is the maximum discount.

Add-ons

Extra data:

• 1GB/month: $10

International add-ons:

• Cricket International: Unlimited calling to landline numbers in 36 countries for $5 per month.
• Cricket International Extra: Unlimited calls to landline numbers in 36 countries, unlimited picture and video messages (MMS) to 36 countries, 1,000 minutes of mobile-to-mobile calling to 32 other countries. The list of approved countries and full details are here.

Tethering:

Users on the $50 8GB LTE data monthly plan can add the Mobile Hotspot feature. You will need a supported phone and it costs $10 per month to share your connection with up to 6 other devices. Extra LTE data can be added for $10 per GB.

Boost phones

Boost Mobile allows you to bring your own phone as long as it is on their list of approved models.

• Samsung Galaxy S7 Special Edition
• Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Special Edition
• Sprint and Verizon-branded iPhones 5 to 7

They also sell phones for use on their network and have popular models from Apple, LG, Samsung and more.

Note: While it’s possible to enable Boost service on unsupported phones from Sprint, this is against the terms of service.

Cricket phones

You can bring your own phone to Cricket if it meets two requirements:

• It is network compatible GSM/UMTS/HSPA+ with 3G bands 2 and 5 (1900/850) and LTE bands 4G LTE Bands 2, 4, 12, 17 (1900/1700abcde/700bc). If you’re not into the technical terms and numbers you can check your phone here.

Cricket also offers devices from popular companies like Apple, HTC, and Samsung. You can shop for a new Cricket phone here.

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Which should I go with?

Both Boost and Cricket offer a selection of plans for casual users and power users alike. They also have the luxury of being able to offer unlimited LTE plans at very competitive prices that undercut their parent company by a large margin. Even the add-on services are similar. Which is best for you depends on three things:

• Coverage. A great phone plan does you no good if you can’t use it reliably. This is always a consideration and we think it should be your first consideration. Cricket has a much better network in parent AT&T than Boost on Sprint.
• Uncompressed media streaming on Boost costs an extra $20 per month.
• Cricket caps your LTE speeds at 8Mbps.

Do you need data with download speeds faster than 8Mbps? If so, Boost is probably better for you. If you want to stream media at full resolution without paying extra, Cricket is probably better for you. Both companies support the most popular devices and have nationwide coverage, but we can say from experience that Cricket is a better choice for most rural customers.

Both choices are good choices and we can recommend either, so pick the one that better fits your usage when it comes to data speeds and streaming caps.

Alternative carriers (MVNOS)

• What is an alternative mobile carrier?
• What are the advantages of going with an alternative carrier?
• How to make sure your phone works on a prepaid alternative carrier
• 8 Important Considerations When Switching To An MVNO
• These are the cheapest data plans you can buy in the U.S.
• Mint SIM vs. Cricket Wireless: Which is better for you?